The Hairy Bittercress

With the return of the warm weather (finally!) comes the wonderful burst of color on trees and gardens everywhere. This is also when the killing starts; the tons of weeds that lay dormant through the winter to make their tall appearance the following Spring. I have already begun the yearly battle with their kind with an arsenal that includes highly toxic liquids, sharp blades and spinning machines. And then a strange thing happened to me the other day.

I felt bad about it.

After about an hour of ripping them from their roots out of the ground with my hands, slicing them down to stubs with the lawn mower and spraying them to a crisp, it suddenly occurred to me how much effort was required to not actually kill them, just to slow them down for a couple of weeks. Weeds had, in that moment, gone from being a big nuisance to the most resilient and hardest to kill life form I think I’ve ever encountered (besides people who chain-smoke; holes in their throat, fingers amputated, wheeling around an oxygen tank with one hand and smoking a cigarette with the other.. God bless ‘em). Meanwhile the occasional plants I hesitantly decide to take care of usually wilt and die despite whatever time and attention I pay them. My kids and I once came home from Home Depot with flower seeds, soil and baskets to hang on either side of our front door. Not only did the flowers not bloom very well or not last long if they did, within a month or so weeds were happily growing within the elevated, hanging pots! In retrospect that was quite amazing; it’s as if plants were Mother Nature’s promise that life will always survive on this planet, and that weeds are the multi-colored enforcers of that promise. I mean there are pretty ugly weeds that look like you meant to haphazardly plant dozens of flat little cabbage heads all over your lawn, and ones that actually flower and produce beautifully colored petals of every imaginable hue. I think back to the “flowers” my siblings and I picked in the park near our home that I now realize were nothing more than pretty weeds.

 And then there is the Hairy Bittercress.  Although it sounds like a British euphemism for troubled female genitalia, it’s actually an ingenious weed that absolutely promises future generations of itself with spring-loaded tiny seed projectiles that burst out at the slightest disturbance. I was walking through our backyard once checking for any pine cones or other foreign objects that could wreak havoc on the lawn mower blade, when I noticed a spraying of little yellowish grains half a step ahead of my pace. I got down on my hands and knees and discovered this ingenious form of seeding that was occurring every time I, anyone or anything moved through the backyard. I also realized that by using the lawnmower to at least visually mend our weeds issues, I was also literally and unwittingly planting the seeds for future weeds. I was so impressed and fascinated by this example of Mother Nature’s Plan and its execution that I actually spent the next few minutes passing my hand over these weeds and watching their seeds explode in all directions like tiny fireworks and disappear into the grass. My wife Sofia thought something was wrong what with me lying in the grass like that; she yanked open the kitchen window and yelled out to me. My inner nerd proceeded to excitedly tell her about my new discovery but way before I could finish, her eyes had narrowed into cat-like slits of anti-nerd armor, as she slowly closed the window to drown out my talking. I got right back down into the grass.

I’ve since noticed weeds growing out of soil-less cracks in cement, sides of buildings, appear in the afternoon where there was only grass in the morning, and generally defy efforts to permanently eliminate them. Not only was it a war I wasn’t winning, it had become a war not worth waging. Fighting against Mother Nature? Really? Is that something I want on my life-resume when I also love flowers, trees and the smell of grass? I mean I can’t just let the weeds ruin the back or front yards, I do still have to act against them, but I’m doing it with a different mindset. Knowing that I can’t really kill them, I’m no longer trying to. There are certain areas of our property that we do not frequent or do not lend themselves to any real use. I will let the weeds grow longer there, because it’s interesting to see the variety that spontaneously make their appearance from year to year.  

I don’t think there is any better way to glimpse the mechanics of God and Nature than to peer through a telescope at the night sky or to plant a seed in some soil and observe the results unfold over time. So who am I to not allow Nature to take up residency in our front or backyard?

Hairy Bittercress’ are welcome in our house.

Thank You 2013

The end of every year is the most fitting time to look back upon our accomplishments and beat ourselves up silly over our shortcomings. For the last couple of years my resolutions are less like resolutions and more like adjustments to the old goals I haven't reached yet. Because I really want to reach them. When the time has come to throw out another calendar and there were still a bunch of things left to accomplish on it, it's then that I realize that the goal was too broad or my motivation too narrow. Or both. It's easy to blame other people or other factors, so I try to remind myself about what's crazier - the person that refuses to listen, or the person who insists on shouting? Sometimes I'm either and things become clearer only when you step back far enough to see the stage we sometimes forget we are actors on.

