Yearlong Writing Program 3-16-05

I want to post an overview of the process--new people have joined (judging by posts over on the discussion group) and I want to give them a chance to jump on board.
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Lifewriting is a specific tool designed to connect the inner and outer worlds of the writer. You will use short stories to internalize the techniques, even if your ultimate goal is writing novels or plays. For plot structure, begin to understand the Hero's Journey, which we've already gone over at length. It is the only plotting technique that also mirrors the path of our lives, and therefore has special resonance. For characterization, use the yogic Chakras, which I consider to be the most complete map of human psychology ever devised. These two tools form an "X" and "Y" axis bisecting a 360-sphere which represents the total human experience. This sphere can't be painted perfectly in language, but by engaging with the aspects, we can begin to grasp it subconsciously--this is why both writing and life are arts, not sciences.
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The Chakras, related to Maslow's heirarchy of human needs, suggests that until lower needs are taken care of, it is hard to evolve to higher levels. Thus, in many ways, stories are about people attempting to resolve issues that are basic in order to move on to higher states of being: survive so that you can love. Conquer fear so that you can speak your truth. Heal your heart so that you can become more spiritual, and so forth. The way to internalize this is to use the Chakras to examine your own life. Where are there holes in your own being? Where has fear crippled you? Where have you lied to yourself? Choose such issues, and build fictional stories about people with similar issues. By helping your characters resolve these issues, you are building bridges between your conscious and unconscious mind, and promoting your own personal growth--as well as the evolution of your writing skill.
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It is suggested that you have personal goals in the three basic arenas: physical health/fitness, personal relationships, and career. Only by having measurable goals in all three can you begin to sense the way the world reacts to your behaviors, and begin to calibrate--to create an accurate map of your reality. With such a map, as painful as it may be, we wander in an anaesthetic haze, comforted in our lies about ourselves and the world, until the sands of our lives drain away. I STRONGLY encourage you to set such goals, and begin to notice what happens--both positively and negatively.
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I further suggest that you need a way to drain the negative emotions from your life. Two fine methods suggest themselves: meditation and journaling. Meditation is supreme, but can be too confrontive for those with seriously impacted emotions. For those, try keeping a journal of your dreams, becoming sensitive to your inner language.
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This is the Lifewriting technique in its baldest state. We zoom in for close-ups, I show how applying the balance model to various issues works for me, I talk about my own life from these perspectives, I invite you to speak back. That's what this blog is about.

Steve

Hostage (2005)

I'd heard that Hostage was a loser, and was pleasantly surprised. ThisBruce Willis vehicle (actually, its kind of an anti-Bruce Willis vehicle, which means it's like a Bruce Willis movie, only married to your uncle. Sorry) deals with a police negotiator who flees to the hinterlands with his family after a catastrophic failure. There in the canyons of Ventura County, he encounters a nightmare scenario--a family held hostage by crazed whackos. Complicating the situation is the fact that the father of the family has files needed by the Mob, which kidnaps Willis' family to keep him in line...oh, you know the drill. Tense, bloody, mean, and ultimately satisfying in a cheap-thrills kind of way, I'll give this one a B- for most folks, and a B for those of us who like it a little wet.

Conservatives and Liberals

Because it always generates a certain amount of controversy (and also because I'm addressing the power and emotional chakras), I thought it might be interesting to pause and look at the question of the Liberal/Conservative split. One of the problems, of course, is one of definition. The Conservatives have been so successful at defining Liberalism in purely negative terms that Liberals have started calling themselves "Progressives." But what do these terms mean? My guess is that Reasonable members of both camps have very different definitions from those who are radical on either side. I thought it would be interesting to open the floor and allow readers of whatever stripe to define these terms for us, just to see what comes up.
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My personal thoughts on it (and I've addressed some of this before. ) I think that the political schism is actually not political at all--it's spiritual. That it is actually a secular version of the "Nature-Nurture" argument, or even more basically, the "Does Essence precede existence, or does existence precede essence" argument that has been raging in Western philosophical circles for about three thousand years.I'm going to try to define what I see as the differences without coming down on one side or the other--meaning that I'l try to be balanced in terms of what I see as the positive and negative aspects of each.
1) Conservatives. The Right seems to lean toward the "Nature over Nurture, essence precedes existence" position. The soul exists in a relatively mature form before entering this world. Our inner nature determines our actions more than our environments. Thus, abortion is seen as the murder of a human being, and the death penalty is seen as an appropriate punishment: the criminal has displayed his essential nature, is responsible for his actions, and must be punished accordingly. The punishment is sometimes seen as ultimately good for the soul. Social programs for the alliviation of poverty are seen to be of limited benifit--the poor and criminal classes are displaying their innate characteristics, and no external conditioning will have much effect.
2)Liberals. The Left seems to lean toward the "Nurture over Nature, existence precedes essence" position. Our souls are amorphous and unformed (at best) before we enter this world, and the conditions of our upbringing create us. Thus, abortion is the elimination of a bit of tissue that MIGHT turn into a human being, but currently is not. The death penalty is seen as unfair because society and conditioning are partially responsible for the behaviors. Social programming can and does modify negative behavior, and alliviate poverty.
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POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE ASPECTS OF EACH:
1) The Right tends to be more "Masculine"--protective, differentiating, wall-building, armoring, us-themism, heirarchical. More religious (although not necessarily more spiritual). In times of war and national stress, almost any society shifts toward the right--it is a survival response, and those who don't have it, didn't survive unless they were living in the marginal areas of the world: atop mountains, in deserts, on islands, etc. Tends to be symbol-based. Believes that wealth tends to accumulate in the hands of the blessed and brilliant. A negative: 90% of the racists I've ever known had right-wing politics. This, I think, is a factor of the heirarchical thought patterns--X is better than Y is better than Z. Talks about the "golden days" of America when there was more freedom--almost always unconsciously refering to a period when there was more freedom...for white males. They often don't even think about the fact that the "golden days" often included lack of voting for women, slaughter of native Americans, slavery of blacks. Ah, well...
2) The Left tends to be more "Feminine"--embracing all, centering rather than armoring, "we're all one family," cultural relativism, spirituality not necessarily linked to religion, little-guy over big-guy, wealth accumulates in the hands of the greedy and corrupt. Talks about a "golden period" of America yet to come--where all are "equal" (but, of course, some animals are more equal than others...) but often subliminally women are considered superior. Tends toward re-distribution of wealth through government pressure. Anarchists, communists, and such hang out in this part of the spectrum.
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I have seen no monopoly on intelligence, courage, patriotism, or honesty on either side. The right tends to lable too much--the Left tends to lable too little. The Right indulges in more general name-caling (Liberalism itself turned into a dirty word: liberals are "Traitors, idiots, mentally deranged. Bumper stickers say: If they take our guns, how will we shoot the Liberals." Etc. ) In comparison, Liberals tend to attack individual ideas and persons on the Right, but I don't hear as much blanket condemnation of the entire idea of Conservatisim.
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There are two competing views of the world, and the future and past of America. I don't think either side loves our country more, but I think the Right thinks it does. I don't think either side has a monopoly on compassion, but the Left thinks it does.
The litmus test. #1: One overhears the following conversation: "My sister is marrying a nigger. What's this country coming to?" You have to bet the mortgage. Quick: what is this person's likely political leaning?
#2: You overhear this conversation: "America is the worst country in the world. Our so-called leaders are idiots, and so is anyone who voted for them." Quick: what is this person's likely political leaning?
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And don't try to tell me you don't know what I'm talking about.
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Anyway, those are my thoughts. Yours?

