Author Archives: oinsketta

A Million Reasons for Fear

You can use infinitely elastic hypotheticals to keep yourself endlessly worried and afraid.  I’ve seen it done, and trying to argue against it is like arguing against the wind.

The things to be afraid of can be listed, the list might be long.  But the real fear is the thing to be afraid of that you didn’t put on the list, the insane thing that violates the known laws of the universe that could really put the hurt on you, did you ever stop to think of that?

No, of course you didn’t.  You think nothing can hurt you, which is the first principle of hubris.

As I told many a poor bastard I represented in Housing Court “The threat of losing your home is very scary and I know it’s hard not to worry about it.  But I’ve done this many times, your case is like many others I’ve worked on, and every one of those cases worked out well.  It’s aggravating that it’ll probably take months to resolve, but I’ll get all the time we need from the judge and, in the end, the chances are  99% in your favor that it will be fine, this will be over and you won’t have the threat of losing your home– which is what I’m here to prevent— hanging over you.  Try not to worry until I tell you there’s something to worry about, that the 1% chance of something to worry about might happen, and that day will probably never come.”

On the other hand, you could be hit by a car fifteen minutes from now and after hours lying on the street with your spinal fluid leaking out finally get picked up by an ambulance crew high on crystal meth, some insane rogue team of cannibals who sodomize you instead of taking you to the hospital and then, after urinating on you, leave you to die overnight in an abandoned industrial park where the rats will begin working on you before you’re even dead.  Did you ever think of that?  Of course not.

I rest my case.

Styles of Rage

As a child I was treated to several styles of rage as part of my regular diet.  I’m just thinking about a few of them now and thought I’d try to make a concise list.

There was screaming, of course, that loud venting that would leap into flame after the aggravations had mounted sufficiently.   What must the neighbors have thought of this pleasant, bright young family who went into their house to scream at each other?

There’s physical violence, of course.  My parents were both survivors of it and had inhibitions about inflicting it on their own children.   As a result my sister and I saw little of this in our house.  My mother hit me two or three times, a remarkable feat of restraint if you consider all the provocation she had.   Each time she had cause to weep afterwards.  

Once she swung at me wildly, knocked a hanging lamp off the wall over my bed, where I was ducking, and sent the rickety appliance flying, hot light-bulb down, to burn my cheek and the corner of an eye lid.   You can bet she cried after that.   The only other time I remember her lashing out with her hands her wedding ring turned the wrong way on her hand and the diamond wound up cutting me right next to an eye.  Oh, boy, was she upset after that.  You know, it’s funny til someone loses an eye.

My father, who my sister accurately dubbed the Dreaded Unit, was not much of a hitter either.  The DU’d grab you, sometimes, reach back from the driver’s seat to squeeze a wrist with anaconda-like force, but he didn’t hit much.   He didn’t need to, really, his verbal violence, while probably embarrassing to him if he’d ever heard it played back later, was exceptionally powerful.

Of course, the most eloquent of all is perfectly placed silence.

To a fellow blogger and my cousin J

There are two ways people go after being abused as children.  Both are difficult, but one is much better than the other.

Some people grow up to abuse others, become nightmare spouses, parents, friends, colleagues, bosses and leaders.  They feel they have the right to act like pricks, since life was cruel to them.

Others grow up to defend their loved ones from abuse.  They feel obliged to model caring behavior, to protect others.   They become beacons of hope in an often indifferent world.  

Deep feelings can change our hearts, for better or for worse.  But better is better.

I Did It, I Can’t Believe It

I saw a well-done Hollywood biography of the Notorious B.I.G., Biggie Smalls, the talented fat kid from Brooklyn.  I saw this movie on TV not long before my mother finished dying her long, lonely death.  I was often sad in those days but I couldn’t cry, even though my mother was in the last weeks of her life  — this movie made the tears flow.  I sobbed because this kid had seen the light, and was, in the screenwriter’s convincing story, making peace when he was shot in revenge for a killing he tried to stop.

I must have cried for ten minutes after the credits rolled, as Angela Bassett wipes her eyes as half of Brooklyn comes out to line the streets where Biggie lived, larger than life, rapping, rhyming, styling like TJ, the Master and mf.

