During the summer before my last semester in college (1993), I became a lacto-ovo vegetarian, and I noticed a decent boost in my energy and especially in my ability to concentrate. Four years later (1997) I became a complete vegan (no animal products at all), and I've been one ever since, and this yielded an even bigger boost.

I'm interested that he mentions his ability to concentrate... according to my nutrition teacher, Paul Pitchford, the consciousness of the things we eat affects our own consciousness. The more sentient its source, the more a food can "cloud" our mind.

So while Paul doesn't recommend veganism necessarily for everyone, he noted several times that the main reason he chooses to be vegan is because he "likes the way his mind feels" that way.

I had never heard of her, but she was promoting her new book, The Sistahood: On the Mic and for some reason I lingered long enough to get hooked into listening, and thankfully so.

She talked about what it was like for her growing up in the Mission, with relatives in Bayview, and then being shipped off to Lowell, the rich kid school, through some kind of affirmative action program.

And she talked about her work with young people, and the complexities of race, and the realities of growing up multi-racial.

Eventually, I cried. A good kind of cry, a touched kind of cry... but geez. As a queer, white though I may be, I feel like I'm learning a lot about what it might be like to be a person of color just by paying attention to what I face and going from there.

When she talks about the struggles of youth today, and how some things haven't changed from when she was growing up, I feel that. And when she talks about a girl who doesn't know yet how to be comfortable in her own skin literally, because of its color, well, I can only imagine that, and I cried. I know what it's like struggling to be comfortable in other things, like my genitalia and what they meant to everybody else around me growing up.

I cried because of the similarities of experience, and the direct connection from that girl's pain to mine... but also because of the question, something like, "Is it really this difficult? Is it really so hard to live together and not hurt each other?"

I don't think I'd asked it before; I think I'd taken it for granted on some level that childhood inevitably means getting fucked up, whether you realize it or not (and that the folks who are convinced they had "good childhoods" are among the most dangerous, like sleepwalkers with weapons in unaware hands).

She talked about the way we put people in boxes, just by looking at them and making the assumptions we make. I do that. Nearly unconsciously.

It's not an everyday experience, right, to be driving in the car listening to the radio and hear something real that actually touches something real in me. I think I'm going to check out the book.

She mentioned two other interesting authors, Black Artemis and Jeff Chang—the latter's history of hip-hop culture looks interesting, and I remember something said about one of the former's books that made me think I should read it.

Anyway, passing them along to y'all out in cyberspace. One more bit o' signal, or noise, as the case may be.

This Squidoo thing is a) addictive, b) not necessarily an equal win-win-win, c) giving me some ideas for my own website!

In other news, looks like I managed to offend some folks with my last post or two... ahh well. If Lewis Black and Michael Savage get to still be alive...

Actually, on anything in the middle east, it's a little ridiculous: normally sane, rational people can't even maintain the peace here at home when the slightest breeze of a contradictory opinion on Israel blows past them. And we expect the folks actually living it not to lob bombs at each other?

Want world peace? Be the change you wish to see: get over your opinion on the Israel/Palestine issue, at least enough to maintain your blood pressure and a civil attitude around those who have a different viewpoint.

No, I'm not telling you mine. C.f. that bit about remaining alive? I don't need any death threats from crazed fundamentalists, or their supporters.

Choose the best match...

Straight people are to gay people as:

a) Palestine is to Israel
b) Israel is to Palestine
c) America is to the rest of the world

Gosh, that's offensive. I should stop watching Mind of Mencia. Or start listening to Savage Nation.

If a Non-Violent Communication expert were to mediate, we'd find a lot of frustration, and some fear and hurt feelings, probably on both sides. Instead, we get businessmen versus lesbian moms with politicians in the middle. I'm on the sidelines heckling all of them.

If you haven't heard about the straight guy who moved to the Castro and then got lambasted for calling it too gay, well... you need to.

Check the video here: http://www.salon.com/ent/video_dog/latenight/2006/07/13/gayborhood/index.html (Mark Welsh rocks!)

Now maybe Jeremy Paul never complained about any of the window displays, but other people did. He agreed to be their poster boy for the Daily Show, and he's gotten a lot of grief for it. Too bad so many of the actual complainers don't have the guts to be public about their drama.

And when he says stupid things like, "I'm happy people can enjoy a lifestyle that's denied to them back home in Kansas, but there are appropriate standards of behavior, regardless of your sexual orientation," I have to say he deserves all the flak he's getting and more.

