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The Friday Sex Blog [Love Lessons]

¡Hola! Everybody…
Life is about to get "interesting" for this blogger... the waves? The surf is up and the it's getting rough. Wish me luck.

* * *

Love Lessons

“The night has a thousand eyes,
And the day but one;
Yet the light of the bright world dies
With the dying sun.

The mind has a thousand eyes,
And the heart but one;
Yet the light of a whole life dies
When love is done.”

Just to set the record straight I am 55 years-old and for most of my adult life, I have been a committed bachelor. I have had countless relationships, many casual, a few serious, but for most of my life, I have been single by choice. I have no regrets. I like it that I’ve been single for that long and consistently. With the exception of one woman, I have never married, though I’ve lived with women over the years. I am not looking for a long-term relationship – nor have I ever.

Does the above sound like a hopeless romantic?

Exactly!

I am as far removed from the archetype of the hopeless romantic as you can get. Women -- women looking for serious relationships -- stay away from me. LOL

Yet the fact remains that you will be hard-pressed to find a more romantic person than yours truly. If you’re the object of my passion, you will feel as if you’re the only woman in the world. I will write poems in your honor, make exquisitely and excruciating slow love to you, perform solitary parades to celebrate your returns, mourn your departures. You will remember our first kiss because the attention to detail devoted to that most anticipated of moments will make you wet with appreciation.

I am not a “good guy.” I’m the man your mother warned you about. You may hate me when it’s all done, but you will remember me.

I have broken countless hearts and have had mine shattered into a million pieces so many times, I no longer even bother trying to put all the jagged shards together. It’s there, this heart of mine – cracked open.

Welcome.

I share all this in the interest of transparency because the one thing I bring to the table is my honesty -- my earnest desire to be as real as I can be. Later you may scandalize me, but you will never be able to say I wasn’t true.

My first kiss was with a girl named Emily. I was twelve years-old and I can remember that dark winter night and the song was playing over her transistor radio (Mellow Yellow). I remember I closed my eyes (I always close my eyes) and I remember we kissed on a dare. We both liked each other, but I was too shy to do anything about it until one of my cousins dared us and we kissed. It was a delicious kiss. My heart thumped. After that first kiss, we would meet every night in that tenement hallway and kiss. One day she let me kiss her nubby breasts, which I kissed tenderly, and another night I ventured and felt the moist wetness between her legs. She moaned…

We almost broke up because my cousin, who was jealous, insisted that a blister on Emily’s lip was some kind of sexual disease (it was a fever blister). Eventually, her mother caught us kissing (on the rooftop), we weren’t allowed to see each other, and when the summer recess came, they moved far away. That was my first heartbreak (and hers).

I was very much a nerd in those days, extremely shy around the opposite sex. Not long after Emily, my first lover, the raven-haired beauty, Victoria ("don't call me Vickie"), our 16-year-old babysitter, came to me in the middle of the night and thrust her hairy pussy onto my face. I remember the pungency of her sex and feeling somewhat confused, until I flicked at her with my tongue and she groaned. We would make love like that for months, until my mother came home early one night (she was working a night shift at a factory) and caught us in the clinch. Victoria wasn't allowed to babysit after that, but it didn't stop us. Many years later, I ran into Victoria and she confessed feeling guilty at having corrupting me, but I assured her that I felt gratitude for having been corrupted by the lovely Victoria. We laughed...

I would fall madly in love at 14 with a girl named Milva. Milva was intelligent, was a writer (or wanted to be one), and was one of the few people who could keep up with me intellectually. When we made love, it was like a poem the way it unfolded. We made love under the boardwalk at Brighton Beach's Pier 6. I loved Milva with all my heart and we were the most popular couple in our high school. Milva had jet-black hair, large and intelligent cherry-brown eyes and a petite but curvy body.

Dang! We were so hot for one another!

Milva left me one day for an “older guy” (someone in college) and that was a devastating loss. It would be a while before I could love again in that completely open and fearless way. Afraid of rejection, of being hurt, I turned to literature and began reading all the “Great Books” of the Western Canon. Having lost at love, I explored my intellectual side and I drank greedily from that cup.

I always moved between the landscapes of my heart and mind and, in many ways, I was in love with love. Towards the end of high school, Milva would return to me, but it was too late. Besides, by then I had Mona, a fierce Milva rival. Mona of the cinnamon colored skin, the insatiable need for sex. God! We spent a torrid summer years after high school in each others arms. She even threw out her husband. We made love everywhere and every which way. Mona was the first woman would gave me her ass willingly. Life was good.

Over the years I searched for the ideal way to love, sometimes through the eyes of that 12-year-old and occasionally with the wisdom of a maturing young man.

We all have a 12-year-old inside, that adolescent boy or girl in search of the perfect love. Our stories may be different, but we bring them into all the aspects of adult relating, influencing our styles of communication, our conceptions of intimacy, our degree of sexual openness, our values, our hopes, and our dreams. And because our stories are different, we sometimes collide, confronted with the inevitable conflicts of love. Until we make these internal stories conscious and become fully willing to explore them with our partners -- with understanding, patience, and compassion – we will never know true intimacy.