Steve

Physical stuff

I haven't written much about physical stuff for a while, and almost leaped over it to talk heart-space.  The mention of Nicki seems to do that to me!  So a few thoughts:
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I'm working out five or six days a week, always taking Sunday off. The Bikram yoga is going well, and I'm going to experiment and see just how good it is at restoration and recovery.  The target: a club-bell "Century" workout.  I've tried for almost a year to approach Density training with the "Bruiser" clubbell, and found that my body just didnt' want to recover from it.  I couldn't get enough work on my joints and stressed tendons to effectively recover.  The Bruiser, although weighing only 45 pounds, has a massive amount of torque when you swing the bastard. I was going for a move called a "Gama Cast" which is sort of a figure eight, passing the mother back over  your head and shoulder.  Killer.  The goal is 100 without stopping.  A "density" workout, a plan that is popular on the Kettlebell and Clubbell forums, has  you doing 200 reps within a 40-minute workout, starting with 40 sets of 5, then 35 sets of 6, then sets of 7, and so forth.  It is insanely taxing.  Now, Bikram yoga claims to be the biggity-bomb at recovery.  I'll let you know.
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Aside from that, it's Silat djurus multiple times a day, looking forward to going to the silat family gathering in May.  The northwest bunch, headed up by the superb Stevan Plinck, are some genuinely talented and terrific people, and it'll be great fun to play with them again.
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So that's my working out for the near future: Yoga, Gama Casts, and Silat.  It's plenty, and covers every major (and most minor) fitness components.  My workouts take from between 40 minutes and 1 1/2 hours.  I guage my efficiency by the amount of energy I have in the day, how my body looks and feels, and how often I catch Tananarive looking at my butt.  Hey, everyone has his own standards.

Steve

Hotel Rwanda (2005)

This film, directed by Terry George and starring Don Cheadle, Nick Nolte and Sophie Okonedo, is nothing less than an African Schindler's List.  Not quite in the running that that Spielbergian masterpiece, yet and still it is honest, hard, brutal, inspiring, old-fashioned film making, and the fact that it was made at all, let alone that it has achieved the aclaim it has, gives me hope.  The story deals with a good and honest man, the manager of a four-star hotel in the East African country of Rwanda.  Caught up in a post-Colonial battle between two ethnic groups, his hotel becomes a refugee camp, and he plays an incredibly dangerous game attempting to preserve the lives of hundreds of helpless victims of the conflict.  The European powers virtually abandoned them (and, frankly, listening to various right-wing friends prate on about how we're in Iraq to quell a brutal dictatorship when a few years back they were arguing that America shouldn't play cop in Africa...makes me want to vomit) and it was only the personal relationships gained through years of obsequious politeness that offered any hope of salvation at all.  Wrenching, horrifying, uplifting.  A superb film, with a devastating, quiet performance by the wonderful Don Cheadle.  Easily an "A."

4th Chakra--Heart and Relationships

Measuring by the comments received on the last blog post, the question of: "what is the proper relationship between parent and child?  What can we do to influence their behavior?  What are the limits of the appropriate, the reasonable, or the doable?"  Is of great interest. I wish this was an arena in which I had enormous clarity.  The truth is that human interactions are more art than science.  But the arena of the 4th Chakra--the heart--is of such great importance in the overall Lifewriting process (note that the only form of pure meditation we recommend is Heartbeat Meditation) that we need to address this, and give a bit more time.
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Understand here that nothing I say about parenting is intended to hurt.  Our children are their own beings, and will go their own way.  Be that as it may, we also know that we have great influence over them.  Sigh.  How to balance our dreams and the achievable?  Further, the 4th Chakra involves more complex relationships--those with our wives, husbands, significant others.  These involve sex, power, and survival.  Navigating these waters is going to be tricky.  I can only go stream of consciousness here, try to speak the truth as I see it, and give you guys a chance to tear me a new one.  Together, hopefully, we can peel back some of the layers of social convenience, and get a little teeny bit closer to something useful.
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So to get this started, I'll say that, although no behaviors are guaranteed to get a specific positive response from your kids, you can be pretty close to 100% clear that they will NOT respond to "Do as I say, not as I do." So the idea of coherance, of walking your talk, is critical.  The best thing about this parenting principle is that it is identical with an approach to a healthy, happy life.  And what makes this so great is that it's not something you're doing "for the kids."  YOu don't get to say, twenty years from now, "you owe me because I was coherant, because I walked my talk."  I think that's another important thing: what you do for your kids, you are doing for yourself.  They owe you nothing but respect.  Parents can completely screw up their relationship with their kids with the guilt-tripping "what I gave up for you" nonsense.  anything I did for Nicki I did because that was the kind of person I am committed to being.  If I had left her in the Northwest and gone back to Southern California after her mother and I broke up, few people would have blamed me.  But I castigated my father for not being there for me, and it would have been scathingly hypocritcal not to live up to a standard I imposed on that good and decent man. So I sacrificed aspects of my career to be a father.  Not for Nicki, you note.  I did it for myself, and if I ever hold it over her head, I will have diminished myself. 
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At any rate, it's almost time for the Daily Show.  I'll talk more about this tomorrow.  Night, guys!

