Scenes, Pt. II - Painted Birds

I used to pride myself on being the sort of people that would show up pretty much anywhere.  You know, just be willing to take people on their own terms.  Show up, respect the scene, take a look around, expand my own horizons.

When I was younger and living in San Francisco, I seemed to know a disproportionate number of people that were involved in San Francisco's goth scene (and for some odd reason, a disproportionate number of them seemed to be from Minneapolis).  My roommate at one point was the brother of the guy that started Information Society (and a touring member of the band), who was pretty heavy into the whole thing.  Leather boots, piercings, dyed dreads.  Kris was a pretty cool fucking guy. 

It's a sensibility I can definitely understand.  Jerzy Kosinski, in The Painted Bird, offers a wonderful metaphor for what it means to be an outsider.

Sometimes days passed and Stupid Ludmila did not appear in the forest. Lekh would become possessed by a silent rage. He would stare solemnly at the birds in the cages, mumbling something to himself. Finally, after prolonged scrutiny, he would choose the strongest bird, tie it to his wrist and prepare stinking paints of different colors which he mixed together from the most varied components. When the colors satisfied him, Lekh would turn the bird over and paint its wings, head, and breast in rainbow hues until it became more dappled and vivid than a bouquet of wildflowers.
     Then he would go into the thick of the forest. There Lekh took out the painted bird and ordered me to hold it in my hand and squeeze it lightly. The bird would begin to twitter and attract a flock of the same species which would fly nervously over our heads. Our prisoner, hearing them, strained toward them, warbling more loudly, its little heart, locked in its freshly painted breast, beating violently.
     When a sufficient number of birds gathered above our heads, Lekh would give me a sign to release the prisoner. It would soar, happy and free, a spot of rainbow against the backdrop of clouds, and then plunge into the waiting grown flock. For an instant the birds were confounded. The painted bird circled from one end of the flock to the other, vainly trying to convince its kin that it was one of them. But, dazzled by its brilliant colors, they flew around it unconvinced. The painted bird would be forced farther and farther away as it zealously tried to enter the ranks of the flock. We saw soon afterwards how one bird after another would peel off in a fierce attack. Shortly the many-hued shape lost its place in the sky and dropped to the ground. These incidents happened often. When we finally found the painted birds they were usually dead. Lekh keenly examined the number of blows which the birds had received. Blood seeped through their colored wings, diluting the paint and soiling Lekh's hands.

One is attacked for one's differences.  There are quite a few reactionary movements predicated on flaunting one's difference.  Siouxsie and the Banshees offer the concept as an anthem for a movement.  As a way of understanding the goth subculture, it's pretty spot on.  You want to judge us for our differences?  We will flaunt them.  We'll take everything that you say is freakish and carry it to an extreme.

As much as I knew a lot of goths in San Francisco, I never really spent that much time hanging around their scene.  I came to an enjoyment of industrial and post-punk later.  I did try popping my head in once or twice, just to look around.  One of the funnier times was the one where I stopped by Bondage-A-Go-Go once to visit an acquaintance that headed security for the club.

It was an interesting experience.  Some pretty cool music.  Lots of cute goth women dressed in black.  It was funny, though.  I, being me, pretty much just wore what I would have worn anywhere at the time.  I think it was a pair of Gap Khakis and a cashmere sweater.  Baby blue?  Black?  I don't specifically remember.

I was a pariah.  In the two hours I sat in the club, my friend Frances was the only person that even bothered to speak to me (or acknowledge my presence) aside from a bartender.  As a reaction to attacks for being different, I can definitely understand the idea of banding together with like-minded people.  Oddly enough, though, if you throw a bunch of painted birds together, it's just another flock.  I wasn't welcome in their scene, because I didn't do enough to blend in.

Welcome to the scene.

Counter-culture?  Sounds like just another culture.

Honesty. Or why I'm an asshole...

I've mentioned elsewhere that my philosophy may best be summed between two complementary ideas.  One, the idea that "Voices Carry."  The other, Audre Lorde's assertion that "Your silence does not protect you."

The essay that has done more to inform this sensibility than any other is feminist poet Adrienne Rich's "Women and Honor: Some Notes on Lying."  It's ostensibly a piece that talks of the role of honesty as it pertains to women, but I believe that the central message, as with most ideas worth examining, carries much broader implications.  Voices carry.

