April 23, 2012 in Uncategorized
Leading
Leading At the end of boxing class our instructor will sometimes lead us out of our work out room to sprint the length of the gym, up the steps to [...]
read more
Advice for a Slam Poet Part I—The Audience
Take your space and wait. Let them come to you. Don’t be too eager. They want you. They want you to entertain them. They want you to show yourself. They [...]
read more
Leading
March 16, 2012 in Leading
Leading
At the end of boxing class our instructor will sometimes lead us out of our work out room to sprint the length of the gym, up the steps to the second floor, down the hall and back, then to the steps and finally back home to where we started. It takes all of two minutes to run the circuit. At the first sign of her lead the athletes in the group, mostly women actually, will sprint out ahead, pass others and push themselves to finish first. I am often passed. While not last, I am never one of the earlier finishers. This is not the beginning or end to the excellence, strength and energy these athletes demonstrate class after class.
Last week, one of my boxing buddies was struggling behind me, as we reached the second floor she stopped and began walking. I encouraged her to keep on jogging, however slowly and I stayed WITH her, not ahead, just encouraging her and bringing her home far after the performers were back home and we were just rolling in.
But last night I was close to the leader when she first motioned us out, and I was determined to stay with the front of the pack. I was passed several times, but I pushed and by the time I completed the circuit I was close to the front. My teacher gave me a big high five and said “Nice job! You were sixth.”
Sixth. I was in the performer’s crowd, the achievers.
The lure of front running is there, like the high school lunch table where the popular kids gather to eat. But I think I was happier sticking with my friend. There is a time to break away and there is a time to bring your community with you. We are great in this country about celebrating the sprinters and the champions, but what do we lose when we lead and we don’t look back? Who might we be leaving behind? What would a word of encouragement do? What would if feel like to sacrifice a record or personal best because that struggling comrade might be more important on this evening than a moment of fleeting glory?
What I take from this, is a greater need to know and claim my intention. There are moments when I need to do my damned best to push out to the front or work to get there. Those are the days when we need to make ourselves matter without compromise. But I know about the other days too, about the days when a good friend needs to hear your voice near her shoulder, when you match footsteps, even when you could go faster, because you are doing more good near the back of the pack then up front in the limelight. That is another way to arrive home and it is a great way to finish.
Advice for a Slam Poet Part I—The Audience
December 14, 2011 in Audiences, Slam Poets
Take your space and wait. Let them come to you. Don’t be too eager.
They want you. They want you to entertain them. They want you to show yourself. They want you to show yourself in an entertaining way. They want bone fragments, hair follicles, blood samples and a story they can believe, a story that hurts, a story that redeems. They want to look at your thighs and ass when you are speaking. so work out.
They are not fair. They are not just. They want the message delivered at a sexy tempo. They want you to seduce them. They are not interested in your mission. They want to feel good. They could care less about your cause. They want to feel good.
They want to relate. If you are black you can call your white audience racists. They are okay with that. Render them racists in rollicking stanzas in an antithetical thesis that seizes them in guilt and “I got it” euphoria and they will thank you for honoring them in redeeming light.
But they are unlikely to put too many of you on the same slam team much the way that the first black family or office mate feels welcome but the next ones become a threat because there is only so much goodness and gracious to spread around and fame is a limited resource.
If you are white you better make them feel good you better feel good about feeling good you better confront in a funny way and inspire because the truth is most of them are broken most of us are broken most of me is broken most of us have a handlebar dangling a slack chain and not enough air to fill the tire. Poetry is the air. They want to fill up, we all want to fill up, so we can invent the wheel. They want you to invent the wheel—again.
They are strangers. Never forget this. Even when they are friends they are strangers.
They are not the love you are missing; they will never be such a cherished union. They are a mass of conditionals packed into chairs, snaked between the growlers and chasers, goblets and mugs and you are both broken.
They are witness, your confession, the insight, the rant, the grief, the lost cause, the fragility of your concerns crystallized in audio decibels that shatter like a moonstone and Peridot and diamond flakes into the blue of the audience night.
Your failures are precious stone, hard-earned always chipped, never perfect, and they will haunt you until you face them, golden flakes of truth chipped off your unchiseled sides.
Young poet, I have not won them over and I crave them like a love-sick teen. They are not good for me, they are not a real success they are the casual sex of oratory, offered orally and yet the Europeans know that even casual encounters can be intimate truly intimate–but the intimacy fades—sometimes in minutes, sometimes in hours, never more than days.
You cannot go back. The next audience is different. They smell like mud and tangerines while the last smelled like whisky, or abuse, or chard, salmon or shallots–sautéed.
I have not won them. I hate that I need them, and what I say, is not nearly as important as who I am, and we poets don’t get second chances to be ourselves, so go out there and be who you are take your space, make them wait and don’t try to entertain them just entertain them because they’re broken and you are broken and I am broken and someone needs to fill the tires
in an entertaining way.
