Big Wind in Fair Oaks today
Yeah, I know, brevity has it's own value.
Read it if you must - especially lifeisacabaret
A little while ago my friend lifeisacabaret posted her answers to an "interview", a mini-questionnaire that somebody had provided her. The idea of the game is that you could comment on her answers and if you wanted to continue the game have lifeisacabaret post an "interview" with you. Knowing Maree I was sure her questions would be somewhat off center and quite intriguing. I wasn't disappointed:
1) If you had to write a summary justifying your existence for an alien laser-wielding robot army to take back to its mysterious leader for consideration, what would you say?
There’s no need to send a laser wielding robot army here if you intend to destroy us. Just drop off the enough lasers in clusters around the world and we will destroy ourselves - will save you lots of time and energy and might be entertaining to boot!
Well that might not justify my existence…, nor anybody else's for that matter. Perhaps I should try this instead:
I assume that sending a alien laser-wielding robot army is your standard protocol for meeting new species, probably quite well justified considering what you have encountered in our galaxy so far. But a fierce introduction like this could also be a sign of some deep seated insecurity you are feeling, perhaps a need for recognition when you were but a mere non-descript larvae, undifferentiated from the tens of thousands of other larvae hatched in your season. Or perhaps you didn't pupate the same as your siblings and were rejected by your family and friends. I can relate, really I can.
Perhaps we can meet and find our mutual interests together, an interspecies pity party where we can regale each other with progressively escalating tales of woe and personal tragedy, a dark Scheherazade scenario, a "failed to adjust to life's realities" contest to determine who is more screwed up. I'm very competitive in this area and I bet you can't keep up!
Yeah, that'll work!
Next:
2) If the mysterious alien leader was then to short-list you for continued existence, but wanted you to submit a clip from your life of say 5 minutes of total experience (sights, smells, sounds, textures, thoughts, sensations - everything) summarizing what your life is about, what would you send?
I’ll have to submit this as a script:
Scene: Just born and cleaned up in my mother’s arms, happy content and at peace as was my mother and my beaming-with-pride father. (10 seconds, no music or sounds other than baby gurgling gently)
Scene: Age 1 - in crib in backyard screaming and crying as neighbor girl proceeds to cover my whole body with spit for about an hour before she was so rudely interrupted from her activity. (5 seconds, baby screaming and exhausted with fright)
Scene: Age 3 - Meeting with maternal grandparents at their home, so warm and kind and loving and giving; immigrant maternal great grandparents in background trying to give me candy and hugs. Fire place burning in background; table groaning with food. Warmth and love abound at every turn. (10 seconds, gentle non-distinct murmuring with pleasant children’s music in background, smells of cooked beef and potatoes and apple pie)
Scene: Ages 5 thru 15 - Being teased mercilessly by younger brother, jealous of any attention that he is not receiving. Unable to avoid being spanked daily and sent to room, isolated and unloved, while younger brother gleefully watches on as I am being destroyed, knowing full well that mom must mete out punishment equally to all “involved” no matter the situation. Living in terror of younger brother who proceeds to negate any level of recognition I might receive from my mother. Not able to explain to a mother who is unable to deal with a situation that was developing outside her control, a mother who was emotionally injured as a child as well, living in the 50s with no support system to help her. Collapsing alone into a ball of tears and piteous jerking sobs at the end. (30 seconds various scenes with music getting progressively discordant and disjointed and loud - indicating the possibility of a mental breakdown in progress)
Scene: Ages 8 thru 21 - First piano lessons. Discovery that younger brother was forbidden to come to the basement when I was practicing piano. Practicing piano for endless hours in the basement. Practicing piano for endless hours and suddenly beginning to play something that sounded half way decent. Practicing piano and playing music from outside the Thompson progressive study series, an old 1930s Schirmers collection that was donated by my Aunt Dotie. Practicing piano instead of going outside to play where my dreaded brother lay in wait for me. Practicing piano at the new house (age 9). Practicing the piano and then keeping still for a bit to listen to the birds that mom insisted were singing louder and more incessantly while I was playing, believing that I was stimulating their creativity. Playing piano for my Aunt Margaret who was herself an accomplished pianist. Playing piano for Christmas at the little country church (age 11). Playing piano for dad. Practicing piano and beginning to get into some really difficult pieces that my old teacher, Ms Beunding, couldn’t help me with. Quitting piano lessons in frustration (age 14). Finding new piano teacher, Mr Wescott. Shot of Don Wescott’s piano instructor at the Chicago Conservatory of Music, Don Wells. Playing the first movement of Beethoven’s Moonlight sonata for Dad’s social guests - mucky mucks from the land of academia and social work that was his professional milieu, then running into my room and crying piteously when one of dad’s friends played the same piano I had just played but really woke up the crowd with various clever improvisations and truly lively renditions of American Standards they could sing and dance to, knowing that dad’s friends were just being polite to compliment me, crushed by the realization of just how outclassed I still was even though I had been playing continuously for 7 years (roughly half my life) - piano, my only means of entry into this world, was woefully inadequate after all . Assiduously practicing piano with some truly difficult classical works, struggling fiercely and full of frustrations. Going into a musical contest as an accompanist for friends who played a trumpet trio. Playing piano as the accompanist for Debra in a high school talent contest - she as Lucy and I as Schroeder in the Peanuts musical piece where he is playing Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, ignoring her advances and she is lamenting his apparent lack of notice - a scene that was entirely too close to reality in our case. Loading my first San Francisco piano (Henry F Miller, 1918 upright) into the laundry room of the flophouse that I was living in at the time, followed by a scene where I was playing a very serene piece and my weird perverted flophouse landlady was in tears listening to me playing, showing her humanity. Loading the piano into the apartment on Grove Street (SF). Playing the piano, getting notice from my 60 year old next door neighbor who would just sit in her apartment listening for hours. Playing the piano and attracting the attention of a certain young woman living up one floor who would sit in her bathroom listening as the music wafted up the lightwell. Meeting this young woman, a law student at USF, and giving her piano lessons. Allowing friends of another young woman living in that apartment house who were visiting from New York to play on my piano, simply blown away by their awesome talents and friendly encouragement - most assuredly of Julliard. (90 seconds with various musical clips appropriate for each scene)
