Share Something with an American You Love

I've been thinking a lot about tea in America. I've been thinking a lot about how Americans drink and maybe just how Americans are.
Before beer and wine and spirits and tea and cola, there was water. Just like animals, the only thing we drank was water, and it was by far the most important thing humans did. The first non-water drinks people got hold of was considered magical or to at least possess supernatural powers and a connection to gods and the cosmos.
Ancient people drank from shared vessels with long straws, and rituals were built around drinks. The vessels were held aloft in a gesture of thanks or offering to the supernatural. Then people shared drinks.
Unlike food, drinks can actually be truly shared. When everything is coming out of the same pot, it's not like cutting up pieces of bread or pizza, where everything is unequal and maybe you got an extra mushroom on yours and I didn't get as much onion on mine. Everything in the pot is the same when it comes to liquid, and when we're drinking from straws, we are literally drinking the same thing.
Eventually ceramics and glass and silver became more readily accessible, and people were all able to afford to drink from their very own cups. When people drank, though, they did it together and when they had their own cups, they raised them up like they did shared vessels and then clinked them together as gesture representing that what they were drinking came from a single vessel.

Drinking is a magical necessity of life. And it's something that we build our cultures around. Everything else can be put on hold as long as you keep drinking. Without drinking, you're dead.

Tea, is still drunk today–for the most part–out of a shared vessel that is displayed on or around the table. If you drink alone, it's still great, but not the same. And this brings me to Americans...
Americans like things in their OWN cups that they pour THEMSELVES. Approximately 85% of tea drunk in America is iced. They drink it in bottles from 7-11and big cups from Hardy's. This separates them from an important part of their humanity because it turns them into islands separated by liquid rather than members of a community that's connected by drink. Drink brings us together, don't let big businesses and corporations and politicians and other interests keep us from that. Share a bottle of something today. Share a pot of tea. Share a carafe. Whatever it is, do it with someone else and have an experience.

Bad Ass Vegetarian

I always love it when PETA features bad ass vegetarians in their communications. If I ever have enough money, I would like to open a manufactory of bad ass vegan gear. I don't think that market is covered enough by the likes Stella McCartney, &c.

I mean, I don't subscribe to the 1960's male identity GQ and Men's Health are peddling, but there is definitely a part of me that appreciates the rougher parts of masculinity. I do not believe for one nanosecond that the "Eat Like a Man" B.S. touted by male-targeted magazines is accurate, necessary, or even tolerable.

Consider what my most likely causes of death will be as a white, heterosexual, American male: a heart-related illness, colon cancer, or prostate cancer. All of those C.O.D.'s are directly related to the disgusting amount of animal products American men eat.

Why do men eat so many damned animals? Because they have been trained since birth to believe that masculinity and eating animal flesh are somehow related. They've been duped by campaigns with billions of dollars behind them. It's the same thing that caused them to smoke, the same thing that causes them to drink crap beer, and the same thing that gets them to buy big trucks they never really use (unless they're contractors or something).

When women redefined their role in our society (and continue to fight to do), men did not. Why should they have? They were the kings of castles, and their word was command, after all and for the most part. So they missed the boat. And now, men are still living like it's 1965. Women are communicating differently, having the right kinds of arguments about their gender identity, questioning what their role is in this millennium, and I think there's an underlying frustration with their counterparts who are behaving as if nothing has changed.

Well, I hope that there are more ads like this for all of our sake. Jake Shields is an MMA fighter who kicks a lot of ass and is undeniably masculine, even fitting into a stereotype of masculinity, a stereotype men are comfortable with, and he's vegetarian. That's extremely bad ass.

Always Try to Make Things Easier for Others

Some people resent that others want to achieve the same goals with less effort and turmoil. I, who had never had it very easy, wish that, if you would like the same things I have, that they come to you more easily than they have to me.

Just because it has been hard for me to catch my breath does not mean I want you to struggle through the horrors of asthma.

Although my father was rough, you needn't face familial failure.

And when I found myself alone, I wished someone would love you.

I will vote for free education and health care for all because I had neither.

I will fight for anyone's freedom to forge her own destiny.

I haven't had the hardest life, but I hope that yours is softer.

It's Hard Being Jack Morgan

Before Jack Morgan was the most bad-ass vegetarian poet in the world, there was a kid everyone called Skyler. He knew how to look happy and cute.
–––––––––––——————****I've been writing secret messages here again.
Yesterday, Jack Morgan won a fancy poetry award, so he took his friends out for a fancy dinner. No one took any pictures for some reason. I wish I had a photographer friend who wanted to document all of the crazy things we poets in the bay do. I skip so much of what happens; I can't put it all on this blog. Plussssss, pictures are the things they make books out of when we're all big and famous. I love looking at pictures of language poets when they were young and hot with all of their amazing haircuts and shirts. There are museums filled with pictures of the beats.

There aren't many pictures of me as a kid growing up, and I guess there won't be many pictures of my artistic rise. But I like pictures, and I wish there were more.

At first, I got a little depressed about winning the award. It's a lot of money, which is nice, but Cameron said I was selling out, and even though I know he was joking, it got me asking myself if I was. I take my integrity too seriously maybe. Luckily, I have never taken a class with any of the poets who could have been judging, and it would be utterly impossible for anyone to know those poems were mine. I don't want to win anything or get anything that I didn't earn. That sounds lame when I read that, but integrity is the only thing I have that's worth anything. It's hard to measure how talented or deserving a person is of accolades if you don't look at their integrity. If you don't have any of that, who are you? What are you worth?

Winning this one, the Judith Stronach award (I've won it twice now), means I will be reading at a reception at UCB on April 24th, and then at Lunch Poems (Robert Hass's series) in May.
One of them will be recorded and posted online.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\///Chad Vogler, I've been thinking about you. Everyone knows you won the Eisner award because GGOB edited your Harlem Hide-and-go-Seek poems. It isn't your fault that he has no moral compass, and I don't fault you but pity you and envy you at the same time. I wish I had won the Eisner, but not like that. I'm sure you'll get into whatever MFA program you want! Congratulations in advance on that.

Speaking of Ethics, have you ever noticed that Ivy Leagues keep having issues when it comes to ethics? Is there anyone in those east coast brick houses who isn't a liar, a plagiarist, or a rapist?
)()()()()()()()()()()()()(((

I feel sorry for people who don't have good mentors. A person I don't like at all, a person who has hurt me, has a very bad mentor, who will get him far I suppose, but I feel bad for him because getting far isn't worth compromise. I am glad and eternally grateful for a great mentor and great friends who serve as constant reminders that you don't have to be a liar and a whore if you don't want to be.

Door

Always open doors for people. . . even if it requires you to lose your spot in line.

Some courtesies slow you down, and that's OK. There is no race.
The only things in life to lose are respect and dignity.

Cold Shoulder Pedestrian

Always look over your shoulder before crossing the street. Left and right usually have lights stopping cars, so the ass hole behind you thinks he can make the turn without looking and usually doesn't see you and is probably texting friends or something. Dying at a cross walk is sad; it makes your death more meaningless than your life.

Also, when waiting for your light to change, do not stand on the curb. The curb is the most likely place where a car will hit you. It is more likely that a car making a turn will hit you on the curb than when you are crossing the street, even if you're jay-walking. The three step rule is best: stand back from the curb at least three steps if you want to see tomorrow.

90 per cent. of all pedestrian deaths happen less than three steps from corner curbs. So when waiting. Stand three steps away and look over your shoulder before plunging into the asphalt darkness.