Amateur High Dive

MY BLOG HAS OFFICIALLY MOVED

2011-02-16T07:41:00.000-08:00

Hey internet friends, please go to amateurhighdive.com to keep up with the blog.

And in the immediate future, please join me April 8-9th at Highways Peformance Space in Santa Monica, CA for a run of my one-man show, Debbie Does My Dad.

Love,
Bobby

Guest Review on 38thnotes.com

2010-11-28T17:32:00.001-08:00

Hey all,

Check Out a guest review I did for my friend Cool Hand Luke's 38thnotes.com of Lyric's Born's new album As U Were.
Read the Review

Debbie Does My Dad in San Francisco This Saturday!

2010-11-15T16:05:00.000-08:00

It's a milestone homecoming. I'll be Performing Debbie Does My Dad at the Center for Sex and Culture this weekend on Sat Nov. 20th at 8:30 pm. And...I'll be sharing the bill with my Dad who'll follow up my show with his own side of the story!!! If you're in the Bay Area it would be amazing to have you join me and my dad!

http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/138178

Bobby Gordon in Debbie Does My Dad (a one-man play about growing up with a dad who was once a porn star) AND special appearance by his dad: Howie Gordon, AKA the Ghost of Richard Pacheco!

At the Center for Sex & Culture 1519 Mission near 11th St., SF

$15 -- space is limited, 18+ only

Debbie Does My Dad by performance artist Bobby Gordon uses spoken word theater to tell the bawdy and beautiful story of his experiences growing up as the son of a former adult film star. Gordon's father, Howie Gordon (Stage Name Richard Pacheco) won Playgirl Man of the Year Honors in 1979 and appeared in over 100 pornographic titles.

Nothing is what you'd expect in this show where the words "sensitive" and "male porn star" go together as easily as "masturbation" and "inevitably getting walked in on by your parents." Gordon offers an intimate window into his journey to come to grips his father's former career, and create a world where a man can be an emotional and a sexual being; a world where fucking and feelings can co-exist.

2 Scenes from Debbie Does My Dad

2010-09-03T09:16:00.000-07:00

Here are two scenes from the work in progress showing of Debbie Does My Dad at the Drama For Life Festival in Johannesburg, South Africa this month. Enjoy, and let me know what you think.
-Bobby

It's a wrap for Debbie in South Africa!

2010-08-28T01:56:00.000-07:00

     We finished off the run of Debbie Does My Dad yesterday with a matinee at the Spaceframe Theater at the Wits Education Campus. It was quite the difficult task to do the last show at an entirely new venue with under an hour to set the stage, lights, and sound. HUGE thanks to Chanel and Desi who worked absolute magic to get the show ready to go in time to open the doors.
     We had a good crowd and again got a great response. This opportunity to travel across the globe to present the art that I love to do filled me such a sense of gratefulness. Getting to share my work, see others, and engage in amazing conversations with artists from all different walks was such a rich experience. I am so thankful for people that value art. I am becoming more and more of a convert every day. *(I'll be posting video excerpts from the show when I return to the U.S.)
     With this festival I began a new focusing ritual before performing. I walk around the stage and look at every seat, and I thank the person that I imagine will be sitting in it. The person who may give me the gift of their time, energy, and attention. It makes me present and also feel the strong responsibility, that if they are going to give me their valuable time, I had better make good use of it.
     Shortly after finishing the run, I was a judge at the National Poetry Slam. Hectic. Damn. The poetry was incredible, none of us judges could agree. AT ALL. I love slam and I hate slam. It birthed me as a writer. But I watched a lot of young poets leave the slam feeling nowhere near as proud as I think they should of. I want to say LOUDLY that all of the poets I saw perform in Jo'burg last night were incredible. Please keep writing, and please let me keep enjoying it. Much love and respect.
      As I get ready to go to a game park for my last day in South Africa, a lot of thank yous are in order. Thank you to MAKE ART/STOPAIDS for sending me here and to Drama For Life for taking me in. Thank you to my Director George Watsky for giving the piece so much attention and care. Thank you to Steve for being the most gracious host I could ever dream of. To Cathy for being my singing partner at every meal, and in between. Ok, just always. To Hanni for everything, and also for making a really delicious dinner. To Levinia and Lonwabo, and Eliana for the amazing organizing. You guys held it all together and us performers owe you so much. To Ntombi for organizing all of the poetry events and giving me the opportunity to lead a workshop. To all of the other performers/directors at the festival for moving and inspiring me. And finally, to all of the people who blessed me with their presence, energy, and beautiful noise at my shows, thank you so much. The warm response you gave me touched me so deeply.
     South Africa I hope to see you soon!

Keynote Lecture about Through Positive Eyes

2010-08-28T01:40:00.000-07:00

      Putting yourself in the shoes of someone living with HIV and seeing the world through their eyes. Doing this can help an HIV-negative overcome their stigma of HIV and HIV testing, and it can help an person living with HIV know that they are not alone, and can have a long happy life ahead of them. This is the purpose of the international photography project Through Positive Eyes.
   It was also the topic of Dr. David Gere's keynote lecture at the second day of the Drama For Life Conference. Dr. Gere is the co-director of the project with South African born and London based photographer Gideon Mendel. Dr. Gere spoke about encouraging empathy for people living with HIV around the world (the project has been done in Mexico City, Rio De Janeiro, and most recently Johannesburg.) This empathy is reached by offering first person interactions with the HIV-positive participant photographers who share how they see through the world through images and first-person narrative.

CIDA from Through Positive Eyes on Vimeo.
      Sitting in the audience, listening to Dr. Gere's lecture, right next to Hanni Ress, was quite the full circle moment. Dr. Gere is the director of MAKE ART/STOP AIDS where I now work, and where Hanni used to work. My first interactions with HIV activism happened when I was a student working on a project in Los Angeles with Dr. Gere and Mendel that would later give birth to the modern form of Through Positive Eyes. It was coordinated by Ress and called HIV Positive in LA: 12 Stories. Sitting together three years later at Wits University in Johannesburg, and having a moment to reflect on where the project has come was really remarkable.

Debbie Does the Festival a Second Time!

2010-08-26T13:28:00.000-07:00

Post show reading with my production team Desi (left) and Chanel (right).

Wow. Another great show tonight for Debbie Does Dallas at The Nunnery. On such a high from the Drama For Life Festival. A second full house and a second standing O for the show, including my hosts Steve and Cathy, has me so utterly grateful.

Nomsa and I after the show

Also in the audience was my great friend Nomsa from the Through Positive Eyes project that I helped work on here in Jo'burg in March to fight HIV stigma. Check out Through Positive Eyes

On another note entirely, I saw My Brother's Bones today while I was on campus before my show. It is a play created and directed by the Director of the Drama For Life Festival Warren Nebe. Oh my god, it was incredible. The piece tells the story of two brothers trying to bury their older brother and it brings up so many issues of inequality, politics, and family responsibility. The two brothers struggle and struggle to find a burial place for their brother since they do not have any money. They end up walking the streets of the city with the coffin causing a widespread controversy. I was moved. Deeply.

Debbie Debuts at the Festival!

2010-08-26T02:25:00.000-07:00

Debbie Does My Dad debuted to a capacity crowd last night at the Nunnery at Wits University. It was an absolute blessing to have so many people show up to see the work, with a crowd even having to be turned away at the door.

     It was a race to the finish to set everything in time, getting lights and sound cues set just minutes before the doors opened, but we made it just under the wire and the show went off so well.
     I am so thankful to the audience who was with the work the whole way, laughing, letting me hear when lines resonated, and for going on the ride with me. The show dives deep into my relationship with my dad and his former career as a porn star, my own adolescence, and manhood. It was deeply gratifying and inspiring to share it with an audience, and feel the connection. This is by far the longest work I've ever created and presented, and through a writing and rehearsal process that seemed impossible, I had to just put my head down,
work each day, and hope that I would have something in the end. To come out of this process with something worthwhile, and to be met with a standing ovation from the audience on the African continent, over a thousand miles away from my home, was beyond anything I could have imagined.
     Two more shows now. Tonight and tomorrow afternoon. I'll try to post some video as soon as I can upload the footage to my computer. And I must say a HUGE thank you to the crew for the show, Chanel, Desi, Marta, and Simon. Thank you.

Clowns Without Borders are Amazing!

2010-08-24T14:23:00.000-07:00

I went to a clowning show tonight. I'd never been to a clown show before. Clowns Without Borders performed tonight as part of the Drama For Life Festival, and it was so much fun. I was laughing almost the entire hour long show, got pulled onto stage to dance with the clowns, and on top of the great time the clowns showed us (and show to kids across South Africa in general) they also teach about HIV.

They really get it right. HIV education that tries to be fun is often heavy on the education and light on the fun, which completely defeats the purpose. Clowns Without Borders' Show was fun. REALLY fun. And the condom demonstration was not only correct, but hilarious. Definite highlight of the whole festival.
Please, go learn more about them. Clowns Without Borders

Ongoing Highlights from Drama For Life

2010-08-24T14:08:00.000-07:00

Every day at this festival here in Jo'burg is filled with art about sex from every end of the spectrum. Funny, serious, energetic, brooding. On Sunday I saw a hilarious singer-song writer named Deep Fried Man perform "A Complete History of Sexual Activity" which was as funny as the actual history of sexual activity, which is to say, hilarious!

And there is an amazing new tapestry from the Keiskamma Art Project on display throughout the festival. I finally got to see it yesterday and I was incredibly moved. The piece is called the Keiskamma Guernica Tapestry and it is a "cry of protest at the ongoing deaths due to HIV and AIDS."

It references the famous Picasso painting of the bombing of Spain, and the tapestry is arresting, haunting, and stunningly beautiful.
Learn more about Keiskamma

Then that night I saw an amazing dance piece about sex/sexuality called sexscape. It was a tour deforce performance. Ive never seen dancers worked so hard. I had to go up to PJ after the show and tell him how incredible it was.

I have to give a shout out to the amazing people I've met/remet at the festival. Here are just a few. (From left Ntombi, John, myself, Bernard). I am blown away by the amazing people here involved truly powerful artwork of all different kinds.