Steve

How to Destroy Rap Music (Raising a Daughter part 3)

How to destroy Rap music as we know it?  Simple: Send a hundred bus-loads of fathers into every inner-city in America.
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I was listening to the radio in my car on the way to Jason's baby-sitter, and Rapper 50 Cent was talking about his childhood.  His drug-dealer mother ran away, and he was raised by his grandparents.  He went on to talk about how wonderful his grandmother was, and I said to myself: "what about his grandfather?"  It suddenly hit me that, for all practical purposes, I had NEVER heard a rapper talking about his father in positive terms.  That is, if there was a father there at all.  And in their songs?  Many, many times I'd heard rappers talking about mothers as if they were saints.  And no comments about fathers.
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These same, misguided souls who waxed rhapsodic about their mothers talked about other women as if they were toilets.  They used them for sex, called them whores, told them to their faces that they meant nothing, but "come on home with me" anyway.  Bitch.
What the hell is going on?  The rampant "Baby-Mama" phenomenon, which has just about been Normed in the inner city, is one of the most destructive patterns imaginable.  It is destroying the black family, and if you wonder what it leads to, just listen to the values in any rap song:
1)  dealing drugs, pimping or maybe SINGING ABOUT drugs and pimping (or singing) to make a living.  No real jobs, careers, or contribution to community beyond that. 
2) No family connections.  No thoughts of father, no thought to make a nest for children.  How about a college education?  How about thoughts of parents growing older?  The entire thing has gone crazy.
3) Body as toxic waste dump: for drugs, insanely casual sex, for violence (what is 50 Cent's chief claim to fame?  That he was shot nine times.  This single fact looms larger than anythign else about him.  Wow.  There's a set of bona fides for you.)
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And there are almost no true emotions at all.  No softness.  No sense of time passing, of responsibility for actions.  Who is about the only rapper who tells something close to truth about his emotions?  Eminim.  Apply Lifewriting theory and it all makes sense.
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Boys and girls need their fathers.  Desperately.  Girls need them to get that male energy that combines with their female energy to create life.  If they don't get it from their fathers in a healthy way, they'll get it in the street.  That was one thing that I was certain of: my daughter would NEVER go looking for the love she should have gotten from me.
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I was raised by my mother and my sister.  I’m lucky I was a dweeb, because none of the gangs wanted anything to do with me: I was just fodder for beating-up.  I was desperate for some kind of male role model.  Some kind of image of what it was to be an adult male, to have the respect of other men, and the admiration of women.  That sent me on a search through action-heroic literature and cinema.  You know what I found?  NONE of the men there looked like me.  The men who looked like me were cowardly and stupid, for the most part, or died protecting white people.  And so desperate I was, that I read it anyway.  As I put it once, I sacrificed my Melanin on the altar of my Testosterone. 
The damage done to me from the simple fact of having no father, no elder brothers, no uncles is incalculable, and lingers to this day.  I have fear and stress issues that are like Post-Traumatic Stress syndrome that keep me from enjoying some aspects of my martial arts training as I should, and have resisted decades of therapy, meditation, and other interventions.  I can deal with them now, but the simple pleasures of “pushing against” other male energy, such a central aspect of growing up in a healthy family, have escaped me in this lifetime. 
Boys have something that rages like fire within them.  They need to push, to have someone push back, to have a larger, stronger male figure show them their limits.  A single mother must be almost superhumanly strong to provide this without tearing herself apart.  I’d say less than 10% of them can do it.  And what is clearer is that that Madonna/Whore complex thing, where mothers are saintly, but other women are sexual toilets to be exploited, is a heartbreakingly common effect.
Men not only learn how to deal with other men from their fathers—they learn how to treat women.  How to be in relationships. How to take responsibility for their children.  How to sacrifice dreams of glory for a lifetime career.  In other words, everything you don’t hear in Rap Music.
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It seems to me that Rappers are tone-deaf to the melody of life as it is truly lived.  They claim that they are speaking the Truth of life in the inner city, and it is a lie.  They speak a partial truth.  Most people in the inner cities are raising families, working jobs, trying to life themselves up, loving, caring for aging parents, dealing with hope and love and fear.  We hear almost nothing about those things, for market reasons—Rappers project an image of black Americans that is infinitely marketable for reasons we might address later. 
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What is different about Eminim?  Why can he come closer to telling the truth about his emotions?  Well (from the Lifewriting perspective) if you have no father in your home, Uncle Sam become your daddy.  The countless movies and television images of fathers become your daddy.  John Wayne becomes your big brother.  Clint Eastwood your uncle.  That works great for white kids.  In comparison, there might, just might be 1% as many positive, strong images for black kids.  That’s better than nothing, but not enough.  And there are no roads at all to the top.  None. 
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In a cynical mood, I might say that we’ve seen the most powerful black man who ever lived—Colin Powell.  After a lifetime of impeccable service, he threw away a massive amount of personal capital serving George Bush.  Bush is seen by many as a great President and human being.  I won’t argue that.  What I will say is that to a cynical observer, a black kid in the inner city, it could well seem that the best you can do, the best any black man can do in America is be second-fiddle to a drunken frat boy.  What is that line?  “I’d rather rule in hell than serve in Heaven”?  Boys want to conquer, to rule the world, to let that gonzo energy within them take it to the top.
They are short-lived fighter-hunter drones, and for an inner city kid bursting with Testosterone, they would rather be the dead “Scarface” than the emasculated, disgraced, Colin Powell (please understand that I am not saying that this is what Mr. Powell is.  Personally, I have the highest respect for him.  I am asking you to place yourself in the perspective of a bitter young black man desperate for role models.)  ‘Scarface” took shit from no one, built an empire, screwed beautiful women, and died with a snarl.  For these kids, that’s the best they can see.
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It wouldn’t be that way if they had fathers.  I am so disgusted with the young “men” who think they can impregnate women and walk away.  And just as disgusted with the young women who spread their legs for these trolls and create another generation of broken warriors, whose energy turns in on themselves and their communities in a disintegrating spiral of venom. 
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This is not unique to Black Americans. You can look among any colonized people and see similar damage.  It is possibly worse for us because (to my knowledge) Black Americans are the only group in the entire world cut off from their own creation myths and stories of their Heroes.  They don’t know their names or songs or dances or homeland, and they worship a God-Figure who resembles their oppressors more than themselves.  They are, not at the center, but at the periphery of their Cosmology. 
But if there isn’t a God the Father standing behind them, resembling them, showing the way and giving love, then there had better the hell be a Steve the Father, a Richard the Father, a Mike the Father.  Or they are well, and truly screwed.
And if you don't believe me, just turn on the radio.

