Category Archives: society

More on Sobriety and Art

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Once again, I am in a place where I am looking for something I cannot seem to find. It seems that Buddhist philosophies speak a lot to the human condition. Find a middle ground between the highs and lows, detach from expectations, accept what is. Suffering is an inevitable part of life. Acceptance is key.

I found a temporary solace in going to support groups, but now I am back to my reality, mainly, what steps do I need to take to get to where I want to go with my art, and where exactly do I want to go with my art. This is something I need to take action on myself, no one else can do it for me.

I ranted a little bit about AA in a previous post on Sobriety and Art. I haven’t really changed my mind about much of that, but I have found that I missed something key in that post. AA is really about alcoholics and addicts sharing their experience with others. The cornerstone of the whole program is one addict helping another. Where the hell else can people down and out go and find a group of people willing to just listen? Not many places. In this, the group is a great resource for people seeking recovery, support and friendship.

But, like with any group of people who are not well, you can get lost in those rooms. You can find yourself avoiding action in your real life, sequestering yourself away from making new friendships.

AA is good because it is inclusive, but bad because it can be very insular. As a whole, the friendships you make in AA tend to be incumbent on your participation in the program, just like any church. And a lot of times, people get rid of the drink or drug and continue to just act like assholes. But as long as they keep sober, they encourage staying in the same old behavior.

Humans, in groups, tend to act the same, no matter what the group.

No religion or support group, unfortunately, can assuage the reality that I am here, responsible for my own actions. I decided a long time ago not to pick up a drink. I am not powerless over whether or not I choose to take a drink. If, however, I choose to take a drink, I do not know what will happen from then on out, and I decided a long time ago that I am a purist and not willing to take that chance. I am questioned a lot by normal people and recreational users who ask why I had to quit completely. That’s why. I don’t know what will happen, and the last few times, it wasn’t fun, exciting, life-enhancing or pretty when I did decide to use substances as a coping mechanism. For some people it works. Not for me so far.

That being said, it is hard to find sober artists, writers and musicians to hang with, and I am truly struggling with that again. It’s important I don’t spend a lot of time around substances, because then I feel left out and bored by the people I’m with. It’s not fun for me to watch someone leave the vacancy behind their eyes while I am sitting right there, due to a chemical rush. It’s not jealousy, more like, “Dude, you just left the building while I’m sitting right here. Could you be present for a little while at least?”

I wanted to speak again to art and sobriety, because that seems to be an important topic for me on this blog. I attract a lot of people here who are sober or in recovery, etc. I do recommend AA or rehab to anyone trying to get out of their dysfunctional behavior with drugs and alcohol, but I can’t fully endorse BIll W’s program of action. I’ve done it myself, and I’ve had sponsers and sponsees, in fact, I’m currently doing that whole thing just because I don’t know how the hell else to fill up my time, but there’s something in my heart that says, “Don’t linger long.”

I need to get out and see the world. I believe, for me, quitting substances was a personal decision. AA gave me a support group and built-in instant friends, and exposure to people who were willing to let me hash out my problems, but there is such a thing as AA overkill, and getting annoyed by the shaky logic of AA dogma.

There is a lot of good in those rooms, and a lot of good in those books, if you take them all with a grain of salt and never stop trusting your own gut and intuition. It seems a lot of people in AA believe that relationships are a bad and addictive thing too. Relationships are a human desire, and they are fun. There’s a program for everything these days. Relationships, sex, marijuana, gambling…the problem we all have is life.

I was moaning and kvetching about AA once and a friend talked to her sober writer friend about my laments. This writer friend told her that AA is awesome, and it’s one of the last fully functional anarchist groups in the US.

I’m not sure I would classify AA as anarchist. There are definitely rules to follow, and you really aren’t accepted into the group until you follow these rules. I haven’t seen the rules really hurt anyone…looking inward and reflecting seems to be a good thing. The problem I have is when people stop trusting their own selves and decide that the group should decide for them what to do.

