Le Vrai

I liked myself better without a conscience

2011-01-19T15:02:00.002-05:00

So I worked with this guy, had recently gotten out of prison... was a decent worker, a good worker. He actually was one of the best that i had in a long while. He worked there for maybe 3 months. Then he called me up frantic..."They fired me for suspicion of theft..." What? I played it off because i didn't really know him that well, and i wasn't sure what it was he was exactly accused of stealing. The thing is he works with just me, and one other guy. I thought maybe someone saw him lifting someone Else's I Pod or wallet. After I went to work people one of the other guys that work during the day said, yeah, he was stealing wire. Now this wasn't little spools of wire, it was large spools of copper that probably weighed a few hundred pounds each.
What?
But he doesn't have a car...
and i see him leaving every morning with nothing but a thermos...
wait, he was my employee, and the company didn't question myself or the other guy who works with me...
and he would need a forklift
and have to drive right by me
and he didn't drive... at all.
after thinking about it and writing several letters explaining all this I started thinking maybe the company did catch him or see him when i wasn't there, I wasn't there all the time after all, and maybe...
I found myself rationalizing the companies viewpoint. I found myself finding excuses for the company.

but one thing keeps coming back. I cant believe there was any way he did it. And why if there are only 2 other people who work with him, ( me being his supervisor ) why didn't they ask us one question about the alleged theft?

What bothers me the most is that if the company I work for, the people who I have to trust, would actively pursue and or set this man up, what keeps it from being me next time?

Time to act...time to speak up,
time to
time to...
sit down and shut up.
Because I cant afford to lose my job. Because i cant feed my family with integrity or pay the bills with a sudden new found sense of ethics. Because I cant sacrifice my family for one innocent man.
Because I am a coward.

2010-11-26T12:19:00.000-05:00

We helped feed 5000 people today. Some of the things which humbled (and amazed) me.

having a man ask me for a orange today to eat that was part of a display. ( I gave it to him. )

Children who acted like i just gave them a X box when I handed them a small plate of curly fries... before we even opened the doors.

watching children who had never seen a x box before.

Working with a soldier who had just returned from Afghanistan who i found out later, had no family to come home to.

watching my wife serve tables, talk , laugh, and hug total strangers, and treat each one she met with respect and love, like they were all old friends...

...for hours...

...and she did not sit down nor eat, until all 5000 had eaten first.

seeing a literal sea of men, women and children waiting patiently to get a coat.

seeing that many coats handed out in 4 hours.

being treated better by people I had worked with for 5 hours, than by people I have worked for 5 years.

So many different small yet important things which I witnessed that both made me both unconditionally love, yet despise and hate mankind.

As we settled in for the evening and watched the news cover all the people amassed in front of department stores ready to spend millions and millions of dollars on material items, My wife turned to me and said, Imagine if all these people took 10% of what they are about to spend... not all of it, just 10%, and gave it to a charity, how many people would that feed... how many could we house...

Imagine.

As we were walking out today a homeless man turned to us, smiled and said,

Don't just preach peace, practice peace.

I think I'm going to try and preach a lot less.

BIRDMAN IN LISBON, PORTUGAL - Claudio Montuori

2010-11-22T16:06:00.000-05:00

Shepard Fairey, Northside and Downtown

2010-11-22T09:56:00.000-05:00

Changing the style of my blog

2010-11-19T13:25:00.000-05:00

OK i'm bored with this back round. time for a change.

This is beautiful

2010-11-19T13:20:00.002-05:00

How we fail

2010-05-01T21:31:00.003-04:00

"The Levite, because he has no portion or inheritance among you, and the alien, the orphan and the widow who are in your town, shall come and eat and be satisfied, in order that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hand which you do."