Scene: Age 21 (late autumn 1974 - early spring 1975) - Petitioning for the Nuclear Safeguards Initiative, eventually to become Proposition 15 of November 1976. Night and day, rain and shine, cold and miserable petitioning scenes from Union Square in San Francisco, UC Berkeley, UCLA, Pasadena City College, in front of the Gemco in Compton, Cal State Long Beach, Orange City College, and then (focus and sound to become steady for this scene) a shot petitioning in front of a Gemco in Northridge where the smog was so thick you couldn’t see past the first row of parked cars, meanwhile being berated by an angry middle aged woman because “you damned environmentalists are just a bunch of misinformed fucked up alarmists costing us our jobs”, living / flopping in the house in Laurel Canyon donated by the family of one of our key inside members, flopping in the house of Ed Koopel (of “The People’s Lobby”) while listening to three young members (two men and one very likeable woman) living there play guitar and sing their home made anthem “I’m a People’s Lobby Fool”, meeting David Pesonnen (author of our initiative), meeting David Brower who gave us recognition at the 1975 Xmas party for Friends of the Earth, running up to Santa Cruz with Ken and Celia and Rob to confront our “leader” who had essentially drained 70% of our funds into his pocket while not raising a single penny of donations nor getting any signatures - forcing him to resign, completely running out of money about 3 weeks later with about 340K signatures, short of the roughly 400K to assure we would make the ballot (discouragement and exhaustion of the highest order), getting the news that Dwight had managed to contact a group in Palo Alto that immediately raised $10K in one evening with promises of much more to come, finding these same people (middle class middle aged activists - not at all typical for the times) out on the streets EVERYWHERE finishing up the signature campaign, getting us to almost the 600K level in less than a month. MADE THE BALLOT. Lost the election. Three Mile Island makes headlines. Chernobyl makes headlines. (45 seconds with short clips of distinct voices in critical scenes with muffled sounds for the rest - no music)
Scene: Age 21 thru 53 - Meeting Lorrie in the stairway of the apartment building on Grove Street, talking briefly to her. Offering piano lessons. She comes for her two lessons and learns to play Moon River melody, very halting while I carefully insert left hand part to accompany the piece. Lorrie begins to teach me Japanese words. Our first date: 10-25-75 at the dance studio in San Francisco where everybody knows the steps to complicated Slavic folk dances - Lorrie very uncomfortable but tries her best. Our second date: 10-31-75 at theatre playing “The Harder They Come” just off Polk Street on California +/-. Walking out of that darkened movie theatre because of disgusting violence depicted only to find ourselves enveloped in gay Halloween block party that covered about 6 blocks of Polk Street - a spectacle of plumes and boas and tights and stockings and big hair wigs and heavy make up and dark chocolate voices all having the time of their lives celebrating the joy of their freedom. Living in their joy of the moment with this fascinating young woman at my side. Taking Lorrie to Mendocino to our suite of rooms at the bed and breakfast inn, walking the town’s quaint streets, and clearly falling madly in love with her and she with me - very warm and comfortable feelings with great excitement and thrills to no end. Lorrie moves into the apartment with me to get away from her insane roommate and study for the bar - me taking care of her daily needs so she can stay completely focused for the weeks leading up to and including the bar exam. Looking at the exam list and finding her name as one who passed. Moving to apartment on Clay Street. Getting married at LaFayette Park in San Francisco in 1979, after first having to ask the several hundred gay sunbathers who had gathered in “our” meadow to please allow us to get married there. Lorrie working at JACL (Japanese American Citizens League) on Sutter Street in San Francisco, Lorrie collecting books for her mail order business (Once Upon a Mystery), Lorrie collecting her books for herself, Lorrie going back to Golden Gate University to get her LLM in tax where I would wait for her late at night, asleep in those big cushy chairs, to escort her safely home, Lorrie getting her first state job at TAB (Traffic Adjudication Board where she was a hearing officer…, “your honor, I was just about to change lanes when…”), Lorrie getting her break into the Franchise Tax Board, Lorrie working on the Tobacco Litigation project with the Attorney General’s office, Lorrie and I visiting her friend in Spain for three weeks, Lorrie and Maria and I getting stuck in an unexpected religious celebration in a small village in central Spain, Lorrie and I eating a simply divine meal of fresh sardines and a marvelous marisco soup at Cudillero (small fishing village in Cantabria, Spain) after an exhausting a perilous trip through the mountains, Lorrie learning to ride a bicycle then getting to a point where she rode up into the Marin headlands with me, to Mill Valley and Tiburon to visit her friend and back over the Golden Gate bridge back home, Lorrie and I and her brother and sister in Toronto for the film festival, Lorrie and I and her brother and sister traveling through New York and Boston on vacation, Lorrie and I driving to Las Vegas to visit her parents, Lorrie and I walking down the Grand Canyon in winter, Lorrie and I traveling up the coast with my parents, through Mendocino, Eureka, Crescent City, and ending up at Shakespeare Theatre in Ashland Oregon and later back to The Kitchen in Sacramento for a 6 course feast, Lorrie taking a day off work to cook a gourmet meal for my birthday in her last year, Lorrie waiting for me to come home squeeling “Davey” with her arms open and rushing to give me a hug that I so desperately needed and loved, Lorrie doing her little girl dance at the post office because she just felt the need to express her joy of the moment, Lorrie and I with our friends at Grace Cathedral singing Xmas carols at the end of the program and having dinner together, Lorrie singing her favorite songs in the shower with great gusto and relish, Lorrie hugging me like she had just found her favorite teddy bear in so many pictures we have at restaurants, Lorrie at home after surgery running upstairs to try to sleep in the upstairs guest bedroom knowing that her constant tossing and turning was not allowing me to sleep, Lorrie falling asleep in the chair at the IPT center in Oceanside after her first treatment - relief at last! Lorrie at the IPT center in Oceanside receiving the news that she would have to undergo several months of treatments and couldn’t go back to work until February (her whole countenance fell away and she pouted, her spirit was broken at that point), Lorrie