...and then that happened

a strange video

2011-12-12T12:06:00.000-08:00

it's my aunt's 60th birthday today and in her honor i made the weirdest clip i've ever made. i'm told it fit her like a glove.

happy birthday aunt ginny!!!

love and loyalty

a prologue

2011-12-04T15:19:00.000-08:00

lars you've done it again

very lovely.

a house i should live in

2011-10-24T14:11:00.001-07:00

a birthday haiku

2011-10-06T10:26:00.000-07:00

a hero and friend
i like that we share our names
happy birthday, dad

a pretty hefty statement

2011-10-02T12:16:00.000-07:00

Official Statement from Occupy Wall Street - this statement was voted on and approved by the general assembly of protesters at Liberty Square: Declaration of the Occupation of New York City

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.

They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.

They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.

They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.

They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals, and actively hide these practices.

They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.

They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.

They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.

They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.

They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.

They have sold our privacy as a commodity.

They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.

They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.

They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.

They have donated large sums of money to politicians supposed to be regulating them.

They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.

They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantive profit.

They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.

They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.

They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.

They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.

They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.

They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.*

To the people of the world,

We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.

Join us and make your voices heard!

*These grievances are not all-inclusive.

a moment in the desert

2011-09-24T12:20:00.000-07:00

Inspection wasn’t as long as I had anticipated. I’ve heard stories of people trapped in line for hours on end waiting to get in. Eric and I only waited about forty-five minutes. It wasn’t so bad- we were able to pass the time watching the desert dust pile on the windows, reading the various warning signs and poems on posts and listening to children on the Burning Man radio station discuss their memories of growing up on the Playa year after year. It was my first time, so I wasn’t sure whether to envy the children for being exposed to the lifestyle at such a young age or to fear for their futures.

At the end of inspection revealed pillars that were quickly determined to be the entrance to the Playa. The dust was rather aggressive from all of the cars in motion, but as we approached the pillars I noticed about twenty or so naked people dancing around and greeting every passing car. Our friends were in a couple of cars ahead of us and had already gone through. We were ushered to a halt by one striking man in a top hat and sneakers. He was bulbous in every sense of the word; in top physical form for someone his age and no doubt an expert Burner. He forcefully instructed us to roll down our windows and we coquettishly mustered a “Hey.” I’ve got to be frank here – I was not expecting him to sound like Mickey Mouse after inhaling a dozen helium balloons, but in hindsight it sort of made sense – I was at Burning Man - expect the unexpected.

“Welcome to Burning Man is this your first time?!” he squeaked. If it’s your first time at Burning Man, you are instructed to get out of your car,

ring what is known as the “Virgin Bell” while screaming, “I am not a virgin anymore!”

and baptize yourself by rolling in the "Playa" dust.

Having completed this task, I proceeded to immediately pat my pants and shirt in an effort to remove the dust from my clothing.

“Son, are you seriously trying to dust sand off your pants in the middle of the desert?” he asked. Muscle Mouse was right. Clearly I was not as adjusted to the scenario as I had hoped for. We got back in the car after a sheepish embrace and received our guides and maps. Just before parting, he handed me a small gift - a plastic egg containing a toy dragonfly and a bracelet, presumably because he could tell I was the most frazzled member of our party.

Upon entering our neighborhood, I felt like I was at a well-organized refugee camp for the Earth’s most adventurous. With my stomach still in knots, I slowly started greeting the rest of our camp mates who would be my family for the next week. Some have been my San Francisco family for years, others I would meet for the very first time.

We were referred to as the Mudskippers and our camp was the Urban Decay Café.

Being that Burning Man prides itself on community and generosity, each camp and individual is encouraged to contribute in some way to the rest of the attendees. In our large lounge at the front of our campsite from 2ish to 4ish, we provided music, dancing and root beer floats.

This was information that I knew before driving into the desert – what I failed to know was how and where I would sleep.

Our carport was the last to be configured for that day, but after eight hours of melatonin induced slumber I wasn’t particularly full of energy.

The dust was picking up and the change in climate was a bit of a shock to my senses, so the longer I worked to set everything up, the worse my eyes would sting. The rest of the camp was already at another location enjoying complimentary drinks when we finally finished setting up our tents, so the only logical thing to do was unpack some luggage -

only to discover that my toiletries were all ruined. My soaps and shampoos had all melted, covering my toothbrush, eye drops, contact lens case, floss and deodorant in a sticky and now dusty paste. My eyes were burning from the sunlight and dust, my body was exhausted from setting up camp (and from taking one too many melatonin capsules) and my head had in no way adjusted to how I would be living in this desert.

My campmates soon returned and ushered me into their yurt to reassure me that this was an expected adjustment, however every other first timer at the camp seemed to be adjusting quite nicely. I was on the edge of a meltdown and my eyes were literally on fire from putting in contact lenses with dirty, soapy fingers onto already aggravated eyes. I may very well have started a panic attack had they not offered hugs, positive feedback and beers.

“Let’s get him out of the camp.” “Let’s take him to the Man.” “No No - let’s take him to the TEMPLE!” “Yessss! The Temple!”

I had no idea what they were talking about. I had always heard of the Man, the event was named after Him, but never the Temple. I wasn’t quite sure I was ready to get over the rough transition, but my campmates were making an attempt to help me and I was in no position to argue. Everyone rallied to their bicycles, gathered their book bags and with my protective goggles and mask secured; we made our way to the Playa.

Everything confused me. I was asking myself the same question over and over again as we passed the various epic structures,

scantily clad Burners,

jaw dropping Art Cars

and raucous sound systems – “What the fuck is happening, Michael?”

I asked this question nonstop. I asked it when I saw the dragon pass by.

I asked it when my friends told me to pose next to an oil soaked pelican sculpture.

I asked it when the sole dust storm of the trip picked up as we approached the Man himself.

I finally told myself to shut up when we arrived at the Temple. First of all, it was massive.

The structure was so large that it was hard to take it in at once. It was as if the Taj Mahal spawned with the most elegant tree house and birthed this structure in the middle of nowhere.

Inside, bodies were laid about as bells, chimes and drums rang in a peaceful yet instructive tone that told us all to pay attention to the moment.

My fellow campers were already there and when I came up to them it looked like they had irritated eyes too. They had been crying. I was walking around in such a daze at the Temple from everything that transpired over the past few hours that I barely noticed that everyone around me was either in some meditative state, writing on the walls, or crying in a huddle. What was going on here that I was missing? I finally took a breather and leaned on a railing on the second level, overlooking the passing dust storm and Burners.

I looked down at the railing to see what someone had written as I hadn’t really given a glance to any of the other inscriptions. There, in the middle of a desert somewhere in Arizona, someone had written, “You have a beautiful life.” I felt tingly. I started looking at other inscriptions and noticed that mostly everything written were messages for lost family members, pets, friends, lovers.

It was a place to come and honor the loves you’ve lost, celebrate the life you’ve been living and to appreciate the journey up ahead.

You could write out your personal insecurities, your fears and your doubts without any judgment from others because chances are we’ve all been there too.

I took another look at my friends who were together in a huddle and my eyes were suddenly filled with water, only this time it wasn’t from irritation. Here I was in a desert, in an Yves Sait Laurent vest adorned with feathers, a headband with a crest and even larger feather and a pair of cut off denim shorts, losing control of my body and crying harder than I’ve cried in a long time. Surrounded by the most touching messages I’ve ever seen, I was embraced by friends and strangers assuring me that they were right there with me and understood. I thought of everything and everyone I had ever known and just cried. It was incredibly unexpected. I turned away from everyone, thanking them and assuring them that I was okay and went to look back out to the Playa. Being the frazzled mess that I was, I failed to notice that I was kicking my bag over the ledge, and it plummeted down to the desert floor, interrupting the chimes, the soft whispering and possibly several people in a deep state of meditation.

Of course.

My emotions quickly turned from a state of euphoria to embarrassment and anxiety. "Back to reality," I thought. The man who stood with my bag down below greeted me with a smile.

“Thanks for watching my bag, I kinda lost it up there.”

“No problem,” he replied.

“You see, it’s my first time at the Temple and I only got here a few hours ago and I guess it really got to me how important this all is. “ I was stuttering and still recovering from the emotional impact of the top level.

“Well, it sounds like you get it to me,” he concluded. With a smile and a pat on the shoulder, he declared, “Welcome to Burning Man.” It was pretty much a continuous stream of perfection from that moment on.

a bit of a project pre BURNING MAN

2011-08-09T13:41:00.001-07:00

well wasn't july just freezing? oh, what's that? not everyone lives in san francisco? and it was in fact the sixth hottest month on record in american history? oh. well we sure as hell didn't reap the benefits of climate change over here by the golden gate bridge.

forgive me for being rude, but i'm currently going through yet another allergy attack as this appears to be the longest spring/winter season san francisco has had since i've ventured over here.

aaaaaaaAaAaand if i wasn't already feeling like it was january 2011 with the allergies and so on, i have another issue from earlier this year - unemployment is approaching again!!!!

thankfully, there is a little situation i will be participating in that hopefully results in a clearer head - burning man. i'm kind of hoping some time away from society as i know it will give me a bit of a break from "the city scramble" (aka what all urban dwellers are on the hunt for - the right job, apartment and relationship). these three major stressers are what circles around mostly everybody's brains at one point or another, and they seem to alter the way i personally reach certain decisions

...lofty and vague, i know, i know...but c'mon you've all been there too so shut up and let a fella rant for a minute.

i'm not banking on this trip to solve my problems, but it will take me outside of my comfort zone in a safe environment. ESPECIALLY since i've been working on a bit of a project for the event myself. not only am i on the hunt for publishers to pay me for the documenting i plan to do on the burn, but i am also trying to create my clothes primarily out of gifts from loved ones.

here's the request i typed up for the people:

Friends, Family, Etc. ... Lend me your ears/eyes/accessories!?!?!?

As you may or may not know, I have purchased a ticket to Burning Man for the 2011 pilgrimage. This year has been about new adventures for me, what with starting my own project in San Francisco City Hall to working on an event with 25,000 participants to skydiving and nowwwwww Burning Man.

For those of you that aren't sure what that means, here is a sneak peek at what burning man entails....

http://www.burningman.com/

or

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_man

...to be honest, I'm still not entirely sure what it entails, but I have been informed by several of my closest SF chums that it is an experience that will change the way one thinks about community and culture. Now don't get scared, I'll still be the same, just with some new perspective on things. Also, I would like to assure anyone concerned that I will be going with a camp of 20-30 people and some of them have been going for over 20 years - I'm going to be very well taken care of. My camp will have showers, refrigerated goods, root beer floats, epicly large sound systems.... We won't just be sitting around in a tent putting on sunscreen and missing our cell phones. Nonono.... We'll be staying in fancy 2-story yurts, car ports, art cars and other structures that could very well have come from Dr. Seuss novels. Plenty of on-site food, police and emergency officials but it rarely comes to that as everyone comes prepared.

moving right along....

I am incredibly happy to be participating in the 25th burn as this year's theme is "Right's of Passage". For a first timer, a theme like this is all the more appropriate.

Now here is where YOU come in...

One of the main parts of Burning Man is the way one chooses to express themselves with their clothing. It is a desert, so we will be incredibly hot during the day and very chilly at night. Hence, multiple wardrobe changes.

What I am hoping for is to collect an article of clothing/piece of memoriabilia/anything from you that I can take so that I can think of you while on this bizarre camping trip. I mean it - anything. Something that makes you think of me or something that will make me think of you. I will incorporate it into whatever crazy outfit I wind up wearing and will have you with me during this epic journey. Warning - it may not come back to you in the greatest condition/at all as it will be in the desert and I will most likely be hanging around a bunch of nutjobs.

It would mean a whole lot to me as I wouldn't want to do anything themed "Rights of Passage" without incorporating those that have meant so much to me before.

The event takes place at the end of August so the sooner you send it the better.

adorable, right?

and it's in effect!

i received this gem of a vest in the mail yesterday from a sweet, florida lemondrop named emily noe.

and it fits like a glove. i may get groceries in it just for kicks. by the way i havent' gone grocery shopping since june. july was kind of rushed what with doing the AIDS Walk and not having time for things like food and bathing and so on.

alright i should probably get back to work...and by that i mean job hunting. there's a stack of papers at my desk that wont stop growing taller.

yikes.

ill keep you posted on further developments.

love and loyalty.

a month worth mentioning

2011-06-21T20:55:00.000-07:00

let me start this off with a confession: for quite some time and in some chaotic execution i thought i would have celebrated my birthday in spain. i wasn't quite sure if i'd have a job, go for law school or just wing it...but i knew i would at least attempt another pilgrimage. then some stuff happened that wasn't encouraging a spontaneous departure:

- 21% unemployment in spain
- protests over bleak economic prospects
- money wasn't necessarily pouring in on this side of the atlantic
- my intestines decided to explode and kept me in bed for six months

so i made the executive decision to stick around here. and i gotta admit that im really happy i did. ive had a really good month.

after my last meal as a 25 year old (my first attempt at burmese food - huge fan btw) i went to eric barela's to help clean his apartment for a little dinner party he was generously hosting at his house. it was last minute and with pride around the corner i didn't want anything too crazy. just a nice, relaxing evening.

well, besides plunging from 10,000 feet, of course.

oh yeah i went skydiving.

sky

diving

diving from the sky

don't ask me why, i really couldn't tell you. it's possibly because i was just thrilled to be healthy and alive again. or it could be a way to make up for not being in spain right now. maybe it was to prove to myself that spontaneity is still in the cards for me as the years progress. either way, whatever - i went skydiving.

justanicerelaxingbirthdaySKYDIVINGwherenothingtoonutshappensIWENTSKYDIVINGfollowedbyanicenapandthenbedorsomething

the day started off with a drive down to santa cruz with hugh and rahul, my fellow jumpers, and mike and eric, the people who would call our families in case we all perished. we took a mini detour and found ourselves at the santa cruz boardwalk -

a place that was perfect for bringing up some jersey shore nostalgia (the location, not the tv program). everything about it was perfect - the crowded beaches, the rides, the trashy attendees, the misspelled marquees

the sun, but most importantly - the smellllllllls

this man is not representative of how much i enjoyed the location. the smell of the beach mixed with the various fried delicacies that only a boardwalk could supply really rubbed me the right way. so much so that i figured my very last meal would be something i swore never to try again: deep fried oreos.

worth it.

eric and rahul thought it was a good idea to ride some rides but i was like, "o hell no. i just ate deep fried oreos i couldn't possibly ride rides because my stomach would turn."

jumping out of a plane however is totally logical.

my decision making process should not be contested...just go with the flow, please.

what is this ride? wizz fizz? sure, that sounds healthy, go for it, boys.

wait, where are they? is that them?

i can't.

i can't see them.

this is getting obnoxious. let's go stare at the beach dwellers.

oh, there they are. i dont want to tell you how many times i had to take a photo to actually catch them on this thing.

20. 20 times. also worth it.

then we drove to some town nearby town that looked like a testing site for war machines (not comforting at all) and found our tiny base camp area. as we pulled up to the mini planes, i think my body started to realize exactly what it was about to go through and attempted to pull a turtle-esque move and squeeze inside of a shell it thought it had covering it from harm. there was no shell.

the plane was smaller than the car we drove in. the plunge was much shorter than the anxiety that developed leading up to the plummet.

the video will most likely take a while to upload / edit out the embarrassing parts... but for now, look at this photo of me landing

epic.

i like to think of this photo as the, "o hey look moms we all survived!" photo.

please note that i wore my lucky shorts underneath my pants during the dive. that was for you, nova.

then off to the quiet party.

uh, yeah it wasn't quiet.

the party was really unexpected and large and full of pizza and liquor and it was lovely. groups from different crowds came and mingled and moments like those are just lovely, particularly when cakes are involved (just for the record, i had four cakes in my honor this year).

blending friendships really was the best part of the party. that and the fact that i loved everyone there. all 30-40 of em... even the random guests i met for the first time. very lovely.

i know what i was thinking at this exact moment - "how do i get rid of these 30-40 people so i can have these cakes to myself?" this same question goes through my head every year. i haven't quite figured out how to pull it off.

sharing is a problem when it comes to good tasting cake. i'm working on it.

not for nothing, but im pretty sure if you saw these staring at you, you'd want them for yourself as well.

dark chocolate and fresh fruit with a white chocolate shell vs. coffee toffee ice cream cake = nobody's taste buds come out alive without new addictions.

it's good to have friends that are filmmakers because this photo is really lovely.

here i am landing on the earth. im in the green

actually im explaining to friends about my gift, the world. well, this globe. dear eric barela got me a globe that was made the year that i was born. HOW EPIC IS THAT?! all of the countries match up to how the world looked when i was just welcomed into it. so insane.

i may be a globe collector.

"i want to live there." "wait, is that still a country?" "ussr is just russia without a i and proper grammar"

this is mike and michael michel. no, seriously, when i introduced mike to michael michel i said, "michael, this is michael michel, michael michel, this is michael." it just doesn't stop being bizarre/hilarious. seriously, people, there's billions of us and tons of languages, we've gotta look into new names.

this is evan and myself

it was our tribute to the stresses people/GRAD SCHOOL/city life/GRAD SCHOOL fed us over the years.

p.s. - my nose is red from the sky falling, not from the drinks i consumed. moving on.

salvator, evan, michael, eric. i like this because i look tall.

