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inspiration
Wednesday, January 5, 200507:25:37 PM
right now i'm still caught up in this strange circle i've been in for the past few years. my job is still the same mostly, just in a new city again. there are minor differences now, but they are cosmetic i think. my biggest source of anxiety is my staff, and their anxieties. they are stressed out, near their breaking points, and that stresses me out and puts me ever closer to my own. ive seen them as my work over the last year or maybe even two, and if they leave me, i will feel a failure. i worry that the problem all along has been a lack of inspiration, and isnt that my job, to inspire them? how can you lead someone if you cant inspire them? you can't, really. and nobody else can or will do it for me. but it seems i have failed, and i need not fail again with the next generation of organizers, assuming i make it to the next generation. because my own fate is so wrapped up and intertwined with theirs, that if they leave, if they quit, if they give up on what we have all set out to accomplish, it will be so so hard to continue on.

fear of flying
Wednesday, August 25, 200411:34 p.m.
last night i slept on the redeye flight from vegas to nyc. when i arrived this morning, i went straight to my old apartment, where josh let me lounge around all day while he was at work. i spent most of it listening to mp3s of cockpit recordings from airplane crashes. it really upset me and freaked me out. then tonight i went down to lincoln square to read some books and go to a movie by myself. i saw garden state, which opens with a shot of the interior of a plane that is going down and the passengers are in a state of panic. it made me uncomfortable, wanted to leave the theater. lately ive been talking alot about my fear of flying. its been growing for a while now, but since i moved from nyc and my job put me back on the road again, ive been flying a lot more, so its really a big deal now. every flight is bad, and i dream about plane crashes a lot. its like a normal recurring theme in my dreams. and i think about plane crashes constantly. i read about them online. i talk to people about them. im so frightened of dying in a plane crash. i believe its my biggest fear at this point in my life, and its taking on the form of a full-on psychosis. i should do some research, maybe there is a cure for it. maybe it means something. the woman at jet blue told me she thought it might be related to 9-11, and she may be right. i think my fear was there before 9-11, but that it has definetly gotten worse since then. the plane that crashed in november of 2001 in long island crashed right in the neighborhood i was working in that week. in fact, theres a chance i would have been in that neighborhoood that day if the plane hadnt crashed there. five plane crashes all in a couple of months really freaked me out, so im pretty sure that had an effect on my fear. i just hope i can curb it, because it feels like im going to be flying a lot more with work. and i dread it so much. every flight is such a psychological trauma for me now. and i know it sounds like im being dramatic, but its really just that bad.

moving on
Tuesday, July 20, 200404:18:08 PM
when i finish writing this, i will shut down and pack up this computer and it will be the last piece of my property to be hauled off out of this apt here on the upper west side of manhattan. ive lived in this little room off and on for the last five years, and ive grown attatched to it, the neighborhood, the city. i use the word "lived" loosely, because since im on the road probably 200 days out of the year, im rarely ever here. and a lot of my free time i spend travelling instead of staying here at "home". but despite all that, i really like being "home." i like having a little square of space to call my own. i like having somewhere to accumulate my things and my memories and my experiences. and quite frankly, i like having a place to just lay around and watch television or play video games and relax. hopefully i will get all of this from my new "home", a two bedroom condo on the lake in hot springs arkansas that i just recently bought. its the first time i ever bought anything like that, and it feels good and responsible to do it. and im constantly homesick and want something to pull me back to arkansas more often than i am. the last year new york has annoyed me the way a girlfriend annoys you when you have a crush on another woman. and inevitably, now that im packing up and leaving her for real, im feeling sentimental. me and new york have a lot of good memories. i think i fit in here ok. there were lots of things i liked about it, not the least of which was being the center of the world all the time. that feels exciting. but it comes at a pretty high cost. crowds, lines, congestion, pollution, noise, filth, expensive, unfriendly, anonymous, unsympathetic, competition, there are so many things to NOT like about nyc. but i will miss a few things. being able to walk everywhere, not taking for granted the few trees you see, seeing every movie first, plays, seeing celebrities all the time and pretending you dont care, every kind of food, and the best of every kind of food, illegal gambling dens, the knicks, amtrak, riverside church, my roomates, our poker nights, columbia university late at night, the george washington bridge, blue 9 burger, union square, hell, ill even miss times square. im sure ill be up this way again. but this chapter of me and new york are over. me and this room, and even this computer, my portal to all of you. im sure you cant wait to see how the next chapter begins. stay tuned.

anxiety
Monday, May 31, 200412:10:06 AM
two days until we know for sure. the vote has become too important. its taking on metaphoric meaning in my life. im at the point where i think that winning will mean that good things are possible in my life and lifetime, and losing will represent a deeply rooted curse, a harbringer of failures yet to come. i think we will lose. the fantasies of winning wont go away though. as much as i hate thinking of winning (because it teases me, because it jinxes us, because it is just so depressing. remember, ive been through this before) these visions of winning keep popping into my head. in my dreams, my daydreams, all the time. im in new york city tonight, have been for the weekend. im counting the hours to the vote, and excited to have it all behind me. im anxious to see what awaits me on the other side. one more thing to be anxious about, where do i go? will i have to move? i think im growing into new york city. i think i can do well here given nothing else to worry about and given enough time to relax and feel at home. weird to hear myself say it, i am such an avowed hater of this town. but today was nice. church may have helped a little. i go to church every sunday that im home. but i never go to church when im out of town. maybe its just that i enjoy this particular church. but i know i love going. it makes me feel refreshed, recharged, gives me a little bit of a boost to get me through the week. i dont think the boost this week was strong enough, and i only need to get through two days. im thinking of taking a road trip out west with katie when its all over. drive down hwy 101 from san fransisco to los angeles. or maybe the other direction. i want to write more, reams and reams in my head all the time, i have to get it all down. this is such a terrible medium for all that. but where? my patience (lack thereof)wont let me write it all down. wish me luck. when i come back ill be such a basket case.