Next, read this article on similar problems in recent history: http://www.ebar.com/news/article.php?sec=news&article=336

Finally, my open letter to Supervisor Dufty weighing in on the issue:

Hi Bevan,

I got around to reading the actual article at http://www.ebar.com/news/article.php?sec=news&article=336 after hearing about Jeremy Paul raising issues around Rock Hard and other stores' window displays. I knew about the penis statue drama, but had never actually read the facts.

And now I'm livid reading about Lisa Bennett, who wrote you an email saying that her "patience" with trying to avoid porn in storefronts "is growing very thin". I can tell you, my patience with people like her never existed.

I pay an awful lot of money to live here, and for a reason. If I wanted to live in the ambience of heteronormative values, I could do it for a fraction of the "gay tax" I pay to live in the Castro.

This issue is ridiculous. The fact that gay people are raising children doesn't mean anything. Just because one is a parent doesn't make one immediately mainstream like Bennett. Honestly, she should move. So should Jeremey Paul (without a doubt, he's not even gay).

Now, the woman that I saw at Dore Alley fair one year... she had a kid in a stroller, and when a 40 year old man in a dog outfit trotted up on all fours on the end of some Daddy's leash, she showed her daughter how to pet the "puppy" on his head... SHE can live in my neighborhood.

These people can live ANYWHERE ELSE in the country. I can't. And when they start trying to impose their values on our neighborhood, it begins to feel like I can't even live here. The question to ask about all of these window displays is, If not in the Castro, where?

I don't envy the position you're in, and don't expect a politician worth his salt to take a definite, open position on it. I just want you to know where this voter stands. And Castro for Us!

-Josh

You know, I had this crazy, relevant dream a few weeks ago... in it, this group of rich gay men started buying up the real estate on Castro Street, and renting it at sub-market rates to select businesses. The purpose was to reclaim the neighborhood.

The only thing I remember was a new restaurant that had a dress code: you had to look gay. And just like those fancy places that have jackets you can borrow if you forget yours, they too had dinner wear for you. If you came from the marina looking like a dumb straight guy with your blond girlfriend and forgot to dress gay, it was sequins and feather boas for you, or you didn't get in.

I think this is an excellent idea. We just need a few wealthy gay guys who want our neighborhood back to make it happen.

BTW, looks like Bennett did or planned to move: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-castro21apr21,0,4320735.story?coll=la-home-headlines says After failing to persuade merchants to post suggestive ads above the line of sight of small children, the mother, who asked not to be identified, said she plans to move from the Castro.

Honestly, good riddance. I suppose I fall under their label of "equally militant gay residents", although I intend much more than "equally".

I think the inimitable barber Joe said it best:

We're not going to neuter ourselves for anybody," said Joe Gallagher, a gay barber who often runs raunchy ads featuring muscular men in the local gay press. "We're not going to jump just because these people complain. The rest of the country isn't big enough? They've got to try and take over the Castro as well?"

Woo! No neutering! Time to go jogging in nothin' but our jockstraps.

"A universal mystical experience with life-changing effects can be produced by the hallucinogen contained in magic mushrooms, scientists claim today."

You think? Well, this is one of the functions of the scientific method, right? "Proving" what we already know.

Friend also included a link to a second article, which is sufficiently different to be worth reading as well.

Also found more Pendell info on Erowid.

I had never heard of him before seeing info about one of his events on squidlist... I wasn't able to make it, or any of the others that were listed on the publisher's site at the time... so when this one came up and I could make it, I was determined to just out of sheer stubbornness.

So I bought the book. Pendell is a poet and writer, and the books came out of an idea he had in the 70s (while tripping) to write a book that was to be entitled something like "A Guide to Drugs for Poets". This isn't quite that... the subtitle is Plant Teachers and the Poison Path. It covers a lot of interesting plants, and he's tried to let the essence of each type of experience come through. In addition to being a poet, he's part botanist, anthropologist, and historian.

My first favorite quote from the book: "Hey, you! I've got the [talking] stick. Shut up."

Anyway, he did a good job, told funny and interesting stories, read his own work well, and didn't plummet to his death off the pedestal the guy who intro'd him put him on, comparing him to Paraclesus and Lao Tazu.

Most interesting question and answer: "I've heard Aldous Huxley was on acid as he died. Would you want to be under the influence at the time of your death, and if so, which substance?" to which Pendell responded, "No... I think there will be enough to deal with."

I had a good time, even though the show was kind of a let down.