I LOVE THIS NEXT PHOTO - i like to call it "which one of these is not like the other"

chantay is clearly the winner because she's left handed. um, and fifty other reasons.

and you know the party was successful when the boy in heels collapses on the lounge and doesn't wake up until the party ends at 430 in the morning

just sayin'

i had a lovely birthday, but the month didn't just consist of the birthday plunge:

-work has been going surprisingly well. my installations have gone up around the city, and i was told out of nowhere that they would be printed in an upcoming bay area newspaper. for over 200000 people to stare at.

for those of you who don't know what i'm talking about, it's a timeline installation for the 25th AIDS Walk SF, documenting the event's work as well as local, national and global moments of HIV/AIDS activism. t wrote the content and compiled/shot the photos. it's my baby and it's taking over the ciy. getting it printed in the paper was a big surprise. on friday i'll be setting it up in three different major muni/bart stations.

here they are at the safeway on church and market

weird, right? "oh hi, i'm here to pick up some sandwiches - o that thing? why yes, i did do that!"

this one is from the westfield mall downtown where all the tourists go to buy things they could very well buy back at their hometowns.

-dear friend nakhter returned from southeast asia. i didn't want to bother him with the same questions everyone else asked so i simply said:

Me: Nahkter, please describe your trip to southeast asia in five words
Nahkter: everyone is the same everywhere

-delores park is back in full swing

-dear friend angelo took me and some chums to a very epic night of fun, life and adventure. and then this photo happened.

i hope i get elected to office somewhere and this photo gets me fired for being too AWESOME

-i remembered what happened during pride this year

-i bought a ticket to burning man

-my favorite restaurant in the city reopened and i've been able to eat there at least twice, so far

i think i want to keep making far-fetched decisions for my 26th year. let's see where it goes. i gotta say that i'm really liking how things are working out so far.

must continue jumping. go appreciate fountains

love and loyalty

a few comparisons

2011-06-09T17:08:00.000-07:00

#SUMMERinNJ - yoga at sunrise on your roof #SUMMERinSF - hot tea at sunrise in your oversized hoodie and sweatpants

#SUMMERinNJ - NYC,Philly,JC, Hoboken, New Brunswick nights that last lifetimes. #SUMMERinSF - afternoons in the park before the wind comes

#SUMMERinNJ - 95F #SUMMERinSF - 59F

#SUMMERinNJ - RITA's italian ice in sandals #SUMMERinSF - vegan, non dairy ice cream in rain boots

#SUMMERinNJ - pack a tube-top/ guinea-t #SUMMERinSF - pack a parka

#SUMMERinNJ - sunscreen and aloe vera #SUMMERinSF - allergy medication and wind-resistant moisturizer

#SUMMERinNJ - sleeping with the window in your apartment wide open and enjoying the light breeze #SUMMERinSF - extra blankets & night sweats

#SUMMERinNJ - short shorts as a necessity #SUMMERinSF - short shorts as painful irony

#SUMMERinNJ - watching shooting stars on the roof of your car #SUMMERinSF - stars?

#SUMMERinNJ - an easy drive to the beach with loved ones and enjoying the refreshing ocean #SUMMERinSF - cali traffic and the frigid pacific

#SUMMERinNJ - county fairs and young love #SUMMERinSF - occasional, unscheduled freak-shows and casual sex at your front door

which reminds me...

#SUMMERinNJ - Make sure you know the number for the free clinic #SUMMERinSF - Make sure you know the number for the free clinic

#SUMMERinNJ - beautiful isolated thunderstorms you can watch from your porch with a lemonade #SUMMERinSF - watching umbrellas flip inside-out from inside your apartment

a necessary open letter to: allergies

2011-05-12T08:17:00.000-07:00

dear allergies,

you are not welcome here. go back to the hole you came from and stay there. do you benefit from my itchy eyes, dry skin, cold sweats and incessant coughing? does my increased irritability, discomfort and frustration somehow feed your children or support your economic problems? i have alternatives for you to consider, like getting a real job or searching for unemployment benefits. i understand the market isn't the perfect place for the likes of you, but in all seriousness, you're pissing me off and i can't deal with you anymore.

if this were a relationship, i probably would have broken up with you years ago. in a perfect world, we would have never met in that field of dandelions and tree pollen way back in the land of new jersey.

im over it.

please move on.

sincerely,
the back of my throat

a guarantee

2011-05-01T21:34:00.000-07:00

my mother is totally hanging her flag outside in the morning.

just sayin'

love and loyalty

a different kind of alarm clock

2011-04-26T07:23:00.000-07:00

it's a good day when a publisher from germany writes you an email asking to publish your work for over 80,000 institutions across the world to gander at.

love and loyalty and germany

2011-04-24T12:49:00.000-07:00

on this day, a rabbit sat on a chicken's egg and hatched a jewish carpenter.... so let's eat chocolate and ham.

anyway, here's a pic for five very special people to me

we're all winners! twenty dollars for everyone!

a special thank you for all of the very lovely cards over the past week. i have a great family.

love and loyalty and paas

a pretty epic sunday

2011-04-10T17:03:00.000-07:00

yeahhhh this was epic.

epic for me. the dorky part of me. the part of me that pursued a master's degree studying political communications and journalism. the part of me that wakes up every morning and listens to independent news reports on the radio and follows twitter feeds of news blurbs from public broadcasters

i went to the 10th annual san francisco green festival and heard Democracy Now's amy goodman speak on issues ranging from her publicized arrest outside the RNC convention of 2008, (which looked like this)

the lack of information in mainstream news reporting and the necessity to end combat in afghanistan. i've admired her for her gusto and commitment to democracy and it was an absolute pleasure to have heard her up close in person.

the best part was when she concluded her speech and had a book signing afterwards...

i got her autograph and got to shake her hand. we chatted briefly and then i whipped out the last copy of my thesis and gave it to her, thanking her for inspiring me to take interest in real journalism.

"wow this is quite an accomplishment," she said happily, "thank you, id be happy to read it."

my body turned to mashed potatoes.

if only i could have eaten myself, because the rest of the festival was chock full of foods that left me with a pretty bad taste in my mouth.

vegan, gluten-free chocolate manna cookies, dried seaweed chips, sunflower loaf, assorted pastes or spreads resembling dehydrated brains and sandals made of old tires and banana leaves. (full disclosure - i actually purchased the tire-leaf shoes...surprisingly comfortable) ...everything else - gross. very unsettling. i went home and had a chocolate milkshake with extra malt. i needed food from the fifties. it was the only way to rid myself of those gross non-food foods.

it's like every time i attempt to go to a farmer's market or some grocery co-op - i wind up wanting curly fries and a pabst... and also a shower... every notice how health food nuts look just as unhealthy and mangy as homeless people? only these people pay wayyy too much for organic foods and products and yet they still look worse off than the rest of us... puzzling. and also, don't they have taste buds? i can't complain too much...for you see, i purchased those tire-leaf sandals. and i liked them. and i wore them to an independent grocer the other day... san franveganpaste may have swallowed me against my will without even knowing! if i write about my new found love of composting tree trimmings or engaging in a mass hunger strike outside of pottery barn until they only sell free-range pottery --- please send for help.

im on a rant... anyhow, hope you enjoyed my shaky coverage! it was a pretty major day for me.

love and loyalty

a phone conversation

2011-03-23T12:57:00.000-07:00

(phone rings):

Michael: San Francisco Aids Walk this is Michael...

?: Hi this is (incomprehensible name) can I speak with Leslie?

M: uh, sure. What was your name, again?

?: Tjg-eva

M: Ted-Eva?

?: No. Tuhdiva

M: uh, ok Tuhdeeva hold on one second.

checks for Leslie

M: Hey, Tuhdeeva? Leslie isn't here...

?: (quickly) - That's ok give me Mehera.

M: ...K

(checks for Mehera)

M: Hey Mehera I have a Tuhdeeva for you?

Mehera: ...Eva?

M: ...Uh. Sure.

A few moments later.

Mehera: Hey that was actually "The Diva" from our L.A. office.

M: Oh. We have a, "The Diva"? Who addresses himself as, "The Diva"? Good to know.

Lesson: I clearly do not work in finance.

a piece of mail

2011-03-23T11:05:00.003-07:00

actually, it's quite possibly the most obnoxious piece of mail i have ever received.

remind me to stay off my block and away from my neighborhood this weekend.

thanks.

a suprising alarm clock sound

2011-03-15T06:21:00.000-07:00

1st day at new job. Wait, I have to...work... at my new job? And...wake up early?...wait.

a job

2011-02-24T14:00:00.000-08:00

i.

found.

employment.

commence jumping on bed and screaming wildly.

a cold and then warm and then cold hello

2011-02-22T16:07:00.000-08:00

well then. february sure has been interesting, hasn't it? an uprising of historic proportions in various countries throughout the middle east, a battle for the existence of unions and survival of the middle class in the mid-west... and i have seen progress in my job hunt.

i can see how one of these three developments is far less historic than the others, however to me the job hunt has been almost a year long struggle and it may well be coming to an end.

i've seen some more responses to the literally hundreds of job applications i've submitted and interviews and job fairs have become a happy development in my san franstruggleforsurvival. fingers crossed, people.

as far as my health is concerned, i have seen a vast improvement in my digestive system thanks to yet another round of antibiotics, increased rest and decreased stressful situations.

one of the best remedies to decrease stress that i've uncovered? easy - explore parts of the city that i haven't yet seen. now, normally this kind of remedy shouldn't be encouraged during the month of february in san francisco as it's normally raining and miserable. this february has been delightfully uncharacteristic as we've had super warm weather. summer warm. delores park in the afternoon with shorts on warm.

on one particular pilgrimage i came across crissy field.

yeah, after taking a look around i questioned why i never made it there before. it's a living postcard.

eric had taken us there for a particular reason. he made reservations at the house of air.

it's a trampoline adventure world for adult-sized people.

this city is so weird.

a benefit to being an adult at the trampoline adventure land is that you can jump really high and not get too worried about getting hurt as opposed to those smaller versions found in backyards around the world.

another benefit is that you're bigger than your competitors at dodgeball.

the one downfall to slaughtering the youth of america at dodgeball is that they engage in a war tactic called germ-warfare. a mere couple of hours after the battle and celebratory homemade penne vodka and seared asparagus dinner, eric and i developed a serious case of the flu. those little demons may have lost the battle, but they certainly won the war on health. we were sick for days.

now that i am back to wellness, hydration and going to job fairs i plan on staying in a bit more. it would appear that the temperature has taken a turn for the unthinkable - we might have snow this weekend. it's epically cold here, but there hasn't been snowfall in san francisco that has stuck since 1976. this would be pretty intense. ill be sure to get some great photos and footage if it actually happens.

um, a homeless transient is kicking the back of my chair. i think he may have spilled coffee all over himself. can you beg for change inside a cafe? he's doing it. im uncomfortable. i think it's time to go.

before i head out, i wanted to update you on the state of my friend, greg maka, who has been in cairo, egypt documenting the revolution. he has just written back today and i wanted to post his message and some simply stunning photos he has taken.

www.gregmaka.com

i will also leave you with two of the best tracks from radiohead's new album. they're beautiful for any climate. have some mint tea and enjoy.

"Sorry for the delayed response, as you could imagine its been a bit hectic these last few weeks to say the least. Just wanted to write and thank you for the positive energy. Things have calmed down now, and daily life has almost returned back to normal. The main exception, not many tourists or foreigners left, and the uniforms of those "keeping order on the streets" have changed a bit."

love and loyalty

a stunning turnout

2011-02-08T18:58:00.000-08:00

day 15 of the "soft revolution" and the numbers are only growing stronger. you have to hand it to them for continuing to engage in non-violent protest.

i am also sending some virtual well wishes to my friend, greg maka (http://www.gregmaka.com), in hopes that he will remain healthy as he documents this revolution in cairo.

love and loyalty

a view from leila's

2011-02-07T17:13:00.000-08:00

a pep song

2011-01-28T15:43:00.000-08:00

sighhh

love and loyalty

a pep talk

2011-01-28T07:14:00.000-08:00

here's the deal. right now i'm writing this because i can't sleep with all of this pain inside of me and there isn't anything i can do about it. so i'll write out the mental frustration and try to deal with the physical frustration. a logical acknowledgment of my current state.

lately i have been forgetting about a major part of my life that's been altering the way i look at what everyone around me is doing: i'm living with a chronic illness and other people are not. not everyone has crohn's disease. that's a tough pill to swallow, and coming from me that means a lot because i can swallow a dozen pills at one time. i honestly can. it's pretty impressive.

i go through a lot when i get sick, and for the past six or seven months i have been very ill. i keep forgetting that people my age around me are in good health so i get upset when i see people thriving and wonder how they're able to do anything. they don't have pain 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. they can focus on something other than their discomfort. they don't have to inject themselves with pen needles and take a bunch of pills. they don't get nervous before they eat a meal. they can go out all night and somehow make it to work in the morning. they can maintain an average weight. they can do crunches without serious repercussions. they can drink. they can sit upright for hours at a desk. i can't do that right now. i can't do any of that right now.

what doesn't end you makes you stronger, of course, but i still haven't improved from this long stretch of illness. i've been through three rounds of antibiotics and there has been no improvement. in fact, i feel like my overall well being has gotten worse. i think too much about the things i can't do or haven't been able to do when my priority should be recovery.

i know there are worse things out there. there are tons of things worse than what i'm going through. i'm at this very strange place between wellness and hospitalization.

i've been held back by this over the years but i bounce back. at this point, surgery doesn't sound so awful. i've done my research and it sounds like a pretty good concept: something isn't working so get rid of it. i've got a deadline and i gotta recover so i can take over the world as a healthy human. i've got an appointment on monday with the doctors and im gonna unleash hell...or at least a heatlhy dose of reality in their direction.

there. i feel slightly better. im gonna go talk to some tea about this.

love and loyalty

a thought to consider

2011-01-12T15:25:00.000-08:00

i am one of the many 20-somethings in this country that has seemingly made the disastrous choice to pursue a higher education. this of course means that I have been struggling to launch a career of any sort, and believe me, i have applied to a wide variety of places:

government agencies and offices

nonprofits of all sorts - rain forest prevention, commissions for the arts, education/social justice/civil rights for the underprivileged, micro-finance, disease control and research centers, etc.

film studios

construction firms

news publications

museums

operas

and of course: organizations for glbt rights of all sorts. sometimes twice. i figured that my work with city hall was relevant enough to have a way into the working world here in san francisco and so far it hasn't worked. i graduated in may of 2010 and i have yet to start off my career.

and of course i am not alone.

i have since started the new year by giving up on getting that magic phone call from a career opportunity that i feel like i worked all these years for and have started applying to temp agencies, restaurants and retail stores. i am of course continuing to apply to as many jobs as possible, however i understand the severity of the global market and need to work.

thinking i would be a shoe-in for the temp jobs, i got that glimmer of hope back after each temp job submission.

this week, i received two responses from the many temp agencies i applied to:

Unfortunately, at this time, we do not have an appropriate position for you.

APPROPRIATE POSITION!?!?!?! it's temping!

the jobs we are getting are more for
administrative support folks at a level of far less responsibility than you
have already had.

i can file like a champion. how dare you.

this is a time of desperation. there are only a few lifeboats remaining and there isn't enough room for everyone here on this sinking ship.

i have made continuous contributions to the city through my work with both city hall and the community center. in fact, im still doing it!

time is short, san francisco. it's your choice.

a blizzard retrospective

2010-12-30T12:11:00.001-08:00

Idiot With A Tripod from Gothamist on Vimeo.

a gift for all of you

2010-12-22T15:12:00.000-08:00

happy holidays!

love and loyalty

a week under the spotlight

2010-11-04T07:25:00.000-07:00

san francisco was pretty busy this week. every day was some wondrous occasion. people in the streets cheering or drinking or voting or rioting. a very refreshing and exciting time to be a san franciscan.

halloween. a national holiday, yes, although here in the city it often seems that a wednesday in august could be easily mistaken for halloween, depending on what street fair or festival is taking place.

once again i hosted the pre-evening celebration as i tend to go overboard with decorations, music and overall spookiness in comparison to everyone else. this of course can be attributed to my mother. ps- thank you very much for the entertaining cards and decorations sent by all of my family back east. there were some definite conversation pieces sent over and you all were recognized and paid tribute accordingly.

before i go into the fun, i must step aside and tell the magical tale of how i wound up with a pumpkin. see, here in unemployed-town i tend to look at things with dollar signs in order to remain as thrifty/cheap as possible. there is no shame in this confession, i am a grifter. i would haggle for a pair of used socks if i could. i steal sugar packets from coffee shops. no shame.

moving on.

the pumpkins here in the city were a little more than the pumpkins out of town, so i convinced my fellow grad student melissa to drive to half moon bay in search of the perfect pumpkin patch.

enter lemo's family farm. a serious fairy tale land of pumpkins, petting zoos, foods, train rides and festive spooky scaries. i was in hog heaven. however, our pilgrimage was faced with a time constraint. you see, by the time we actually arrived at this farmyard wonderland, thirty minutes remained until it closed. we had to enjoy our time appropriately.

look at the entrance! there's stuff everywhere around it! we should read the signs and then find a bathroom for melissa! i'll take pictures of things! THERE'S NO TIME!

oh. ok that's great! move on!

quickly! put your heads in there!

ok that's great! move on!

CHICKENS!

ok that's great! move on!

GOATS!

wait, we can feed them?!

sure!

oh. wait. goats can stand on their hind legs?

gross.

ok that's great! move on!

spooky horses!

ok that's great! move on!