And I've been staying with a great friend Steve. Steve's house is an oasis of warm and welcoming so far from home. A beautiful slice of Berkeley on the southern tip of the African continent. I'm truly blessed to be with such great friends.

The irony is so good. Porn at the nunnery.

2010-08-23T15:39:00.000-07:00

This Wednesday night, I'm debuting Debbie Does My Dad, a spoken word theater piece about growing up as the son of a former porn star. And I am doing it at a theater at Wits University in South Africa called The Nunnery. It's almost too perfect.

(If you notice the red fliers on the wall, those are for the show!)

Honored

2010-08-23T15:29:00.000-07:00

     I'm left inspired and humbled. Today I had the immense pleasure of getting to lead a workshop with 5 of the poets from the regional slam that I saw my first day in Jo'burg. It was really fun to just talk with the group of poets about what the scene is like in South Africa, and hear about what their processes are like.
     Then, we got into it. We focused mainly on performance. All of the elements that a spoken word poet communicates that aren't words; tone, body language, use of the space.
We read the writing on doritos bags as if they were love poems, a noodles bag as if it was a break up poem, and a toothpaste container as if it was about revolution. So funny, and really cool to watch the group really go for it.
     At the end though, to bring everything back to the sex/sexuality/HIV theme of the festival, the group created a powerful group piece about their own experiences with HIV and sexual education. I wanted to video, but made the disclaimer that if anyone was uncomfortable at all, I wouldn't. One person was, and I kept my promise. It was not a choice, especially after the group opened up and went on the ride for the workshop with me. I owe them such big thanks. I had a great time working with them, and I hope they did too.

Drama For Life Festival Opening

2010-08-22T05:34:00.000-07:00

How do you open a drama festival in Johannesburg? Not a 21 gun salute. Try 21 poets, competing in the Johannesburg Regional Poetry Slam, competing for a spot in next week's national competition. Really good poetry slams make the hair on the back of your neck stand on end. Less than 24 hours in South Africa, and I already felt it.
The poetry slam was part of a day packed full of activities at Wits University to kick off the Drama For Life Festival. Amazing. I could say it again and again. The slam began with the MC making the judges stand up, and telling the audience (many friends of the poets) to send their bribes in that direction. After that the poets linked arms in solidarity, and then proceeded to bless the stage and set the mic on fire. I took notes on some of the lines that moved me.

"I'm drawn to the delirium of it all...We dream alone apparently. Two people dreaming together is called a conversation."

"I've been bred to give to those with less, but how can I give to him and not all the rest."

"Casual sex turns us into casualties in casualty wards." - (the Dreaded Floet who got robbed and left out of the second round.)

"All things bright and beautiful, creatures big and small...piss me off!"

"In moments like this your body becomes religion, and not having all of you is tantamount to sin."

"Look behind you, at those who fought for your inheritance that you now use in vain."

"I gather that I am incomplete, but he is not what completes me."

"I would go back in time if I had the power, next time I'd use a condom. I wouldn't take a shower."

The poetry slam was followed by an inspiring opening ceremony at the Wits Theater, with speeches by Director Warren Nebe, Justice Edwin Cameron, and Positive Convention director Pholokgolo Ramothwala. And then the art started again. A hilarious performance by Miss Diversity and her dancers, an incredible dance show by the SKY Gumboot Dancers (Soweto and Kliptown Youth)
and the evening concluded with Deep Night, a stirring modern dance piece in the main theater.

Drama For Life/Through Positive Eyes South Africa

2010-08-18T10:35:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow I get on a plane to return to South Africa to take part in the Drama For Life: Sex Actually Festival, which uses theater to talk about sex, sexuality, and HIV. I am so excited to debut a new spoken-word theater piece of mine called "Debbie Does My Dad" which tells my story growing up as the son of a former porn star. I'll be performing in the festival, having the privilege of seeing all of the other works, and being a judge for a national South African Poetry Slam called "Lover and Another."
Visit the Drama For Life Festival Website
I'll be trying to blog while I'm there. There's no way to know what the festival will be exactly, but I am so open and excited to see what it is. Time for a plane ride to go find out.

The last time I was in South Africa was in March, working with a group of HIV-positive people who learned how to use photography to share their stories. The result was a stunning photography exhibition called Through Positive Eyes which will be on display at the festival. I wrote about the experience of the Drama For Life blog.
Read the blog post
Visit the Through Positive Eyes Website

Using Humor to fight HIV

2010-08-18T10:20:00.000-07:00

I was in D.F. (Mexico City) this past month for work, collaborating with a local HIV/gay rights non-profit to create an anti-HIV stigma exhibition and campaign in the metro. While there I had the privilege to lead a theater workshop with a group of LGBT youth group leaders, showing them how to use humor to open up conversations about safe sex and HIV. I wrote an article on the workshop that the non profit I was working with posted on their website.

Read the article

Shotgun Art

2010-02-15T23:47:00.000-08:00

At my uncle's ranch a couple weeks ago, I had the opportunity to shoot a shotgun for the first time. Clay pigeons were all we shot at. And being the Berkeley native that I am, I saved the shotgun shells and made an art piece with them. It's in the western gun & flower aesthetic and is titled "Shotgun Wedding Cake."

An Open Letter to Pat Robertson In Response to His Recent Comments About Haiti

2010-02-15T22:23:00.000-08:00

Draft 1
Go Fuck Yourself, you insensitive, cold-hearted, son of a bitch.
Excuse me.

Draft 2
Dear Sir,
Please go shoot yourself in the face and roll around on the ground in the middle of a salt factory.
Damn, I’ll try again.

Draft 3
Dear Mr. Robertson,
Before opening your mouth and making a ridiculous inhumane claim that the earthquake in Haiti was their punishment for making a deal with the devil, please first admonish yourself for the ridiculous claim that you are a decent, caring man of faith.
And Fuck You.

Draft 4
If you insist on ranting like a deranged lunatic then, please at least have the decency to do it on a street corner.

Draft 5
One year before the earthquake.
At 10 pm in a rental car outside of the hotel in Palo Alto we sat.
Me, my older co-worker, and a student just months younger than me, just months returned from a trip to Haiti.

He had been working with Partners in Health, documenting people’s health conditions. A well meaning, well mannered, well groomed guy who watched malnutrition reshape infant bodies and then returned to his old life, but nothing seemed the same.
He sat in the back seat seeking counsel from my co-worker who had dedicated his life to his community,

I looked back at him and his strained expression, his mind buckling, bending, and twisting back over itself, trying to make sense of a world with good people that would let
American wealth and Haitian poverty coexist.
One year before the earthquake.

Wanting so desperately to be a good human being
I remember the weight in his eyes
When it sunk in how big a commitment it really is to work for a better world.
The images burned in his brain of people pushed to brink, this is not something you can forget.
And a good person can’t ignore those in need, right? Those in pain? Those in suffering? And it seems there is so much.

He didn’t have many answers, just the raw fullness of the most important question tearing and tugging at him.

It becomes a duty to fight for the team that’s losing.
A choice that’s not really a choice.
His eyes wide, must not have
Blinked for five minutes.
This all one year before the earthquake.

Before bodies already worn down were buried under a city fallen
Before harsh winds whipped at raw skin of newly made orphans
wandering Port Au Prince streets.
Before lives fell apart along with buildings infrastructure and order

And now with this tragedy we begin to care, finally.
I’m left mesmerized at what it takes to capture our attention and grab our compassion.

And I don’t mean that solutions are clear.
Still ravaged Katrina streets in New Orleans silence any judgments before spoken
But I hear ocean winds carrying aftershock reverberations and the cries of masses huddled hoping for food and water.
And I can’t feign deafness.

How can we help each other?
In the long run foreign aid leads to dependency and isn’t sustainable,
and that’s true,
but what are you supposed to do when people are starving now?

It is time to devote ourselves to this question, Pat. To ask finally, not only as nations, or as a people, but as persons, how can we actually help each other?

And it is time to sprint with arms full and empty them at Haiti’s feet, apologizing profusely that we are just arriving now.

Pat, here is a basic lesson in human compassion.

We are not saviors, we are not able to be. We are not the authority, it is not our place to be. But we are people, and people need help. So, we show up and we help.

Sincerely,
Bobby Gordon

Beads for Development

2010-01-27T08:02:00.000-08:00

When my girlfriend Halie went to Burkina Faso last year, I thought she would have an amazing time. I wasn't expecting her to co-found a women's beadmaking collective in a small village to empower the women and make the village more sustainable. But that's exactly what she did.

I'm so blown away.

Check out the amazing jewelry and support the women of Saint Jean, Burkina Faso at

Beads For Development Store

Haiti

2010-01-23T16:53:00.000-08:00

Allison DePasquale, a friend of mine from UCLA, is in Haiti right now. The following is a conversation that she had with Meredith Pierce, a mutual friend. Meredith deleted her own dialogue, leaving just Allison's words about what was around her, and I found it very resonant and wanted to share it. If you feel the same, please donate to help in the relief efforts.

http://www.facebook.com/notes/university-of-fondwa/earthquake-relief-for-fondwa/283604090756

[1/21/10 2:39:27 PM] Allison DePasquale: its starting to feel like reality, the first week was a dream

[1/21/10 2:40:54 PM] Allison DePasquale: i kept thinking i just had to get through that one day, and then i would wake up and port au prince would be back

[1/21/10 2:41:11 PM] Allison DePasquale: but now its hit that this is the next several years + that this world is like this

[1/21/10 2:42:49 PM] Allison DePasquale: it was one minute, and everyone's life is changed

[1/21/10 2:42:53 PM] Allison DePasquale: i cant comprehend it

[1/21/10 2:43:58 PM] Allison DePasquale: haitians are very religious

[1/21/10 2:44:16 PM] Allison DePasquale: and every shock we have, the whole city would scream "jesus, please jesus" in creole

[1/21/10 2:44:30 PM] Allison DePasquale: and i swear, it felt like it was god shaking the earth, and i dont even believe that

[1/21/10 2:44:51 PM] Allison DePasquale: we were helpless little humans

[1/21/10 2:45:42 PM] Allison DePasquale: yea, before this, i wanted to take away their religion