Rich grounds the piece in her own experience.  Which is obviously that of a woman.  As I noted above, I believe the piece can be read with much broader implications.  It's a melange of epigrams (Hello, Mr. Markson.)  Some of those strike me as more cogent or forceful than others.  I'd like to run through some of my favorites...

To discover that one has been lied to in a personal relationship, however, leads one to feel a little crazy.

While I know the feeling, I'd actually argue that Ms. Rich doesn't take this quite far enough.  To lie to someone is to make them a little crazy.  It doesn't matter whether we speak of a subjective reality or an objective reality in this case.  If I tell you that a red light means that you should go forward, you'll have quite a bit of trouble functioning in the world as we shape it.  If I tell you that the sky is green and you believe me, this is insanity.  If your beliefs do not pertain to reality, you are considered psychotic.  To lie to someone is an act of violence.

Lying is done with words, and also with silence.

Silence is complicity.  If one does not offer one's voice as a corrective to a lie, one is an accomplice to the act.

In the struggle for survival we tell lies. To bosses, to prison guards, the police, men who have power over us, who legally own us and our children, lovers who need us as proof of their manhood.

Whether you're a woman or not, allowing someone else to define reality according to the prerogatives of power is to acquiesce to a lie.  Again, silence is a form of lying.  Assenting to a lie, whether by remaining silent or concurring with it vocally is an act of violence.

We take so much of the universe on trust. You tell me: "In 1950 I lived on the north side of Beacon Street in Somerville." You tell me: "She and I were lovers, but for months now we have only been good friends." You tell me: "It is sevent...y degrees outside and the sun is shining." Because I love you, because there is not even a question of lying between us, I take these accounts of the universe on trust: your address twenty-five years ago, your relationship with someone I know only by sight, this morning's weather. I fling unconscious tendrils of belief, like slender green threads, across statements such as these, statements made so unequivocally, which have no tone or shadow of tentativeness. I build them into the mosaic of my world. I allow my universe to change in minute, significant ways, on the basis of things you have said to me, of my trust in you.

Does it matter whether we speak of personal relationships or otherwise?  Is any act of speech private?  Speech is public.  Speech is meant, explicitly, to move beyond the individual.  All speech is a public act.  And if silence, too, is a form of communication (if we are complicit in lies by refusing to speak against them), then is not silence a public act also?

When we discover that someone we trusted can be trusted no longer, it forces us to reexamine the universe, to question the whole instinct and concept of trust. For a while, we are thrust back onto some bleak, jutting ledge, in a dark pierced by sheets of fire, swept by sheets of rain, in a world before kinship, or naming, or tenderness exist; we are brought close to formlessness.

 Again, to lie is an act of violence.

She may say, I didn't want to cause pain. What she really did not want is to have to deal with the other's pain. The lie is a short-cut through another's personality.

 I'm reminded of Billy Bragg's line from "New England"...

I don't feel bad about letting you go, I just feel sad about letting you know.

Bragg's quote is an interesting one.  Bragg's narrator doesn't express concern for the feelings of the person he's addressing.  He is only concerned with the discomfort that the action causes in himself.  It's an entirely selfish viewpoint. When I was in my early twenties, I'd tried dating a woman.  She led me on for six months.  Told me to call her if I needed to talk when my father died.  I spent two weeks calling her.  She answered her phone and told me never to call her again.  I asked her why she'd spent six months leading me on.  "I didn't want to seem like a bitch," she said.

Again, it's an entirely narcissistic worldview.  I lied so you would think me better than I am.  I don't take into account your feelings.  I'm only concerned with how I come off.  Oddly enough, lying didn't make her seem any less of a bitch.  It just made her seem a lying bitch.

And (s)he may also tell herself a lie: that she is concerned with the other's feelings, not with her own.

I throw the ()'s around that, again, because I don't think the trope is limited specifically to women. I think the idea that we lie to someone to spare their feelings is in and of itself a lie.  If my zipper's down, you can feel free to let me know.  I'd rather have the ability to correct that than roam around embarrassing myself in a state of ignorance.  I'd rather hear a truth, no matter how painful, than be misled with a lie.  You tell me any sort of lie, you're leading me astray.  You're not sparing my feelings, you're letting me dig myself deeper.