SPOOKY FOODS!

ok that's actually necessary. we will come back to you. move on!

whoa! spooky gazebo!

ok that's great! move on!

wait is that a spook house?!

once we saw the spook house, we had to cancel all immediate plans for an even more immediate decision - we needed spooky scaries. we charged forward, only to see the entry gate shut down. puzzled and a bit alarmed, we seated ourselves at the entrance in an effort to wait until it was reopened for the next group. plus, there were little kittens hanging out. we soon realized that the spooky scaries were not in our future and time was running low. i made an attempt to leave and head to the tasty foods, however melissa has a certain weakness for cats, so leaving seemed difficult.

um...

...

hmm, how should i put this....

....

melissa didn't want to put down the kitten.

time was running thin....

it looked so fragile and content with melissa holding him...

err...

melissa took the kitten.

now little ghost, the cross-eyed fella who appeared out of nowhere in front of a spook house would grow up in a healthy environment with melissa's two other cats.

melissa's costume at the time, by the way, was to be a cat lady. fate.

needless to say i didn't get to get the delicious pumpkin jam, pumpkin bread, pumpkin butter, homemade candy corn, caramel apples, pumpkin quiche....let alone an actual pumpkin which was the original purpose of the drive.

whatever, the kitten was charming. and to be fair, it looked like they were all kittens that would have grown up unloved on a farm where infections and wolves and other horrible things we made up in our heads existed.

i wound up buying the pumpkins off the side of the road around the corner from melissa's and we had pumpkins and kittens.

traditional, yes. it was so angry looking, but it packed it's own original wallop. when i went to bring it inside from my back porch for the party, i forgot that sometimes it rains and that rainwater can get caught in the jack-o-lantern. i tried to tip it and it threw up all over me. my jack-o-lantern threw up on me. a lot.

he sat outside on the front steps for the rest of the party. i think he was stolen by the time i returned home.

i didn't mind, really. bad pumpkin.

anyway, as i foreshadowed in a previous post, i wanted to represent the bp oil spill for my costume because i felt that reports of the crisis "magically disappearing" thanks to evaporation and a hasty cleanup job were completely ludicrous and the national dialogue for the gulf's rescue should continue - hence my costume.

the party went well and we meandered around the city in search of the perfect halloween party. three locations later - we had found it. a basement party with serious decorations, strobe lights, spooky foods and great costumes. i even met my match that night.

we spotted each other from across the room like in the movies and immediately gravitated towards another.

the bird and the spill. a match made in hell.

i was super proud of the costume and it was received very well (except for the people who thought i was bjork for some reason. morons) however i did learn one important lesson about halloween parties and commuting in crowded streets - people are very awful when drunk. let's just say that i was happy to be sporting a pair of underwear underneath my costume. some drunk girls are a little too grabby. i think next year my costume will entail more clothing. fingers crossed.

ok so then we own the world series. for the first time in.... a while.

the city celebrated. in very different ways. the national reports mainly focused on the morons who took to the streets and did some pretty disgraceful things.

this is how my fellow san franciscans at 22nd and mission celebrated. street fires and violence.

this is how my neighborhood at 18th and castro celebrated. toilet paper. chanting. music. champagne. cheering. far from rioting. i believe at one point i had a large amount of toilet paper thrown at me, which is fine cause it was a friend and not a stranger with a broken bottle. thank goodness i live in the castro.

i filmed this myself so i of course apologize for the shotty camerwork.

and then there was the party

you know, no big deal, just 500,000 and upward in attendance. pretty sweet. my friends took these pictures. i did not have this kind of access.

oh yeah, and this is the mayor, or should i say lieutenant governor of california? that's right. he was elected, as were a million other things in the city this week.

two things actually joined the ranks of "items banned from san francisco" ... the list already includes:

1. plastic bags - plastic bags are currently not allowed at large chain supermarkets and drug stores, but we are considering the ban to all stores.

2. bottled water - city money cannot be used to purchase bottled water and it cannot be sold from vending machines on city property.

3. smoking - tobacoo cigarettes are not allowed to be smoked in buildings, and clove cigarettes are not permitted to be sold in the city at all.

4. baby animals - it's illegal to sell baby chickens, ducks rabbits

5. segways - segways are not allowed on sidewalks or bike baths because gavin newsom thought they promoted laziness. i just find them annoying so i'm actually ok with this. plus it's easier to spot the tourists downtown who ride them along the pier because i think that's the only way you're allowed to use them - cheesy tourist stuff.

6. soda - soda and juice drinks with no real fruit juice cannot be sold from vending machines on city property.

7. arizona - as a protest to the state's strict immigration policies, city employees are not allowed to travel to arizona.

the latest installments are a little different.

8. happy meals. yep, that's right. we have become the first major u.s. city to pass a law that cracks down on the popular practice of giving away free toys with unhealthy restaurant meals for children. if the restaurants still wanted to give away toys, they would have to meet certain nutritional standards before they could be sold with toys. love it. makes total sense.

9. here's the one that i'm not particularly a fan of -

sitting.

prop l was on the ballot this year and it was passed in an effort to curb aggressive panhandling. we have outlawed sitting on the streets between 7am and 11pm, pending certain circumstances aka if you are not homeless looking. it's a pretty crappy effort to remove the homeless from the city and make it look nicer to tourists. i'm pretty disappointed it was even on the ballot.

eh. you win some you lose some.

i'll end this post on a lighter note with what i think was a beautiful/prideful/cheesy moment for our city. it was during game 2, but i kept playing this throughout the week because i felt pretty proud of my city every time i saw it.

a city "buzzed"

2010-10-28T11:40:00.000-07:00

not all san franciscans are san franstoners. thanks.

go giants.

View more news videos at: http://www.nbcbayarea.com/video.

love and loyalty

a couple of extra blankets

2010-10-27T23:31:00.000-07:00

it's official - first night of the season with the heat on. thanks, san francicle.

love and loyalty

p.s. - got all of my costume components on the cheap. now to construct.

squawk squawk *cough cough coughhh*

a halloween preview

2010-10-25T15:35:00.000-07:00

less than a week ago it was reported that massive stretches of oil are still being spotted in the gulf of mexico, silencing reports that declared little remaining surface oil remained from the U.S. coast guard's office.

in an effort to continue public awareness that this problem is far from over, i offer you a visual preview of my halloween costume

love and loyalty.

a time to thrill

2010-10-08T17:14:00.001-07:00

this job situation that one tenth of the country is dealing with has been rather frustrating, so i've decided that i should start being a little more spontaneous. be it through job applications (i have learned that i am a little overqualified to work in a pizza parlor and under-qualified to be an executive for... anything), car rides to los angeles or participation in bizarre street fairs, i have made a valiant effort to not let the joblessness weigh me down.

i've also taken on a new hobby - cheap movies played at the historic castro theater.

here's why

1. the movies there are 10 bucks cheaper than at other movie-houses and cinemas. which is good, because, well, you know...
2. it is less than three blocks away from my apartment...with zero hills

3. because of 2., i find it totally normal to go in my pajamas with a blanket (i am obviously alone for these ventures)
4. smuggling my own popcorn (thanks to monroe friends for mailing over my very own popcorn maker) and other snacks is super easy and money friendly (again, in large part due to 2.)
5. have you seen the inside?

you can't find beauty like that at the um, amc? is that what they are? one of those big chain movie houses.... lowes? is that one? wait dont they sell lawn furniture? i'm getting off topic
6. the films are better! i thought i had some sort of a film history under my belt, but this place has been exposing me to some good stuff while simultaneously playing some of my favorites. movies today are a little too dependent on flashy special effects and people whose teeth are damn near blinding when projected on such a large screen, so it's nice that i can go somewhere that plays movies before the movie world turned mostly terrible.

some examples? sure.

metropolis, the 1927 fritz lang film that ignited the genre of science fiction films, complete with 20 minutes of additional footage located and restored only recently.

hud, a film i thought i wouldn't really identify with was actually super relevant. plus, his quick one-liners and easy-going attitude reminded me of an uncle of mine - minus the alcoholism and rages, of course.

and there was recently a charlie chaplin tribute, where i was reminded that i love charlie chaplin, especially now that i am an adult who sometimes deals with the similar troubles he went through. ... poverty.. not so much the pedophilia stuff.

im currently trying a bit of exposure therapy and engaging in various old timey horror films. spooky scaries are not my favorite of film genres, but im trying.

on the plus side, the music is actually quite good. when things get too scary i tend to just close my eyes and listen to the music. baby steps.

my road-trip to los angeles was actually pretty interesting, thanks in large part to eric (he knew where everything was) but also because as a native tri-stater i grew up thinking a city meant buildings and overpopulated areas.

no no no.

los angeles is a large collection of mini towns with occasional clusters of buildings. it seems to be divided into three kinds of arrangements: suburban, commercial and industrial...just repeated hundreds of times over.

well, and freeways. i guess that makes four. driving is a must. i dont think i would make it. i've become quite accustomed to mass transit, no matter how loud or smelly my fellow passengers are.

the area does have some very nice beaches and sunsets.

and then this happened.

disneyland.

i, michael kasian, aka mr. screw-disney-for-its-monopoly-on-childhood-and-misrepresenting-history-and-setting-unattainable-measures-for-love-and-setting-incredibly-inappropriate-gender/racial-roles-on-impressionable-minds, was brought to disneyland.

yep.

and i enjoyed it.

we went on all the best rides (sometimes twice)

and then THIS happened

jack was there.

the ultimate childhood storybook anti-hero. before tim burton got lame and started rehashing good movies into expensive crappy versions and before disney started putting jack's face on every sweatshirt available at any mall store for pseudo-goth transients, jack was the last thing one would expect to come out of a disney studio. he represented what every other protagonist wasn't - lanky, educated, emotional, insecure and without any trace of a typical disney gendered stereotype. he challenged his depression and explored something else, only to realize that it was selfish and unappreciative to not recognize the value of what he already had. an incredible lesson complete with the kind of cast that encourages creativity in young viewers far more than a sidekick talking crab or lamp or raccoon could ever offer.

disney suited up the haunted mansion for the holiday season and i turned into a 6 year old again.

well played, disney.

well played.

we seriously went on a bunch of rides.

this one actually broke down mid hill climb. we were rescued by the kids in country folk costume and got to see the inside of a roller coaster.

surprisingly less magical, i can assure you.

they made it up to us with some free fast pass things so we could just cut wherever. beautiful.

i was actually with some pretty seasoned disneyland experts, so the rate of waiting in line vs. enjoyment was seriously in our favor.

there were characters and mini-parades and castles

and performances and light shows and music and tiki tiki tiki tiki tiki rooms and fireworks going off in all directions (which made the sky look like this)

but the ultimate joy was when that mouse everyone raves about made a quiet appearance in a nearby gazebo. there was barely a line to meet him so i had to get a quick photo - especially when you see what i wore to disneyland.

priceless. just priceless.

mickey took one look a the shirt, recognizing himself at first (as did his handlers looking pleased as punch) but then mickey read the top and put his hands to his mouth, followed by sobbing and tearing.

i made mickey cry. yep. mickey cried.

his handlers soon started making things better, saying things like, "why would you want to destroy florida? i don't get it?" and "well, mickey owns florida, so you can't do that."

in my head i thought, "that's exactly the problem, you morons." which explains my devilishly happy grin in both photos. i came into their turf and confused and angered their highest representative (and handlers). it felt pretty good.

now im back in san francisco and back to the old grind. you know, job hunting. it's rough out there, guys, im not gonna lie. but when things get tough and i can't really see the positive, i think back to a final scene from "modern times" that always lifts me back up

love and loyalty

a new set of jumping tunes

2010-09-10T13:11:00.000-07:00

i promise to stop obsessing over this guy, but i am warning all around me that this album will be played constantly in my dwelling for years to come.

enjoy. (#7 gives me chills) ...and try to tell me you aren't shaking your hips around without fibbin'

YT047 - El Guincho - Pop Negro by Young Turks

love and loyalty.

a pair of tributes

2010-09-04T23:50:00.000-07:00

o boy has it been a while or what?

i made a pilgrimage to the homeland (new jersey) to surprise my mother for her birthday and the stay was simply lovely. it was a brief visit and it was spent mostly in a collection of pools while surrounded by my sisters or other monroe folk.

upon my return to san francisco, i was starting to feel a bit under the weather with only a few days remaining before some monroe folk came to see me for a week. around the time that i started to feel at my worst, i was also hosting for the Neighborhood Empowerment Network with my Team at a Craigslist Foundation function.

behold, the power of painkillers.

later that day i had picked up my friends and started a delightful week long exploration throughout the city. it was great to the see them and i'm glad they had a wonderful time, but i just wish i was not going through a crohn's disease inflammation because i was quite a mess.

i've been in bed pretty much throughout the past month resting to ensure a speedy recovery, but in the meantime two wonderful friends of mine made me a delightful video that brought a tear to my eye.

now that i am beginning to feel better, i decided to make them a thank you video for all to enjoy. i am quite in love with those two ladies, and so i had to make a film that i could love almost as equally.

what came out was a video that makes me think of everyone important to me. mission accomplished.

my first film - "la vie en san francisco"

enjoy

love and loyalty

a second coming!

2010-07-28T19:00:00.000-07:00

el guincho came back to san francisco and he was soooo good! eric joined me and i warned him that i would be obnoxious and crazed and dancey. he was ok with it.

needless to say pablo once again blew me away.

at one point in the set he was like, "this is my second time in san francisco. did anyone see me at the..."

"the independent!" i shouted.

"yes yes! when was that?" he said with a chuckle because i probably looked so dumbfounded that he heard me.

"october 2008ish and your english has gotten sooo much better!" at this point i realized that i either sounded like a stalker or culturally rude.

until he said, "right! nice!"

all was good in the world.

and the show was incredible.

this is where i stood.

i was too busy dancing to film properly. ill leave it up to these other kids.

enjoy!

adore y la lealtad

oh and here's the encore when everyone got really into it. and yes, you can see me in this one.

a good afternoon

2010-07-28T18:17:00.000-07:00

so i actually went through with the motown/graduation/sangria/etc saturday afternoon grillout chillout and it was actually quite successful.

so technically i still was taking antibiotics but i like the taste of my homemade sangria and i wasn't going to let a doctor tell me i couldn't have one graduation/birthday/motown/grillout/etc beverage.

here i am preparing my mother's cucumber salad. that tub of sangria was gone by the end of the night, btw. it was a good crowd. very thirsty.

i kept rahul, mcdermott, nakhter and josh next to the grill because they pretty much were the only ones who knew how to use the thing. i was almost going to get charcoal for the gas grill. thankfully i was told not to.

oh yeah! check out that table! the whole thing was like 700 bucks with the attached drawers underneath but we got it for 140 because roommate jonny and i know how to haggle/persuade/bully sad ikea employees.

there's jonny preparing a graduate/birthday/motown casserole while broken armed jimmy supplied the heart

kinda like this guy from that show about saving the earth or something...

...but jimmy was broken so i dont think he did any saving. i guess he was nothing like that. unless jimmy is also from the jungle. i doubt it.

decorations!

backyard recreations!

casseroled vegetations!

nevin getting more libations!

and a cake for michael kasian! that almost rhymed too. sure. why not. you probably dont know how to pronounce my last name, either. im actually getting confused about how i say it these days.

but seriously, the cake was made from my favorite ice cream place on the corner of delores park - bi-rite cremery. the best ice cream on the planet.

needless to say i was in complete shock. eric did really good with the cake choice... and he got me a year subscription to the economist! he did very well on both counts.

so as jonny is pouring champagne for a bunch of people - i gotta confess this - i was trying to throw people out of my party so i could eat the cake all by myself - you guys, it was coffee toffee bi-rite creamery cake. no one left, of course. and i played it off like i was joking.

i wasn't joking.

i ate that cake for the next week. and it was delicious.

o and then bb showed up 3 hours late (which is good by his standards)...

disrobed...

and gave me a topsy turvy tomato growing device. hence the sideways photos. it's topsy turvy!

oh and then i also got this massive pepper grinder, some tomatoes (not from topsy turvy, it's still growing) ((i think people here think jersey tomatoes are like a big thing but they aren't really a big deal there, right?)), a couple of scented candles, and assorted wines and foods.

the rest of the evening was filled with debauchery and mayhem (in a motowny/graduationy/grilly/etcy kind of sense) so i wont bother to post them, but needless to say it was a great afternoon and evening.

love and loyalty

a radio interview

2010-07-23T11:10:00.000-07:00

sorry for the lack of updates, i've been busy with my full time job (applying for full time jobs).

in the meantime, i was able to continue to progress of my work with city hall.

a new radio station, nenfm, took interest in my work and has interviewed me for their podcast/radio show.

below is a link to the page and ill be sure to post some updates on some other ventures in the past month.

love and loyalty

http://www.empowersf.org/home/2010/7/23/nenfm-episode-4-new-challenges-for-sfs-lgbtq-community.html

a city hall update

2010-06-24T18:25:00.000-07:00

here's my latest update for empowersf.org for the LGBTQ Resiliency Project (which explains why i followed normal grammatical restrictions)

enjoy!

Pride & Progress

Summer is here (sort of) and Pride Weekend is upon us once more in our lovely (and frigid) San Francisco. The citywide increase in flags, tourism and overall energy is a delightful reminder that this city values its LGBTQ population as much as the NEN’s LGBTQ Resiliency Project does. However, with this historic 40th anniversary of the Pride Parade comes the reminder that our community’s unity and strength is still not where it could be.

When I last wrote for this blog, things were a little stressful. The project was just getting under way, I was knee deep in my MA thesis, and I was on the hunt for an apartment. I am THRILLED (and relieved) to report that I have finished grad school, found a very charming apartment in the Castro and have gotten this project on the right track. Of course, the project would not be where it is today without the continuous support of our steering committee and the NEN. I am also happy to report that we have recruited Christoph Zepata, a grad student at SFSU, to help continue the project’s progress as well the Institute of Civic and Community Engagement (ICCE) to assist in the administrative necessities.