Thursday, April 15, 200406:07 p.m.
we're really in it now, baby. less than a month to go, really, and there is no turning back. i'll tell you, it looks about as desperate as it did almost two years ago. it looks like we could lose by about a hundred votes. but if you remember, that's what i said last time, and we came within a hog's breath of winning it. so what the hell do i know? i know this: if we win, we win in spite of insurmountable obstacles. i mean, the fucking boss's message about us being the "wrong union" is everywhere! everywhere! in every nook and cranny of this fucking place workers are biting their nails over whether or not we are the right union for them. the boss has such an easy time of getting their spin out. what a stacked contest union elections are. i'm surprised we ever fucking win at all. i'm serious. and this campaign, the one i lost, the one i'm running again, this campaign has become so important to me. its like the single most important thing i can do. if i win, it will, without a doubt, be my proudest moment. why? well, you may think its because i helped some incredible people do an unthinkable task. you may think its because we will be part of the history of something im sure will one day be great. but the real reason is that it will be my proudest day to beat these sorry scumbag motherfuckers that run this place and their fatass fucking smarmy arrogant lawyer. if i could cause them physical pain without retribution, id feel no guilt at all. these people, these wretched, miserable people that conspire against me and against my union, they are the lowest people on earth. and the fact that we are virtually powerless against them drives me up the wall. without winning the vote, all we can do is continue to spend money defaming their name as far and wide as anyone will listen. but what is the point, i often wonder, if we lose again? what is the point in continuing to fight for people who are chickenshit morons just to prove you are the better adversary to your enemy? while i can see the pleasure in it, i can't much see any reason for it. so this may be our last stand. and it's on me to do what i set out to do, and keep some people up at night, with at least as much if not more grief that i lie awake with myself. are we successful? i can only hope and pray. but it doesn't feel like it on most days. and my thoughts for the first time are occupied with wondering what else i could be doing other than beating my head against this goddamn wall.

biking into the heart of darkness
Tuesday, March 30, 200411:55:23 PM
read this fucked up shit about a woman who rides her motorcycle through chernobyl ghost towns becasue "there are no stop lights." http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/

counting down the hours
Thursday, March 11, 200409:07:39 PM
next to the night before the vote, the longest night on an organizing drive is the night before the kickoff. up until this point, and for the rest of tonight, anything is possible. anything can happen. there is no limit to the number of possible scenarios that could occur. and my imagination is free to run wild. in the shower, in the elevator, driving in my car, watching movies, i can daydream about how good it will feel to kick the company's ass and win. but after tonight no more daydreams: im living in it, i have to make it happen. but im not alone this time. every other campaign i felt all alone. this time i truly feel that i have everyone right there with me, side by side. i just need to find the right words to make sure they dont feel as nervous as i do.

two quotes for today and tomorrow
Friday, February 20, 200401:14:54 AM
"we make this road by walking." myles horton "there's more than one way to sell it baby." bessie smith

going to give them hell
Tuesday, February 3, 200410:05:31 PM
think not that i am come to send peace on this earth: i came not to send peace, but a sword. for i am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a man's foes shall be they of his own household. matthew 10:34-36. the labor board has overturned the election in albany that we lost over a year ago. reading back over what i wrote,im reminded of how painful that campaign was. gutwrenching. how stressful it was for me, my staff, and the hundreds and hundreds of hardworking men and women there. hell, even the ones who foolishly voted no, i dont blame them. they work hard, they want a decent life, and their lives were made difficult and complicated and tense by the union election. and i wish them no harm and no foul for voting the other way. and im certain they feel the opposite about me. but one thing is for sure, someone is to blame for all that pain and conflict over a year ago. someone is responsible for turning friends into enemies, for fooling good people into believing and standing for lies. someone is responsible for crushing the hopes and dreams of brave and resiliant workers by breaking the law and lying. when i heard we would get another run at them in albany, at first i laughed and thought there was no way that i could make it through another campaign there, let alone the workers, and let alone actually winning it this time. but know this, if we run it again, winning will be second to making the boss feel all the stress, the nervousness, the tension, the agony, the shame, the embarassment, the fear, and the insult that he heaped upon the workers the last time out. he may beat us this time, but i will rest well knowing that i went down giving him all the hell that god's fury will allow.