Without intimacy, life withers away. As all the great poets have noted, we need each other, deeply, in order to survive. When faced with love, we find ourselves reflected in the eyes of another and, if we’re able, we can grow together through this stormy search for self. Through love, our souls can unfold – like a rare and beautiful flower. We embrace, we discover each other, we grow, but still the mystery remains.

I have never found the perfect love of my idealistic adolescence, but I found something far more rewarding-- my true self. And the voices I’ve encountered along the way -- the books I’ve read, the women I have known, and the stories we’ve shared along the way – these are the seeds from which the man who stands before has grown.

Yo soy el hijo del cariño y tambien de la dulzura.

Profiles in Cowardice and Courage...

¡Hola! Today -- a quickie:
Iowa passed a proposed ban on gay marriage in the state House by a wide margin, with the usual GOP twat motherfuckers -- I mean elected officials -- insisting that same-sex marriage will inevitably lead to legalized incest, polygamy, and the end of civilization as we know it. Proving, yet again, that the conservative mindset is ruled by irrational fear.

That's the cowardice part of this post.

The courage portion comes from this young man:


I would be proud to call this young man my son...

Redefining Your Life

¡Hola! Everybody...
First, my Jets were humiliated last night. That's ok... this will show whether the team has the spirit to bounce back, to play, to redefine itself. I owe you all a post on the third term of the Bush administration, also known as Obama. Perhaps I'll finish it later today or tomorrow. I'm trying for a vacation and I need to tie a bunch of loose ends here at my real job (the one that pays the rent -- I only play a blogger on the internet).

Today, I was reminded of this story by my son, who is a guitar player for a rock band...

* * *

-=[ Making it Happen ]=-
Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there.

-- Miles Davis

I want to tell you a story. A story I love -- perhaps you have heard it before?

Years ago, the great violinist Itzhak Perlman was giving a concert at Carnegie Hall, or some prestigious venue like that, and the house was packed...

He hobbles onstage, puts aside his crutches, and takes his seat. The orchestra begins, and then fades for his entrance, he begins to play, and when he hits the second or third note, a string breaks.

Goes off like a shot.

And everyone’s thinking, Well this is it. Instead, very quietly Perlman signals to the conductor to begin again. Perlman then proceeds to play the entire concerto on three strings. According to the individual who told me this story, you could all but see him rethinking, recreating, the part in his head as he was playing, rearranging it, recasting it, remaking it passionately. And he does this faultlessly, impeccably. He gives the performance of his life, in the process driving the audience to musical heights.

Afterwards he says, “You know, sometimes it is the artist’s task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left.”

What a powerful example! Isn’t that what life is all about? To make a beautiful, sublime work of art with what we are given in this life? If you’re waiting for the right time and place, the right job, or the right lover in order to sing the song of yourself, then yours is a wasted life.

Love,

Eddie

Warrior

¡Hola! Everybody...
I am not surprised that a significant number of the Pee Party participants are racist and homophobic, but what really got me was that someone actually spit at Civil Rights leader Rep. John Lewis. That’s just plain nasty. I once had the displeasure of being spit at (spat on?). Some woman took exception to something I said and just hurled a glob of spit at me. She didn’t get to hit me, but being the object of such violence is quite unsettling. That someone thought so little of me that they felt it appropriate to spit at me was a complete violation; an attempt to dehumanize me.

* * *

-=[ The Awakened Warrior ]=-

Nothing in life is to be feared; it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.
-- Marie Curie

I sold my son on education using the archetype of the Scholar-Warrior. After watching an old Bruce Lee movie, he wanted to learn the martial arts. Having studied Lee’s original art, Wing Chun, myself, I made a pact with him. We would both study with a master if he took the oath of the Scholar-Warrior. Of course, I made the whole thing up. LOL

Actually, there are precedents for the oath of the Scholar-Warrior. Throughout time and across many cultures, scholar-warriors weren’t just conquerors; they were often learned men and women who were versed in a wide range of disciplines. They were familiar with poetry and the healing arts, for example. They were protectors not destroyers.

We live in a different age, of course, but I would submit that the times we live in are screaming for more Scholar-Warriors to come forth. We cannot count on our leaders and government to be brave on our behalf; they are beholden to legal fictions (aka Corporations) endowed with the rights of personage. I would say that a failure of courage all around is at the root of most our problems today. Doing the right thing is rewarding in and of itself. Scholar-Warriors do not look for credit...

The word courage comes from the French coeur, meaning “heart.” Courage is a power that comes from the integration of the heart and brain. Brave, on the other hand, comes from the word for barbarous and was used by the Romans to describe the courage of the “wild people.”

For me, courage is the willingness to embrace challenge. Courage isn’t a single trait so much as a combination of a range of qualities: willingness, persistence, intent, bravery. Real courage faces reality head on and when change is called for, accepts the need. It also calls for intelligence in that it calculates whether the means justifies the ends.

The irony is that seemingly unremarkable individuals commit some of the most courageous acts. Julia Butterfly Hill was only twenty-three when she climbed 180 feet into an ancient redwood. She lived in the tree for two years, saving it from destruction and in the process inspiring a generation of environmental activists.

I tried to teach my son that within each of us there lies a sleeping scholar-warrior and that part of our life’s purpose is to awaken that warrior. Sometimes it takes an extreme situation for the inner warrior to emerge. Many of the heroes we celebrate were initially reluctant warriors taken by surprise.