[1/21/10 2:45:47 PM] Allison DePasquale: because it seems like it hinders their liberation

[1/21/10 2:46:07 PM] Allison DePasquale: and makes them accept their suffering by rationalizing that the next life will be better

[1/21/10 2:46:21 PM] Allison DePasquale: i still think that, but emotional, and personally i would never take away their religion ever

[1/21/10 2:47:03 PM] Allison DePasquale: i dont know what they would do if they didnt have it

[1/21/10 2:59:06 PM] Allison DePasquale: sometimes its hard being here because i feel sort of useless without some skillks

[1/21/10 2:59:38 PM] Allison DePasquale: but my objective at this point in my life is #1 learn what life is like here, on the ground, with the people and #2 learn creole

[1/21/10 2:59:50 PM] Allison DePasquale: i need to sit here and be patient awhile to do those two things

[1/21/10 3:01:52 PM] Allison DePasquale: it has been so helpful to have your support

[1/21/10 3:02:00 PM] Allison DePasquale: and to see everyone caring so much about whats going on here

[1/21/10 3:02:31 PM] Allison DePasquale: on wednesday morning, around noon, i started crying out of anger because people were dying, just dying, bleeding, and screaming, and i expected something, someone to come save them

[1/21/10 3:02:36 PM] Allison DePasquale: an ambulance, a plane, something

[1/21/10 3:02:38 PM] Allison DePasquale: but the sky was silent

[1/21/10 3:02:49 PM] Allison DePasquale: and no one came

[1/21/10 3:02:55 PM] Allison DePasquale: i was so angry

[1/21/10 3:03:11 PM] Allison DePasquale: i am still angry, but to see so many people care makes such a huge difference

[1/21/10 3:03:47 PM] Allison DePasquale: yea i know, i know that no one coming on wednesday wasnt a lack of caring

[1/21/10 3:04:40 PM] Allison DePasquale: well its really a lot of the fault of the haitian govt

[1/21/10 3:04:47 PM] Allison DePasquale: they didnt make a statement for days

[1/21/10 3:05:02 PM] Allison DePasquale: except the pres who said in an interview that he lost his house and he didnt know where he would sleep

[1/21/10 3:06:19 PM] Allison DePasquale: yea, but at the same time, all the govt buildings were destroyed and around 30% of govt officials were missing

[1/21/10 3:06:29 PM] Allison DePasquale: not that im justifying it, but thats just how wiped out this city is

[1/21/10 3:08:11 PM] Allison DePasquale: i was inside, luckily the building didnt collapse

[1/21/10 3:08:17 PM] Allison DePasquale: because i didnt run

[1/21/10 3:08:25 PM] Allison DePasquale: it was just me, and i didnt realize how bad the earthquake was

[1/21/10 3:08:40 PM] Allison DePasquale: until i ran outside, and the 5 story school building that i usually see wasnt there anymore

[1/21/10 3:10:10 PM] Allison DePasquale: i ran out into the street, and was shaking, there were some men trying to pull them out

[1/21/10 3:10:14 PM] Allison DePasquale: and i ran to help

[1/21/10 3:10:23 PM] Allison DePasquale: but i swear i lost all my creole

[1/21/10 3:10:33 PM] Allison DePasquale: and i couldnt speak coherently

[1/21/10 3:11:12 PM] Allison DePasquale: so i just ran and got a shovel for them to use

[1/21/10 3:13:07 PM] Allison DePasquale: okay, well thanks, im really okay though

[1/21/10 3:13:26 PM] Allison DePasquale: i just run though what happened often just to make everything seem real

[1/21/10 3:15:40 PM] Allison DePasquale: yea, because like i said, at first it seemed like a dream

[1/21/10 3:18:48 PM] Allison DePasquale: [my mom] sends me emails …every day

[1/21/10 3:18:59 PM] Allison DePasquale: i feel so bad, because i know it must be so hard

[1/21/10 3:19:03 PM] Allison DePasquale: but i just cant leave

[1/21/10 3:22:03 PM] Allison DePasquale: yea, i cant leave them now

[1/21/10 3:42:13 PM] Allison DePasquale: i wish you could see where i am right now

[1/21/10 3:42:15 PM] Allison DePasquale: im in the middle of paup

[1/21/10 3:42:22 PM] Allison DePasquale: with like 20 people

[1/21/10 3:42:24 PM] Allison DePasquale: sitting outside

[1/21/10 3:42:27 PM] Allison DePasquale: in this new house they just made

[1/21/10 3:42:32 PM] Allison DePasquale: with electricity and internet

[1/21/10 3:43:04 PM] Allison DePasquale: and everyone is singing to this song that goes 'we are the ones, we are the children, we are the ones that make the world a better place, so lets start giving

[1/21/10 3:43:16 PM] Allison DePasquale: no, this is out in a now junkyard

[1/21/10 3:45:38 PM] Allison DePasquale: and making a sign that says "we need help" at the same time

[1/21/10 3:47:07 PM] Allison DePasquale: its just a neighborhood, they all lost their houses, so they are putting their things together to make a new little living place

We can only handle so much

2010-01-07T23:22:00.000-08:00

Look at our language.
Awesome is good.
Awful is bad.
Some awe is great.
But being full of awe is terrible.

my dad says it's ridiculous to try and understand
the whole big world
with these little brains that fit inside our relatively tiny heads.

it doesn't take too much awe to be too much, does it?

Fishing in Montana

2010-01-07T23:13:00.002-08:00

I was in Montana for the holidays, where I learned how to fish.

On the second to last day, standing in the snow on the banks of the river with half numb fingers, I caught the first fish of my life.

The experience filled me with so much awe and respect.

It was the polar opposite of trivial.

Taking one life and making it into sustenance for mine. The death of the fish was very real. But it was also an experience that overflowed with life.

Don't Go

2010-01-07T23:03:00.001-08:00

Boot camp? I thought you were joking.

You’re not. I listened too your explanation,

“It’s good discipline and I don’t have to join afterwards,” you said.

OCS Training, I never thought

I would be roommates with a marine.

I don’t get this.

I know how good a person you are,

Mind and heart, what part of you wants to sacrifice yourself for this?

You are no bully.

And now I am scared.

Scared to see you run off and join.

Embarrassed that I can’t stop you.

I closed my eyes that night and I saw you. Us. I imagined us as soldiers.

On the move, outside Tikrit sitting there in the aftermath of a car bomb,

The morning breaking into sweltering heat that we will not see the end of.

This is an open wound in a closing tomb

We will not get better.

We will not go home.

This is where our bodies have ruined

And our minds following soon

This is our last

Our time come to past.

Tense breaths give way only to no breath

This is an open wound in a closing tomb.

Desert sand blows over the body

Wiping clean the surface

U.S, army issued fatigue(s) already hidden disappear(s) completely

This is my nightmare matt. That you are at war lying on your back lost,

the human cost.

Earth shatters, what matters dematerialized

Mothers hold stitched material flags

Raise banners for lost sons

Burned up in dark deserts

This is my nightmare of dads in Baghdad body bags.

Our need to believe our political leaders is weakness of mass destruction

Led into biblical deserts but we will not walk out after forty years

We will not be stronger for it

We will just get the realization in hot desert sun that

This is where it ends.

I remember when we invaded Iraq.

I went to see Chicago that night with my parents.

Thinking about the war…and all that Jazz.

Conflict seemed distant and unreal

Like it could be playing in the next theater.

That was I how I wanted it.

Now It’s in my apartment.

Matt, I don’t want this.

Matt, you don’t want this.

You are too good a person to shift gears in killing machines…

Until you break, this game kills you or leaves you PTSD broken.

If you lose, someone dies.

I you win, someone dies.

I know you don’t want this.

I know your gentle soft nature.

Your selflessness, loyalty, your bravery,

You are the most honorable person I know.

And I know that’s what they want from you.

I know you’re intelligence, Matt how can you not see where they would take you?

How can you want to take part?

Take apart your own body and mind,

“I’ll be fine” you say

but what about the day you realize,

That you won’t make it this time.

And I’ll choke on my words burning my throat

because I would never dare say I told you so.

Shabbat Shalom! And throw ya hands up!

2009-11-29T13:30:00.003-08:00

graphic design by Halie Kampman

Alexander and the Shit Ass, Nipple Twisting, Ball Busting Fuck Awful Day

2009-11-11T13:26:00.000-08:00

(Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day...20 years later)

I went to sleep drunk with a girl from the bar and now my hands are bound with furry hand cuffs and I have two girls, three guys, and a donkey in my bed, and when I got out of bed this morning I tripped over a pyramid of empty Budweiser cans and by mistake dropped my sweater in the sink that someone had stopped up and filled with jungle juice and I could tell that it was going to be a shit ass, nipple twisting, ball busting, fuck awful day.

At breakfast Anthony found a piece of paper with a girl’s phone number on it and Nick found a 100$ bill someone had rolled up to snort cocaine but all I found was a used condom on my seat and a bill from the escort service.

I think I’ll move to Australia.

Heading to the car, I noticed three new parking tickets, and in the car Anthony let Nick have a seat by the window, our friends James and Kevin got seats by the window too. I said I had a pounding headache. I said I was hungover and needed the radio turned down. I said, if I don’t get a seat by the window I am going to throw up all over the backseat of my own car. No one even answered.

I could tell it was going to be a shit ass, nipple twisting, ball busting, fuck awful day.

At work my boss said he hated the project plan and that I had to start over from scratch.

There were two cup cakes in Philip Parker’s lunch bag and Albert had a Hershey bar with almonds. Guess who forgot dessert, and lunch? I was so hungry I had to eat the dog treats that I had forgotten to bring home the day before.

In the lunch meeting my boss said I was talking too much. On the afternoon conference call he said my ideas were unfeasible. At the end of the day he called me into his office and told me they were downsizing and could I pack up my things and be gone by 5 p.m.

I could tell it was going to be a shit ass, nipple twisting, ball busting fuck awful day

I could tell because Anthony called me and told me that I needed to pay the gas bill or it would get shut off and he would move out and Nick called to tell me that the escort service called and that I had to pay the bill or he’d move out too.