adjusting to the weather
Sunday, December 14, 200311:19 p.m.
today was a snow day. i let the staff off for the day since we were getting another 14 inches of snow dumped on us. we slept in, then we all ate lunch together, then we went to the movies together, then the bookstore, then came back to the hotel and played outside in the big giant mountain of snow in the parking lot from where the plows had pushed it up all day. we climbed on it and jumped off over and over again. it was exciting and fun, and extremely cold. it was a huge rush and made me feel like such a kid. then we all ran and jumped into the hot tub in the hotel and sat around and talked shit for a long time. eventually i started to get really uncomfortable and freaked out. then i got angry and got away from the group and stressed out. i really think ive lost an important function over the last four or five or six years. i think ive lost the ability to get along with people, to have real friendships. when i really think about it, ive lived a pretty solitary life the last five or six years. my friends change depending on whoever is around me at the time. i dont really spend a lot of time with anyone outside of work. all my friends are people i work with, and we mostly talk about work. whenever i step outside that boundary lately, i find it extremely difficult to deal with people. im paranoid and self conscious and prone to ridiculous mood swings. when it comes to work i feel competent and confident and capapble of dealing with all kinds of situations. but outside of that, trying to deal with peers in my age group on a purely casual and friendly level, i find it hard to relate to people and hard to keep up friendships for any signifgant period of time without flipping out somehow. and i worry about this, i worry about myself. its all so embarassing, but the more i try to keep it bottled up, the crazier i feel.

rats
Friday, December 5, 200302:46:07 PM
you know in movies when people are having a nightmare, and then right before something awful happens they wake up and scream out loud in shock? that happened to me for real last night. i was dreaming about rats. i have such a phobia of rats, i hate them so much. mice, rats, whatever, they are easily my least favorite things. i dream about them a lot, and its always a similar situation. i have a rat, or rats, in my house somewhere. i know its there but can't see it. every now and then i hear it, or see evidence of it, or even see its shadow scurry across the floor for a brief second. and the tension terrifies me. im afraid to move, to go anywhere, to be in the house at all. the nightmare builds to some dramatic confrontation with the rat where it inevitably will touch me somehow and freak the living shit out of me. last night the dream was nothing like that. there were tons of rats living in my mother's house. one gigantic rat, big huge fat fucking rat, and it had like seventy babies. the rat came and went through a big hole in the kitchen. and there were so many of them that my mother and her cat and dog just let them have their run of the place. she just kept moving out of rooms, trying to stay away from the rats by boarding herself in room after room. i came home to find the big mama rat lying in the kitchen floor, surrounded by all the other rats. i freaked out, and i grabbed the cat and threw her in the room to kill them all, but she just ran away afraid. then i put the dog in the kitchen and she ran out afraid. so i went around the outside of the house to get to the living room, where my mother was asleep on the couch. it looked like she was living in there. "mom, why aren't you sleeping in your room?" "the rats can get in there." she was scared, and so was i, and we sat in the living room silent and listening to the rats scurry around in the kitchen. and the noise got louder and louder and louder until it sounded like the rats were all around us, and i woke up and sat straight up and yelled something. i was sitting in my bed and was sweating hard and was scared shitless. ive been creeped out all day long.

josh's story about the nap
Friday, October 3, 200305:13:03 PM
It was a very dark night and it was probably really stormy there. I took a nap that time, and Dave said so (that he would do that) also. So whenever I woke up and he also woke up, then he asked for his phone from me, and got the messages, and said "I am swamped." I don't know why he said it. Everybody was singing on the computer, with the guitars going and going. The only way he can understand the message is when he called Wilma Neal. He is strongly hoping to talk to her about airports. If she forgets about it, that it's "his ass," and she might be swamped, so it's actaully very danger. Wilma was saying everything is okay in fact, so since they can't do it there for 275, everybody always wondering why. If they don't offer it then it's interesting for everybody including bosses.

things i miss
Thursday, October 2, 200310:31:47 PM
its not every day, but sometimes i miss the YMCA in kingston, ny where i used to play basketball early in the mornings before work. it was always so warm in there, and always so cold and snowy outside. i miss walking there in the snow from the superlodge along route 28, just before sunrise, before it would fill with cars. somedays i miss that, just like i miss the track at trinity university in san antonio where i used to go running while i was working on the levis campaign. id run around the track and hope i bumped into my friend pam on the way back home, which i never did. but i miss hoping that i would, just like i miss the old sandwich shop that was down the street from the apartment i was staying in on yonge street in the heart of toronto. i remember it being cold all the time there, too. and the sandwich shop was nothing special, save for the good food and the feeling that i had discovered a secret in this foreign, lonely city i was living in. one in a long line of foreign, lonely cities i've lived in and explored and now that i remember, fondly, but not every day. and always through it all i miss hot springs, particularly in high school, and particularly a woman, a friend, but a beautiful one all the same. a long legged tall drink of water with nice hair and beautaiful round cheeks with freckles on the bridge of her nose and a laugh that sounded like the biggest, shiniest trophy you ever won for doing something good. she had an arc on her foot that made my knees wobble, and long fingers that, when they touched you, touched everywhere. she was a friend, but all these things all the same, and i was in painful want of her, but not every day. just like i miss her now. just like i miss the sound of the billiard balls rolling down the track in the pool table at the capital district veterans club in albany where i would go play poker with old golfers and pensioners and degenerates and widowers, not even real veterans, and tell them stories about all the places i had been, and all the women i now miss, just like i miss those guys now.