I had a friend, Freddie (who has since passed away), who with no thought to his own safety acted on a situation. It was late at night and he was on his way to the corner bodega when he came upon a rape in progress. Without hesitation he tried to save the young woman. The cowards turned on him, beating him so badly that, among other serious injuries, they broke his eye socket, causing him to lose sight in that eye. Freddie was one of the funniest people I have ever had the pleasure of knowing and when asked, he said he wasn’t a hero. For him, he was just doing what needed to be done.

I don’t consider myself a hero. I am just a son of the human species who was taught that an injustice to one person is an injustice to all. If I am a scholar-warrior at all, I am a warrior for Truth.

Today, we’re at the political mercy of a relatively small group of bullies. This is how I view most of what goes under the heading of the Right Wing in America today. Much of what they do is based in fear and loathing. That woman spit at me because she didn’t see me as a human being but as a receptacle for everything she hated. To her I was a thing; I was the “other.” Her fear and ignorance compelled her to see me as a scapegoat for all her frustrations. Bullies bully because they are rarely confronted, growing bolder with time. Push back against a bully, and his or her fear stands exposed. A scholar-warrior can stand up to them.

Lucky Babcock is an example of a spontaneous scholar-warrior. One day she was minding her own business looking out her window when she saw a man throw a woman to the ground and rip her blouse off. Lucky, then sixty-six years old, grabbed her cane and raced down two flights of iron stairs. “I felt like I was flying. I put my hands on the rails and just threw myself down four steps at a time.” She used her cane as a club and drove the man off.

Compassion is a powerful motivator. Scholar-warriors develop a passion for compassion. The compassionate are the true protectors of the earth, moved enough to take a principled stand to wage war against injustice.

A newspaper editor in Uruguay who agreed to a duel with an irate police inspector announced he would turn up without a weapon. He was challenged after his newspaper reported the officer was involved in transporting contraband. “I am not going to bear arms against another human being,” he stated. He stood convention on its head and as a result, he gained the support of the press, many politicians, and much of the public. The exposure resulted in a power shift that saw a new party formed and a new president elected.

I could tell the stories of countless reluctant scholar-warriors who almost never get any coverage, but they all seem to share the same quality of people who simply did what needed to be done.

If everybody who cared actually participated, the world would change. But we can’t count on other people -- only ourselves. If we each do our part, who knows? But if we don’t, I think we know what will happen -- it’s happening now. I’ll tell you today what I tried to teach my son not too long ago. The task of the scholar-warrior is to persist in the face of the greatest opposition. Even if our efforts turn out to be for nothing at one level, our actions still create ripples of effect. Courage isn’t risking our selves for what we believe in, my friends. It’s letting go of the belief that there’s something to risk.

Love,

Eddie

Responding to Fear

¡Hola! Everybody...
Ever simply feel that someone or some thing, or some situation is just right? Have you ever followed that inner feeling? How was that? Then again, I know many people who had children on account of a “feeling.” LOL!

* * *

-=[ Responding to Fear ]=-

Nothing in life is to be feared; it only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.

-- Marie Curie

A shadow is created by blocking, deflecting, or otherwise obstructing light. Wherever fear comes into existence, it lives, grows, and remains a part of us by embedding itself between the light of creative vision and our intuition. It is the shadow, not a lack of ability, that is the biggest obstacle we face today as a global community. The shadow, as I see it, is the space between what we want and what we get. It’s the distance between who we are and who we are meant to be, with the biggest, deepest, and widest gap occurring between the present crisis and our vision.

Look around at what has so many of us mesmerized: paranoia, worry, doubt, disease. They cast a spell on almost every aspect of our lives. Fear prevents us from seeing or feeling clearly. It blocks the natural flow of our creative energy and hampers our ability to be radically innovative. We seem to be caught in a state of generalized anxiety that makes solutions impossible or paralyzes their implementation. When we do manage to get started, it is fear that often calls us back at the first sign of disappointment or problem. Fear, as a friend likes to say, keeps us “stuck on stupid” as in the example of the proverbial deer caught in the headlights. It stunts our growth and suffocates our awakening, causing us to repeat painful and habitual patterns of behavior and making us lose sight of our vision (or uncommon sense). In order for us to envision and create a better society we must get past this fearful landscape.

Historically, creative people have often felt separated from their communities. It’s as if their ability to see clearly between what is and what could be serves to stigmatize them. Innovators are often ridiculed, their ideas and insights too far ahead of the curve of the mainstream culture. This isolation strikes fear within us: we fear that if we express our ideas, or rock the boat a little, or act on them, others will ridicule us. the truth is that our visionary thinking is the only thing that will save us. But people are afraid to follow their own ideas. They’re sure they will be perceived as crazy, or radical, or -- gasp! -- outside of the political norm.

We are defeated not by our uniqueness, but by our fear of the unusual, the new, the strange. We live in a society obsessed by numbers and norms, with its averages, means, and medians spurring us to believe in something called “normal,” which has little to do with being real. The idea of “average” or “typical behavior” is nothing more than a mathematical conceit.

Similarly, we fear information that challenges our ingrained worldview. Most of the resistance we see today is really about killing the messenger than a defense of reason. Those yelling about fictitious death panels, or decrying marriage equality, or those who have made it their business to discredit all forms of science are protecting hidden agendas composed of fear and loathing.

