Bass-ackwardness

As part of my awesome part-time job at the Anchorage Press (www.anchoragepress.com) and also because I deeply believe in supporting the arts, I was invited to the soft-open, pay-as-you-go (pay what you can–wow) of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. This was a special adaptation by two VERY talented writers, Arlitia Jones and Michael Evan Haney. Haney also directed the production.

Before the show we were escorted into a private reception with the actors and staff and an amazing array of foods, wine and beer. We were treated to a few words from the writers, production staff and main actor, Kevin T. Bennett. One could tell that these people really love each other and their respective crafts. It was a great introduction to the devotion they have to their company, the Perseverence Theatre (www.ptalaska.org).

The show was nothing short of fabulous! It was sweet, funny, poignant and beautiful visually. The costumes, sound, lighting, acting, the set–all just superb. And it was thoughtfully put together to be an 80 minute production so you can bring your kids and they won’t get too fidgety! There is even a short intermission so your little ones can visit the restroom if needed.

Most obviously the message of this play is the meat of it. That we are all on this planet together and that kindness and generosity toward others is always the way to go.

And though a shorter production than usual, the message was deeply felt by the audience. A lot of us lingered after the show because we just wanted to go right back in the theater and watch it all over again.

That’s the sign of a job well done.

We all parted ways after the show and after we had all raved and oohed and ahhhed about everything we’d just seen.

On my way back to my car I noticed a small dark shape slumped over in a poorly lit area under some trees in our beautiful downtown park. It was REALLY cold–in the 20s–and I was reeeaaally hoping that it wasn’t a person.

But it was.

I went into my car, looked for blankets (I had already given them all away) and then spotted my black “Iditarod” pants. I wore these snow pants the entire time I volunteered for the Iditarod last year. Two weeks worth of dirt and dog doo doo and dog spit and dog snot (yeah, it’s glamorous) were all over these pants from last March.

Of course I washed them and they hung in my garage all summer as a reminder of the excitement of the upcoming Iditarod glamour!! Now that winter is back, my black Iditarod snow pants have been living in my car with my ice skates so that I can leave work or wherever and just plop them on and go ice skating at a moment’s notice at Westchester Lagoon.

Mind you, I also have my fancy white Obermeyer snow pants that are SO warm and so great but they’re white! Jeez. Have you met me? If there’s a dog around, PLOP down to the ground I go. I don’t mind getting dirty.

So, anywho. Here I was in the icy cold with a dilemma on my hands. My momma probably isn’t going to like the fact that I approached a slumped over homeless person in a dark park. However, there were loads of people around and 99% of the homeless people here are utterly and completely kind and sweet and SO appreciative of any help you might offer.

Every single person I've given food or water or a blanket or mittens or whatever - every last one has cheerfully and sincerely given me God's Blessing. They don't have anything else to give, and I personally think any blessing is a blessing!

With the spirit of A Christmas Carol, a full belly and a heart overflowing with gratitude for my wonderful family and friends, I took my beloved black Iditarod pants over to this man. He was slumped over and barely awake.

I stood in front of him and touched his shoulder and asked him if he was okay. His face was bruised and swollen. He was only wearing a flimsy shirt, a worn out coat, jeans and sneakers.

You can die from that. Hypothermia kills A TON of homeless each year.

He awoke a bit when I loudly asked him again if he was okay.

He looked up at me with a crooked smile and assured me that he was okay.

I handed him my warm snow pants and told him that they were extra special and blessed because they had been touched by 49 different Iditarod dog teams. His smile got bigger.

I then asked him to promise to put them on. I told him he needed to stay warm on such a cold night.  I asked him again to promise to put them on. And he promised.

And then I went to my nice warm car in my stupid expensive leather shoes and my fancy coat and hats and gloves and my amazing, warm apartment FILLED with food and gifts.

And I cried.

We all have SO much. By virtue of the fact that you are reading this means you know how to operate a computer or smart device. That means you have the money to have that shit.

We are SO damn fortunate.

So, please don’t waste your money on dumb shit. Go out there and do something nice just because you can.