mind at war, soul at peace
Wednesday, September 17, 200302:28:20 AM
the war has begun again. the unfortunate part is that with each new front, i hope that it will be an altogether new experience with new challenges and new lessons to be learned...but this one feels just like all the others. i get into a routine, a condition, a mindset that by now feels very familiar to me, almost calming. even though all around me every day in every single hour i am confronted with war, i seem to be totally at ease. i seem to be more and more capable of dealing with what used to be such incredibly emotional and gut wrenching stress. not that its all gone, but its getting easier to handle the downs than it used to be. in fact, i look forward to it getting worse. because i love this shit. this in your face, hand to hand, chess match of a life that i live. i live for the hard stuff, the double crosses and the deserters and the heros and the clever tactics and the love and hate of a union organizing drive. its a war, nothing less, and its the only time i truly feel alive.

just drive
Friday, September 12, 200309:06 p.m.
this is a long night. one of those nights where you dont get any work done, you dont see anyone who wants to talk to you. you pull up to a house and youre scared to get out of the car. you dont want to be rejected again. that shit hurts, you know. this job isnt easy for that fact alone. as much as i tell people that its water off a ducks back, it really aint. not because i think people should, which i do, but because its just not fun having people be rude and awful and slam the door in your face. its hard to feel like you're doing something good for people when the very people you are trying to help are so awful to you. and im lost in long island, driving and driving and driving, wondering why the map isnt right. and i feel like crying, but then that new outkast song comes on the radio and i turn it up and think about being somewhere else, like arkansas or Anywhere But Here and i lean my head back and smile and just drive.

joy and terror
Monday, September 8, 200309:04:28 AM
its strange adjusting to a normal life. but its only temporary because this weekend it all goes back to the way it has always been. running and gunning. sleepless nights, early mornings, sixteen and twenty hour days, arguments, long and draining housecalls with stubborn or mean or ignorant people, hours on end in the car, in the office, nail biting over what the boss is saying today or what the workers are saying or what we need to do next, and all of this a daily cycle that never seems to end. in a union organizing drive, there is so much more bad than good. there is so much more stress and freaking out than there is joy and celebration. but those moments of joy, they are so big, so beautiful, so powerful, that they more than make up for weeks on end of nervous frustration. i guess thats something to look forward to. and i should be excited about the possibility. but i have to confess, dear reader... today, and on the eve of every campaign i have ever kicked off, i am terrified.

new place
Monday, September 1, 200301:00:05 AM
i've moved into a new place. its not so new. its actually the same place i lived the first time i moved to manhattan. upper west side, columbia university area. im so relieved to finally have an apartment again. and who knows, if i work at it i might actually get to spend some time in this one. it will hopefully ground me, tether me from spiraling out of control with work. even though work provides a convenient escape from other worldly troubles, it can be too much at times. and aside from work, the side effects of living in strange temporary places all the time makes you feel so weird. anonymous. unattatched and unimportant. temporary. tomorrow is labor day, and i am exccited for it. i thought of going to new haven to march with the yale strikers, but that is pretty early. in cincinatti, our union is rallying against cintas, and all the advance press on it is so awesome. our president sounds tough and uncompromising. the cintas execs sound as if they are going to wait us out. good luck. that makes me even more confident that we will win. that we are saying "as long as it takes, we dont care." and i know that we mean it. and they are saying "they will eventually move on." fuck you, there's a war on. anyway if you want to see my new place click on the link that says webcam on the left and it should be turned on.

new paths
Thursday, July 17, 200307:07:51 PM
sometimes i try to write. like this week on the train i wrote and wrote. i was writing a story, and it started out good enough, but got harder and harder to write and i gave up on it. i always come up with ideas, but have trouble putting them into full formed stories. there has to be a way to get the ideas out of my head though. i think a lot about what else i would be doing with my life if i wasnt out here trying to change the world. im pretty sure writer isnt one of them. maybe diamond thief.

My country tis of thee
Friday, July 4, 200309:41:33 PM
today is independence day. i celebrated appropriately i think. i watched incredibly fat men gorge themselves with hot dogs in a contest at coney island, rode a 78 year old roller coaster, ate a ton of greasy food, played video games, entered a poker tournament, went shopping and spent a lot of money, and talked on the phone to an old girlfriend about nothing at all. what an american day. i hated the ex girlfriend part. its really hard to talk to someone that you used to be with and are still "friends" with but there isn't anything there anymore. it feels so strange and depressing. even though ive moved on, talking to her makes me sad each and every time. today i was up and down and up and down again. my moods are really fucked lately. i have my good days, my bad days, and the days that are both good and bad all at once. those are the toughest. i can feel myself having fun, then i can sense when im about to withdraw, and it makes me mad at myself. i dont want to be screwed up like this. i want to be strong and, more than anything, normal. the fireworks are going off in the east river right now. i can hear them. im back in my room, i ditched my friends when i started to feel strange and sad and i wasn't sure why. i knew i should head home. i drove home over the whitestone bridge and could see the fireworks going off in the distance. am i the only one not watching the fireworks? it sure feels like it. there wasn't even any traffic on the cross bronx. im all alone in here, missing all the excitement and celebration. i know i don't care about them, but i don't yet know whether or not i should. this could either be a year to be proud to be an american or a year to be ashamed. im really a little of both - it depends on the audience. some people are too ashamed and need to be reminded of what there is to be proud of. others are too proud and need to be reminded of what's wrong with not only america, but that strange brand of american unthinking, violently hegemonic patriotism. i want to be the gobetween but im not doing too good of a job, holed up in my room in the dark at 10pm on the fourth listening to the pop pop pop of the fireworks. but then again, its not going to do any good watching them all alone, especially when i can admit to myself that i dont care. its only worth it to go with others that do care and share the experience with them...which i dont have the energy to do. and im not completely sure i have the right friends either. so this is me, independence day 2003.