We fear losing as self-doubt zeroes in on the space between our potential and insecurity. We’re not thin enough, smart enough, or committed. As a nation too many focus on what we can’t do, rather than what we’re capable of. We’re too late with too little. Such doubts and fears make us hesitate at a moment in time in which we can ill afford to hesitate. Others fear something actually succeeding and taking hold because it means their worldview was wrong -- fear of success. Many fear death, or loss of control. Whatever the case, it’s fear-based living at a time of crisis.

A sure recipe for catastrophe.

The people who insist that nothing needs to be done demonstrate a complacency that’s both ignorant and disempowering. Awakening to our full potential is not a spectator sport. If we’re going to respond the challenges we face, we must act and act thoughtfully with foresight. Whenever a group tries something different, there’s an initial period of turbulence. Many people, fearful of new ways, mistake the turbulence for change itself and decide they would rather go back to the “good old days.” In this way, we dismiss the world of potential and vision for a past that never existed.

If we allow ourselves to be led by a creative vision, we will never lose. We can let go of right and wrong, winning and losing, approval and disapproval. Right now, we are on the cusp of a new world emerging and behind us an old world imploding upon itself. The only rational response to fear is to fully embrace this new world. Our potential can only be realized by us collectively. This new world has been hovering over us for a long time and it has nothing to do with some bullshit calendar and everything to do with being awake, and we have heard it speaking all our lives:

Seize the day. Go for broke. Walk the walk. Try your wings. Do unto others...

Stop the fear.

Love,

Eddie

Sunday Sermon [Gettin' Naked]

¡Hola! Everybody...
Happy Sunday and all that! BTW, if you want to grow and be an Intellectual just like your Uncle Eddie, then the first rule goes as follows:

Eddie Rule #1 for Intellectual Wannabes

You cannot disagree with something you have failed to understand.

* * *

-=[ Gettin’ Naked ]=-

Fear is excitement without the breathing.

I just recently met someone (I call her the African Princess) and we were talking about creativity. She is an artist. Mostly, we spoke about how creating art and taking that out into the world for its judgment is often an act of courage. Or, better put, it is often very scary. Who among us doesn’t fear public exposure of our creative ideas because we then will feel naked and vulnerable in front of others, and believe we may end up rejected or laughed at in our vulnerability.

Our creative output usually holds special significance for us. They express something that we have been quietly nurturing in our inner life, away from the eyes and ears of others. It is risky, or seems so, to go public with them. All of sudden, we’re out there, and despite being clothed, we feel a profound nakedness.

Yet we must find a balance between the need to expose our creations to possible public criticism with the fear that our offerings may be somehow cheapened or ridiculed -- maybe even stolen.

People say I am an excellent public speaker, but I suffer from an almost debilitating fear from being on a stage, or in front of a crowd. Add to the fact that I often am presenting controversial views in front of other professionals who often disagree with me, and public speaking for me can be both a fearsome and exhilarating process. I would be lying if I didn’t admit that being in front of others can be rewarding, and that a part of me thrives on the attention and the adrenaline rush. Perhaps there is a healthy exhibitionism beneath the courage to go naked -- but we had better have something to back it up! LOL

On the other hand, after a while, there can be the realization that was once an experience that produced trepidation and excitement now has become humdrum. What for some can be an experience of a lifetime can become routine for others. We need the courage to go naked, but it is much more than simply overcoming fear. Perhaps stage fright is not just a fear of being out there naked, but a desire to be out there and really naked. Perhaps along with presenting our creativity to others, we also need to know that we are pushing our own boundaries, along with those of our audience. We are naked to ourselves as well as to others.

This all involves a degree of risk-taking, to be sure, if only because we have invested so much of ourselves in our product that we do not want to see it flop. We have risked everything -- our hopes and dreams -- on our creative ideas, and we desire some measure of recognition and reward, whether the rewards are social or financial.

I guess the moral of today’s “sermon” is to get out there and do it! Take it off -- take it all off! As in love, in the realization of the dream resides self-realization; in its impact is its proof, in our creations we complete ourselves.

Love,

Eddie

Standing Up and Being Counted

¡Hola! Everybody...
the good weather is here and that means I spend less time at home. Had dinner in the city with some friends last night. This week there are two free concerts I will be attending (weather permitting). This weekend, I’m headed back to Boston for a visit.

* * *

-=[ Accountability ]=-

I did not have three thousand pairs of shoes. I had one thousand sixty.

-- Imelda Marcos

Mistakes were made...

-- Standard Issue PR Evasive Measure

Accountability! Now there's a concept that's hard to find in use these days. LOL! For those that are too young to remember, Imelda Marcos was the wife of a Philippine dictator who was eventually ousted from power. In the ensuing mess, it was discovered that as the nation's people suffered abject poverty, this couple lived a life of luxury hard to imagine. One of the themes of this story arose from the discovery of the many shoes Imelda Marcos possessed.

As human beings, we all share the impulse to justify ourselves and avoid responsibility for any actions that turn out to be harmful, immoral, or just plain stupid. While we all like to point fingers at others and public figures, most of us will never be in the public spotlight when we lay our own eggs or the skeletons in our closet rattle. Our decisions will most likely not affect the lives of millions of people, but whether on a grand scale or our personal canvas, most of us find it difficult, if not impossible, to say, “I was wrong, I made a terrible mistake.” The higher the emotional, financial, moral stakes -- the harder it is.