“I hope you sit on a herpes-infested tack” I said to Nick. "I hope the next time you get a double-decker strawberry ice cream cone the ice cream part falls off and some punches you in the eye, ties you up naked in a busy intersection and pees in your hair and the ice cream part lands in Australia."

I went to the dentist who told me I had five cavities, needed two root canals, and what were my thoughts about adult braces?

I went to the Hotsy Totsy bar and took 10 shots of Jack Daniels. The bartender said that it would be100$. I told him I couldn’t pay it. The bouncer told my face with his fist that I should have a black eye and threw me out into the street.

While I was waiting on the curb for the bus some asshole on a bike side swiped me and knocked into a mud puddle. I started crying because of the mud and the bum on the sidewalk said I was a crybaby and

While I was punching the bum for calling me a crybaby the Police showed up with their sirens on and made me sit down on the curb with my hands handcuffed behind my back. The handcuffs weren’t even furry.

I said I was having a shit ass, nipple twisting, ball busting, fuck awful day. The police officer told me to shut the fuck up.

So then the police offer threw me in the backseat and took me to the station where they fingerprinted me, took my statement, and gave me my phone call. I called Anthony who picked up and immediately told me he was "busy buying white sneakers with blue stripes and had to go" before he hung up.

The police threw me in the cell with a large tattooed guy named Damon who won’t stop staring at me.

I put my head down on the cold metal at lights out and pretended to sleep.

It has been a shit ass, nipple twisting, ball busting, fuck awful day.

Damon says some days are like that, even in Australia.

Unlike Fatherhood

2009-09-24T21:50:00.000-07:00

It’s rare when someone gets punched in the face and doesn’t seem to mind. Darryl was rare and in rare form. He’d taken down much more than his usual five Jack and Cokes, the evidence of which was more on his breath than in the way he walked. He brushed his dirty blonde hair out of his eyes. All the regulars at the Wettest Whistle knew how well he could handle his liquor. It didn’t occur to him until just before the knuckles made contact with his eye socket that this might be a bad sign in the long run.

Belligerent drunks seem to overflow with alcohol, spilling on the ground, their shirts, and the girl next to them. He wasn’t overflowing. It was more like he was absorbing it all. Not a drop hit the floor, his red flannel, or the overweight blonde girl next to him wearing a cheesy silver crown that said HAPPY BIRTHDAY with each letter getting its own shiny pipe cleaner antennae.

Jesus, that looks fucking ridiculous, Darryl thought to himself.

Cora was her name. She was celebrating her birthday in jeans, cowboy boots, and an unflattering blank t-shirt she wore instead of the white tank top because it was black, and that was supposed to be slimming, wasn’t it? She had bright pink hair that looked like it might have been many colors since its original hue.

The chorus of Happy Birthday was just coming to a close and most of the bar responded with a round of applause. Most.

Darryl turned to her and said, “Happy Birthday.”

As she was about half way through a bright smiled “Thank You,” he interrupted with “It’s clear you got some meat on your bones, but since it’s your birthday, I’d be willing to take you out to my car and screw you.”

She glared back at him. “Go fuck yourself, asshole.”

He wasn’t exactly sure what kind of response he was expecting and he didn’t really care much about the one he got. He went to turn back to his drink when someone accidentally bumped his arm on his way to the bar. Darryl’s drink spilled.

“Hey!” It came out even louder than he meant it. “The fuck’s your problem?”

“Calm down buddy.”

“I’m not your buddy,…jackass.”

Darryl pushed. The stranger pushed back. He cocked back and landed a right hook right to Darryl’s face. He saw the fist coming and didn’t move. He watched it come right at him, make contact with vibrating impact, and send him right to the floor. The birthday party moved to the other side of the room as fast as they could. He stood right back and looked the stranger in the eye. He didn’t move. The stranger paused for a second, not sure what to do,

“Cocksucker,” Darryl said, and then watched another right hook come right at his face, shake his whole body, and drop him to the floor again. He stood up and stayed stock still again.

The stranger stared at him, sizing him up the way most people do before a fight. He wasn’t getting anywhere. “What the fuck is the matter with you?” The stranger asked. Darryl breathed slow. The stranger paused, and then walked out of the bar. Darryl went back to his drink and wiped the string of blood from his face with a napkin.

It was 20 years ago that day. Shit, no, 22. And that fucking girl had to have her fucking birthday today and rub it in.

He’d replayed it in his head 100 times. They were just out of high school. Helen wasn’t supposed to get pregnant. Ofcourse she was going to get an abortion. That’s what you did if you got pregnant young. Right?

She didn’t. Darryl remembered how when she told him she was going to keep it, the sky and horizon turned into a ceiling and walls and started closing in on him. He pitied himself so much then. How could he have gotten into a situation like this? How could she keep it?

That was lifetimes ago. Now, he thought, Christ, it? I had an “it.” Not a son. Not a daughter. An it. The old story about women giving up children for adoption is that it’s easier if you stay distant. Don’t get attached, because it gets harder to let go. This didn’t feel easier. The utter distance just meant it was that more impossible to make it back to being a decent human being. He didn’t pity himself anymore. He didn’t deserve it, he thought.

20 years ago to the day he received a letter. No return address. In the envelope was a small white piece of paper that read, “You have a child. Goodbye.”

Darryl sat at the bar in the Wettest Whistle and took the last sips of his drink which seemed to dull the pain in his face just a little. He was an asshole. He knew that. But he would give an arm just to be a decent human being again.

He stood up from the stool and walked over to the birthday party, and looked the plump girl right in the eye.

“For what its worth miss, I’m sorry I said that.”

And he walked out.

Don't Worry, Be Happy Part 2

2009-09-22T21:56:00.000-07:00

My dad’s strangeness may have saved us until then, but there’s no “not worrying” before a little league Championship game. Everyone is scared shitless, not wanting to be the one to cost everyone the game. Doesn't matter how many times you play "Don't Worry, Be Happy". I went to bed that night, trying to play out the whole thing in my mind, and mostly just trying to breathe. My entire baseball bag completely packed and repacked with extra pairs of everything, just in case. Somehow I fell asleep.

I woke up nervous. I could feel it in every inch of my body and every breath I took. I was so relieved that at least I wasn’t gonna be pitching. I wasn’t at the center of it. I at least had the comfort of being a part of the supporting cast.

We got to the field early for warm ups. Harry’s van pulled up, and he got out to talk to my dad. My dad looked confused. Ian huddled in the passenger seat in the van.

“He sneezed,” my dad said.

“What? So?”

“So, you’re pitching. Apparently Ian sneezed last night and threw his shoulder out,” my dad said, letting on about his doubt about the validity of the injury.

Ian was 12. He was just scared. Great. I was 12. I was scared. And now I had to fucking pitch.

I was outside of my own body with anxiety. This was too much. This was more heat than I wanted. But there was no way out. My nose wasn’t the least bit itchy.

Fear had become anger. I felt so out of my league and the stakes so high, and I felt my blood boil at being let down by Ian, our batshit crazy leader, that all I could think was “If you’re gonna coward out of this and make me do this, then damnit I’m gonna do it.” I don’t know where I found it in me, but it was there.

I gave up only two runs on an error by our shortstop. After 3 innings, the most you were allowed to pitch in one game, we were down just 2-0. We were in it. I moved to catcher and one of our younger pitchers came on in relief. He didn’t have it that day. I sat behind the plate catching ball after ball, as the game was slowly given away to the better team. At first I tried to calm him down, to be a leader, but once I saw it was to no avail I resigned myself to sitting back there and biting back the disappointment in my throat as I had to keep throwing the ball back to the pitcher after another walk.

Losing stung. Debilitating and complete like a bulls-eye Jellyfish hit. The injury felt complete and final. I looked at Ian and I just felt sorry for him, and sorry for myself that I had put all my faith in him.

In the car ride home I was in pieces. “You know, I’m really proud of you. The way you got in there and pitched. That took guts,” my dad said.

The words made me itch. They felt consolatory. What you tell a second place finisher. Which is what they were. They were the last words I wanted to hear. I just wanted to crawl into a ball and wait until I got drafted again.

I’ve since grown up and moved away from the Bay Area. I never got to play for Kevin. I never won a championship. But I did have Bobby McFerrin.

Don't Worry, Be Happy Part 1

2009-09-15T22:47:00.001-07:00

I wasn’t supposed to pitch. When they walked over to me and put the ball in my hands, Bobby McFerrin could have been singing right in my ear and I still would have worried and been unhappy. Really, really unhappy. All season long I had been the fourth best pitcher on the team, third if you felt like being generous. And maybe another day it wouldn’t matter, but this was the championship game against the Astros.

“Why isn’t Ian pitching?” I asked.

The Astros were more like an All-Star team than a little league team. Erik Johnson towered over all of us and struck out hitter after hitter with such consistency that it was like he was working a turnstile at an amusement park. Daniel Crzernilovsky had a cannon for an arm at third base, and at the plate could tattoo the ball to either field.

Coach Kevin Burndt would have been the perfect cliché of the superior and evil opposition’s coach if had he been a cold dictator that made the kids on other teams happy they only had to see him a few times a year.

In reality he was a decent guy with a kid on the team, but he was so good that whatever he team he was coaching was instantly the favorite to win the championship. I can’t say what it was actually like to be on his team, but I would have traded my Super Nintendo, all of my baseball cards, and possibly one or both of my sisters if it meant I could have played for him.

On draft night, the managers in El Cerrito Little League individually called up the kids they had drafted to welcome them to their new teams. The draft was a process filled with politics and scheming that determined the next two years of little league. And to a twelve year old, it was the most important phone call that you would ever get. It might as well have been the President, or even a Major League owner calling. Every time the phone rang that night I sprinted from the living room, bumping into the walls, on my way to go answer.

When I finally got the phone call after the little league tryouts, it was from Mike, not Kevin. I was going to be a Twin, not an Astro. Each age group in El Cerrito little league was two years, so it would be another two years before I would reenter the draft. I was a Twin, and that was that.