The project didn’t really take form until we held our first meeting with Rebecca Rolfe, head of the LGBT Center, Amy Brown, Deputy City Administrator & Director of Real Estate, and the rest of our steering committee. To start the meeting, we had asked members to introduce themselves and brief us on what challenges they believed the community currently faced. What we thought would be a brief introduction turned into several heartfelt dialogues that explored the many different problems going on in our community, including care for HIV Positive citizens, support for new parents and the withering of community institutions. Yes, this city has a very forthright and proud LGBTQ with plenty of programs geared towards those in need, but our steering committee confirmed that there is a major problem within the community, and for the first time it isn’t just one palpable issue. It really verified the importance of this project.

Once the steering committee meeting concluded, the next step of the program began- the interview process. I have already met with several people to identify performance gaps, re-leverage vital community assets and generally learn more about each inspiring person’s history within the city. This will probably take some time to get done as there are so many incredible public figures, small business owners and organizations that are vital to San Francisco’s LGBTQ community.

The process is only a few weeks in and already I have learned so much from these key representatives. I noticed right from the start that the responses have been almost polar opposites of one another, showing me that banks, government agencies, non-profits, etc. at times share a limited dialogue with one another about key issues, potentially resulting in capacity gaps for the underprivileged as well as the survival of important clubs and non-profits. It has also been a great experience for me to hear such inspirational stories from people that have devoted their lives to the survival and rights of other community members. I’m getting a better-rounded view of the community while simultaneously learning more about our community’s history within San Francisco.

The part of the interview process that has really been firing me up is when I start to ask about the most at risk members of our community. I’m not even going to try to hide that I have left the interviews with a tear or two as the stories and struggles of the past and present are at times hard to hear. As a 20-something newcomer to the City, I can relate to the others in my generation that comes here only to find incredibly high rents with limited connections to jobs and housing. They are a group that needs help as this continues to be a city that draws in a younger crowd who leave most of the time because they can’t afford to settle. This puts a risk on the future of the community’s population.

Of course, they aren’t the only community members that have been brought up in conversation. Senior citizens are often brought up, as the rest of the community doesn’t give enough support to a historic generation within our population. Our current generation of LGBTQ seniors has limited support from others as they lack family and community inclusion. They possess very valuable histories to our community and their stories should be told as we do our best to support their health and wellness. After all, we wouldn’t be celebrating Pride year after year without their efforts.

Another part of our community that is brought up during the interview are the transgendered youth who often times arrive homeless and in desperate need of help. Society is moving in the right direction for gays and lesbians, but the struggle for tolerance of our transgendered brothers and sisters is taking a little longer, resulting in many displaced members that seek solace here in San Francisco. These are only a few of the groups within our community that appear to lag behind those members that have achieved success and stasis in their lives. This project will hopefully address these capacity gaps within our community, because we’re only as strong as our weakest link, and we have plenty of links that still need support.

As the weekend concludes and another Pride has come and gone, the project will continue to push forward with more help and energy than ever before. The interview process will most likely take up the majority of the summer and into early fall. In the meantime, the NEN and I will be posting portions of the interview that I have videotaped to the website to keep you all in touch with some of our key stakeholders. This gives you the opportunity to get to know some very important people while hearing their perspective on the state of the community. It will be a long process, but I have a strong feeling that by then end of the year I will have not only enough data to make some informed recommendations for the community, but I will also possess a much stronger bond and appreciation for the incredible LGBTQ community of San Francisco.

Love, Loyalty and Happy Pride to All!

a thank you vid and invite

2010-06-18T10:43:00.001-07:00

appropriate music for the way i'm feeling at the moment

for the record, aunt eileen and aunt carol got the same card this year.

tomorrow (my strep permitting) ill be hosting a fantastic combo party im calling:

Birthday/Graduation/Housewarming Potluck!
(original?)

here's the details-

It's My Birthday!
I Got My MA!
Welcome to My Home!
It's a Saturday!
A Lot of Sangria!

All of these are reasons for this celebratory potluck afternoon cookout.

Come on over and enjoy the afternoon with some Motown, short shorts and great food and spirits.

Be sure to bring a meal for others to enjoy, along with any drinks and gifts you may have flying around.

Sangria, cucumber salad, grillables and a grill will be provided. Yes, I know how to cook.

This sounds nice!

thank you all so much for the well wishes!

a memory

2010-06-17T11:59:00.000-07:00

i stepped outside on my porch after a nice shower and took in the heat.

it started to smell like club kearney.

i wanted to dive right in.

love and loyalty

a glorious return!

2010-06-02T01:26:00.000-07:00

i have been playing el guincho's 2007 "alegranza" and "folias" for 4 years now because his work is so darn infectious. i can't begin to tell you how many wonderful memories i have had that have been amplified tremendously just because i've had these records playing in the background

here's some available clips!

this one has been played the most. simply joyful.

it's like a block party soundtrack that never gets old. colors and jumping and sangria and dancing and love and smiling and friendships and ending in an eruption of fireworks. at this point i've seen and danced like an idiot in front of him while attempting to confess how his album is like colors and jumping and sangria and dancing and love and smiling and friendships and ending in an eruption of fireworks. at the time he didn't know a lot of english so there was a bit of a barrier in communication... outside of the dancing and shouting loudly about the colors and jumping and sangria and dancing and love and friendships and ending in an eruption of fireworks.

i signed up for a website in early 2008 that tracks how often i listen to songs in my library and since january 2008 i have listened to the 22 available tracks at least 2,469 times.

he has finally put out some new stuff four years later and i am sooooo ready for more colors and jumping and .... you get the picture.

here's an ep he will be releasing before his big full length album coming out in the fall. it's a collection of covers of south american standards.

El Guincho / Piratas de Sudamerica EP by Young Turks

although the warm months wont start in san francisco for a few more weeks, my summer has officially started.

welcome back, pablo!

love and loyalty

a series of the back of my father's head photos

2010-06-01T17:46:00.000-07:00

that's right! my parents came to visit and watch me finish grad school. so naturally i took various photos of the back of my father's head.

these are from a collection called: my dad saw fish at the california academy of sciences.

being the aquarium expert that he is, the usual specimen weren't incredibly impressive.

until he caught a glimpse of these characters

speaking of fish, i was able to bring my parents along to my favorite sushi place, warakubune on church street.

here's a quick clip of what the boats look like -

i don't know who that guy at the end was, but he had my favorite order, the shrimp special roll. i actually am so obsessed with it that i keep an image of it on my phone whenever i feel blue, or hungry.

this is actually pretty cool. some genius was able to sneak a camera onto one of the boats for a ride around the bar. i really can't stop watching the people's varied reactions (and non reactions).

my father, ever the pioneer in experimentation, saw the various colors of my favorite roll and decided it'd be best if he ordered his "cooked" fish instead.

i was, however, "cunning" enough to convince him to try my second favorite roll - the special aspargus.

by "cunning" i of course don't mean "i had two glasses of sapporo light and became abrasive"

and yes, my mother is using a fork. free country.

my father's head at the bay bridge!

my father's head at pier 39 admiring the many sea lions (and hating the many sea lion smells)

and yes, that's the back of my head. it's a father/son thing.

see? it continues all the way to wine tasting over the golden gate in sonoma and napa. don't we look alike?

here's the back of my father's head at the very top of san francisco.

here's the backside of BOTH parents overlooking graffiti alley in the mission district

and of course i had to take them to delores park for an afternoon of wine and cheese, accompanied by this incredible view.

i'm not sure how much rest they got on this vacation, because i also sent them:
to the castro so they could see how clean my apartment is
to the ferry building for fancy foods and wines
to city hall for a political perspective
to hayes valley for high end boutique shopping
to golden gate park for a planetarium show, a rain-forest walk-through and animal exhibit
to the painted ladies for a victorian view
to lombard street for a nauseating drive
to the mission for some counter culture
to cox stadium for my graduation
through haight/ashbury for a contact high
to north beach (twice) for some seriously good italian food
to zeitgeist for hard rock, big benches, grilled everything and backyard beers

and here's a picture i secretly took that brought me back to my parents house. it was at our last stop on the wine tour and only hours before i said a tearful farewell. the reason it means so much is that it reminds me of a particular painting that has been at their house for as long as i can remember. i always thought of it as a very tranquil image and the fact that it came to life was the perfect conclusion to a fantastic trip. their visit was the ultimate highlight of my time in san francisco.

love and loyalty

a break, i guess?

2010-05-12T15:46:00.000-07:00

phew. i feel like i just woke up from a dream where i was knee deep in settling into a new apartment and completing my final semester of grad school.

o. wait.

nevermind.

i apologize for my neglect. my website is a wonderful to collect and reflect on my thoughts and actions it appears that in the past month my thoughts were devoted primarily to moving and my thesis.

DONE!

WITH BOTH!!!!

so the thesis is in the printer's and my mother and father are currently in the sky on their way over for an initial s.f. encounter. ... they've already complained about the weather. they haven't landed yet. lucky jerseyites with their humidity and sunshine.

i'll be sure to take many photos and also upload images from the past month of insanity... believe - some weird stuff has happened.

love and loyalty!

a news story

2010-04-02T13:51:00.000-07:00

http://www.empowersf.org/home/2010/4/2/is-the-lgbtq-community-ready.html

follow the link!

sorry i've been so busy with the move and writing my thesis. ill have updates soon, friends!

love and loyalty.

a complaint letter to the MUNI monster

2010-03-12T11:41:00.000-08:00

Dear Muni,

When I got onto the M train at around 3:45, I was hoping for a normal ride, but things immediately took a turn for the...awkward. As the doors were closing, one of the doors was noticeably resistant and failed to shut properly. In response, the driver, a small, elderly woman with frizzy orange hair yelled at the nearby teenagers for, "leaning on the doors and breaking them, you rotten kids!" The teenagers were not leaning on the doors.

After two failed attempts at opening and closing the doors, the driver put her key into a lock that seemed to stop the doors from operating altogether. Afterward, she again tried to close the doors, only this time one of them remained completely open, and we began to move. In an already overcrowded and therefore unsafe situation, the fact that the door was wide open as the train moved was cause for alarm. We rallied one of the "rotten teenagers" to push the big red button and alarm the driver that she was moving the train with an open door. As the "rotten teen" was notifying the driver, the train came to a sudden halt, slamming the door and sending a few passengers on a trip they didn't pay $2 for.

As a result of this door-closing attempt, the power (both lights and ventilation) were immediately turned off and the crowded train that was just put in harms way with an open door in a moving vehicle was now stuck underground in the dark...and it was getting sweaty. We were stuck there for however long it took, (roughly 4.5 'toro y moi' songs) until another MUNI operator came and did 10 seconds worth of maintenance on the door. The minimal maintenance, on top of her door-closing method and tolerance for the youth of America, made me question how qualified this conductor was.

The lights and air came back on and we slowly made our way to the next stop, where the operator claimed, "They are too many of you on this train, we need one person to get off." I was half an hour late to a very important meeting...and balmy from the time spent in the underground sauna.

I'm not one to complain very often, in fact I apologize for whomever has to read this, but I have to get this stuff off my chest. If I'm paying $15 more a month in comparison to what I was paying only a year ago - I would appreciate an improvement on the conditions of the trains as well as the people that operate them.

In the past few months, I have had to get off the M train on my way to a meeting or class and walk or wait for another train almost half of the time.... and I have said nothing.

Yesterday was the straw that broke the camel's back... also I lost my bookmark in the dark..so....

Thank you for your time.

a love for synergy

2010-02-22T14:39:00.001-08:00

In my early adulthood, I have come to discover that things move rather rapidly. There always seems to be something that needs to be done - bills, papers, projects, events, etc.

Time seems to move faster. I'm probably late for something as you read this.

I have also discovered that I have a particular likeness for blending responsibilities, passions and causes. Two birds with one stone, eggs in one basket, call it whatever you want, I love it. Multitasking just seems to work really well for me.

Some less relevant examples include:
-discovering my love for jazz while trolling through the produce section
-catching up with political chat while practicing yoga in my bedroom via youtube
-and learning traditional Catalan while running.

Productive, yes. Embarrassing, slightly.

No other combination has been most rewarding than my work with the Neighborhood Empowerment Network and my graduate thesis project. My passion for citizen civic engagement has been able to work concurrently with the pursuit of a Master's Degree at San Francisco State while also helping an actual organization centered around community involvement.

In the fall of 2009, I was able to work with Daniel Homsey and a think tank of Communication Studies professors and fellow students. Our focus revolved around the ways to instruct leadership to neighborhood representatives. We also brought our own personal interests into the mix, like language barriers, organizational lecturing and incorporating media and activism (me, of course).

Over the winter break, Daniel approached me with a new idea in mind. In order to spread the Neighborhood Empowerment Network's message, Daniel suggested that I front the initiative to build a program that was centered around the historic GLBT community of San Francisco. I immediately said yes, but with a catch. I wanted to have the opportunity to promote my thesis and tap into NEN for survey participants.

SYNERGY AT ITS FINEST!!!

The survey is a perfect addition to the NEN program as it aims to find the relationships between media consumption patterns, interpersonal communication and civic engagement in an effort to promote more diverse activism of people that normally weren't particularly interested/ fearful to engage in politics. The end result will be a guide for marginalized communities to give them the power and tools to become more active for their rights and needs for community improvement and empowerment in case of any natural disasters (THE BIG EARTHQUAKE, DROUGHT, FAMINE, etc.). Studying something of this nature while developing a program for civic engagement and community organizing makes for a perfect combination.

Please feel free to take part in the survey. The larger the survey sample, the better.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/mediatalkandaction

As far as the resiliency project has gone, we have already met with representatives from the Red Cross to get them on board and help identity the marginalized members within the GLBT community to find out who would be more at risk in case of a major earthquake. The main members of the community at risk would most likely be elderly LGBT seniors with little family ties as well as the HIV/AIDS patients that would also need access to care.

It has also been brought up that the community itself is rather split between age groups and subcultures, so an elaborate scheme is in the works to put together a campaign that encourages community involvement that doesn't revolve around nightlife and separation.

We're on the move and I'm incredibly happy with the progression of both my thesis and my work with the LGBT resiliency coalition.

I'll be sure to keep you updated on both matters.

Love and loyalty... and synergy.

a combination

2010-02-18T12:11:00.000-08:00

pharyngitis and tonsillitis is not the best combination.

i've been pretty roughed up this past week and thankfully the antibiotics are kicking in.

it has now been my third illness since 2010 has started. this does not make for a healthy new year.

i'm ready to get off of humira and try something else to help with my crohn's disease.

i'm going to go take out some frustration on a canvas.

a craigslist ad

2010-02-03T11:39:00.000-08:00

well, it appears i will be losing my housing in 30 days. fantastic.

here's an ad i posted on craigslist. spread the word, kiddies.

$750 24yo M Looking for Housing (Duboce/Castro/Dolores Park/Inner Mission)

I am a clean, mature, responsible, easy going, non-smoking, non-pet owning, 24 year old guy looking for an in-law, studio, spare bedroom in a multi-room apartment or small and inexpensive one bedroom. I am looking to move in at the beginning of March. That's only a month from now, but I'm willing to check out a lot of places before. I have paid for the full month of February, but I am willing to move out sooner if the place is ready.

Enjoy the city very much (originally from New Jersey) and plan on staying here for a while, so you can count on me to stick around.

I'm particularly interested in Duboce Triangle (who isn't?), but am also more than happy with Castro/Dolores Park/Inner Mission/Hayes Valley.

I have happily lived in the same place in San Francisco for two years now, corner of Octavia and Market, but after personally renovating multiple rooms and solely investing in the upkeep, I am ready to move on to something else.

I am currently in the last semester of an MA program in Political Communications and Media Studies, about to embark on a research job, am a freelance artist on the side and interning at city hall. I can provide a resume upon request.

Rent is always on time and checks have never bounced.

I have a queen sized bed, so as long as I can fit the bed in the room and move around a little, I'll take it!

I can live with just about anyone so long as respect and common courtesy are understood. I'm very easy going at home. As a matter of fact, a dear friend of mine is also interested in finding a place, so if their is a 2br in the building we'd be happy to look at that as well. He is equally as well mannered and responsible as I am.

I don't require a parking space, but I would like to be able to store my bicycle somewhere safe at night.

More than happy to answer any questions you may have and I look forward to hearing from all of you.

if you know someone who needs a roomie then send this their way!

a new year, a new internship

2010-01-25T20:13:00.000-08:00

another day of nonstop rain. san francisco's weather has been far from welcoming. the locals, however, have been incredibly warm upon my return. one in particular, daniel homsey, director of the mayor’s office of neighborhood services, was so happy to have me back in the city that he offered me an internship...well, partnership in his words.

the mission - immerse myself in his neighborhood empowerment network through interviews, pushing envelopes, and getting the point across to several big wigs in this city that the underprivileged are in need... myself included. daniel has also offered to help me find a part time job...somewhere...anywhere... it's about time i started making money. it's been... ...a while... and what better time to start working for peanuts than while simultaneously working on your master's thesis! a major selling point is the idea that i would get to walk into "work" and get to see this:
grand staircases, wedding ceremonies and incredible scultpures. i'm a romantic, it's embarrassing but true.

on a lighter note, california sucks. and here's why-

when i first came back to my chilly, ant/flea ridden apartment, i was greeted with a letter entitled: DENIAL: California Residency for tuition purposes. it later goes on to read that i have not indicated any intention on ever wanting to stay in california post schooling. this sadly puts a damper on my alaskan adventure: i was hoping to use my saved money for a trip to alaska to perform in a piece, present my study and see the many sights.

im currently working on an appeal letter to prove my intentions in the much-less-than-golden-state. here goes nothing...

love and loyalty

a month in the garden state

2010-01-14T12:36:00.002-08:00

when i "crash" landed during the peak of the december 09 nor'easter, i was hoping that it wouldn't have been a preview for what the next four weeks would be like: dizzying and turbulent. thankfully, i was able to get a grip on land and enjoy my time away from earthquakes and deadlines.

i came with christmas gifts, a limited wardrobe for a cold climate and objectives.