Recently, Dick Cheney actually said mistakes were made with regard to the response to the 9/11 attacks. Check out the language: Mistakes were made.

What mistakes and by whom? Shred the constitution, commit war crimes, and lie deliberately to go to war and all you can say is Mistakes were made... ? Where is the accountability and leadership in language oozing with passivity?

I differentiate between responsibility and accountability -- I think they are two different things. To be accountable for something means that one may not be responsible for a situation, but has decided to be accountable for it. An example might be deciding not to add one’s own litter to an already littered street. That was an example taught to me by my mother when I was a little boy. She saw me dropping a candy wrapper onto the pavement and when I protested that the street was already dirty (we lived in the ghetto, duh!), her answer has stayed with me: It’s dirty because everybody thinks as you do! To this day, I don’t litter. LOL!

Another example would be understanding not being responsible for a disease but being accountable for maintaining a lifestyle that helps to arrest that disease. That understanding right there is a major part of my life. I try to apply it to all my affairs: accountability versus responsibility.

Imelda never got it right: it wasn’t the number of shoes she possessed (though stealing from the masses and then throwing it away on trivial matters while many died from starvation is an unsettling moral issue). The point wasn’t the number of shoes but the utter lack of accountability for her actions -- that was the issue.

I have witnessed many people get stuck on the responsibility side of things to the point that they never get past that. Even when you are responsible for an action, it is not enough to just admit to the responsibility, one has to own the issue and become accountable for it.

Accountability demands that our commitment compels us to stand up and be “counted” -- to take action. This is an integral part of change and growth. By releasing the purely moral issue, one then gains power to become a moral agent in changing actions/ behaviors/ situations. Imelda took responsibility for the one thousand sixty shoes she owned; she just never became accountable for them. LOL!

Love,

Eddie

Sunday Sermon (Uncovering the Heart)

¡Hola! Everybody...
It’s a little cool here in the north, but life is good...

* * *

-=[ Uncovering the Heart ]=-

Your Heart [A work in progress]

A rare and beautiful bird
resides in the
nucleus of your heart.

Occasionally...

when I listen
to your silent painful pauses,
I can heart its song...

faintly.

It struggles within
its bejeweled prison --
bars of gold
And though it flutters its wings,
longing to be set free,
it sings its song.

Just now, I find myself
drinking in your smile
and I wonder...

that bird...

to hold that precious bird,
gently caressing it in my hands,
to feel its rapid heartbeat...

what joy...

Would you... ?

Let me set it free,
so it could soar
to sing its song
of freedom and love?

* * *

What counts is to strip the soul naked. Painting or poetry is made as we make love; a total embrace, prudence thrown to the wind, nothing held back.

-- Joan Miro

Uncovering the heart means exposing the very core of the self. For many of us, this is a scary move into unknown territory, though it is a part of our inner selves that we are uncovering. The heart symbolizes feeling and intuition. Though we may be fearful, the true danger is in the death, not the exploration, of the heart.

Sometimes our hearts remember, better than our analytical minds, the times and places of our deepest felt experiences. During times of crisis or personal breakdown, the heart insists on revealing itself to us; we are forced to pay attention. These are times of deep personal pain that most of us would rather avoid, because we fear that the load will be too much to bear -- that it may be possible to feel too much.

Just as it is possible to close our eyes and not see the world around us, we can also close our hearts. We do so at a great price: we may choose to live in a world of flat surfaces, a clinically dry and angular world seemingly sterile until we peer under its surface.

To undress the heart is to reveal our inner history -- a history forgotten or hidden. We may be paying a price for relegating powerful forces to the shadow world for it is there they hold greater power. One of the aims of depth psychotherapies is to help us rediscover our lost selves gradually and integrate them again into our whole personalities.

The language of the heart may seem illogical. But if we listen to it -- really listen to it without losing our heads -- we just might find the faintly shimmering message in it that what lies ahead is a new and better way of living. It is in this aspect that there is strength in living with a naked heart.

However, there is that fearful vulnerability also. We take a chance when we open to others. We can be hurt. We may ask ourselves if we are risking too much. Who wants to be open and vulnerable?

I have found that in my own life, some of the most rewarding examples of creativity have been those moments when my heart was uncovered, when I was able to emerge and address those unique yet universal experiences that bind us together in the human condition.

I have learned that the uncovered heart contains both vulnerability and strength. Its strength perhaps lies precisely in that ability to open itself to itself with an exquisite grace that invites the hearts of others to do so too.

Love,

Eddie

Learned Helplessness

¡Hola! Everybody...
I’m jumping right into today’s post...The following is in reference to a social networking site, Multiply, I frequent. There's a group there that uses racial epithets regularly, a clear violation of the site's terms of service. For details and context click here

* * *

-=[ Learned Helplessness vs Change ]=-

“Culturally the Negro represents a paradox: Though he is an organic part of the nation, he is excluded by the entire tide and direction of American Culture... Therefore if, within the confines of its present culture, the nation ever seeks to purge itself of its color hate, it will find itself at war with itself, convulsed by a spasm of emotional and moral confusion.”