I don’t know, argue against me on this, tell me why you’re sold on the program as more than a short-term solution where people rush to your aid when you’re down in it and need quick help. I’ve always had conflicts with the actual steps and the book, a lot of it I read and I’m just like, “WTF. This is dated.”

I also know that I become like who I spend time with, so it’s important for me to not spend much time around people using drugs or alcohol, unless it’s a structured event where I’m playing a show or know sober people in attendance at a party. I don’t keep alcohol or pills in my home, I don’t keep many friends who would encourage me to use a pill to escape my problems. AA is a good place to meet other sober and crazy people.

Like anything, there’s good and bad, and no one can tell us the answers. Mainly, I stay sober because, as I’ve talked to other sober and not sober creative people about, when I use, I get off my path and lose my art. So it’s a personal choice. Knowing my art is a big part of why I exist, the meaning I have ascribed to my existence so to speak, I can’t in good faith allow myself to experiment with things I’ve already proven don’t help my life in any way.

The Island of Spam, Plastic and Palm Trees

(My sister will probably enjoy this post this most out of my readers…so I dedicate it to her)

I love Hawaii.

A little friend I made today...

My paternal grandfather grew up in Oahu. He had a giant picture of his home island prominently displayed on the wall in his El Cerrito house. When he grew old, he fantasized he was in Hawaii (a little of the old senility). He forgot all about my grandma, remembering her only as a good friend of his.

***

Today, when I was walking, I was rubbing this silky Hawaiian lotion into my arms, commenting on its awesomeness, when all of a sudden a bird took a dump on my arm and I almost rubbed bird poop all over myself.

My dad always talks about how when he came to visit Hawaii as a kid, he got tropical fever, suffered through a giant storm, and got stung by a jellyfish. He’s not a big fan…

***

I’ve been to Hawaii three times now. The first was for my Honeymoon, (it was around $1000 for the 8 day hotel stay and two plane tickets combined).

We had a blast, explored the hell out of Waikiki, and didn’t think too much about anything, just walked a lot. We visited the north shore once.

The second time we came, we kind of realized how much of a trap Waikiki is, and spent the majority of our time swimming, snorkeling and exploring up on the North shore with my friend Cami, who, because she lived here, acted as our tour guide.

There's us! All young and cute at the Polynesian cultural center in 2004.

It’s been about seven or eight years since I’ve been back, and this time I am bound to the south shore, due to having three days of kettlebell activities based around a gym in Honolulu.

I tell you, being on a budget here is very hard. Most gurus who tell you to relax about money and to picture abundance don’t seem to have lived on a tight budget. Actually, most people seem to live with that “buy now, pay later,” philosophy. It’s so hard to break it.  And Waikiki is a place set up to take your money. Something like, “I’ll just go to the store and buy a slice of pineapple” isn’t as easy as it sounds.

The roads and crosswalks are very confusing here, too. If you go the wrong way, you end up going in circles and circles and circles. Even the tourist guide book lament the roads “built by dummies.”

***

The level of consumption here in Waikiki is on par with Las Vegas. Most food is shipped in. Even the native products, pineapple and coffee, aren’t originally native to Hawaii—they were introduced in 1813 by Don Francisco de Paula y Marin.

Two movies come to mind: Wall-E and Rango.

***

Hawaii has a long and interesting history, from the first Polynesian settlers on.

***

Thinking of all the plastic and paper being used at every restaurant, towels being washed in hotels, toilets being flushed, makes me cringe. Tonight, when I told the lady at the store I didn’t need a plastic bag, she acknowledged me, but then forgot, and started again to put my stuff in a plastic bag, and I had to ask her again not to give me a bag. The next lady I said no bag to asked me, “Are you sure?”

Yes. Sure, sure, sure I don’t need to see another plastic bag littering the highway or floating in a giant pile in the middle of the ocean.