One of my happiest accomplishments this year was doing just this; sharing on the net thoughts usually reserved exclusively for my screen or a notebook. I remember the day my truly amazing and supportive wife Sofia suggested I share all the writing I was squirreling away. I remember being irrationally defensive of my stuff and reminding her I wrote for myself, not for anyone else. She said that was pretty selfish, and she couldn't have been more right. What was the difference between the writing I created and the artwork I was eager to post images of online? There wasn't, and that's when I decided an (admittedly long) self intro was in order.

I later had the desire to share a love letter I had written to my wife about the first day we met, the best, longest, most awesomest date ever. It's had the most read hits so far, and I like to think that that's a testament to how cool our first meeting was, and how cool my life partner is.

I turned 43 this year, and there were still bad habits I exhibit when my birthday gets close. I'm eager to see if I've finally cleared those cobwebs when I turn 44.

Twerking was such a headline this year that I could not help but put my two-cents in.

An article about marriage and its meaning struck a chord with me considering the rather large spectrum of definitions for marriage people around me have. I don't for a minute think I have the definition, just my opinion.

Beauty will forever be in the eye of the beholder, and the Hip-Hop art world received an eye-gouging with the defamation of 5 Pointz in Queens.

Finally, I wrote down my thoughts about being thankful for the things I may not ordinarily think about even on the day dedicated specifically for giving thanks.

I want to thank everyone that took the time to read my writing. It's an honor beyond words considering I don't even know the majority of you! As it turns out I have thoroughly enjoyed the experience, the feedback, and I find it's easier to share my thoughts than I ever thought possible.
May 2014 be 2,014 times better than 2013 was.
Health, happiness and love to us all.

The Action of Thanks

 

When I woke up this morning, I struggled to clear some phlegm from my throat – and I was grateful to have awoken once again, thankful for a throat to clear.

The ache in my shoulder and arm was back – and I was grateful to the pain receptors in that part of my body for functioning properly.

I couldn’t find my other slipper – and I thought of the children around the world whose feet were thickly calloused because they didn’t own any shoes at all.

I turned the heat up slightly on the thermostat because I was cold, and was thankful for the roof above our heads, the heat from the boiler, the electricity humming through the house. All things I have personally seen many do without, and not by choice.

I helped my kids get ready for school, ready for breakfast, and gave thanks for their ability to attend a good school, to read and write and express themselves, to eat, draw, laugh and cry, ready to experience life on this Earth as fully as possible.

I kissed my wife on her way to work, grateful that I had tumbled, fallen in love and then married my best friend. I am thankful that she still accepts me, faults and all. Many, many faults and all. I am thankful that she is a strong and wise Latina, purposeful, thoughtful and loving. I thought of the people I have met with partners with no such qualities, those who have settled with negative somebodies who only accentuated their own negative, those that still wandered in circles not understanding why their life was less than, or even worse, blaming Life for their bad choices.

Later in the evening I lowered my head (so as not to be disrespectful to my instructor, it’s how I roll my eyes in his school) when he called for exercises that always puts a strain on my back. I immediately filled with gratitude as I considered all the many people my age and younger who are already unable to even consider exercise, aren’t able to play too physically with their kids, couldn’t run away or towards something if they really needed to.

It takes many steps we cannot explain and do not fully understand to do what we do and get where we get every day; all the incredibly chemical and neurological processes that occurred to be conceived and born and read words like these many years later, the fascinating cycles of nature that must combine to produce the apple you ate at lunch, even the multitude of large and small mechanical motions that need to happen in a precise order to drive your car to work, ride the subway home, get that plane safely to your destination. Those are human-made circumstances but they still required millions of years of evolution to invent a battery to power our toys. They all contain steps that are as much a mystery to most of us as the deepest of the oceans trenches or the vastness of outer space. It isn’t until those processes are interrupted or those abilities are taken away that we pay attention to the things that we routinely ignore, but it tends to happen this way because it is part of our nature to take things for granted. I am happy that there is at least one day on every calendar in our country that is dedicated to the action of giving thanks, of being grateful, of being aware of something (hopefully) outside of our own selves. Whether it is while having dinner with loved ones, serving meals to those in need or watching giant balloons soar past overhead, I welcome the invitation and extend it  as well, to think about the things we are thankful for that on any given day may float by uncelebrated and unrecognized. Think about them, it, that or they, and say:

“Thanks”.