Still, I remember the pride the day the hats and the uniform came. The black jersey with the yellow printed plastic and the black hat with a yellow embroidered “T”. They were cheaply made and simple, but they were the grandest of the grand. The black was cool and sleek, and the yellow shone brighter than anything I’d ever seen. I threw off my shirt and replaced it with the jersey, tucked the hat down over my hair, and looked in the mirror with wide eyes. I was a Twin, and that meant something.

Ian was the stud of the team. Catcher was my best position. Ian was both the team’s best pitcher and catcher. He was a big kid with a big nose and a bigger temper. He was chunky around the waist but could throw the ball faster and hit the ball harder than anyone around. It was a crapshoot on any given day however, whether he’d be ready to play, or be ready to throw a tantrum and end up pouting in his dad’s van. It was a crapshoot we had to bet ours seasons on, and to a 12 year-old boy, that meant betting absolutely everything.

Our second year in the league, we weren’t so bad. Actually we were pretty damn good. Ian was leading the way with his dad as head coach, and I wasn't so bad either.

We might have had a bunch of head cases, but we had a good team.

We also had Bobby McFerrin.

My dad, who was the assistant coach, decided that everyone was too nervous before the game, and it was making us play worse. His solution was to cart out a boom box to every game and blast “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” while we were warming up. Over and over again. Every game.

Other kids on our team wondered why the hell we were listening to this weird a cappella all the time. Other teams hated us.

Whenever I’d make it to second base, the opposing teams’ infielders would invariably tell me, “Your dad is fucking weird.”

“I know,” I said.

The other teams really did hate it. In fact so much so that it started to distract them and make us laugh, once it had become white noise. We stopped worrying. We started getting singles, and RBIs, and wins.

We made the playoffs. We made the championship game.

To be continued...

Cement

2009-09-08T23:39:00.000-07:00

The first afternoon in D.C.

I sit outside a closed coffee shop

watching construction workers lay cement.

They trudge and shovel in the slush of the mess

and it's tough to think that this will harden,

hold shape,

and become impenetrable.

But I know it does. Time and time again.

The eight men work

and I wonder whether any of them

write poetry or cry outdoors

as they smooth out the surface of the sidewalk into

the shape that will shortly

be as hard and dependable as their masculine stares.

The Return of Underwear

2009-09-08T23:15:00.000-07:00

I walk in the door, half undo my tie and pull the loosened

knot over my head.
I throw it on the table, think maybe I'll cook dinner,
go for bike ride,
go photograph,

i wonder if there are any good art shows open,

what should i do this weekend?

Coming home to an empty house, with her out of town,

my mind wanders.
I go to the kitchen to get a glass of water
and when I return
my breath stops for a moment because
I mistake my tie for
her black underwear

thrown haphazardly on the table in the living room.

I imagine the lace and the intent.

Yes, I love her. Miss her voice

and her company

going to the movies alone.

but, I miss her underwear too.

Jade Shames and The World Stage in Leimert Park

2009-09-01T12:43:00.000-07:00

RECOMMENDATION ON WHERE YOU CAN CHECK OUT SOME GREAT POETRY

When I was 16 I went to Los Angeles for the first time. I went with Youth Speaks to be a sacrificial poet at the National Youth Poetry Slam. I had no idea what part of Los Angeles I was in, or even that clear of an idea that there were different parts.

I performed in a hot crowded little venue that was filled with energy and history. When I say hot, it wasn't unhip, but there was one tiny fan and a lot people. To put it another way, we were sweating our butts off. I had a great time performing there, and then left. I hadn't been back in seven years, even though I just graduated from UCLA a year ago. I've learned that LA does have parts, and you have to mean it to get our your bubble. And it's worth it.
My writing mentor Noel Alumit invited me to go to a poetry reading by his friend Jade Shames at some venue called the World Stage. I had heard the name before, but didn't know much else about it. I showed up last wednesday. My jaw dropped. It was the same place I had been in high school.
The night was ridiculous. First of all, Jade is an amazing poet. He gave a great performance and I had to buy one of his chapbooks. His storytelling style and patience with developing images and narrative were so fresh. I was stoked to hear him read and meet him after the show. Check him out at http://www.myspace.com/jadeshamespoetry.
And then there's the venue. Jawanza runs the World Stage poetry night every Wednesday. It opens with a workshop at 7:30, followed by a feature performer, and then an open mic. It was hot that night. Jawanza said he'd "put on the air conditioning" and he opened the curtain to the back room. It was just how I remembered it. Hot, crowded, and filled with amazing energy. If you're looking for great poetry, or just a great time, go. Trust me. 5$ at the door. Worth 25$. Go.

www.theworldstage.org
4344 Degnan Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90008
(323) 293-2451

Family History

2009-09-01T12:08:00.000-07:00

A boat sits off the coast of Japan
in early August 1945, when
Little Boy and Fat man light up the sky.
The ground sits under a mushroom cloud
and 220,000 people die.

Victims to the American villain,
the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
have long been recognized as the
single worst use of weaponry,
the most costly
man on man attack on record,
the greatest cautionary tale of what can happen
when super powers escalate conflict.

A boat sits off the coast of Japan
in early August 1945
holding American soldiers.

I brought up the subject with my dad.
My dad,
The hippie that stayed in the commune to raise a family after everyone else left,
who got married naked,
who argued time and time again with his mother that Muhammad Ali
was a hero and not "uppity."
My progressive Berkeley in the '60s dad looked me
dead in the eye and said,
"I don't regret the dropping of the bombs on Japan."

what? What?

This is beyond stepping outside of the liberal script.
Further out there than ignoring the PC say this or believe that
I can't believe, won't believe these
words are coming from my dad.

He responds simply. clearly.
"My dad was in a boat off the coast of Japan. If they don't drop the bombs, he's in the
first wave of troops on the ground. He probably dies."

A boat sits off the coast of Japan
in early August 1945
holding my grandfather.

His hands must have trembled.
He must have fought to keep them still.
Mustered up whatever courage he could.

He must have known
why they were so close
to hostile land.
Gulped down his fate like
a brick in his throat.

a near certain death mission into Japan.

first waves don't go home.
they leave children behind to grow up alone.

He looked like such a young man in his uniform
and he must have felt like a boy.

I'm so proud of him.
If I were alive during WWII I know I would have served
with the same certainty,
a young Jewish-American fighting the Nazis.

But no matter how brave he may have been,
the news of the war's end
must have been such. sweet. relief.
Like heaven on earth.
Time to go home.
Like water to a desert wanderer
or more like the fulfilled promise of
stable safe ground
to an American in a rocky boat of the coast of Japan.

The gulp in his throat must have finally cleared after months
of breathing like it was a negotiation.

I can't tell my dad anything.
I understand.
What can I say to him as we drive to the supermarket together?
It's his daddy, and I get it.

And.
I crumble under the weight of wondering
how many died so that his dad survived.

Grandpa I love you.
And I don't know I could choose that.
I didn't. He didn't either.
A sequence of events he couldn't control
turned his boat around in 1945 and sent him home.

Then I do the math.
3 years later in 1948, my dad was born.
38 years later, I was born.

What can I say to my dad?
I understand where he's coming from.

Still, there's this truth
that if my grandpa's boat doesn't get turned around
my dad is probably never born.
And neither am I.

A lineage dependent on
being on the lucky side of terrible history.

I love my grandpa and my dad.
And this all feels so American.
This privilege just to be born at all.

In Tehran, I was a boy

2009-08-25T08:27:00.001-07:00

My name is Esther. When you meet me I am doing warrior two pose on a front lawn in Venice Beach. I am a Yoga teacher and have a body like a Diego Rivera painting. I am South Korean. I am also in some ways Persian and Canadian. I joke that I can’t do this pose or that pose because of my big ass. My smiles are not cheap. I have traveled far and wide to find them, and have come just as far to share them.