The Next Leap
December 5, 2011 in Poet Traveler, Risking
It gets harder.
That line was one of the last ones from the final episode of Quantum Leap. Sam leaps into a bar outside a coal mining settlement only to discover that he has not leaped into another person, he is himself and everything, including his purpose, is put into question.
Sam keeps asking questions as he tries to adapt the same role he has known leap after leap. It doesn’t work. Sam is not in a familiar place for a familiar reason. The bartender is not any ordinary bartender, he is more the station agent, warning Sam that the work is about to get harder if he accepts the purpose that has been set before him.
That line, that moment in the story, gave me chills.
I have, with purpose, by intuition or by blind hope, pursued a path that is still less than clear. The older I get the more imperative discovery becomes. That which I avoided, discarded, averted, left behind, returns and the messengers become more relentless and the purpose, uninterested in compromise.
Our calling(s) evolve. They demand more of us. And this is one reason it is important to allow a wide berth of kindness. I don’t think I can thrive if I am haunted or replay hard-driving critical ghosts of the past. We need to create a safe space for our most wonderful and creative selves to emerge and engage the world. Otherwise, angels look like demons and we resist essential impulses that could set us free upon our best path. That path may not be the easy one, the familiar one, the one scripted over many years and many chapters. But just because it gets harder, doesn’t mean it can’t get better and by better I mean the deep exhale when deep in ourselves we say “Yes, I am finally doing it” the things that I know I was meant to do, to see, to live.
The older I get, the harder it gets and the more I am convinced this is the way to travel because the rewards are so much deeper than the ones of my earlier “episodes”. So, on I go. I’ve heard the warning, and I am heading into the very direction of the deeper work. It gets harder.
One beer, then let’s get started.
You In?
November 30, 2011 in Physical Practice, Tai Chi, Vanilla
Are you in? I don’t know that everyone has to ask that question. I believe there are plenty of folks who love a pursuit, jump in, knowing it is right, and become the snow boarders, runners, yoga practitioners, second basemen, zumba instructors, tai kwon do students and countless followers of other disciplines, without a lot of angst or trouble.
Are you in?
I have ducked in and out of the rigors of physical practice for years. Once the runner, the tennis player, the table tennis hopeful, and the epee fencer, The time comes where the next level of commitment beckons, not just on the physical plane, but on a deeper more personal pathway. Something in me pushes to dig, in learn it, whatever “it” is, become that athlete I felt I could be, settle in and take the ride.
Are you in?
What is it, to be a writer, a true writer that accepts this as a life path, as we way of being in the world, as listening and writing daily, regarding my inner world as worthy of outward expression?
Are you in?
That was the question my tai chi teacher ask my two nights ago when I told her I wanted to buy the video of Grandmaster Chen Xiaowang on Tai Chi. She knew and I knew, that I have been flirting on the edges of the art for nearly a year now. I have practiced on Sunday nights and then started all over again from the beginning the following Sunday. Something in me recently, however, has begun to stir. I have seen a new tier, a new plateau that is in sight now, and I can’t get there by maintaining. That plateau is defined by greater rigor, more confidence in my capacity to strive and the belief that I can drop the 60-70 lbs I will need to be become more efficient, more daring, more powerful without putting the constant pressure of extra weight onto knees that have borne that burden for too many years.
So I said yes, and soon after called out, somewhat incongruently, “I am not a dabbler!”. There are worlds to investigate, many paths to explore and commitments can come too early for sure. But there are moments when we need to step in, to be in, to answer yes to the question and live with the consequences and rewards of commitment.
I’m in.
Scaling Down
November 23, 2011 in Numbers, Poems, Risking, Weighing Down, Words
For more years than I can remember I have started each morning by weighing myself. My day progresses based on what that number tells me. Have I progressed, regressed, avoided the consequences of an ill-timed snack by exercising? The scale has become my oracle and my tyrant. Tomorrow morning I will begin my day without a number. This is a foreign, unsettling experience, but it is time for me to begin living without a perpetual early morning assessment. Many years ago, I wrote the poem below. Finally it is prescient.
No Weight
There are no numbers left
to look at,
there are no weights
that can measure
the success of me.
There are no numbers
to step up to
or step into
or
step on to.
I leave this morning
without a scale,
a weight
a measure,
a shadow that
I keep looking
over.
I have none of this
today
just a reflection
and the suspicion
that grief
is a fluttering thing
too light to sink into
anymore.
“No weight!”
I hear myself saying
and I want to
turn back
and step onto
something
get aboard
and wait for
the pin
or
the digital reading
to size me up
one last
time
for old time’s sake.
But I can’t make that move,
won’t raise my foot
to step up
into another number.
