The Burden of Power

Normally, my reaction to any political event is to have a strong and vocal opinion. But Wednesday’s announcement that Proposition 8 had passed with flying colors in California, eliminating the rights of homosexuals to marry and, potentially, annulling the marriages of many gay couples, left me saddened and speechless.

Part of the pain came in the déjà vu. In November of 1992 I was a computer science graduate student at the University of Colorado. Sitting among my gaggle of nerds - almost all of whom identified as heterosexual - we rejoiced as we watched the numbers add up for the dynamic and unifying Bill Clinton. We cheered aloud; we cried, elated that 12+ years of ignorance had come to an end. The joy quickly turned to horror as we realized that Amendment 2, constitutionalizing discrimination against homosexuals, had passed. Sound familiar?

Focus on the Family, based in conservative Colorado Springs, supplied the financial juggernaut behind Amendment 2. They ran a flawless smear campaign out in the Colorado Plains. To be successful, they did five things: 1) they wrote an amendment where Yes meant No, 2) they misrepresented that a no vote implied “protected status” for gays, instead of the truth: equal rights for all, 3) they wielded church money and influence onto a civil issue, 4) they shamefully lied about the threat of the amendment to the church and to our children, and, 5) they took their fear and their lies out to honest, working class folks and transformed kindhearted family values into a message of hate. Sound familiar?

But here’s where things get different: in 1992, my friends, my straight friends, were aghast at this result. No one, gay or straight, stopped to celebrate. There was work to be done. So we did something crazy: the very next day, we started an email “list” to discuss your objections to Amendment 2. We held a meeting at school, and we taught all the other students outside of the computer science department how to use an email list serve. In no time we were rallying support all over the state, using the Internet to spread the message that hate was not a family value.

Back in 1958, a Virginia court sentenced Richard and Midred Loving, an interracial couple, to one year in prison after they moved their Washington DC sanctioned marriage to Virginia: “Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.” How silly this statement sounds 50 years later. Eventually, a higher ruled this lower court’s decision unconstitutional; likewise in Colorado, when a 1996 Colorado Supreme Court struck down Amendment 2 as unconstitutional.

AP exit polls reported that 7 in 10 black voters voted Yes on Proposition 8. Out in record numbers to vote for the first black president (depending on how you count) who could finally unify and respect the diversity of our great nation, they helped elect Obama at the same time as they helped condemn the basic rights of over 10% of California’s citizens. Since few blacks and Latinos are practicing Mormons, I can’t help but wonder if, in retrospect, those voters feel used and manipulated, as did many fine families in Colorado, when they later came to understand what their “yes” vote truly represented.

The question for gay marriage, like interracial marriage, is not if, but when. This time around, will we have to wait another 50 years for hate and ignorance to fully dissolve? There is an obligation that comes with the kind of new-found political influence wielded by the previously unrepresented voices who screamed on September 5th, 2008: it is the responsibility to do the right thing. That is the burden of power. Whether you are young or old, gay or straight, black or white, the time has come to do more than pat yourself on the back for what you might have done right, but to also ask yourself, “What can I do now?”

WOW: Stupid People

This week I am worried that Stupid People may ruin it for the rest of us. As the country enters what could be the most important election of the century, it occurs to me that there is still a possibility that Stupidity will prevail, as it has for the last two election cycles.

I have been living in a bubble, and not just my normal liberal bubble (though, that too); I have been living in a smart people bubble. It is cohabitated by those who read the newspaper, understand the constitution, grasp the importance of the separation of church and state, and can explain the difference between religion, government, and economics.

Here’s a recap of the man-on-the-street radio interview that sparked my concern:

Interviewer: Have you decided who you are going to vote for?
Stupid Lady: Yes, John McCain.
Interviewer: Can you tell us why?
Stupid Lady: Yes, I think Barack Obama is more of a communist.
Interviewer: Can you give an example of a policy that supports that?
Stupid Lady: I just think he wants more Communism.

REALLY?? Really. More Communism? More than what?

You should have to pass a test to vote. You should have to prove that you understand basic high school social studies terms, as well as demonstrate that you have absorbed pertinent election information from somewhere other than Star Magazine.

After the train wreck of the last eight years, there are really only two reasons to support John McCain and the Republican Party:

1) You are stupid.**
2) You are a wealthy CEO who earns over half a million dollars in income per year and appreciates that John McCain will be watching your back with tax cuts, government contracts, and protected status for you.

** ”You are stupid” sometimes masquerades as one of the following:
1.1) Barack Obama isn’t qualified, what with his Harvard Degree law degree and eight years in the senate. You know better.
1.2) You're just doing the same thing your parents have always done.
1.3) Barack Obama is a communist Muslim terrorist supporter. All those senate votes he missed? Trainin’ with Comrade Osama Bin Laden (at least he knows where he is).
1.4) Sarah Palin is hot.