Here, you have to assert a lot. I’m beginning to realize I’m a bit of a pushover, afraid of hurting people’s feelings. No, I don’t want the entire spa pedicure, I want the simple pedicure (oops, we gave you the spa pedicure, double the charge, sorry!) And there are so many stores, it’s hard to see the palm trees.

It makes me sad, the consumption. There’s a part of me that wants to run towards the lush green hills behind the beach, start walking until I hit the north shore.  My friends get annoyed with me because I babble on about other nicer spots. (Shut up, Kyrsten, STFU is what I keep hearing).

***

My sister said on my last post that she wishes she could see the Hawaii my grandfather knew. I’m assuming that many of these hotels, condos and shops were built up post World War II, during the 50s, when people were so tired of struggling and fighting and scrimping that consumption and abundance of material goods seemed like the answer. (I am so tired of all those years I ate beans, gimme some spam and white bread!)

McDonald's menu in Waikiki

Hawaii is  like the Spam capitol of the US. 1.3 million people live here, and 7 million cans are sold per year.  6 cans per person worth of spam. Even McDonald’s sells Spam and eggs.

From Flak Magazine: “After the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor to start World War II, supplies such as meat grew scarce in Hawaii. Minnesota-based Hormel Foods saw a market and introduced Spam to Hawaii as a meat that didn’t spoil. It stuck. “Because of limited land space and no shipping, their love of Spam grew and is still one of their most popular foods,” said one Hormel spokesman to a Milwaukee paper.”

Go Spam. The product I found in the back of the cupboard growing up, when there was nothing else to eat. The thing I could only take two bites of before getting salty, greasy sick, is Hawaii’s favorite food. Slathered in soy sauce, pan fried, it’s what’s for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Speaking of soy sauce, everything in Hawaii seems to be covered in soy sauce.

And this elusive coconut with a straw I keep looking for…point the way!

Today, I am going to visit the Ala Moana mall, the shopping center I’ve grown to use daily by default, it being the closest to the hotel I am staying at (for free, thanks to awesomeness), and get some crazy Japanese sweet potato based foods my sister would adore, as well as some bubble tea and some thai iced tea and some freaking mochi. Hawaii is big on Japanese food, being a major Japanese tourist attraction as well as an American one, so I feel kind of at home in the Japanese restaurants and stores (except for the soy sauce thing, as it has wheat in it) due to my sister always introducing me to every facet of Japanese culture growing up (I think she’s really Japanese).

So, basically, I’ve definitely enjoying the sun and what palm trees and beach I’ve seen, but I long for the Hawaii of everyone’s dreams, the Hawaii away from the endless strip malls, consumption and waste, where it doesn’t cost money for “ocean view,” where the beaches aren’t divided hotels, where I can find ahi tuna sandwich and shrimp trucks and coconut pies (even though I can’t eat the pie or the bread parts).

***

Oh, by the way, I met an interesting traveling surfer from Maui named Charlie on the way over, had a little bit of tooth decay that was a bit wafty, but he was very nice, said if I’m ever in town to stop into a place called “Wings,” in a city whose name I cannot recall, something like Peeai. We talked a lot about the American dream as we were flying into the airport, while I looked at the tropical parts of Hawaii broken up by buildings and reservoirs and suburbs, and how it’s so wasteful, how things need to change. Brigham Young University, located on the north shore of Oahu, used to just dump all of their trash and waste products into the ocean—up until the 70s.

What kills me is that I feel sometimes like I am the only one who cares about plastic bags and too much flushing of toilets and all of these things. My problem is this: we live on a beautiful, wild crazy planet. Why don’t more of us care about keeping it around for much longer than we will at the production rate were are trying to maintain? We’re smart people, can’t we think of another way? Why do you keep asking me to ignore our own blatant disregard for humanity?