Deuteronomy 14:29

I have this friend, well at least she considers me a friend, and I'm not sure why. Actually , she considers quite a few people friends, quite a few people family, and yet, we all fall way short of what a friend should be, how a friend should be... I fall way short of what i should be. When she calls me with a problem, I tell myself she will be OK, when she has no electricity, or is driving around lost I say, ill see what i can do and then hope she finds help... but wait, she was calling me for help... Not to say I don't mind at all when people call me for help, as long as it is something that a parable from this or that over the phone can take care of, or some cryptic rhetoric to make one think I'm smarter than I actually am. Perhaps its moving a couch or mowing a yard, that isn't too hard... but when she calls, its always something , you know, inconvenient. The thing is, I have known her for years, and she has always been the first one to drop everything to help out anyone however she could, selflessly, not needing recognition, just maybe a little acceptance, but yet we all cant quite accept her because she is, well, different. She looks just like any other attractive 20 something year old you might see on any college campus, or at a local watering hole, but when she wears certain clothing you cant help but notice the scars she wears from a lifetime of abuse... But that was a long time ago and she should just get on with her life, right? She can be short tempered at times and tends to cry for no reason, and we have all thought, "not this shit again." I mean there is only so much we can do, right? right?

I cannot look at myself in the mirror thinking about her. I cannot look at her in the eye when I know i can offer her more help than I do, but it is to inconvenient for me or the lifestyle I have grown accustomed to. I NEED this smartphone that could buy her and her child groceries for a few months, I NEED the phone plan that could pay the rent in a comfortable place... I need the internet, and imported beer...

why is it so damn hard to look at myself in the mirror?

V.A.

2010-04-09T21:04:00.004-04:00

I hate coming here.
I hate it because it is so much like coming home.
I hate it because the more I come here, the more comfortable I become.
People I don't know give me the head nod...”sup” under our breaths. I don't know why people seem to do this more here than anyplace else on the outside. Perhaps it a sense of solidarity, a shared sense of commonality or a shared sense of dread.
Maybe we are all just lonely.
The walls are all painted and there is new carpet on the floor but it is still here... the ...im not sure , the smell.
when I was younger all the WWII vets were the old timers shuffling up and down the halls in wheelchairs, but it seems they are almost all gone now, replaced now by Viet Nam era old timers buzzing by on their scooters. Back then I was the young guy, but now I see young men my sons age with missing limbs and bionic parts... now for the first time I see young girls not much older than my daughter in high school... missing parts. How am I supposed to look at them and not cry? Do you think on their prom night with their mouth full of braces and eyes full of stars they ever thought it would become like this?
I feel so close to the edge out there in the real world, like any day I will just fall out of my chair and keep on falling, right into this abyss. But here I realize, how much closer to the edge others fly, and how I just want to go home and grow old.
I wonder how many of these people who shuffle around here in pajamas hooked up to equipment will never go back home.
I wonder how many don't even have a home.
Even here I notice all the faces seem so vaguely familiar, The kid from Texas...The Black guy from Philly... The Chicano from L.A. , and Brooklyn , there was always some kid from Brooklyn or Jersey. But we have all gotten old.
Of course all the usual suspects are missing. They always were then, and oddly, I don't see any here now. I guess Rank truly does have its Privileges.
I roll up to the information counter and ask the confused looking man behind the counter
“ excuse me, where is primary care, I cant seem to find it”
He pushes the glasses up on his nose and looks thru some papers taped behind the counter...
“P.T. ? “
no, um Primary Care.
OK P.T is on the second floor...
No sir, Primar..
Oh yeah primary care... its up there too.
I find it hard to believe that it is by the way he is still looking confused, still searching the desk like he has lost something as I walk away...

Maybe he has. Maybe we all have.

I get on the crowded elevator and push the button for the second floor...