The 5 Pointz Killa

As an artist I was affected to read about the decision (article) to white-out and destroy the artwork found on the long-abandoned buildings that became known as 5 Pointz in Queens, New York. I weighed in with my opinion below.

 
Considering that Mr. Wolkoff  allowed and supported  over a decade's worth of art and hard work on his buildings and promised new space for artists on his new buildings, it's hard to understand how he came to the conclusion that painting over internationally recognized and renown murals before destroying the entire structure they are painted on was the "humane" thing to do. The greatest irony of this action, in my opinion, is that he orders the work done under the cover of night, just like graffiti writers had to work back when graffiti was considered strictly vandalism. I get it, not everyone regards graffiti as art (and not all of it is), but not everything hanging in the Metropolitan Museum of Art is appreciable or understandable by everyone either. This gives exactly NO ONE the right to petition the Met to have work painted over and destroyed, and Mr. Wolkoff should have exercised the same respect.

 

The buildings were coming down; that was a short, mostly one-sided scuffle decided by a judge. But even a court order is not a good enough reason not to treat the large, world-wide community that regarded this building as an unofficial landmark, Graffiti Ground Zero, the Mecca of an influential art-style and an important element of hip-hop culture with a minimal amount of RESPECT. These artists created countless pieces of artwork on these structures' walls both legally and with full permission by the owners, the same owners who unbelievably likened their own ironic act of white-out vandalism to "forcing a child to take medicine." There could have been alternate methods to officially bring this chapter to a close, the very community Mr.Wolkoff has deeply offended could have helped him, but instead he opted to crown himself the 5-Points Killa.

Mr. Wolkoff should have allowed a death-bed visit, not the heart-breaking discovery of a white-blooded murder scene.

 

Marriage as a Magnifying Glass

I agree with some of the things mentioned about selflessness marriage in this article, but I also believe that there is something to be said for a healthy measure of selfishness. Let me explain.

In an airplane emergency we are instructed to secure our own oxygen mask before attending to anyone else, including our children sitting beside us. This sounds like an outrageously selfish suggestion, but it really isn't and it has a life-lesson built in to boot; by taking care of yourself you strengthen the ability to take care of those you love and care about. So it’s a “good” selfish, it’s a selfish that defies its own definition and actually benefits others. I think that the main idea in this article, that “a true marriage (and true love) is never about you. It’s about the person you love—their wants, their needs, their hopes, and their dreams”, is only true when both partners equally believe and share this idea. What if your partner is incapable or unwilling to do the same for you? You shouldn’t tend so much to the neighbor’s flowers at the expense of your own, because you run the very real risk of losing both gardens.

Marriage works best as a partnering, not a worshipping as this article sometimes implies. For anyone that believes that you should mind the wants, needs, hopes and dreams of another before or instead of your own – no, then marriage is not for you. If you are going into it limping or already licking wounds not yet healed because your partner is not capable, not mature enough or unprepared to work towards fulfilling YOUR wants, needs, hopes and dreams, no, marriage is not for you. It’s ok to be their number 2 sometimes because occasionally you need to be your own number 1. If you find that you are often their number 3 or 4 or lower then absolutely no, marriage is not for you.

There were a lot of “I”, “me” and “you”s  in this article, and not many “us” or “we”s at all. I am of the opinion that these are important elements in the vocabulary of a marriage, or of any close relationship for that matter. They indicate an underlining of true partnership, of respect and of a desire to truly be joined with this person while preserving your individuality as well. My wife of (12-plus years) and I are a very strong team, and part of the reason for that is how strong we are as individuals. We can help cancel out each other’s weaknesses, and we can also enhance the other’s strengths. WE.

If you are not already in a relationship were you are both working towards each other’s wants, needs, hopes and dreams, marriage will not magically make this happen, and therefore marriage is not for you. Marriage is something like a magnifying glass where what was already good can improve and what was already bad can worsen. And like that magnifying glass, it can either reveal great things about yourself and your partner, or burn a hole right through.

 It all depends on how you’re looking at it.

 

R.I.P. H.Montana

Its true. 