getting palliative radiation treatments at UC Davis as we realize she is not going to live much longer, Lorrie and I at Point Reyes on 8-4-2006 for our one last outing, Lorrie sitting on log at beach on Point Reyes looking out at ocean, Lorrie and I sitting on log at beach on Point Reyes and I take back handed shot (used for the only picture I have on lj to date), Lorrie and I at Robata Grill in Mill Valley after walking at Point Reyes all day - our favorite restaurant in that area, Lorrie saying goodbye to her friends while sitting in the living room, Lorrie listening to me play piano with big open wide eyes hearing something for the first time in her life that really touched and fascinated her, Lorrie telling me that she is sorry to leave me, Lorrie telling her father how much she appreciated having them as parents and how much she really loved them, Lorrie’s sister finally arriving from Hawaii, Lorrie coming back into consciousness right after her sister arrived long enough to say goodbye to her and the rest of her siblings who had gathered, Lorrie turning to me and saying “I’m ready to go”, then “I love everyone” then “Hard…, Life…” and then gulping for air for another hour and then gradually ceasing to gulp and finally with her tongue slightly protruding she choked to death, turning her head toward me as she expired while I held my hand to her face so she could feel me there and talked to her so she could hear me there, her hands and arms which had been so cold during the final weeks of her disease suddenly becoming flushed and warm as her final heart beats brought the blood from her torso back out to her limbs, me sobbing for endless hours and hours while nobody from the family would come to hold me or comfort me for days and weeks, me finally realizing that except for Lorrie this whole family is severely out of touch with their sense of joy and love and are bringing nothing but pain to me, knowing that Lorrie was concerned for them but was far more concerned about me at the end. My love is ripped out of me, the power of the disease has taken her away from me. I am completely shattered and broken, crying constantly, filled with brain fog, but all the while trying to maintain a semblance of balance and family peace knowing that there is no point lashing out and hurting others who simply have no tools to deal with feelings of this magnitude. (100 seconds, her voice at every scenario full of cheer and laughter and joy and life…, until the last one where she is calm, deep, and completely at peace)
Scene: October 2006 - Me in hospital emergency room, holding Lisa’s hands while being wheeled into emergency surgery for small bowel obstruction pretending Lisa was Lorrie with her small supple hands (Lisa’s hands were far larger and rougher) and promising Lorrie I would stay alive for her sake as I had promised her, knowing it was not Lorrie I was talking to but hoping somehow to channel Lorrie through Lisa, me in hospital looking up at wall and seeing shadow on wall that began to stare at me, me non-verbally talking to this shadow and saying I know who you are and what you want but I’m not going with you. Now go away. Noting that a few seconds after the shadow faded from the room somebody a few doors to my left apparently passed away. While unable to speak because of NG tube jammed down my throat, young woman from financial services coming to ask me how they could help me pay for the hospital stay as my insurance card had been canceled - instant vision of losing my wife, my life savings, my home, and my health all within a couple of months appears before me. I scribble on clipboard that I’ll look into it when I can... (20 seconds, beeping of heart rate monitors and normal cacophony of hospitals)
Scene: Return to Point Reyes and that log, looking out over the ocean (Sound of ocean crashing against shore and sea birds gawking and cackling. Slowly fade visual out leaving ocean sounds, slowly fade ocean sounds until all you can hear is a faint cry of “Davey” repeated over and over, fading away into indistinct hollow reverberant oblivion.
[Sorry but that is my life now]
3) If you knew then what you know now, how do you think things would be different? (totally open for your own interpretation)
Assuming that nothing could be done about her cancer, I would have told my supervisor that no matter how important all these damned projects were that they had planned for me, Lorrie and I would be going to Japan in 2003 PERIOD. There is still something I need to do for Lorrie in Japan because we didn’t go together that year, a very important item to her. I wish she could have done this herself as she knew what she was doing. For me this will be my best guess, very nervous about it all.
But if I were addressing the cancer issue, first of all I would have insisted she see a regular gynecologist in December 2005 or January 2006, when the bleeding first seemed abnormal, not wait until May 11 to see a specially recommended gynecologist. Possibly we could have caught it at stage II (almost impossible to catch uterine cancer at stage I as is true with so many cancers - no symptoms at that point), and possibly the IPT would have been effective at stage II as it has been with so many other cancers (roughly 80 - 90% on average with low stage cancers). But the IPT should have been an emergency stop gap measure, something you can do right after surgery (normal chemotherapy requires that you completely heal before you start, thus there is a large delay between surgery and treatment, time for an aggressive cancer to spread and grown) not our final effort as it turned out to be. Instead I would have wanted her to go to that integrative oncology center in Chicago and have them set her up on metronomic chemotherapy that would have started a relatively quick anti-angiogenic protocol for her that would have at least slowed the progression of the metastases, or more likely outright killed it altogether. Then I would have insisted that she chelate the copper out of her body using tetrathiomolybdate, copper being crucial in the production of epithelial growth factors (EGF) that cancer uses to draw blood to the new growth areas - forming their own weird network of blood vessels. Unfortunately it takes real time (90 days) to get the copper chelated successfully but this therapy has been remarkable effective over a broad range of solid tumor type cancers, though not yet subjected to certified clinical trials (TM cannot be patented so there is no money to be made here). Then, if that still didn’t result in remission, but rather just held the cancer in stasis I would have looked at other therapies that might have helped, thermal ablation of the larger tumors for instance, or light sensitization dyes with laser blast, or chronometric chemotherapy, or perhaps a return to IPT in conjunction with chronometric chemotherapy. Perhaps if they were to do phase III clinical trials for dichloroacetate (DCA, recently in the news because of success treating several cancer line in vitro and in some animal studies), we might have participated. Or I would have looked at other possible approaches that seemed like good science but not yet gone through the approval process. I would have done absolutely anything to find a way to help Lorrie return to good health. Absolutely would have moved heaven and earth.