It seems as though the higher up you go up in the elevator, the more ominous it becomes. In the elevator I realize I don't want to ever end up on the 8th floor, because no one knows whats up there, or at least no one ever talks about it. No one who ends up there ever comes out I'm guessing, and as the sign I the elevator states,
“ NO VISITORS TO THE 8TH FLOOR”.
the smell of antiseptic becomes stronger on the upper floors, and the hallways are strangely empty compared to the mass chaos of the ground level.
As I get out there is a older man dressed I blue, a volunteer , asking people as they get out,
“ does anybody need help? Can I be of assistance to anyone...”
I notice he is sitting on his walker. I look at the sign posted behind his head. Nope. No primary care.
So what else is it then can we do?
Just try and help each other out however we can, Memento Mori I recall. Embrace your fate.
I finally did find primary care, it was back on the first floor around the corner from the help desk. The girl who worked at the x ray lab told me that on the second floor. She helped me a few times today, and I thought maybe they should put the information desk on the second floor where she was, and put x ray on the first floor right near primary care. It would save the man in the walker a lot of time .
Years ago we became so used to lining up, hurry up and wait they would say. I think we could have finished a four year tour in 2 years if they had just eliminated all the time spent standing in line and waiting. Even now, while dozens of cars with disabled tags circle the overflowing parking lot in a holding pattern, waiting for the next open spot, no one complains. At the Walmart your handicap placard at least means something. here? Well here they are a bit like opinions and assholes. Everybody's got one.
“hey man, you leaving?
Yeah, im at the far end of this row
whatcha drivin?
Black pickup, the one with the toolboxes on the back.
Thanx brah.
No problem. “
I walk to the far end of the lot, old men zip past in worn out golf carts ferrying people and various artificial body parts back and forth to the main building. Armed police stand causally nearby. Theres the man patiently waiting with his turn signal on behind my truck.
Like this is normal,
like we are waiting in line at the convenience store for lotto tickets.
I want to scream out this isn't normal.
I want to scream out …
as I pull out onto the main drag away from the hospital I see a ragged girl in her late teens sitting up against a wall with a sign that says simply “homeless”. I noticed a hospital bracelet still on her wrist.
I pullover and walked back to her, empty out my wallet and hand her everything.
Everything.
I want to scream out this isn't normal
I want to scream out this isn't how it was supposed to be.

Drugs and gasoline

2010-04-09T20:49:00.003-04:00

"I held a dandelion

that said the time had come

to leave upon the wind

not to return

when summer burned the earth again..."

I am a criminal.
I go against everything I taught my children...
a hypocrite.
If I'm caught I face 7 years for each count … and yet ill do this again today.

I received yet another call from my uncle last night... “ I don't mean to put you in a spot” … I know he doesn't. I know he feels bad about what I do for him, but it don't blame him , its not his fault, or mine. I'm not sure where the fault lies, or who is to blame, but I fully know who will go punished if I'm caught. 8 years ago this wouldn't be either of us, 8 years ago before the cancer, and the diabetes, before he got so bad he couldn't take care of himself anymore, before he became disabled, before they took his house...before they took his insurance away...before he couldn't get his medication anymore. Now he rations what he gets, because he cant afford to pay for the medicines he needs. Hes sold most of his possessions, whatever I could afford I bought from him, an old hi-fi , some books...but I cant afford to buy anything else from him either. I bartered the rest of his stuff, a lifetime of memories, bartered it for pain pills, at first what he was prescribed, then for anything, anything to take away his pain. I don't know how long he has left, the cancer has spread throughout his body. He got a letter from the Sheriff last week. They are finally coming to throw him out of his house next month. I'm doing a little better than him, but still visit the VA often. I seek treatment here, for non specific ailments, and get whatever prescriptions I can. If imlucky I get what he needs and squirrel it away till he calls. If not, I can sometimes trade with others for something close. Sometimes I'm not so lucky and have to buy it off the street. When I was a boy he used to take me fishing at the pay lake, sometimes squirrel hunting. But that was a long time ago, and has long since sold his fishing gear, his hunting gear, except for a old shotgun that belonged to his father. We have never discussed it. I have never asked him, nor he asked me. Just one day he told me where it was kept. He just wanted me to know.

One day the pain will just be too much.

Ill think of squirrel hunting and him buying all us kids ice cream at the Whippy Dip after swimming. Ill think of playing in the sprinklers and his new hi-fi, and the music coming thru the open window on a hot summer day .

Ill remember I am a criminal.

I will go against everything I have taught my children. The line between right and wrong is no longer valid. There is only the gray margins where most of us exist.

Prop 8 protest in Cincinnati

2008-11-17T16:37:00.008-05:00

"We need not think alike to love alike."
Francis David

As a volunteer for then Senator Obama's campaign the past few months, I was lucky enough to be involved with a grass roots effort in Cincinnati that had taken on a life and spirit of its own. And so it was, At 7:20pm on election night, flashlight in hand, I knocked on my last door and called for a pickup. We were released soon afterward for the evening, and sped off to meet up with others at the "Cadillac Ranch" downtown to watch the polls roll in. That evening I couldn't help but watch the reactions of my African American friends who were with me, first as they announced Ohio, then again as CNN called the election. About the time (then) Senator Obama gave his speech, as I was teetering on a chair cheering, I noticed a older African American Woman sobbing quietly to herself. I climbed down and put my arms around her and she said to me " We did it, I only wish my parents were alive to see this."