Opposing Sides, RIP.

I am a writer who doesn’t write.

I haven’t written for 10 months. A very specific incident marks the draught of my creative juju (hint: it’s a four letter word that begins with S, ends with U2C and connotes Stand Up To Cancer).

Turns out, writing is just like riding a bike: You remember how to do it well enough to get to the end of the block, but when you inevitably fall on your ass, people will shamelessly laugh and point their finger at you.

This means that my re-premier has to be really good. That’s a lot of pressure. And, as everyone knows from the movies, writers crumple under pressure. We stop eating, talk to ourselves, chain smoke, and sleep with crazy people (often erroneously referred to as “inspiration.”)

Sitting down to write, I crack my knuckles and take the only logical start: I log onto Facebook to play Scrabulous. Imagine my HORROR to find that it was gone!! I really have been on a desert island. How will anyone ever write anything again? This is not cool.

Well, as Jesus used to say, if you can’t write something new, destroy something old.

I log into Blogger to do the world the good deed of removing the artsy-fartsy-faggy poem that I wrote while curing cancer and exorcising crazy people.

I would show you exactly how bad it was, except it’s gone to Artsy-Fartsy-Faggy-Poem-Heaven now. It will be happy there, dancing capitalizationless and punctuationless among other clauses like “shadows of the lonely soul,” “imperceptible silence,” and “from the dream away.”

RIP

sunglasses at night

So, I’m cruising down the freeway at the end of my 16-hour day. Yawning and texting while eating and driving. People are hitting their breaks and slowing down to 41mph in the middle lane of the freeway for no apparent reason. It’s any night in L.A.

I glance over at my side-view mirror. Something is hanging off of it, flapping in the wind. Looks like a eucalyptus leaf, I think. “But I haven’t driven through any low hanging brush today.” I squint, take a closer look.

It’s my $100 sunglasses. I can tell because when cars pass me, their headlights glimmer on the 1-cent safety pin that holds the sides together. I’m not sure how they got there, or how long they’ve been there. But I’m pretty sure that the only thing holding them in place is the force of the 65mph head wind. Suddenly Dennis Hopper appears, telling me that if I stop or slow down the car, the glasses will explode.

I hang tight in the left lane for a bit, while I come up with a plan. Slowly, carefully, one by one, I switch lanes to the right. Finally, just past Crenshaw, I pull into the breakdown lane and begin to slow down.

Anyone who tells you that the breakdown lane on a California freeway is a “safe” place to stop is a BFL. Those lanes are mother fuckin’ skinny. And that traffic goes fast.

As soon as my car hits exactly zero MPH, the glasses fall off. I peer down through my closed window. They are nowhere in sight. I open the door. I IMMEDIATELY close the door. Traffic is 12 inches away. And repeating that “EEEERUHHHH” noise of fast-cars-go-by. I wait for a break in the traffic, crack the door. No sign of the glasses. I consider sparing my life and abandoning the glasses, but I ultimately decide it’s not worth it.

Traffic breaks, I exit the car, bend down to the wheel, don’t see the glasses. I feel the kiss of a car-by on my ass and scurry back inside. Again, I briefly ponder prioritizing my life over the glasses. I open the car door, hit the ground, grab the glasses, run to the passenger’s side, and get back in. Alive I am, and back in the company of my protective eyewear.

Back in the safety of my car, it won’t start. Did it pick up some kind of car flu in the breakdown lane? I’m about to look under the hood for who knows what, when it dawns on me. I roll down the driver’s window, put the glasses back on the rearview mirror, start the car right up, and drive off into the moonlight.

before tommorrow.

the thing about getting old is that it is ageless. everyday the effects of yesterday are still a day away from tomorrow.

the stock market. real estate. the temperature of the earth.

there are things that move in only one direction over time.

what if there are things you can stop? and what if everyday that you don’t stop them, they just get older, closer to their perceived expiration date. what if too far gone is really only further than yesterday, but not nearly as far away as tomorrow?

worse, what if everything isn’t linear at all? what if to get to today, we have to pass through tomorrow?

you’re sitting on a beautiful couch in a beautiful house. across the room is a lamp, casting this warm glow on all the beauty around you. suddenly, the light goes out. now its dark, and you can’t see anything… but that’s ok, because when the light was on, it burned an impression in your mind’s eye of all the beauty. unfortunately, over time, the image inside you fades back to black. it happens so gradually that you barely even notice. you can’t experience the beauty, but you know its there, and somehow that seems like enough. but the truth – the real truth – is that all you see is darkness. in order to see everything beautiful again, you have to turn on the light. but you’re too lazy or too stupid or too scared to get up and walk across a dark room.

get up off your ass, cross the room, and turn on the light. just touch it. all you have to do is touch the fucking light. before tomorrow.