If I can get away from this area of my life, however, and go on to something else; knowing what I know now, the one thing I probably should have done is take out student loans, quit my day job and finish my schooling when I was at the University of Wisconsin. I blew that big time, working 35 hour weeks at disgustingly low rates that barely paid rent, going to all the political rallies against the Vietnam War, running into all the riots around town, and screwing up my classes. My life would have been completely different if I had finished school. I probably wouldn’t have come to California, certainly not by hitch-hiking anyway, and I likely wouldn’t have met Lorrie. But I would have been more likely to have landed in a position doing work that I actually enjoyed and felt matched my natural proclivities. Then again, there was an awful lot of life I would have missed, and I would have missed my one and only opportunity to know pure love and joy, an experience that so few ever have a chance to live, one that makes my life complete - even now when I think of it, she really completed me in a very profound and lasting way.
It is better to not second guess our life. If indeed we are subject to some kind of master plan it is a secret master plan precisely because if it wasn’t secret we would find out about it and try to make changes to suit our own plans; the way we see ourselves now. This would limit our personal growth to that which we already know. I don’t feel life is supposed to be lived under that much self directed control. There may be reasons why things happen but it is best to not try to discern them - we’ll get it wrong inevitably. That’s because we are beings of inherently limited understanding, no matter how smart we may think we are.
4) If you were given totalitarian control of the world and had to write a Manifesto For A New World - a new set of values and rules for the world to live by, what would you write?
#1 - I would make Hawaiian the universal language of the world.
#2 - The national anthem of every country will be “Nani Ko’olau”, a paean of beauty and love set against the backdrop of the Ko’olau mountain range.
#3 - I would make every top management officer in every mid to large sized corporation take a year off duty w/o pay every three years to work for VISTA, PEACE CORP, WOMEN FOR WOMEN, or some other certifiably genuine humanitarian / environmental organization. They would only be allowed to regain their former positions if their supervisors at these organizations can prove that they whole heartedly “got” the mission they were on, not just go through the motions but really proved by their efforts and commitments that they really understand and actually practice their larger responsibilities. I would also limit the top pay that ANYBODY can get in any corporation to no more than 15 times the lowest paid employee of the company.
#4 - All federal politicians would come from the ranks of the top corporations but only after they had successfully completed four rounds of public service with the highest evaluations in service and business as well. Local politicians could simply prove two service records without the corporate experience. State politicians would have to prove at least three rounds of corporate and public service records.
#5 - I would abolish all religions as abominations of spiritual practice. Instead I would institute centers for spiritual exploration and understanding that would interact with local communities in culturally appropriate ways for each to come to their own terms with the universal questions of life in this plain of existence. This knowledge would be shared with other centers as it is developed and offered to all who want it, no matter which culture they are from. Over time there will be a coalescence of spiritual maturity in the general population such that these centers themselves will become obsolete.
#6 - I would sterilize all children at the age of 1. When someone wants to have a child they will have to prove that they have the means - financial, emotional, and spiritual - to raise a child in a responsible and loving supportive household. All children must learn love at home by example, and feel loved and appreciated and wanted and nurtured. Anybody caught being an abusive or flagrantly neglectful parent is subject to hideous painful boils all over their body that bleed and ooze puss continuously for 8 weeks per incident. Any parent that insists on teaching their kids to fear this world instead of learn to grow and embrace this world will have a large R (for ”Rebuplican”, my term for Republicans who’ve sold their souls to the ceaselessly fear mongering conservative demagogues of their party) branded in their forehead and will be shunned by the rest of the community, and their kids taken away and raised by kangaroos…
#7 - I would make all health care universal. I would declare all drug patents good for one year only. I would reformulate funding for research so that medical progress can follow the courses that best benefit THE PATIENT, never the institutions that develop to serve the patient. I would guarantee that anyone who developed and marketed a drug or a procedure knowing that it was harmful to patients but proceeded anyway because of the profit potential involved would themselves be subjected to their own medicine: one year forced maximum medication of the drug they were pushing or one procedure without follow up treatment for surgeries or other unnecessary activities that were known to be ineffective or harmful. Repeat offenders - you don’t want to even contemplate what would happen to you… [it involves substances that slowly burn anaerobically inside your internal organs]
#8 - Proof of music education would be required before graduating from high school. This would involve playing two instruments competently, reading music, thorough understanding of music theory, composition, and appreciation of both form and substance of good musical practice. A final performance exam is required in front of a panel of music experts. You must pass with at least a B or you don’t get out of high school. Rap is entertainment, it is not music.
#9 - No one would ever be allowed to work more than 6 hours per day, 5 days per week. 4 weeks minimum vacation per year is required for every job, with at least one vacation lasting two straight weeks each year. Anyone found spending time away from their family to be at work beyond the maximum hours will immediately be fired and not allowed back at work until their children say it is OK. Repeat offenders will have 3 weeks mandatory vacation added to their already requisite 4 weeks minimum and forced to spend this time at least 1000 miles away from home with their families.
#10 - An expression of joy and love is required by everybody every day. Those found incapable of feeling joy or love will find themselves confronted with unceasing empathy and kindness until such time as they mend their ways and come to grips with the fact that life is too short to be so damned miserable. When you create your own misery you share it with others. When you create your own beauty you also share that with others. You have no right to bring misery to those who know love and joy, so grow up and smell the roses already!
#11 - I would strike Tom Cruise mute.