Perfect Template

There are many, many different ways to look at the aspects of fitness.  I like Coach Sonnon's "Three Dimensional Performance Pyramid" which goes from Health to fitness to skill to competition.  The more basic step MUST be established before you move on to the next.  But what does this mean, exactly?  Let's say that your goal is...ummm...weight loss. That's an issue for several folks here.  What you would do to use this model, is find an activity that you want to get good at.  Say, Ballroom dancing, martial arts, running...something that has a "competitive" aspect that gets you excited.  By the way--not everyone is a competitive person.  No sin in that.
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1)  The first step is to improve the general health of the body.  Skeletal system and joints and organs and so forth.  There are few exercise systems that work these things.  Yoga, Tai Chi, The Five Tibetans (available in the FIVE MINUTE MIRACLE), Chi Gung, and a few other techniques do this.  
2) Fitness covers several basic attributes: strength, endurance, flexibility, balance, power, etc.  A progressive resistance weight training system of some kind is great for this.  Kettlebells and Clubbells can cover this range beautifully.  For most people, three-four times a week will seal the deal.  Once your fitness has reached an acceptable level
3) Skill.  This is where most people make a mistake: they play a sport to get fit.  this is how you injure yourself.  GET FIT, AND THEN PLAY THE SPORT.  Find a good teacher.  There are additional benifits, what I call a "Perfect Template."  Tai Chi, Silat, Yoga, Ballroom Dancing, Modern Dancing, etc.--all of these are skills that require you to compare your body to that of an idealized form.  This may or may not be exemplified by the instructor (a good instructor--or coach--can help you develop better form than he/she has.)  The point is that part of your emphasis should be on an idealized, impossible-to-reach Platonic Ideal of a motion, something that will always exceed  your grasp. This puts you on the road to constant improvement, tiny adjustments that  you  will make for the rest of your life.  Ego can be suspended.  FORM is the conjunction of Breath, Motion, and Alignment.  Remember how I said that under stress, form dis-integrates? That means that as your grasp of form becomes more acute, you can see stress coming from a mile away, and keep it from having a negative effect simply by beginning a re-integration sequence (performing a Tai chi or Silat form or two, a few Yoga Asanas, some pranayama, THE FIVE MINUTE MIRACLE, etc.)  As you get better, you start learning how to hold yourself in flow state--the secret to reaching your highest levels of excellence.  And if you have balanced goals (I.D.E.A.) you will AUTOMATICALLY begin to evolve as a human being.
4) Competition.  This is where you place your form under stress.  You choose an appropriate level of competition, and go for it.  Your coach or friends or teammates or partners report back to you on your external form (video works great) or you teach your unconscious to record the results.  Begin to see where your form comes apart, and re-integrate to make it stronger.  Competition, then, acts as a metaphor for life, and those you compete against are the best and truest teachers you will ever have in your life.
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So consider finding some physical activity to provide a PERFECT TEMPLATE for you to compare your form against.  It is another tool for maximum growth in the arenas of the spiritual and emotional...believe it or not!

Aftermath of Century and Yoga

the "Century" is Scott Sonnon's term for a 100-rep Death march--the performance of 100 repetitions of a motion with the Clubbells.  I'm using the Bruiser (45 lbs) in a figure-eight motion called a "Gama Cast" and the method of approach is called  a "Density Cycle" where you double the number of the target (200) and then complete them all within 40 minutes, in sets of five, starting each set at the top of the minute.  When that can be done cleanly, move to sets of six, then seven, etc.
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Well, as I said,t he problem before was that my body wasn't recovering well from the work load (this is a 1-2 X a week maximum load) and I decided to see if I could approach it again, using the Bikram Yoga as recovery work.  Monday was the Density cycle. Tuesday was the Yoga.  This morning I could hardly get out of bed.  I had to, to get Jason to the sitter, but then came home and slept for another three hours.  Yow!  but I feel pretty good, and the truth is that I stayed up too late last night (past midnight), so I don't know how that factored in.  I won't try the next "step" until next week.  We'll see...

Raising a daughter part 2

There were, of course, aspects of raising a daughter rather different from raising a son.  You don't have to worry about sons getting pregnant, for instance.  that doesn't mean you don't care about their behavior, but that is a bit of a shift.  My thoughts on when sexual activity becomes reasonable (when you can support yourself financially) grew out of these concerns. But in the main, I just wanted a healthy kid, and considered most aspects of her maturation to be of the universal human kind.
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When her baby fat was slow to come off, I got a bit concerned, but because she didn't live with me, it was hard to monitor her eating and exercising habits as well as I wanted to.  Also, I didn't want to give her somethign to rebel against, or a reason to feel bad about herself--being raised in a virtually all-white town gave her enough of that, believe me.  But I knew she wanted to have a bomb body, because I watched the videos she watched, and knew that the guys she was attracted to had muscular, toned bodies. In my book, that means she wanted to be the feminine equivilent of those men: a similar set of values and disciplines would create the curves that balanced their muscles.  So, it slowly became possible for me to point out that these guys were attracted to women with similar disciplines and lifestyles.  Every time she tried to take the position that body-fat content was mostly hereditary, I gently pointed out that obesity yields quite nicely to changes in behavior.  That it can be difficult to sustain those changes in behavior due to emotional problems, but in that case, it is perfectly reasonable to assume that people with weight issues have emotional problems--they're like alcoholics that carry bottles on their belts.  Awareness isn't the same as action, however.  She fell out of karate classes once they got more difficult, and although I worked hard to get her into shape, it doesn't take a whole lot of bad eating habits to undue a few hours of sweating per week.  So the serious work had to wait until she was living with me, down here.
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Teaching her to be honest was mostly a matter of being honest with her--that gave me the right to demand reciprocity.  The same with keeping her word.  There are problems with getting her to clean her room, but then I'm not the neatest person in the world.  She's never gotten straight A's, although she tests VERY highly...but she certainly gets better grades than I got, so that's not bad either.
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She's been good with her friends (although she had no boyfriends), enjoys working, and has accepted a healthy physical discipline.  At  this point, then, I can begin to teach her the lessons she will really need, simply by drawing her attention to the connection between causes and effects in her life.
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I remember a friend asked me to talk with her daughter, who was having unprotected sex with a boyfriend.  I knew that the daughter was steeled to be lectured, so instead I just politely and non-confrontationally asked her what her intentions were. She said she wanted to marry this guy.  It came out that she felt that if she got pregnant, he would marry her.  I asked her if this tactic contained the level of honesty and integrity that she would want in a marriage, in other words if her behavior would actually get her the result she wanted.  If so, great, go for it.  If not, she might re-think her options.
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It worked like gangbusters.  And I think that is at the core of my child-rearing theories.  I was never so happy as the day (when she was aobut 7) when I realized Nicki understood logical arguments sufficiently that I wouldn't have to spank her any more.  Then, it's just a matter of getting them to CLARIFY their goals, understand the results of their actions, and make their own judgements as to whether their actions will actually take them to their goals.  Sometimes they are afraid to dream, and we have to help them.  Sometimes they can't see the link between cause and effect, and we have to help them.  But by drawing her attention countless times to that body-mind-spirit connection, day by day she is getting a clearer picture of how she can live her life with grace, power, and dignity. 
the choices ahead of her are her own.  But I will do everything in my power to attune her sensitivity to the connection between the inner and the outer worlds before she leaves the nest.  And I thank God for this chance to ease her passage to adulthood.