when you speak truth to power... the power comes to the truth
Wednesday, July 2, 200312:54:18 AM
this is something i say a lot. tonight two of my coworkers told me it makes no sense. i said it today in the sermon i preached. thats my thing i say now when i run a meeting, that im "preaching a sermon." today i preached a pretty good sermon to some workers in westchester county. i felt good about it. i think everyone felt good about it. then i found out my friend jason just won the election for mayor of new paltz. i read an article in newsday about his upset victory over the 16 year mayor and how pissed off the exmayor was about it. the article said jason just pumped his fist in the air then almost collapsed from exhaustion after winning. but mostly i thought about that old mayor all pissed off and sour and refusing to meet with him or even wish him well, and how i want to make the boss at this place we organized just as mad. tonight after sitting up all night talking with coworkers all filled with excited energy i was driving home and thinking about austin. a friend of mine from austin was in town this weekend on his way to palestine to be a human rights observer, and i had breakfast with him this morning and we gossiped about all our old friends that he still keeps in touch with. then i had an amazing day and things seemed to go well all day and i feel good about things working out and actually winning and feeling powerful and im driving home on the hutchinson parkway and listening to the radio and thinking about austin and how far away i am from there now. i was like an entirely different person then, and i wonder how many of my old friends would even recognize me. or how many would even identify or get along with me. but mostly i just pumped my fist in the air, just like jason, and felt like maybe the things we believe in are truly possible.

Keep on the Funny Cide, Always on the Funny Cide...
Sunday, June 8, 200301:10:40 PM
I don't know why it is that people connect their own lives, their own hopes and dreams, their own happiness and inspiration to the triumphs or defeats of others. It happens all the time, especially with sports. People ascribe all kinds of subtext and identity and personality to a sporting event that it may or may not deserve, then follow it and connect themselves to it. I was a victim of this kind of thing when I followed the knicks run to the finals in the lockout shortened year of 1998-99. I remember being at my mother's house for the final game and feeling tears well up inside my eyes as it became more and more obvious they were going to lose the game, and the championship. After the game was over, I realized that more than the Knicks losing, I was sad realizing that the season was over, and I no longer could look forward to watching another Knick game and the feeling of elation each and every time they overcame long odds to win. I needed that happy moment, it was one of the few happy moments my life at that time was providing, as sad as that may sound. But it isn't really all that sad. Part of what makes those moments so happy and joyful is that you can share in the team's victory by being inspired to do something great and against long odds in your own life. Or perhaps you can feel inspired to walk with more confidence and take on new challenges. I don't think its so far off base. I fell victim to getting swept up into caring too much again this past week preparing for Funny Cide's run for the Triple Crown at Belmont. The backstory couldnt be any better. Group of small town guys in upstate new york buy a horse for 75k and it upsets the apple cart at churchill by tearing up the stretch and feeding empire maker (an apt name for a favorite-to-be-upset in this underdog-rooter's opinion) his dust. Now all of New York State gets to see Funny Cide, the gutsy gelding, go for history on their own home turf. And what a proud crowd it was. I have spent many a day at the horse races all over North America but never had seen anything quite like this. Despite the horrible weather, a hundred thousand turned out and hung banners and signs and wore buttons and shirts... they all wanted to see Funny Cide win, to be a part of history, but most of all, to see New York do something great, collectively, as it was. And as Funny Cide hit the stretch, and the whole crowd was lunging forward with excitement knowing that he was going to win and cross the finish line into the history books, and we all would have the priveledge of sharing the moment with him, empire maker quit stalking and surged forward and all of New York watched Funny Cide run out of gas. It was one of the most deflating, disappointing moments I've had in a long time. But it had no real tangible affect on my life. The problem is that as much as a horse winning the triple crown could have lifted the crowd's spirits, and all of New York by extension, the inverse effect is also true. And I can't help but feel like a loser, like I'm cursed, like everything is going wrong and I'm destined to lose. As ridiculous as it sounds, that's how it goes. The stakes are higher than on the face they appear.

Tesg Blog ||| entry
Monday, May 26, 200302:16:47 PM
after gambling all night long i found myself walking down the deserted streets of union square in manhattan and for a brief, serene moment i thought to myself "i can do this, i can live in nyc. its not so bad. i think i might even like it." then it hit me as i stepped off the 7 train in willets point to transfer to the lirr in the pouring rain in a throng of people pushing each other to get to the line. i was only able to fool myself into thinking i like this horrible city because at the break of dawn in union square everything is quiet, beautiful, and empty. there are no throngs of people or car horns or whistles blowing. its not so much the city i hate. its a beautiful and fun city. its the people. and maybe not even the individual people, but the sheer number of them. i tried to live in new york city. it didnt work. i didnt enjoy it. but now im faced with the challenge of figuring out where i will call home from now on. and the pickings are slim, and my time is short.