THAT’S what this season is SUPPOSED to be about. Dickens was a wise man.

Ciao for now. Thanks for reading and Happy Holidays to all of you.

I intended this to be Friday Funday, but then I saw this...

This ties into a charity event that just happened last night that benefitted The Bean's Cafe and Children's Lunchbox. I've talked about these wonderful people before, but I guess more can always be said.

I've heard some people talk, with utter disdain, about "filthy homeless" people. Wow. And calling them drunks or drug addicts and losers and a string of other terrible, nasty things.

(The main issues are actually people - FAMILIES - losing their homes because we bail out banks and not people and then there's the mental illness issues that go untreated.)

I've heard ignoramus people refer to black people as "thugs" and hispanics as "lazy." Frankly, those are some of the nicer terms I've heard. I've heard people say Indian people are "dirty" and Native Americans have "a genetic propensity to drink."

All of those things? Are bullshit.

I have black friends, hispanic friends, Indian friends (who are, by the by, collectively some of the loveliest people I've ever come to know) and Native American friends. I've even got friends from Australia, the Northwest Territories in Canada, New Zealand, The British Virgin Islands, Honduras, Scotland, Ireland, England, Germany, South Africa, The Sudan, Peru...you get the picture.

The world is really a cool place and, in general, 

people are really decent and kind except for the assholes. 

And assholes come in every color and ethnicity. 

But so do GOOD people come in every color and ethnicity.

But it certainly doesn't define an entire race or group of ethnic people. 

How many of you have been to Africa? Asia? Europe?

Most of what you may perceive or believe about a certain collective group of people? Is bullshit. Until you've traveled or made the effort to actually get to know that person you work with or your neighbor who wears weird clothes or those guys that are holding hands because they love each other?

Until you do that, sir or madam, you do NOT get to form an opinion of someone just because some FOOL on Fox News or wherever you get your "news" or  so-called "information" tells you that black people are thugs or that hispanic people are lazy. Good LORD. So stupid.

I was talking with this ignoramus jerk who I met at the Millenium Hotel bar (it's beautiful and overlooks the seaplane port here - super neato), who, of COURSE, was hitting on me because he's an idiot and liked to ignore the fact that I wear a wedding ring and was COMPLETELY uninterested in him.

Well, this noodlehead continued to try to impress me by showing me a picture of his good friends, Bill O'Reilly and Dennis Miller. I think Dennis Miller is brilliant but the other one there? He's a f*cking clown and a dangerous one at that.

So, Mr. Ignoramus continued talking to me and spouting his vitriole about one group of humans after another. Then we got on the subject of gay people. Do you know what this assh*le had to say? Well, you can imagine that it was not nice and I of course shot him down pretty swiftly with my liberal tongue armed with several sharp talking points, informing him about the fact that the loosely 100 of my closest buddies in Massachusetts are gay, lesbian, transgender, bisexual, queer and questioning. And that there are people who are completely asexual or a little of both sexes due to some twisty bendy strange things that our chromosomes can do in vitro.

People. Are. Born. That. Way.

It's not a "lifestyle choice." What the fuck does that mean? Am I female because of a "lifestyle choice?"

Grow up people. Chromosomes make your body and brain do things with these nifty things called GENES and then we have these other things called HORMONES that direct our behavior along with NEURONS. Yes, there are environmental factors that play into this stuff, but if you've not read E.O. Wilson's work on Sociobiology, then you kind of don't get the whole picture.

Science works. Give it a try, jerk face.

See, when you know people and you are nice to them and you don't give a flying F*CK WHO they f*ck or HOW they f*ck or what color they are, it kind of puts you on equal footing.

I don't go around announcing the odd things that my husband and I do in our bedroom. (Hi Mom and Dad!) My Mother's hair would curl or stand on end. And my Dad? He'd probably have a heart attack. (Sorry Mom and Dad!)