- i had to "convince" my folks into taking me to benitos II on mulberry street
- i had to "convince" robin murphy into getting some fresh mozzarella from my favorite little deli in hoboken
- i had to "convince" my friends into carting me over to a particular jersey diner for a fried egg sandwich with fresh tomatoes.
- i had to "convince" sarah murphy into getting a slice of pizza from benny tudino's and every other pizza place in manhattan
- i had to "convince" nova roman into a pilgrimage to new brunswick for a slice of pizza... a few times.

let's call this section the "san francisco offers disappointing italian food so michael felt it necessary to beg anyone with a car to take him to his favorite italian places" i'm not ashamed.

-new york new york new york
- see the tim burton exhibit at the moma

- try to hold back tears upon seeing jack skellington in the ...flesh?
(i don't think i actually achieved this goal. i welled up quite a bit. i regret nothing.)
- visit family, friends and check in on how the east coast has been.
- totally appreciate the gifts from everyone this year.
- have heart to hearts with particular loved ones.
- go on a mini vacation during my vacation. a weekend in the country, let's call it.

we went to the poke a nose... this joke has probably been done millions of times, but it's my turn now.

it was a winter wonderland

i showed some of the courageous kids how to be like jesus and walk on water.

there was also fort construction and demolition...

...face painting...

...some light reading...

... and extreme sledding. the boys team clearly won.

as if my month long stay wasn't already incredible, my last day was spent with tons of friends, family and food. the trip really climaxed on the last night when my family and i danced together in the great room. it was a first for all of us...and it was perfect.

i left feeling rejuvenated and ready for another round of san fran-chaos.

love and loyalty.

a final like no other

2009-12-23T10:18:00.000-08:00

for my last final of the year, i was given the opportunity to tap into my performance background and put together a piece to go along with my analysis paper of the semester's lessons. the students were all given the opportunity to construct a performance about anything they found interest in.

i definitely have had something on my mind that i wanted to discuss. healthcare.

as you may or may not know, i have been living with crohn's disease for a decade now and have been on quite a selection of medications. i've come a long way, baby.

for my performance, i tapped into my experimental theatre and performance art training to develop a multi-media personal narrative through autoethnographic research methods.

the piece was in five movements, each separated by taking four pentasa pills that i used to take throughout the day...only this time the pills were emptied of their contents now that i no longer take them.

the piece began with me entering my bedroom on the telephone, apologizing to a friend for leaving their party before they had arrived because of crohn's related issues (something i've done quite frequently). i then took my first dose of pills.

the second movement of the piece was a video that played behind me. the video was a recorded phone conversation i had with a telephone operator who worked for a health insurance company that provided my latest medication, humira. the conversation was about how i would soon be without health insurance, why the medication costs 1500-1800 dollars a month, and if anyone was able to stop taking the drug. she of course was doing her job and explained that no research had been done on long term patients that stopped taking the medication, that their plan could help provide cheaper costs for the injection therapies for a year and that i should talk to my doctor about what to do (a thought i never had before). all the while i stood in front of the video footage and removed my clothes, revealing a hospital gown underneath my layers and put a surgical mask over my mouth. i then took another dose of medication.

the third movement started with me removing my mask and speaking in a cheerful tone while reenacting a humira commercial, indicating the risk factors (hospitalization, infections, death) of using the product. i also warned that these risks were amplified when taking other medications like the one i have been taking with it for the past year and a half, mercaptopurine. i then take mercaptopurine and tell the audience to call their doctor right away if they have an infection or show any sign of an infection as humira greatly reduces their immune system and can put you in harms way. i then dump out my old humira pens from a bag and take another dose of pentasa, ending the third movement.

the fourth movement is an actual monologue i recorded from when i went to a doctor's office to elaborate on my troubles. with my legs swinging on the high table, i told them about the varied effects ive felt from the humira and medications and how i have felt cheated from starting a trial of humira to now needing it to survive over a year and a half later. i then picked up a painting i had done which when i get angry at my pills one day and used it to playfully describe the way my stomach felt to the audience.i then took another dose of pills and ended the fourth movement.

the fifth and final movement was by far the best way to end this piece. to the tune of gold panda's ironically titled "quitter's raga"
i stared directly into the audience and gave myself an injection of humira, a personal triumph as i had always been reluctant to let others watch. it was painful, it was violent and it was a moment i gather they would rather not have seen. they were able to understand the same angry and helpless thoughts that i get each time i reach for the latest injection. pure poetry. the lights then went off and i layed in bed, ending the fifth and final movement.

it was a sight to be seen and an incredible personal victory. it was nice to return to my performance roots, but it was even better to end the semester by airing out my personal frustrations to an audience.

love and loyalty.

a protest on campus

2009-12-09T14:46:00.000-08:00

via kron4

SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) -- Students protesting fee hikes continue to occupy the Business Building on the campus of San Francisco State University but so far most of the confrontations with the demonstrators have involved other students.

KRON 4's Jackie Sissel witnessed students trying to enter the building to attend classes getting into pushing and shoving matches with some of the students occupying the building.

Early Wednesday students entered the building and piled chairs up blocking the doors leading in and out of the building. Protesters then locked arms and sang songs while blocking access to the facility.

A protester named Wes told Jackie the purpose of the action is, "to protest the budget cuts and fee increases and to stand in solidarity with the other actions that have taken place at universities across California and the United States in the past year. I hope that this action sends a clear message to Sacramento and to the bureaucrats in the CSU Board of Trustees that students are rising up to the challenges of trying to defend education."

University officials say they have no plans to confront the protesters.

San Francisco State hasn't "heard from them directly about what their issues and concerns are," but will open a dialogue with the students at some point today to address their concerns," University spokeswoman Ellen Griffin said.

Officials say they're working to open up other buildings to accommodate scheduled classes and other activities. With exams set for next week, Griffin says this is a "somewhat light week."

Stay tuned to KRON 4 and KRON4.com for the latest on this developing story.

(Copyright 2009, KRON 4, All rights reserved.)

we all deal with finals a little differently. this protest has been in the works for a while now and i love that it's taking place during finals time.

love and loyalty

a decade in 7 minutes

2009-11-13T04:38:00.000-08:00

um.. wow

a bit of proof that everything is terrible

2009-11-05T12:10:00.000-08:00

via The Washington Independent:

Stay Home if You Have Swine Flu, Unless You Work at Wal-Mart

By Mary Kane 11/4/09 9:07 AM

During the summer, when swine flu was not yet a widespread reality in the United States, giant retailer Wal-Mart made the news for being in talks with the government about possibly distributing the swine flu vaccine through its extensive network of stores.

But now the swine flu has Wal-Mart under scrutiny for a very different reason: Accusations that the retailer is leaving employees infected with swine flu little choice but to come to work, due to its punitive sick leave policies.

Citing a report by the National Labor Committee, the Institute for Southern Studies’ argues on its blog Facing South that Wal-Mart is essentially contributing to the spread of swine flu by making it financially prohibitive for employees to miss work when they fall ill.

Employees of the Arkansas-based retail giant — even its food handlers — feel they have no choice but to work when they’re sick. That’s because the company gives workers demerits and deducts pay for staying home when they’re sick or caring for sick children.

It gets worse:

The situation is particularly difficult for Wal-Mart workers who are single parents. The NLC reports on an instance in which an employee got a call from her four-year-old’s preschool telling her to pick up the child, who had a fever of 103 degrees F. Despite the fact that the employee had already worked for four hours that day, she got a demerit point for leaving and lost her wages for the rest of the day.

The report says: “Parents have no choice but to load their children up with Motrin and Dimetap to mask their symptoms so they can go to school.”

Which, of course, leads to a vicious circle of other children at school becoming sick, and spreading it in their families. Not to mention the misery of a sick child facing a full day of school.

What’s particularly interesting is that Wal-Mart includes on its Website some information about swine flu, including frequently asked questions. Here’s the answer to “What should I do if I get sick?”

Stay away from others as much as possible to keep from making others sick. Staying at home means that you should not leave your home except to seek medical care. This means avoiding normal activities, including work, school, travel, shopping, social events and public gatherings.

Unless you work at Wal-Mart. Then, you’d better make it in for your shift if you don’t want your pay docked or possibly lose your job. From Facing South:

Wal-Mart has a demerit system that punishes workers who cannot come to work due to illness. Employees who miss a day due to sickness receive a one-point demerit and lose eight hours of wages.

Employees with more than three absences a six-month period face discipline, and a fifth absence — even for a sick day — will result in what the company calls “active coaching” by management.

A sixth absence leads to what Wal-Mart calls “Decision Day,” when a worker can be either terminated or put on a year-long trial period during which time he or she can be fired for any infraction and cannot be promoted.

The swine flu sometimes can cause people to miss an entire week or more of work. At Wal-Mart, that could get you fired.

Somehow, I don’t think that’s what the Center for Disease Control was hoping for this flu season, as it tries to contain a life-threatening virus. Wal-Mart’s labor policies have long been contentious, but this one could actually create a public safety issue. If these allegations are true, it may be time for public health officials to step in somehow, perhaps with fines for the retailer for keeping flu-stricken employees on the job. And let’s not just pick on Wal-Mart; it’s very possible that other low-wage retailers and business are doing the same thing. Maybe the best option in the absence of any government action is for customers to walk away. Is a bargain really worth it if employees are forced to work while sick with the flu — and potentially help to spread an unusually dangerous virus?

everything is terrible.

im going to lay down for a minute and think about snowflakes.

love and loyalty.

a sorry excuse for a blogger

2009-11-03T17:48:00.000-08:00

i have done quite a lot in the past month... and i haven't updated this thing. what can i use as an excuse?

-my thesis?
-my broken camera?
-chronic fatigue?

all lame. all very lame excuses.

where have i been?

well, everywhere around the edge of this peninsula, basically.

i hosted devin peacock for his birthday on his first voyage to california and i gave him the initial trip to san francisco.

i visited a lot of costume shops to find the perfect look for my ziggy stardust ensemble.

i also have been attending a lot of neighborhood organization meetings in pursuit of a larger demographic for my thesis

i went to the treasure island music festival where all of this happened between the bay bridge and the golden gate:

eric and i took a cab to treasure island (the shuttle line was five blocks long...no joke)

and arrived in time for passion pit, which we didn't need to see up close because they aren't very good live. disappointing.

dan deacon rocked out with his band! apparently it was the first time this tour he'd gotten the ensemble together.

THIS was a show: Deacon makes you wonder why more performers don't break down the barrier between the stage and the audience. He had us form a circle for an interpretive dance contest, twice,
and then crafted the audience into two great tunnels, weaving from the stage to the ferris wheel.

this wasn't the human tunnel, but this was also happening.. monsters line dancing. you know, no big deal.

free art sessions

inflatable lounge areas.

ferris wheel ride!!!

i also saw the Brazilian girls, the streets, dj krush, mgmt (all weren't that impressive)

but then the night really ended with fireworks and a medley of "SHOUT" by girltalk. it was really exciting stuff (especially since i was seated on a man-made pirate ship watching it all happen)

the next day i finally saw beirut. their performance was incredible. zach is such a charmer. i actually saw people in tears. ...um, myself included. he played all of my favorites and then some. it was a great weekend.

grizzly bear, beirut and dan deacon were at the top of my list of treasure island performances. grizzly bear were immaculate, beirut was emotionally engaging and dan deacon was just super fun. it was a pleasure to have been a part of their audiences.

clearly i am a fan.

o and i also found out that My study was accepted for the 2010 Western States Communication Association Convention! I'm going to Anchorage, Alaska.

nuts.

ill be sure to keep you all posted.

love and loyalty

a halloween preview

2009-10-07T10:29:00.000-07:00

how ironic that i practice my halloween costume (major thanks to angelo) on my father's birthday when he was the one who got me into ziggy in the first place.

love and loyalty

a checkup

2009-10-04T18:38:00.000-07:00

so after my recover i really got into working on grad school. in case you were curious about what i have been up to, here's the latest -

what i did last semester was a quantitative analysis of media consumption patterns, interpersonal communication, and civic engagement (activism). my subject sources were all on the low side of civic engagement, so i was all, "well what about the people that actually do things and, you know, make decisions about healthcare and rights and so on?"

so now i am working with state senators, city hall, and a government sponsored neighborhood empowerment organization and sending my questionnaire to a load of people that ARE politically active, find out where they find unbiased, credible and reliable sources of information (both local and national) and compare the results with civic engagement and interpersonal communication.

the end result will (hopefully) be a guide for marginalized communities to give them the power and tools to become more active for their rights and needs for community improvement and empowerment in case of disaster (THE BIG EARTHQUAKE, DROUGHT, FAMINE, etc.).

something to use as a guide for why this is a necessity is the current condition of impoverished neighborhoods in what used to be new orleans. katrina ruined them and they're STILL piles of nothing. the neighborhoods that had a voice and an active community were able to help each other through the struggle and have been able to rebuild their homes to stasis. i dont want that to happen to residents of other cities that are in risk of natural disasters or epidemics. i want people to have their voices, get the rights and protection they deserve, and to understand how to be effective leaders and members of a community.

making sure they know what's going on in the world is a preliminary necessity in becoming active so, in comes my study.

thankfully, i can still claim to have downtime and living in san francisco helps because it always has something to take my mind away from academia.

love and loyalty

a proud moment

2009-10-04T08:56:00.000-07:00

i made the right choice. yeesh.

Will California become America's first failed state? - paul harris, the observer

Los Angeles, 2009: California may be the eighth largest economy in the world, but its state staff are being paid in IOUs, unemployment is at its highest in 70 years, and teachers are on hunger strike. So what has gone so catastrophically wrong?

Will California become America's first failed state?

Los Angeles, 2009: California may be the eighth largest economy in the world, but its state staff are being paid in IOUs, unemployment is at its highest in 70 years, and teachers are on hunger strike. So what has gone so catastrophically wrong?

California has a special place in the American psyche. It is the Golden State: a playground of the rich and famous with perfect weather. It symbolises a lifestyle of sunshine, swimming pools and the Hollywood dream factory.

But the state that was once held up as the epitome of the boundless opportunities of America has collapsed. From its politics to its economy to its environment and way of life, California is like a patient on life support. At the start of summer the state government was so deeply in debt that it began to issue IOUs instead of wages. Its unemployment rate has soared to more than 12%, the highest figure in 70 years. Desperate to pay off a crippling budget deficit, California is slashing spending in education and healthcare, laying off vast numbers of workers and forcing others to take unpaid leave. In a state made up of sprawling suburbs the collapse of the housing bubble has impoverished millions and kicked tens of thousands of families out of their homes. Its political system is locked in paralysis and the two-term rule of former movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger is seen as a disaster – his approval ratings having sunk to levels that would make George W Bush blush. The crisis is so deep that Professor Kenneth Starr, who has written an acclaimed history of the state, recently declared: "California is on the verge of becoming the first failed state in America."

Outside the Forum in Inglewood, near downtown Los Angeles, California has already failed. The scene is reminiscent of the fallout from Hurricane Katrina, as crowds of impoverished citizens stand or lie aimlessly on the hot tarmac of the centre's car park. It is 10am, and most have already been here for hours. They have come for free healthcare: a travelling medical and dental clinic has set up shop in the Forum (which usually hosts rock concerts) and thousands of the poor, the uninsured and the down-on-their-luck have driven for miles to be here.

The queue began forming at 1am. By 4am, the 1,500 spaces were already full and people were being turned away. On the floor of the Forum, root-canal surgeries are taking place. People are ferried in on cushions, hauled out of decrepit cars. Sitting propped up against a lamp post, waiting for her number to be called, is Debbie Tuua, 33. It is her birthday, but she has taken a day off work to bring her elderly parents to the Forum, and they have driven through the night to get here. They wait in a car as the heat of the day begins to rise. "It is awful for them, but what choice do we have?" Tuua says. "I have no other way to get care to them."

Yet California is currently cutting healthcare, slashing the "Healthy Families" programme that helped an estimated one million of its poorest children. Los Angeles now has a poverty rate of 20%. Other cities across the state, such as Fresno and Modesto, have jobless rates that rival Detroit's. In order to pass its state budget, California's government has had to agree to a deal that cuts billions of dollars from education and sacks 60,000 state employees. Some teachers have launched a hunger strike in protest. California's education system has become so poor so quickly that it is now effectively failing its future workforce. The percentage of 19-year-olds at college in the state dropped from 43% to 30% between 1996 and 2004, one of the highest falls ever recorded for any developed world economy. California's schools are ranked 47th out of 50 in the nation. Its government-issued bonds have been ranked just above "junk".

Some of the state's leading intellectuals believe this collapse is a disaster that will harm Californians for years to come. "It will take a while for this self-destructive behaviour to do its worst damage," says Robert Hass, a professor at Berkeley and a former US poet laureate, whose work has often been suffused with the imagery of the Californian way of life.