Steve

The Pacifier (2005)

A confession: I like Vin Diesel.  So when I saw the coming attractions for "Pacifier" I was cautiously optimistic.  this family-friendly Disney entry looked like a canny career move for the big guy.  the story is pure "Kindergarten Cop"--a tough guy learns to open his heart while on an assignment protecting a family of kids.  The early reviews were bad, but I went anyway, and had a perfectly fine time at the movies.  There are poopie jokes, Ninjas, villainous boy scouts, SUV chases, a mild romance, and an attack duck.  I had a big smile on my face during much of it, and laughed out loud repeatedly.  Heck, I'll see it again on DVD.  A "B."

Crabs in a Basket...

As we change, our friends and families can feel threatened, and actually strive to hold us back.  I can say this over and over, but a single letter can illustrate this far better.  It comes from a female student who is working courageously with weight and other issues.  She's one of my favorite people...
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Dear Steve,

The good news- I've lost eight pounds through diet and exercise.  My
thighs and biceps are discernibly toned, I'm feeling healthier et
cetera.

The bad news- I married a man who's de-evolving into such a jerk.  He's
getting on my case about dieting like my actions offend him.  Saturday
night was cool and funny, we all laughed.  I heated up some leftover
french onion soup (made with broth from a beef roast I'd made earlier
in the week and butter sauteed onions, then topped with toasted french
bread slices and melted cheese) for him and a friend of ours to eat. 
(HUSBAND) was still hungry so I threw together a batch of samosas (leftover
basmati rice with vegetables, frozen o'brien potatoes, curry powder,
garlic, salt, and roasted cumin seeds, fried in a pan of olive oil then
wrapped in a butter/flour crust and baked to golden perfection served
with mango chutney).  I'm a good cook, but these are not foods that fit
in a 1200 calorie a day diet so I got myself a 3 oz., 80 calorie can of
salmon to eat. HUSBAND started to lay into me about my no longer eating,
A FRIEND  made a comment about my preference for cat food.  It stayed
light and funny.  Then last night HUSBAND starts yelling at me because I
had a can of V-8 while everyone else was eating pizza.  He goes on in
this superior way about how he doesn't believe in fad diets, or
alternately that it must be nice to have the narcissistic luxury of
diet and exercise, but he's too busy being a grown-up now.  He's also
as overweight as I am and looks like a man with one foot in the grave
and in his beautifully sculpted athletic youth he used to look at
middle-aged pot-bellied men as ultimately pathetic.  I know that it's
his insecurity causing him to lash out at me, but I have enough
insecurity of my own I don't need his crap right now.

I need to lose this weight.  Being a 38DDD (yes, triple) is not easy on
my back, carrying this extra weight around my hard tile floors is not
easy on my knees or ankles.  No matter how positive my outlook, obesity
is still linked to diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, heart
attack, stroke... and I'm sure the list goes on.  This isn't the vanity
of ten or twenty pounds interfering with my pool-side strut.  This is a
health issue and I owe it to my babies to be strong and healthy and
around for a while.

All that said I also need a friend to tell me that I'm doing the right
thing.  So I'm asking you to counter the undermining of my efforts with
a little pep talk if you could.  It doesn't need to be personal, you
write plenty in your blog about weight issues.  And I write plenty of
stuff "from the bottom of my tank" in my blog.  It's just a hard
combination, change and criticism.  I need a friend today.

##
STEVE'S COMMENT:  you not only have the right to be healthy, you have the responsibility, for your children, and for yourself.  Your husband is filled with fear.  The weight is both a symptom and a cause. 
If he can tell himself there is no option, that he's doing all anyone can do, he can be at peace with his decisions.  But if you begin to wake up, to shake yourself loose, it threatens the hell out of his world view.  It makes him feel wrong and bad and ugly and old. 
I am so proud of you, and what you are dealing with is as real as it gets.  What to do?  Continue to journal, and meditate.  As the stress ramps up, this will be more necessary.  Meet his jokes and accusations with love, and realize that his negative aspects appealed to a negative aspect within you--you and he are one.  Loving him is loving yourself.  Don't take it personally...it's gonna get worse before it gets better.  Fear is a monster.  But if you are strong, and slowly, gently move your house toward health, you will find him taking small steps.  He is very, very frightened of life.  Don't be scarier than you have to. 
##
But above everything else, keep growing and changing.  Reach out on the discussion board--get the support of others who are fighting the same fight.  And I'll always be here for you, hon.  Promise.

Steve

Year-Long Writer's Program 3-6-05

At this point, you should be writing a story a week, or a story every other week, and sending them out. That is, if you are serious about wanting to be a writer. Most people aren't. They have a dream, a hunch, a misty wish. They think that they have brilliant ideas, and if only they had the time to write them...This is the origin of the "I have a great idea--you write it and we'll split the money" routine. No. Ideas are as cheap as dirt. EXECUTION IS KING. I've yet to meet a single person who didn't have good ideas. the world belongs to those who can discipline themselves to sit down and apply the sweat and blood to create them.
##
when I teach writing, one of the first things I do is ask people about their television habits. Engage them in discussions about this or that show--until everyone in the class has admitted to watching, every week. At that place I drop the bomb: every single person in the class has admitted to wasting more time every week than would be necessary to actually craft a career. IT IS NOT LACK OF TIME. It almost never is. Drive 2 1/2 hours to work? Get a tape recorder and a headset, and dictate text on the road, transcribe on the weekends. Watch less TV. We have the time--what we don't have is permission to succeed. To be happy.
##
the most common complaint about my program is that people's ideas come to them in long form. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS AN IDEA WITH AN INTRINSIC LENGTH. ONLY THE TREATMENT OR EXPRESSION OF AN IDEA HAS AN INTRINSIC LENGTH. You can write about WW2 with a 2-page short story, or tell the story of a single grain of sand with a work the size of the Encyclopedia Brittanica. There is a name for people who can only write novels--perpetual amateurs. Every single professional writer I know CAN write short stories. Novels are where the money is, true, but they CAN. And almost every unpublished writer seems to think I've never heard the "my stories come in novel length" reasoning before. It is sad, and the death of more potential careers than I can say.
##
Let me tell you a story. Thirty years ago, I knew a girl who wanted to write. She said: "I'm working on a short story." Great, I thought. A month later I asked her how it was going. "It's getting a little long...turning into a novelette," she said. Great, I thought. Two months later I asked her how it was going. "It's getting longer...turning into a novella." Great. Five months later "It's turning into a novel." A year later "It's feeling more like a trilogy..."
##
Fifteen years later, I was traveling along the East Coast, and dropped in to visit my friend. I asked her how the Trilogy was going. "I got tired of, it, put it away," she said. "But I'm working on another novel. The only thing is, it feels like more than one book..."
##
This is so sad. This woman has blown her entire working life, years and decades of work, because she never dealt with the emotional issues stopping her from completing short stories and sending them out to be criticized. Developing that emotional armor (or centeredness) is a learnable skill. But she was never honest enough with herself, and now her chances of ever, ever doing anything with a fine and fertile imagination is virtually nil. Don't let this happen to you.
1)Write a story a week, or every other week.
2) Put them in the mail
3) Keep them in the mail until they sell.
4) Don't re-write except to editorial request.And within fifty stories, you'll be a published writer. Guaranteed.