I am facing the
world
without a number
and this is the most unfamiliar
place that
I have ever been
this simple
space between
the scale
and the front door.
I may be huge
out there,
I may be small
I may make an imprint
or—
not at all
but I will not
listen to
another
number line
or some other
media voice
trying to take
measure of me.
I have a choice
and I choose
to live
in uncertainty.
The fat of me
and the thin of
me is
just fine with that
slender thought.
I’ve got a world
to live
and I’m not
waiting
anymore.
First Evening Shoot For Slam Town: Flawless
November 18, 2011 in Evening Filming, Pool, Slam Town, The Messenger, Twynn
Okay, so we are not a well oiled machine. We sure do make things interesting.
At last night’s shoot I arrived twenty minutes early for the call, only to realize the “stunt” radio that we were using was back at home which includes a remote. I took off down Hwy 16 leaped back into my house, grabbed the remote and back into my car and heading toward Fircrest.
Upon arrival I call our Director of Photograph, Travis, who is deeply embedded in traffic coming out of Seattle so the rest of the crew and performers prepped the “home set” (Elijah, Six Deep the Messenger’s House) for the shoot. Our director of photography arrives around 7 pm,. loads out all of the lighting and sound equipment, we spend considerable time prepping our light look, attach the battery pack to the lavolier mic and…nothing. Check batter, pack…light is green, check the little tube connector with a watch battery…no way of knowing. Take it out, I rush out to Fred Meyer, where no such size battery exists and then to Rite Aid where a guy named Fierce finds the one battery left in the size I am looking for. Rush back to house. Insert battery and…nothing,,,wait, yep, we got sound.
We shot the living room scenes, move to an upstairs shot of a startling daemon birth, and then to the kitchen where every rule around conserving food and substituting alcohol (wine) with red dye, is summarily ignored. It took Six Deep three tuna sandwiches and four glasses of wine to get the cut right and perhaps, just perhaps, the little mind blank at the end of his sixth take may have been influenced by a nice $13 red.
Our call was for 6 PM. We were finished on this “2-3 hour shoot” by 11:30 PM. We were tired after a very long day and we decided (with the exception of Chloe who was heading back to be with her little boy) to… well do the most obvious thing..head to the North End Tavern for a couple of games of pool. I bought the first round, a pitcher of Blue Moon is you must know, and Oliver and I shared the dinner special of ribs and slaw with beans and cornbread. Elijah surprised Corey with some slick pool play, although I think Corey would take him in a match with bucks on the line.
Oliver our grip, is finding some new creative life around all of this so it was great to see him so excited. He offered some directorial advice in one of the kitchen scenes that was spot on.
One short day of shoot left (short shoot, does that really happen?) Then to setting a sound score and getting our narrator’s voice on recording as she returns from Florida where she is going to college.
So third shoot day passed without incident…um…yeah. The smooth report of some smooth professionals, at least three of which play a decent game of pool.
The White Shirt
November 17, 2011 in Heavy Bag Boxing, Lineage, Masters, Physical Practice, Tai Chi
Most of the time in Tai Chi, I wear a light weight white shirt. It’s automatic. Sunday comes, I head to the closet, pull out one of the white athletic shirts and feel ready to head up to Seattle for three hours of qigong and tai chi, maybe even a bit comforted by the choice. Recently I ask myself why the white shirt was important, and got the answer swiftly.
I immediately thought back to Dave Schenck. As I was discovering stretching and tai chi classes, Dave became my first true martial arts teacher. I had others, but he was the first in which I bought in to being his “student”. His studio became a safe haven, where I stretched out, practiced a rather active form of Tai Chi and applied form, and started to feel that I might belong in the lineage, however tentatively. That lasted for about two years before I headed West from Ohio to where I live now in Tacoma, Washington.
Dave is gone now, a victim of prostate cancer. He passed when he was 57 years old, just seven years older than me as I write this passage and it looks, from his pictures, like he was in damned good shape until near the end. Dave was not an extremely educated man, but he was learned, very respectful of his art and lineage and he understood the importance and discipline of practice. He was also kind and many women, perhaps more than men, came to him to learn and to feel completely respected and honored in his dojo.
So I wear white, because I honor Dave. I honor my lineage, however informal that may be. I bring a little of my beginnings into a practice now with a teacher who is anything but a beginning style teacher. As kind as she is, she challenges us to go deeply into the experience of the art form, to feel what we learn, to remain available and to stay with our moments, however imperfect we might be mentally. She feels like the “next” teacher, the right one, the one (albeit twenty years later) that was supposed to come after Dave for me. I am grateful, if not a bit apprehensive and challenged by this call to deepen. But I am heartened as well,
I “wear” Dave, my martial roots, in Kim’s dojo. I have not discarded or forgotten my beginnings, nor am I languishing there. On some level, it is getting harder, mentally if not physically, and perhaps because I am older, I understand the stakes and my mortality within those stakes a bit better now. I need my foundation and it comes in the form of a light weight white shirt, wicking fabric, that joins me with a man who died about three years ago, but has stayed with me even when I had not consciously thought of him in nearly two decades, except in passing.