Now, incredibly, California, which has been a natural target for immigration throughout its history, is losing people. Between 2004 and 2008, half a million residents upped sticks and headed elsewhere. By 2010, California could lose a congressman because its population will have fallen so much – an astonishing prospect for a state that is currently the biggest single political entity in America. Neighbouring Nevada has launched a mocking campaign to entice businesses away, portraying Californian politicians as monkeys, and with a tag-line jingle that runs: "Kiss your assets goodbye!" You know you have a problem when Nevada – famed for nothing more than Las Vegas, casinos and desert – is laughing at you.

This matters, too. Much has been made globally of the problems of Ireland and Iceland. Yet California dwarfs both. It is the eighth largest economy in the world, with a population of 37 million. If it was an independent country it would be in the G8. And if it were a company, it would likely be declared bankrupt. That prospect might surprise many, but it does not come as news to Tuua, as she glances nervously into the warming sky, hoping her parents will not have to wait in the car through the heat of the day just to see a doctor. "It is so depressing. They both worked hard all their lives in this state and this is where they have ended up. It should not have to be this way," she says.

It is impossible not to be impressed by the physical presence of Arnold Schwarzenegger when he walks into a room. He may appear slightly smaller than you imagine, but he's just as powerful. This is, after all, the man who, before he was California's governor, was the Terminator and Conan the Barbarian.

But even Schwarzenegger is humbled by the scale of the crisis. At a press conference in Sacramento to announce the final passing of a state budget, which would include billions of dollars of cuts, the governor speaks in uncharacteristically pensive terms. "It is clear that we do not know yet what the future holds. We are still in troubled waters," he says quietly. He looks subdued, despite his sharp grey suit and bright pink tie.

Later, during a grilling by reporters, Schwarzenegger is asked an unusual question. As a gaggle of journalists begins to shout, one man's voice quickly silences the others. "Do you ever feel like you're watching the end of the California dream?" asks the reporter. It is clearly a personal matter for Schwarzenegger. After all, his life story has embodied it. He arrived virtually penniless from Austria, barely speaking English. He ended up a movie star, rich beyond his dreams, and finally governor, hanging Conan's prop sword in his office. Schwarzenegger answers thoughtfully and at length. He hails his own experience and ends with a passionate rallying call in his still thickly accented voice.

"There is people that sometimes suggest that the American dream, or the Californian dream, is evaporating. I think it's absolutely wrong. I think the Californian dream is as strong as ever," he says, mangling the grammar but not the sentiment.

Looking back, it is easy to see where Schwarzenegger's optimism sprung from. California has always been a special place, with its own idea of what could be achieved in life. There is no such thing as a British dream. Even within America, there is no Kansas dream or New Jersey dream. But for California the concept is natural. It has always been a place apart. It is of the American West, the destination point in a nation whose history has been marked by restless pioneers. It is the home of Hollywood, the nation's very own fantasy land. Getting on a bus or a train or a plane and heading out for California has been a regular trope in hundreds of books, movies, plays, and in the popular imagination. It has been writ large in the national psyche as free from the racial divisions of the American South and the traditions and reserve of New England. It was America's own America.

Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma and now an adopted Californian, remembers arriving here from his native New England. "In New England you would have to know people for 10 years before they let you in their home," he says. "Here, when I took my son to his first play date, the mother invited me to a hot tub."

Michael Levine is a Hollywood mover and shaker, shaping PR for a stable of A-list clients that once included Michael Jackson. Levine arrived in California 32 years ago. "The concept of the Californian dream was a certain quality of life," he says. "It was experimentalism and creativity. California was a utopia."

Levine arrived at the end of the state's golden age, at a time when the dream seemed to have been transformed into reality. The 1950s and 60s had been boom-time in the American economy; jobs had been plentiful and development rapid. Unburdened by environmental concerns, Californian developers built vast suburbs beneath perpetually blue skies. Entire cities sprang from the desert, and orchards were paved over into playgrounds and shopping malls.

"They came here, they educated their kids, they had a pool and a house. That was the opportunity for a pretty broad section of society," says Joel Kotkin, an urbanist at Chapman University, in Orange County. This was what attracted immigrants in their millions, flocking to industries – especially defence and aviation – that seemed to promise jobs for life. But the newcomers were mistaken. Levine, among millions of others, does not think California is a utopia now. "California is going to take decades to fix," he says.

So where did it all wrong?

Few places embody the collapse of California as graphically as the city of Riverside. Dubbed "The Inland Empire", it is an area in the southern part of the state where the desert has been conquered by mile upon mile of housing developments, strip malls and four-lane freeways. The tidal wave of foreclosures and repossessions that burst the state's vastly inflated property bubble first washed ashore here. "We've been hit hard by foreclosures. You can see it everywhere," says political scientist Shaun Bowler, who has lived in California for 20 years after moving here from his native England. The impact of the crisis ranges from boarded-up homes to abandoned swimming pools that have become a breeding ground for mosquitoes. Bowler's sister, visiting from England, was recently taken to hospital suffering from an infected insect bite from such a pool. "You could say she was a victim of the foreclosure crisis, too," he jokes.

But it is no laughing matter. One in four American mortgages that are "under water", meaning they are worth more than the home itself, are in California. In the Central Valley town of Merced, house prices have crashed by 70%. Two Democrat politicians have asked for their districts to be declared disaster zones, because of the poor economic conditions caused by foreclosures. In one city near Riverside, a squatter's camp of newly homeless labourers sleeping in their vehicles has grown up in a supermarket car park – the local government has provided toilets and a mobile shower. In the Los Angeles suburb of Pacoima, one in nine homeowners are now in default on their mortgage, and the local priest, the Rev John Lasseigne, has garnered national headlines – swapping saving souls to saving houses, by negotiating directly with banks on behalf of his parishioners.

For some campaigners and advocates against suburban sprawl and car culture, it has been a bitter triumph. "Let the gloating begin!" says James Kunstler, author of The Long Emergency, a warning about the high cost of the suburban lifestyle. Others see the end of the housing boom as a man-made disaster akin to a mass hysteria, but with no redemption in sight. "If California was an experiment then it was an experiment of mass irresponsibility – and that has failed," says Michael Levine.

Nowhere is the economic cost of California's crisis writ larger than in the Central Valley town of Mendota, smack in the heart of a dusty landscape of flat, endless fields of fruit and vegetables. The town, which boldly terms itself "the cantaloup capital of the world", now has an unemployment rate of 38%. That is expected to rise above 50% as the harvest ends and labourers are laid off. City officials hold food giveaways every two weeks. More than 40% of the town's people live below the poverty level. Shops have shut, restaurants have closed, drugs and alcohol abuse have become a problem.

Standing behind the counter of his DVD and grocery store, former Mendota mayor Joseph Riofrio tells me it breaks his heart to watch the town sink into the mire. His father had built the store in the 1950s and constructed a solid middle-class life around it, to raise his family. Now Riofrio has stopped selling booze in a one-man bid to curb the social problems breaking out all around him.

"It is so bad, but it has now got to the point where we are getting used to it being like this," he says. Riofrio knows his father's achievements could not be replicated today. The state that once promised opportunities for working men and their families now promises only desperation. "He could not do what he did again. That chance does not exist now," Riofrio says.

Outside, in a shop that Riofrio's grandfather built, groups of unemployed men play pool for 25 cents a game. Near every one of the town's liquor stores others lie slumped on the pavements, drinking their sorrows away. Mendota is fighting for survival against heavy odds. The town of 7,000 souls has seen 2,000 people leave in the past two years. But amid the crisis there are a few sparks of hope for the future. California has long been an incubator of fresh ideas, many of which spread across the country. If America emerges from its crisis a greener, more economically and politically responsible nation, it is likely that renewal will have begun here. The clues to California's salvation – and perhaps even the country as a whole – are starting to emerge.

Take Anthony "Van" Jones, a man now in the vanguard of the movement to build a future green economy, creating millions of jobs, solving environmental problems and reducing climate change at a stroke. It is a beguiling vision and one that Jones conceived in the northern Californian city of Oakland. He began political life as an anti-poverty campaigner, but gradually combined that with environmentalism, believing that greening the economy could also revitalise it and lift up the poor. He founded Green for All as an advocacy group and published a best-selling book, The Green Collar Economy. Then Obama came to power and Jones got the call from the White House. In just a few years, his ideas had spread from the streets of Oakland to White House policy papers. Jones was later ousted from his role, but his ideas remain. Green jobs are at the forefront of Obama's ideas on both the economy and the environment.

Jones believes California will once more change itself, and then change the nation. "California remains a beacon of hope… This is a new time for a new direction to grow a new society and a new economy," Jones has said.

It is already happening. California may have sprawling development and awful smog, but it leads the way in environmental issues. Arnold Schwarzenegger was seen as a leading light, taking the state far ahead of the federal government on eco-issues. The number of solar panels in the state has risen from 500 a decade ago to more than 50,000 now. California generates twice as much energy from solar power as all the other US states combined. Its own government is starting to turn on the reckless sprawl that has marked the state's development.

California's attorney-general, Jerry Brown, recently sued one county government for not paying enough attention to global warming when it came to urban planning. Even those, like Kotkin, who are sceptical about the end of suburbia, think California will develop a new model for modern living: comfortable, yes, but more modest and eco-friendly. Kotkin, who is writing an eagerly anticipated book about what America will look like in 2050, thinks much of it will still resemble the bedrock of the Californian dream: sturdy, wholesome suburbs for all – just done more responsibly. "We will still live in suburbs. You work with the society you have got. The question is how we make them more sustainable," he says.

Even the way America eats is being changed in California. Every freeway may be lined with fast-food outlets, but California is also the state of Alice Waters, the guru of the slow-food movement, who inspired Michelle Obama to plant a vegetable garden in the White House. She thinks the state is changing its values. "The crisis is bringing us back to our senses. We had adopted a fast and easy way of living, but we are moving away from that now," she says.

There is hope in politics, too. There is a growing movement to call for a constitutional convention that could redraw the way the state is governed. It could change how the state passes budgets and make the political system more open, recreating the lost middle ground. Recently, the powerful mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa, signed on to the idea. Gerrymandering, too, is set to take a hit. Next year Schwarzenegger will take steps to redraw some districts to make them more competitive, breaking the stranglehold of party politics. He wants district boundaries to be drawn up by impartial judges, not politicians. In previous times that would have been the equivalent of a turkey voting for Christmas. But now the bold move is seen for what it is: a necessary step to change things. And there is no denying that innovation is something that California does well.

Even in the most deprived corners of the state there is a sense that things can still turn around. California has always been able to reinvent itself, and some of its most hardcore critics still like the idea of it having a "dream".

"I believe in California. It pains me at the moment to see it where it is, but I still believe in it," said Michael Levine.

Perhaps more surprisingly, a fellow believer is to be found in Mendota in the shape of Joseph Riofrio. His shop operates as a sort of informal meeting place for the town. People drop in to chat, to get advice, or to buy a cold soft drink to relieve the unrelenting heat outside. The people are poor, many of them out of work, often hiring a bunch of DVDs as a cheap way of passing the time. But Riofrio sees them as a community, one that he grew up in. He is proud of his town and determined to stick it out. "This is a good place to live," he says. "I want to be here when it turns around." He is talking of the stricken town outside. But he could be describing the whole state.

a sure to be regretful post

2009-09-17T12:21:00.000-07:00

love and loyalty... and percocet

a solid point

2009-09-03T08:51:00.000-07:00

read.

Why We Young Folks Are So Supportive of Health Care Reform
by: Robert Cruickshank
Thu Sep 03, 2009 at 08:00:00 AM PDT

Crossposted at Daily Kos

There's an interesting generational phenomenon at work here. The age group that currently enjoys the benefits of a single-payer system, those over 65, are among the least likely to support health care reform. The age group most likely to support reform is the other end of the spectrum - people age 18-29, as the LA Times reported yesterday:

Adults 18 to 29 are the group most supportive of President Obama's plan to overhaul healthcare, according to a recent poll by SurveyUSA. They are also the age group that most supports creating a government-run health insurance option.

Young people account for 30% of the uninsured population, according to a report by the Commonwealth Fund, a health policy research foundation. They are least likely to be offered health insurance through employment benefits -- just 53% of working young adults are eligible for employer-based coverage. And since their incomes tend to be low, buying coverage on their own is usually too expensive.

As the article explains, much of the support for health care reform among younger people is as function of our drearier economic prospects. We tend to have high debt loads or low wages - or both. We don't have assets to fall back on, we couldn't buy a house during the affordable years and have that asset be subsidized by Prop 13.

And yet there are deeper factors at work here. The health care crisis affects every generation, especially those who thought they were living a comfortable middle-class lifestyle until medical debt their insurance didn't cover wiped them out. Many of those older homeowners are barely surviving the recession with their finances intact. We younger folks may be feeling the recession's bite harder than most others, but there is plenty of misery to go around.

So why is it that younger people are more supportive of reform? Part of it is that we are more progressive than virtually every other age group, by virtually every measure out there. Because we weren't raised in an era of McCarthyism, because those of us under 30 have only vague memories of Reagan, and because we have recoiled so strongly from the Republican who has dominated our conscious lives the most - George W. Bush - we are not trained to see government as the enemy. We are more willing to see government as the solution because we aren't carrying around the burdens of the 1950s or the 1980s, because we do not take the New Deal state for granted.

But there's another factor at work here as well. We can call it the boiling frog effect. Older generations of Americans were socialized into a society where the economy generally worked, at least for most people middle-class and above. If you had a job, you could expect to have health care. You could expect to own a home, and enjoy a basic level of economic security.

That is not true today, not for any American outside the wealthiest percentiles, no matter what your age. But for folks who were socialized to think of America as the awesomest economy in the world, where you could expect to have security and health care if you held down a job, the present crisis snuck up on people the way heat snuck up on the frog in what had been a cold pot of water. They didn't expect it, and they still haven't adjusted their expectations to the new reality. They still see the present crisis as a temporary but difficult spot.

Us younger folks, though, have been thrown right into the boiling pot. We're entering an economy that doesn't offer anything of use to anyone who isn't rich, and we can see that right off the bat. Unlike older generations who may have seen the system as offering realistic opportunities for security and advancement when they first entered, we are under no such illusions. We know things are fucked and that we are not likely to see any meaningful improvement in our fortunes anytime soon.

Moreover, we're thrown into this crisis at a crucial moment in our lives - when we want to build lives, families, communities. The number of people I know who have delayed having children because of dire economic straits is staggering. And when you take away someone's future like that, you create a cohort of people who quite clearly and instinctively understand the need for fundamental, root and branch reform.

We're the natural foot soldiers of reform. But we're not being spoken to by the reformers. More on that below.
Robert Cruickshank :: Why We Young Folks Are So Supportive of Health Care Reform
The LA Times article also examined how the current reform proposal might affect the young:

Michael Tanner, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, says a requirement to buy insurance would hurt young people most, forcing them to subsidize the healthcare needs of older people without making health insurance more affordable for them.

"Young people are probably one of the groups that's going to come out the worst on this," Tanner said. "They're going to pay more in the short term because they're going to have to go out and buy health insurance. And they're going to pay more in the long term."

Genevieve Kenney, a health economist at the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan Washington think tank, disagrees.

"I think many more uninsured young adults stand to gain from healthcare reform than stand to lose," Kenney said, citing plans in Congress to provide insurance subsidies for low-income people, many of whom are young.

As much as it pains me to say this, the guy from Cato is right. Mandated insurance without a public option offers nothing of value whatsoever to younger people. That's because it's not designed to help us. It's designed to extract even more money from our already meager bank accounts and deliver us virtually nothing in return. It is a classic case of screwing over the young in order to preserve a zombie economy that is dead, but is still being clung to by those who refuse to admit it, who cannot envision a new economic policy, and who are deathly afraid of change.

Because the Obama Administration seems to have repeated the flaw of most Democratic political leaders that preceded it and chosen to ignore younger voters, even though we were by far the group of voters that backed him the most strongly in 2008, we are feeling left out of a debate that is primarily focused on appeasing seniors and right-leaning boomers. The more transformative approach, to build a coalition of change that unites seniors, the young, and those in the middle under stress in support of an expanded Medicare for all, has been ignored.

Obama will suffer the consequences for that. Us younger folks will stagger on, even more determined to build political movements and to assert political power. Eventually we will be the ones to lead the implementation of a universal single-payer system in America.

I only hope it comes sooner and rather than later. I don't intend to become a part of a new Lost Generation.

watch.

think.

Single-payer health care insurance is a public service financing the delivery of near-universal or universal health care to a given population as defined by age, citizenship, residency, or any other demographic.

Single-payer health insurance operates by arranging the payment of services to doctors, hospitals, and other health care providers from a single source established and managed by government. This source replaces private insurance companies with a single, public entity which would provide health care financing, which in wealthy nations is typically extended to all citizens or legal residents. A single-payer national insurance plan, H.R. 676, the "National Health Care Act," is expected to be voted on and debated by the U.S. House of Representatives as a replacement to H.R. 3200, the "Affordable Health Choices Act," in September.

The fund can be managed by the government directly or as a publicly owned and regulated agency. Australia's Medicare, Canada's Medicare, and healthcare in Taiwan are examples of single-payer universal health care systems.

The term 'single payer' refers to funding and does not imply a socialized medicine system. A socialized medical system is one "in which all health personnel and health facilities, including doctors and hospitals, work for the government and draw salaries from the government," an example being the U.S. Veterans Administration, while U.S. Medicare is a single payer system which is not socialized medicine.