#12 - I would fire myself at the end of the day.
Read it if you must - especially lifeisacabaret
A little while ago my friend lifeisacabaret posted her answers to an "interview", a mini-questionnaire that somebody had provided her. The idea of the game is that you could comment on her answers and if you wanted to continue the game have lifeisacabaret post an "interview" with you. Knowing Maree I was sure her questions would be somewhat off center and quite intriguing. I wasn't disappointed:
1) If you had to write a summary justifying your existence for an alien laser-wielding robot army to take back to its mysterious leader for consideration, what would you say?
There’s no need to send a laser wielding robot army here if you intend to destroy us. Just drop off the enough lasers in clusters around the world and we will destroy ourselves - will save you lots of time and energy and might be entertaining to boot!
Well that might not justify my existence…, nor anybody else's for that matter. Perhaps I should try this instead:
I assume that sending a alien laser-wielding robot army is your standard protocol for meeting new species, probably quite well justified considering what you have encountered in our galaxy so far. But a fierce introduction like this could also be a sign of some deep seated insecurity you are feeling, perhaps a need for recognition when you were but a mere non-descript larvae, undifferentiated from the tens of thousands of other larvae hatched in your season. Or perhaps you didn't pupate the same as your siblings and were rejected by your family and friends. I can relate, really I can.
Perhaps we can meet and find our mutual interests together, an interspecies pity party where we can regale each other with progressively escalating tales of woe and personal tragedy, a dark Scheherazade scenario, a "failed to adjust to life's realities" contest to determine who is more screwed up. I'm very competitive in this area and I bet you can't keep up!
Yeah, that'll work!
Next:
2) If the mysterious alien leader was then to short-list you for continued existence, but wanted you to submit a clip from your life of say 5 minutes of total experience (sights, smells, sounds, textures, thoughts, sensations - everything) summarizing what your life is about, what would you send?
I’ll have to submit this as a script:
Scene: Just born and cleaned up in my mother’s arms, happy content and at peace as was my mother and my beaming-with-pride father. (10 seconds, no music or sounds other than baby gurgling gently)
Scene: Age 1 - in crib in backyard screaming and crying as neighbor girl proceeds to cover my whole body with spit for about an hour before she was so rudely interrupted from her activity. (5 seconds, baby screaming and exhausted with fright)
Scene: Age 3 - Meeting with maternal grandparents at their home, so warm and kind and loving and giving; immigrant maternal great grandparents in background trying to give me candy and hugs. Fire place burning in background; table groaning with food. Warmth and love abound at every turn. (10 seconds, gentle non-distinct murmuring with pleasant children’s music in background, smells of cooked beef and potatoes and apple pie)
Scene: Ages 5 thru 15 - Being teased mercilessly by younger brother, jealous of any attention that he is not receiving. Unable to avoid being spanked daily and sent to room, isolated and unloved, while younger brother gleefully watches on as I am being destroyed, knowing full well that mom must mete out punishment equally to all “involved” no matter the situation. Living in terror of younger brother who proceeds to negate any level of recognition I might receive from my mother. Not able to explain to a mother who is unable to deal with a situation that was developing outside her control, a mother who was emotionally injured as a child as well, living in the 50s with no support system to help her. Collapsing alone into a ball of tears and piteous jerking sobs at the end. (30 seconds various scenes with music getting progressively discordant and disjointed and loud - indicating the possibility of a mental breakdown in progress)
Scene: Ages 8 thru 21 - First piano lessons. Discovery that younger brother was forbidden to come to the basement when I was practicing piano. Practicing piano for endless hours in the basement. Practicing piano for endless hours and suddenly beginning to play something that sounded half way decent. Practicing piano and playing music from outside the Thompson progressive study series, an old 1930s Schirmers collection that was donated by my Aunt Dotie. Practicing piano instead of going outside to play where my dreaded brother lay in wait for me. Practicing piano at the new house (age 9). Practicing the piano and then keeping still for a bit to listen to the birds that mom insisted were singing louder and more incessantly while I was playing, believing that I was stimulating their creativity. Playing piano for my Aunt Margaret who was herself an accomplished pianist. Playing piano for Christmas at the little country church (age 11). Playing piano for dad. Practicing piano and beginning to get into some really difficult pieces that my old teacher, Ms Beunding, couldn’t help me with. Quitting piano lessons in frustration (age 14). Finding new piano teacher, Mr Wescott. Shot of Don Wescott’s piano instructor at the Chicago Conservatory of Music, Don Wells. Playing the first movement of Beethoven’s Moonlight sonata for Dad’s social guests - mucky mucks from the land of academia and social work that was his professional milieu, then running into my room and crying piteously when one of dad’s friends played the same piano I had just played but really woke up the crowd with various clever improvisations and truly lively renditions of American Standards they could sing and dance to, knowing that dad’s friends were just being polite to compliment me, crushed by the realization of just how outclassed I still was even though I had been playing continuously for 7 years (roughly half my life) - piano, my only means of entry into this world, was woefully inadequate after all . Assiduously practicing piano with some truly difficult classical works, struggling fiercely and full of frustrations. Going into a musical contest as an accompanist for friends who played a trumpet trio. Playing piano as the accompanist for Debra in a high school talent contest - she as Lucy and I as Schroeder in the Peanuts musical piece where he is playing Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, ignoring her advances and she is lamenting his apparent lack of notice - a scene that was entirely too close to reality in our case. Loading my first San Francisco piano (Henry F Miller, 1918 upright) into the laundry room of the flophouse that I was living in at the time, followed by a scene where I was playing a very serene piece and my weird perverted flophouse landlady was in tears listening to me playing, showing her humanity. Loading the piano into the apartment on Grove Street (SF). Playing the piano, getting notice from my 60 year old next door neighbor who would just sit in her apartment listening for hours. Playing the piano and attracting the attention of a certain young woman living up one floor who would sit in her bathroom listening as the music wafted up the lightwell. Meeting this young woman, a law student at USF, and giving her piano lessons. Allowing friends of another young woman living in that apartment house who were visiting from New York to play on my piano, simply blown away by their awesome talents and friendly encouragement - most assuredly of Julliard. (90 seconds with various musical clips appropriate for each scene)
