Summer breaking

   It has been a full and rich summer, full of adventure and trying new things, as well as taking it easy.  Here’s a taste of what I’ve been up to, as I discussed in a recent Claremont Courier column. (I may not get back to regularly posting until next month.  Or I may start now.  We'll see!  This is what's called covering ass.)

                ON THE ROAD, A NEW WINDOW ON CLAREMONT

  It turned out that Emma was taking us the long way.  What should have been a 17-minute trip ended up taking 45 minutes.  There were an awful lot of right and left turns, coming one right after the other, and we found ourselves driving one the same roads and the same highway several times.  After a while,  Reginald joined in, but he basically gave the same directions. 

   Not to worry, though.  My two friends and I had left early, so we were not late.  Instead of being super early and perhaps rude, we were right on time.  What’s more, all those right turns and left turns were quite lovely, bringing us down quiet roads lined with beautiful trees and charming cottages or through golden fields dotted with livestock and storybook barns.  Each turn was lovelier than the last, and seeing the same roads several times was no problem. 

   Even the highway was attractive, more like a verdant main road rolling over the hills than a state thoroughfare, easy on the eyes during our repeat jaunts on it.  But there was a problem – we were lost.  We had no idea how to get to where we were going and were going around in circles.  It was hard not to panic, especially with the phones and their GPS guides, affectionally dubbed Emma and Reginald – he is a bit more bossy, only giving directions without the street names (“Now turn right.”)– losing their connection or running out of power.

   It turns out, though, that Grass Valley and Nevada City, mashing up almost seamlessly along Highway 49 in the rolling foothills northeast of Sacramento, are an awfully nice place to get lost and go in circles and even panic in.  For the last five or six years, I have been going to Grass Valley in mid-July to attend and camp at a music festival at the Nevada County Fairgrounds. But it has been many more years since I took time to explore these “Gold Country” towns. And, ironically, I saw more of their neighborhoods on this misguided outing. 

   That’s the best thing about trips – the unexpected ventures, when we see things that people don’t usually see, even when they spend time on a visit.  That and meeting people and making new friends.  My friends and I were enjoying both – we were on our way to visit someone I had met a week earlier at a meeting in Marin County.

   It just so happened that my friends and I would be attending the music festival in Grass Valley.  So we would be in his neighborhood or in his neck of the woods, more or less literally, and able to see him before heading back to Claremont via Lake Tahoe and Bishop.  These sorts of unexpected side trips and stops are another bonus in traveling. 

   But another bonus in this side trip was how it provided another view of Claremont.  Yes, this little jaunt, getting lost and driving in circles in Grass Valley and Nevada City, opened a new window into our fair little city for me. 

   It made me appreciate Claremont even more and recognize how fair, how attractive, how beautiful and lovely our little city is.  We always like to say how wonderful and unique Claremont is, but it turns out more and more that that’s more than wishful thinking or civic pride. 

   As I learned not long before this trip and mentioned in my last column, Claremont has been named by TheCultuTrip.com, a travel website, as one of the 10 most beautiful towns on the west coast.  That’s not all, though.  In this list, it is one of four – only four – towns in California, and the other four includes, yes, Nevada City, as well as Cambria and Mendocino. 

   Think about it.  Claremont is seen by at least some to be as fair as fair and charming as these lovely getaway spots.  Is there any one of us who wouldn’t jump at the chance to spend a week, a weekend, even a night in Cambria or Mendocino?  Most of us savor a day spent in one of these idyllic burgs, especially when they’re aren’t so crowded.  The same goes for Nevada City, though it may not be as well-known. 

   So Claremont is now seen, or increasingly seen, as a charming, picaresque town, a getaway spot right up there with Cambria and Mendocino and the beautiful Gold Country. Is this surprising?  Is this a shock? Perhaps.  It certainly got a “wow!” out of me. But maybe it shouldn’t be. 

    After all, my last column – the one in which I mentioned the list on TheCultureTrip.com – was all about how Claremont is like one big park, ideal for a summer afternoon or evening respite. Not only are there an impressive number of city parks, there are the colleges with all their park-like acres.  Even with the fading lawns in this unprecedented summer of drought, they still offer a peaceful escape, complete with their noted trees.  Indeed, Claremont’s trees and urban forest was a major factor in the website’s citation. 

   And indeed, there are plenty of stories about people getting out and enjoying Claremont and its urban forest, not to mention its cultural opportunities and its unique shops and restaurants.  In the same edition of the COURIER, there was not only an article about another new restaurant in town; there was a feature about the Claremont Senior Bicycle Group.  Sponsored by the super-active Claremont Senior Program – yet another stand-out in this community – the group plans and leads regular weekly rides on our pleasant streets. Longer rides further afield are also on the schedule, but, as Angela Bailey points out in the article, “There is no better place to be a cyclist than the City of Trees. With over 30 linear miles of bicycle infrastructure and organizations geared towards all ages and cycling skill levels, Claremont – which has been designated as a bike-friendly city by the League of American Cyclists – is a haven for cyclists.”

