sarah palin

i have talked my shit about sarah palin

but all of a sudden
reading an article about her
i came to a realization

she is real
my real and her real are not not not the same

but she is real

and f me

because now
i think
i like her

needs

i need----------

the journey

the past couple of weeks
lots of change
my attitude
my sense of reality
my sense of my self
my work habits
all coming into focus
and i have reiki to thank for that

there are certain things we should not accept
dishonesty, for one
especially when we are being dishonest
with ourselves
with others

live the change that you want to see in the world
live truth
correct lies
transcend impulsive emotions

putting your hands on another person
with purpose
and love
is transformative
eases tension
forges bonds
makes one plus one equal one
a unit
calling to the source

i wonder how much longer this life will continue
i hope a long time
because everyday is christmas
and every moment, a gift

we meet so many people in this life
and that first impression
that thing that says
i know where this is going, in an instant
we silence that too easily

why do we test our gut reactions
go forward when we know we should stand still
or fight the things we know to be good
it's what we've learned as our minds have evolved
we forget that we are animals
we weigh experience more heavily that instinct
and we take our time to find the right path

here's to the journey

On Skip Gates

But just for a moment. I'm inclined to believe that racial profiling guided the officer's actions, but I think the actual incident has been blown out of proportion.

The significance of Gates' arrest owes less to the fact that a black man was arrested for breaking into his own home than to the contentious dialogue between blacks and whites it has borne.

People are aaangry about this. I hear it a lot from friends, strangers, coworkers, family. It's all over people's statuses on Facebook. And the blogsphere is dripping with it.

White people are angry. It's about the police having to apologize for doing their job. It's about Gates flipping out and actually disturbing the peace. It's about feeling like a white guy would've been arrested for doing the same thing.

Black people are angry. It's about one more black man imprisoned without just cause. It's about black people in America knowing to make their hands visible during routine traffic stops and white people not even realizing what that means. It's about generations suppressed by a violent white majority.

As time progresses, it's important that we all center, find the peace from which to respond. This is a conversation we must have. We owe it to our kids' kids' kids' kids to listen to what other people are saying.

Side note--this situation reminded me what I love about Obama. He speaks and reacts from his real--sometimes--which makes it easy for us to walk on common ground.

No Words

This is not for kids.

I Love Pot

A little late to the party, I know, but I just read this article about marijuana fines in Massachusetts. And after reading it, I have something to say to you, Boston Herald "reporters" Edward Mason and Jessica Van Sack : You both Van Suck at your jobs.

First of all, the duo refers to marijuana users as stoners, potheads and tokers, but never once as--obvi--marijuana users. Then they offer up a list of what they call "egregious examples of tokers flaunting the law." At the end of the article, they make the incomplete and unsubstantiated claim that the marijuana law hindered police from apprehending a child molester. They go so far as to suggest, through tabloidesque scene setting, that the suspect left the police to go attack another child.

Now, I think that the biases of the Herald staff are obvious to anyone with an eighth grade education. The paper's abuse of colloquialisms, coupled with what I politely call a selective relationship with the facts, almost always reveals some combination of the isms and phobias--most often: racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, ageism and, inexplicably, classism.

But back to the sins of Van Sack and Mason for a moment. Their article will not be remembered for its journalistic merits, nor will it survive as an individual unit of note. Instead, it's will live on for its tone--that Boy-Who-Cried-Wolf meets George Orwell paranoia already branded onto the first decade of the 21st century. Irresponsible, unoriginal Journalism (with a capital J, because F them). Perez Hilton does what they're going for much better. And really, what does that say?

I love marijuana. I think it should be more readily available to adults. It's a healthy, natural alternative to prescription drugs used to treat a variety of conditions, from glaucoma to depression. And don't get me started on what it can do to a person's sexual health. Why aren't people as crazy about booze, which promises none of weed's benefits. Strange how we rank our values.

Anyway, I really just want to put out there that people who smoke weed--like people who drink--often make life easier for others. Among my closest friends, I count successful (by other people's standards) Ivy League grads, health care workers, teachers and business folk. They all smoke pot. (And don't get me wrong-- I'm not saying that all my friends smoke pot, just the ones I like the most.)

I work 30 hours a week (give or take), volunteer with two organizations about four hours a week, and work on finishing my musical about 30 hours a week. I'm trying to fit more blogging and reading in there these days. So when I don't have any responsibilities to the outside world, I smoke pot. And if I may step into the confessional for a moment, I secretly want to get one of those gorgeous pot citations from the po-lice.

It's like this. Potheads--to echo the Herald's blanket assessment of all marijuana users--can be very productive members of society. Jump off the judgment train, Boston Herald (and especially you Mason, considering you also wrote these two silly articles), and try starting with just the facts. Like the fact that 71 percent of respondents to a survey on the Herald's website think that marijuana should be legalized. Not everything that's written at a fifth-grade level has to have a Puritanical moral slant.