haunted
Saturday, April 5, 200306:25:57 PM
im haunted by images of people jumping off of the world trade center to their deaths. having to watch the towers fall on television and thinking "wow this is something really big" and not really getting it until i saw people jumping off hand in hand one after the other. wow. that is something big. what could go through your mind when confronted with the certainty of your death, with the a choice between a fatal six of one or a half dozen of the other? how macabre. i think about it all the time. i dream about it. i cant get the images out of my head, the thoughts of those final minutes. and how it all came so suddenly. one day you are at work, sipping coffee, making chit chat then a fucking airplane hits your building and you are standing next to the window with flames biting at your face wondering which way you have the best chances. oh my god how completely twisted and wrong that any human being would ever have to make such a fucked up decision. these are no different than the images that haunted a generation before me... images of children burned with napalm and soldiers coming home with their legs blown off. these images of burning villages and bombs and thousands of dead soldiers, civilians, whatever. it drove people nuts. it drove people so nuts that the entire fabric of our culture was changed for the worse because of the whole experience. the anti war movement, as a reaction to such a profoundly cruel and violent war, didnt inspire people with hope, but motivated them with fear and sadness of the world that was already a fact. the horror of it all is no different than the horror of an iraqi citizen who one day is at work, sipping coffee, making chit chat, when a fucking daisy cutter lops the top of the building off and airplanes rain down a hailstorm of bullets and bombs all along the euphrates river and you are presented with a choice... not of which fucked up way you want to die, but which fucked up way you want to live. our own anti war movement can save itself from hysterical reactionary craziness, but only if we can voice an objection to not only war, which is no more horrific than the terrorism we are so haunted by that it is now completely woven into our social fabric, but also to life lived without agency, life lived in fear. americans should not have to fear anyone in the world. and the world should not have to fear americans. we are all haunted by our own images of death and unthinkable acts. everyone in the world is haunted with their own unique and unjust tragedies. it motivates people on all levels in all politics and all faiths to do, thats right, all things good evil or otherwise. what we need, more than anything, is to replace fear with hope and vision. to give ourselves something more powerful than the haunting images with which to meditate on, here, in our bathtubs, on a rainy saturday afternoons.

Stopping the war before it starts
Sunday, February 16, 200310:12 p.m.
this was an amazing thing, this march, rally, whatever it was. what it was, actually, was almost 500,000 people in the streets of new york city pretty much doing whatever they wanted. and what they wanted was to march down 1st avenue to the UN to voice their opposition to a preemptive strike on iraq. that alone would be enough to amaze and inspire me, but there was so much more. my crew showed up at the labor feeder march step off point at 11:30, just in time to join the ragtag assembly as they stepped off. the 1,000 unionists and supporters marched from 5th ave to 2nd ave, where we joined a larger march and found we couldnt get through to 1st ave where the rally was happening. at each block, the cops had it barricaded and would tell the crowd to keep walking north on 2nd ave. we followed these instructions for about 12 blocks, but at 62nd street, we decided we would go north no more. and i say "we decided" referring not to the march of thousands but to my group. we tried to get others to stay at that intersection, where the cops were waiting for us to pass so they could let traffic pass through across the avenue. this seemed like a good spot to stand our ground. the cars would be like hostages with which we could negotiate. after about 20 minutes the crowd in the intersection had swelled. some chickened out and headed north, but even more came back when they discovered it was the same story on every block. our crowd eventually surged against the police line, and many broke right through. the crowd kept surging and breaking through, a few at a time, until the cops finally freaked out and moved the cars out backwards one at a time and opened the barricades to let everyone through. it was amazing, to see the people back the cops down like that. the rally on 1st was amazing. it stretched for miles. although every block they had penned people in. we walked from block to block and at each pen would either jump the barricade or just open it up for people to walk through. it really startled me how people were just flat out unwilling to just move the barricades and keep walking. the cops would tell them not too, but did little to stop us when we did. after the rally, which was a combination of amazing speakers (al sharpton, dennis rivera, angela davis) and bad speakers (ruth messinger) the crowds that were leaving ran into 3rd ave and park ave, where traffic was moving along like there wasnt a massive protest going on two avenues away. so the crowds went into the streets, and blocked intersections. wheen cops told them to move, they would chant "whose streets? our streets!" and take the intersection. this happened on numerous intersections. alex's dad called us from 52nd and lex where he was holding an intersection with a crowd and cops were using busses and horses to plow through. our crew ran down and joined in. we told folks to sit and squat, so the horses wouldnt charge us. eventually the horses left, but when we stood up to celebrate, they charged us from behind and beat and trampled people. we lost that intersection. on the way home i was talkking to april about it all, and i realized that these battles over intersections were, really, largely unimportant when compared to the sheer size and scale of the protest. at smaller demonstrations, those kinds of militant actions are important because they help you compensate for the small numbers. but at a protest this large, we were really already holding miles and miles of intersections. why would we need to put our bodies in the way of harm and arrest to take a couple more? im amazed at what is happening in the world. i think this is a harbringer of what is to come. a new world where people start to realize that corporate power is bad and people have some power they dont even realize. im not being very eloquent. but i feel very moved by saturday's protest. and i hope to see more and more protests like it until we can actually change the direction of our world.