-- Richard Wright, Black Boy

[As part of society, we are ultimately the ones that determine what kind of world we envision. If you find the use of racial epithets acceptable, read no further. If hate speech offends your idea of a civil society, then please read my post and if you agree, sign the online petition (click here)]

The second vilest sin (second only to ignorance) I come across on a regularly basis is the notion that we have no power. The sentiment seems to be, “Well, sure it’s (<-- insert any form of getting reamed here) wrong, but I can’t make a difference, so why bother.”

Observe that the same negative defeatist attitude dominates both forms of thought. In psychology this type of belief system is called learned helplessness.

AmeriKKKa? This is your brain on cynicism.

Recently it was brought to my attention that a political internet group, Robust Debate, has resorted to using hate speech as a way to intimidate people of color and women. Racial epithets such as “nigger” and “boy” are common and women are often referred to as “bitches.”

I am a firm believer in free speech and that’s why I have taken the time to understand the First Amendment. There are limits to free speech. You can’t stand up in a crowded theater and yell “fire” without suffering the consequences because that would be considered a crime. However, I believe that even the vilest ideologies should be given the same freedoms as other speech. The 1^st Amendment has to apply to all ideas, even those we find offensive.

My post, however, is not about the First Amendment. It’s really about the fair implementation of website Terms of Service (TOS). As many who read me know, I’ve been kicked out of a certain website so many times it isn’t funny. No, I don’t harass people, I don't cyber stalk women, nor do I insist people read my blogs. I've been banned mostly because of my ideas.

Because unshophisticated people often find my views abhorrent, I have a big problem with censorship of any kind. However, my post isn't about censorship...

If the owners of this site find my thoughts and ideas out of line and I'm deleted, that’s their right and choice, it is their site. But from what I understand, TOS also warn users against using hate speech. Websites are privately owned and they can determine what they allow to happen on their sites. If I get bounced for expressing my ideas regarding organized religion or the sexual development of children, then why isn’t an individual calling another human being a nigger or a bitch being treated similarly?

I’m asking that you consider this. There is no sane place in this world for hate. Do you think it’s right for some people to be held to one standard while others are allowed to use racial epithets without consequence? This is about fairness and everyone being held to the same standard on a privately-owned website.

And for those who say that there’s no use in speaking truth to power, I’ll leave you with a story that brings it home for me.

I was once marching in Washington, DC against some injustice, I forget which. At the time, I had been feeling very frustrated at the state of politics in this country. Less than half of those eligible to vote did, and one of the results was the re-election an incompetent to the Oval Office -- re-elected!

I was marching alongside this elderly African-American lady who had to use a walker. She was veteran from the peak years of the civil rights movement -- someone who marched in the South when they would let dogs loose on you if you had the audacity to demand equal rights. I asked her how she could continue the struggle in the face of so much failure. Her response will stay with me until the day I die:

With a smile that belied her rebel attitude, she explained to me that she didn’t risk everything because she hoped or expected win over those who disagreed with her or held formidable economic and political power. Rather, she recognized that -- as powerless as she was -- she was determined to use her courage and determination as a weapon to harass embedded power structures. Her goal was defiance she told me.

She also explained that she avoided discouragement because the moment she chose resistance as a strategy against slave mentality, she was triumphant. Nothing the power elite could do could ever diminish her triumph.

Finally, she emphasized that we owed it to both our ancestors and our children. We owed it to our ancestors, many of whom fought slavery and oppression knowing they would never see it abolished in their lifetimes. More importantly, we owe it to our children, who need to have the road cleared for their own resistance. Children who need the power of example of defiance in the face of hate in order for them to shake off the shackles of ignorance and passive acceptance.

So, the next time you say some stupid-assed sh!t such as, “What difference can I make,” remember that. Remember people died so you could walk around saying stupid sh!t. Whatever your decision today -- whether you agree with me or not, or sign the petition (or not) -- is irrelevant. What is important is if you are making a stand. I will not engage your thinking on this. If you act, you act; if you don't, you don't. This is about action (or the lack thereof), not talk.

Paz,

Eddie

Sunday Sermon (Heroes)

¡Hola! Everybody...
I’ve had to work this weekend. Recently, I’ve picked up on my consulting work and my regular job is really hectic. LOL! It’s all good...

Not too long ago, I wrote a blog about white privilege and I was labeled a bigot. More recently, I wrote a blog condemning domestic violence and I was called sexist (among other things). My guess is that because I write a weekly blog on sex, I’m also perverse.

Let me just say this much: if being called a bigot, racist, sexist asshole means that it separates me from the Hordes of Unreason, then I’ll wear those labels proudly.

I’ll risk the obvious and say that if you don’t like my writing -- or if you don’t like me -- then kindly leave and go fuck yourself. It’s not a big thing, your feelings don't affect me much. Just don’t let the door hit you on the ass on the way out.

Finally, if you voted for Bush, please don’t tell me! I will lose all respect for your intellect and your capacity for critical thought will be forever in doubt. I mean, like, it’s a free country and all, but personally, choosing stupidity is not a quality I look for when engaging conversation. If you voted for Bush (or, OMFG! Palin), I really don’t need to know that, OK?