   What’s more, it turns out that, with all our trees, this is actually a healthier town. According to a study published in Scientific Reports analyzing two sets of data from Toronto, adding ten trees to a street can make a resident feel seven years younger. Furthermore, the study found also that residents on streets with a higher density of trees are less likely to have cardio-metabolic conditions such as hyper-tension, obesity and diabetes. 

   “Trees remove pollutants from the air, so it could be the cleaner air, or it could be that adding more trees on a street encourages people to get outside and exercise more,” said Marc Berman, director of the Environmental Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of Chicago and the senior author of the paper. “Or it could be that  the environment is more beautiful, and that contributes to health.”

   We should be pretty darn healthy here with more than 24,000 trees.  That’s right, there are over 24,000 trees in Claremont, and, in a project carried out by students in Pomona College professor Char Miller’s Environmental Analysis 190 class, they are all “mapped” online.  For information on any of the trees lining Claremont’s streets or in its parks and other public places, visit http://claremontsurbanarboretum.

   I wonder if Nevada City can beat that. 

Hope wins out

   The colleges closed down in May, but, as seen in my recent column in the Claremont Courier, Claremont still has more than its share of interesting people and activity. 

                A HUGE BUILDING FULL OF HOPE

   No, I haven’t seen the Hall of Fame.  I have never been downstairs.  And I didn’t know that Winston Churchill had been there. 

   My friend had returned from using the restroom at Bridges Auditorium, and, although I thought “Wow!” when he told me that a picture of Winston Churchill is among the pictures of those who have appeared on its stage that are on the wall in the basement, I wasn’t surprised.  From the time I grew up here in Claremont, I have heard about famous performers and speakers who have appeared on this stage, and I have enjoyed seeing a good number of them.

   I have always felt, in fact, that it’s too bad that more performers and speakers don’t appear there. It’s a shame that this great theater, the biggest collegiate auditorium on the west coast with something like 2400 seats, doesn’t have performances and presentations (as opposed to graduations and other such semi-private events) every week, if not every evening.  Big Bridges closed for weeks or months,  including during the school year, is a terrible waste. 

   So I was glad to go there a few weeks ago – all the more so with the colleges not in session for the summer – with my friend. We were there to see the Claremont High School production of The Addams Family. 

   It is always a treat to see the big, end-of-the-year, musical production in the big theater, even if I still wish there was live musical accompaniment as in the past. This is big-time stuff – Winston Churchill, after all, was once on this stage - and the hard-working kids, working under the direction of the even harder-working Krista Elhai, deserve it. Once again, they didn’t disappoint. 

   The Addams Family may not be My Fair Lady, and it’s definitely no Carousel, but it is a lot of fun.  Based on the old popular television sitcom, which was inspired by the cartoons of Charles Addams, the musical is about what happens when Wednesday, the daughter in this family of ghouls, falls in love with a “normal” boy, and her parents, Morticia and Gomez, host a get-acquainted dinner for the boy’s parents.  On this simple plot hangs lots of silly puns and gags, including a troupe of zombie dancers, and the students had fun and did their best to let fly with them. 

   Like I said, it was a treat – and an inspiring one – to see these young people doing what they clearly love so well.  Jason Acosta was extra fun in his make-up-laden role as Uncle Fester, who serves as a narrator of sorts while having his own private adventure.  And Xavier Reynoso, playing Wednesday’s younger brat brother Pugsley who loves nothing more than being tortured and miserable, was a pint-sized revelation.  The real treat is that this kid, who my friend said “has chops,” is only a freshman, so we’ll hopefully be seeing much more of him. 

   Yes, hooray for the C.H.S kids and Ms. Elhai once again, but I have to say that, as bright-eyed and brightening they were, they still didn’t prepare me for what I saw a days later.  Not only was there another presentation at Big Bridges, in the quiet (or relatively quiet) month of June, there was Pete Seeger greeting the audience that had gathered and singing “Where Have All the Flowers Gone” for the occasion. 

   This was on video, of course, but it was nevertheless breath-taking.  I could hear gasps in the audience, as the renowned folk-singer and activist, filmed at his rural home nearly a year and a half ago, explaining that he had been invited but, because of advancing age and decreasing energy, wasn’t sure where he would be at this time.  He died months later, the tape now a whallop-packing reminder that hope and energy live on. 

   This was a message that was most appropriate for this audience that had gathered.  It was a huge, eager audience, almost filling the cavernous hall, and it was gathered for the four-day Tenth International Whitehead Conference, held in conjunction with several other international conferences and including a significant contingent from Asia, with the theme,  “Seizing the Alternative: Towards an Ecological Future.”