social reawakening in time square
Friday, January 31, 200304:26 p.m.
i havent written to you anonymous readers in a while. the last week or so has been, how to put this, anxious. i went to indianapolis to assist on a major union organizing drive that was running into the gutter fast, and we managed to pull it from the jaws of defeat at the last second. it was a victory, but it wasnt such a savoring one. the workers at this place were mean, rude, stupid, and worst of all, cowardly. save for about 50 of our committee members of course. and they were especially awesome because they persevered for 15 months DESPITE the fact that their coworkers were clearly unsupportive and afraid. at the end, we held their hands and pulled it to shore, and they are all members of our great union now, whether they like it or not. and im sure we will win a great contract and build a fantastic local there, and every one of those mean bastards' lives will be better off because of it. it got me to thinking, the reason so few americans have unions is because so few workers in america deserve them. most working people are chickenshits, so they get what they get and thats never going to change unless they find some moral courage. its depressing, but its how i feel. then i came back to queens and started work on a campaign here, and its great. the workers are unafraid, they are smart, they are polite. very unlike new yorkers! and they are funny and excited, and not at all dramatic. i love these people. they will win, im sure of it as i am my own name. and this makes me happy. i watched the stae of the union address in the weirdest place, standing by a newsstand in times square. i was just done with work, and saw bush's big dumb face in the sky and was mesmerized for the entirety of the speech. by the end i was cold, wet, and my feet were killing me, and i was amazed. for one, the speech was a good one. he really got some great lines in there. "freedom is not america's gift to the world, its god's gift to humanity." damn straight. who could argue with that? he was reaching at times, but most of the time kept people on track with him. scary how he snuck into our lives, became our president, then bamboozeled us into trusting him and sending ourselves to war. all the while giving up billions in essential tax revenue to the wealthiest one percent. it seems we hear that term so much these days, wealthiest one percent, that it has lost all meaning with folks. but i was also struck by how weird life is. how we are organized into these strange systems and governments and societies, and we elect leaders and they speak to us from these giant screens on the sides of buildings, and we listen and then scurry off underground to take a train home from work. the one thing that i love more than anything else on earth, more than poetry or music or movies or art or even more than women is politics. i love politics with all my heart. i love the study of social order and social institutions and leaders and collective action and government and revolution and struggle and change. i love it all. its so beautaiful and perfect. i think of it all like you would think of watching animals on the discovery channel or something. like a fascinating natural order, like nature's course on humans. it excites me more than anything. even more than playstation.

another breakdown
Tuesday, December 17, 200212:14 a.m.
Only nature has a right to grieve perpetually, for she only is innocent. Soon the ice will melt, and the blackbirds sing along the river which he frequented, as pleasantly as ever. The same everlasting serenity will appear in this face of God, and we will not be sorrowful, if he is not -- Henry David Thoreau (upon the death of his brother) tonight i cried like a baby. its the second time i can remember ever doing this. the first was years ago at jill's house in poughkeepsie. i had come over for dinner, we listened to doug's CD, and i broke down and couldnt stop sobbing. it scared us both, but she held my head in her lap and put a blanket on me and i cried myself to sleep. tonight i was listening to this soophie nun squad song called chickenfight and i stood up to go to the bathroom and noticed on the floor by the chair a copy of the paper with tyler's obituary staring up at me. i got sad, and i sat back down. i started thinking of a dream i had recently. it was a weird dream. tyler was alive. and he had this horrible scar all across his shoulders and his neck. it was actually a number of small scars, from the buckshot of the shotgun that had shot him. and he was alive. and i said to him, "you know everyone thinks you are dead." he said "i know, i feel really bad about that." i patted him on the back and said "dont worry, they'll be mad when they first see that you're alive, but its not because they wish you were dead, its because they already grieved and accepted your death. thats not an easy thing to go through. but they will be happy that you are alive." he smiled and said "you know dave, i almost did die. i almost did." "i know tyler. i know." we smiled and hugged. i started sobbing uncontrollably. even now, recounting this dream, im starting to cry again. what the fuck? what the fuck? what the fuck? this is unbelievable. no, this is really unbelievable.

if you stand still long enough the sun moves around us
Sunday, December 15, 200210:28 a.m.
here are some of the things that have happened to me in the last few weeks, in no particular order: my first love learns the due date of her first child my first friend's fiancee is murdered in front of their house my best friend gets proposed to and she says yes i track down two of my old friends and they both have children now another old friend who disappeared from my life killed himself and disappeared from the world this all of course makes me anxious, nervous, compounding my already otherwise neurotic permanent state of mind that i try desperately to repress. its going to be harder and harder to from here on out, as i get older, and the world gets older with me. even as i write this, those two babies are getting older, growing teeth, learning how to walk. they are getting old.

336 yes, 350 no
Sunday, November 24, 200201:54 p.m.
we lost. it was tough, there were probably two moments in the aftermath that i thought for sure i would cry, but i managed. for days i had to deal with crying old ladies. i've never experienced anything like it. its worse than when someone dies. its a combination of sadness and anger. it almost felt good, the anger i mean. i hope the anger stays lit, and one day it will spread, and we can come back and win. there's an old saying that goes "the boss has to win every time, the workers need only win once." it hurt worse to lose by such a close margin. i knew it would be close, but jesus christ. they threw 25 ballots in the trash because people filled them out wrong and didnt put their name in the right place!! we had over fifty people who told us they were going to vote yes that didn't vote at all, and who knows how many more that voted the other way after lying to us. what a tough finish. so close. but it really doesnt matter. you can lose by less than one percent or you can lose by a million it dont matter. next time.

