Noospheric G-Spot

Interview with Jonathan Lethem

2011-11-21T16:28:00.000-08:00

PASADENA WEEKLY'S PRIME PICK 11-10-11

"Another side"

Author Jonathan Lethem reflects on ‘The Ecstasy of Influence’ at Vromans in Pasadena

Meanwhile, David Cronenberg is turning Lethem's novel "As She Climbed Across the Table" into a film

(Photo: Justin Chapman and Jonathan Lethem, 11-15-11)

By Carl Kozlowski and Justin Chapman

Author of eight novels, a novella, three story collections and five nonfiction tomes — not to mention editor of five anthologies — Jonathan Lethem is literally bursting with ideas. His new book, “The Ecstasy of Influence,” is a collection of nonfiction essays in which he covers an eclectic array of topics, among them sex in cinema, graffiti, Bob Dylan, cyber-culture, Sept. 11 and Norman Mailer.

Lethem will be discussing and signing the personal and surprisingly candid tome Tuesday at Vroman’s Bookstore, one of only four promotional appearances he’s making to plug the book.

“About a third of the book is new, since I’ve accumulated all this stuff that didn’t all belong together,” the New York native, who teaches at Pomona College, explained in a phone interview while he was in New York. “This is a collection of all the things I’ve done that aren’t fiction, such as film criticism and music reviews. Most of the new writing is along the lines of thinking about the role of the fiction writer. The whole book adds up to a writer avoiding his work.”

Looking forward, Lethem acknowledges that his status as the father of two young sons will undoubtedly have an impact on his future works. But for now, he’s content to keep his mind free, thoughts flowing and fingertips racing across computer keyboards.

“I’m sure fatherhood will affect me, but I’m a very slow moving creature,” says Lethem. “My influences, the people I meet and interact with, the places I live in and visit, tend to be reflected very slowly over many years. I wasn’t able to write anything meaningful about growing up in Brooklyn until I was in my 30s. So fatherhood hasn’t really seeped up yet; it’s somewhere in the unconscious, waiting to make itself known.”

Jonathan Lethem discussed and signed “The Ecstasy of Influence” at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 15, at Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena.

PW: You’ve written essays and reviews and introductions, but obviously the bulk of your work has been fiction. Tell me about your new book, the collection of nonfiction essays. Are they all new works?

LETHEM: No, about a third is new. I’ve accumulated all this stuff that didn’t all belong together. This is a collection of all the things I’ve done that aren’t fiction, such as film criticism, music reviews. Most of new writing is along the lines of thinking about the role of the fiction writer. The whole book adds up to a writer avoiding his work.

How much of yourself or people you know would you say is in your fiction? Are there some novels that have more of yourself in them than others, for example, maybe “Fortress of Solitude” or “As She Climbed Across the Table”? Or do you try to stay away from that in your novels?

It definitely varies. A lot of it tends to be unexpectedly personal, I tend to bring my own emotions into the mix. I have to; it’s the habit of the novel.

How do you usually approach a new novel? Do you center it around a specific idea or do you start with character compositions or themes?

Novels come out of a lot of different things. Usually they have to sit for a couple years before I can begin writing them, then I have an idea of a larger situation, something I’m expecting these characters to do, where I expect them to go. I’ve written a lot of different novels, and writing them has been different, too. The way I approach them is different as well.

Do you still have the website where you invited other writers, filmmakers, poets, artists, and others to turn some of your short stories into reworked pieces?

Yes, it’s still there. I haven’t added new material, but every now and then I hear from someone who has done something.

[More info on the aforementioned website: “The Promiscuous Materials Project”

http://www.jonathanlethem.com/promiscuous.html

http://www.jonathanlethem.com/promiscuous_stories.html

http://www.jonathanlethem.com/promiscuous_songs.html

http://www.jonathanlethem.com/promiscuous_projects.html

http://www.jonathanlethem.com/promiscuous_further.html

"A couple of years ago, after writing a piece for Harper's called "The Ecstasy of Influence", I decided to start giving away some of my stories to filmmakers or dramatists to adapt. (I also write some song lyrics and invited musicians to help themselves to those.) You can see some of the results here. The project continues, and anyone should feel free to leap in. The stories are available non-exclusively -- meaning other people may be working from the same material -- and the cost is a dollar apiece. There’s a simple written agreement to sign, imposing a couple of minor restrictions. That's it -- once you've paid your dollar and signed the agreement, you're free to adapt or mutate the story as you please, for whatever purpose, whimsical, commercial or otherwise." -J.L.]

The idea behind that project was to make a statement on how you feel about copyright laws, right?

Yeah, I had a period where I was interested in advocacy for current extent and corporate interest regarding copyright law, but I’m not calling for the outright abolition of copyright. I believe cultural activity exists in a place not always adequately described by legal notions of copyright. Art is made of other art. I was trying to find a way to put my money where I mouth was, that's why I created that Web site.

What do you think is the right balance between an individual's intellectual property rights and public domain?

It’s probably not nameable by any one principle like that, there are specific circumstances for different people and works. One thing I'll say is it doesn’t make sense for a dead person to still be in control of their works.

Do you think people have purely original ideas anymore? A lot of material these days seems to be regurgitated ideas that have already been done.

Creativity and originality have flowed in and out of remixing and intertextuality for a long time. Originality's still possible, and in the past artists have always existed in this beautifully compromised state; they used other people's work as well.

Has fatherhood with two sons changed your writing at all, or what interests you to write about?

I’m sure it will. I’m a very slow moving creature. My influences, the people I meet and interact with, the places I live in and visit, tend to be reflected very slowly over many years. I wasn’t able to write anything meaningful about growing up in Brooklyn til I was in my 30s. So fatherhood hasn’t really seeped up yet; it's somewhere in the unconscious, waiting to make itself known.

Are you still teaching? What do you teach and where? Do you get a lot of students who are fans of your novels?

That’s what brings me to southern California. I have a great job at Pomona College, teaching creative writing and literature seminars within the English department.

Are there any updates on filmmakers turning any of your books into movies?

These things come and go. I haven’t seen a real result, but David Cronenberg is trying to do “As She Climbed Across the Table,” one of my earlier novels. I’m rooting really hard for it. I think David Cronenberg is one of the best living filmmakers. I know they have a production deal and a screenplay, so it’s percolating, and they’re making some progress. I don’t have any creative input on it, though.

EVERY ONCE COUNTS (glass bomb)

2011-07-12T21:14:00.000-07:00

every once in a blue moon,
you wake up with shards of glass
sticking out of yr. face,
as if you used a glass bomb for a pillow.

every once in awhile,
awhile seems like a nanosecond,
as if time decided to finally
give you a break & break itself,
just for you.
cuz every hour is a full calendar year,
& every once counts.

every night there's
a miniscule apocalypse
manifesting like an absent apparition,
an absent ghost, a waste of space,
every night,
not sleeping next to me,
&
not waking up next to me,
every night
&
every morning,
an inescapable apocalypse,
a nonexistent banshee
destined to haunt me forever.
even if you appear, i wouldn't trust you,
cuz yr. eyes would be...plastic.

EVERY LAST ONE

2011-07-12T21:05:00.000-07:00

a girl with a tattoo just above her cooch, reading:
"let me be all the words."
well, girl, let me tell you,
i've been searching for one that will convince me to trust her & allow her to
let her be all of my words,
every last one;
please erase all the text
from my mind with no
backups & no chance of
memory recovery,
a cerebral scrub,
a literal brainwash,
one so beautiful & open & free
to inspire the fire inside me,
to assure me of self-confidence,
to help me keep the score at all times
& the mission intact, well-defined,
& the kind of energy to allow me to execute the
battelplan without a hitch.

yes, take my words, all of them,
they torture me with their implications
& potential & their fucking influence;
it's as if words are my terminal disease;
whoever you are (& wherever) right now,
my love, my future savior & soulmate,
i don't care what you do with them,
smash 'em to tiny bits with a sledgehammer,
absorb 'em into yr. womb so our damn kids
will catch the damn disease,
bury 'em at sea or deconstruct their
ability to communicate any semblance
of meaning
(what little there is, & as evil as they are),
wear 'em on yr. sleeve, eradicate language altogether
while you're at it,
or/& if you like 'em,
then
take 'em as they are & keep 'em,
publish 'em, turn 'em into commodities;
but whatever you do, me future amor,
do NOT give 'em back to me.

i'll just fuck 'em all up.

PROPERTY IS ROBBERY

2011-05-26T16:03:00.000-07:00

fishes in an underwater maze,
idealists caught in a poorly thought out craze,
the world's cracking wide open
&
so are you
&
so am i.
paradise cannot survive
without a neverending supply.
becuz women are very
perceptive & deceptive creatures,
& thus,
paradise is chimerical, like jnana,
a delusional illusion
(do you believe that?
becuz i don't).
"drop what's in yr. hands
& put 'em in the air,
cuz property is robbery! burn yr. 'possessions'!"
i may be a self-succubus,
however,
i'm no longer
going to let me
get in the way of myself;
but
in the end
we're all doomed to obscurity, cuz
the past is not real &
the future will never come.

SEXUAL (SPONTANEOUS) COMBUSTION

2011-05-26T15:57:00.000-07:00

music is sex
produced by the human mind (& nature)
& distributed through so many
outlets & opportunities;
it's all a matter of perspective (i know that's a cliche),
but it's also the truth, which is hard to find these days,
for some fucking reason,
becuz truth is subjective & you can't disprove it.

sex can be metal, ska, classic rock, disco, punk,
reggaeton, hip hop, death metal, emo, electro-funk,
reggae, heavy metal.
which genre of music fits yr. love life?
(considering you have one...).

generally people, couples, the "unlabeled,"
perform all musical genres at some point,
in different positions & circumstances,
in different states of mind & consciousness,
sometimes in the same session.

sex is music in that
sometimes it's shit, sometimes it's moody,
sometimes it's great, sometimes it's innovative,
sometimes it's hard to listen to, sometimes it's hard to breathe,
& sometimes it's nonexistent.

sex is musical.
music is sexual.
love is transformational.
life, though, is unavoidable.

PHILTERED/PILFERED LOVE

2011-05-26T15:53:00.000-07:00

(breathe. just breathe.)
(but my cynosure ain't so sure...)

there's no greater joy
than pilfered love.
many joys come close,
but they're never enough.

philtered love, on the other hand,
is quite the opposite.
it's filtered, if you will,
through a fractured faucet,
a building made of lace.

at least with pilfered love,
you know it's gone for good.
you know where you stand
on the matter.
no less painful
(more so, in fact),
but you have information
&
that's always good
for business.

cuz as they say,
"'tis better to have loved & lost than to have never loved at all,"
&
"knowledge is power,"
right?
but it's how you use it that counts.

THANKS, YOU

2011-05-26T15:49:00.000-07:00

for the advertised adventures,
they were worth every pretty penny,
you fuck, you;

thanks, you,
for all the crazy talk,
the pot shots,
the sucker punches,
the habitual abandonment;

thanks, you,
for always being there
for me
when i needed you
least.

thanks, you,
for hitting me on my bike
with yr. car,
for cursing & yelling at me
from the safety of yr. tank,
as if it was all my fault (maybe it was).
"there's something wrong with you,"
the spoiled hellcat yelled at me.
"i know...i know...i'm sorry...whatever."

thanks, you,
for absolutely nothing.
you were worth every pretty penny,
you whore, you.

CALIFORNIA IS A MONSTER

2011-05-26T15:46:00.000-07:00

the golden state
is a rotting beast,
still writhing & pulsating
&
gasping for air.

it's a dying giant,
taking with it
the last, final frontier
of human migration,
as well as all the hopes & dreams
that came to a bloody halt
when westward mania
reached the pacific.

so what are we to do in order
to save
the populace
inhabiting
this great golden state
of ours, you may be
asking.
well,
let me answer yr. question
with another question:
how many human lives are you
willing to sacrifice to save
a monster of one that's already won?
cuz what's said is done.

10th & 11th Pasadena Weekly cover stories

2011-05-26T15:39:00.000-07:00

here they be:

"The End of Something Special"
http://pasadenaweekly.com/cms/story/detail/the_end_of_something_special/9515/

&

"Mr. Natural"
http://pasadenaweekly.com/cms/story/detail/mr_natural/10019/
(quite possibly the last thing i ever write for PW, sadly)

Also, keep checking out my Patch stories at:
altadena.patch.com
sierramadre.patch.com
sanmarino.patch.com
monrovia.patch.com
backbay.patch.com
arcadia.patch.com
southpasadena.patch.com
highlandpark-ca.patch.com
and so forth and so on....

mahalo,
g-spot

9th PW cover story and Altadena Patch stories

2010-11-18T13:33:00.000-08:00

check out my 9th cover story for the Pasadena Weekly, which came out today:

http://www.pasadenaweekly.com/cms/story/detail/shelter_from_the_storm/9451/

and check altadena.patch.com on a daily basis for my stories there.

mahalo,

g-spot

FAUX SHOW

2010-11-05T18:02:00.000-07:00

i must be a writer
cuz i can get published
every week
but i can't get laid.
nothing matters cuz i have no sexlife.
i get to experience
intimacy with a woman
every eleven months
or so.
what's the point
of living
when that's how much
sex i get
in my early to mid 20s?
from what i hear
it's all downhill from here
in that regard.

it's the source of all my
frustrations,
anxieties,
shortcomings,
failures,
depressions,
self-loathings,
lack of confidence,
& therefore the source of all my
writings.

i'd rather be a weekly lover
than a weekly writer.

1st Altadena Patch article!

2010-10-29T14:08:00.000-07:00

check out my first article for the new news site Altadena Patch:

http://altadena.patch.com/articles/altadena-residents-to-county-tear-down-this-wall

The latest on the 3rd Leftover Crack album!

2010-10-23T19:01:00.001-07:00

last night at the Star Fucking Hipsters (lead singer from Leftover Crack, Stza's new band) i spoke personally with stza and brad logan of F-Minus and Leftover Crack (LOC) about the 3rd LOC album. they told me they were mapping it out last night before the show and that it should be released in about a year. also, Ezra (LOC's guitarist) is still in the band and LOC will be playing shows in LA early december. tits!
the show was awesome! they closed with "500 Channels" by Choking Victim and "Born to Die" by LOC.

Quietly calling it quits

2010-10-22T15:42:00.000-07:00

http://www.pasadenaweekly.com/cms/story/detail/quietly_calling_it_quits/9355/

Got a story in Pasadena Weekly this week about a tenant in the 710 Corridor and the largest landlord in the state (Caltrans) trying to evict him.

2 more this week

2010-10-07T16:59:00.000-07:00

i wrote the arts feature and the arts prime pick this week in the Pasadena Weekly:

http://www.pasadenaweekly.com/cms/story/detail/just_amazing_zest_for_life/9320/

http://www.pasadenaweekly.com/cms/story/detail/round_the_clock_art/9325/

WHAT'S WRONG IS BAD ENOUGH

2010-09-30T16:00:00.000-07:00

'tis not as bad as
it could be.
'tis never that bad,
indeed.
what's that inane saying?
"it could always be worse,"
always followed by
the inevitable
"but it could always be better,"
& vice versa.
but see, man,
however it ends is how it stays.
so
what's wrong is
bad enough
from where i'm sittin'.
i'm so tired of arguing, man,
& i'm so tired of all
the hostility,
the negativity,
the unforgivable fuck-ups,
grudges growing in us
like tumors.
resentment. disadain. envy. disgust. anguish.
red faces & glares. telling glances & snide remarks.
psychological sugar in the gas tank. emotional grenades in the fridge.
regrettable mistakes. hard feelings.
& above all,
manipulation of the truth, whatever that may be.

3 stories this week

2010-09-30T15:57:00.000-07:00

in the PW:

about AUSD:

http://www.pasadenaweekly.com/cms/story/detail/baby_steps/9288/

about Erwin Chemerinsky:

http://www.pasadenaweekly.com/cms/story/detail/liberty_s_biggest_threats/9289/

about the Calpulli Mexican Dance Co:

http://www.pasadenaweekly.com/cms/story/detail/the_heart_of_it/9301/

Running Out of Room

2010-09-02T17:03:00.000-07:00

check out my new PW feature story, out today:

http://www.pasadenaweekly.com/cms/story/detail/running_out_of_room/9196/

SEEIN' BUGS

2010-08-30T10:55:00.000-07:00

again!,
as well as stars,
& snakes.

seein' double;
triple;
on top of my right eye's usual
fifteen,
now punctured into forty five
perspectives;
points of view;
over which i have no control.

somebody's yelling
at the top of their lungs
across the street,
& i can't stop shaking.

someone's screaming,
at me or just everyone,
& everything?,
so loud so everyone can hear,
so vaguely specific so everyone's brightly confused.

seein' bugs again,
as well as stars,
& snakes;
why do i keep repeating
the same mistakes?