In Canadian Medicare, which is a single-payer insurance available to all citizens, doctors may work in private practices or for public or private hospitals, each of which is in turn paid by government health insurance. Under the United Kingdom's National Health Service, which also uses a universal single-payer fund, the public owns the health systems and facilities. The term single-payer thus only describes the funding mechanism—referring to health care being paid for by a single public body—and does not specify the type of delivery, or who doctors work for.

As regards health care reform in the United States, it is the only high-income industrialized country in the world that does not have some version of national universal public health insurance; although every state has a public health care system of some kind, they do not provide guaranteed universal coverage. The majority of physicians in the United States are in favor of national health insurance system. A recent study published in 2008 in Annals of Internal Medicine, a leading medical journal, showed 59% of physicians “support government legislation to establish national health insurance,” while 32% oppose it and 9% are neutral. This represented an increase of 10 percentage points as compared with a similar survey in 2002 in which support for such legislation stood at 49% of physicians. Among the general U.S. public, recent polling ratings for single-payer are apparently dependent on wording, ranging from 49% to 65% in favor.

no one should die because they cannot afford health care, and no one should go broke because they get sick.

love and loyalty

a bit of sad news

2009-08-30T17:49:00.000-07:00

my camera broke.

i wont be able to put up any photos for a minute or two.

i'm going to start saving for a real deal camera... you know, one that takes film?

where did summer go?

im going for a run.

a not so warm welcoming

2009-08-29T17:19:00.000-07:00

"Your education will be reduced by 10% this year because of the furlough proposed. You a have 10% less opportunity to use the resources. There are too many students and not enough classes. Students have be asked to leave because they are just showing up in hopes that the teacher will miraculously admit them into the course. If you are really desperate, write down your reason why you need this class.”

-Ashok Das, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Urban Studies and Planning

school started this week.

my first class was with professor das for public policy and urban planning. the above quote was his introduction to the new semester. before he even handed out the syllabus, we were given a briefing on how the cutbacks on education have effected this institution in case we didn't already know.

i could feel the tension in the air before i even walked into the classroom. in the quad people shouted, "california has failed you!" "it's time for socialism!" "government has failed you!" "we must act up!" "lyndon larouche will fix this country!". they all had their own booths, pamphlets and talking points in an effort to recruit the disenchanted.

they came to the right place. the buildings were even more populated, yet the students had nowhere to go. when i sat myself down for my first lecture, i noticed that more and more students were piling into the classroom, so much so that some opted to sit on the floor while other took notes from outside.

it was packed. students are literally showing up to classes in hopes that enough people will drop so that they could get on the wait list to be considered for enrollment.

i also had the pleasure of stepping in garbage on the way to my evening seminar. i had picked it up and tried to throw it away, only to realize that the garbage bin was filled to the brim. it was only the first day and already the place looked like a mess. the bathrooms are disgusting and the hallways and stairwells are littered with filth. the janitorial and waste committees on campus were also cut.

all of these cuts, and yet my favorite dollar coffee from last year was bumped up to $1.25.

why are the students footing the bill for something they clearly cannot even afford in the first place, hence the large second strain of loan applications once the tuition was increased only weeks before school started. the csu board of trustees voted on may 13 to raise student fees 10 percent in an effort to reduce the growing budget gap. the students are footing the bill for a reduced education. the professors are taking a 10% pay cut and are being told to take days off and not work (which for an educator doesn't make sense). the campus will be shut down more days than ever before.

and what is the biggest concern for university executives? it just so happens that university of california and california state university administrators have killed a bill that would have limited executive pay raises during bad budget years.

Despite the fact that the Senate Appropriations Committee found no costs to the bill and the Assembly Appropriations Committee’s analysis estimated a significant cost-savings, the Assembly Appropriations Committee today held the bill on their suspense file without allowing a vote. Normally, the suspense file is used to kill bills that have a significant cost to the state.

SB 217, authored by Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco), overwhelmingly passed the Senate in May on a 35-3 bipartisan vote.

“These administrations lack a moral compass,” said Yee. “It is unconscionable that CSU and UC lobbyists would argue that a freeze on executive pay costs the universities a dime. It is disheartening that university executives are more concerned with lining their own pockets, than protecting the needs of students, faculty, and taxpayers.”

UC and CSU administrators argued that the bill would cost millions of dollars. However, they used the complete opposite argument to push furloughs for lower wage workers as a cost-savings measure.

“We are deeply disappointed that during a period when students are being denied access, classes are being cut, and employees are being furloughed, the top priority of university administrators is protecting their own salary hikes,” said Lillian Taiz, President of the California Faculty Association, which represents CSU faculty.

disappointing start to my second year of graduate school.

a brain jolt pt. deux

2009-08-18T18:06:00.000-07:00

after an evening of watching a lot of shooting stars with good company and good wine

i continued my massive brain-food intake.

nothing could stop me from feeding my brain as much delightful information as possible. not even a terribly severe all-over sunburn. (i fell asleep at the beach for a few hours... it was my fault for voluntarily reading on microeconomics alone at a beach)

i'm fine now, i just look like a leopard in some places. it's not pretty.

it was also my one year anniversary of being a san franciscan, so i decided to treat myself with a trip to the sf moma.

the line to enter was particularly long (tourists), so in times of complete restlessness in lines i like to play a little game. i put my headphones in my ears but i don't play any music. that way, i can hear what the other people are talking about and, in this case, i was actually able to write some of the standout phrases on my notepad!

call it investigative journalism, call it eavesdropping, call it rude. i call it entertainment.

some choice phrases:

"not many people shoot 4x5 anymore. i wonder if kodak makes a 4x5 film. i'm gonna write a letter."

"san francisco is a city of hypocrisy!"

"do we create to prove we existed or do we exist only through our creation?"

"it's hilarious when tourists take pictures of pieces in museums. can't they just buy a print? like, (scoffs), i mean, come on! you're doing a disservice to the artist's work." sidenote: someone then shut this asshole up by telling him that it's perfectly logical to take a picture if a.) they were doing it for someone back home who couldn't be there or b.) they can't afford to purchase reprints of famous works of art in museums because they're too expensive. "not all of us are millionaires"

clearly, i was alone.

well, sort of.

i walked around through every exhibit, including the georgia o'keeffe/ ansel adams comparison and richard avedon's career retrospective, while listening to amália rodrigues records from the early 1950s to the late 1960s. i've been a fan of fado (a portuguese genre of music that tells tales of the ocean and misfortune) for a few years and her dramatic delivery accompanied by portuguese guitar make for a very stimulating experience for the senses.

for example

chilling, right?!?

told ya.

anyway, i saw some of the regulars over at the sf moma

- duchamp

- magritte

- dali

but some artists lesser known to me really got my brain working

the photographic distortions of andré kertész

andrew kudless' "p wall"

the self portraits of nicola tyson

this clyfford still piece gave me chills for a few minutes

and of course, in the sculpture garden, i was struck by the beauty of louise bourgeois' "the nest". im always drawn to her work for some reason. weird. i don't even like spiders in real life.

o yeah i also saw found this guy hiding at a nearby building

i guess that's where he's been hiding... odd.

spending so much time in the garden, i felt the sculptures actually forced me to take a seat and have a total stream of consciousness on paper.

it read like this,

"in the sculpture garden,
faces and shapes move
as the peaceful beasts lay dormant

are we invading their territory?
if so, how can they fight back?

mentally, i suppose.
they can't speak our language
or convey anything non verbally,

but they leave an
impression.

whether or not we realize it
our lives have been
questioned, our existence slightly altered

our structures reformed."

at night,

i treated myself to yet another free movie on a big, inflatable screen in delores park. two weeks ago i saw "pretty in pink" for my first time before the director passed away.

this time around, i was in my element.

ANNIE HALL.

wine. friendship. blankets. laughter. woody allen. diane keaton.

quite possibly the most pleasant evening i have had in years.

i went home and watched two more woody allen films and i haven't been able to stop since.

i'm an addict. i'm ok with it.

my brain is a week away from another round of grad school. i will survive.

i'm off to pick up a dear friend, cara bramson, from the airport. i've known her for 12 years now and it has been a very, very good friendship.

we're gonna have stories for you. guaranteed.

love and loyalty (and a lot of aloe vera)

a brain jolt pt. 1

2009-08-17T18:44:00.000-07:00

in preparation for my return to the graduate program, i have decided to spend a majority of my time waking my brain up in hopes of continuing my education effectively. first thing's first - humor. my mother's birthday gift was an introduction to the sedaris family tree, starting with amy, the pretty one.

i gave my mother amy's cookbook/hosting guide titled, "i like you, hospitality under the influence"

she's been around the entertainment world for several years with her television program "stranger's with candy" and her many film roles, however her many appearances on late night television (via the internet) have really kept me smiling.

ive watched these on cold, lonely nights -

her latest

there are countless other interviews, but here's a nice selection of clips that encompasses her elegance

a healthy dose of good television

2009-08-08T15:00:00.000-07:00

i make a conscious effort to find every episode of 'real time with bill maher' on the internet and have successfully been able to watch each installment since i distanced myself from t.v. a few years ago. no offense to television, i appreciate all it has given me in the past, but i simply cannot get any real information from it any longer.

tv shows have become scripted shows repackaged as "reality" sitcoms featuring lower paid and lower talented actors.

information channels have become overwrought with shows titled 'most extreme ___,' 'hottest spring break ____,' 'most ____ celebrity ____," and 'deadliest spring break ____'.

documentary stations have become places for exploitation of people that don't meet every american social standard of normalcy.

and of course, news reporting has become soap boxes for polarized commentary.

which leads me to why i appreciate bill maher so much. he leads very free form discussions without goating his guests and doesn't speak as if he knows everything.

i watch him because he criticizes those who believe that they do know everything or who take sides on issues without asking questions.

he asks those questions! without a doubt, it is best place on television to find edgy, unapologetic and laugh-til-it-hurts political and social commentary, rooted in deep conviction. he's told obama to grow a pair as well as tell sarah palin to stick to what she knows... nothing.

lately, he's come under fire for his latest commentary on america's state of stupidity.

enjoy!

and then try and tell me that i shouldn't have been following him for years.

New Rule: Just because a country elects a smart president doesn't make it a smart country. A few weeks ago I was asked by Wolf Blitzer if I thought Sarah Palin could get elected president, and I said I hope not, but I wouldn't put anything past this stupid country. It was amazing - in the minute or so between my calling America stupid and the end of the Cialis commercial, CNN was flooded with furious emails and the twits hit the fan. And you could tell that these people were really mad because they wrote entirely in CAPITAL LETTERS!!! It's how they get the blood circulating when the Cialis wears off. Worst of all, Bill O'Reilly refuted my contention that this is a stupid country by calling me a pinhead, which A) proves my point, and B) is really funny coming from a doody-face like him.

Now, the hate mail all seemed to have a running theme: that I may live in a stupid country, but they lived in the greatest country on earth, and that perhaps I should move to another country, like Somalia. Well, the joke's on them because I happen to have a summer home in Somalia... and no I can't show you an original copy of my birth certificate because Woody Harrelson spilled bong water on it.

And before I go about demonstrating how, sadly, easy it is to prove the dumbness dragging down our country, let me just say that ignorance has life and death consequences. On the eve of the Iraq War, 69% of Americans thought Saddam Hussein was personally involved in 9/11. Four years later, 34% still did. Or take the health care debate we're presently having: members of Congress have recessed now so they can go home and "listen to their constituents." An urge they should resist because their constituents don't know anything. At a recent town-hall meeting in South Carolina, a man stood up and told his Congressman to "keep your government hands off my Medicare," which is kind of like driving cross country to protest highways.

I'm the bad guy for saying it's a stupid country, yet polls show that a majority of Americans cannot name a single branch of government, or explain what the Bill of Rights is. 24% could not name the country America fought in the Revolutionary War. More than two-thirds of Americans don't know what's in Roe v. Wade. Two-thirds don't know what the Food and Drug Administration does. Some of this stuff you should be able to pick up simply by being alive. You know, like the way the Slumdog kid knew about cricket.

Not here. Nearly half of Americans don't know that states have two senators and more than half can't name their congressman. And among Republican governors, only 30% got their wife's name right on the first try.

Sarah Palin says she would never apologize for America. Even though a Gallup poll says 18% of Americans think the sun revolves around the earth. No, they're not stupid. They're interplanetary mavericks. A third of Republicans believe Obama is not a citizen, and a third of Democrats believe that George Bush had prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks, which is an absurd sentence because it contains the words "Bush" and "knowledge."

People bitch and moan about taxes and spending, but they have no idea what their government spends money on. The average voter thinks foreign aid consumes 24% of our federal budget. It's actually less than 1%. And don't even ask about cabinet members: seven in ten think Napolitano is a kind of three-flavored ice cream. And last election, a full one-third of voters forgot why they were in the booth, handed out their pants, and asked, "Do you have these in a relaxed-fit?"

And I haven't even brought up America's religious beliefs. But here's one fun fact you can take away: did you know only about half of Americans are aware that Judaism is an older religion than Christianity? That's right, half of America looks at books called the Old Testament and the New Testament and cannot figure out which one came first.

And these are the idiots we want to weigh in on the minutia of health care policy? Please, this country is like a college chick after two Long Island Iced Teas: we can be talked into anything, like wars, and we can be talked out of anything, like health care. We should forget town halls, and replace them with study halls. There's a lot of populist anger directed towards Washington, but you know who concerned citizens should be most angry at? Their fellow citizens. "Inside the beltway" thinking may be wrong, but at least it's thinking, which is more than you can say for what's going on outside the beltway.

And if you want to call me an elitist for this, I say thank you. Yes, I want decisions made by an elite group of people who know what they're talking about. That means Obama budget director Peter Orszag, not Sarah Palin.

Which is the way our founding fathers wanted it. James Madison wrote that "pure democracy" doesn't work because "there is nothing to check... an obnoxious individual." Then, in the margins, he doodled a picture of Joe the Plumber.

Until we admit there are things we don't know, we can't even start asking the questions to find out. Until we admit that America can make a mistake, we can't stop the next one. A smart guy named Chesterton once said: "My country, right or wrong is a thing no patriot would ever think of saying... It is like saying 'My mother, drunk or sober.'" To which most Americans would respond: "Are you calling my mother a drunk?"

love and loyalty

a catch up

2009-08-06T21:04:00.000-07:00

whoa where have i been? i think this very well may have been my longest absence. it appears that i have become quite obsessed with enjoying the last few days of freedom as the second year of grad school creeps up on me. so i took it upon myself to take care of a few things.

for example...

1. see the grand ol garden state and visit some friends and family. o wait and then this happened.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Hey, C'Mon That's Not... Why Would You... Whoa!

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Spinal Tap Performance

2. take in a bit of alternative culture with my friend angelo. o wait it turned out to be a freakshow with a retired wwf wrestler and other cultural gems.

gems like... unattractive burlesque!

then the host swallowed four razors... and then he swallowed a string and then took the string out with the razors laced up.

then he stuck a spoon in his nose. cultured indeed!

the gracious host then introduced his adoring wife of 17 years...by putting a scorpion in her mouth

bon appetit!

true love was expressed when he dropped a cannon ball on his wife's chest.

i hope that someday i can find someone that i can drop a cannon ball on top of.

next on deck - audience interaction! we were invited up on stage to throw darts at the human dartboard. i opted not to...

little miss doesn't shower wore her sassiest of boots specifically for her big theatrical debut.. walking over the host as he lay face first in broken bottles.

then this drag queen... im sorry... professional wrestler offended the crowd for a bit and said that we were too bizarre and "san franciscan"

he proved his normalcy by biting a metal rod and bending it in half. normal.

finally, non wwf hall of famer jake-the-snake came out (drunk), talked about the time andre the giant farted on him and then staged a drunken brawl with the drag qu... i mean pro wrestler.

as far as i was concerned, i thought his speech was a scene out of "the wrestler" with mickey rourke.

you know, entertaining to hear a guy talk about the "good ol days," but really really depressing at the same time.

i believe we had savory crepes that night. they were delicious. the whole night made me feel like i was back in the louvre watching performance art. ...

right.

3. i've been considering law school more and more these days and i've had the pleasure to talk to/ drink beer with/ fly kites with/ smack pinatas with/ drink beer with/ play dominoes with/ drink beer with/ play four square with/ take photos with/ drink beer with a bunch of people from law schools and learn what it's like.

i have learned that i will become an alcoholic. i apologize in advance for my future late night phone calls about fiscal policies... is that a real phrase? am i drunk now? am i already in law school?

what number was i up to?

7. i've also been keen on trying to explore my culinary skills by dragging my friends out of their normal lives and luring them with promises of old fashioned jersey cuisine.

like jonny, for instance. jonny bought the idea of letting me prepare an italian dish for him so we met up for grocery purchases and then i would cook while he relaxed from a week of stress.

he did the lasagna innards. calling food parts "innards" is a thing, right?

he also prepped the pasta. i threw oil in the pot because "it's a secret that italians do to save the pasta flavor."

in actuality i think i saw my friend do it once but i wasn't sure. i'm still not. i've been eating the leftovers all week so apparently i didn't ruin it.

we also made...

he also made cake.. it's been four days and it's still in my possession. i have a little bit more to go and yes i am proud of it.

aren't the settings nice? i didn't do those, either. that would be stephen.

i wound up taking a long shower and these two cooked everything.

everything. even stephen prepared the garlic bread...and he came an hour after jonny started cooking.

i made spinach salad, which was essentially just spinach leaves and raspberry salad dressing. it was delicious.

isn't this just the spitting image of every italian stereotype on a jar of sauce? a blue eyed, korean boy with highlights wearing a "tokyo" t shirt holding vegetarian lasagna? sigh, tradition. warms my heart.