In any case, I do NOT care what color you are, what your past was like (people actually CAN change), and who you have sex with. As long as everyone's on the same page, as it were, and there is mutual consent going on - most importantly the consent part - then that's all fine and dandy. If people love each other, they should marry them. Remember, it used to be illegal for a white and a black person to even SIT together much less marry each other. My Momma is married to a black man. If she's happy and he's happy, who is anyone else to tell them what they can or cannot do? Same rule should apply to everyone. It's right there in the Preamble of our Constitution.

And it's not just race and stupid stereotypes and gays that are being given the proverbial shaft.

Women are STILL. TO THIS DAY. Fighting for our personal rights, equal pay and equal treatment under the law.

Well, let me tell you, we all have a common "enemy" and I don't like using that word. We all have a common "oppressor" and that is rich, white, ignorant America.

I used to jokingly attribute anything bad that happened to "The MAN keepin' me down." I don't think it's funny any longer. It's gone too far and it's turning dangerous just for a black person to fucking even leave their houses. NOT because of street violence, but because whitey can shoot you dead for absolutely no good reason. That's fucked up.

From Eric Zuesse, an Investigative Historian, writing an article I found in the Huffington Post - and he is quoting from the Credit Suisse Global Wealth Data book:

"The United States has such an unequal distribution of wealth so that it's in the league of corrupt underdeveloped countries, no longer in the league of the developed nations, according to the latest edition of the world's most thorough study of wealth-distribution."

You can Google the statistics if you want, but it'll make you nauseous. It makes me nauseous and I'm not poor by any standard.

So my rant can end now, as it's Friday and I'm tired of the bullshit. I'm really tired. Smarten up, people. Be nice to each other, and for the sake of all that is holy and good and whatever you do or don't believe in during this holiday season, stop voting for rich, white assholes who have nothing better to do than screw the middle class, the poor, the homeless, women, LGBTQ people and people of color.

ENOUGH with the Dan Sullivans and Don Youngs and Ted Cruzs and these laughable jerks that we give power and and more money so that they can turn around and screw up our environment and take away our "inalienable" rights. We have to fight for ourselves - We The People - because it turns out the corporate guys like the Koch Brothers and Walmart and Donald Trump? 

They clearly don't care about the rest of us. We the 98%...

The Preamble to the Constitution of the United States has CLEARLY been forgotten by many in our Congress and they are abusing their power and it just ain't okay...

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence,^{[note 1]} promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Enough.

Thank you for reading and commence being kind.

Obama IS our POTUS

Lemme pose a quextion. (Misspelled on purpose, FYI.)

So, were your parents born in 'merica?

Were your grandparents born here in the good old U. S. of A.?

Oh, they weren't? 

Hmmm. Well that makes them IMMIGRANTS.

NoBODY has had their entire family line BORN in 'Merica except The NATIVE people. NATIVES. The people you subordinate and claim to be genetically lesser. 

The people who respect our lands and waters and air and who are the TRUE Americans.

So, guess what, jerk face? If you think for ONE moment that you somehow have laid claim to the opportunity and beauty of this great land? Nope. Columbus was a jerk. He didn't "discover" America! It existed well before he mistakenly arrived here thinking it was the East Indies! (Do your research, people! Get informed!)

That "Columbus Day" is celebrated in several states (embarrassingly even in Massachusetts) is a travesty. Ridiculous. Columbus came, he conquered, brought disease and plight to the Native Americans. 

Ridiculous.

When's the last time you read the Constitution? Or learned about your varied ancestral history? Do you think, because you were lucky enough for your ancestors to venture all the way to America that somehow NOW you have the right to refuse anyone else who deems to come here? 

Where do you get off telling others they can't exist here?

What do you think would have happened if your parents or grandparents or great-grandparents had been met with the same disdain and shitty attitude? 

You, my friend, would be up shit creek without a proverbial paddle. 

STOP with the claims of criminality, job-stealing, Ebola-carrying bullshit. 

Our immigrants are just people. Like you and I are just people. There are good ones and there are bad ones. But you cannot justify blaming an entire population because of a few bad seeds. So just stop it

Job-stealing? Really? How many of you wanna pick apples or cherries, one by one by one by one, in the blazing hot sun of summer? Oh, not you? Or you or you? So again, just stop it.