Fall Arts Preview story in PW

2010-08-30T10:51:00.000-07:00

http://www.pasadenaweekly.com/cms/story/detail/dishing_some_new_old_dirt/9171/

Dishing some new old dirt

Century-awaited Twain memoir release and Huntington Bukowski exhibit show the truth isn’t always pretty

By Justin Chapman 08/26/2010

Rest in Peace Mitrice Richardson

2010-08-13T17:04:00.001-07:00

the latest on the tragic Mitrice Richardson story:

http://www.pasadenaweekly.com/cms/story/detail/a_bizarre_and_tragic_end/9123/

8th cover story for PW

2010-07-22T14:33:00.000-07:00

check out my 8th cover story for the Pasadena Weekly as well as my feature news story about still-missing Mitrice Richardson. the issue came out today:

http://www.pasadenaweekly.com/cms/story/detail/really_fast_food/9021/

http://pasadenaweekly.com/cms/story/detail/the_handwriting_on_the_wall/9034/

make sure to leave comments after the stories online, they'll be printed as letters to the editor in upcoming issues of Pasadena Weekly.

mahalo,
j

I SMELL A LET DOWN COMIN' UP

2010-07-19T12:19:00.000-07:00

one side says,
"i love you."
the other side says,
"no heart tingles for you."

since we're here,
let's call it fear.
hell, everything needs a label.
a symbol representing
some kind of meaning,
like the bible,
full of fairy tales & fables.
let's call a spade a spade,
while we're here.

i saw what the cards had in store for me.

& now i'm
center stage
in the middle of nowhere.
i caught a glimpse
of things to come.
i smelt a let down
comin' up,
& i was right.
what a bummer.

i don't like bummers.
they bum me out.

EVERYTHING MUST GO

2010-07-14T14:10:00.000-07:00

we must start anew,
slowly watching
the day entirely collapse
&
utterly corrupt
&
bitterly decay
before yr. very eyes.

yes, everything must go:
our routines, our crutches,
our vices; they ain't much
but they've gotta go.
our very survival depends on it.

the queen-size mattress so empty with just one person
sleeping in it, night in & night out,
our yearly planning calendars
& our daily lists that continue to grow,
our hungers & our desires,
the morning sunshine & the midnight moonlight,
the birds & the bees & the orgasm trees,
the stars & the satellites & the dinosaur bones,
the mountains & the valleys where the rivers flow,
yes, everything must go.

you're gonna have to make a choice:
would you rather be alone or dead?
the answer should be obvious:
pick up yr. pen & raise yr. voice.

THE TIRED POLICEMAN

2010-07-14T14:07:00.000-07:00

what's happening to me?
am i really that old already?
is my body already starting to wither?

i'm a good cop,
i do my job, by the book,
day in and day out,
but there's more of them
than there are of us.
my workload never ends,
& the community regards me as an enemy
to be avoided & shunned,
not a friend to be trusted & loved.

there's a never-ending stream
of bad guys.
maybe jesus wanted it that way.
without crime in the heart of man
i'd be out of a job.
sure, the law establishes order.
but the law is blind, not justice.
i think i see that now.
the law ruins lives
&
the law creates jobs.
it's a human institution.
all this thinking makes me weary.
at least i have a wife & kids & dog
to go home to every night.
i'll be alright.

EVERYONE IN THE DUMPS

2010-07-09T16:22:00.000-07:00

everyone seems to just be giving up. those with jobs in their hands cease handing them out, & those searching for a job stop looking. the latter are learning how to adjust to a life with fewer resources, & they are fast learners, lazy & dejected & cynical as they may very well be. they are way past the point where they give a shit about anything like what other people think about their attitude, &, to a somewhat lesser extent, their behavior. if you define suffering as prolonged mild discomfort due to changing social & personal conditions of an emotional, financial, mental, physical, spiritual, psychological, & physiological nature, then everyone has suffered, & are currently continuing to suffer. giving up seems like the easy way out, but it's not. far from it. giving up implies more suffering under the above definition.. giving up is very taxing, emotionally & psychologically. it certainly takes a lot of work to do nothing in this society. the poorer you are, the harder you work. the sympathy level for someone in that position is absolutely nonexistent, not even on the radar. society's opinion of the unemployed & other perceived vagrants is quite clear: they're considered burdensome & undesirable. there is little room to rise at the edge of the cliff. so you better learn to adjust to yr. new view. hope you're a fast learner.
now the former, the ones who hold the jobs in their hands, they also have the latter folks in the palms of their hands, & they can crush those folks into a fist at will, enhancing & prolonging their unnecessary suffering. & why? maybe they get a big kick out of it. maybe it makes them feel like a big man. absolute power corrupts absolutely, as the saying goes. however, surprise surprise, the latter ain't happy, let alone satisfied. now, addiction is a fairly vague & potentially broadly applied term & concept. most people hear the word & think drugs, specifically hard drugs like heroin, cocaine, meth amphetamine. they don't take into consideration that watching television is an addiction, & a nasty, meaningless one at that, oh yes. no doubt 'bout it. for that matter, sugar & eating & warm weather & coffee & any number of things are means for addiction, not least of which: money. yessir, indeed, & without it, addicts (folks both former & latter, above) experience withdrawal symptoms traumatic & disturbing as opiate sickness. without money, the list of things a person can actually do dwindles considerably. no smoking, no eating, no drinking, no entertainment of any kind, no driving, no traveling, no nothing.
'tis enough to drive a person mad, all this madness.

TRAINS WORRY ABOUT THE STATIONS THEY APPROACH

2010-06-16T20:28:00.000-07:00

trains worry about the stations they approach,
trembling in the tunnels in stuttering anticipation,
of the exposed womb littered with melancholic humanity & disturbing advertisements in disarray,
traveling a one way route forever nervous & giddy & screeching in pain,
waiting for their bellies to open on schedule,
to be expunged & penetrated,
but never really shaking the human virus,
bubbling & melting inside them, inside them.

babies worry about their mothers,
about the codependent relationship that they are born into,
about the crumbling of life and the wrinkling of skin,
about the fear in their eyes so intense it will never leave,
about the distracted voice and the fleeting tit,
about the empty hole gurgling & heaving inside them, inside them.
there's only one way out of this.

7th cover story for the PW

2010-06-03T12:50:00.000-07:00

check out my motha fuckin 7th cover story in the Pasadena Weekly, plus the other two stories i have in this week's issue:

http://www.pasadenaweekly.com/cms/story/detail/the_africa_in_us_all/8832/

FAULTLESS FAULTLINES

2010-05-23T14:44:00.000-07:00

beautifully bombastic,
i held her hand
as i skipped the rocks
& she treaded water,
two approaches
to a complexly simple
obstacle.

immersion
in hypothermia;
we both laughed
at the sun
& the rocks
& the waterfall,
pounding us like a sledgehammer
&
spraying us like a gentle mist.

we spun the logs
&
tossed the multi-colored rocks
back into the depths from which we found them.
she climbed onto my back

&
we shook like depressed and joyous faultlines.

BLAMELESSLY TEETHING

2010-05-23T14:40:00.000-07:00

yesterday morning
i awoke with
pure lockjaw.
i couldn't split my lips,
not even to eat breakfast,
& i was starving;
i'd had no dinner the night before.
since my teeth are near perfect,
i couldn't even insert a straw through a gap
to consume a liquid meal.
i could barely suck on a cigarette,
exhaling through my nostrils.
i could only groan, grunt, & breathe,
which was fine with me.
i walked downtown, then uptown,
then back downtown.
everyone i encountered--
an old man asking for a light,
a woman with shopping bags
lining her tan arms asking for the time--
thought i was being rude
by not verbally responding
to their requests,
which was fine with me.
it's not like i could've explained myself.
it's not like i had to.
today i awoke with a wide yawn, my jaw was fine.
it was nice not speaking a word for a day;
you should try it sometime.

(CHICA-GO)-FUCK-YR.SELF

2010-05-19T14:08:00.000-07:00

such an epic
train system,
interrupting conversations
everywhere they roll,
aesthetically pleasing
but undesirably
changing the subject
every five to fifteen minutes.
they don't get me to
where i want to go,
as if i even know
where that may be.
california's comin' up on me fast,
but i'm not yet ready for
that chimerically structured land mass.
like it or not,
it is what it is,
& reality will, soon enough,
return to me.

but for the time being,
i'm a sponge,
a dirty, blood-soaked rag
absorbing the external excrement,
my environment,
wherever it is i may be
at this point in time.

i'm not moving.
where the fuck are you?

VIOLENT STRANGER

2010-05-19T14:05:00.001-07:00

at some point or other
i'm everyone's personal advisor,
so i feel completely justified in
reaching out to everyone for advice;
my life's an open book
with parts that should be banned
but can't,
as it should be.
i can't say
that i regret any of
the choices i have made,
but i can't say
that i don't.
sometimes i'm an angry man,
a violent stranger (in a strange land)
trapped in a waning pacifist.
are my youthful ideals
supposed to be
evaporating
like this?

LEARNING TO LOVE MISERY

2010-05-19T14:00:00.001-07:00

oh
this livin'
is gettin' harder
no apparition
can make you smarter

cuz knowledge isn't power
it's the way that you use it
& the slap in the face of every hour
shows the way they abuse it
it's got us climbin' up the walls
usin' the writings on the wall
to balance or break our falls
but the text there ain't enough
its meaning has no love
so we lose our grip, slip, trip & fall
& smash our fragile skulls down on the sidewalk

there's blood everywhere
brains in the gutter
but that's what happens
when you neglect the power
of gray matter
yr. own gray matter...

it's just a piece of postmodern art
a human head in shatters
another wasted soul
time for the cleaning to start again
by the City Sanitation Department
they'll do a half ass job
just to get it done
so they can move to the next block
& clean up the next one

before the sun comes up
& people start wakin' up
& start wisin' up
to our human fuck ups

not that their newfound wisdom
will do them any good
it won't expand their minds
it won't gain them a dime
the only thing they'll earn
from learning of this crime

is that they'll finally see
they're gonna hafta start learnin'
to love misery.

REBIRTH/BLEAK

2010-05-06T15:16:00.000-07:00

hand to mouth
for months now,
going through the motions
& losing my focus.

75 cents to my name;
my vices are too expensive.
not only that,
but they tend to explode
uncontrollably
as the list of
failed attempts & false promises &
lost opportunities falling through
consistently & without distraction
continues to grow heavy,
an intense pressure
pressing down on me,
constantly pressing down on me.

i won't even get into the
loneliness aspect of it.
i think i write about that
particular vice quite a bit,
& there's much more of that
particular subject
on the way,
you can be sure
of that.

impecunious & destitute
for years now,
inhibiting my potential
& dispersing my hope.

i guess i'm supposed to suffer.
has any great writer
ever not suffered?
comes with the territory,
part of the job description.
but i didn't choose this profession ,
it most certainly chose me.
& i'm still not entirely convinced
that everything happens for a
"reason."

the fall of the empire
isn't happening fast enough
for me.
don't they say
it's better to crash & burn
than to fade away?
so do it already.
then again,
they also say that
only the good die young,
so i guess we're in it
for
the long haul.
so be it.

funeral speech from "Synecdoche, NY"

2010-05-05T11:40:00.000-07:00

"Everything is more complicated than you think. You only see a tenth of what is true. But there are a million little strings attached to every choice you make. You can destroy your life every time you choose. But maybe you won't know for twenty years, and you may never ever trace it to its source. And you only get one chance to play it out. Just try and figure out your own divorce. And they say there is no fate, but there is. It's what you create. And even though the world goes on for eons and eons, you are only here for a fraction of a fraction of a second. Most of your time is spent being dead or not yet born, but while alive, you wait in vain, wasting years, for a phone call, or a letter, or a look from someone or something to make it all right, but it never comes. Or it seems to but it doesn't really. So you spend your time in vague regret, or vaguer hope that something good will come along, something to make you feel connected, and to make you feel whole, something to make you feel loved. But the truth is, I feel so angry, and the truth is, I feel so fucking sad. And the truth is I've felt so fucking hurt for so fucking long, and for just as long have been pretending I'm OK, just to get along, just for...I don't know why. Maybe because no one wants to hear about my misery, because they have their own. Well, fuck everybody. Amen."

"The Significance of an Insignificant Thought" by Galvin Chapman

2010-05-04T14:35:00.000-07:00

Hey nutria, all we are is greed
And too lonely to loosen our grip
It projects our want, not our need

Hey dude, why would she hold on so tight?
Throw your heart in the dirt, and then clean it?
Rip it in half and then stitch it?

Hola Madre, love need be stress?
No, we're all struggling within these walls
Hang in there, the whole world's depressed

Broskee, your love is strong
The poison is killing you slow
Cut down, find a girl, pick up a guitar and make a song

Intelligence, your cock hides your intimacy
The poison has destroyed your ambitions
Remember how we fucked each other up? We called it dancing

Crazy motherfucker, it's been so long
Your spikes were intimidating, but your brain weak
So far apart yet so young (and drunk)

Little miss elephant, with happiness as tall as you
You haven't even experienced life
How could you possibly know what to do?

High blue room you've taken so much
Asked for little in return
Yet you continue to stand tough

Pies, why did you answer the door?
You knew it was death knocking
Oh how they laughed the next morning when you said you were sore

If it weren't for nutria and her care
This cold world wouldn't hesitate to glare
Merely a friend, the dude has never flaked
And his consciousness too aware has much realization to make
How could a son disrespect so much?
My maturity will grow and make up for such
I dream of the days your success will thrive
But broskee, the poison will always connive
Straight from the suburbs I can't win
Your intelligence brings my argument to an end
Why do you do the things that you do? For an applause?
You're simply a rebel without a cause
The bench swing won't hold you forever
And optimism neglects the word never
In the end you'll spit out all of us
With the words zipping by, "Son, that's where I grew up."

Our insignificant thoughts kept us sane
But our insignificant actions caused great disdain
With happiness infinitely incomplete
Rationally, our significance will drive us insane

SLAVE LABOR AT THE ROSE BOWL

2010-05-02T19:31:00.000-07:00

so many damn
lost opportunities,
so this is where i find myself?
distributing huge piles of
mulch
over wood chips in the little
curbed islands
in the parking lots
around the rose bowl
with a small, heavy rake
so's the wind don't
distribute the wood chips
all over the spaces
where the brookside golfers
line up their uber-expensive vehicles
& unload their rolly golf bag carts
& walk past me,
the sad sappy sucker,
the unemployed able-bodied bottom of the barrel,
down-graded to manual-slave labor
for food stamps, for sustenance,
on their way
to the Green.

then again,
i guess watching "jerry springer"
in the press box half my shift
isn't something i'd term "slave labor,"
but i don't think i need to make that distinction.

EARLY OBIT (persevere)

2010-05-02T19:28:00.000-07:00

a weaker poet than me
once sang,
"he moved so slow just
like a dying dream,
like a machinist
who got caught in the machine."

a more idealistic man than me
once told me,
"that's how you get through
yr. days? taking pills all the time?"
"well, yeah," i said. "i mean,
how do you get through yours?"
"perseverance."
"well, then you're a stronger
man than i."
"strength has nothing
to do with it.
it's all mental.
you can convince yr.self
of absolutely anything...
if you put yr. mind to it."
"but...that takes effort."
"but maintaining a daily high doesn't?
you don't need
intoxicants of any kind (be it drugs, TV, etc.)
to find
adventures
in life."

like i said,
he's a more idealistic & optimistic man than me,
so we're gonna hafta agree to disagree.
for the time being.

"Profile on Justin Chapman" by Afton Siebern

2010-05-02T14:48:00.000-07:00

“I don’t care if they hate it or love it, as long as they get a reaction.”