Scene: Age 21 (late autumn 1974 - early spring 1975) - Petitioning for the Nuclear Safeguards Initiative, eventually to become Proposition 15 of November 1976. Night and day, rain and shine, cold and miserable petitioning scenes from Union Square in San Francisco, UC Berkeley, UCLA, Pasadena City College, in front of the Gemco in Compton, Cal State Long Beach, Orange City College, and then (focus and sound to become steady for this scene) a shot petitioning in front of a Gemco in Northridge where the smog was so thick you couldn’t see past the first row of parked cars, meanwhile being berated by an angry middle aged woman because “you damned environmentalists are just a bunch of misinformed fucked up alarmists costing us our jobs”, living / flopping in the house in Laurel Canyon donated by the family of one of our key inside members, flopping in the house of Ed Koopel (of “The People’s Lobby”) while listening to three young members (two men and one very likeable woman) living there play guitar and sing their home made anthem “I’m a People’s Lobby Fool”, meeting David Pesonnen (author of our initiative), meeting David Brower who gave us recognition at the 1975 Xmas party for Friends of the Earth, running up to Santa Cruz with Ken and Celia and Rob to confront our “leader” who had essentially drained 70% of our funds into his pocket while not raising a single penny of donations nor getting any signatures - forcing him to resign, completely running out of money about 3 weeks later with about 340K signatures, short of the roughly 400K to assure we would make the ballot (discouragement and exhaustion of the highest order), getting the news that Dwight had managed to contact a group in Palo Alto that immediately raised $10K in one evening with promises of much more to come, finding these same people (middle class middle aged activists - not at all typical for the times) out on the streets EVERYWHERE finishing up the signature campaign, getting us to almost the 600K level in less than a month. MADE THE BALLOT. Lost the election. Three Mile Island makes headlines. Chernobyl makes headlines. (45 seconds with short clips of distinct voices in critical scenes with muffled sounds for the rest - no music)
Scene: Age 21 thru 53 - Meeting Lorrie in the stairway of the apartment building on Grove Street, talking briefly to her. Offering piano lessons. She comes for her two lessons and learns to play Moon River melody, very halting while I carefully insert left hand part to accompany the piece. Lorrie begins to teach me Japanese words. Our first date: 10-25-75 at the dance studio in San Francisco where everybody knows the steps to complicated Slavic folk dances - Lorrie very uncomfortable but tries her best. Our second date: 10-31-75 at theatre playing “The Harder They Come” just off Polk Street on California +/-. Walking out of that darkened movie theatre because of disgusting violence depicted only to find ourselves enveloped in gay Halloween block party that covered about 6 blocks of Polk Street - a spectacle of plumes and boas and tights and stockings and big hair wigs and heavy make up and dark chocolate voices all having the time of their lives celebrating the joy of their freedom. Living in their joy of the moment with this fascinating young woman at my side. Taking Lorrie to Mendocino to our suite of rooms at the bed and breakfast inn, walking the town’s quaint streets, and clearly falling madly in love with her and she with me - very warm and comfortable feelings with great excitement and thrills to no end. Lorrie moves into the apartment with me to get away from her insane roommate and study for the bar - me taking care of her daily needs so she can stay completely focused for the weeks leading up to and including the bar exam. Looking at the exam list and finding her name as one who passed. Moving to apartment on Clay Street. Getting married at LaFayette Park in San Francisco in 1979, after first having to ask the several hundred gay sunbathers who had gathered in “our” meadow to please allow us to get married there. Lorrie working at JACL (Japanese American Citizens League) on Sutter Street in San Francisco, Lorrie collecting books for her mail order business (Once Upon a Mystery), Lorrie collecting her books for herself, Lorrie going back to Golden Gate University to get her LLM in tax where I would wait for her late at night, asleep in those big cushy chairs, to escort her safely home, Lorrie getting her first state job at TAB (Traffic Adjudication Board where she was a hearing officer…, “your honor, I was just about to change lanes when…”), Lorrie getting her break into the Franchise Tax Board, Lorrie working on the Tobacco Litigation project with the Attorney General’s office, Lorrie and I visiting her friend in Spain for three weeks, Lorrie and Maria and I getting stuck in an unexpected religious celebration in a small village in central Spain, Lorrie and I eating a simply divine meal of fresh sardines and a marvelous marisco soup at Cudillero (small fishing village in Cantabria, Spain) after an exhausting a perilous trip through the mountains, Lorrie learning to ride a bicycle then getting to a point where she rode up into the Marin headlands with me, to Mill Valley and Tiburon to visit her friend and back over the Golden Gate bridge back home, Lorrie and I and her brother and sister in Toronto for the film festival, Lorrie and I and her brother and sister traveling through New York and Boston on vacation, Lorrie and I driving to Las Vegas to visit her parents, Lorrie and I walking down the Grand Canyon in winter, Lorrie and I traveling up the coast with my parents, through Mendocino, Eureka, Crescent City, and ending up at Shakespeare Theatre in Ashland Oregon and later back to The Kitchen in Sacramento for a 6 course feast, Lorrie taking a day off work to cook a gourmet meal for my birthday in her last year, Lorrie waiting for me to come home squeeling “Davey” with her arms open and rushing to give me a hug that I so desperately needed and loved, Lorrie doing her little girl dance at the post office because she just felt the need to express her joy of the moment, Lorrie and I with our friends at Grace Cathedral singing Xmas carols at the end of the program and having dinner together, Lorrie singing her favorite songs in the shower with great gusto and relish, Lorrie hugging me like she had just found her favorite teddy bear in so many pictures we have at restaurants, Lorrie at home after surgery running upstairs to try to sleep in the upstairs guest bedroom knowing that her constant tossing and turning was not allowing me to sleep, Lorrie falling asleep in the chair at the IPT center in Oceanside after her first treatment - relief at last! Lorrie at the IPT center in Oceanside receiving the news that she would have to undergo several months of treatments and couldn’t go back to work until February (her whole countenance fell away and she pouted, her spirit was broken at that point), Lorrie