In Tehran, I was a boy.
Running around with the local children I would get into so much trouble. Backtalking to teachers, getting into scuffles on the street and dirtying my clothes, stealing a toy, some cherries, getting caught and chased down the street. My mother would scream and make a fuss about how it wasn’t safe for a young girl to be such a troublemaker. My mom thought it would be safer for me to be a boy. So she made me one.
When I was seven my mother and I stood in front of the mirror together. The light that crept in through the window landed on my long black hair. I didn’t notice at that time. My mother would tell me this years later. She cut my hair until it was not even an inch long. She took a bag down from the shelf and pulled out a new pair of trousers. She had me put them on and had me stand back so she could get a good look at me. I smiled at her jokingly and flexed my tiny biceps. I stood in the mirror looking at my new haircut and my new clothes. I ran the flat of my palm over the stubble where my hair had been, letting it tickle my hand. “Ok, works for me, I thought.” I ran out to play. And she raised me as a boy for two years.
My family was originally from South Korea, where I was born. My family moved to Iran when I was seven, keeping my memories of Seoul relatively few in number. I had just barely begun to grasp what Korean was, when I blinked and opened my eyes in Tehran. As a boy.
A week after getting my new haircut, my friends and I broke into the hotel pool while it was closed. It had been unbearably hot that day. Similar to how it was everyday. We had been kicking a ball around the street for while, but gave up before very long out of pure exhaustion. We sat in the shade, debating how to escape. How could you escape, the heat was a vast oppressive expanse with no holes or end. That was when I suggested we sneak into the hotel pool. We ducked in through the small opening in the gate, threw off our clothes and dove in.
The cool teal water replenished our young dried out bodies. We splashed around and competed in breath holding contests. When I swam under I could feel the heat melt off me and I could think again. I came up for air, wishing I didn’t need to, and my friend Pegah challenged me to a breath holding contest.
“You’re on,” I said.
We both dove under. When I came back up for air, a man was standing at the edge of the pool screaming at us. There was not time to gather our belongings so we had to flee in just our underwear. Fifteen of us sprinted down the street in our undies dripping, a sloppy trail in every direction we went, with the pool manager screaming his head off and chasing after us. The man eventually caught me, and dragged me all the way to my house where my parents opened the door to find a soaking wet child and an irate pool manager. My mom had to buy a new pair of trousers.
It took me awhile to get used to all of the women walking around in Burkahs. I remember walking with my mom in a crowd. I turned my head to look at street vendor and I lost grip on my mother’s hand. I turned back to find her and was confronted with a sea of black cloth-covered heads like rolling hills out in front of me. I shouted “mama!” and twenty women turned around to see who was calling. My mother ran up and angrily grabbed my hand, upset that I’d wandered off. Boy or girl, I was supposed to stay close. It happened again the next day.
One day I discovered her underwear. In the Middle East, there are tons of lingerie shops. Tons. There are also tons of women walking around wearing burkahs. That means that there are tons of women walking around in Burkahs and the sexiest lingerie imaginable. Head to toe covering hiding head to toe intricate lace, stockings, bras, and garter belts. I remember finding my mother’s red lace bra. I had decided to prance around the house with it as a hat. My parents were not amused.
We left Iran for Canada not long after that, and it all changed, again. In Vancouver, I would no longer be a boy. I remember my first day of school. I was nine. After my first class I went into the girl’s bathroom to go pee.
“Get out of here!” A girl turned and around and screamed from one of the sinks.
“What are you doing in here?” another girl barked at me, walking out of one of the stalls.
“No boys allowed!”
I debated pulling down my underwear to show them I was a girl. I didn’t do it. Instead I just turned bright red. As I sat in the principal’s office, stunned by what had happened, I ran the flat of my palm over the stubble and let it tickle my hand.
As the years went on, I morphed from being a stick figure drawing into a Diego Rivera painting. I have always been drawn to Diego Rivera’s murals. The characters, like the overweight painter, seem swollen. Their full cheeks and large thighs make the painted people seem expanded to hold in everything they’d been charged with communicating. I’m not sure how to name what’s inside me. I don’t know if it is my memories pushing in every direction, or if it’s hope for more. But what I see in these characters is what’s in me. It’s not that they’re fat. Even the skinny characters have the same bursting quality. They seem so full and rich that you could almost squeeze the two-dimensional images, like you could hold on safely to them if you were drowning.
I think about Diego Rivera when I look at my ass in the mirror. I look at my thighs and I feel strong. I grab onto them when I feel like I’m drowning in my own head. I hold onto the thickness of my own flesh and keep breathing. I feel like a human being. Like a woman. A strong woman. I do a lot of positive thinking when I just focus on breathing. I also think things like “my ass was painted by Diego Rivera.” Those thoughts that seem to expand and fill my body, pushing my skin out ever so slightly. The thought of being a boy in Tehran and buzzed hair girl’s bathroom shrieks, and this woman who looks back at me from the mirror.

My name is Esther. When you say goodbye to me I am outside of a nightclub in Santa Monica. I am from a Diego Rivera painting and wear a black dress. I still remember what my trousers felt like and the sea of black heads bobbing in front of me. When you say goodbye to me I will have still more traveling to do.

An Unfortunate Way to Say I Love You or The Love Note That Caused The Break Up - A very short story

2009-08-17T22:26:00.000-07:00

Baby,

I was thinking about you today, and, while picking my toes that itched with athlete's foot, a little flake of skin came off in the shape of a heart.

You're special.

-Desmond

.

The Washington Journey

2009-08-14T06:40:00.000-07:00

Most bloggers post more often than once every four months.
Now, I will too. This short story is one of the things I've churned out in that time.

The Washington Journey
by Bobby Gordon

It was such a relief when they loosened the straps, undid the buckles, and let their packs hit the ground.
The bright red of Oren’s waterproof North Face pants stood out against the earth tones of, well, the earth around him. He thought it was funny how much he stood out in the natural world in his backpacking gear. He was from the world. He always thought the boundary between cities and nature was an illusion. It was all the same, He was from here. But he also wasn’t. He felt like a kid who had just been away for so long that he couldn’t recognize his own hometown.
The sky was blue-grey-white, as if they were all one color blended together to fill the air with late winter becoming spring. The dark green grass blanketed the hillside with rocks dusted with frost and scattered like shiny marbles that had been cracked and abandoned but still made the light dance. The snow-covered mountains on the horizon filled their minds with notions of being on the brink. Beauty, birth and death in every breath, thought James.
James exhaled and could see his breath in the air.
“Cool,” Oren said.
“Cold,” James said back.
They were just stoned enough to find that funny. It turns out that wasn’t that stoned. They’d only taken a couple hits out of the bowl each. They were more high on “the journey” as they called it.
They went into their packs and in a matter of minutes had the fresh 2-person tent set up and were throwing all the food items out of their pack to start getting dinner together. Oren set up the small camping stove and got the water going for the rice. God, this is living he thought. Real, Actual living. James started cutting salami and mixing spices together in a small bowl.
Oren and James had both graduated the previous June from UC Berkeley. What a relief they had thought. No more midterms, finals, essays. School is out for-fucking-ever.
A couples months later they thought they were crazy for not finding some excuse to stay behind. Oren had a job working in a law firm in the city, 8-5, Monday through Friday, week after week. He woke up tired, not really coming-to until he was sitting at his desk, and then he was tired by the time he got home. He’d have a few exhausted hours, and then it’d be time to go to sleep and start over.
At first it was a novelty, being an adult. The meetings, the lunches, the business cards. But that didn’t last long. Pretty soon he just missed the length of those days when he had nothing to do. The weekday hikes, Tuesday afternoon beer pong, masturbating at 10 in the morning if he felt like it, and he tended to feel like it. Sitting at his desk on a Wednesday morning he thought, how am I supposed to do this with the rest of my life?
James didn’t have a job. At first it was a novelty. The weekday hikes, Tuesday afternoon beer pong, masturbating at 10 in the morning if he felt like it, and he tended to feel like it. But then the days got too long. His parents were screaming at him to get a job or an internship, or at least lock your damn door son if you’re going to take your dick out before lunch. College had at least given him a purpose. And it was a purpose where it was entirely respectable to get high in between classes and eat a whole super carne asada burrito from Gordo’s Taqueria in the back row of lecture. It was almost expected. And now, it was over. He felt like he had woken up at a party and while everyone had gotten in their cars to drive home and nurse their hangovers, he was in the kitchen drinking.
The wind picked up and blew the clothes at the top of Oren’ pack up the hillside. They both ran up to collect them.
“Shit,” Oren said.
The wind blew and knocked the pot over. He refilled the pot with water from his pack and moved the stove to a spot behind the rock.
Nature’s kitchen, he thought. I just gotta learn the right way to cook in it. That’s all. Not fully confident, he sat on the rock and kept watch on the stove. James was chopping up some vegetables and lining them up in a long lone on a rock. He worked fast trying to finish before the next gust of wind. He got the last one up and rushed to the other end of the rock, put the bowl on the ground and ran back to the other side. He knocked over the first piece of carrot and watched them domino all the way across the rock, knocking the last one into the bowl.
“YYYEEAAA!!!” he exclaimed, and then gathered up all of the fallen carrots to put back into the bowl.
They never said they weren’t going to be stupid. The point of “the journey” wasn’t to grow up how other people wanted. It was about redefining what growing up meant. It was about not sacrificing all the hours of your to a job, or to masturbating while pretending to look for a job. It was about really living. Standing on a peak staring out at the distance surrounded by peaks. That was why they were here. In the mountains of Washington. It was why Oren quit his job, and James decided to publicly not be looking for one. It was why they planned to only go into town every other week for supplies and spend six months away from jobs, parents, inevitability, just away.
“I left everything in elf-storage,” James said.
“What?”
“Yea. I moved all of my stuff out of my parents and that same night, around nine o’clock, I found this great place that had enough room for all of my stuff for just 100 bucks a year. What a great name, right? They sold me with the Neon sign outside.
“Where in the hell did you find this place?
“Oh it’s down on Ashby. I guess it’s either run by Elves or owned by Elves. I think owned, because the guy working there was normal sized.”
“On Ashby and Sacramento?”
“Yea, that’s it.”
“That’s Self-Storage, you retard. The S must have been burnt out. No wonder you couldn’t get a job.”
“Hey you don’t have to be such a dick. Just because you had a job fetching coffee and making photo copies doesn’t make you such a genius.”
They didn’t talk for the next fifteen minutes preparing dinner. They were in the expanse of the mountains, but it all of a sudden it felt like a cramped apartment kitchen.
The water started to boil. Oren reached and turned down the heat. The honeymoon wasn’t supposed to be over so quickly on “the journey.” Here they were, 23, both feeling burnt out as they exhaled out in unison and saw their breath in the cold. They looked at each other.
The stove bubbled over and the pot fell off again onto the ground.

Joshua Tree at Night and Dawn

2009-04-14T21:35:00.001-07:00

The desert leaves my mind spinning. The days roll out with a dry heat followed by a night that descends with an empty cold that chills the landscape until the sun climbs above the mountains again. Two extremes all within 24 hours.
In Joshua Tree there are many things that survive this daily reversal with ease. We did it with a lot of water and a lot of jackets.
I took shots at night and then woke at dawn to catch the change.

Throw

2009-04-07T22:06:00.001-07:00

A section from "Death is Messy and Inappropriate" a work in progress

2009-04-07T21:52:00.000-07:00

He wanted his dad back. So he tried to will his father out of the grave.

It is profoundly human to not know how to deal with death. So we bury the dead in black suits with white shirts and red ties in closed wooden boxes so that they look nice and nothing will touch them forever and ever.
We don’t know how to treat the dead so we treat them like they might still be alive somewhere inside the body. We dress them up in their fanciest clothes. We fight their decay. We hold close to the denial of the eternity of their gone-ness just as we clenched tight the body as it began to give out. As our own bodies threaten to give out, we ask to be buried in our nicest suits and put in a wooden box so that nothing will touch us forever and ever.
After decades upon decades, there are boxes in the ground filled with skeletons in black suits, white shirts, and red ties. Bones in Burberry. The suits fit loosely now. We had hoped the body would never condense to skeleton.

At his dad’s funeral Ellison wore a nice fitting suit. His hair was combed. And he had covered his face in peanut butter. At breakfast that morning he had taken it all out of his sandwich and put it on like war paint. No one said anything, and no one knew what to do about it, so they just let him sit there.