Justin Chapman, a regular contributor/freelancer at Pasadena Weekly, frequently sparks both hate and love comments on his work—which ranges from politicians to earthquake survival tactics to local education. His heart is with politics but if the story is interesting, he writes it.
Although he may not have always dreamed of working for a newspaper, he has always had a thing for writing. From short stories to poems to scripts, he has been writing since as long as he learned how. When he was 19 he reached out to a reporter at Pasadena Weekly looking to contribute to the paper—and with luck. The staff began to teach him all he needed to know in order to write for the paper—gather information, find sources, focus on local events—and soon his first work was published. As he would say, “I was just a city college student, with no experience, who came out of nowhere.” From his arrival onto PW in January 2005 he soon became an elected member of the Altadena Town Council in June of the same year. He now stood as a journalist in one city, and a politician in another.
His lack of experience seemed to be slowly disappearing as he regularly contributed to PW while serving his two-year term on the Town Council and then running (and winning) again in 2007. His wins in politics appeared to him the real workings of a democracy. He was an unknown who was able to run against a 10-year incumbent on the council and still secure over 60% of the votes. His desire to be a bigger part of the community was becoming a reality.
In his articles Chapman uses these two seemingly mismatched professions—journalism and politics—to hit a nerve with his readers. He wants his articles to foster community dialogue and get readers thinking. Chapman finds it important for readers to see the reality of his articles. Everything that he touches on, upcoming elections, local businesses, bankruptcies, directly affects the readers and how they live their lives. His brush with democracy brings to his articles the importance of the everyman—and that includes his readers.
And what attracts him to a profession that is seeing an increase in job cuts and a decrease in revenue? The people. On a weekly basis he is able to interact with high-profile government officials, artists and musicians, and writers and filmmakers. He is given the opportunity to make friends with people he never would have met if not for his job as a journalist. He gets to tell people “the scoop” first—breaking news and informing his community on what they need to know. He attends important events and meets important people all while getting his name in the byline and a paycheck.
But being a journalist is not always about the glitz and the mingling with movers and shakers. It takes a lot of work to be a journalist let alone a “good journalist,” especially since being good is so subjective. Achieving this for Chapman means being able to “find a story before it happens, link the issues to the community, and the community to the issues.” He has to know how to construct a newspaper article as well as an investigative report, and all this only comes with time. For him being a journalist is like everything else, “you get better the more you do it.” And on his current path of averaging at least one article per week for the Pasadena Weekly, Justin Chapman is well on his way to becoming a “good (to say the least) journalist.”

"Profile on Justin Chapman" by Jinhua Zhang

2010-05-02T14:41:00.000-07:00

The first time I met Justin Chapman was at the concession stand inside Shattuck Cinemas, where he held a part time job. I needed help on another project and someone suggested that I contact him. He seemed a bit shy but extremely kind at the same time. Recently, I caught up with Justin and found out that making popcorn was something he only did on the side, a temporary source of income. He had bigger things going on for him.
Justin graduated from University of California Berkeley in 2009 with a degree in Media Studies. However, Justin has already had a head start on his career five years ago working for Pasadena Weekly, an award-wining community newspaper. He is currently a regular contributor for the publication.
Pasadena Weekly is only one of many publications Justin has worked on. His work can be found wherever he happens to be. Before coming to Berkeley, he has contributed to Pasadena City College’s weekly publication Courier and Spotlight Magazine. He has also written for the Los Angeles CityBeat, and the Los Angeles Weekly. While a student at UC Berkeley, Justin was on the staff of the quarterly Berkeley Political Review, whose coverage on the 2008 election won the publication several awards.
Justin has always loved writing. “I've always been a writer since I learned how to write, of all different kinds and styles of writing, from short stories to poems to essays to articles to scripts, etc.” When I asked him why he decided to become a journalist, he told me, “one day I just got the idea in my head that I was capable of writing for a newspaper… it's a way to get paid, consistently, just for writing, which seems pretty rare. Also, I've always been an avid reader and when I became more politically involved in high school I became a news junkie, reading every newspaper and news site I could get my hands on. Journalism just became a natural direction for me.” The formula for success? A combination of impulse, practicality, and passion.
Justin was 19 when he first got the idea of becoming a journalist. He contacted a reporter at Pasadena Weekly asking if he could contribute in any way to the publication. The reporter gave him an overview of the paper and almost immediately, other staff members began teaching Justin how to gather information, find sources, and write about local events. “In no time I was writing my own stories and coming up with my own story ideas”, Justin recounted, “I would definitely say I lucked out in finding the right paper, because the staff here was and is so friendly and accepting and they taught me everything I needed to know. Not only that, they gave me countless opportunities to be published even though I was just a city college student with no experience and came out of nowhere”.
Luck does not come without taking initiatives. Justin is too modest with his accomplishments. Working for a newspaper was not the only thing he has accomplished by the age of 19. He started working for Pasadena Weekly in January 2005, and by June, Justin won a seat on the Altadena Town Council and became the youngest member of the council, ever. He decided to run because Altadena was his beloved hometown. He saw the local government as a place where average residents could get involved. This raised Justin’s profile in the community, being a journalist in one city and a politician in a neighboring city. Justin was re-elected in 2007 for the position and then honorably resigned a few months later due to his attendance at UC Berkeley.
In the future, Justin expressed wishes to write for national publicationsor for an English language paper in a foreign country.

BEAUTIFUL BLUE BIRD

2010-04-24T15:03:00.000-07:00

yesterday, a beautiful blue bird (some kind of dove) just slammed into the front window of my parent's house, breaking its neck, causing it to bleed from its beak, and effectively disabling it from doing anything except breathe deep and hard. i tried calling animal control and the humane society, but it was taking too long and meanwhile the poor dove was suffering like nothing i've ever experienced before. i picked the bird up with gloves on, laid it down gently on the grass. then i went into my parent's garage and brought out a small but very heavy bombshell my dad has kept in the garage since his navy days. i walked back out to the front yard, holding the bombshell in my hands, looked over at my brother, and said, "right?" and he nodded, said, "yeah, i agree." i walked over to the bird, barely able to move. i saw its little black beady eyes glance up at me, like it knew what was happening. then i lifted the bomshell above my head and released it right over the bird's head, and missed. i picked it up again and dropped it square on the bird's head, crushing it and taking its life. i sat down for a moment next to the bird's body and smoked a cigarette. then i grabbed a small shovel from the garage and dug a small grave in the front yard, right next to where my first pet tortoise, dan, has been buried since the year 2000. i picked up the bird's lifeless body, it's guts slowly spilling out as i placed it into its grave, and buried it.

it was intense, man. i've never had to do anything like that before. later my brother said he wouldn't have been able to do it himself. i'm still trippin on the whole situation. wondering if i did the right thing, etc. i took a life, for fuck's sake. it reminds me of that scene in "eternal sunshine" when they're kids and the other boys are yelling at jim carrey as a kid to smash a bird's head with a rock. and so he does it and starts crying, and kate winslet as a kid leads him off. one of the most beautiful scenes in the movie.

godspeed, beautiful blue bird. i'm sorry.

THESE ARE THE THINGS WE CAN DO WITHOUT

2010-04-24T15:00:00.000-07:00

waking up
is my least favorite
part of the day.
giving up & in & going to sleep
is difficult, as well,
but the moment
my eyes open
& see the daylight's begun,
it's all over for me.

that's a feeling
i could live without.

i'll spare you the details,
for the details are petty,
but every day is a struggle.
where's the meaning?
where's the substance?
what is this?
why, goddammit?
tragically comedic rebirths & redeaths are bleak.

that's a thought
i wouldn't miss, if it ceased to exist.

there's no need
to get into specifics here;
it's a shitty situation
through & through.

AGAIN & AGAIN & AGAIN YOU'RE ON THE OTHER END

2010-04-21T12:10:00.000-07:00

desperation drives me
to lash out at the ones
who love me,
but i won't strike
if you just embrace yr.self.

contradictions within myself
drive me to embarassment,
but i won't blush
if you just embrace myself.

where's the morality (on my end)
when i use the moral
of a dream
after the fact?
reality & dreams
(are/not) mutually exclusive,
so what's the difference?
but i won't let the means justify the ends
if you just embrace ourself.

one after another
until i manage
to get a good grip.
trial & error
until she finds me,
erases my mistakes,
&
embraces my Self.

POST-TRABAJO AT THE OL' LOCAL WATERIN' HOLE

2010-04-21T12:08:00.000-07:00

destruction
transcends
on you
&
spins yr. world,
cuz
familiarity
breeds contempt.

trauma
manifests
&
unfolds
like a disease,
cuz
no manner of protection
or preparation
is 100% effective,
or reliable.

lifelong friendships
can turn on a dime.
a blade in the spine
will tell you the score.

they say that when
one door closes,
another one opens,
if that's the sort of thing you take comfort in.

WE SEE US IN YOU

2010-04-21T12:04:00.000-07:00

unfortunately,
i'm still attached to the physical.
& no matter how hard i try
i can't escape this
fleshy prison cell.
every now & then,
more often than i prefer,
the words i say
&
the things i do
make no fucking sense,
no fucking sense at all.
not that anyone else's
words & behavior
register comprehendable,
but i certainly can't be
held accountable
for that,
or can i?
some certainly
seem to think so.
it's all so fucking meaningless,
read: boring & useless,
& come to think of it,
the things that do make sense
& have meaning are so few & far between,
it's like a barely begun puzzle
with billions upon billions of tiny pieces.
with bones as cage bars,
we are internally & eternally trapped.

6th cover story in the Weekly today!

2010-04-08T16:15:00.001-07:00

my 6th cover story for PW, "Rawman & Green-Girl to the Rescue," came out today. check it out:

http://www.pasadenaweekly.com/cms/story/detail/rawman_green_girl_to_the_rescue/8626/

mahalo

PROPAGANDIZE YR.SELF

2010-04-07T18:45:00.000-07:00

now,
apparently there is a difference
between promoting & marketing yr.self
and "propagandizing yr.self."

now,
the so-called "classic writers"
who penned the so-called "great works"?
merely mediocre humans
caught in between epic struggles
over mediocre lifestyles.
all of them, now,
have been critiqued, praised,
put on a ridiculously high
& untouchable pedestal.
over the ages & epochs,
they've been propagandized.

time makes self-propagandhists
of us all,
make no mistake about it.

now,
where are we supposed to go
from here?
the limits of self-betrayal
are limitless.
the borders of self-annihilation
are borderless.
make no mistake about it.

JUST FLOATIN' ALONG PICKIN' THE FLOWERS JUST TO PUT THEM ON MY OWN GRAVE

2010-04-07T18:39:00.000-07:00

just floatin' along pickin' the flowers just to put them on my own grave;
draftin' up a list of those lucky hundred thousand or so people
who will be receiving specially marked & decorated invitations
to my funeral;
puttin' in an order for a spot high up on the hill
for the whole damn city to see every damn day
on their way to work so i'll never be forgotten;
graverobbin' a centuries-old cemetery
to get one of those uber-retro headstones
they don't use anymore in this postmodern era;
& as for my death itself?
it will be a sight to behold unlike any of you
sycophantic ratfink underlings have ever seen;
not to mention the body of brilliant & unparalleled work
i will be leaving behind;
oh yes,
i will make sure
everyone knows me forever, whether they want to or not.

BILLET-DOUX

2010-04-07T18:33:00.000-07:00

i have no one
to write this love letter to,
so i'll write it to you.
dear reader,
how i love thee.
let me count the ways...
well, actually at the moment
i can't think of anything.
though i appreciate you for
reading this,
i don't love you for it.
cuz let's be honest here,
i can & will continue
to exist without you (& vice versa),
whether you read my work
once, regularly, or not at all ever again,
& i will certainly continue
to write whether or not
there's an audience.
fine,
i'll throw you a fuckin' bone:
i will love you if you have some
visceral reaction to my work,
be it negative or positive.
deal, dear reader?
just try reading any of my writing
& not experience some kind of
emotional, human connection or relation.
go on.

love,
justin chapman (aka "g-spot")

LOVELY HEAD RUSH

2010-04-07T18:30:00.000-07:00

the kind that
temporarily imparts
blindness,
it's that good.

the best
whirlwinds of the mind
were when
the ingredients of thine mixture
were just a tad too much,
forcing you to
brace for balance
at the edge of the cliff,
staring down into the abyss,
swallowing yr. pride & humility.
such a humbling experience
to rest yr. entire essence
& psyche
in the Palms of the Lord,
the one you don't believe in
until everything you know
teeters on the brink of
collapse.

'tis more surreal
than a technicolor
dreamworld,
composed chimera &
el chango.

A PIECE OF MY OWN MEDICINE

2010-04-07T18:28:00.000-07:00

karma
seems to work
double-time & overtime,
a jealous bitch goddess
with an unquenchable
thirst for blood & tears.

never seems to work
in reverse,
in yr. favor,
no matter how much
debt you've served for
humanity,
or society,
or yr.self.

it's got a vice-like grip
'round yr. testicles,
squeezing harder ever-so-gently
with each new fuck-up,
but never relinquishing
pressure,
until you are incapacitated
& on trial
for crimes against the self.

if you dish it out,
be prepared to take it back
one hundredfold, & beyond.

"love & betrayal south of the border"

2010-04-07T18:23:00.000-07:00

Before I left for Mexico, my friend predicted I would come back with a beautiful Mexican bride. I shrugged it off, didn't believe him. Well, he certainly called it. While I didn't return hitched & chained for life, I did fall in love with a gorgeous, hermosa chica, & we even discussed a pseudo-faux marriage so she could visit me in California & avoid the whole visa obstacle. This was after I left another chica, heartbroken at my departure, in another Mexican city, & after she (girl #2/marriage girl) told me she was seeing another guy before we made sweet love in her small bed. If we lived closer, she told me, she would be with me, not him. I concurred, & left the country heartbroken.

WATER OVER THE BRIDGE

2010-04-07T17:56:00.000-07:00

the women
seem to be
few & far between.
i can't seem
to decipher an explanation
for this,
& neither can they.
or, more likely,
they can
but they just can't tell me,
or don't want to.
i can't seem
to decipher an explanation
for this, either.
the only thing
i'm certain of,
one way or another,
it's my fault.
however,
without an explanation,
how can i be expected
to change
or improve? becuz i am or do something that can't be excused,
but am not told what it is,
i'm left for dead
in an abandoned desert
full of the ghosts of prostitutes
scouring the land
for
fresh meat.

consistent adventures in poverty

2010-04-05T11:57:00.000-07:00

why is it that even when i'm broke as fuck, trips and vacations and adventures just keep comin' at me? one after another...amazing.
this weekend: berkaderkastan and oaktown
mid-may: chicago with the homies RJ and Raf (who's taking a train from NY to Chicago) for a screening of our film "Song for Lindy" in a festival. co-star stella stahl, daughter of the acclaimed and brilliant novelist jerry stahl, will also be at the screening. 'twill be the event of a lifetime. and i can't fucking wait...

mahalo,
g-spot

oscar stein

2010-04-01T20:37:00.000-07:00

i've just finished the first chapter of my novel, "a closed mouth don't get fed." the first chapter, "the death & articulation of oscar stein," is 94 pages. holy fuck. that's the longest thing i've ever written (and i've written a LOT of stuff) and i also happen to think it's among the best.
chapter two is called "in the belly button of the moon," and it takes place in mexico.
more on this as it develops...

once a week for over a month

2010-04-01T20:35:00.001-07:00

i've been writing at least one article per week for the pasadena weekly for more than a month, and i've got my 6th cover story coming out next week, on the 8th. check em out at pasadenaweekly.com every thursday.

One Common Unity

2010-03-23T15:06:00.001-07:00

my poem "una mas cigarro" was just selected to be presented at the One Common Unity "Voices of a Movement" event this thursday at Bus Boys & Poets in washington, DC. it was one of seven pieces chosen for the event, under the subject "health."
tits!

I'M DONE BEING WHOLE

2010-03-17T14:06:00.000-07:00

self-imposed isolation
is the way to go,
then you know
who to blame.
you can stare the bloody culprit in the face
& call him by name.
you can make deals with the devil
& demand yr. own terms.
yr. new friends will be
yr. body's virsuses, parasites, & germs.

it's something i would recommend
to those sick of the Search,
tired of the ineluctable Decline.
it's certainly one way to live
for those who want out
of space & time.

i, for one, am done being whole,
finished being full.
tearing yr.self down
piece by piece
is so much easier
than building a life worth living.
i suppose it's a lazier option,
but
there are fifteen continents under the sea
that will all emerge & merge once the oceans
dry & die,
once the earth is done being whole.