And the Ebola thing? Shut the hell up. You're being ridiculous and probably watching Fox News. A bunch of alarmist, DUMB, ignorant fools. They do NOT know what they're talking about and they CERTAINLY know nothing about science. So just stop it. STOP it. Idiotas.

So, what I'm saying is that unless you've DONE YOUR HOMEWORK, you gotta stop complaining and following the idiots who say they're helping you, but in reality, THEY are only helping themselves. 

Read about the 98%. 

Read about the top .01% who now have 99% of the wealth in this country.

They're not trying to help the average American. Only each other. 

Google that shit!

"INSCRIPTION ON THE STATUE OF LIBERTY"

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses, yearning to breath free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

Author: Emma Lazarus


Just sayin'...

Homeless Students in the United States

Well, between the news this morning about what happened in Jerusalem and then the ISIS attacks, I'm feeling pretty grim about now.

It sort of makes my fluff about flowers and cooking seem ridiculous.

I was listening to NPR this morning as I was making breakfast and feeding the puppies. A journalist was asking a question about how the people in this certain country view America, as the United States has not responded to help many people who have been under attack recently.

The man being interviewed said that most of his country, at this point, see Americans as stupid and selfish. Stupid and selfish because they seem ignorant to the plight of other people and the government doesn't seem to care about certain countries unless there's oil or some other natural resource at stake.

The interviewer then went on to ask if there was any sense of a normal life for the other people in his country - and the man said "What is that?" and then sort of laughed a sad laugh...

Then the interviewer asked further, "Do people go to work, do the kids go to school?"

And the man being interviewed explained that, of course, there's still "life" there, and makeshift schools when people are able to leave their homes. But then he also explained that when there's no food to eat and you're going hungry, school is about the last thing on your mind.

So, there I was in my nice, warm kitchen, overflowing with food, feeding the dogs their kibble and reindeer sausage.

My dogs, I realized, eat better than probably millions of people in the world.

There is so much suffering elsewhere. We have the luxury of bitching about phone service or the internet being slow.

Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of suffering right here, too. There was an article I read yesterday about the issues facing the homeless here in the United States. The recent recession and policies by our lawmakers have forced thousands of families out of their homes.

I was really saddened when I went to our local homeless shelter to find out they feed thousands in Anchorage per day.

It's called Bean's Cafe and they do an amazing job. There were lots of families there. Little kids. There were older people, middle-aged, too, but I was shocked and disheartened to see the sheer number of families who are clearly living out of their cars or vans.

The stats are all just shocking and expected to get worse:

Here's a link to a piece by PBS about it.

Here's a recent Huffington Post article about the alarming rise in homeless students throughout our country.

National Coalition for the Homeless is a great organization that offers solid solutions and financial aid to help people find affordable or free shelter so that they can get on the road to feeding and clothing themselves and live in dignity instead of going to jail.

Now, on the ranty side:

How can corporations look the other way while children are suffering on a daily basis? 

How can these people fill their pockets with millions of dollars and their corporations don't pay their fair share of taxes? 

How about bailing out the banks that created these sham loans in the first place? Why do the banks get bailed out while families lose their homes? 

How can our government and law enforcement justify confiscating the meager belongings that many of our homeless people have and then send them to jail or just send them along into the cold?

More than 600,000 people are homeless in the United States on any given night. 

On average, in the winter, about 700 people will die of exposure each year.

Now, that's a lot of deaths. We would be outraged if that many people died in one winter at war or after a hurricane or earthquake...

But, because they're homeless, they don't matter. Societal discards.

Most people, I think, have a vision of homeless people as older, 

disheveled people who are dirty and many of whom are drunk. 

The truth is that it's entire families and mostly people suffering from untreated mental illness.

Well, this Thanksgiving and Christmas and Hanukkah, you might think about one less gift for each of your family members and instead contact your local homeless shelter, women's shelter, fire station or Department of Social Services office to see what you can do to help. A $20 gift to a homeless child or a $20 food donation can make a huge difference.

Peace out. Thanks for reading.