Model Cars

2009-03-17T01:12:00.001-07:00

They took me an afternoon.

Die cast plastic & paint
sift through five pages of plans
I used to build model cars.

With proper care, careful painstaking gluing and painting
they would have taken
days or weeks.

I was too anxious to finish.
It took me an afternoon.

Slap the glue on, make it fit.
Find paint that'll work
and no matter how shabby the little car looked
I always made the dinner time deadline.

So, how now can I be expected
to show up every day and
maintain a job and a regular adult life?

Untitled

2009-03-17T01:08:00.000-07:00

Remembering you is like
revisiting a fire the morning after
and hoping to find embers.
Sifting through the ashes for something
still alive
with the destruction.

A Tale of January - an excerpt

2009-02-25T23:09:00.000-08:00

The following is a scene from a one act play.

Scene opens in a coffee shop with ANGELI filling a candy bowl and JAMIE carving a pumpkin in the empty Starbucks. The couple have been living in the coffee shop for several months after ANGELI told JAMIE of her plans to break up with him upon leaving the shop. JAMIE is wearing the red jacket from Rebel Without a Cause, dressed as James Dean. ANGELI is dressed up as an old Hollywood starlet.

JAMIE
I don’t get why they can’t just call them small, regular and large. What is it, tall, grande, venti. Tall….

ANGELI
…It’s the most desperate holiday. It’s the beginning of the end and everyone gets one last chance to rush around and completely reinvent themselves before it gets dark and cold and everyone hibernates for the winter. People become Sailors, Policemen, Presidents, Batman, and Spongebob all in a desperate attempt to be something different, anything different. Only it’s all a lie.

JAMIE
Baby, just try to have some fun, and maybe you will. Check this out, who am I? (JAMIE pulls out a cigarette and does his best Dean pose leaning against the wall. ANGELI sighs) Take out your camera. Take a picture.

(ANGELI takes out a very nice manual digital camera and tries to find a good angle. She tries several different ones, and isn’t finding a good shot.)

ANGELI
The pose isn’t working. Try a different one.
(He tries a few different poses, getting more frustrated with each one. She tries different angles and takes a bunch of pictures. They look together at the pictures on the back of the camera.)

You’re just not photogenic. I dunno, I can’t seem to…

JAMIE
(very affected by the comment)
I know, I know.

ANGELI
God, its not really a big deal.

JAMIE
You don’t get it, do you?

ANGELI
Don’t get what? It’s a picture. So what if you blink, or have a weird expression? It’s a picture don’t worry so…

JAMIE
Do you get what it means to be not photogenic?

ANGELI
It means you look bad in pictures. God you always make such a big deal over the littlest things.

JAMIE
No. It means every snapshot of your life has something wrong in it. You’re smiling too much like an idiot, or your eyes are closed, or you just look ridiculous. I’m ridiculous. You look in the picture and you’re a little too fat or goofy or you’re drowning in a sea of peaches like it’s some surreal portrait cautionary tale. Why’d you take all those pictures of me at work. I hate them, and I know you do to. Not any more. We’re not stopping until I can look at a picture and... (Jamie gets angry and starts ordering her around.) Take that camera and make me look good. No make me look fucking great. Make Dean turn in his grave because I did it better. Stand there.

(ANGELI moves over to the spot where JAMIE pointed. JAMIE poses strikes poses hard. ANGELI takes a bunch of shots and doesn’t look happy.)

ANGELI
I don’t know you just…

JAMIE
SHUT UP! Your gonna take that camera and make me beautiful. (ANGELI goes to take pictures. Jamie walks over to her and grabs her wrist.) Take a picture so damn good that it makes you want to fuck me when you see it.

ANGELI
Don’t say things like…

JAMIE
…Do it. (He grabs her and kiss her hard up against the wall. He lets go and walks over to the center of the room and poses hard almost biting back tears.) How about now? Or now? Do you want me yet? Just make me... Make me. Make me. (He falls down, sitting defeated and crumpled where he was standing. ANGELI keeps taking pictures.)

END SCENE

Breasts - a short story

2009-02-16T20:34:00.001-08:00

Leo was saddened by all of the sexism that had dominated American culture since long before his birth. Women held down for centuries as subordinate, told they were only worthwhile if they looked good, cooked well and kept a clean home. Ideals of womanhood reinforced by images of starved and primped Victoria’s Secret models making women hypersensitive about being looked at. He was saddened. Not by the moral tragedy of institutionalized inequality or the long history of oppression, but because he was born into a climate where women’s breasts were not considered a viable hobby.

He just loved them. Peeking out from red tank tops. Hiding in sweaters. Biding their time not so subtly under thin t-shirts. Out in the open. When his teacher talked about concentric circles in class he finally paid attention.

His love was as simple and predictable as a child’s love of candy but people would think it was objectifying and crude. Still, if it were possible when he grew up, he wanted a job that somehow involved looking at least once at every pair of breasts on the planet.

When he first started seeing breasts in a more one-on-two setting he naturally assumed that the ones he saw were representative of the rest. In Gilian’s back room she had small nipples that just hinted peeking out from the areolas. Ok, so that’s what they’re really like, he thought. When Tabitha showed him in her car that nipples could be big round nobs perfectly situated he thought, Oh my god they come like that too?

He didn’t hate women. He didn’t hold them below men. He just thought they held magic between their shoulders and their belly buttons. That didn’t seem like such a bad thing. He was more than slightly annoyed at how society’s course had impeded him from following his dream. Sexism seemed like such a waste of time that just got in the way. Didn’t they know these women had breasts? What were these guys’ problems? He thought for a second that maybe it was jealousy. That’s a shame he thought. Maybe there should be a parade. It seemed like it would be a tough sell to convince women it was empowering though.

Senior year of high school he met Beth. The two of them had a lot in common., mainly a love of Beth’s breasts . She loved them almost as much as he did. In the photolab at school she would pull his hand over them and squeeze.

“I hear you have a new girlfriend son,” his mom said. “How is it going?”
“It’s great,” he replied. “We have a lot of the same interests.”

13LoveStories.com

2009-02-15T18:22:00.000-08:00

If you noticed that there's been a little gap since my last post, it's because I've been hard at working producing 13LoveStories.com, a marraige equality photography project with Gideon Mendel.

The goal of the project is to raise awareness for the civil rights of LGBT Unions and the result are 13 beautiful love stories.

I've shown a couple here, but go to www.13LoveStories.com to see the entire set of videos.

They are moving, inspiring, funny, and so important to see and share with the Supreme Court hearing oral arguments about prop 8 on March 5th.

It would mean a lot if you checked 'em out.

Best,
Bobby

Inspired by Frida

2009-01-25T21:44:00.000-08:00

There’s a Frida Kahlo painting
Where she is sitting in a chair
Having cut her own hair.
Formerly flowing brown hair on the floor leaves
a short boyish style behind.

Still holding some of her brown locks in her hands
In the caption she wonders about how
She liked herself with hair, and now without that hair she doesn’t.

A complete shift in self image.
Love to loathing.
Self-esteem is as fragile as to be torn apart by
a simple snip of small scissors.
All she did was cut her hair.

A few days ago I buzzed my hair.
I was in the grocery store today.
I ran into a friend who admitted she didn’t recognize me at first.
She said I looked great.
Everyone does.
My girlfriend said the haircut shows my defined bone structure.
I like myself.
Before my hair was sloppy. Uncooperative to combing and couldn’t wear hats with dress clothes at work so
I had to live with it.
See how with hair I didn’t like myself, now without hair I do.
Self-esteem so fragile as to be built up by
a simple snip of small scissors.
All I did was cut my hair.

You've Got To See

2009-01-20T22:52:00.001-08:00

Nothing in my closet is good enough.
This shirt has a smudge, no chance
These pants are wrinkled this crinkled button up
I can’t do this.

Thumb through every shirt, throw five in my bag,
I’ll choose later.

Pick jeans and slacks
Packing for this is too hard
I have to look perfect.

I give myself a fresh shave
Otherwise what’s the point of even thinking about my wardrobe

My grandma, gammy we call her,
Is so sweet.
But you better shave or expect some comment on it
It has been too long since I’ve seen her
Since my college graduation
She stood cheering and hollering in the hot sun and
I was beaming
So proud that she saw me get my diploma.

And here I am packing to go
See her, to be near her and my family

We don’t do Thanksgiving in November because
My dad hates crowds
So now we do Oktoberfest in San Diego instead.

It is so far from tradition.
No set dress code or really code of conduct
But I’m scanning my closet to crack the code.

I want to look perfect for her. Have to.
Fill her gaze as she’s filled my life.

There’s a picture my grandpa took of her. Bupa was a photographer.
He took this beautiful black and white photograph of her with her head
Leaned back, hair spread out glimmering
Her eyes gazing forward
Looking like a movie starlet,
Looking perfect.
Like Rita Hayworth, like what Scarlett Johansen dreams of
Eyes shimmering, the kind that you’d hope fall on you as you walk past
The pretty woman on the street.

These eyes watched me grow up.
Saw my birth
The youngest of her grandchildren
Saw my childhood soccer scrapes, the result of first painful dates
We’d fly to San Diego to see Gammy and Bupa,
The most exciting of exciting trips.
She’d see us and tell us how big we were getting.
Gam I’m so big now
How proud she was of us
Doubtful I ever heard a judgmental word,
Unless I didn’t shave.

So I shaved
Thumb through my clothes rack again
Nothing in my closet is good enough
Thumb through my itunes trying to find a rhythm
Distract my mind
They said its pressure in the other eye this time.

The surgery on the first eye made it blind
A rare complication
But contemplating the same surgery on the other eye
is more complicated as
my mom tells us how
“we’ll learn Braille if we have to.”

I know Gammy is scared.
I know she must be.
I gave her my little golem for protection.
Little metal token from a grandchild
Little concentrated good intention
If it can’t protect her at least the cold in her palm might remind her
She’s not alone.

Nothing in my closet is good enough.

My bag is strewn about
Socks and shirts
A few ties but no collared shirts.

Two pairs of shoes
I don’t know to what to wear for the last time you might see me.