* * *

-=[ Heroes ]=-

I got into meditation in a funny way. First, I learned it when I was about 10-11 years-old from my sensei (teacher). Sensei Blair would pick kids up from the street and teach them discipline via the martial arts. He was the first person to introduce me to Eastern practices. Later, one of my favorite comic book heroes was Dr. Strange. Dr, Strange was real cool, he used to meditate a lot and he lived in the Village in a mansion...

and was an astral traveler -- a master of the "black arts." Cool!

Perhaps there are people you consider heroes. Some may be movie stars or sports players. Maybe your hero is a politician or scientist. On the other hand, you might have ordinary heroes like your parents or extraordinary heroes like Mother Teresa, Jesus, Martin Luther King, or the Dalai Lama.

Or, if you’re really fucked up, I might be one of your heroes!

Whatever the case may be, my point is that the reason someone is your hero is because he or she embodies qualities through which goodness, truth, or beauty shines. The pertinent issue in all this is that if these qualities weren’t already alive in you, then you wouldn’t resonate with them in your heroes. In other words, it takes one to know one.

To awaken is to rest as the openness in which all these heroic qualities reside. The qualities that are your nature -- the potential expressions in any given moment. There is a part of you that yearns to grow, to nurture a deeper love, to develop the full potential of your heart’s gifts. Perhaps you feel a need to evolve into a translucent offering to the divine qualities that want to shine through your life.

One way to align with the calling of your heart is to relax as this openness, and imagine yourself to be your hero. Give yourself permission to drop all the tension surrounding your heart and open yourself as awareness in this moment. Actually feel (not think!) and allow yourself to be the openness that is awareness, shining as a light, vibrating like a clear bell through space... Relax as this heart-openness and visualize your hero (Jesus, The Dalai Lama, etc.). Allow the image to come closer until your body and your hero’s body become one. Wear the body of Jesus as if it were your own. Feel what it would be to breathe, sit, walk, or speak as your hero. Be thgis heart-open awareness, shining as a light, and taking the shape of your hero.

When you can feel that your are embodying all the qualities of your hero, allow this visualization to dissolve, while at the same time keeping the sense of the qualities you admire. Relax into that space, continuing to feel the truth, beauty, or goodness of your hero.

You can practice this same exercise with any hero, whether they be movie stars, athletes of world leaders. Wear, feel and express the very qualities of your heroes. This is a skill, and your skill develops, the entire process occurs almost at once. You visualize your hero, feel and merge with the form of your hero, and then dissolve as that form, remaining awake and alive shining the qualities you admire.

Whenever you feel a divine quality in a person, you can relax open as that quality, instantly, through this exercise. Then, as an expression of your life, you can offer these qualities as a gift to others, as you embody them more deeply. Eventually, you will find the visualization becomes unnecessary. Effortlessly, you become an open form of a blessing.

Relax as heart-openness itself and you can instantly offer the gifts of all your heroes.

Love,

Eddie

What Really Matters, pt. II [Noche Buena]

¡Hola! Everybody...
So! Through no design by me, I find myself writing Christmas-type shit. LOL

My mother was a zany woman who went through this adventure we call life with her kids in tow. The following is fiction. It is based on actual events and is the foundation of one of the stories in my forthcoming book of short stories tentatively titled Ataques de Nervios (Nervous Attacks) or 704 E. 5^th St. (or some shit like that). However, I have taken huge liberties with parts of the story, the characters, and time line.

* * *

-=[ Noche Buena ]=-

“Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.”

-- Bertrand Russell

It’s so cold she can’t feel her feet. She’s wearing only slippers in the midst of a raging Nor’easter. She’s afraid and her threadbare coat hardly protects her from the 40-50 mile per hour winds. It’s the night before Noche Buena and she’s alone, keeping vigil outside a home in the Italian section of Lower Manhattan, But she’s here because her kids are in need... there’s no one around and she despairs. Her feet ache...

Eddie left with Gangster and told her that if she saw anyone, she should whistle. Now she wonders if she can whistle, her face is frozen, and they’ve been gone so long. What if the police come?

Finally, they come rushing out the building with stuffed pillowcases and she starts to run with them she falls, she can’t feel her toes. Gangster and Eddie thankfully pick her up and they make their way hurriedly back to the Puerto Rican section, which takes too long and she’s crying, she’s in agony. Eddie stops to look at her feet and mutters, “shit!” under his breath.

They hurry home.

They finally get home and by now, she’s crying in agony. Eddie takes off the slippers and thinks she has frostbite. She cries, but tries to stifle her cries, fearful she’ll awaken the children. Unbeknownst to them, her oldest son watches through a crack in the bedroom doorway. He’s afraid.

They call Eddie’s sister, who takes one look at the stuffed pillowcases and looks down at the young mother, as if noting her lack of moral standing. Eddie asks her to look at her feet and the sister says it’s not frostbite, but that she should go to the emergency room anyway. The young mother refuses, afraid. Afraid of the consequences of the act she just helped commit and afraid of what they may say about her toes that throb with pain now.

They give Eddie’s sister a gold watch from the stolen loot, and she’s delighted. It’s an expensive watch, very pretty. She gives the young mother another condescending look and admonishes them for behaving in such an un-Christian manner. The young mother says nothing and thanks her for looking after the children.