ALTWEEKLIES.COM

2010-03-15T17:19:00.001-07:00

Altweeklies.com picked up my earthquake story...pretty tits!

www.altweeklies.com
www.aan.org

Sebastian Lindén

2010-03-13T16:05:00.000-08:00

check out this freelancing illustrator and graphic designer from stockholm, sweden:

http://www.fantastiskt.net/

My other blogs

2010-03-13T16:03:00.001-08:00

hello,
just wanted to post the links to my other blogs from the past. here ya go:

UC Berkeley project for a Linguistics class:
http://lingnagpra.blogspot.com/

Altadena politics blog:
http://denapolitico.blogspot.com/

Short-lived blog called "Solipsistic Journalismo":
http://justinchapman.blogspot.com/

My favorite of the four about my trip to Washington, DC, in 2006:
http://justindc.blogspot.com/

New Pasadena Weekly article! woo-hoo!

2010-03-13T15:58:00.000-08:00

check out my new article in the Pasadena Weekly, called "Triangle of Life." it's about three different approaches to what to do during an earthquake:

http://pasadenaweekly.com/cms/story/detail/triangle_of_life/8517/

enjoy!
g-spot

New Pasadena Weekly article (web only)

2010-03-07T21:16:00.000-08:00

got a new article in the Pasadena Weekly, and another one (the feature news story again) coming this thursday:

http://pasadenaweekly.com/cms/story/detail/ready_willing_but_unable/8511/

I AM WRITTEN ALL OVER MY FACE

2010-01-25T14:27:00.000-08:00

why dangle that beautiful
possibility
in front of me
just to take it away?
i know,
i know,
it's all my own doing.
well damn you for that.
i get yr. fucking point
already.
can we move on now,
please?

a crime against the self
is
a crime against humanity,
& there is no shelter
from this storm.
will i pay with
my children,
& my childrens' children,
& my childrens' childrens' children?

time
deconstructs
all
things,
so i suppose
we shall have to wait & see,
senorita.

UNA MAS CIGARRO

2010-01-25T14:26:00.000-08:00

let me just have
this last one,
then i'll go to sleep.
my throat, my lungs,
my heart
be damned,
cuz this one's
going to count.

i'll take the pounding
tomorrow,
for tomorrow does not exist.
she said so herself.

yes, mmhmm, right,
tomorrow is a great day
for a lashing.

GHOSTS ON THE GOLF COURSE

2010-01-25T14:24:00.000-08:00

i look out the window
to catch a glimpse
outside myself
& in the green moonlight
i see a lonely parade
of silver-blue ghosts wandering
slowly & steadily
destinationless
around the golf course
collecting lost balls
in the ponds
& the shrubs
& the trees
& the sand traps
without
any formation as a group
or, for that matter,
any acknowledgment of each other
whatsoever
as they scour
the greens
& the fairways
& the range.

it wears me out,
watching these caddyless
ghosts on the golf course,
so i shut the blinds & go back to bed.

& damned if i didn't hear one of them yell, "fore!"

SEAWARD RATS

2010-01-25T14:20:00.000-08:00

wax nostalgic
& go into self-imposed exile,
for we are blind as bats.

miles of text
provide no insight
for we are doomed like seaward rats.

o what a gash
what a backwards dream
seeming more & more
just like a dead machine (sad, simple).

o what a shame
seaward rats, trapped in the blaze
a labyrinth of guilt & regret
so don't forget:
you deserve everything you get.

deteriorating manuscripts
hold no keys
just words
as worthless as these
& chopped off knees
so put on yr. poker face
(because)
we will fight to the death,
but
we're goin' out peacefully, grinning.

COMPANY MEN (in the lion's den)

2009-12-23T18:55:00.000-08:00

dragged across enemy lines
questioned by company men
& tortured for answers
to the point of unconsciousness;

they'll say just about anything
to avoid having their fingernails
pulled off, one by one,
by a wrench of some sort;

having already surrendered their will to live,
mentally,
after suffering through
simulated drowning;

their answers are utterly useless
in terms of any intelligence value
but these company men
are desperate, & dangerous;

for make no mistake about it
we are in the lion's den now
& there is a religious war on
you're expected to pick a side;

the panic is really starting
to set in
freedom's due for a slight detour
as society shifts to mob rule.

My 5th cover story for PW

2009-12-17T16:19:00.001-08:00

my 5th cover story for the Pasadena Weekly came out today. check it out at:

http://www.pasadenaweekly.com/cms/story/detail/trouble_above/8169/

or if you live in or around Pasadena, pick up the paper if you so desire.

muchas gracias,
justin

HAPPY WITH A SECRET ABOVE THE SUN

2009-12-11T13:55:00.000-08:00

& beyond its eclipse,
squeezed through vicious blackholes
&
under arctic glass,
looking up & out
at a different shade of blue,
frozen to the bone
like drifting dogs on the moon,
trapped in the eclipse
& tucked away from view,
lurking in an opium den
trying to hide from you,
cuz any
&
all
responses & reactions
trigger explosions of self-doubt, fear, loathing, & depression.
where is my Armada of Love
to rescue my defenseless, weary troops?
the fifth column(ist) in my mind,
planting landmines on strategic synapses
& all along the western cerebral cortex front.
subsist, persist, resist the albatross,
we are senescent so fight yr. loss
& reach yr. aliment
& all that bloody rubbage.
here's what you need to know:
nobody cares, so don't complain.
this fire's raging, man, pull yr. own fucking weight.

THE DEATH & ARTICULATION OF G-SPOT

2009-12-11T13:51:00.000-08:00

i don't wanna die (not yet anyway)
cuz i can't attend
my own funeral reception,
standing around
drinking
smoking
with all my friends, family,
& acquaintances,
choking on grief,
talking about how
cool & smart
i was.

i wouldn't call it
fear of death,
per se,
cuz i'm certainly
envious of the dead
& the decisions they don't have to finalize
daily.
but it does make me a tad anxious
cuz my friends believe me to be
immortal,
&
since they're all black swans,
i
tend to believe them.
the evidence certainly
backs them up which means i'm proper fucked.

SAILBOAT (in a moat)

2009-12-11T13:47:00.000-08:00

circling the castle moat
in the queen's private sailboat,
sipping tasty martinis
& caressing her inner thighs & knees,
wearing the king's spare
(& expensive) crown
while he tears his hair out
in the War Room
as the enemy troops
close in on the capital
for the final push,
the last desperate gasp of breath,
throwing the region, near & far,
into turmoil & strife,
an upheaval of the scale
not seen or experienced in many, many centuries.
but me, & the queen,
not a damn care in the world,
circling the castle moat
in her private sailboat,
stuffed from a fine feast
not an hour previous,
& drunk on expensive wines
from around the world,
eating each other's faces
as the city collapsed around us
& the castle at last
& the victors & the failures & the victims
named & recorded into history.

BLEAK AT BEST

2009-12-11T13:46:00.001-08:00

go forth
&
fight on
cuz twentysomething angst
is a pitiful & pathetic
excuse.

it's not as easy as you thought, was it?
go figure
get a grip
green the black
& wisen up
cuz they don't care
if you fuck up
or freak out.

anxious without my crutch,
strange thoughts begin to
manifest into
mad actions
&
bad words
in moments flat.

it's fucking with my head.

"Seeking the Truth"

2009-11-18T17:31:00.000-08:00

below is a letter in response to my opinion piece in the PW about subjectivity in journalism:

"Justin Chapman’s article, 'A New Way,' is absolutely brilliant.

Actually, I wonder if the so-called mainstream media journalists take their profession so seriously. I do not see a search for the truth from them, but rather the promulgation of what amounts to state-run media messages or even propaganda. But we do have the fabulous alternatives of the Internet, radio and one cable station.

No matter what his politics are, Mr. Chapman makes a fabulous journalist, because he is seeking the truth in the best way he can find it — and that is all any of us in America ask."

FLORA PLUMB

LOS ANGELES

(by the way, Ms. Plumb was my favorite acting teacher at my high school, LA County High School for the Arts; she also played a role in the latest film by myself and RJ Chmiel [Suzy Dirge Productions], "Song for Lindy." see the trailer here: http://www.vimeo.com/4056474 )

Response to Altadena Blog comments

2009-11-18T15:55:00.000-08:00

here is my response that i posted to Altadena Blog, regarding comments made on that blog about andre coleman's and my article in PW, "From Boom to Bust." you can read the comments here:
http://www.altadenablog.com/2009/11/economic-woes-hit-the-denas.html#comment-6a00d83455629c69e2012875b5536b970c
and my response:

"this is justin chapman. the mistake about amy's being closed was my fault, i was misinformed by several people. also, i was still living in berkeley when i did the reporting on this story and was wrapping up several projects in east bay as it was my last week living there, before i moved back down here (though to pasadena not altadena). i apologize profusely to amy's for not following up on that, but it was meant as a sidenote because i was under the impression that it had been closed for awhile, and the story was focused on recently closed businesses. had i been living in altadena or pasadena (in otherwords if it had been one week later) i would have talked to the business owners face to face and i would have known that amy's was in fact not closed. it was my mistake to not call and find out from the source, and i apologize for that because i always loved eating at amy's. there will be a correction printed in this week's PW. as for why steve lamb was quoted, the answer is in the story: it's because as a former town council member and chamber member, he tried to form a sort of better business bureau/business associations for N. Lake, Fair Oaks, and Lincoln, and received no support from the ATC, Chamber, and County. on the other hand we (andre and i) also quoted current ATC chairman gino sund and current chamber member robert meyer who explains what the chamber's role is. that's a balanced story in my opinion, and i did the best i could considering i was a week away from moving back down here and was trying to finish my east bay projects, say goodbye to bay area friends, and jumpstart several projects in SoCal for when i moved down here. food for thought....."

New article in PW

2009-11-16T17:57:00.000-08:00

check out my new feature article in the Pasadena Weekly:

http://pasadenaweekly.com/cms/story/detail/from_boom_to_bust/7916/

Dozens of once-thriving Pasadena and Altadena businesses fall victim to the recession

By André Coleman , Justin Chapman 11/12/2009

THE SHORE ON THE OTHER SIDE

2009-11-09T11:16:00.003-08:00

my bike my only companion
i race to the top of the hill
up a narrow dirt path surrounded by shubbery
& when i get there
i look out over the water & breathe,
i've been given another perspective,
the bird's eye view,
i look across to the shore on the other side
to see how they live,
how they deal with crisis
& handle their affairs,
their strange ways perplex me
but it is fascinating nonetheless
& i am grateful for the
opportunity.
this was well worth the climb.

GOODBYE BAY

2009-11-09T11:16:00.001-08:00

reflecting on my time here

standing at the top of the mountains of marin,

with a view of all corners of the

san francisco bay

revolving around alcatraz

as boats rush for the pacific

& inlets create harbors full of yachts & cut into sausalito & mill valley

with rolling verde hills

behind which you can see

the east bay stretch out

like a sad factory collapsing

from the weight of human migration,

the end of western civilization

& intellectual thought,

leaving us with nowhere to go

& nothing to do

except endure what we’ve become;

i scan the long green line

covered in white dots (with a big erection sticking up out of berkeley)

from point richmond to oakland & the bay bridge,

treasure island, san francisco (that bittersweet albatross), & finally

the might pacific

with its ominous, poisonous fog creeping in,

& the wind ruffles my hair & my shirt

& i try not to worry whether or not

i wasted my time here

because fuck it,

it’s so goddamn fucking beautiful &

i’m as high

as the clouds up here,

& so

i think,

why is this the first time i’ve come here?

Death on Lake Avenue

2009-11-02T16:18:00.000-08:00

Altadena small business owners and community leaders criticize local and county government agencies’ performance as stores close

By Justin Chapman

After several long-time Altadena businesses on North Lake Avenue went out of business or have announced they will be closing soon for various reasons, several of those small business owners and community leaders have expressed strong criticism of the performance of a few local and county government agencies, including the Altadena Chamber of Commerce and the Altadena Town Council.

The Altadena Nursery closed its doors October 15 after being hit with increasing and unaffordable rental costs and declining sales. To add insult to injury, the state of California has fined the owner $2000 for not having his father and sister under worker’s comp, even though they only worked as volunteers on occasion.

Two years after Webster’s sold their Hallmark branch to Karen Meyers, Mr. Webster’s step daughter, and her husband Robert, who is a member of the chamber, they can no longer afford to keep the store open and are currently liquidating their inventory. They plan to close up shop in the beginning of November. When asked if the other Webster’s stores were in danger of the same fate, Robert Meyers replied, “I don’t know that for a fact, but all small businesses are in trouble. Our store leaving the complex won’t help the other stores because of less traffic going through that parking lot, and we don’t know what if anything will rent the store.”

CJ Wings, the latest tenant at the diner on the corner of Lake and Altadena Drive, has closed due to lack of business. According to Steve Lamb, former town council member and chamber board member, the landlord is looking for an experienced operator with at least a year’s worth of costs in the bank before she’ll consider leasing it again. Across the street Amy’s restaurant has been closed since -.

Ronnie’s Automotive, one of Altadena’s oldest businesses established in 1914, is up for sale and owner George Lewis, former town council chairman and former chamber board member, wants to move his business to San Bernardino County by January 1. He lays the blame on the county government, which he says continues to bill businesses that can’t keep up with the fees, they don’t communicate within their own offices, and when one agency says a business is up to date, another sends them a notice informing them that they are not.

“I no longer want to give LA County money,” he said, “so they can hire more people to come out and find another reason to screw you, and then not do the job they’re supposed to be doing, and they don’t do their job. The fire department wants to fine me for storing toxic waste on my property when I don’t, and the county says I can’t have my wife or my son on my property unless they’re being paid and covered by worker’s comp.”

Lewis said the Chamber of Commerce and the town council have been no help either. He said the chamber has done nothing to help promote local small businesses.

“Everything for them has been about doing their mixers and their annual golf tournament,” he said.

Lamb said there were various people who tried to turn it into a real chamber over the past 30 years, but that the people at the core of the organization are not interested in that kind of work and have pushed everybody out who has tried to bring the community together and revitalize business venues of Altadena. For instance, the chamber was not part of the Lincoln Crossing development.

“Altadena is stuck in a situation where we don’t have a government that is designed to be responsive to the people,” said Lamb. Three times as many people vote for the fifth (LA County) Supervisor in Pasadena than in Altadena. Pasadena has three times the votes we do so we have no sway with (Supervisor Michael) Antonovich, and Pasadena has an interest in keeping Altadena underdeveloped.”

When Robert Meyers tried to contact the Washington and Lake business associations in Pasadena regarding advice for a North Lake Business Association, they never got back to him.

“It just seems like they didn’t want to deal with any of the businesses that high up on Lake,” he said.

A couple years ago Lamb made a proposal to establish a sort of better business bureau and business associations for North Lake, Fair Oaks, and Lincoln, but there was no support from the town council or the chamber, and no comment from Antonovich’s office. Some local businesses liked the idea but didn’t make any commitments.

“Businesses can get together but the county won’t help them unless the county suspects they’ll be successful in getting a grant through the main street program, in which case the county would try to take control of funds from local businesses,” said Lamb. “So businesses are like ‘Why try?’ They’ve tried for the last 30 years, and anyone who’s been around for that long knows that it’s just a stacked deck that’s impossible.”

Lewis has owned Ronnie’s for ten years and has never been able to obtain a business license because the county wants to charge him tens of thousands of dollars on top of the fire department fees for the non-existent toxic waste.

“When he tries to appeal,” said Lamb, “the county effectively says ‘Pay us or we’ll take your property.’ It’s the mafia. Well, you probably have a better chance with the mafia; if you pay them at least they’ll protect you at the end of the day. They understand honor.”

Meyers agreed that small businesses need more local and county government help, including initiating small business loans in a timely way and low cost loans to keep them going in this economic downturn until retail sales pick up.

As for the Chamber of Commerce, all the businesses on North Lake that are struggling to remain open, scheduled to close, already closed, or faced with increased fees, regulations and rent as well as unfair fines in some cases are members of the chamber except Ronnie’s Automotive and the Altadena Nursery. According to chamber member Meyers, all the chamber can do is refer business owners to people who can offer expert advice, on loans, marketing, and that sort of reference. Some of that expert help belongs to the chamber.