I felt then that I would probably never be able to understand how she felt.

I may have been wrong.

Many lifetimes seemed to have passed since I was a child growing up in Southern
California in the 70's. Ex wives, Children, Politics, Houses... a couple of wars and half a lifetime spent in the military.

On November 15Th standing in the rain outside City Hall, all of this fell away as I listened to Karen Aronoff and others speak on Gay Marriage. As I stood in the middle of this beautiful crowd, I began to cry to myself. You see, I was a troubled child growing up, and when no one else would deal with me back then, A loving supportive Gay couple took me in. When I struggled with school and homework, 28 years before Barack Obama said it, it was them who said to me, "Yes you can".

When I struggled with the issues troubled teens go through, it wasn't the church or counselors who listened to me or helped me, It was their friends, family and community who told me,

"yes you can".

Every step of the way, when I felt like I couldnt go on, they were there saying " Yes you can"

Coming from a broken family they taught me what unconditional love was, and although they never had the opportunity to marry, even then, I knew they truly loved each other, and we were the closest thing to a family I had ever known. Whatever good qualities I possess as an adult, is a direct result of their influence on me as a child.

Time passed, I grew up, and like many others during that time period, They both fell victim to the initial AIDs epidemic.

November 15Th was a monumental success in my opinion for several reasons. The momentum is there and not only does the L.G.B.T.Q. community feels the time is now for change, The community as a whole feels this way, and I feel are ready to support the L.G.B.T.Q. community however they can. I feel the time is now. Something has changed in all of us, and needs to continue to change. We have miles and miles to go before we sleep, and the struggle continues, but witnessing the level of organization, the crowd of supporters, and the passions invoked by these few college students on such short notice, I know we are well on our way.

And to those who feel the struggle is too long, the goal is too far, those who feel they cannot make it...

Yes you can.

I only wish my parents were alive to see this.

Press Release, JointheImpact.com

2008-11-15T18:46:00.002-05:00

Exactly one week since Amy Balliett and Willow Witte announced a national call to action for the LGBTQ community to protest Proposition 8 and to fight for equal rights across the nation, the community has come together at global numbers exceeding 1 million (According to early estimates from National Social Pages, and the JoinTheImpact.wetpaint.com social network). “We will come out tomorrow in numbers this world has not yet seen,” Says Amy Balliett, co-founder of JoinTheImpact.com. “Rain or shine, our community will take to the streets to get the word out that equality is a human right and one that we will not stop working toward until it’s afforded to all citizens,” Says Willow Witte, JoinTheImpact’s other founder and organizer.

300 Cities around the country will participate in a simultaneous protest against Proposition 8 and for equality. Founders of JoinTheImpact stress that this must be a peaceful protest and say that it’s main goal is to bring the conversation of equality to a national stage. The movement launched on November 7th, 2008 and by Monday November 10th it went international. Now all 50 US states and 10 Countries world-wide have joined the IMPACT. Each protest will begin at the exact same time and will include prominent speakers such as local activists, government officials, celebrities, and religious leaders. These speakers will carry the message of equality as well as one that encourages the entire community to unite for this cause.

JoinTheImpact founders hope that this world-wide event will drive the community into a very necessary Civil Rights Movement and have already joined forces with many other prominent organizations to keep the conversation of equality at the forefront of our nation’s mind. The future of JoinTheImpact includes continued national demonstrations on the 10th of every month for their 10 months 10 lives changed initiative. This includes working joining forces for December 10th’s Day Without a Gay, a January 10th international protest against DOMA, and a continued forum for open and respectful debate. Please join the IMPACT locally and nationally, to find out how 10 conversations can make the impact that leads this nation into equality!

Creation of Le Vrai

2008-11-15T17:23:00.003-05:00

Le Vrai was created out of necessity after for whatever reasons i could not access my previous blogsites. I will try and post a link to previous posts as time premits. J.C>