While I enjoy my copy of a Peaches album that Ari sent me, for its sexiness, its attitude, and its edge, I found none of those things in Peaches' live performance. She came off as a ridiculous, drunk anachronism (think 80s rocker). Steve suggested that had she been in a small, intimate venue filled with people who came specifically to see her, it might have worked.

And she didn't even show us her crotch. Ari promised me crotch. Perhaps the Manhattan shows were much better...

Also, the sound was dulled, not at all like the album. While I appreciate shows that give me something more than I can hear on my iPod, whatever was lost in this case would seem to be crucial. The album has a kind of grating, grabbing quality to it. I think this was Shoreline's fault, though, not hers... but I'm getting ahead of myself.

So Bauhaus was next... this was what Steve came to see. He didn't say anything negative about it, and I don't really know enough to say for sure, but I didn't enjoy it as much as I enjoyed them at the Warfield.

Redeeming coolness: Peaches came on stage and sang with Bauhaus, and it was great... highly entertaining.

Then for Nine Inch Nails... Trent Reznor's looking a little buff lately. And much better, with short hair. I hated his long hair "Interview With the Artiste" phase.

Now normally NIN puts on a great show... and this had all the makings. Cool metal gratings that lowered from above, between us and the band, covered in LEDs... allowing for animations layed over the background behind them, provided by large screens and lights.

The only problem? Once again, the sound. It was completely disappointing... while Trent was clearly putting tons of energy into what he was doing, the music reached our ears lacking it. Where was the urgency, the drive? Not coming out of the speakers, in any case.

When I would rather hear Closer in my living room than in an amphitheater, you know you're doing it wrong.

Two of the first three songs were Terrible Lie and March of the Pigs... at first I thought he was getting all of the stuff we came to listen to out of the way so that he could force the new stuff on us the rest of the time. Then I thought maybe he was doing a chronological lead up to the new stuff. But that wasn't it either. I could figure no rhyme nor reason to the song order, not that there needs to be.

He didn't do Hand that Feeds until second to last. I thought that was the end, because that seemed appropriate... but then he ended with Head Like a Hole. Because, according to Steve, if he hadn't done Head Like a Hole, he would have been crucified by the masses. Just like, also according to Steve, Bauhaus can't do a concert without playing Bella Lugosi's Dead, or else the audience would rip all the musician's arms out of their sockets. His words, not mine.

There was one song I thought he did better live, and that was Hurt. What a "four" song (the 4 is enneagram's Tragic Artist). Experiencing the concert through the filter of what I've been learning about the enneagram was insightful... Reznor's oeuvre is filled with type 4 lyrics like, "I focus on the pain, the only thing that's real."

The interesting thing for me was hearing my favorite NIN song, Down In It, and realizing that I had obsessed over the song describing the key struggle of my type, type 7.

Anyway, more coolness: Peter Murphy (that's the lead singer of Bauhaus, for any of you who turned 18 sometime after the 80s and don't live with a weirdo like Steve) came on stage and sang Dead Souls while Trent played guitar, then the two of them sang something that I asked Steve about, after which I immediately forgot his answer. Some song that Peter Murphy covered on his solo project or something.

Despite the coolness of it, Murphy's no Trent in the voice department. Singing Bauhaus he's ok... but singing NIN, he should have at least tried to sound more like Trent.

Final coolness: no encore stupidity. The set had its own rhthym, that would slow down to something like Hurt or A Warm Place, and then kick back up again... when Murphy came on that felt like it could be the end too... and then it wasn't, and there was more... when the end finally came, we weren't surprised, but we didn't need them to leave the stage and come back either. Best ending of a concert I've ever seen.

Oh, one more thing... Shoreline's drink prices weren't outrageous, they were downright amazing to me. Maybe I'm out of the loop, but $8.25 for a beer, $7.75 for a shot of Cuervo, and $8 for a glass of cheap Napa wine blew me. Out of the water that is. I went with a mocha freeze... I'm used to paying $6 for some coffee and milk.

So that was that. Despite my extended critique, I'm thrilled and pleased to have gone. I certainly didn't think of a better way to spend my Saturday night. Thank you, Steve, for the ticket! :-)

Found the quote at http://www.innerwings.net/Relationshipinfo.html

They're speaking in the context of romantic relationships, but the story is bigger than that. This is what all relationship can be about.

Unless we want to get really metaphysical and talk about what relationship is "really" for: creating existence (relativity) as we know it. But that's not so useful for loving each other and saving the world now is it :-)

What if what you were up to, just a little bit more today than yesterday, with your friends, store clerks, co-workers, bitchy landlord, panhandlers, neighbors... was "giving and receiving love, celebrating life together, and serving the earth with your feet on the ground"?