So, perhaps, it is more than attire. Our teachers who bring us to physical practice, who awaken us, not just as for the sake of playing a role, on a team or event, but as part of a discipline–they remain in our muscle memory. We are influenced, we are altered, we are brought aboard, and those sequences, those ways of moving, those ways we hold ourselves, they stay with us. The lineage is passed right through our skin into our muscle and bone and gait and carriage and execution of each practice we pursue. Think of one “movement mentor”, one “be in your body” teacher. Think about what he or she taught you, what she modeled, what he provoked or inspired, and remember, you are a living composite. You have the ability to evoke the best of your teachers and bring that influence into the next dojo, or gym or yoga studio or softball diamond or soccer field, or heavy bag studio, running path or swimming pool. You are a vessel holding the influence of many who bothered to take time inviting you to be a physical being, to live in your body, to awaken and engage, to strive, to live consciously and physically. Whatever that history is, wear it. Wake up, drop down into your lineage and to head to your next stop, wearing what you have lived and what lives within you.
Next Sunday, I wear the white shirt.
Slam Town Episode Three Moves to Third Day of Shooting
November 16, 2011 in Dowen Hill, Episode Three, Jake Achilles, Jonah, Koreo, Slam Town, Twyla, Twynn
This week we initiate our third day of shooting for Slam Town, Episode 3: Divided by Five. If core d’spirit is any indication, this could be the best episode so far. We have a two camera shoot, actor/writers have been stepping up their game and this episode is by far the most layered. Really good team process here. Meanwhile the original score for Slam Town has been enhanced for a full orchestra and is being considered by a mid size city symphony orchestra conductor. I have a very good feeling about how this one is going to turn out while all of us continue to grow in the process. I will add some photos from the video shoot in a few weeks to give folks a flavor, so stay tuned. The episode features The Messenger, Jake Achilles and Dowen Hill along with some new arrivals in Slam Town including Katarina, Twyla, The Minister Jonah, and the Media Daemon (demon?), Twynn. Keep your eye on the refrigerator…something looms.
Slam Town: A View From the Golden Age
November 12, 2011 in A Review, Slam Town, Words from Mario Smiraldo
I waited as my father endured the annoyances of a lap top computer, ear buds dangling from his ear, as he survived his early and perhaps only, computer experience.
Mario Smiraldo, my father, was finally watching my two episodes of Slam Town. The credits rolled on episode two, he pulled those damned ear buds out, looked at me with a pained expression and exclaimed: “I don’t like it.”
He went on to tell me that he could not get into the characters, that they seemed impenetrable, that the “entertainment” of the piece was missing and that he found the whole thing perplexing.
Ten years ago I would have been disappointed. I listened and it did not matter. Slam Town continues.
Since that first conversation, my father has gone into more detail. He was raised in the golden age of film, where the goal was to entertain, not educate. He has some heavy criticism for many modern film projects. If I were to condense those criticisms, I would quote these:
“ Indulgent. Intellectual. Superficial. Love and the human experience are missing.”
And yes, I DO go to be entertained. One of my favorite flicks is “Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle” and you can bet I will be heading to Christmas sequel and most likely WITHOUT my girlfriend, who would not be caught dead watching that drivel. But I can’t pursue a genre that is not in my gut. While I would LOVE to write comedy some day and go off in other new creative adventures, Slam Town defines itself to us little by little and we keep birthing new ideas, new episodes and new artists to join the writing crew and cast.
What is odd to me, is the sense of calm I feel about this. Slam Town has an identity to me and the others involved with the project and we are not looking to construct it for mass appeal, but to follow the projects own logic and see where it takes us. Yes, these characters come with baggage, the interactions are not completed or satisfying in a conventional sense, storylines and motivations are implied and we are learning how to be filmmakers by the seat of our pants.
But we know we have something, and this thing is not easily appreciated by those steeped in the lessons of the narrative and aesthetics of the golden age. I don’t imagine the project to be either significant, or insignificant, it just is, and we have had a hell of a lot of fun producing it, with all the delayed deadlines, poets and filmmakers dropping out while new ones drop in, and a sense that we are creating something together, inch by inch, as we navigate full time jobs, equipment limitations, a fledgling director (me) and a project that requires just about every writer to perform their own work as they execute the mosaic of each ten minute screen play. That’s okay, we can hang with that.
So there you have it, the first official review of Slam Town: “Indulgent. Intellectual. Superficial. ”
Who knew a bad review could have such a calming effect?