“Ultimately it’s up to the individual store owners to do something like start a business association,” said Meyers. “All the chamber can do is lead a store owner to an expert for business advice. They can’t do anything from a financial aspect.”

Ben McGinty, owner of Gallery at the End of the World on North Lake, blamed the chamber for not bringing retail into the area.

“These businesses can’t afford to stay in business anymore,” he said. “If the revenue was here, if you had the public shopping and supporting our local businesses, it’d be better. It’s always been slower up here and it’s never been a priority to cultivate local retail.”

As for his art gallery, he says 90 percent of the Altadena population doesn’t know it exists, and that the majority of the work he sells is to people from LA, not Altadena.

“We have the east side west side Lake Ave divide, the haves and the have-nots, and the people who support me are the have-nots,” he continued. “There’s the country club group and the park group and we’re more of the park group. Have-nots can’t afford the art, but love the shop and the diversity. It’s frustrating in a town that has potential to captivate the people who live here. The leaders of Altadena don’t work hard enough on stronger retail and getting the community more involved. If we had stronger retail here and more money going to the county, the county would pay more attention to us. We have such a little tax base drawn from sales tax that it makes it not worth their bother.”

It seems Altadena is a shining example of an average community feeling the heavy effects of the economic downturn and various budget crises. On top of that, the town has very few allies to turn to in its time of need.

“It’s just sad to see small businesses, family businesses in Altadena that have been here for years having to close their doors,” said Meyers. “It’s very sad.”

SAD, SIMPLE MACHINE

2009-10-26T15:21:00.000-07:00

don't go looking for a catharsis,
for the catharsis will surely find you,
easy come, easy go,
pessimistic, cold, jaded, callous, rude, cruel.

in places you won't expect him,
he'll shake you down, shake you up,
all part of his system,
so
don't question what you cannot change
don't question what you cannot break
don't quesiton what you cannot take
the catharsis has its own world order
& cares not if you choose to participate,
you irrelevant, expendable piece of petrified llama turd.

so move along now,
perform yr. routine functions,
don't go seeking cathartic revelations,
in fact don't expect a thing,
becuz the world owes you nothing.

the catharsis will surely find you
when the time is right,
& when he reaches down & out to you
& transforms yr. sad, simple machine's perception,
be grateful for the acknowledgement,
or you'll never again have the ability
to recognize stubborn beauty, disturbing bliss, or peaceful irony.
you will forever be the same machine,
sad, simple.

(it was so pretty when i got here
but a landfill & a wasteland by the time i left)

New Article Published in PW

2009-10-21T15:38:00.000-07:00

hey everyone,
check out my new article that was published in the Pasadena Weekly today, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2009, at:

http://pasadenaweekly.com/cms/story/detail/a_new_way/7831/

enjoy, and give me some feedback, damn you!

mahalo,
j

note to self

2009-10-09T18:05:00.000-07:00

go where the story leads you...

Nader & Chomsky

2009-10-07T16:29:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update. I interviewed Ralph Nader and met Noam Chomsky last Saturday. It was fucking incredible! Photos, transcripts of their speeches, and article to follow soon. Stay tuned, you beautiful being, you.

stupid formatting...

2009-10-02T20:45:00.000-07:00

Blogspot fucked up the formatting of my walk out article below, so I apologize and inform you that the fuck ups are not my fault (hey, there's a first for everything, right?)

Cal Walk Out article

2009-10-02T20:40:00.000-07:00

“…And So It Begins…”

by Justin Chapman

Well, it’s about damn time!

I’ve been waiting for the level of passion and activism and solidarity that I and thousands of people witnessed at the Cal Walk Out ever since I moved to East Bay in August 2007 to attend UC Berkeley. Granted it did happen four months after I graduated and moved down to Oakland, but the size and cause of the peaceful gathering was impressive and encouraging, to say the least. Let’s just hope the energy and the commitment continues to grow, because one march, however big and passionate, will not produce any substantial results in the long run. That’s no big secret.

But one thing is crystal clear to anyone who cares about public education in our state: things need to change. UC President Mark Yudof has said that the walk out will not affect recently enacted policy by the UC Board of Regents to raise student tuition fees 30 percent or faculty furloughs on non-instructional days, among other unpopular policies, and I think it’s safe to say that he and the Regents have no plans to renegotiate the outrageous salary raises for top UC executives and administrators. By the way, all the recent decisions I just mentioned were enacted by the Regents at the same meeting in July, under the cloak of summer.

Yudof and the Regents’ explanation for this unfortunate chain of events is that the state of California has significantly cut UC’s budget, and they have to compensate by making cuts across the board. There are several things wrong with this assertion, and the fact that they have the gall to even make this assertion is more than insulting to our intelligence. For one thing, the state’s UC funding cuts amount to 2.7 percent. That’s a drop in a bucket when you consider the multi-billion dollar deals UC has with BP, Bayer, the Department of Energy, the Department of Defense, and a litany of corporate and private donors. This institution is public in name only. Privatization is not so slowly, but certainly surely, taking over. And that is very bad news for low to middle income residents in California who want to pursue their goals in higher public education.

Jean Retzinger, Assistant Director and Lecturer of Media Studies at Cal, does not subscribe to the belief that Yudof and the Regents are using this financial crisis as an opportunity to benefit themselves on the backs of students, workers, and faculty, and she does not think Yudof and the Regents are the real problem.

“I think Prop 13 has tied the hands of the state legislature to a great
extent, and I don't really see sufficient courage on the part of legislators to unshackle themselves and to try to overturn it,” she wrote in an email interview. She brings up an excellent point, one that has been mentioned by many as the leading cause of this crisis, including Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton and now a professor at UCB’s Goldman School of Public Policy, when he spoke at the Wheeler Auditorium teach-in, which was overflowing with people, the night before the mass rally.

However, go here to find the salaries of any UC employee, which are a matter of public record: <http://ucpay.globl.org> Yudof makes $540,000 plus $228,000 a year toward his pension plan, plus an annual $120,000 housing allowance which total $888,000 a year, not to mention every other privilege that comes along with being the president of a statewide university system. Why won’t he do his fair share of suffering, by significantly lowering his salary and the salaries of every top executive (some of whom make more money than the President of the United States), and stop making it much harder if not impossible for most Californians to get a decent public education at a reputable university?

Mr. Yudof, the fact that you make that much money every year and still insist that these student fee increases are necessary to maintain the quality of the university makes you a goddamn liar and a thief. You are kicking everyone when they’re down and you know it.

In an article interviewing Yudof in the New York Times Magazine published the day of the Walk Out, he had this to say (among many other incredibly deceitful and misleading comments): “Being president of the University of California is like being manager of a cemetery: there are many people under you, but no one is listening. I listen to [those under me]”. No one is listening? Are you out of your fucking mind? So faculty and staff are either dead to him—or the undead. Either way, he is the one not listening to the UC community and refusing to compromise on any of their demands.

There is no doubt that Prop 13 is a huge problem not just for public education in California, but for the entire state itself. Enacted in 1978, it required a two-thirds legislative vote on any new state taxes, among other anti-tax policies that have devastated local governments and school districts across the state for more than thirty years. With Reich calling California’s government “the worst I’ve ever seen,” Retzinger is right to doubt the ability of the state legislature to overturn that counterproductive proposition.

“If Californians want the level of services that they expect from this state, then state revenues will need to increase, and that means taxes will need to be raised,” Retzinger continued. “And that means that Prop 13 needs to be abolished and taxes need to be raised. I don't think it likely, though, that Californians will take to the streets chanting ‘raise our taxes,’ but frankly that's the only real solution I see. And yes, I would certainly be willing to see my property and state income taxes go up to pay for education and other necessary services. Taxes, at least, ensure that the burden is divided more equitably. The proposed tuition increases mean that the burden of the budget shortfall is being disproportionately shouldered by students.”

She feels that “the focus has to shift to Sacramento” to effect real, positive change for higher public education, and definitely feels that the increasing privatization of the university system is the wrong way to go.

Stephanie Hernandez, a third year Economics major at Cal who did not participate in the walk out, disagrees. She believes in smaller government, and that Cal “should become its own independent institution,” she said. “It is more clear to see where the money goes and for our needs to be heard if those in charge can focus on a single institution. Centralizing the power to the individual university [would allow us to] be more aware of what is being decided regarding our institution and we should be able to vote on matters such as who gets a raise and who does not and for how much.”

As for the dissolution of the long-standing historical shared governance between Senate faculty and administrators, Hernandez said that “the faculty should be given the freedom to teach what they like and how they like. They are the closest to the students and therefore can better speak for them than administrators. The faculty should make up the administration.”

That last point may be the only one that she and Ruben Canedo, who is also an undergrad third year student, can agree upon. Canedo decried the increasing privatization of the university system, but suggested that we restructure our leaders as educators, not businessmen.

Hernandez felt there was not a clear message being conveyed during the walk out rally. “Some asked for free education, others asked for wage increases,” she said. “Some complained about the state’s financial responsibility or lack-thereof. There was talk about the privatization of the university while others were complaining about the budget cuts being ‘racist’. Seemed like the walk out was just an opportunity for people to bitch, about anything.”

The reason for the diversity of opinions being expressed at the rally, according to Canedo, who led the march with a loudspeaker throughout the campus and the streets of downtown Berkeley, is because “all levels of organizing are created and voted on by those who have chosen to participate in the general assemblies and have volunteered to be on the organizing committees.”

No one had any illusions that this one march would bring about the change they want. The goal of the walk out rally, according to Canedo, was “to send a strong message that we will no longer be silent about these issues.” He said the creation of the walk out rally was entirely organic and democratic with two central goals: to break the silence and to establish solidarity. He added that this is a process that has only just begun and needs “improvement, coordination, feedback, development, and needs to continue to be organic and democratic.”

That is why so many opinions and issues were on display during the rally and made it seem somewhat fractured or distracted, not to mention the litany of organizations and unions who were there to rally, support, strike, and picket. But while Canedo admits this new movement is still in its infancy, he believes it has “immense potential to unite not only the students at Cal but to organize all the levels of public education throughout the state of California, because this is not just about Berkeley.”

While walk outs and rallies at other UC campuses across the state were considerably smaller, varying from 25 to 100 participants, Canedo and Retzinger believe the September 24^th rally in Berkeley set a good example and inspired students and faculty up and down California. Hernandez, however, felt that the lower turnouts from other campuses were because “they simply do not care or do not feel like protesting is the right solution. By not providing a clear and unified message how do we motivate others?”

Canedo stressed that the low turnout on other campuses was not a lack of support for the issues or the movement, but a lack of time to organize. All other UC campuses operate on a quarter system, while Cal runs on a semester system. So most of the other campuses began their first day of classes on September 24^th, the day of the walk out, while the Cal community had been back in town for more than a month already. Canedo said that support is growing on other campuses, citing organized teach-ins at UCLA, UC Riverside, SF State, Cal State SF, and even other community colleges.

“I can guarantee that if there was enough time to organize, those campuses’ rallies would have been just as big as Berkeley’s, if not bigger,” he said. “I truly believe support is growing every single day.”

As one demonstrating speaker proclaimed to the protesters at Sproul Plaza, “K-12, community colleges, CSU’s, and UC’s across the state are looking to Berkeley as an example,” and I think the Cal community did put on one hell of a show. At its peak the protest must have been close to 10,000 (though most media outlets are reporting 5,000), starting around 11:30am at Sproul Plaza, where speakers representing various affected groups spoke eloquently and inspirationally about their issues. As I took pictures and jotted down notes among the other members of the press directly in front of the speakers on the steps of Sproul Hall, one rowdy demonstrator made several attempts to get the microphone from whoever was speaking at the time. Two organizers quickly tackled him and they all fell back onto a cameraman and his tripod in front of me, and I helped push them back to their feet. It could have escalated very quickly, and there was talk about removing him. Somewhere in the back of my reporter brain I secretly wanted the situation to get out of control. I envisioned riot squads cornering the crowd on all four sides and beating the shit out of everyone in sight, press pass or no. Or maybe something like when Governor Ronald Reagan had the California National Guard tear gas a peaceful free speech rally on Sproul Plaza in the 1960s from a low flying helicopter. Maybe then immediate change would have taken place.

People were absolutely everywhere at this walk out protest, sitting on window ledges, up on balconies and roofs, on top of trash cans and any other stable structure in order to get a good view of the speakers and the crowd. One of the best presentations came from members of the theatre department dressed in business suits with a clever tongue-in-cheek message to “Privatize Now!” They proceeded to auction off several UC Berkeley landmarks, and Sproul Plaza, the birthplace of the Free Speech Movement, sold for $1.

Then the entire crowd of thousands of people began marching and chanting in an orderly, peaceful fashion throughout the campus. I asked a passing police officer named W. MacAdams if he expected the protest to be smaller than what it was and he said, “No.” Then everyone proceeded down Center Street to Shattuck Avenue, where everyone sat down in the middle of the intersection of Shattuck and Bancroft for about forty minutes. One very angry woman ran a red light at top speed, turning onto Shattuck from Kittredge, almost hitting 20 people and a motorcycle cop as she sped off screaming, “Get the fuck out of my way!” The cops did not pursue her.

Throughout the whole event, Canedo led the protesters through several repetitive chants, including “When I say ‘Layoff’ you say ‘Yudof,’” and “Whose university? Our university,” along with some played out classics such as “The people united will never be divided” and “Who’s got the power? We’ve got the power!”

Whenever a speaker stated any of the aforementioned momentarily (and fleeting) inspirational statements, the crowd would roar with thunderous applause and “Whoo’s!” And whenever any speaker mentioned any of the negative buzzwords: Yudof, furloughs, fee increases, privatization, etc., the crowd would roar with equally thunderous “Boo’s!” It was a series of whoo’s and boo’s, and coupled with the four hour long event’s repetitive chanting, I felt a slight uneasy feeling about its resemblance to a Third Reich rally. Don’t get me wrong, and do not take that comment out of context. I feel it is important to organize and exercise our right to gather peacefully and protest unfair conditions, which is exactly what happened that afternoon. However, there was very little room (if any at all) for dissenting opinions of any kind. There are many complex issues and interests involved, not to mention mountains of money to be squandered, stolen, and exploited, and with so many upset and opinionated about all this, as they well should be, a single, unified, organized agenda and plan of action becomes an extremely difficult thing to manifest and implement.

The UCPD and the Berkeley city police were surprisingly cordial and unobtrusive. As far as I know there were no arrests made. They stayed ahead of and behind the crowd, which was by the way the largest protest in Berkeley in more than 30 years; at least since the riots in 1972 when people were burning cars in the streets, back in the days when my dad lived in East Bay.

The fact that the police blocked off major streets and intersections allowing the crowd to sit down and protest for hours leads me to believe that the university, the city, the Regents, and others allowed this protest to happen. What they’re basically saying is, “Go ahead, have your fun. Go raise hell and think you’re going to make a difference.” They’ll still be collecting that $10,000+ tuition cost from you this time next year. Business as fucking usual, my friends, and there is very little we can do to change anything.

That being said, there has been a very steep decline in campus activism in Berkeley for decades, and it is exciting to see so many people trying to effect change the only way they know how. It seems everyone just needed a good reason to fight back, a common enemy to rally against. Up until the Great Recession of 2008 hit, everyone was complacent for the most part and stuck in a loop of mediocrity, which is the agenda of the powers that be at all times: Keep the masses opiated and just content enough to go on with their lives and deal with their own problems instead of organizing and unionizing.

This protest showed to no small extent the reason for the lack of student activism recently: no one cares when it doesn’t affect him or her personally. Some do, but not the majority. As soon as they start getting screwed by the powers that be, suddenly they’re all up in arms. Frustration has been boiling for quite some time now, and the so-called financial crisis has brought it to the tipping point. But as I mentioned earlier, UC is not broke. With less than 3 percent of the state’s UC funding being cut, there is absolutely no need for these ludicrous and criminal policies. The Cal community, and indeed anyone who has a vested interest in public education, has the right to be mad as hell, but it is going to take an enormous amount of work, dedication, and organization, and the process of forming this movement must result in a unified, coherent message that everyone can rally behind and support.

Hernandez compared this new movement to the Free Speech Movement, which she felt “was a legit movement. The people involved in it where seeking a common goal and they believed in it.”