     Anyone who considers themselves, or is collectively considered to be a "celebrity" did not sign any agreement to be a beacon of morality or a role model for our children. So twerk away, grind away, rub away at your privates, this is still a free country. Stick your tongue out (literally) at anyone who would criticize you for behaving so un-Disney like because after all, that is exactly your point. You're a grown-ass woman now doing grown-ass woman things, but the follow up question will always be: what is the wisdom and the quality of those things you choose to do? Is your choice (or the choice of those who manage your image) to replace your family-friendly TV persona with that of a sexually liberated spring-breaker, a wise one? Time will tell. Is it in good taste? That's a matter of opinion. So,why then? Where is the wisdom of informing the world that you're all grown up by behaving like a child who just found her mommy’s lipstick and high-heel shoes? It just further emphasizes that you are in fact not yet grown up, not yet ready. Its distracting at best, but disappointing at worst because rather than reveal your maturity through your talent and intelligence, you chose to make your declaration through social media, outrageous behavior and a brazen display of sexuality that is, in my opinion, the opposite of sexy.

     Congratulations on receiving the enormous amount of attention you so crave, that part worked to perfection. Unfortunately you are not concerned with what is said about you so long as it is being said about you, evidenced by a staggering Twitter count. You don’t care that in this hyper-paced society of ours that kind of attention wears off within another week when some other phenomenally insecure and/or unbalanced celebrity will feel compelled to outdo your immature displays with some of their own. You may not be giving the future much thought, and that goes to show that regardless of your fame, your bank account, your opportunities and your privileges you display the same immaturity and ignorance of the average 20 year old without any of your advantages. You have fans that cry out your name just to touch your shoes, wear what you wear, they sing along to your songs without missing a syllable and fall over themselves to take your picture. The entourage of people employed to fulfill your wants and needs say yes when they might mean no. It must be hard NOT to think that you are important to the whole rest of the world, but remember, ye of only twenty springs, that your entourage are just today’s employees, and those fans of yours will be as willing to pay to go see someone else's concert as they were to see yours. You will have no choice but to continue upping the ante with your hijinks and shenanigans, leaving far behind and forgotten the last vestiges of talent, credibility and relevance you may have still had. The entertainment business has the indelible reputation of chewing up and spitting out its own young, but it seems that it's you and this youngest generation of celebrities who are chewing away at your own feet via a magnified lack of self-respect.

Our kids will admire questionable celebrities, they will sing along to inappropriate lyrics, they will be bombarded by the daily contrast of toddler beauty pageants and the awkwardness of real-life adolescence

     And poor Mr. Blurred Lines! He was clearly absent from every single rehearsal and had no idea that a young lady half his age would bend over provocatively in front of him for millions of people to see. If you really believe that wasn't part of the show then there's a bridge not too far from the Barclays center that’s still for sale. Topless women parade about in the alternate version of his video that serve no purpose but to titillate (pun intended) while he and his other male friends remain fully clothed, perpetuating an iron clad double-standard in the media. I’m not actually advocating for dudes in music videos to stroll by with their junk swinging about, my point is that even when women are the willing participants, the objectification is strongly reinforced and it's remarkable to me that this isn't more of a point. The horror! The indecency! Why he’s a married man with children! Well if he's so St. George and she's the evil dragon in this painting, couldn't the married man with children have said something along the lines of appropriateness when this was still in the planning stages? And even if was not planned, then how about a few words after the fact? Oh wait, he did have a few words...

"That was dope"

He wasn't going to say any different because to have said any different would have meant that more than a week later there wouldn't still be talk about it. Not to mention that rather predictably, each of their current songs (interestingly, not the one she actually performed) has had a substantial sales spike as a result of their performance. Mission accomplished.

There is no actual argument here, no dragon to defeat, no heroes and no villains. Sex will always sell in our consumer driven society already addicted to sound bites, scandal and (social) media. And sex is sold to us from all fronts, whether it’s safe sex Public Service Announcements or the nearly naked in music videos and covers of “romance” paperbacks. Our kids will admire questionable celebrities, they will sing along to inappropriate lyrics, they will be bombarded by the daily contrast of toddler beauty pageants and the awkwardness of real-life adolescence. They will be tug-o-warred between the virtues of abstinence and the strong sexual messages in car and perfume commercials. They will be forced to leaf through 74 glossy pages of Photoshop perfection to reach the one article about being o.k. with your image. And through all these contradictions, as concerned parents we have the enormous task of teaching them the importance of filtering out the messages that matter; respect yourself so that others respect you. Don’t be in such a rush to grow up because life itself will slow you down, sometimes hard. Respecting everyone else’s messages doesn’t mean you also need to subscribe to them. Honor and love yourself.