In the Hollywood version he was played by a charming, charismatic actor, a quick witted mostly jovial young man, also quite fat.  He’s mean to his women, breaks his mother Angela Bassett’s heart, and he is a criminal and a thug.   A friend takes the rap for him and goes to prison telling Biggie “if I do this for you you can’t waste your talent, you’ve got to succeed– for all of us”.   By the time the friend gets out of prison  Biggie is a huge star, has an accident and is recuperating in the hospital.   The friend goes straight to the hospital bed and is disappointed in Biggie.   Biggie realizes he’s gained fame, and success, but he’s still  an unredeemed asshole.

And, in the movie, he’s moved by this realization and  he begins to change.  He wants to make amends, seeks forgiveness.  He doesn’t want to hate anybody anymore, and he doesn’t want anybody to hate him.  He makes peace with his ex-wife, his ex girlfriend, starts spending time with his daughter.  He wants to be a positive model for the people he loves.

When he goes back to the studio he doesn’t want to record another  violent, incendiary album, what his fans are hungry for.  He regrets the bad influence he’s had on millions.  He wants to make a tender album, rapping from the heart instead of his killer persona, but he’s afraid people will think he’s weak.

He’s terrified, as he begins to record, with no street bluster to hide behind.  He’s scared  of how weak he must look and afraid to listen to the playback.  But when he hears it a smile comes across his face as soon as the first vamp comes up in the headphones and he starts to shake his head slowly from side to side.

“I can’t believe it,” he says, shaking his head to the slow beat, “I did it…  I did it!” and he laughs, and keeps the beat with his head, and his friends around him at the console all smile too.  The actor who plays Biggie keeps smiling, closes his eyes and floats away on the music.  

In the movie’s next scene he’s shot dead from a passing car.  Then all of Brooklyn is mourning him on the streets as his body comes back for one last ride through the streets, and Angela Bassett looks on weeping, and I’m sobbing long after I turn off the TV.

And then, tonight, after I mixed this clip of the first two animation workshops  I started to laugh.  I said to myself  “I can’t believe it, I did it.. . I did it!”  I pumped my fist in the air as I jumped out of my chair, then I watched it again and again, with and without the headphones on.  I’m smiling as I type this, and I’m laughing too, to think about it.

(animation clip here)

Ahimsa’s all well and good

First do no harm, a very good place to start.  If I can’t help, I don’t hurt.   I do kill cockroaches when I see them, but I do it exactly the way I want to go– fast, in one blow, a certain death, no lingering in agony, even for a second.  I am a bit embarrassed to say I often apologize to the individual as I wipe him or her out.  It’s not their fault they are loathsome insects or that I can’t tolerate them near my kitchen sink.

Gentle is the goal, I tell myself.  I do not want to use the powers, already sharpened and ready inside me, to strike at people who do me wrong.  I want to give them a chance to do right, and, if they don’t, I want to leave without looking back.  I don’t need the last word, I just need to be away from toxic types.

But here’s the thing, sometimes these toxic types keep screaming for a showdown.   They can be very demanding and unreasonable about such things.  They provoke once, and if you let it go, they get furious and dial up the provocation the next time.  Over time they will find a way to set up the showdown they’re looking for, or die trying.   They have this wild west mentality, they want to be the fastest gun and they want a damn shootout to prove that they, and not you, are the baddest killer around.  

I don’t want to have to knock any of these toxic sociopath zombies out anymore.  There’s nothing in it for anybody.  First do no harm, and lastly, do no harm.  Amen.

“So, do you think you’ll ever work things out with X?”

I don’t think so, I told him, because I realize now that we brought out the worst in each other.  I was the worst I’ve ever been and he couldn’t do any better.  It was a long goodbye, and I tried my best to make things better, but in the end I didn’t see another way.

Said without defensiveness, because, finally, I understand that we can only proceed with good faith.  I’m not playing games or trying to win contests, I am in this to be interactive, to create things with people who want to play.   Whatever the world may say about that is really not my concern any more.  Trying to play with unhappy critics is not fun.  I need to play with people who just love to play.

My goal is to be present, direct, and as good as I can be.  People I have to be polite around I’ll be polite around until I can get away from them.  People I can be creative with are the ones I’m looking for now, not people who test my abilities as an improvisational actor by insisting I pretend that a bowl of moldering snot is actually a tasty dip.