Here's the thing.  A lot of people tell me that I'm an asshole.  You know what?  I don't really care.  I'm not big on politeness.  I value kindness.  The two things are not equivalent in any sense.  A friend of mine was recently bemoaning the fact that too many people would be kind to his face (polite) and then talk shit behind his back.

That's not me at all.  I can mislead you with politeness.  As far as I can tell, that's just being passive aggressive, though.  It's refusing to take responsibility for what one truly feels. It's no less aggressive or offensive than being direct with you.  It's not being kind, it's hiding one's unkindness behind a veneer.

If I think you're being a jackass, odds are I'll let you know.  That's either respect or disrespect.  Either way, though, you have the information to make that choice yourself.  If that makes me an asshole in your eyes, that's your decision, too.

As far as I can tell, if I have to lie to you for me to like me, you don't like me.  You like a lie.

If I have to lie to you for you to think I'm a kind person, that just means that the idea that I'm a kind person is a lie. Am I going to be "nice" because I feel sorry for you?  No, pity is just condescension.  And I'm not that arrogant that I think you deserve my pity.

You may think that this makes me an asshole.  As far as I can tell, it's just respect.

For the both of us.

If you want to check out Rich's essay, you can find it contained here.

I definitely recommend it.

Pretty much.

Absolutely nothing to say at the moment.  Just sitting around trying to finally kick this cold and running to Hawaiian Gardens to play some cards.   If nothing else, I get cheap food at a decent price.  Yesterday wasn't all that great, money-wise. 

I pretty much sat and treaded water for six hours.  Never had the hammer hand.  And was pretty much card dead the whole way through.  I finished up.  Not by much though.  Basically enough to cover the travel and the food.  I think in the whole time I was there, I pulled one nut hand.  And maybe had face pairs twice.  It was a slow day.  Definitely not like going in the other day and pulling nine buy-ins out after four hours. 

There's a discount buy-in on a Saturday tourney with enough hours of table play, so at least I've got that under the belt.  And winning small is definitely better than losing at all.

I've watched a lot of dumbfoundingly bad play over the past 15 hours in the room, though.  People calling even odds with a 10% chance of taking down a pot.  Flushes betting into blatant boats (two pair on board and two other people in the hand) .  Low pairs calling obvious overs.  Trips betting into four-flushes.  Makes one sit and go, "huh?"  People astound me in their ability to assume that they're better than they are.

Words.

As I've noted before, some days words come more easily than others.  Today is another one of the other days.  But I'm going to force myself to sit and put something in, if only for the formation of the habit. 

It's kind of hard to express what I feel on days like today.  It's not a complete aphasia.  It's more like being lost in a sea of words.  As if all of the options are too much and it's impossible to find one's way amongst them.  Talk about this?  Talk about that?  Does this tie in here?  Or over there? 

When I was in my early teens, I'd been sitting at an Uncle's house watching the news with a couple of my cousins.  The weatherman had just announced that there was a 50% chance of snow the next day.  Two of my cousins started to argue about whether or not it would snow.  After a few minutes they turned to me and asked my opinion.  I just sort of shrugged. 

They didn't get that at all.  Told me that it was ridiculous to not have an opinion on the matter.  I still don't get their side of it.  How would I know?  Maybe it will snow.  Maybe it won't.  Why would I have an opinion on the matter?

Words can be like that for me.  Maybe.  Maybe not?  Who knows. 

I'm always kind of dumbfounded by how little of life we know.  And concurrently, how much of it passes us by in only the most glancing fashion.  You know, like that girl that you dated that one summer when your family went to the shore for the summer.  Or the person in college that you thought you'd be friends with forever.  Think of all of the books you've read.  All of the songs you've ever heard.  All of the movies you've ever seen.  All of the passing acquaintances that you've ever made.  All of the shit that you haven't even realised you'd forgotten about (a friend pointed me to some music that he'd put together with some others in the mid-90's.  Their band was called Green Lane.  I really don't think I've thought of Green Lane Reservoir Park in about a decade.  To the point that I didn't even realise that I hadn't thought about it in a decade.)

And then think of how small that is in comparison to what is out there. 