getting palliative radiation treatments at UC Davis as we realize she is not going to live much longer, Lorrie and I at Point Reyes on 8-4-2006 for our one last outing, Lorrie sitting on log at beach on Point Reyes looking out at ocean, Lorrie and I sitting on log at beach on Point Reyes and I take back handed shot (used for the only picture I have on lj to date), Lorrie and I at Robata Grill in Mill Valley after walking at Point Reyes all day - our favorite restaurant in that area, Lorrie saying goodbye to her friends while sitting in the living room, Lorrie listening to me play piano with big open wide eyes hearing something for the first time in her life that really touched and fascinated her, Lorrie telling me that she is sorry to leave me, Lorrie telling her father how much she appreciated having them as parents and how much she really loved them, Lorrie’s sister finally arriving from Hawaii, Lorrie coming back into consciousness right after her sister arrived long enough to say goodbye to her and the rest of her siblings who had gathered, Lorrie turning to me and saying “I’m ready to go”, then “I love everyone” then “Hard…, Life…” and then gulping for air for another hour and then gradually ceasing to gulp and finally with her tongue slightly protruding she choked to death, turning her head toward me as she expired while I held my hand to her face so she could feel me there and talked to her so she could hear me there, her hands and arms which had been so cold during the final weeks of her disease suddenly becoming flushed and warm as her final heart beats brought the blood from her torso back out to her limbs, me sobbing for endless hours and hours while nobody from the family would come to hold me or comfort me for days and weeks, me finally realizing that except for Lorrie this whole family is severely out of touch with their sense of joy and love and are bringing nothing but pain to me, knowing that Lorrie was concerned for them but was far more concerned about me at the end. My love is ripped out of me, the power of the disease has taken her away from me. I am completely shattered and broken, crying constantly, filled with brain fog, but all the while trying to maintain a semblance of balance and family peace knowing that there is no point lashing out and hurting others who simply have no tools to deal with feelings of this magnitude. (100 seconds, her voice at every scenario full of cheer and laughter and joy and life…, until the last one where she is calm, deep, and completely at peace)
Scene: October 2006 - Me in hospital emergency room, holding Lisa’s hands while being wheeled into emergency surgery for small bowel obstruction pretending Lisa was Lorrie with her small supple hands (Lisa’s hands were far larger and rougher) and promising Lorrie I would stay alive for her sake as I had promised her, knowing it was not Lorrie I was talking to but hoping somehow to channel Lorrie through Lisa, me in hospital looking up at wall and seeing shadow on wall that began to stare at me, me non-verbally talking to this shadow and saying I know who you are and what you want but I’m not going with you. Now go away. Noting that a few seconds after the shadow faded from the room somebody a few doors to my left apparently passed away. While unable to speak because of NG tube jammed down my throat, young woman from financial services coming to ask me how they could help me pay for the hospital stay as my insurance card had been canceled - instant vision of losing my wife, my life savings, my home, and my health all within a couple of months appears before me. I scribble on clipboard that I’ll look into it when I can... (20 seconds, beeping of heart rate monitors and normal cacophony of hospitals)
Scene: Return to Point Reyes and that log, looking out over the ocean (Sound of ocean crashing against shore and sea birds gawking and cackling. Slowly fade visual out leaving ocean sounds, slowly fade ocean sounds until all you can hear is a faint cry of “Davey” repeated over and over, fading away into indistinct hollow reverberant oblivion.
[Sorry but that is my life now]
3) If you knew then what you know now, how do you think things would be different? (totally open for your own interpretation)
Assuming that nothing could be done about her cancer, I would have told my supervisor that no matter how important all these damned projects were that they had planned for me, Lorrie and I would be going to Japan in 2003 PERIOD. There is still something I need to do for Lorrie in Japan because we didn’t go together that year, a very important item to her. I wish she could have done this herself as she knew what she was doing. For me this will be my best guess, very nervous about it all.
But if I were addressing the cancer issue, first of all I would have insisted she see a regular gynecologist in December 2005 or January 2006, when the bleeding first seemed abnormal, not wait until May 11 to see a specially recommended gynecologist. Possibly we could have caught it at stage II (almost impossible to catch uterine cancer at stage I as is true with so many cancers - no symptoms at that point), and possibly the IPT would have been effective at stage II as it has been with so many other cancers (roughly 80 - 90% on average with low stage cancers). But the IPT should have been an emergency stop gap measure, something you can do right after surgery (normal chemotherapy requires that you completely heal before you start, thus there is a large delay between surgery and treatment, time for an aggressive cancer to spread and grown) not our final effort as it turned out to be. Instead I would have wanted her to go to that integrative oncology center in Chicago and have them set her up on metronomic chemotherapy that would have started a relatively quick anti-angiogenic protocol for her that would have at least slowed the progression of the metastases, or more likely outright killed it altogether. Then I would have insisted that she chelate the copper out of her body using tetrathiomolybdate, copper being crucial in the production of epithelial growth factors (EGF) that cancer uses to draw blood to the new growth areas - forming their own weird network of blood vessels. Unfortunately it takes real time (90 days) to get the copper chelated successfully but this therapy has been remarkable effective over a broad range of solid tumor type cancers, though not yet subjected to certified clinical trials (TM cannot be patented so there is no money to be made here). Then, if that still didn’t result in remission, but rather just held the cancer in stasis I would have looked at other therapies that might have helped, thermal ablation of the larger tumors for instance, or light sensitization dyes with laser blast, or chronometric chemotherapy, or perhaps a return to IPT in conjunction with chronometric chemotherapy. Perhaps if they were to do phase III clinical trials for dichloroacetate (DCA, recently in the news because of success treating several cancer line in vitro and in some animal studies), we might have participated. Or I would have looked at other possible approaches that seemed like good science but not yet gone through the approval process. I would have done absolutely anything to find a way to help Lorrie return to good health. Absolutely would have moved heaven and earth.