Functional Fixedness

"Functional fixedness" is a term in psychology. An illustration:
##
A woman cut the ends off of her roast before cooking it. For years she did this, and then one day her daughter asked her "why? Does it make the meat juicier?" "Because my mother used to do it," she answered after a moment's thought. "But why?" She really didn't know, but she called her mother and asked her. "Because your grandmother used to do it," she explained. Well, grandmother was still alive so she went to see granny. "Why did you cut the ends off the roast?" Grandmother thought, and then laughed. "Because our roasting pan was very small," she said.
##
We inherit maps of reality from our families, our societies, our childhood. Things, ways of addressing the world that made perfect sense at one time (perhaps), but have become out-moded drastically as time goes by. We have to be very careful. "Insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results," the saying goes. Ofttimes, we get stuck in a rut, but keep digging. Why? Because digging worked in the past.
##
How can you tell if you have rendered an old reality map, philosophy, or approach obsolete? It is vital to check the accuracy of your input, and to check it regularly. Remember the core of these teachings:
1) If you are chronically broke, your reality map is off.
2) If you are more than moderately overweight, your reality map is off.
3) If you have a terrible relationship history, your reality map is off.
##
LOOK AT THIS STUFF. It's your life, and the chances are that you are blown out to one degree or another, in one or another category. It happens to all of us. It is one of the surest signs that we aren't reading reality accurately. It just isn't that hard to make a living, to be in decent shape, to have a loving relationship. Billions manage it. We all want it. When life screws up, WE have to take the responsibility. Look at your habits, and make some hard, cold decisions about whether the ways you have been for years or decades still serves you. If not, make changes. Sometimes a belief or habit is something healthy your parents gave you. And some time, they're just a short roasting pan.

Raising a daughter

I just got this note from a friend and student...
##
I'd like to ask you about how you raised your daughter. I've met her(I don't
know if I should refer to her as Lauren or Nikki - I think I remember you
calling her that. Or I'm just mis-remembering things) and, from what I've
seen, she is intelligent, concientious, simultaneously strong-willed and
respectful; and I attribute what I know of her to what I know of you, as a
man, as a human being, and as a father. And not to sound like I'm trying to
blow smoke up your ass, I try apply what I've learned (and continue to
learn) from you to my parenting of both of my girls. You are, in a great my
ways, my role-model, which is why I come to you now.

When she was 12, full of nearly-teen hormones and attitude and
manipulations, how did you relate to her? Was she ever disrespectful or
deceitful, and how did you handle it? I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to
say here, so I'll just end for now, but thank you Steve, for everything.
##
So I've decided to spend some time this week on the heart chakra.  The question of relationships, and family, especially since I take the position that we are responsible for them, and their health.
##
Anyone who knows me knows I adore my daughter Nicki (Lauren Nicole), and that she is the only child I had with my first wife, Toni.  I think she's turning out great, and in order to talk about what my attitudes were in raising her, I have  to get into her business a bit--which I have her permission to do.
##
First, you have to define exactly what you want for your children.  How else will you know if you're getting it or not?  How else can you adjust your actions and priorities?  How will  you know when things are going wrong?  So let me start with my basic position about parenthood:
##
It is my job to deliver my children safely to their future. 
##
Nicki does not belong to me.  She is not me, re-packaged in younger, prettier, feminine form.  She is her own creature.  As a child, she was already as smart as she was ever going to be--merely ignorant.  I had to help her learn how to learn.  To that end, there were three things that I wanted to give her, or to help her find within herself:
1) A love of learning and working.
2) Self-love, externalized to healthy relationships.  The ability to form teams of people to accomplish those things she cannot do for herself.
3) A love and appreciation of her body as a toy, a tool, and a pet.
##
I screwed up in my first marriage.  There are things I will talk about there, and for reasons of family privacy, others I will not.  Let's just say that some of my asininity contributed to the break-up, and that placed my daughter at risk.  Children need both parents, and I was absolutely commited to Nicki having the healthiest life possible.  When she found out her mother and I were getting a divorce, it shattered her.  Unfortunately, her best friend's parents had had a divorce. Within a year or so the father locked himself in a hotel room and LITERALLY drank himself to death. So, to Nicki, this is what happens when mommies and daddies divorce.  This moment, when she was about 11, was a critical one.  I looked at Nicki and said: "Nicki, have I ever lied to you?"  She shook her head no.  "Have I ever broken a promise to you?"  Her beautiful, tear-stained face showed strain as she thought.  Then she answered "no."
"All right, then," I said.  "Here it is.  I know that you need your daddy.  So, until you are 18 years old, I promise that I'll live close enough that you can see me every day."
##
Instantly, she brightened up, because she knew I was good for it.  I ended up living in Longview, Washington, a tiny town with not much to recommend it except excellent, excellent people.  for seven years I gave up my career in Hollywood, lived in a teeny logging town so small it didn't even have a 7-11.  A town so white I used to get stares when I walked down the street.  And my wife, Tananarive, a big-city girl from Miami, came there to be with me, and we created a home where T, Nicki, Toni and I all lived within ten minutes of each other, and could be together for Sunday dinner, see movies, collaborate on school projects, and whatever else was needed.  I will always love Toni with a full heart for making it possible for me to parent the daughter I love so dearly--there was no war zone.  We found our way to peace together, and my respect and affection for my ex is through the roof. 
##
There were things about Longview that were problematic for my daughter.  She was too exotic, a bit too dark.  She never had a single date, the whole time she was there, and she was the only one of her peer group for which this was true.  No boyfriends.  Nothing.  We'll discuss that later.  But one thing she knows about herself, and knows it absolutely, and will know for the rest of her life:  her daddy loves her.  Her daddy was willing to do whatever it took to be there for her.  And no one, ever, will be able to take that from her.
##
I made mistakes in my life, but was damned if Nicki would pay for them.  If she grows strong, it will be because she grows from a base of love, with parents she could trust.  When I am on my death bed, thinking back over my life, it is quite possible that the single thing I will be proudest of is:
1) I never lied to my daughter.
2) I never broke a promise to her.
3) And when she needed those things the most, I was able to honestly say them.