The solutions will be complex and require precision organization on a mass scale with a single, clear, succinct message. The way I see it, there are six main grievances that need to be addressed immediately before it is too late: 1) The privatization of the UC system and other public schools in California; 2) The dissolution of the university’s long standing tradition of shared governance between Senate faculty and the administration regarding such important topics as curriculum, which is a critical and complicated issue; 3) The seemingly unobtainable but absolutely crucial need to repeal Prop 13; 4) The student fee increases with no grandfather clause for current students while top executives and administrators make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year; 5) The underrepresentation of low income residents in higher public education and the overrepresentation of those same residents in the prison system (at the Wheeler teach-in the night before the walk out, Reich also said, “Twenty years ago in this state, 20 percent of the state budget went to higher education, and 3 percent went for prisons. Now 9 percent goes for prisons and 7 percent to higher education.”); and 6) The debate of whether higher public education should be free or not, and if not, how can it remain competitive while also increasing accessibility and affordability to low income students? How do we find that balance? There are no easy answers.

Many have compared this renewed activist energy at Berkeley with the Free Speech Movement and have dubbed this new fight the Free Education Movement. One of the repetitive chants was “No cuts! No fees! Education should be free!”

“If it were up to me,” Canedo said, “and we didn’t live in a capitalist society, the main goal of which is to keep the rich richer and to romanticize the false American Dream in lower income communities and tell them that as long as they work hard they can be rich, too…If our system was set up to treat everyone equally and give everyone the opportunity to pursue a better life, then yes, I think education should be free. But that’s not the way it is. Our government’s priority is no longer education, it is profit. Someone decided that the educational system is a business, which means that curriculum will be geared towards business. This is no longer an institution of higher knowledge; it’s a factory, and students are products to make money off of. Why? Why?”

Should education be free, whether or not we live in a capitalist society? What do you think about it? I’ve talked to several students who have wide ranging opinions on this subject. Higher education needs to remain competitive in order to maintain its standard of quality and excellence. One local community college student, who asked not to be named, agreed that the student fee increases coupled with executive pay raises is unfair, but feels that if someone wants to get an education they can make it happen, no matter how difficult it may be. She argued that students are just going to have to start working harder for it, if they really want it. She had a very rough, poor childhood, and she is still able to go to school and work for what she wants to accomplish. If she can do it, she told me, why can’t anyone else?

At the same time, other students are losing their Cal Grants, being denied financial aid or receiving much less of it, acquiring huge student loan debt that they’ll be paying off for the majority of the rest of their lives, and generally can’t afford higher education no matter how many jobs they work and how hard they scrimp and save. And it’s about to get a whole lot worse. Accessibility and affordability of higher public education is being irreversibly damaged.

“You see, to some this 30 percent fee increase only means they have to pay more money or take an extra loan out. To those who barely make it above the middle class income requirement and all lower income underrepresented students, higher education becomes very close to being the synonym of impossibility. The doors to higher education will be literally closed to them. Put yourself in the shoes of such a student. Your choice is to either go off to college and drown yourself in loans as well as take yourself away from your family which in many cases means taking away income in addition to emotional support, or stay at home and continue to provide and support your family but never being able to get a higher education in order to improve your life the lives of your family.”

That’s what many students and families of students are struggling with right now. I do not necessarily think higher public education should be completely free, but I definitely think it should be very affordable and include many more financial programs that can help those who can’t afford it. Maybe the movement should be called the Affordable Education Movement as opposed to the Free Education Movement. If this new Free Education Movement (if that is indeed what is forming here, for good or ill) follows through on its threat to shut the university down in a number of disruptive yet peaceful ways, some meaningful reform is possible. But it is going to take a hell of a lot of work from a lot of dedicated people and it is going to have to be bloody organized, coherent, just, peaceful, inclusive, intellectual, and unified, and that’s asking a lot from such a diverse group of passionate people with widely varying interests at stake.

For now, according to Canedo, the next step is to organize all efforts towards formulating a clear proposal to defend public education at the state conference on October 24^th.

“We cannot allow this movement to return to the status quo, how it was before all of this,” he added. “It was a flawed and selective (in other words exclusive) process of which individuals are allowed the opportunity to pursue higher education and which are not. We much reach out to all levels of education across the state and focus our efforts on making sure California public education is efficient, accessible, and inclusive to all, regardless of anything.”

I think most of the faculty at Cal did an outstanding job. The teach-ins and their encouragement to students to get more involved and participate in meaningful activism was very courageous of them, and they should be commended for it. That intellectual side of this situation is the most important and probably most effective way of formulating any kind of substantial plan of action that will reverse the unacceptable decisions being made by the Regents. I hope they continue to inform their students about what is being done to them, to the school, to the community, and to public education in general.

Yudof getting laid off won’t change a damn thing. He’s a puppet to much larger private interests that have zero accountability and transparency in their actions that affect all of us. Beyond that, the Board of Regents are going to do whatever the fuck they want because they are practically an independent governing body with very little oversight from the state in almost every matter.

“This current system of political appointment to the Board of Regents is completely and utterly undemocratic,” Canedo said. “It allows for people to be given administrative positions over public education without giving any voice or vote to those dedicating their lives to it. It is unacceptable that faculty and staff no longer have the ability that they once had to elect the Regents, making sure that such a board with tremendous administrative power would be EDUCATORS!”

They’re kicking us when we’re down, and they know there’s very little we can do about it. But that doesn’t mean we should give up. In fact, it means just the opposite. Let’s keep the energy and the momentum going, and let’s begin a thorough, meaningful dialogue to consider any and every option we have, few as they may be, to try our best to avoid the biggest tragedy of all: that the University of California is public in name only. Future generations of students are counting on us.

An Old Profile of Yours Truly

2009-09-26T19:42:00.000-07:00

A fellow classmate in my Journalism 5 class at Pasadena City College back in 2005 wrote this profile on me, and I think it was pretty well written and accurate at the time, considering he knew me for about five minutes. It was an excercise to prepare us for working on the PCC Spotlight Magazine:

By Anthony Aguilar

Journalism 5 – PCC Spotlight Magazine

JUSTIN CHAPMAN

In a room above a large house in the city of Altadena, an artist waits. The room is close enough to keep ties strong, but separate enough from its framework to keep old-fashioned ideas out of its realm. Below are the lives of his parents and younger brother and sister. He loves them. As much as the dog-eared paperbacks that influenced him, or the reams of handwritten stanzas, like sheet music? That remains to be seen. But Justin Chapman has no time to ponder these among other things, swirling between the prominent ears that firmly hold the even more prominent black rimmed glasses.

The term artist can be used to fit practically anybody with an idea uncommon from social conformity. But for the nineteen year old Pasadena City College student sitting firmly at a desk in his Journalism 5 class, the term is a better fit than most. Raised on learning spirituality and the three Rs at St. Elizabeth Elementary, the lessons learned at L.A. County High School for the Arts (LACHSA) at Cal State Los Angeles had a more significant effect on the artist’s young adolescent mind.

But state funded academics weren’t the only thing involved in the development of such a young mind. During the last years of Catholic school, an organization known as People to People called on young Justin to be part of a student ambassadorship program. Born from an idea by U.S. President Eisenhower and other foreign national leaders, the program gives the opportunity to expose young adults to the life and culture of other countries. All in the hopes that such experiences will create in the future a stronger international bond, both politically and sociologically. Along with family vacations, the young poet witnessed the lives of people in varied countries such as Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and his personal favorite, Jamaica.

With such well rounded experiences around the world and the love of the arts from LACHSA, Justin’s passions burned a lot brighter than what he might have hoped. The familial support was definitely there, but something was missing.

So the poet climbed higher. High above their ever loving heads. Along with him came the works of Irvine Welsh, Charles Bukowski, Noam Chomsky, and the late great works of a newly immortalized Hunter S. Thompson. All of them playing along to the grooves and thumps of Mars Volta, Blood Brothers, and Bob Marley and the surrealistic colors of Salvador Dali. And they wait along with him in a haze of lovely smoke and the smell of incense.

And what is he waiting for? The day when he arrives in Orlando to receive his prize for a poem nationally recognized. The summer when his People to People alumni trip takes him to Thailand and Cambodia. When he and his girlfriend of 9 months can finally move to San Francisco. He, a freelance writer. Her, an actress of stage. He is waiting for the day when George W. Bush is no more and there will finally be a brighter future for the rest of us. When he can see as much art the Asian continent has to offer. And where I and I and nirvana are one and the same. But in the mean time, the artist waits. It won’t be long now.

True story

2009-09-16T15:34:00.000-07:00

One day I found myself in an all boys high school French class in New Zealand. The professor passed out a test to every kid, including me. He also handed me a sheet of paper with all the answers on it. We all took the test and of course I got every answer right, though I didn't speak a word of French. The boys sitting next to me looked at my paper, trying to cheat.

"Look," the professor said once he collected all the tests. "The American boy did better than all of you."

The students protested, "He had the answer sheet!"

The professor said, "Which you all tried to look at." Then he added, "Never steal secrets from the Americans. People have been killed for doing that."

home

2009-09-16T15:25:00.000-07:00

something's beckoning me home.

on the way

i'll tell my stories,

trace my tracks

of the holes in the soles

of my shoes,

holes in the souls

of me & you.

what one is

2009-09-16T15:24:00.000-07:00

what's left after what one isn't is taken away is what one is

Titania's African Journey

2009-09-16T13:09:00.000-07:00

Check out my fellow young reporter's blog on her trip to Africa. Her name is Titania Kumeh, and she worked with me at the Pasadena Weekly and the Pasadena City College Courier, way back in the day. She's an excellent reporter and very dedicated. Here's a link to her blog:

http://intrepidplanet.wordpress.com/

Articles/Interviews

2009-09-14T17:21:00.000-07:00

Below are some of the articles and interviews I did for the Pasadena Weekly. Here is a link to a longer, though not complete, list of them:

http://pasadenaweekly.com/cms/story/search/?find_text=&category=0&author=263&start_date=01%2F01%2F02&end_date=&search=Search+Now

Below that are some poems, stories, and my latest opinion piece on subjectivity in journalism.

Balancing Power

2009-09-14T17:18:00.000-07:00

Adam Schiff talks with the Weekly about upcoming elections, domestic spying, impeachment and what it's going to take to bring our troops home from Iraq

By Justin Chapman 02/23/2006 Pasadena Weekly

With President Bush's popularity ratings plummeting and Republican leaders in Washington, DC, awash in scandal, corruption and war, Congress is now poised for historic party power shifts come the fall midterm elections.

With 33 seats open in the US Senate and 435 House of Representatives elections slated for Nov. 7, Democrats are hoping to make Bush more of a lame duck in his last two years in office than anything Vice President Dick Cheney might bring home for dinner.

In Pasadena, the 29th Congressional District has been represented by Democrat Adam Schiff, who replaced Republican former Judge Jim Rogan in 2000 and has held onto his seat for two terms.

A former federal prosecutor, Schiff, like all other members of Congress, faces re-election, first in the June 6 primary if another Democrat decides to run. So far, Bob McCloskey of Monterey Park is the only Democrat running in a field of candidates that includes Republican Bill Bodell of Glendale and Bill Paparian, a former Pasadena City Council member who was registered Independent, but is running as a Green Party candidate.

During his time in office, Schiff has been tough on issues related to law and order, as well as the war on terrorism, co-authoring portions of the PATRIOT Act and siding with keeping American troops in Iraq until that country stabilizes politically, a proposition bitterly opposed by a growing faction of his own party.

Nevertheless, Schiff has remained one of the Bush administration's harshest critics, especially on domestic issues, and particularly on its handling of the war and its decision to conduct domestic spying on citizens without first acquiring warrants or court approval.

The Weekly sat down with Schiff in his Washington, DC, office recently to discuss such issues as congressional scandals, domestic spying, the country's ever-widening political divisions and what it's going to take to bring our troops home from Iraq.

Schiff also touched on the possibilities of impeaching Bush, a process which, ironically, his predecessor, as a member of the House Judiciary Committee, led against President Clinton in 1998. Today, Schiff is a member of that powerful committee.

Pasadena Weekly: How has the culture of Washington changed because of recent scandals?

Adam Schiff: It's probably too early to tell. There will definitely be reform packages introduced and parts of them will become law. The bigger question is whether there will be anything significant done to change the political environment and campaign finance reform. A lot of the proposals are pretty skin deep at this point.

Do you think the two-party system effectively checks itself, or do you think it would be more effective to introduce more parties to the game?

The problem isn't with the two-party system so much as that when you have one-party rule every branch of government for too long it tends to become arrogant and corrupt. The Democratic Party was in the majority for 40 years and in 1994 the country decided they'd grown arrogant and corrupt. The GOP seems to have done that in 10. There'll be a chance in November to change the majority, which is obviously what I'm hoping will take place.

Do you think the president's excuse for not using the FISA court's 72-hour loophole is justified?

I have found the administration's case for avoiding the FISA court to be very unpersuasive, both as a legal matter and as a practical matter. The law is very clear and the congressional intent is very clear about conducting electronic eavesdropping. The authorization to use force against al Qaeda was neither at the time nor after the fact viewed by Congress as authorizing a run around FISA. So his legal arguments are very unpersuasive. His practical arguments are even weaker, and that is the administration's claim that it was too cumbersome to go through FISA court, that the standard was too high to meet. The FISA court acts very quickly; it approves the vast, overwhelming majority of applications. (Please see a related column on page 9.)

If it's determined that the president did break the law, would impeachment be considered and would you support that?

The impeachment the country went through with President Clinton was such a disastrous chapter in our national history; we have to be very circumspect about raising the prospect of going through that again. I don't want to prejudge the outcome of what I hope will be a very thorough investigation of the NSA program and what the consequence should be, but I can say from having studied the law on the subject that the administration's legal case is very weak.

What issues have you been working on in your home district?

A number of issues. We have what we call the Kids First initiative, which is a whole package of programs, outreach and legislation designed to try to support education, health care and safety for kids. We were successful this year in getting substantial funding for the Children's Hospital in Los Angeles for pediatric cancer research. I'm very proud of that. They're doing some phenomenal work at the Core Proteomics Laboratory, which basically, through the use of technology, can now identify the proteins in a tumor in a child and develop a very specific therapy for that child and that tumor that gives it a much greater prospect of success with much less side effects. We hope to get to the point where cancer therapy is individualized, where even two children with the same cancer will have different treatments depending on the protein composition of the tumor. We're also working on legislation this year to try to better protect the community from sex offenders using GPS technology for people that are on parole or probation. We're working on the potential expansion of the Santa Monica Mountains recreation area to include parts of the rim of the valley, which go all the way through the Arroyo Seco, the Verdugos, San Gabriel Valley, and others. So we're working on a panoply of initiatives that have a very strong focus on our kids.

Would you like to see the USA PATRIOT Act extended, revised or made permanent?

I'd like to see the PATRIOT Act extended. There are ways that the PATRIOT Act can be improved to better protect civil liberties and at the same time give the government all the tools it needs to ferret out those who would do us harm. I don't want it to be repealed or go out of existence, but we can do a better job of striking a balance. Frankly, though, the NSA issue troubles me more than anything in the PATRIOT bill. The administration argued during the discussion about the PATRIOT bill that it did not need to amend FISA, didn't need to lower the standard of the FISA Act, that it operated just fine as it was. Never disclosing, of course, to the vast majority of members that it was taking a position and by putting it into operation it didn't need to go through the FISA court at all. That seems to me very troubling. They're making precisely the opposite argument they made in open hearing. And of course, the whole debate over the PATRIOT Act when you think about it is pretty moot if the administration takes the position that none of this is really binding anyway. I also don't accept the argument that somehow having a discussion in Congress about FISA undercuts the effort to track down/capture/kill/destroy al Qaeda. Al Qaeda doesn't care whether the wiretap goes through the FISA court or not, but the American people care. As long as it can be done expeditiously it has no impact on our intelligence gathering. If the argument is being made that al Qaeda is somehow oblivious to the fact that we do electronic eavesdropping, then we're kidding ourselves if we think they're that unsophisticated.

When would you like to see the troops come home?