That Christmas a good Christmas for us. There was good food, there were gifts under the tree, and my mother seemed so happy though we noticed that she limped a little when she walked. She had a brand new pair of boots, the only concession she made for herself. She made sure to get her precious children gifts from “Guzman’s” -- the toy store on Avenue C. I remember I got a James Bond attaché case, complete with gadgets and it even shot rubber bullets if you pressed a hidden button. I also got a chemistry set that I used for hours upon hours... She made sure we got our gifts before Eddie and Gangster would leave with the bulk of the loot, returning only when the money was spent on drugs. She didn’t even get herself a decent coat. However, we got warm coats, gloves, scarves, and long underwear.

I never knew why she was crying that wintry night all those years ago. I thought they were fighting... But I am not surprised at her sacrifice -- what she went through for what she thought would make us happy because somehow she always made it right, even if it meant compromising her values or her reputation. She didn’t care, only her children mattered. Still, she was ashamed and part of the reason why I have perfect posture is because she taught us to walk tall, with our heads held high.

Most importantly, she taught me what really matters...

Love,

Eddie

Sunday Sermon (Making it, Faking it)

Hola Everybody,
First, I’m going to go out on a limb and state right out that the Giants will win today. Whatever the case, if the game comes down to the wire with everything in the balance, it will have been worthwhile. If the Giants win, some young lady here (I’m not mentioning her name, but I’ll take a quick look! LOL!) owes me a “swallowing” BJ. I’ll take that with a little choking and some slurping noises, btw… LOL And I plan to collect on our lil wager!

I’d also like to take a moment to wish my friend Aqua Kitty Kat a very happy birthday! Felicidades, sweetie!

* * *

-=[ Making it, Faking it ]=-
“Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there.”
-- Miles Davis

Two things today…

First, I want to tell you a story. A story I love that I don’t think I’ve ever told you. Perhaps you have heard it?

Once, years ago, the great violinist, Itzhak Perlman was giving a concert at Carnegie Hall, or some huge venue like that, and the house is packed. He hobbles onstage, puts aside his crutches, and takes his seat. The orchestra begins, and then fades for his entrance, he begins to play, and when he hits the second or third note, a string breaks. Goes off like a shot. And everyone’s thinking, Well this is it. Instead, very quietly Perlman signals to the conductor to begin again. Perlman then proceeds to play the entire concerto on three strings. According to the individual who told me this story, you could all but see him rethinking, recreating, the part in his head as he was playing, rearranging it, recasting it, remaking passionately. And he does this faultlessly, impeccably. He gives the performance of his life, in the process driving the audience to musical heights.

Afterwards, he says, “You know, sometimes it is the artist’s task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left.”

What a powerful example! Isn’t that what life is all about? To make a beautiful, sublime work of art with what we are given in this life? If you’re waiting for the right time and place, the right job, or the right lover in order to sing the song of yourself, then yours is a wasted life. And a wasted life is the only sin in my book.

* * *

Secondly, lately I’m sure you’ve been hearing a lot of talk lately about “truth” and “reality” and “change” from the salesmen of belief. They want you to define yourself (and therefore vote) in terms of their particular product and brand yourself as “Republican,” “Libertarian,” “Evangelical,” “Democrat.” The list is as long as the sales pitch.

Our own unknown and hidden beliefs about our worth or worthlessness are the foundation upon which our habitual patterns of behavior rest. What is common to all this is the promise of freedom or fulfillment, of “security,” or some such nonsense.

It’s a lot like those late-night commercials that jar you from your sleep. The volume is twice normal as though they can shout us into submission. Or, more accurately, it’s an approach comparable to the one favored by Goebbels in Nazi Germany. He stated that if you repeated a lie enough times, it would become a truth. And in that way, there are WMDs in Iraq, cutting taxes for the rich is good for you, and Jesus was an American born in a Red state. And if you believe all that I promise you I won’t come in your mouth.

Here, drink some Kool-Aid.

The short and long of it is that we humans have this overwhelming need to make sense of it all in the face of certain death and a seemingly uncaring universe. We all feel incomplete somewhere and we wear masks and amulets (labels) to appease the Big Bad God up there somewhere in the sky. We’re all faking it somehow in fear of the day when the “Guy in Charge” will walk into the room, point at us, laugh, and say, “You’re a phony!”

At their core, all these attempts to make sense of human existence come from this primal fear and insecurity. They seem to offer us ways to become “real.” They hold out the carrot of freedom whether it’s defined in terms of one’s place in an economic system, as in libertarian Voodoo Economics, as an obedient child of God in Christianity, or maybe even as an unquestioning employee for a multinational corporation. Whatever the case, most of us readily drink the Kool-Aid of slavery and agree to call it freedom.

I know this is like howling against the wind on this most holy Superbowl day of the Religion of the Immaculate Consumption, but I submit that your responsibility is what is called “The Great Refusal.” Refuse to sleep your life away. Refuse to drink the Kool-Aid of second-hand beliefs and substitutes for the real experience. Refuse your fake self and reclaim your own dignity – your integrity. In your sleep, dream that you’re awakening.

I will leave you with one of my favorite quotes. In the meantime, you will have to make a choice to play the song of yourself now, or wait mutely until everything’s just right. will you dare dream with your eyes open and with your meager instrument, play the greatest concerto, or will you drin the Kool-Aid and bemoan your fate?

“All men dream but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity. But the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.”
-- T.E. Lawrence (aka Lawrence of Arabia)

Love,

Eddie