Steve

Final Lessons--O.J. and Michael Jackson

There are articles everywhere about the legion of Michael Jackson supporters, who cannot or will not believe that their hero is guilty of abusing a series of boys.  Fair enough--he may well be innocent.  And there are some who believe O.J. to be innocent.  What might have happened if one applied the mind Reading technique to each of them?  The Juice is trickier--we had reports of spousal abuse, and his career was bottoming out (remember "Naked Gun"?) but that doesn't automatically mean murder.  While predicting his downfall might have been difficult, in his behaviors since that time--when reported publicly, there seems every indication of the smiling monster he would have to have been to kill Nicole and Ron.
##
Michael is clearer.  Indeed, how could anyone not have seen how abnormal this man was?  There is an element of our physical carriage that is nothing more than sexual lure.  What was he attempting to attract?  The entire "Neverland Ranch" routine certainly suggests nothing about interest in adult females.  Adult males, perhaps?  There were certainly rumors, but who knows.  What can be seen is that this is a human being turned inside-out, his child and adult personas reversed, probably from the time his parents pimped him out to support the family.  It's all so sick, and sad.  And predictable.  When will people grasp that the way we carry ourselves in the world says a HUGE amount about who and what we are?  Was anyone surprised when Paul Rubins was found masturbating in an adult movie theater?  Jeeze!  Does anyone believe that Kirsty Ally is "a jolly fat woman" happy with her life?  Do you KNOW how much energy it takes to carry around that much armor?  NO ONE would do that unless they felt desperately afraid, unhappy or alone.  DESPERATELY.  When you see people who have diverged hugely from the norm, ASSUME that there is something wrong.  Give them a chance to prove you mistaken, perhaps, but ladies, if the guy is fifty and never married--THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG.  If his relationship history is non-existent or abusive--RUN.  If they have an endless string of failed businesses, THERE IS A REASON.  If they chain-smoke and drink a six-pack a day, THERE IS A PROBLEM.   If they have a distorted body image--IT MIRRORS THEIR INTERNAL MAP OF REALITY.
Assume these things, however unpopular or politically incorrect it may be.  And you will save yourself a huge amount of pain.  If only we hadn't loved him so much, we might have saved him.  Or someone might have.  It is probably far too late now--Michael's life is about to implode, no matter what happens.  But we must stop worshipping our celebrities to the exclusion of common sense.  We must stop listening to the comforting lies and explanations of our families, friends, and co-workers.  The only reason we are surprised by their behaviors is that we aren't honest about our own. 
Wake up, people.  It's not too late.  For us.

Michael Jackson part 5

So...what happened to Michael?  We have a human being turned inside-out.  As a child, he became the powerhouse earner for the entire family.  They both protected him and worked him to death.  His mother induced a paranoia of heterosexual dalliance (note the lyrics for "Billie Jean"), but his sexual energy was ferocious.  My guess is that his sexual interactions with young boys (if they occured, and I suspect they did) were less predatory than emotionally/developmentally retarded, in the nature of a Cub Scout circle-jerk.  Play.  Exploration.  A man-child who never had the slightest bit of a normal childhood, and is unable to relate emotionally to almost anyone at all.  His family, who should have protected him, was controlled by him--hell, he kept his brothers dangling for years with the promise of one more tour.  No one dared speak up.  He wanted to become Elvis ("the KING of Pop", marrying Lisa Marie) and bleached his skin, straightened his hair, fixed his nose and lips in order to try to get there.  The sad thing is that it is possible, just possible, that he could have made it anyway, despite his color.  Hell, SOMEBODY has to.  Sad, sad, sad. 
##
There have simply been too many accusations and payoffs, too many whispers, too much bizarre behavior, too few even quasi-normal relationships.  Jackson is WAY over the "strange" line, with far more NAMBLA points than any molestor would need to be strongly suspected.  The only reason we waited so long to condemn him is that we loved him so much.  It is incredibly sad.  My guess?  He'll be convicted, and commit (or attempt) suicide.  His life has collapsed.  He will never again be even close to what he once was, and he aimed his whole life at that goal.  It is, in every conceivable way, an American tragedy. 

At any rate, that is what I extract from the known information regarding his body, his relationships, and his career.  Your thoughts?

O.J. and Michael Jackson -part 4

So, then, on to Michael.  Remember, the Mind Reading technique, which you are going to use to understand your characters, yourself, and the people in your life, is an intuitive tool, not one that will give you a long list of specific, unerringly accurate descriptions.  However, if you trust it, and trust your own instincts, the results are remarkable.
##
We have to look at three areas: career, relationship history, and physical health/fitness.
Career?  Well, Jackson is a singularity, a man with so much money he could out-bid Paul McCartney for the Beatles catalog (!).  That's entertainment.  He was ground-breaking (MTV wasn't showing videos with black performers before Jackson!  Remember back then?) in multiple ways, and seemed poised to conquer every arena of entertainment.  His dancing was nearly perfect.  He created excitement like few performers, ever. 
##
Relationship history.  Well, now we get into some very strange territory.  His marriage to Presley seems to have been real on one level, but on another arranged to bolster his public image.  His "family"--children who clearly have no genetic link to him (people seem to forget what he looked like before all the surgery) born to mothers paid to keep their mouths shut.  There was never a time when, to me at least, he was convincingly courting/dating a woman.
##
I only saw Jackson up-close one time.  It was in the 70's and i was working as a tour guide at CBS television city in Hollywood.  The Jackson Five were guesting on, I think, the Sonny and Cher show.  The other brothers were tearing around CBS having a great time.  Michael was sitting alone in the cafeteria, eating, silent.  He seemed sad and lonely to me.  I debated walking over to him and saying hi, maybe sitting down. I decied not to.  That's it.
##
Now let's take a look at his physicality.  Despite being one of the great dancers in music history, he is very, very frail.  One might suspect that he has no healthy connection to his body--it is an instrument to perform.  A lot of ballet dancers seem to have this pattern.  More importantly, obviously, look at the man.  There is only one explanation for all of the plastic surgery, the hair, the skin color.  It is so obvious that it has rarely been stated straight out: Michael tried to become white.  I see no signs that he tried to become feminine.  I think he wanted to be a long-haired white rocker, and spent millions coming as close to that as he could.
Why?  Here's my theory.  When he was a child, people told him over and over again (in effect):  "you're the most talented child performer I've ever seen.  You're going to be huge.  But as soon as you become a mature black male adult, the world will reject your sexuality--you'll never be the biggest."  He wanted to be Elvis, and he had no way of getting there.  His Negro-ness would stop him.  so he began to change.  First the nose, then the lips. The hair.  Then the skin color.  All along  the way, he lied his ass off about what he was doing, and what it meant.  And people believed him.  In part they believed that it was a disease because the implications of this incredibly talented kid being so damaged by his desire to be what he could not be implied some things about America that people don't want to admit.
##
God, we loved Michael.  We just adored him.  And when he surrounded himself with children, we convinced ourselves it was "cute."  When it came out that he slept with them, we gave him a pass. When the kids began to claim he touched them inappropriately, and it seemed like their parents were pimping them out to Jackson, we defended him.  And all the time, we wouldn't have given that level of "understanding" to a member of our own family.  We loved him that much.  And he needed our love just that much.
##
I remember a male reporter telling me that Jackson had come on to him.  I found it interesting.  I remember hearing that children who moved in the circle of a certain Science Fiction writer suspected of child molestation also moved in Jackson's circle.  Interesting.
##
When I see human energy operating at a fierce level, I assume sexuality.  I assume that the sexual chakra is active.  Sure, Newton claimed to have been celibate his whole life.  I find that less likely than the possibility of homosexuality, which would have created the same symptoms (no apparent relationships, an eye-brow raising explanation) but be more believable.  So where was Michael's sexuality?  According to Lisa Marie, in the early days of their marriage he was quite functional.  so the sex drive was there...but during long years where there were no apparent relationships, when he was traveling with those boys...where was it?
##
So those are the three arenas: career--phenomenal.  Relationship history: badly distorted.  Body image: one of the most sadly distorted in human history.  Next time, we'll talk about what all this adds up to, and what we can guess about his past, and his inwardness.