I don’t know how to prepare the last image you might get of your grandson. The image you’d carry after eyes unwillingly close
Nothing is right.
I can’t prepare for that

You’ve got to see me grow.
I don’t think I’m done yet.

Gammy I shaved.

Gammy you see the good in me and
Make me believe.

I’ve been praying all day.
They said the surgery went well
And we’ll know more when they take the eyepatch off
Tomorrow..

While fingers cross for a night
I know how scared you are, Gammy,
How bare the emotion.

I wish I could cradle you.

I want to shout that If we have to, we’ll learn Braille together.
If I have to, I’ll write Braille poetry.

We’ll listen to music for hours,
I’ll tell you puns,
Whatever you want
I want to shout
But nothing much escapes my mouth.

I just unpacked my bag back in my apartment.
Put clothes back in the closet
None of them are good enough
And I pray.

Gammy you’ve got to see me grow.
I’m not done.

Gammy I shaved.
Gammy you see the good in me and make me believe.
You see the good in me.
You see.
You’ve got to see.

Berkeley (Hella Much)

2009-01-17T12:11:00.000-08:00

Fellow Berkeley artist Adam Stern and I freestyled a little collaboration about our hometown a a couple Fridays ago at the Om Cafe in Hollywood. Check out the video, and be on the look out for the next incarnation.

Cultural Jealousy

2009-01-14T21:29:00.000-08:00

I don’t speak the language.

In the first hour of being here I tried to order a hamburger
and ended up with a glass of bubbly water.

They were out of hamburgers.
When the waiter tried to explain the other options in Portuguese
I got flustered,

so

I gave up and just asked for a water.

I’m staying in a house here with four Germans
so I’ve learned as much German as Portuguese.

Still I feel this desire to go out and buy a flag.

Portugal 2008

There are 15 definitions for “to lose” in the American Heritage Dictionary - a short story

2009-01-13T22:58:00.001-08:00

The Following are two excerpts from a short story. To download the entire story Click this Link

1

It didn’t take long to find Sal standing on the beach. Cowboy hats stand out in Oahu. His boots and balled up socks were in a pile a safe distance from the water and he was just standing there, his ankles barely wet. The ocean looked as though someone had put a few drops of blue food coloring and one drop of green into the expanse.
Hawaiians are used to seeing mainlanders come and stare for long hours at the ocean, in awe of that much beauty in one place. No group of tourists is allowed to leave until someone in the party makes a comment about how amazing it would be to live there, surrounded by water and sunsets. Hawaiians listen to people talk about how amazing it would be to live there all the time. A lot of them want to leave.

Sal wasn’t doing any of that. He was staring at a spot about two feet out in the water when Wes walked up. The dinged leather of Sal’s aged face was a sharp contrast to the youthful smooth of Wes’. When Wes shaved he looked seven or eight years younger. He had shaved that morning.
“What ya lookin’ at?” Wes said.
Sal pointed to the spot. Sitting a couple feet below the water was a single solitary sand bag. The great big ocean, and one fifty-pound bag of sand. The kind they would use to protect the house when the river would flood back home. The top was tied off with a cord and the excess material was flapping back and forth as the waves came in and out. He had been standing there for the better part of an hour, not sure what exactly to make of it.
“I s’pose that’s a losing battle,” Wes said.
“Yup.”

......

6

By all accounts the footballer Zinedine Zidane was one of the best around. Correction. By all French accounts Zidane, or “Zizzou” was the best around. By all Italian accounts he was a hack with a dirty whore of a mother. Nobody gets to have everyone say nice things about them. Nobody.
Objectively speaking Zidane was at the pinnacle of the game for a long time, playing key roles for professional superclubs and leading the French national team in multiple World Cups. He was on the field when France won the ’98 World Cup in France, and he captained the team that made it to the Finals against Italy in 2006.
The lights were bright that night on the crisp perfectly trimmed pitch. Everyone in the world was watching, but Zinedine was used to that. You had to tune it out and play the game. Doesn’t matter if it’s the World Cup Final. Doesn’t matter if it’s your last game. Stay focused, stay calm. That’s what you tell yourself. You don’t always remember.
Within close earshot the Italian Marco Materazzi muttered something to him. No one else heard it. Everyone would ask about it later. Everyone would want to know what had caused Zidane to turn and headbutt Materazzi to the ground. It wasn’t much of a surprise when the referee sprinted over with his whistle blowing wildly to pull the red card out of his pocket and send him off. France lost in penalty kicks. Not everybody gets to pick how they finish. Not even the best.

Zidane was given a suspension. It was known before the game that he would retire after the match. He was still given a suspension.
People who don’t know soccer, know the guy that headbutted that other guy in the World Cup. Nobody gets to choose how they’re known. Nobody. Not the best, and not hacks who are born to whore mothers. Neither of them.

Deep Wounds

2009-01-10T19:05:00.000-08:00

I always wondered how animals recover from deep wounds
No hospitals in the forest
How do they lick their wounds and live?

There comes a moment to live or die
stand or fall.
This Fall right now
I imagine a fox somewhere torn twisted
bleeding on pine needles.

Surivival is continuous work.

But limbs don’t ache forever.
How do they stop?

Somehow they scar,
Old animals have these limbs that work somehow.

I stare into the mirror
At the freak of this wound
And I wonder how animals recover from deep wounds.

Don't Go

2009-01-10T18:51:00.000-08:00

Click the link below to download a spoken word track. This poem is written with the hopes that all military overseas get to come home NOW.

Don't Go

This is my plea to all yes on Proposition 8 voters

2009-01-08T08:00:00.000-08:00

It doesn’t affect you
The law accepts you
No one expects you to really feel this,
Except me.

Because it doesn’t affect me either
Because either of us could easily ignore this
Because clenched fists on Wilshire will surely dissipate
At some point in the night
And you can go on about your business
So this is my plea.

My boss wears a wedding ring.
Been with his husband Peter as long as I’ve known him.
The two of them are sophisticate eloquent elegant adults
Who have committed their lives to one another
Their union is as deviant as your parents’ union
Egregious only to the fact of death do us part.
The two of them raise two beautiful children
They are a family.

I show up at work after an Obama victory in the election hoping to celebrate.
Prop 8 in the back of my mind
I walk into the office ready to pop open two Martinelli’s bottles.

I see his wedding ring.

We pop open one bottle for Obama and leave one unopened until he can call himself a married man in the eyes of the state.
It is a tiny gesture that feels small and trivial and it is all I can do.

My boss wears a wedding ring
Treats his children with love and care
He is a father, picks kids up from swimming,
He is more of a father, more of a husband than most straight men and
He is forced to hide the pain at work that all he can do is not give up hope
And he is pretty good at at it
And I can not do anything but make minute gestures that can’t mean much.

The irony is too much.
A high minority voter turnout
Elects the first African-American President in a major victory for civil rights and
Votes yes on prop 8 because of Churches’ influences.

I have no slogans to share.
Cleverness seems as inappropriate as
Simply celebrating our forward thinking in this election.
I wish I could.
David I wish I could ignore prop 8.
Because before the results were in I felt proud to be an American
for the
first time
without conditions.

But it stares at me and
Slaps you in the face
That
Hate remains an acceptable political position.

It seems perverted how used to this you are.

I want to say I’m sorry.
But that feels young and naïve.
I am young and naïve,
So I say I am sorry.

I am sorry to my coworker Noel.
A writer, a mentor,
I wish there was something I could give you.
I can see you breaking inches below the surface as
We drink the bubbly cider celebrating Obama
And the drink tastes sickly and sweet.

You are the sweetest man I know.
A role model of how to be kind to other people.

I want to have an answer for their ignorance.
Help you find enough love to counter balance.
I am young and naïve and I love you.
As you search for love and dream of marriage
All I can do is catch you at the office door and squeeze you for a moment as
You walk out.

All I could do for Johnny was hold him.
A beautiful student dancer,
The hurt bubbles out of his tall body
I can see his frame shaking with it.
Pores leaking with “how could they do this?”
I stopped him in the hall.
“I love you,” was the only useful thing I said,
though I said much more.

Johnny is young. Johnny is not used to this yet.

So this is my plea.

Don’t let him be.

The slogan is not new and robbed of power by overuse
But still simple and true
If you are against gay marriage, don’t have one.

I know this one thing to be true.
If you are worried about how gay marriage will affect you,
Please understand this.

To David, Noel and Johnny,
Your life could not be

Less relevant.

There is no agenda with you on it.

You have Nothing to do with this.

These are my friends,
These are their lives,

You are not required or invited to take part.

All I ask is that you stop restricting parts of theirs.

This is my minute gesture to my friends.

To you, this is my plea.

by bobby gordon
Nov. 7, Los Angeles, 2008

Greetings from Sunny Los Angeles

2009-01-04T22:38:00.000-08:00

This is my senior thesis at UCLA, entitled Greetings From Sunny Los Angeles.

Amateur High Dive

2009-01-04T22:13:00.001-08:00

Amateur High Dive seems like a random name for a blog of writing and spoken word.

I chose it for a simple reason. High diving is an activity that takes precision, focus, and a monumental amount of training. A person really should spend years upon years in preparation, learning the exact technique for each dive in order to complete it with the grace and beauty intended. Otherwise there could be a painful series of bellyflops and awkward spills into the pool.

I bellyflop from time to time.

It would be great if you could go through life always having the time and ability to prepare. To take on every challenge with a calm sense that you know you are ready for it. And for a lot of things that is true.

But I submit that for the truly important life changing instances, there is no preparation. For the moments that really make up our biographies there is no preparation good enough. There is no getting ready. The moments just come, with your heart in your throat, mind buzzing and the entire world rushing at you.

No precedent. No muscle memory. No training.

You make it up on the spot. You kiss a girl for the first time. You bellyflop. You lose your virginity. You swan dive perfectly into the pool making a tiny splash. You go off to college. You stand on the high dive and wait for the fear to go away. It doesn't, so you jump anyway.

Later you call it a memory.

I am an amateur high diver.

So that's the story behind the name.

Check back, every week there'll be new poems, stories, videos, songs.

Feel free to leave some comments and let me know what you think.

or contact me at bobbyg.8@gmail.com