If I can get away from this area of my life, however, and go on to something else; knowing what I know now, the one thing I probably should have done is take out student loans, quit my day job and finish my schooling when I was at the University of Wisconsin. I blew that big time, working 35 hour weeks at disgustingly low rates that barely paid rent, going to all the political rallies against the Vietnam War, running into all the riots around town, and screwing up my classes. My life would have been completely different if I had finished school. I probably wouldn’t have come to California, certainly not by hitch-hiking anyway, and I likely wouldn’t have met Lorrie. But I would have been more likely to have landed in a position doing work that I actually enjoyed and felt matched my natural proclivities. Then again, there was an awful lot of life I would have missed, and I would have missed my one and only opportunity to know pure love and joy, an experience that so few ever have a chance to live, one that makes my life complete - even now when I think of it, she really completed me in a very profound and lasting way.
It is better to not second guess our life. If indeed we are subject to some kind of master plan it is a secret master plan precisely because if it wasn’t secret we would find out about it and try to make changes to suit our own plans; the way we see ourselves now. This would limit our personal growth to that which we already know. I don’t feel life is supposed to be lived under that much self directed control. There may be reasons why things happen but it is best to not try to discern them - we’ll get it wrong inevitably. That’s because we are beings of inherently limited understanding, no matter how smart we may think we are.
4) If you were given totalitarian control of the world and had to write a Manifesto For A New World - a new set of values and rules for the world to live by, what would you write?
#1 - I would make Hawaiian the universal language of the world.
#2 - The national anthem of every country will be “Nani Ko’olau”, a paean of beauty and love set against the backdrop of the Ko’olau mountain range.
#3 - I would make every top management officer in every mid to large sized corporation take a year off duty w/o pay every three years to work for VISTA, PEACE CORP, WOMEN FOR WOMEN, or some other certifiably genuine humanitarian / environmental organization. They would only be allowed to regain their former positions if their supervisors at these organizations can prove that they whole heartedly “got” the mission they were on, not just go through the motions but really proved by their efforts and commitments that they really understand and actually practice their larger responsibilities. I would also limit the top pay that ANYBODY can get in any corporation to no more than 15 times the lowest paid employee of the company.
#4 - All federal politicians would come from the ranks of the top corporations but only after they had successfully completed four rounds of public service with the highest evaluations in service and business as well. Local politicians could simply prove two service records without the corporate experience. State politicians would have to prove at least three rounds of corporate and public service records.
#5 - I would abolish all religions as abominations of spiritual practice. Instead I would institute centers for spiritual exploration and understanding that would interact with local communities in culturally appropriate ways for each to come to their own terms with the universal questions of life in this plain of existence. This knowledge would be shared with other centers as it is developed and offered to all who want it, no matter which culture they are from. Over time there will be a coalescence of spiritual maturity in the general population such that these centers themselves will become obsolete.
#6 - I would sterilize all children at the age of 1. When someone wants to have a child they will have to prove that they have the means - financial, emotional, and spiritual - to raise a child in a responsible and loving supportive household. All children must learn love at home by example, and feel loved and appreciated and wanted and nurtured. Anybody caught being an abusive or flagrantly neglectful parent is subject to hideous painful boils all over their body that bleed and ooze puss continuously for 8 weeks per incident. Any parent that insists on teaching their kids to fear this world instead of learn to grow and embrace this world will have a large R (for ”Rebuplican”, my term for Republicans who’ve sold their souls to the ceaselessly fear mongering conservative demagogues of their party) branded in their forehead and will be shunned by the rest of the community, and their kids taken away and raised by kangaroos…
#7 - I would make all health care universal. I would declare all drug patents good for one year only. I would reformulate funding for research so that medical progress can follow the courses that best benefit THE PATIENT, never the institutions that develop to serve the patient. I would guarantee that anyone who developed and marketed a drug or a procedure knowing that it was harmful to patients but proceeded anyway because of the profit potential involved would themselves be subjected to their own medicine: one year forced maximum medication of the drug they were pushing or one procedure without follow up treatment for surgeries or other unnecessary activities that were known to be ineffective or harmful. Repeat offenders - you don’t want to even contemplate what would happen to you… [it involves substances that slowly burn anaerobically inside your internal organs]
#8 - Proof of music education would be required before graduating from high school. This would involve playing two instruments competently, reading music, thorough understanding of music theory, composition, and appreciation of both form and substance of good musical practice. A final performance exam is required in front of a panel of music experts. You must pass with at least a B or you don’t get out of high school. Rap is entertainment, it is not music.
#9 - No one would ever be allowed to work more than 6 hours per day, 5 days per week. 4 weeks minimum vacation per year is required for every job, with at least one vacation lasting two straight weeks each year. Anyone found spending time away from their family to be at work beyond the maximum hours will immediately be fired and not allowed back at work until their children say it is OK. Repeat offenders will have 3 weeks mandatory vacation added to their already requisite 4 weeks minimum and forced to spend this time at least 1000 miles away from home with their families.
#10 - An expression of joy and love is required by everybody every day. Those found incapable of feeling joy or love will find themselves confronted with unceasing empathy and kindness until such time as they mend their ways and come to grips with the fact that life is too short to be so damned miserable. When you create your own misery you share it with others. When you create your own beauty you also share that with others. You have no right to bring misery to those who know love and joy, so grow up and smell the roses already!
#11 - I would strike Tom Cruise mute.
#12 - I would fire myself at the end of the day.