As soon as we see a situation in Iraq that's stable and won't disintegrate into civil war, when they have a government that is representative of the people, and that doesn't become an even worse haven for terrorism. I hope we make enough progress in building up the Iraqi's security forces where we start to see draw downs of our forces in the near future. This year will be a significant year of transition. I was just in Iraq in December and I have the most tremendous respect for our men and women in uniform. They're doing everything we're asking of them. There's a lot more we could have done to have them better prepared for what they were to encounter, provide them with better equipment, armored vehicles, more body vests. But I'm hopeful that the government that emerges from the elections will include the Sunnis and will lay the foundation for us to be able to draw down our troops.

http://pasadenaweekly.com/cms/story/detail/balancing_power/3026/

She 'Just Loved Him'

2009-09-14T17:15:00.000-07:00

Linda Lee Bukowski gives thumbs up to Hollywood’s latest take on her husband’s life and work

By Justin Chapman 09/14/2006 Pasadena Weekly

The legacy of poet, novelist and underground cult icon Charles Bukowski is alive — not only at The Huntington, but also with the release of “Factotum,” a new movie chronicling the drifting poet’s misadventures in labor before his immense talent was recognized by millions around the world.

In the film, Matt Dillon plays Hank Chinaski, Bukowski’s longtime, thinly veiled alias in his books. Adapted and directed by Bent Hamer, the new film’s story is very different from 1987’s “Barfly,” in which Mickey Rourke played an exaggerated caricature of Bukowski, according to his widow.

“Hank would have loved this movie,” Linda Lee Bukowski told the Weekly in an exclusive telephone interview from her home in San Pedro. “I don’t think there’s one thing that I questioned at all when I saw the film.”

That’s quite an endorsement. But more important than the silver screen is the man himself, whose complex legacy Linda has tirelessly preserved in her home and her heart.

Pasadena Weekly: How did you two meet?

Bukowski: I’d been a reader of his for many years, when he was being published in Open City and LA Free Press in the ’60s and early ’70s. I had read all his books and gone to his poetry readings. At one of his readings I decided to introduce myself and it began a friendship that evolved later on into what ended up being our loving marriage. It was interesting because it was at the time he was doing “research” for the book “Women.” He was just curious; I was another curiosity. But he was a curiosity to me, too, because I felt that I knew him in a certain way through his books, and I think I knew him in a spiritual way before I met him. I think people feel that about him because he speaks the truth from the gut.

Why did you decide on The Huntington for his archive?

There are several reasons, but ultimately because of the nature of The Huntington. Just who they are and every single thing they do, whether it’s botanical gardens, archiving libraries, art, landscaping or architecture, they’re the best.

Everyone I’ve met there is so genuine and focused on their particular area, and that gratifies me to have Hank taken care of in such loving hands. Other places were always an option because I didn’t want to let the archive just sit and stagnate.

I love The Huntington, personally, and I’ve been going there for about 30 years. When I met Hank, I had been going there already. He knew I loved that place; he didn’t particularly care to go walking in gardens, but he understood it for me, and it inspired me because after he’d gone I created a little botanical garden myself.

Do you still live in the same house?

Oh, yes. We moved here in 1978. It’s like a living museum. The Charles Bukowski Foundation will continue after I leave this world, and our home here in San Pedro is going to be a museum. Great writers have their little houses; I think Ernest Hemingway has three or four of them around the world. I’ve kept it the same as it was. I haven’t touched his room and dining room. I go dust a couple times a year or just sit in there and turn his old Mac computer on.

What was your involvement with “Factotum”?

I met Jim Stark, the producer, and Bent Hamer, the director. They got in touch with me eight years ago. They both flew out here and came over, and we had a grand time. For some reason we all clicked and connected.

They kept within the parameters of Hank’s truth without elaborating or exaggerating like some people have done in films and sort of made them almost caricatures or cartoonish. But everybody has their own way. It’s hard to walk the line with that because you can go too far in either direction. I think “Factotum” is straight on. I think they nailed it. It was a long haul, but they worked hard and pulled it off. I don’t think there’s one thing that I questioned at all when I saw the film. That’s the neat thing about Stark and Hamer; I trusted them implicitly within the first few moments I met them. I don’t know why. It was this intuitive awareness that they were going to make this happen the way Hank would have loved this movie. “Barfly” was like a fluff piece.

This is wonderful. Now there’s more to come. All of his other books have yet to be made into films. “Post Office” is owned by a film director who’s hopefully getting interested in actually doing it. He’s owned it for about 35 years. He bought it from Hank when he was alive. There’s hope that within the next couple years that will come to fruition. Wouldn’t that be cool? And then “Women.” Can you imagine? Oh, my God. And “Hollywood”?

That’s the thing about his work, there’re so many things to enjoy and laugh at. People take him so seriously sometimes. They take that he’s a mythological dirty old man drunken misogynist so seriously it’s hard for those who criticize him to let that go and read the mastery of his words, for crying out loud.

Do you think success helped Hank later in his life with his writing?

Absolutely. You can’t deny it. When you physically leave an element that has been oppressing you in certain ways due to circumstances throughout your life, leaving that and finding wider horizons is something that would help anybody. He had detractors on that. People got mad at me because they said I changed him. I said, “Well, I didn’t change anybody.” We don’t do that. We change ourselves. He just saw a larger opportunity to be free from the heavy burdens he was carrying around with him all those years.

Hank was on a certain wavelength; he was just evolving. People got mad because he didn’t keep talking about fucking whores with big fat thighs and all these things, which is fine to have, but enough is enough, and you move on in life. A lot of those people are bitter in their own selves, maybe unsuccessful writers — that’s what Hank would say. He didn’t mind it. He was a great guy. He was the best. Beyond all that wild and crazy stuff, which was there, but he evolved. If you have any kind of sensibility in your life, you evolve. Hopefully it’s positive and in a way that’s loving to oneself and to others. He decided to open a little door of compassion. And I didn’t try to tell him anything or teach him anything. That’s not my thing. I just loved him. He was a man to me, and then he was a writer.

http://pasadenaweekly.com/cms/story/detail/she_just_loved_him/3848/

The 'Bedroom Secrets' of Irvine Welsh

2009-09-14T17:12:00.000-07:00

The Scottish novelist on drugs, politics, love and old people in Seattle

By Justin Chapman 10/12/2006 Pasadena Weekly

Irvine Welsh is very busy these days.

The Scottish author of “Trainspotting” fame never lives in one place for more than two or three years. He’s in talks for almost a dozen projects in various mediums, including adaptations of some of his other page-turners.

On top of his modest 400-page novel, “The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs,” and its conjoined book tour, Welsh went to the Exit Theatre in San Francisco in June for the opening of “Babylon Heights,” a play about the purportedly drunk orgy-having, opium-smoking Munchkin actors of “The Wizard of Oz,” co-written by Welsh and Dean Cavanagh of Cottingley, Ireland. One of Welsh’s publicists, Sheryl Johnston, is in preliminary talks with the Pasadena Playhouse, among other LA-area theater companies, to produce “Babylon Heights.”

The play also premiered in Dublin, where Welsh and his second wife of one year, Beth, currently live and where Welsh workshops scripts with the Attic Studio Theatre Co.

Welsh and Cavanagh have worked on a number of projects together, including a video for the band Keane, a BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts)-nominated drama called “Dose,” an adaptation of Dave Jones’ football hooligan gang novel “Soul Crew,” a black comedy for television called “Wedding Belles” and an adaptation of Welsh’s cop-bashing novel “Filth.”

Welsh is also trying out a bit of directing, including Keane’s “Atlantic” and a 15-minute short, practice for the upcoming feature he plans to shoot in March, an adaptation he did of Alan Warner’s “The Man Who Walks.”

An adaptation of “The Undefeated,” the third short story from Welsh’s “Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance,” begins shooting in October. Welsh's film production company Four-Way Pictures, in which Welsh partners with Robert Carlyle, Mark Cousins and "Ravenous" director Antonia Byrd, is considering the "Filth" adaptation. Michael Winterbottom and, oddly enough, Rob Schneider have shown interest as well. Byrd will also begin filming Welsh's body snatcher flick "The Meat Trade" in January.

The new book “Bedroom Secrets” is about a health inspector at the Edinburgh Council named Danny Skinner and his arch rival Brian Kibby, both in their early 20s and dealing with alcoholism and the loss or lack of their fathers. Their rivalry turns into a fierce obsession that drives them to physical and mental extremes. It’s an ambitious story that’s classic Welsh, with a powerful ending that wraps up an enthralling and provoking message of discovery, maturity and identity.

The Weekly recently caught up with Welsh on the last day of his “Bedroom Secrets” book tour in Seattle. “I’ll try not to be too much of a cunt,” he says as we sit down inside the downtown Hotel Vintage Park.

Pasadena Weekly: You said you wrote “Trainspotting” for yourself. Was that the first piece of narrative you had written, or did you start writing before that?

Irvine Welsh: I had done sort of half-ass pieces before, but that was the first time I really sat down and said I’m going to finish this thing no matter what; I don’t care what it’s like, good or bad. Before that I sort of got self-conscious about things. I just got to the point with “Trainspotting” where I said I’m just going to write this thing and if it works, it works; if it doesn’t, it doesn’t. Probably took me about nine months to finish it. I was working during the day as well, so it wasn’t like I was doing nothing else. I had a full-time girlfriend and I was doing deejay stuff. I mostly wrote in stolen hours, like in the morning and such.

Which do you like writing for more: stage, screen or books?

Books, screen, stage, in that order. With books you can do whatever you want. I’ve got to do other stuff as well; otherwise you spend all your time with people who don’t exist and you start to turn into a bit of a nut job if you just write books — it’s not a good thing to do. As much as I love it, I’ve got to do other stuff as well. Screenwriting’s great because you work with other people. I think theater is last because there’s no money in theater. It’s more of a critic’s medium rather than a consumer culture vulture or an artist’s medium. Not a feel-good medium. The critics really determine what works and what doesn’t, which is a shame because the audience can become quite disenfranchised by critics. There’s no money in it and it can be a hassle. But I always go back to it for some reason because I just like the idea of live performance.

Do you like writing with other people?

It’s a difficult thing to do. I couldn’t do it with anyone, but I can do it with Dean [Cavanagh]. It’s a good thing to be able to work with someone in that way and share ideas and such. It’s almost like a vampire, you know; you suck someone’s blood and take on their sensibilities as well as your own. It can help. Hopefully he thinks it’s helpful as well.

Dean is adapting “Filth”?

Dean originally adapted “Filth” for Miramax, and then they sold it to the UK operation. There was some confusion about who owns the rights to it. We kind of got the rights back now so I want Dean to be the principal writer and I’ll sort of work with him to get a good screenplay together and then we’ll see who wants to work on it. Winterbottom and Schneider have been interested in it. The guys who did “Football Factory” kinda wanted to do it, and also my own company, Four Way Pictures, has been thinking of a way to do it as well. I’ve got to look at the options and see who’s best to advance it. Also the filming of “Ecstasy” got pushed back from summer because the lead actor pulled out. I think they’ve replaced the lead actor and are going to shoot in October now.

I read a quote from Dean where he said, “Young people need more encouragement to develop their writing talents, that it takes years to find your voice.” Is that what you try to do in your writing course or even in your own writing?

Yeah, I think it does. I taught the BFA and MFA program in Chicago and I kind of have a problem with it. I think if you’re over 30 or 35 it’s a good writing program to get into because it gives you that structure and that encouragement. But for anyone under 35, I would say get a job, basically. Especially if they just got out of school, you know, I would say go travel or work. Get a degree in something that’s going to give you some knowledge — history or geography or social sciences or computers or business or something like that to give you a bit of background and experience.

What about an adaptation of “Porno” with the same actors 10 years later?

The same production company and Andrew MacDonald have the rights to it. They’re just trying to get the script as good as they can. I think Danny Boyle wants to wait until people perceive the actors as being a little bit older. It takes time to do it right. If you’ve got a big budget, you’ve got to have a good script to get the actors interested and involved. That way they feel there’s something in it for them instead of using them for exploitative financial purposes. We’re going to try to do the very best that we can, and if we can’t do the very best then we won’t make it. Simple as that. I think if we’re going to do it, it needs to keep the integrity of the thing intact, instead of just throwing something together that’s half-assed just to make it.

Do you enjoy directing?

Yeah, I’ve only done music videos. I’m doing a short and then I’m hoping to do a feature in March. I’ve kind of been learning a bit about myself. You do a video shoot in two days, basically, and everybody can enjoy that. It’s just good fun because you’re not doing it long enough to get pissed off. You know, if you’re shooting in the Highlands of Scotland with a huge crew, huge budget, keeping everyone happy in the cold and all that. I do enjoy it, I love working with people and being involved, but it’s easy when all I’ve done is pop videos. You know you’ll be able to get everything you need in a couple days.

Do you have plans to record with Primal Scream again, or do you like collaborating with different musicians?

I’m working with a friend of mine in Dublin on something for Channel 4. That begins shooting in September and we’re hoping to get a bunch of people doing different stuff for the soundtrack. I’ll be doing something on it myself. I’ll probably work with Primal Scream again; it’s a bit of a novelty. It’s fun and all that, but there are so many talented musicians: David Holmes, for example, or Andrew Innes from Primal Scream, who can work on scoring movies. I think they’d be great at that. Look at Clint Mansell, you know, he’s brilliant at that sort of thing. The only thing I can do reasonably professionally instrument-wise is bass guitar, but then again I’m not particularly brilliant at it. I’d rather get someone who’s really good at it. Nowadays you can sample a bass line so easily and there are so many brilliant musicians around so there’s really no point getting somebody half-assed like me trying to do something.

You recently went to Sudan and wrote a piece on that.

Yeah, I went to southern Sudan with a team of writers. I also went to Calcutta and Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban. I was the first Western journalist in Darfur when I did a report for The New York Times when the whole thing kicked off, basically, the janjaweed and that. I’m planning to do some more of that stuff next year. I start to feel selfish working on just my own stuff again. It’s a great thing to do but it can get pretty hard. I do stuff for some other charities and organizations as well. You have to limit yourself otherwise you’re not doing anybody any good. The OneCity Trust in Edinburgh is one group I’ve started doing stuff with and I want to do more with them.

You have a new novella and short story collection coming out called “If You Like School, You’ll Love Work.” How did you receive school growing up?

I hated it. It was shit. Fuckin’ horrible. I wasn’t good at anything except English and art. I didn’t have any desire to do anything else. I don’t know why; I wasn’t stupid. And now I’m interested in all that, like geography, history, science — math, even. I love all that kind of stuff. I wish I would have tried harder in school and applied myself more. I feel I’ve missed out on basic education in some areas that I should be a lot more proficient in. I don’t know why; it just didn’t interest me. I’ve never liked the nine-to-five thing, stuck in some place. I don’t know why that is; it’s just an attitude thing really, kind of temperamental.

Some of your novels focus on the interaction within a group of friends. Have you yourself had longtime friends in which you confided in or ripped off?

Yeah, I got married again last year and I had eight groomsmen. Two of them I’ve known since I was 6 years old. Grew up with them in the scheme in Muirhouse in Edinburgh. Another two or three were football hooligan pals from my teens and all that. Another couple of them were drug mates from my early 20s. I mean every one of them are sort of pre-me being a writer. That’s kind of a nice thing to realize, that my closest friends are the ones I’ve always had.

In the new book, “The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs,” you make a couple topical references, such as to Tony Blair and George Bush, and talk about them through the characters’ perspectives. Is that part of your personal politics that you wrote in there or do you think current world events are relevant and even critical to individual stories?

What I was trying to do is make a point in a way that Skinner’s obsession with Kibby because he’s a bit different, it’s that kind of immaturity that we get into in our teens and early 20s before we’re fully formed. We define ourselves by people who are not like us. Being obsessed with somebody in that way, hating somebody, is almost like being in love with them. It implies a relationship with that kind of responsibility. You’re always thinking about them; you’re obsessed with them. I wrote in the whole geopolitical thing about the Middle East: If you don’t get along with them or don’t like them, just leave them alone. That’s what I was trying to say there. Like Blair is apologizing to people in India and the Caribbean and all that now for imperialism. And it’s like what the fuck — why do that and then fucking bomb people in the Middle East? We’ll be apologizing to them in 50 years time and all that. It’s like an alcoholic, you know, “Oh, I’m sorry. I love you. I’ll never do it again. I promise; I promise.” It’s that kind of insincere fucking nonsense. I was trying to get that kind of culture that’s implicit in an immature individual and also in an immature political culture. And I think Western imperialism is an immature political culture. Our institutions have never been allowed to reach the kind of maturity in adulthood because of its imperialist legacy that’s regurgitating again and again. That was the reason for having that kind of stuff in the book.

