One Year Ago ...

From left: me, Pat Society, Kory Clarke from Warrior Soul, Danarchy. This photo is from a show I went to a year ago to see the now-defunct Warrior Soul in New York City. I can't believe 12 months have passed since then. My life is much, much different than that of the guy in this photo, on the far left. I remember getting back to the Philadelphia area the next morning around 6 a.m. I didn't have a place to call my own at the time so I fell asleep, in my car, in a quiet park in Warrington, Pa. It was a very good show, I recall, and the post-show falafel was spectacular.

Choosing Sides

I am a member of what some people might consider a notorious acronym: PETA, or People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. My affiliation with this group has, until recently, been based solely on like-mindedness and the occasional monetary contribution. On a recent Saturday afternoon I got involved.

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I didn't know quite what to expect. I was nervous on the drive to downtown Philadelphia and the short walk to the steps of the soon-to-be-imploded Philadelphia Spectrum. There, along with maybe 10 other PETA members and/or animal lovers, I protested the Ringling Bros. Circus for instances of elephant abuse. I stood on the bare pavement and carried a black-and-white sign that read, in big block letters, "Ringling Beats Animals." I also passed out leaflets detailing a court case alleging such abuse under the Endangered Species Act --- a case that Ringling is, for its part, fighting.

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There were no riots. There were no lobbed canisters of teargas or spent rubber bullets. There was, however, a PETA representative with a bullhorn talking about the bullhooks (one of which is pictured) that handlers use to coax elephants into performing silly little tricks, about how one baby elephant drowned while trying to escape a bullhook-armed handler and about other horrid details that have been captured on film and can be viewed online by anyone who wishes to see them. The circus-goers were mostly tolerant, if not respectful, and many of them asked questions, wondered why we were there, wondered what all the fuss was about.

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I felt like an arrogant jerk at times, thinking these people paid good money to spend an afternoon with their families and be entertained by professional performers. Then I realized there are plenty of other ways to busy one's family that do not involve the ritual abuse/unneeded suffering of innocent animals that belong elsewhere. I got more aggressive in handing out the leaflets once I accepted this reality.

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People can be such cruel creatures. And this cruelty extends far beyond the abuses man inflicts upon the animals he is supposed to care for or, at the very least, leave the hell alone. After the demonstration I drove two hours to the Jersey Shore for a few slices of boardwalk pizza.

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I walked back to the car with a full belly and saw what appeared to be an argument between a man and a woman. I soon realized I had to walk past them to get to the car, making me uncomfortable but they left me no choice. Upon closer inspection I saw it was an older woman --- a mother or a grandmother --- and a young boy, no older than 10 or 11. She was screaming at him, humiliating him. He sobbed. Tear lines creased the bare skin of his cheeks.

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And that's when I saw the belt.

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No, I thought, she wouldn't dare. She proved me wrong and proceeded to whip him with the folded-over belt. She did it at least twice. I mumbled something under my breath and considered intervening. Yet I didn't feel it was my place and kept walking. I wondered, on the drive back to Philly, does this make me a hypocrite --- even a coward --- that I am willing to protest an organization that abuses helpless animals while I am silent as a fellow human abuses a helpless child for which she is supposed to care?

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Perhaps if I had had a sign and some leaflets ...

Apologies to Pigs

I'm an alien. I must be, because I am so, so different from the people around me. Why, for example, do people insist on littering, not recycling and otherwise being lazy with things for which they are responsible? Exhibit I: Moronic muscleheads at the gym toss their plastic bottles into the trash, though I suppose that one can be excused because most of these guys, based on my interactions with them, are completely brainless and self-absorbed. (This is not sour grapes, by the way; I'm no musclehead, but I do keep myself in better shape than most.)

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Exhibit II: I ran in the Susan B. Komen Race for the Cure in downtown Philadelphia last weekend. It was a great experience, despite the flare-up in my wonky knee, complete with its share of do-gooding and generous companies offering free stuff to mostly appreciative participants. Yet, again, people leave their trash and otherwise unused freebies wherever they see fit: a half-eaten pretzel on the Art Museum steps, a bottle of water left at the "Rocky" statue's feet, etc. I suppose people figure picking up their own refuse and disposing of it properly should be someone else's problem ... and it ultimately becomes just that. I know everyone has things on their mind and everyone has problems, but how much sense does it take to not leave trash behind? It requires no thought and next to no action. It should be automatic.

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I'm no better than anyone else, of course. I have my own issues which must make other people want to yank out clumps of their own hair. But why ... why ... why litter? It infuriates me. Don't even get me started on smokers who toss their butts out their car windows or, even worse, idiots who leave still-burning butts in the middle of the woods, perilously close to tons of tinder in the form of fallen twigs and leaf litter. Then there are the smokers down the Jersey Shore who see the sand as one big ashtray. But I don't want to pick solely on smokers. I've seen countless pieces of left-behind trash at the Shore: used diapers, empty cans of Sunkist, grease-sopped pizza boxes, you name it. Why? So the seagulls can have something to chew on? So sea turtles can choke on it? So small children will have something to play with? So other people can have jobs cleaning up after troves of human pigs on vacation? WTF?

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May a demon rise from the pits of hell and @#$% them in the rear end! Twice!

Picking Up Pieces

I'm still in California. My body might have returned four months ago, but my mind remains there --- on a trail in the middle of Redwood National Forest, wary of cougars in the shadow of towering redwoods and sequoias.

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It was a last-minute trip to recharge the batteries. I went for a week and decided to start my journey in San Francisco. I didn't know where the trip would take me, though I ended up in a small town near Oregon's southwestern tip, hugging the coastline. I had a goal: wind down while preparing for the task ahead. I succeeded, because I don't recall ever being so relaxed. My mind busied itself with things to do and roads to maneuver and problems to worry about, but none of it seemed real --- or at least none of it seemed pressing. It was a gift. For a week I could wander as a vagabond with empty pockets, a full gas tank and some of the most magnificent scenery this country has to offer.

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I sought the ragged fins of great whites along the rocky coastlines, yet saw not a one. I ate vegetarian sushi and some of the best bean burritos Humboldt County has to offer. I woke up early and stayed up late. I drank bad wine. I listened to too many episodes of "This American Life." I wandered while those around me labored. I knew what it meant to "just live." I spent money only on necessities and the simplest of comforts: food and drink, shelter, fossil fuels.

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A piece of me never returned from that trail. There, standing on a bed of soft dirt and pine needles, I closed my eyes and absorbed the soft, sweet-smelling wind that snaked past the trunks of centuries-old giants and rustled the fronds of prehistoric-seeming ferns. I listened to nothing: no traffic, no airplanes, no engines wheezing, no blustering car horns, no needless chatter, no dogs barking, no neighbors yammering through paper-thin walls, no ugly babies crying, no basketballs bouncing, no phones ringing --- nothing but silence. Only then did I realize the damage I have done to my ears over the past two decades. There was no noise, making the ringing in my head almost deafening.

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It's quite easy to see why real estate is so expensive along the West Coast. Yet the crazed, oversized cities such as Los Angeles and San Diego have no pulse to me. Instead, give me the ruggedness and rawness and flowering hillsides of Northern California and Oregon.

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I did my best to leave behind fear of the unknown and failed relationships and broken dreams and feelings of inadequacy and childhood disappointment and unrealistic expectations. I cast off much of this debris in those seven days, but I also left some things out there I would like to have back. I hope to go back someday soon and reconcile the two, picking up those pieces I never intended to lose.