  The Seeger video was shown during the first of several free, open-to-the-public plenary sessions held in Big Bridges over the long weekend of numerous presentations and discussions exploring how people from all walks and faiths can work together to fight global warming and develop a sustainable, thriving world community.  There were numerous other greetings, including from Claremont Mayor Corey Calaycay, who confessed to being nervous about speaking in front of such a large audience as he touted Claremont’s efforts in being an ecologically friendly town (including by him and his fellow councilmembers in their own homes and lives). Also featured in this and one other plenary session I attended were the Pilgrim Pickers, Pilgrim Place’s resident string band and perhaps Claremont’s unofficial go-to house band. 

    Following the Seeger video on the first evening, Bill McKibbon, the famed climate change activist, spoke.  While he essentially gave the same talk that he gave when he was here a few years ago, it was an important message: yes, the planet is in dire shape due to warming which we humans have caused – indeed, it could be that it is too late to reverse the effects of the warming – but there is hope in the activism that he has inspired and evident in the weekend’s gathering. 

   This activism, with a diversity of people coming together, is what the conference was all about.  An important aspect, and a key image, was the kick-off to a new organization and website called Pandopolus, bringing together research and information about climate change and the efforts to stop it.  As explained in another plenary session and illustrated in another video, this undertaking is inspired by the Pando, the aspen grove in Utah which is the largest living organism on earth sharing a root system and which is now endangered. 

   It is hoped that these four days in Claremont were the beginning of a movement, a movement based in shared roots and a common passion.  At least that’s how John Cobb, a retired noted theologian and philosopher who lives at Pilgrim Place, sees it.  This conclave, it seemed, was his baby, something of a life-culminating achievement. 

   And, as he explained during extended remarks during the second plenary session, the passion that is shared for caring for our planet is the key.  As Mr.  Cobb outlined, we need to have a new outlook, based more in our hearts and on caring, different from the outlook developed in the 1700’s, when the world came to be seen as a clock, a mechanism to be observed and also used objectively.  When we see the planet as a machine, he maintains, it is too easy not to be concerned when it is used too much or is even breaking down (after all, a machine can always be repaired).

   Putting on a musical takes a lot of passion and working together.  So does saving our planet.  That’s what a great building like Big Bridges is for and why it needs to keep being used. 

   Also, a couple notes:

   With the confederate flag going down and the rainbow flag going up in the aftermath of the massacre at the historic black church in Charleston, S.C, and the Supreme Court declaring that same-sex marriage bans are unconstitutional, the last two weeks or so have been breath-taking.  While many, including me, are quite pleased, plenty of others are unhappy, to say the least.  Especially in the gay marriage situation, many people, including officials like county clerks who grant marriage licenses, are digging in, fighting back and refusing to go with the plan.  I think that, as with the Supreme Court Brown decision outlawing school segregation, it will take a while – perhaps years - for the whole country to buy in, and, as with the menacing racism in recent years, evidenced most sharply in police killing unarmed black men and boys and the incident in the Charleston church, it certainly won’t mean there will no longer be anti-gay rhetoric and violence. It will be a long, hot summer at least.  I take some hope and comfort in this quote by Juli Luke, the clerk in Denton Countyin Texas who is against same-sex marriage but will issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, because she “took an oath on my family Bible to uphold the law”: “[M]y faith in Christ ensures I have comparison and respect for those who feel differently.”

   Finally, as I did last year, I’ll be taking some time off.  Because I’ll be traveling in the next few weeks, I may or likely won’t post for the rest of this month.  I’ll be back with regular posts sometime in August. 

Happy triggers and gun crazies

   There was recently an article in the Los Angeles Times about guns being used by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies frequently going off by accident.  Among other incidents, a deputy shot himself in the leg while pulling his gun out to confront a suspect, another shot a bullet through a wall when he stumbled over a stroller and another

was paralyzed when his 3-year-old son was playing with his father’s gun and accidently shot him. 

   These accidental shootings have more doubled in 2 years.  In this time, the department has begun using a new gun, a Smith $ Wesson M&P, which doesn’t have a safety lock and requires less pressure to pull the trigger.  Officials argue that not only does this save time when a deputy needs to act immediately but also that having these guns that are easier to shoot will help the department get more women on the force.  There have been complaints that there aren’t enough female deputies, and it has been noted that many female recruits fail, because they have a hard time pulling the trigger.

   Look, if a woman has difficulty handling a gun, maybe she shouldn’t be a cop.  This may be an impolitic, sexist thing to say, but guns shouldn’t be super easy to shoot.  They shouldn’t be so easy to shoot that a 3-year-old can shoot one, even if it does help women. 

