Author Archives: oinsketta

A Thousand to One

A THOUSAND TO ONE*

I take those odds, because, what is to be gained in that one-in-a-thousand shot is great and, also, I don’t have another plan that makes sense.

A fellow blogger had a great unattributed quote, maybe it was his own.  I love it.  I’ll find the link to his page of quotes and put it here later, there are some good ones.  This quote really spoke to me:

Forget the thousand reasons the thing won’t work, remember the one reason that it will.

People make more daring, brave and foolish bets daily.  Millions line up for Lottery tickets every week, people bet the house and farm on the spin of a roulette wheel, accidentally put desperate, impossible pressures on their children, work hundred hour weeks expecting the reward of a comfortable retirement, if they don’t die trying to gain that comfortable nest egg first.  This short list does not include the many brave and wonderful things people continue to bet on, in spite of the poor chances of success.  People do all kinds of things in the teeth of long, if not impossible, odds.

Here’s my bet:  I am right to believe that children, once they are free to follow their imaginations, in a safe, protected place, will learn all kinds of things along the way.   I am betting that many among them will teach their peers what they have learned.  I am betting they will also produce materials that can be used to teach other kids.  I am betting everything I have on this longshot horse.  It is a wonderful little horse that I raised myself from a tiny pony that used to sleep at the foot of my bed.

* yo, WordPress, what’s with my titles not showing up anymore?

Viral youTube video

Yesterday a friend asked me what a viral video is.  He’s from a generation before mine and grasping such things is not intuitive, as it would be for an eight year-old raised in this digital world.   I described the phenomenon, telling him about a chilling video I’d seen a week ago, along with 2.000,000 others.  Today you can click here and join the more than 10,000,000 who’ve seen this truly devastating story told by a 15 year-old who killed herself a month after making this short film, two days before someone reposted it and the tragic, engrossing short went viral.  Make sure to read the full comment below the video, at the bottom is the suicide teen’s original message of hope in a world of cyber-bullies and schoolyard monsters.

Looking at the latest clip by the animation workshop I noticed a clip called “dontwalkuponme”.  The title comes from the blustering line spoken by a trash talker immediately before he got his ass kicked.  The woman shooting the scene is a supremely annoying provocateur, with a braying voice yelling way too close to the mic.  She did a decent job with the camera, though, I have to give her that.  I sent this clip to my friend who’d asked what a viral video is,  it had been posted only 12 hours before and already had 26,000 views.  An hour later, when I refreshed the screen, I saw it had been viewed another 14,000 times.  When I looked again 6 hours later it had reached 76,000– before being online 24 hours.  You can see how many more have seen it so far by clicking here— though, do yourself a favor and turn the sound down if you watch this stupid little fight.

I was pleased to see that my session 3 animation with the kids had gone from 17 to 26 views meantime.  Of course, that doesn’t include the kids or their parents, I haven’t sent it to them yet.

What Would Gandhi Do?

Let’s say someone made multiple derogatory comments about your religious group, asked you to do favors under a tight deadline that you delivered and that they then ignored, made a promise to you they then violated and informed you of in a cc in an unrelated email?  Let’s say the success of your fledgling nonprofit organization was in some way dependent on this person and that the broken promise related to the very existence of that outfit.

Few would probably blame you for being upset, hurt, angry or all of the above.  The question is, what would Gandhi do?  The other question is: what would Bruce Lee do?

I wrestled with these questions for almost a week.  It was not an easy wrestling match.  In the end I decided that Gandhi and Bruce Lee would do the same thing.  Take a minimalist approach that deflects action back on the other party.  Responding to the cc’d email that informed me he had no intention of keeping his promise to the organization I wrote: don’t worry about it.

It didn’t take long for him to put on his clown costume and begin capering.  But I’m not worried about it.

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)