     It takes a special kind of sanity to stick with the program and see through all this distracting fluff that passes as news these days. But it’s only sane people that question their sanity. It's the crazy people that think that something is wrong with the rest of the world.

7/28

I turned 43 yesterday, and it was awesome. It's around my birthday when I contemplate how productive I've been since the year before and no matter my accomplishments, I have a tendency to focus too much on my shortcomings. I wasn't very aware of this until my wife Sofia pointed it out to me a few days ago when I told her I was feeling very cranky. She very matter of fact-ly told me that of course I was, my birthday was coming up, that I always get that way. I wanted to disagree and argue that point, but really only because I was already cranky.

"Always? Really? No, I think only the last 3 or 4 years maybe, you know the whole turning 40 thi..."

"Always.  Meaning that around this time for the last 14 years of the 15 I've known you, you get this way. Knock it off, you're doing great."

Boom. Just like that I felt a corner of my brain clear of cobwebs and I remembered how often I've spoken to others about the pitfalls of complacency,  that negativity is sometimes nothing more than a bad habit stuck on repeat. Suddenly I was looking a little more forward to my birthday.

     I was already looking forward to it in the sense that we were planning to take our kids to an R5 concert earlier that week, but due to a conflict in schedules our last chance for tickets was going to be on the 28th at a fair in New Jersey. We decided to keep it a surprise from them for as long as we could, so for my birthday this year my big gift would be to see their amazed little faces when they realized what was happening, and I was really excited about that. By the way if you're wondering "What's an R5?" then I know you don't have to watch the Disney channel much and/or your kids are in their later teens. They are the music group our kids are currently very fond of and whose young front man, Ross Lynch, is also the teen heart throb our nine-year-old has just recently chosen as the subject for poster hangings on her wall. They were elated to discover that the enormous line whose end we could not seem to reach to enter the venue was for an R5 concert, and not even the rain that had just then started to fall dampened their spirits. Did I mention it was an outdoor venue? It was an outdoor venue and it had just then begun to rain. I then realized I would probably have to carry our five-year-old on my shoulders for the whole concert because I don't think he'd be able to see past the mass of hysterically screaming teenage girls. I got a kick out of looking around at the spectrum of parenting on display though; you had the parents that had scowls on their faces and stood perfectly still as if thinking "I paid how much to stand next to screaming females? I can get this at home for free, goddamit.." You had the parents that from the corner of your eye you thought were just more  teenagers waving their arms, dancing and singing along unabashedly. But you gasped a little when you turned to see them and.. oh my God, that teenager needed either emergency Botox treatments or a full-on facelift, oh no wait....you're a parent too. An exceedingly enthusiastic parent probably embarrassing the living crap out of their kids, but a parent nevertheless. And there were parents like my wife and I, all smiles and happy because we were making a vivid memory with our kids. We were able to give them something they not only loved but had earned and were very appreciative of. So there we were, the four of us enjoying music my wife and I were actually familiar with and that our kids sang along to with so much joy and happiness, in our rain ponchos, on my birthday. I loved every minute of it, and the rain didn't even bother me.

That is until a few hours later. While waiting on line for one of the fair rides, we were suddenly caught in a torrential downpour that had us running for the nearest tent already overcrowded with soaking wet human beings. only my front side was not getting wetter, the entire back half of me was already thoroughly soaked through. The ground was having a hard time assimilating the enormous amount of water falling from the sky, and within minutes muddy water had already reached the top of my sneaker laces. Figuring we couldn't actually get any wetter than we already were, we made our way to our car through ankle deep, freezing brown water and a deluge that just wouldn't stop. No, the smiles were pretty much gone by the time we were sitting in our sopping wet clothes and transferring some of that water to the car seats, but you know something? We had a great time, it was worth every drop, and I decided that the rain would be the figurative exclamation point to my answer if anyone ever asked me which has been my favorite birthday so far.

It was my 43rd!