Stay tuned.

O.J. and Michael Jackson, part 3

So. We're going to address O.J. and Michael as fictional characters, and see what the tools we've been dancing around will tell us about them.
##
O.J., from early days, was used to being treated as a star. He got everything he wanted due to his looks and athleticism, and crossed over into commercials and movies quite handily. he went for the American Dream--wealth, power, fame, and a white woman on your arm. I think it would be reasonable to say that he actually had an unhealthy preference there, based upon his relationship history (both marriages and girlfriends). It seems not to be a simple statistical fluke. Judging by comments made by friends and ex's, he is also tremendously possessive, and a rageaholic. If rage is a mask over fear, what is he afraid of? I would say that a lot of black athletes have a sense that they are well-paid buffoons, that they are vastly paid so that white audiences can empathize with their power and grace--but resent their blackness.
##
What do I mean by this? I mean that the actual appearance of black people has been demonized and associated with negatives for hundreds of years. Some of this is unavoidable and has little to do with race: dark skin mirroring a dark night in a species unadapted to nocturnal hunting. Unfortunate. But Negroid hair, nostrils, lips (I remember a classic Saturday Night Live line spoken by Chevy Chase: "I don't judge a man by the color of his skin. I judge him by the thickness of his lips!") has been associated with "ugly" so long that many black people have internalized it. Protective coloration is what this tendency is called--a topic for another column. At any rate, I remember one multiple-year period where Hollywood wouldn't put a black face on a poster. They'd put silhouettes of black people, or they would have their faces, with the background color very dark to minimize what I call "color shock"--the subliminal awareness of the audience that they are dealing with an "Other." It is this tendency that has induced virtually every black actress to straighten her hair, and actors like Vin Diesel to shave his head--a reduction in visual cues that suggest Negroid features. Something like this happened in Japan post WW2 when Japanese women started having plastic surgery to increase their bust size and "Occidentalize" their eyes. The dominated group tries to look as much as possible like the dominators, as a way to survive.
##
There will be some who read this who might say to themselves (although they are unlikely to admit it)--"well, maybe White People really don't find blacks attractive". Perfectly reasonable comment, however politically incorrect it might be. But that wouldn't explain the fact that black women are positioned as sexual objects for white men in media quite commonly now. Statistics show that most interracial couples are white women with black men, not the other way around--the media is showing a distortion that could represent nothing other than the male fantasy of dominating all sexual outlets. Men are fun, aren't they?
##
If O.J. internalized this negative stuff (and it would be incredibly hard not to, believe me), there would be quite an inner gap between his self image and his external actions and reality. He would feel like a fraud at times, and like a superman at others. The tension between these two is a killer.##For men like this, their women represent both possessions and peace. they have no healthy contact with their own feminine side, and catch glimpses of that vital feminine self only fleetingly during sex, or when with their young children--who are more bonded to the mother than to themselves. Many pro athletes are hyper-male, with all the negativity that that implies. They are often bonded to hyper-females, harpies who have groomed their animal attraction aspects to a razor-edge, a meld of clothing and makeup designed to trigger a massive hind-brain response in males. O.J. clearly used physical power to intimidate Nicole. She would have retaliated by attacking him in any manner she could--his masculinity, sexuality, need to be a father to his children, etc. Remember that they didn't end up together accidentally. They chose each other. So we can easily picture a REALLY sick dynamic. O.J., crazy with jealousy, probably got together with an old buddy and went to see Nicole that night. Who knows what was in his mind, but my guess is that one part of him knew perfectly well what he was up to--while another part was in denial. Ron, Nicole's friend, was in the wrong place at the wrong time, triggered even more jealousy and rage, and some kind of negative energy spiral began--possibly planned, possibly semi-spontaneous (too much equipment had to have been brought along: knives, gloves, probably a disposable raincoat to shield clothing from blood. I think they had worked themselves into a murderous state, but that is still a hell of a line to cross). And so it happened.
##
At this point in his life, O.J. probably has half-convinced himself he is innocent. Another part of him revels in feeling that he "got away with it." As in one very real sense, he did. In another, he destroyed his life. This is the reason I have NO confidence in the idea that "he knows who did it" but won't speak. Nonsense. O.J. was all public image. If his own brother had done it, O.J. would have talked his brother into turning himself in, and gotten him the best lawyer in the world, and gone on making movies and commercials and being O.J.
##
But he didn't. Oh, there's another connection between me and that trial. Remember Ron Ship? The cop who was O.J.'s friend who said O.J. was partying instead of mourning. Johnny Cochran tried to make Shpo look like a liar and glory seeker. One problem with this. I KNEW Ronnie Ship. We went to elementary school and Jr. High together. He was an absolute straight-shooter, a big, kindly kid who used to pull bullies off me. And he became a cop because he wanted to protect people. A mutual friend, Lee Taylor, called me and told me to turn on the television, to the O.J. trial. And there, sitting on the witness stand, was Ron Ship. And he was looking at the stone-faced Simson, mouthing the words "tell the truth, O.J."Yuck.
##
So that is my take on O.J. There may be more later, but I want to get on to Michael next.

Steve

Michael Jackson and Characterization

  Over the next few days, I'm going to dissect Michael Jackson, as if he was a character in a book I'm writing.  That means that all of the observed phenomena, habits, and history have to make sense within a congruent matrix.  Real human beings aren't necessarily like that.  No matter how many models I have, or how good I think my intuition is, the truth will always evade words.  Therefore, although I'm going to be making my statements in a fairly positive way, I cannot claim to actually know Mr. Jackson--I'm just taking a novelist's stab at filling in the public knowledge about the most recognizable man in the world.


Steve