Saturday, November 9, 200211:32 p.m.
tonight i saw the movie "8 mile." it rekindled for me a lot of the stuff i used to think about when i lived in austin and was going to college. race, hip hop, culture. to me, the movie was frustrating because i liked it and i liked the charachter, but what was really being said? basically it was saying that hip hop doesnt belong to black people, it belongs to poor people. the first people who will jump up and say hip hop doesnt belong to black people (it belongs to everyone) will also say it belongs to rich and poor alike. why create the class division? its the only way buddy rabbit can trump his black counterpart. its all he has to posture himself as put upon. the truth is, hip hop IS a black music. it does belong to black people. and white people, even poor whites, are merely appropriators. but this is like a new world we live in, where race means less and less (and so does class) and white people are more and more comfortable in their role as appropriators. probably more comfortable than ever before.

Friday, October 11, 200205:00 p.m.
I'm listening to lucero, which means im homesick. and i'm up late at night, too too late for someone who has to be up by 9am for work in the morning. which means that i'm bothered by something. in a couple of weeks, we will have a vote here. and i've been working for the last six months 7 days a week to win this vote. no days off. nothing. the only other thing i do is play cards with these old veterans. and i've lost quite a bit of money over the last few months doing that. people say that if we lose, it doesn't say anything about me or the work i put into it. but if we win, they will say that it DOES have to do with me or the work i put into it. that doesn't seem right, just convenient. i don't want to lose. there are so many consequences to this election above and beyond just whether or not i did a good job or not. like people's lives, their jobs. it feels so awful, this anticipation, this nervousness. here is how i feel... this is the truth... im prepared to lose. im almost certain that we will lose. not by much, but we will lose. and im prepared to deal with it. to dust myself off, reset my nerves and my brain and my body and get back into it after the holidays. if we win, ill be geniunely surprised. and ill be the happiest ive ever been. i can't even explain how ecstatic it would make me to see these people win their union. it would be quite an accomplishment. id would be so wonderful, i can't even imagine what it must feel like to be a part of something so amazing. it makes me angry that i probably won't get to experience what that feels like. and it makes me angry to know that i could have. that we came within a stone's throw of it and we lost it somehow. ah, maybe its this fucking music. i don't know what else i can do.

Monday, October 7, 2002, 2:53 PM
Monday, October 7, 200202:53 p.m.
im so nervous about the election coming up. we did some good work. we've gone farther than anyone thought we would. and a lot of people are ok with that... the whole "we're just happy to have made the superbowl" mentality. but i feel like (if not now) at some point we had a real shot at winning, and i hate that feeling. i question every day what i could have done differently the day before or the week before, or what i could do tomorrow to make things better. basically i think we are going to lose by at least a hundred votes. im worried about the votes we think we have. im worried about what the company will do to us next. im worried about us being able to finish up strong here. the vote is on the 25th. a lot of these workers are still strong with us. and i want to win for them so bad. they deserve winning and so much more. they derserve the power they seek. lord knows they worked as hard as they could for it. it seems so unfair that they won't get it because the boss is lying, the boss is breaking the law, the boss is smearing the union. the labor movement is under attack in ways it doesnt even realize. every lost campaign is actually a huge win for the bosses. the workers in those shops believe the shit the bosses tell them, and they bring that misinformation with them to their next job, to the ballot box, they teach it to their kids, whatever. i believe now more than ever that if the bosses are fighting us every day, we need to fight them every day. we need to wage a pr campaign. we need to raise the level of awareness, education, and appreciation of unions. thats not going to solve our problem, but it should make things easier on us. in the meantime, im going to have to sit through not only my first loss, but a loss on the biggest campaign of my life. the most important target i could have. its going to hurt. especially knowing that we could have won. its going to hurt to sit through this. im not ready for it, but i will try to be a strong as i can.

this is why i do this job
Tuesday, July 16, 200211:18 a.m.
today it was overcast, but it was so humid outside. and im in this big soccer field, but its overgrown with yellow wildflowers, because no one in the ghetto plays soccer and hardly anyone uses this field. but this is where they wanted to meet, and so here i am. and all around me on the picnic tables and benches are these people, each one of them so different, white, black, young, old, man, woman, hell, even rich and poor if you want to know the truth. they all have on their work shirts with their first names embroidered on the side, which helps me because i can refer to them by name as i speak to each one of them. im standing in the middle of the circle because these days i get excited and nervous alot and i pace when i talk. and im talking all right. im talking about how nobody ever gives you anything you have to take it and how the only ones who get screwed are the ones who dont get involved and how proud i am of my union and how political power is the key to the puzzle and how you only get there if you have what it takes... sure i goaded them but thats what i do. people respond to those types of challenges. no one wants to feel weak or soft or scared, but thats what a lot of people are. im not scared to tell them that. and the whole time im standing there in the middle of the circle i could feel these people, these anti-union, onry, mean ass people start to nod their heads and ask the right questions and engage each other and they were all getting it, i could feel that they were MOVING. and thats what we talk about, but its more than just talk. people MOVE. they MOVE from one state of mind to another, from one level of comfort and one level of courage to another. they move, and you can see it man. you can fucking feel it sometimes. and the clouds, the overcast that i was so scared would break on our heads in the middle of that meeting, the middle of that field, they never broke, they MOVED right on past and left just the sun over our heads.