8. o and also, i've been mentoring all of the new graduate students and handling the budget crisis. you know, no big deal.

what was i doing away from this blog for so long? i feel like i'm missing something.... let me think about it.

no, no it sounds about right.

meh. i'm tired.

how did i usually end this?

love &.... lethargy?

sounds about right

10. o! i discovered i like tapatio sauce.

viva!

a disappointment

2009-07-25T13:29:00.000-07:00

waking up to news like this makes me want to climb back into bed.

and i will.

White House eases stimulus lobbyist restrictions
By Roxana Tiron
Posted: 07/25/09 01:25 PM [ET]

In a significant change, the Obama administration will now allow lobbyists to meet and have telephonic discussions with government officials regarding economic recovery projects.

The lifting of the ban comes after K Street has cried foul for months and has challenged the White House on its restrictions.

In March, President Obama announced that government officials would not be allowed to consider the views of lobbyists regarding specific stimulus projects unless the requests are put in writing. The materials also had to be posted on an agency’s website within three business days of receipt. Lobbyists have said that the policy was one more example of the administration's disdain for their industry.

Now, the just-revised rules will allow government personnel to accept meetings and calls from federally registered lobbyists on the implementation of stimulus projects. The head of the Office of Management and Budget, Peter Orszag, issued a new guidance late Friday regarding the administration's communications with registered lobbyists about economic recovery funds.

Lobbyists can make their cases -- and agency officials can listen to them -- at "widely attended gatherings." Government officials have to ask whether the person they are talking to at such events is a federally registered lobbyist speaking on behalf of a client.

Agency officials are required to promptly disclose on the Internet all oral and written communications with lobbyists concerning policy or projects funded under the recovery act. They also have to disclose any written communications with lobbyists regarding pending applications for competitive funding.

The one caveat, however, is that lobbyists can talk to agency representatives only about logistical issues or general questions regarding stimulus grants. Agency officials have to document any discussion with a lobbyist that veers toward advocacy of stimulus policy or a particular project.

Government officials are still banned from talking to lobbyists representing companies that have already applied for grants and are awaiting a competitive decision. In those cases, agency officials are allowed to accept "oral communication" only if the matter is purely logistical.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and the American League of Lobbyists (ALL) joined forced to advocate that the White House revise its rules.

ALL informed its members Saturday morning of the changes.

"Essentially, you will be able to once again meet and have telephonic conversations with personnel in charge of the projects and be able to provide your subject matter expertise to them to help them make the best "merit based" decisions possible for the stimulus projects," Dave Wenhold, the president of ALL, wrote in an e-mail message to members.

"Getting us back to the table and ensuring that we are treated equally has been the main goal for ALL. We are also thankful to our partners in this effort, especially the Citizens for Responsible Ethics in Washington (CREW) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Between the main three groups and others, we made a diverse and strong coalition that advocated for these revisions."

there is also the news that my family has just arrived at our favorite beach resort in new hampshire for a week of instant memories and laughter. i will be drinking from one of the resort's cups that i swiped from my aunt all week. it's close, but not close enough.

good night.

a campy weekend

2009-07-22T21:59:00.000-07:00

san francisco offers a lot. one day you're out enjoying the park watching performance art while eating organic ice cream, the next day you're at cafe du nord watching an electrified performance from natalie portman's shaved head.

there's always a lot of energy and the festivals and street fairs can expose you to sights and experiences that you never thought you'd see, like a party that stretches for blocks under a disco ball the size of a building, for example.

what i've described was over the course of a few days time, and there was plenty of activity in between.

so every so often, a boy and 11 of his closest chums needs a break from all of the city's offerings.

camping!

a napkin filled with car shifts and an hour or two of packing later we children drove to guerneville to get away from it all and celebrate francisco and nakhter's birthdays.

i was one of the first to arrive, so i helped set up camp and accepted the idea of "roughing it" for the weekend.

i soon learned how californians camped...

1. seating is limited

2. the lack of seating leaves plenty of space for tents, however it is best to conserve warmth by convincing everyone that sleeping in one of the many available tents is the best idea

there were 12 of us in that pile, somehow...i'm not sure i was in the corner

3. always camp five minutes away from town, so that swimming pools and frozen beverages are plentiful.

4. sunglasses... a necessity for small town travel, sunny days,.....

...and the perfect accessory for swimwear...keep in mind we were camping

5. food ...

...

wait

....

no one ate anything. nevermind, californians don't camp with food. that's what beer is for.

beerbeerbeervodkabeerbeerbeerwaterforhydrationbeer

5. when the camp owner says, "zip line's fixed, i think."... ALWAYS be the first one down the line... it's as empowering as much as it is a death wish

i survived!

so i did it another 9 or 10 times, of course

once the crash test dummy successfully returned, everyone else made it up and over

... wait a minute, i'm not letting natalie get away with this. sure, she made it down, but it took a bit of encouragement from her friends aka yelling at her for ten minutes while she debated whether she could do it at the top of the ladder

she did make it down... on the next day once ratalie, some 13 year old with the worst name in the world successfully zipped...and after another few minutes of shouting from her friends, of course

we barely slept, we barely ate...we barely camped.

we definitely laughed.

we most certainly enjoyed each other's company.

of course, we all gave a fond farewell to guerneville and hoped to see it's campy self in the near future.

loved every second of it.

o wait!

6. always make sure b.b. buckles his seat belt, even on the ride home.

love and loyalty

a long time coming

2009-07-16T09:44:00.000-07:00

in my never ending quest for actual employment i came across an advertisement for an available position via craiglist. it was a job that promised a moderate level of importance with the human rights campaign, an organization i've worked with previously as a volunteer. upon realizing that the organization was actually the fund for public interest, i immediately bailed and had a pretty tough time getting them off my back:

http://michaelkasian.blogspot.com/2009/01/scam-aka-fund-for-public-interest.html

well it turns out i wasn't the only one who realized that this was a terrible organization.

The Liberal Sweatshop
by Luke Rosiak via The Daily Beast

The Fund for the Public Interest raises money for all kinds of liberal causes, but a lawsuit has forced it to pay millions of dollars in overtime to its legions of idealistic door-knockers.

The nation’s largest fundraiser for progressive causes issued checks to thousands of former workers in the last several weeks after settling a $2.15 million class-action suit alleging it subjected workers to grueling hours without overtime pay.

The nonprofit Fund for Public Interest Inc. was set up in 1982 as the fundraising arm of the network of Public Interest Research Groups, which was founded by Ralph Nader. It deploys legions of door-to-door and street canvassers—and once counted a young Barack Obama as one of its New York City organizers—to solicit contributions for the Human Rights Campaign, the Sierra Club, Environment America, and other groups that together spend millions of dollars each year lobbying Congress.

Those organizations often battle with deep-pocketed corporations; the money raised by canvassers is an important source of funds. In many cases, however, the employees collecting those donations made an hourly rate that worked out to less than minimum wage.

The abrupt shuttering of its Los Angeles office after employees took steps to unionize also brought allegations of illegal union-busting from many, including Christian Miller, an L.A. employee from 2002 to 2006 who filed the suit on behalf of 12,000 canvassers and directors.

The Fund reported collecting $25 million in contributions in 2007—the most recent year for which data is publicly available. The fundraising done by the canvassers makes up the bulk of that money. Indeed, the Fund’s Web site touts the work done by its youthful employees: "If you ask anyone who’s canvassed for the Fund in the last 25 years, they’ll probably give you a thoughtful dissertation on the value of canvassing."

That's probably an understatement. Former canvassers, often college-educated progressives attracted to the Fund for the chance to do good, are all too sensitive to the irony of the situation.

"They're the Wal-Mart of nonprofits in every way imaginable," Miller said. "They basically look at the next generation of social change as the next source of cheap labor."

The Fund did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

The idea that their work supported causes they believed in pushed some canvassers to tolerate the often-difficult working conditions. Other would-be world changers had little in the way of real-world experience and assumed all workplaces were run like the Fund.

"I thought it was poorly organized and that it's a pretty crummy job to be standing in New York asking strangers for their bank account info, but I was all of 19 and didn't have any real concept of whether the labor environment was fair," said Mary Murphy, who worked for the Fund for a summer in 2001 and was taken by surprise when she learned she was part of the class-action suit earlier this year. She received her check weeks ago.

The Fund maintained a massive recruiting program and hired new canvassers daily to replace the many who quit or simply stopped showing up after a few weeks; much of the reason the workday was so long was that each day began with a training session, necessary with a perpetually new staff.

"Half the people I started with were also in their first week," said Jarrod Parker, who canvassed for the Fund in New York for three days before quitting when he began suspecting that much of the money he was raising simply covered overhead rather than benefiting the cause. "Both girls I started with quit the first day."

Some said they were never told explicitly what the job entailed until they had already accepted: walking in strange neighborhoods in the sweltering heat, knocking on doors and asking for money for a variety of causes that could change as the Fund, a third-party fundraising group, picked up new clients.

Managers pushed employees to work long hours by repeatedly stressing that they were taking part in a campaign to better the world, not a traditional job. Federal and state labor laws do not recognize the distinction. Some said their experiences led them to give up on activism altogether, which troubled those behind the lawsuit. "I was getting tired of seeing people leave the movement," Miller said.

In the summer of 2005, the activists tried to unionize their Los Angeles office. The canvassers voted to organize with the Teamsters, Miller said.

"Management basically started changing office policies to try to systematically fire all union employees, while stalling the contract," he added. Eventually, Rep. Hilda Solis (D-Calif.), now Labor secretary, wrote the Fund pressing it to negotiate with workers, to no avail.

Then suddenly, Miller said, "they changed the locks on the doors and they were gone. We were shut down overnight."

In a separate case in 2006, the office of the Labor Commissioner of the State of California determined that the Fund had denied rest breaks to a worker, awarding a cash payment. The Fund subsequently changed its policies to provide overtime pay. In 2009, it agreed to settle the class-action suit.

justice is served

a body of water owned by putin

2009-07-10T09:02:00.000-07:00

my closest friends and i are taking a mini-vacation this weekend: we're goin' campin'.

that's right, the baker's dozen is heading off to the land of port-o-potties and bathing in rivers...and no, im not going back to arkansas.

the russian river is located a short drive from bay area and sacramento. for over a 100 years it has been the preferred getaway for these cities.

"come for the wine, river, redwoods and coast. come to relax in the grandness of nature."

..i'm going to see how 12 of my closest friends survive life outside of the city. now, i'm not necessarily claiming that i'm the top outdoor enthusiast...in fact the last time i went camping with friends it cost quite a pretty penny (let's not get into details, let's just say the security guards didn't like how rowdy 19 years olds without parents could get on a public camp ground).

this time will be different. (fingers crossed)

not only is the campground on private property, but there isn't security and we're right next to an abandoned amusement park. all we need is a talking great dane and we could solve mysteries to upbeat 60s music! ... or it's the setting for a slasher flick. eek

i've got to get to packing, i've got a few hours to recover from an allergy attack, do some quick laundry and say farewell to san francisco.

love and loyalty

a very exciting piece of news

2009-07-08T21:41:00.000-07:00

dear new jersey,

i will see you from july 17-20. this summer class/internship/job hunt/pollen explosion/bronchitis/etc. has been rough. i'm coming back to relax.

see you soon!

love and loyalty

a song

2009-07-04T13:17:00.000-07:00

a birthday weekend

2009-06-26T19:06:00.000-07:00

not to be outdone, eric flew up from los angeles and showed me how a good birthday weekend is truly done. he first took me to the historic ferry building

and we walked around sampling all of the delicious foods that a graduate student with no income only dreams of someday enjoying.

there, in the hustle and bustle of tourism and trade, i was introduced to my pallet's latest obsession -

persian lime flavored olive oil. i was never into the fancy breads and olive oils until now, and lately i add it to everything possible.

the fancy feasting didn't stop there. eric was so intrigued by my telling of the experience at supper club that he had to go there himself...and what better time then for my birthday! so off we went for a nice, personal dinner filled with entertainment, four courses and lots of smiling.

i had to thank him by taking him to my new favorite stomping ground at baker beach.

he hadn't been there in a very long time so i figured it was a good way to thank him for the great company and treatment for my special day.

love and loyalty... and persian lime olive oil.

a birthday review

2009-06-26T17:21:00.000-07:00

this is what my birthday looked like:

first, a delightful meal at my favorite little sushi place, warakubune. i did not eat that many plates, although my dear friend jonny likes to pretend that i had all of them. thanks, jonny.

then, i went back to my place, pre-celebrated, and threw on the birthday outfit - remember - shorts was the theme.

hilarious.... let's see what some other attendees wore... onward to the pilsner for a dive bar extravaganza!

a very very large crowd of people was suddenly wearing shorts in celebration of my birth -

there were a few onlookers who had the guts to ask "what's going on here?" or "are you all from l.a. or something?" or "where did you get those shorts?" ... it was hilarious

...and then, casually and with her beautiful smile, this italian bombshell walks through the doors

this is lindsey. lindsey signorelli. i met her in new jersey in college. we took classes, worked and enjoyed each other's company until she jetted off to italy and i thought i'd never see her again. she was in berkely visiting her boyfriend and saw my invitation on the internet.

it was the greatest surprise a birthday boy could ask for. i nearly dropped my drink and started crying (i actually did well up a bit...sap). i basically didn't say hello to the people that kept crawling into my party because i spent a good portion of the time catching up with her and selling california to her (she was thinking about leaving new jersey). it was glorious.

then 11 came.

the great migration!

mini groups of twos and threes went walking down market street to the next location... and i am not lying when i say a group of people shouted, "nice shorts!" ...perfection.

the party moved to trigger, the most pretentious of all of the castro nightclubs. a friend got me a private booth, and even more friends showed up to show me their legs. have a look -

the manager came up to check on my party and then complimented my outfit. i looked at him and started laughing. i hope he didn't take it the wrong way.

afterwards came the afterparty, of course, where a large collection of legs stayed up until the wee hours in the morning.

josh and francisco have no excuse for not wearing shorts... they will live that down for eternity

most of the photos from this evening are not really meant for mass publication, so this was the pg edition. maybe one day ill show some more.

it was perfect. thank you, friendships.

love and loyalty

a pain in the...

2009-06-23T21:12:00.000-07:00

chest...

throat...

nose...

head...

eyes are a little irritated, too.

i'm sick.

i celebrate with good friends and a very nice l.a. gentleman over the week and this is the end result. brontosaurus. i mean bronchitis. sorry, .. meds.

i would love to be able to post photos and give you all of the lovely details, but i'm surprised im even awake right now to let you readers know that i'm still around.

to my mother - i'm drinking plenty of fluids and eating nothing but soup... although right now i crave pancakes... i'm gonna go get pancakes. doctor's order?

love and loyalty... and cough syrup

a list pt. 4

2009-06-21T18:40:00.000-07:00

"Stuff That I Didn't Know Before Tuman's Class Because I Am An Ignorant Youth"

let's review:
01. jimmy stewart
02. mitt romney
03. robert redford
04. voter apathy
05. midterm elections
06. a media consultant
07. a corked bat in baseball
08. barry bonds
09. natalie wood
10. married with children
11. dan rather
12. walter kronkite
13. ross perot
14. citizen kane
15. jimmy hoffa
16. an incumbent
17. george wallace
18. The history of Iran
19. ann coulter
20. david gergen
21. bipartisan politics
22. the huffington post
23. BBC News
24. giving a speech
25. diane feinstein
26. george masconi
27. robert morris
28. walter mathau
29. jane mansfield

after our fourth class, i was informed about these pieces of information that i had never heard about before i was in his class.

30. Theocracy
31. Incitement
32. Tiananmen Square
33. "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"
34. Scapegoat
35. Frank Rich
36. New York Times
37. The Primary Elections of 2008
38. Empathy
39. Jose Conseco
40. Steve Young
41. The Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints

...and the kicker
42. The LGBT Community

i actually started laughing when he started explaining this last one.

a very fine class indeed.

a note to my father

2009-06-21T18:25:00.000-07:00

love and loyalty

a day at baker beach

2009-06-17T10:25:00.000-07:00

to relax from a rising level of stress and irritation, i spent all of sunday at baker beach. i'm talking 11 hours.

it was heaven.

i got to rest, read and relax right next to the golden gate in a little piece of paradise located on the very tip of san francisco. it was surprising just how hot the sun was. every beach area i had been to before baker was freezing and depressing. it reminded me of laying out in new jersey, which always brings good feelings

check out these photos and tell me it didn't look like paradise.

a list pt. 3

2009-06-17T10:17:00.001-07:00

monday's class was an interesting one, particularly because tuman thought i didn't know the following additions to:

"Stuff That I Didn't Know Before Tuman's Class Because I Am An Ignorant Youth"

previously, we didn't know about:
1. jimmy stewart
2. mitt romney
3. robert redford
4. voter apathy
5. midterm elections
6. a media consultant
7. a corked bat in baseball
8. barry bonds
9. natalie wood
10.married with children
11.dan rather
12.walter kronkite
13.ross perot
14.citizen kane
15.jimmy hoffa
16.an incumbent
17.george wallace

here are the additions:
18. The history of Iran
19. ann coulter
20. david gergen
21. bipartisan politics
22. the huffington post
23. BBC News
24. giving a speech
25. diane feinstein
26. george masconi
27. robert morris
28. walter mathau
29. jane mansfield

this was also a quote which i think needs documentation. in reference to his first understanding of politics at age 10, tuman boasted, “I’m not a genius, but…”.

i'm starting to get a little irritated.