   The next day in the Times, there was an article in the Times about “smart” guns, like the German-made Armatix iP1 which can be fired only if its user is wearing a wireless wristband that broadcasts on a specific frequency.  Another such gun will only fire if it recognizes specific thumb prints.   These guns, which incorporate technology, can’t be used, for example, by someone who steals them or by a child who comes across them in the house – a good thing. 

   But guess what?  These guns aren’t available in the U.S. Why?  Because, although many American gun owners back such technological safety measures, hard-core gun enthusiasts have fought against them, including by boycotting American companies when they put out such guns.  What these folks, backed by the all-powerful N.R.A, argue is that these technological safety measures are another way for the government to control and ultimately take away their guns.

      This is crazy, yes, but is it any crazier than gun control laws being loosened instead of increased after the elementary school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut – and people then buying more guns in case gun control laws became popular again (or, as was argued, the government decided to “take our guns away”)? And I really wonder if anything will be done in terms of gun control after the Bible study shooting at the church in Charleston, S.C, this week.  We cry out for safety, but we really rather be able to shoot. 

Springing into new life (out of the cold)

   A few months ago, I wrote about going to New Jersey for a weekend in February and about how being in a place that was so different than sunny So. Cal., with snow having a significant impact on life and with the river down the street frozen, really shook me up and woke me up.  I saw how my life could be so different, not to mention considerably more difficult, and I also got a sense that I can make my life different. 

   It has turned out that this was a powerful motivator.  The trip really did kick my butt – in the best way.  This Spring, there has been several significant changes in my life or several changes I have made in my life.

   1.  After about twenty years, I am writing poetry again.  I used to write poetry all the time but stopped when I got into playwrighting and performing, as is I couldn’t do both. I have been wanting to start writing poetry again for a while – I have always felt comfortable doing so, and it takes much less time than playwrighting and doesn’t take other people and money for production – but, as I came to realize, the fact that I lost hundreds of poems when my computer crashed about 10 years ago was somehow holding me back.  Did I feel that writing something wasn’t worthwhile if I could lose it?  Writing poetry again has been thrilling and liberating.  A few of my poems can be seen on the Cripple Creek magazine page on the Pixleyproject website, and, yes, I now know it’s important to back up my files!  

  
  2.  I had my nipple rings removed.  When I had them put in – super ouch! – 14 years ago, not long after I came out, I thought they were hot, and it was a celebration of my newfound sexuality.  It turned out I just thought they are hot on other guys.  Not that they weren’t hot on me, but they were a pain, literally, when they caught or rubbed on things and when guys thought they were hot on me and played with them – very annoying! I had been wanting to have them taken out, but I was afraid it would hurt like when they were put in.  When I went to a tattoo parlor in April to have them removed, it really didn’t hurt.  I wish I had done this years ago, but it’s done now.  I am much more comfortable, and I have the rings on a tight necklace that is always on me.  After all, they were a part of me – they were in me – for 14 years, and they still are a celebration of (at least) my sexuality.  Plus, it looks hot!  

  3.  I went through my closets and got rid of bags of clothes.  Again, this is something I should of done years ago.  I was able to get some cash for some of the clothes, and I plan to take most if not all of the rest to an Out of the Closet thrift store supporting AIDS research.  Among the clothes were lots of overalls – some were quite cool and unique, but they didn’t fit or I have others like them or whatever.  It was cool to say that I have 100 pairs of overalls – I have seen other guys say this online – but, really, do I need 100 pairs of overalls or whatever?  Don’t worry, I still have plenty – probably too many!  

  4.  After years of having a shaved head or a mohawk, I’ve been growing my hair.  This actually started last Fall, but it has really come out, so to speak, in the last month or so.  What’s more, whereas it was always straight like my mom’s, my hair is now really curly, more than my dad’s or my brother’s, almost like my sister’s, with lots of body, almost a loose fro.  I am very excited about this and am thinking I may wait to see what happens and explore my options rather than braiding and dreading it as I did years ago and thought I might.  

  5.  Last but definitely not least, I have had the opportunity to get more sexual experience, not unlike in The Sessions, the film about a severely disabled man working with a sex therapist. Without going into detail, I’ll say this has been both wonderfully eye-opening and challenging, as well as fun and hot.  I have learned that I can do things that I really thought I couldn’t and also that, as in other areas of my life, it is often best if I don’t try too hard.  This latter is a difficult lesson for me, as someone with takes pride in doing my best, not being lazy and relying on others as little as possible, but, for example and to put it very bluntly and crudely, it is probably best for my partner and me if I let my partner get off by getting me off rather than if I actively try to get him off.  This experience actually started before my trip in February, but it has fit in with my different or new life this Spring, and I hope it leads to new adventures and wonders.