Here's what I'd like to see happen. I wanna see more people publicly identifying as marijuana users. I think that the same rules of etiquette that apply to cigarettes apply to marijuana: Don't do it where it's gonna bother someone else. But in public parks and near bodies of water, I say what the hay? Light up and lighten up.

RENT

Last night, I saw Rent with my friends SC and GA. Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp from the original Broadway cast were in it. It was, in so many ways, a dream come true.

When I was 14, Mitz, my next door neighbor, bought me the Rent cast album for Christmas. I remember opening the package and thinking, this is not real this is not real. Immediately, I ran upstairs and played the first disc. I started with "One Song Glory" because I'd heard a snippet of it on the radio. I assumed Adam Pascal was black after listening to the full song. Then I listened to the rest. It was wild hearing Rapp and Pascal sing the songs in essentially the same voices they sang them in thirteen years ago. Pascal's voice seems to have actually gotten stronger over time.

Being with two people seeing the show for the first time was nice. It reminded me of Rent's power, independent of the mythology that's surrounded it since Jonathan Larson's death. And it brought me back to the first time I saw the show, at the Shubert Theater in Boston, with my Auntie Ree and my cousin Lauren.

If a review is the sorta thing you're looking for here, then I'll say that this was the finest production of Rent I've ever seen--and I've been to Bohemia a dozen or so times over the years.

I'm so grateful to Rent. The show brought a lot of things into focus for me as a young man. And today, it still inspires me and let's me know that what I'm creating with SC is worthy.

free write

the most important thing for me to do in the morning
is to sit down and write
usually i write something on word or in a journal that no one else can see
but today
i'm going to write here
on the blog
which i have so neglected these past months

i started blogging because i thought it'd be a good way to start conversations
and then facebook blew up and people's moms and uncles and first grade teachers are now on it
and it's fostering so many amazing and hilarious conversations
that i kinda forgot about the blog

also i've had some issues in the past with people commenting on the blog during times of anger
these outburts made me a bit shy to post as well
anger is a tough son-of-a
i was having reiki done on me yesterday
and when pam, the practitioner, got to my heart chakra
a whole mudslide of anger came pouring out of me
it was intense
and reminded me that we are connected to something greater
and if we open ourselves up to that
we can overcome anything

reiki is another step that makes complete sense after the fact
i got introduced to reiki through my friend julie
i never thought reiki was funny
but maybe i thought some of the people who do reiki were funny
it's another one of those things that
when you still your mind
the magic disappears and reality takes hold
and since everything is an illusion
reality is what we make of it

reiki reminds me of psychedelic mushrooms
it takes you to a place where you see all the interconnectedness
you feel the beauty
and you realize
it's not about you
and it's all about you
and those are not opposing ideas

we're all the same
family
friend
stranger we pass on the street
stranger we'll never meet
nothing separating us but nothing

in this moment
i am grategul for the abililty to channel things beyond myself
to feel significant
to feel pain
and to know that this moment
is now
and the next moment
is whatever i want it to be

sometimes i think that family is the solution to all your problems
sometimes i think that friends are
sometimes i think that art is
and sometimes
like right now
i think that we are the answer to our own salvation

can't put nothing in anyone
can't put nothing on anyone
except ourselves
because we created this
and we can make it whatever we need it to be

billy joel & elton john

can't believe i got to see it
so much more than i thought it could be
and i expected once-in-my-lifetime

when i was a kid
i used to dance around my room
lipsynching
or if no one was home singing really off key
to billy joel
uptown girl especially

tonight
bj and ej sang uptown girl together
and bj interrupted river of dreams to sing a little bit of "dirty water"
and ej looked fierce (but maybe i could've used more sequins)
and bj honored mj (by grabbing his crotch) while singing "it's still rock and roll to me"

a killer show
one of the best i've ever seen
and among the most inspired i've ever been

love, passion, productivity

annoying

what's annoying to you?

i am annoying to some people

i know this because
some people have told me
"you are annoying"

most recently
i was told that i'm annoying by someone who annoys me
and that begs the question
which came first
the chicken
or the egg
and which is more annoying

what's annoying to me
telling me one thing
and meaning another
or making up stories
for no reason
or trying to cover your tracks
when you fuck up
these things annoy me

what fulfills me
is being around people
who are content
and doing what they're supposed to be doing

nothing saddens me more than
"i hate my job"
because when it gets to the point of hatred
we've let it go too far

parting thought
i was running the other day
and i was feeling more in touch with the source than i've ever been on a run
i got within two blocks of a place that used to hold significance to me
and the aura was so murky gray that
i couldn't go any further
like a wall of bad energy as real as any building or roadblock i've ever seen

and that let me know
we always move on for a reason
and sometimes when we try to go back to a place we've been before
the universe puts up a do-not-enter sign

the secret

rosie o'donnell will come to the next reading of my musical.

it's a boomerang.

put it out there in the right way, and it comes gliding back to you.