The reason I write is because I notice these things, and I care. It twists me up inside. I don’t choose to live frugally most of the time only because I have to. It’s also a lifestyle choice based on the part of me that is tired of endless production.

And I know that a lot of these islands, like Jamaica and Hawaii, depend on the tourist economy for so much. I’m not knocking that, I just wish there was a better, greener way.

My frugal, street-kid style is something people like to comment on, constantly. Yesterday, my coaches coach pointed to a car he said reminded him of me:

My new ride

Juliet said my purse looks like a “street kid” purse.

My friend Kirsten gave me this years ago.

Once a street kid, always a street kid, I guess. I get a kick out of reducing my footprint on the world, what can I say? I’m still a bit of an anti-everything existentialist anarchist gutter punk.

***

Finally watched Young Adult last night, too. It was awesome. Go Diablo Cody. You are brilliant. Now I’m going to have to read your memoir, too. (Joe Clifford wrote a review of the movie a while back. Usually, I only see something if a friend has already screened it for me, I’m picky).

Ok. Off to compete this afternoon with sunburnt arms. Made weight, so it’s 102 reps with the 35 pound bell I’m aiming for…now I’m fighting a cold I caught from Charlie coughing next to me on the plane and battling nerves. I asked Sarah, my roommate here at the hotel and fellow KB competitor, why I get so anxious before a competition and she said, “Because you care.”

Bonafied Berkeleyite?

My computer has been down for a while again (monitor gave out, waiting for new one to come.) and everything I own (books, cd’s, dvd’s, clothes, who knows what else) is in boxes. Then there’s this family funeral thing, starting two new jobs (and maybe another internship, I still don’t know) and I am completely lacking in the cool topics on my blog department.

I reminisce to the month of November when I was so bored at my job that I could come up with some new and engaging rant on a daily basis – whether it was eating bananas in front of my coworkers to sippin syrup. As I don’t have the old job or health care for that matter, neither of those topics are relishing at this point.

In other news, Berkeley is a trip. You just don’t know until you’ve lived here. There are so many overgrown yards, gray-haired activists, crazy bike riders, Obama posters as big as cars and extremely overpriced grocery stores I just can’t keep up.

Every other week there are people protesting in trees, with the police building barricades around the trees for the sake of who? The people in the trees? The people outside of the trees? Is everyone in Berzerkeley just up in the trees? Egads. I don’t know.

My dog loves the neighborhood. So many places to defecate. So many cats to sniff. So many bicycles to be afraid of. So many randomly barking dogs tied to the front steps while their owners are gardening who jump at us only to be choked to death and spun backwards by the leash while their owners hold their jaws closed and go tsk tsk Foo Foo!

We found out the windows in our apartment had been painted shut, along with the beautiful brass hinges from the original doors. Luckily my Father had a trusty pocket knife and his handy screwdriver “Big Bertha”. We were able to open a couple of the windows. Not that we necessarily want them open. Because of all the greenery there are more varieties of mice and spiders than I ever saw in the valley.

If I come back as a spider I am surely in trouble. I have smashed a brown one, a black and red one, some daddy long-legs (oh and please, save me from the pest-rights people who are going to come banging down my door as soon as this goes live) and amply sprayed a very large ugly brown something until it finally backed away from the window. I think it would have helped more if I had an amplifier. “BACK AWAY FROM THE WINDOW SPIDER! I CAN SEE WHAT YOU’RE DOING AND I DO NOT APPROVE!”

The former tenant was growing eggplant, edamame, peppers and long japanese cucumber, none of which have survived. There are surrounded on all sides by Milk Thistle and my dog. I could find more use for the Milk Thistle than I could for the defunct rotting vegetables my dog keeps hacking up on the carpet.

We plan on growing stuff – as soon as we obtain a rake and a spade and all that gardening stuff. I want to grow cherry tomatoes and some cool herbs. For cooking. Not for the other stuff those Berkeley people smoke. Na-uh. I’m wack enough as it is.