Everyone always likes to check their tastes and knowledge against those Top 100 lists.  Top 100 albums of all time.  The Greatest 100 books of the 20th century.  I normally post above average on those sorts of things.  But that's not even remotely close to touching the tip of the iceberg.  It's kind of dumbfounding how small we are in comparison to the world around us.  And the funny thing about those lists?  Almost no two of them will ever be the same.  You could probably get the same group of people to make the same list five years running, and have them change their minds.  I know any time I encounter one of those "notes" on FaceBook, it's a different list each time.  And not necessarily because we've decided that a new idea has knocked an old favorite off.

It's kind of funny to suppose that we know the world around us.  Very often, I'm not even sure I know myself.

Who knows? 

A Small Pet Peeve.

Kind of short on time, but wanted to throw something up just to keep the pace.

One of my least favorite things to hear, whether directed at me or at someone around me...   "You need to smile" or "You should cheer up."  I often hear that while sitting at work.  One patron will turn to another and tell them that they need to be happier.  Without taking the effort to find out the first thing about what is going on in someone else's life, they'll take it upon themselves to offer advice.

I don't know.  It just strikes me as rather presumptuous.  Who am I to tell someone else that they're too gloomy?  For all I know, that person just buried a family member.  Buried a cat.  Lost a job.   Discovered their mother has cancer.  What do I know?  Who am I to tell that person that they need to cheer up?  Who is anyone?  It's something I hear repeatedly and it makes me cringe every time.

What to say instead?  How about "How are you?"  Or "Hey, is everything ok?"

One would seem to dictate to another their feelings.  The other to allow them expression.   One forces another person into our mold.  The other respects the person next to us.

I'll tell you now, if you ever tell me that I need to smile, odds are I'm going to tell you to need to fuck off.  Don't be surprised when it happens.

Online Activism.

Yesterday I posted what I thought of a certain sort of online activism.  If you'd like to read further on the issue, there's a pretty good article in the New Yorker by Malcolm Gladwell that discusses a lot of these issues.  You might be interested in checking it out.  I'm not sure if I agree completely with his assessment (I'm probably fonder of Shirky's worldview than Gladwell is), but it's an interesting read nonetheless.

Since I spent yesterday complaining, I'm going to contrast that with today's post about a project that I have a bit more respect for.  If you've paid any attention to me on FaceBook, or even caught one of the various news programs on which it's appeared, you've probably already heard of Seattle sex-advice columnist Dan Savage's It Gets Better Project.

Savage started the project after the suicide of Indiana teen Billy Lucas.  In Savage's own words -

I posted something to my blog about Billy Lucas — who might not have even been gay, he wasn't out if he was gay, and not all kids who experience anti-gay bullying are gay — but he was bullied for being gay. ... And I was reading about him and about Justin Aaberg in Minnesota, and the reaction as an openly gay adult, always, when you read these stories is, "I wish I could've talked to this kid for five minutes, so I could've told him it gets better" and it occurred to me, when I was really turning over the Billy Lucas case in my mind, that I could talk to these kids. ... I could use social media, I could go on YouTube, I could make a digital video and I could post it, and I could directly address them and tell them, "It gets better."

 
The project started with one video.   And went from there.  Not long after the project started a school administrator in Arkansas was caught on FaceBook saying that he'd wear purple (a gesture intended as showing solidarity with LGBT community in the wake of the teen suicides) when all "faggots" hung themselves.  Savage and many others then organised via FaceBook and other media to pressure the administrator to resign.

Here's the difference, though.  The IGBP offers action.  Email campaigns.  Phone calls.  Videos.  Support in the way of donations to The Trevor Project.  It's tied in to a campaign that aside from offering anemic "solidarity," is also offering concrete methods for making those improvements. 

There's a pretty cool little article that someone linked to on LibraryThing a few days back.  The most heartbreaking part about that for me is this -

Kevin Hines wishes someone like Ritchie was there the day he jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge in 2000. For 40 agonizing minutes, the then-19-year-old paced the bridge, weeping, and hoping someone would ask him what was wrong. One tourist finally approached - but simply asked him to take her picture. Moments later, he jumped. 

One person.  That would have been it.

There's a reason I "like" the It Gets Better Project's FaceBook page. It's a hell of a lot of people working for change.  I suggest that you like it, too.

There's a bit more action behind the words.