To that end, I have given myself over to my cold. Denying it would mean going through the next few weeks functioning at a lower level while feeling worse than usual... I intend to go through the next few days barely functioning at all, but giving my body whatever it needs to get back to 100% health.

A routine has come with it: I wash down my chinese herbs with Emergen-C. Then I dissolve some homeopathic tabs under my tongue. I finish up with some zinc & herb lozenges. At least once a day I have a handful of walnuts (for cough).

So, I have Eastern alternative meds, Western alternative meds, Western mainstream meds, Western vitamins, and Eastern nutrition. Take that, rhinovirus!

Now, back to bed to read Thich Nhat Hanh so I can learn how to love my cold.

Here's what you do:
1. Turn on your favorite media player and turn your shuffle feature on.
2. Hit "play" and keep track of the next 10 songs that come up. (If you have iTunes, you can make a smart playlist that will automatically list your most recently played selections.)
3. Post your 10 shuffled songs, along with these instructions. You are not allowed to lie, omit tracks or otherwise try to make your musical taste seem hipper than it actually is.

Here goes:

1. The High Llamas - Chime of a City Clock
2. Mushroom Jazz (Groove Nation) - Get This
3. Primus - Los Bastardes
4. Eon - Infernal Machine
5. Best of Techno vol 2 (Return of the Living Acid) - Get Funky!
6. Science Fiction Jazz vol. 5 (Groove Armada) - At The River
7. Rosin Coven - Dybbuk's Dirge
8. 10% File Under Burroughs (Herbert Hunckle & Chuck Prophet) - I Travelled Mostly on the Road
9. Stereolab - Moodles
10. Cake - Jesus Wrote a Blank Check

Who remembered I had half of that? I've been listening to fucking Madonna and Tori like a good gay boy. Not quite, but my morning movement mix is such an odd assortment of mostly pop (Green Day, Rihanna, Melanie C.)... make that OLD pop (Jars of Clay, Fatboy Slim)... and weirdness like the above.

Actually, the Last 25 before this experiment only contained three artists, The Shamen (Boss Drum), Meryn Cadell (Bombazine), and Steve Roach (Body Electric).

Last night, Des admitted two things: one, when he first met me he thought my music was really weird... and two, he's grown to like it and thinks I have great taste in music.

Odd, most people stop at number one.

First, a funny bit:

Dr. Laura Schlessinger is an example of a therapist (actually her doctorate is in another discipline) who never leaves her role and seldom empathizes with her clients if they have a political viewpoint different from hers. She gets totally flustered about ten times per show and accuses the caller of "playing stupid" or "playing victim." Her cure-all advice is "Get a life!" said with anger and conviction. This of course immediately enlightens and empowers all her thousands of callers, who are starting to raise the planetary consciousness and lead the world into the new millennium.

Now, the interesting bit...

I once started a group... of twenty six "Love Pioneers." In this close knit tribe that we created to provide community support for our relationship, we had an interesting confidentiality agreement. It went like this: "You can be confident that if it is juicy we are going to share it with the whole tribe." [Wow!] We did not have a problem with factions, gossip or false rumors because we all knew the truth about what was going on with each other on every level. This allows trust to grow. The commitment to stay open to each other even when someone does something out of integrity makes it much easier for everyone to keep telling the whole truth. therefore we must stop punishing people not only for telling the truth, but we must stop punishing altogether, if we are to develop a truthful group, family or couple.

Main thought: Interesting implications for poly! That's how I want myself and those I'm relating to closely to be able to be. In past relationships, I've had difficulty finding people who would even talk to or be around each other, let alone love each other.

Well, fodder for the next poly group meeting.

AS IF THAT MEANS ANYTHING.

Ok, burst of anger vented.

Have you heard this? I'm sure you've heard this, because I've heard it plenty of times in different venues.

Trader Joe's is a grocery store. That's all. It's not a paragon of anything other than decent marketing. Even, "It's from Rainbow" doesn't tell me much other than "it's not dead animal"... It could still be dairy, not organic, refined or processed, artificially flavored or colored, or preserved.

Speaking of which, have you read the ingredients of Nutella? They're disgusting. Rainbow has several nutella clone products with better ingredients... I'm interested to try them and see how they compare. Maybe at a future whole foods potluck I'll do a nutella tasting.

Today while walking to muni, I ate a chocolate peanut butter and orange marmalade sandwich... now my tummy hurts a bit, but it was yummy. Brown and orange-yellow aren't the best colors mushed together on a sandwich though, let me tell you.