Has love helped or hindered your writing process?

It’s difficult to say. I’ve probably only been in love three times in my life. One was pre-writing and the other two post-writing. The times when you’re in love are better for you because it’s so energizing, apart from everything else. When you’re in love you’re more curious about things, you’re looking at different things and you’re more willing to try different things. Bad things don’t get on your nerves so much. I think hate can teach you a lot as well, but when you’re in love you’re more positive about people and the world.

At the Edinburgh Book Festival you were accused of misogyny after reading a sex scene between an old witch and Skinner in the new book, which is ironic because you wrote your thesis on creating equal opportunities for women.

I told the woman concerned that you can’t really call it misogyny because the old woman in the scene is empowered, not the other way around. She’s sort of manipulated this young guy into doing something he wouldn’t normally have done. She actually came up later and said she meant misanthropist, not misogynist. Which, you know, it may be ageist. I think I’m probably ageist in a sense that I don’t think people should be treated badly, I think they are treated badly and should be treated a lot better. But we have to accept the realities of getting older are that basically you get fucking ugly to look at and boring to talk to. Simple as that, you know? Not in all cases, but gradually it happens. There are some very interesting old people, but that’s because they were exceptionally interesting when they were younger. As good as they may be, I don’t think they’re quite as interesting as when you see them back when they were younger. It’s not discrimination against the old; it’s just a misanthropic thing to the extent that it’s something everyone goes through; it’s part of the life cycle. It’s not punishing old people because they come from a certain generation or that they’re superior to the next generation of old people who right now are young. It’s just a natural thing.

What keeps you writing, for instance through writer’s block?

I don’t really get writer’s block. I don’t believe that, I think it’s a lot of shite. It never really bothers me. What keeps me writing is I don’t feel I’ve written what I want to write yet. Aside from volume and all that, I know I can [write] better than what I’ve done. My whole sort of philosophy has been to accept in myself that writing’s a valid career choice, not so much accept that I’m a writer, which took me a long, long time, but to accept that that’s what I am, that’s what I’m doing, that’s probably what I’ve always been. Instead of saying I’m some kind of cultural activist or some kind of iconoclastic figure. Everyone writes from different cultures. The one I write from is just another culture; it’s not necessarily superior or inferior to the next. Different cultures of society produce good and bad writers. We live in a multicultural world, we should have multicultural art.

How do you respond to people who say you accurately depict the relationship between humans and intoxication compared to those who say you glorify drug use?

The people who say “glorify drug use,” that’s the kind of thing people who have never taken drugs would say. That’s people talking outside their own experience. When “Trainspotting” came out, all the health education stuff in Britain at the time was “Just say no.” Now all the health education stuff is out of “Trainspotting,” you know, most people know that’s not the case at all. There’s nothing glamorous or glorifying about fucking come downs or getting sick on heroin and I depicted that just as relentlessly as I depicted the highs. People do it because it feels good, and you’ve got to show that reality. And then it fucks them up and it starts to feel bad, and you’ve got to show that reality, too. You know, to not show these realities is just nonsense. You’re only showing half the picture. How dumb is it to say this is what happens when you take heroin, and you show them ODing on the couch or something, and then someone takes heroin for the first time and they have this euphoric rush and all that, you know. How irresponsible is it for the health education people to say that’s what happens when you do heroin? That is what happens to your health when you do heroin. If someone’s in great pain they’re going to shortly dismiss the second half of that message, which is the most important half of that message. You’ve got to show the whole package. That’s what I’ve been trying to do, to be honest in that way. I don’t want to encourage people to take drugs. I don’t want to encourage people not to take drugs. That’s not my business. All I’m doing is showing the reality of every kind of drug and its lifestyle.

Have you had any sort of serious life-threatening encounters with drugs?

Yeah, you sort of laugh these things off. I almost drowned in a swimming pool and was rescued one time. I overdosed and went to a hospital two times. I’ve done all sorts of reckless things. It kind of makes my blood run cold when I think about it. I think that’s why a lot of people do it, to behave stupidly and irresponsibly. It’s about the human spirit. This whole notion of ceremony and celebration and intoxication is so much a part of celebration. It’s so engrained in the human spirit. Like anything, you’re going to have casualties on the way.

Did you ever have to get treatment?

Yeah, I tried methadone years ago and it didn’t work for me. Different things work for different people so I don’t want to dismiss it, but the only thing I could do is going it cold turkey. Just sweat it out and take it. Anybody can get addicted to drugs or alcohol or whatever, but you have to have either an incredible amount of stupidity or more likely an incredible amount of arrogance to keep it going because you’ve got to believe as your morals collapse around you and precipitate all this selfish behavior that everybody’s out of step except you. That takes an incredible amount of arrogance. Unless there’s some kind of mental thing driving it, it’s very difficult for most people after awhile to sustain the level of arrogance needed to maintain an addiction. That’s why people feel so fucking destroyed mentally.

http://pasadenaweekly.com/cms/story/detail/the_bedroom_secrets_of_irvine_welsh/3929/

Two Sides of the Same Coin

2009-09-14T17:09:00.000-07:00

Factions fight over struggling petition drives to form an Altadena school district

By Justin Chapman 01/24/2008 Pasadena Weekly

As the youngest person ever elected to the Altadena Town Council, I felt I had an obligation to help my unincorporated community have a say in decisions that affect its children.

Frankly, Altadena public schools have always gotten the short end of the stick when it comes to decisions made by the Pasadena Unified School District. And very few people were doing anything to improve the situation until I came along.

I believe that’s why I received the unanimous support of the Town Council to reconstitute that 16-member advisory body’s Education Committee shortly before Christmas 2005 — ironically the same night that the PUSD Board of Education voted to close four elementary schools, three in Altadena.

The original purpose for my committee, to quote its chartering document, was to “explore the desirability and possibility of recommending that the Town Council start a petition process to secede from PUSD,” creating an Altadena Unified School District.

That sounds simple enough. But today the drive to form a new district is anything but easy, with the secession effort now split between two camps and virtually no further ahead today than it was when it started more than two years ago.

As chairman of the Education Committee, and later as a regular member, I personally drafted several resolutions outlining what the Altadena community wanted for its schools and surplus properties, which was to keep them intact for future educational uses, as opposed to leasing or selling the properties to the highest bidder. These resolutions represented the general consensus of the community and received unanimous support from both the Education Committee and the Town Council.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael Antonovich, who represents Altadena, also sent letters to PUSD supporting our efforts. But, as usual, the community’s wants and needs were ignored by the school board.

The proof of that is in their voting record, such as the one to close the four elementary schools. The same was true about the appointment of members to a special board formed to decide the fate of the district’s recently designated surplus properties.

Less than three weeks after the creation of my committee, three Altadena residents — Bruce Wasson, Maurice Morse and Shirlee Smith, with the help of lawyer and longtime schools watchdog Rene Amy — filed a petition with the county to get a secession movement under way. They became the three chief petitioners. However, Morse, a retired PUSD teacher, and Smith, a newspaper columnist and parent, have both publicly stated that they want to be attached to the petition in name only, and want nothing to do with day-to-day operations.

Although it was legal for them to file the petition, it effectively thwarted efforts by the Education Committee to do the same at that time, mainly because Antonovich made it clear that he wanted a single unified petition effort to

be conducted.

Throughout 2006 the AUSD Steering Committee, its volunteers and the chief petitioners gathered about 2,500 signatures out of their goal of 7,000, the county’s requirement of 25 percent of registered Altadena voters.

In November of that year, though, signature gathering came to an almost complete standstill, mainly because chief petitioner Wasson decided not to store completed petitions at the agreed-upon safe house, the Altadena

Sheriff’s Station. Wasson cut off communication with many volunteers who dedicated that year to helping the AUSD effort, people who collected the majority of signatures.

According to Jerry Rhoads, former Education Committee member and co-founder of the AUSD Steering Committee, one of the main complaints that the excluded volunteers had with Wasson’s petition effort were that it was increasingly becoming less transparent and accountable.

Since the schism in November 2006, 363 additional signatures have been collected, according to Wasson’s Web site, www.altadenaschools.net., bringing the total to 2,586 signatures on petitions that have returned with completed affidavits.

At that rate, Altadena will never see a county feasibility study done. Perhaps that is why Rhoads said Wasson called him in November to “make peace” and try again. Rhoads said he told Wasson at that time to make amends with all the volunteers who collected the majority of the signatures, including Town Council member Steve Lamb, Monica Watts, Walter and Bo Olszewski, and myself. But Wasson apparently chose not to do that.

Wasson did not respnd to several calls and emails seeking comment. However, in a recent post to the Yahoo email listserv pasadenaschools, Wasson appeared to still support efforts to break from the district.

In the post, commenting on management changes proposed by PUSD Superintendent Edwin Diaz, Wasson also wrote about the AUSD petition drive.

“If you are like this PUSD parent of 13 years, dozens of concerned volunteers, and thousands of Altadena voters who have said they’re done with putting our whole trust in PUSD administrations staffed by those who have never come close to closing the academic achievement gap, then please join the many volunteers in Altadena on Tuesday, February 5 who will be petitioning for a school district organized around the practices that are known to result in closing the academic achievement gap and in bringing all of our students to 100 percent grade-level proficiency in a few short years. If you are interested in helping us on Tuesday, February 5, then please click ‘Get Involved’ at www.altadenaschools.net.

“And since voter education is so vital to our effort to create a school district that will really close the gap as opposed to just becoming a small version of PUSD in Altadena,” the post continues, “then please also let us know which of our two kickoff celebrations and petitioner’s package handouts you can attend: 1) Saturday, January 26, from 2-4 p.m., or 2) Sunday, February 3, from 2-4 p.m.”

On April 30, Lamb and I filed a second AUSD petition with the county, with the two of us serving as chief petitioners. We chose not to initiate an extensive signature-gathering campaign at the time because it would have meant starting over from scratch and losing those 2,500 signatures that Wasson is apparently holding somewhere.

However, now that it is clear Wasson is continuing his petition movement without making amends with his former volunteers, it is time to move forward with this second AUSD petition effort.

There is no time limit in terms

of gathering signatures, as long as each signature is considered valid by the county.

There will be 5,000 signatures left to go if Wasson eventually decides to make up with Lamb, Rhoads and others and rejoin our efforts.

“Those [signatures] are gettable, even if we have to start from scratch, but it will require some work and faith by the community that the AUSD will be a real democratic egalitarian institution,” said Lamb.

It’s important to remember that signing the petition will not automatically result in Altadena seceding from PUSD. The petition only makes the county do a feasibility study which will determine what will happen to PUSD if another district is formed.

If PUSD would be harmed in any way by the formation of an AUSD, the petition would be denied.

So why not sign the petition? What do any of us — Altadena, Pasadena, and especially PUSD — have to lose from a feasibility study? The answer: Nothing.

Such a study would merely provide critical information that the community needs, whether or not an AUSD is formed.

The study would not be a management audit. Rather, it would focus on the fiscal condition of the school district as it relates to the unification of a new district. The study would also provide insights into AUSD’s possible demographics, as well as the number of students expected to attend each of the new district’s schools, which, with the state paying roughly $7,500 a year per student, would be the main source of opertaing revenue.

After that, a draft report will be presented, community meetings will be held and a vote will be taken by the county Board of Education either to deny the petition or approve it. From there, the proposal will be sent to Sacramento, where the state Board of Education will decide whether to proceed. If it does, either Altadena residents or voters district-wide will vote on the matter in the next general election.

In the end, if things get that far, the matter will come back before Altadenans for the final decision.

To date, the AUSD effort is not formally supported by the Town Council. According to the official request for a county petition for the unification of an AUSD, written by Rhoads, Lamb, and myself, “We believe the unification of the Altadena Unified School District, which would create a district with more than 4,000 students, will provide Altadena students with the highest quality public school education in safe and secure facilities; reduce the distance Altadena students must travel in order to attend a public school; increase the sense of community identity within Altadena; improve the efficiency and fiscal responsibility of school district management; and increase the voice of Altadenans in the governance of their public schools.

“We believe that this can be accomplished with an equitable distribution of property and facilities, and that unification will not promote racial or ethnic discrimination or segregation or result in any substantial increase in costs to the state. We believe that all other requirements of California Education Code will be met through unification.”

The only way to find out if all these great things are true is through the completion of a county feasibility study.

My only request is for people who support the concept of an AUSD to take seriously both petition efforts and to sign whichever one they believe will be the one to get us the all-important study that is critical to the future academic success of Altadena’s children.

http://pasadenaweekly.com/cms/story/detail/two_sides_of_the_same_coin/5585/

Stagnant Neuroticism

2009-09-14T17:05:00.002-07:00

i gave up on law long ago,

& so should you if you believe in Truth + Beauty.

put out the fuse in the captivating courtroom,

set the men free & enjoy the show.

every single day,

something goes awfully wrong for someone.

i know so cuz i see it on television

& i read it in the papers the next day.

in an unrelated matter,

every single day someone somewhere gets what they want.

i know so cuz i see the smile on their face;

i can tell the reals from the fakes, cuz they say:

“never look down;

avert yr. gaze from the ground.

you’ll find yr. way & make out okay

if you concentrate on something other than the dull & gray.”

apparently vibrancy

is the key to variety.

i try to keep it interesting

but it isn’t always up to me.

i can hear the desperation

in the notes floating through the air

from the trumpet down the street,

the flute next door, & the drums downstairs.

every single day,

someone somewhere finds a way out.

i leave Her a message

& wait for Her to call back.

Think Tank Q

2009-09-14T17:05:00.001-07:00

brain cell A says to brain cell B,

“ok, look. you’re inferior to me. everyone

knows it. i run this think tank. i make

the decisions. all you do is control emotions

and paint pictures. i read the newspapers.

i understand irony. you create the art and

i interpret it. you’re worthless without me.

you carve the jack-o-lantern and i smash

it on the driveway. we both run away, but

you’ve got twice the workload cuz you’re

a sucker. you want to believe the words

i say so badly. no matter how much i

cheat, lie, steal, rape, kill, or hate you,

you’ll always be back for more. you can’t

get enough of it.

but you wanna know why i am

really superior to you, B?

it’s cuz i’m a fear mongerer,

and you’re afraid. that’s the

fundamental difference between

us. that’s the element that

separates the citizen

from the state,

the slave from the master,

the human from the god.

so hang yourself in the halls

of the frontal lobe,

lost in the maze of the cerebral cortex.”

Treasure the Present

2009-09-14T17:04:00.000-07:00

treasure the ground,

because once gravity reverses,

that which we take for granted

will be a distant, banal wish

as we float on towards obscurity.

treasure the words,

they’ll all burn along with the effigies

in a final cleansing of

the Old Way.

treasure the plants,

they’re the ones who’ll

turn on us in that moment of

judgment.

that’ll be the day your mind goes blank.

The Peacock Network

2009-09-14T17:03:00.000-07:00

helicopters:

hot machines

burning through the sky

surveying the populous.

satellites:

worldwide databases

including every

human being on the planet.

prayer:

they don’t give a fuck

they just want

the money.

my dreams are of

people i know in situations

i don’t want to see them in.

paranoia breeds insecurity.

but wait,

i’m confused.

the world is everything & its opposite.

peacock:

there’s nothing left to say

and there’s no one left

to say it.

Uphill

2009-09-14T17:01:00.002-07:00

may yr. life be heavy,

full of rotting roadkill

& incurable diseases that eat you inside out.

may yr. life be a battle uphill.

may you be beautifully bombastic,

a mysterious package wrapped in miraculous magic.

may it throw you off guard

& deconstruct you to little bits of shard.

may you see it all,

unprepared for the free fall.

may you live to a ripe old age

to manifest the key to yr. tired, rusty cage

(only to accidentally drop it down the drain).

may you find true, unconditional love.

may the heavy hail knock you out cold,

something you can be proud of.

may you hear what you always wanted told.

may you reap what you sow

in order to prove the existence of yr. soul.

may you talk to the animals.

may you devour the cannibals.

may you conquer yr. demons,

cover them in premature semen.

may it all fall into place

running at a manageable pace.

may yr. hands be held

when the rest of you fell.

may you never be ready.

may yr. life be heavy.