finally catching up with my bff amber on the phone tonight (hey amber, welcome to my blog!!!), i said 'you'd think i'd be able to get my life together'.  it's 1:30 am on a thursday night.  tomorrow is halloween, which means a late night with copious amounts of free alcohols [sic].  i have my entire wardrobe and all my bedding in the washer, even though i didn't have any money on my laundry card.  did i ever mention how amazing my roommates are?  i have more than a full day at work tomorrow AND a dentist appointment in the afternoon.  my eyes are getting heavy.  and i haven't yet written in my blog.  

you'd think i'd be able to get my life together.

it's past my bedtime and i'm not sure my thoughts are completely comprehensible, i might have to leave it at that.  but let me just finish up and say that it's amazing how good friends can make you feel grounded.  how they can remind you what you like in yourself, and what you like in them.  how they just get it, how they understand, and listen, and really seem to care.  so i love you and thank you.  

and you'd think i'd be able to get my life together.

any suggestions can be sent to osmundsj@gmail.com

i don't have much time or energy to write and my computer is running out of battery.  i'll do what we all do in such small talk times: imma talk about the weather.  

it's getting cold.

and part of me loves the change.  i get excited about winter and christmas and the cold and warm coffee in the afternoon and watching the sunset from work.  i love wearing scarves and coats and feeling the wind beat through them, just ever so slightly.  

but at times, winter is oh so tough.  it's dark, it's cold, i have a harder time being active and hakim hates it (see monday's post).  it can feel a bit lonely and isolating.  

so, i feel a bit mixed about the change.  and i guess that's part of what i love about fall.  it's refreshing and beautiful but it's also the ultimate season of change.  i love looking back upon the summer and the excitement that it brought, looking forward to the winter and the new life that it will bring, and living in the moment (preferentially with apple cider).  

so since i'm forcing myself to write everyday this week and i don't fully expect anyone to actually read these shit, i'm going to ramble (yet again) on a topic near and dear to my heart.  

it's no great secret that i am obsessed with the musical artist m.i.a.  beyond her sick beats and badass lyrics, she's some one making music that's managed to both hit the mainstream and stay original, novel, and political.  you can't really separate m.i.a.'s music from her biography so i will offer a short one here:

maya was born in london but returned to sri lanka with her family when she was 6 months old.  her father was actively involved in the tamil resistance to the oppressive sri lankan government and her family was forced to move from village to village to escape persecution.  after her school was burned down, maya and her family returned to the uk as political refugees.  she went on to study art, spending long periods of time both in the uk and the us.  

for me, m.i.a.'s music is remarkable in that it reflects the diversity of perspectives that are present within her own biography.  one album takes you from old school hip hop to dancehall to reggaeton and back.  further, the lyrics only serve to reflect both the differences and also the similarities between vastly different peoples and perspectives.  a common thread tends to tie things together: questions of class, oppression and violence.  from 'pull up the people', 'world town' and '20 dollar' with their overt populist messages to more subtle characters like those in 'paper planes' (if you can call it subtle), and 'sunshowers' ("like PLO i don't surrenda"), you see a fierce solidarity with both those in the third world and in the under world of the us and the uk.  

so recently another rapper of sri lankan descent, DeLon, accused m.i.a. of supporting terrorism.  he argues that the tiger imagery present throughout her work implies a support of the LTTE (also known as the tamil tigers, see the connection?), a tamil group currently engaged in a war with the government of sri lanka.  basically the LTTE wants it's own territory in light of the historic and ongoing oppression of the tamil people by the government.  mind you, the LTTE has assassinated foreign politicians and engaged in suicide bombings at home.  and the government has indeed silenced and killed probably hundreds of thousands of tamils and engaged in horrific acts of violence (lets just say that the burning of schools with children inside was not an isolated incidence).  so frankly for some one label the LTTE as terrorist without that label being applied on the acts of the government is at best hypocritical and at worst actively misleading.  

further, to argue that because m.i.a. uses a tiger in her art and even some violent images (she DID grow up in a war zone after all) she is supporting terrorism is certainly out of bounds.  yes her father was/is actively involved in the resistance movement.  so fucking what?  this is the same argument that pigeonholes the entire palestinian people into one huge class of terrorists.  and to argue that m.i.a., who clearly was hugely affected by her childhood, should remain mute or alternatively argue for both sides of the struggle is simply infantile.  she is a musician speaking of her experience, her history, and her life.

most generally sane people have come to m.i.a.'s defense, stating (correctly) that she has denounced the terrorist acts of the LTTE and has absolutely no ties with their association, actual or implied.  her music is not an endorsement of their actions or acts, or even their goals (because i think we can separate the somewhat nobel goal of fighting historic oppression from the tactics often used i.e. suicide bombing).  everyone is just climbing all over themselves to attest to m.i.a.'s impartiality.  

but this is an oversimplification as well, and a harmful one, although it is certainly important for selling albums in the 21st century.  nothing will kill your career like being called a terrorist.  m.i.a. DOES take sides and she comes down squarely on the side of those fighting oppression, those existing and thriving in difficult or impossible circumstances.  here we have a burgeoning mainstream artist making the vast majority of her latest album in third world countries with the participation of kids in villages, local artists and dancers, and even animals (baaa-cock).  to say that m.i.a. is neutral when it comes to this type of struggle (against colonization, both neo- and not so neo, against poverty, against globalization of culture and music) takes away both what makes her so special and powerful.  

m.i.a. is a musician.  she talks a bit about just wanting to make music.  other people label her a freedom fighter.  this may be an over-stretch, but maybe not.  her music in and of itself is fighting to give a voice to the voiceless ("i put people on a map who've never seen a map /  i show them something they've never seen and hope they make it back"), fighting to humanize those that too many view as distinctly "other": those kids you can hear rapping over some 'didge', the woman seducing every man in sight ("my finger tips and the lips do the work / yah", and the hustler ("some some some i murder....").  

i can't think of any higher compliment for an artist: you give a voice to the voiceless.  to hide all this under the veneer of political correctness required to sell albums would be a crime.  so keep doing you gurl, and i can't wait until the next album drops.

day two of writing every day.

meet hakim.

yes. he's a bike.

so when i first got to new york i decided i wanted a bike to help me get around. i live on york avenue which is close to only the east river. it's a pain in the ass to get anywhere. and cabs cost a damn coin. so you get a workout, get there faster and save money.

the only thing is that i didn't know how to lock it up. and it was stolen. so this summer i went looking for a replacement; i found that and more.

i got hakim from an awkward gay man uptown that i found on craig's list. he cost $20, which is cheap but i think it's a little bit of karma for trecking to 116th and adam clayton and all the way to park slope to look at 'ridable' bikes with no brakes. i immediately rode him uptown, and from that first ride i fell in love.

hakim is old, but he still knows how to move. early on it took some getting used to. i cannot possibly count the number of times i almost died the first month riding him around; cabs turning right were turning right into me, buses were sliding into the bus stop and nearly taking me out. but with time i got used to both hakim and new york traffic.

and that's the joy of hakim. you can move, and it's an amazing way to see the city. the empty streets at 3am after a night out are so inviting, the wind in your hair (how cliche, but how true), the sky scrapers flying by, the kids trying like hell to get a cab, any cab. the view from the bridges simply takes your breath away.

but beyond that, hakim gives me both a sense of freedom and a sense of authenticity. before hakim i had to really plan when i would go out and how i would get home. it was harder to do things on a whim because the trains late at night can be a nightmare and cabs are not cheap. now i can jump on my boi and i'm there and home in a heart beat (if a little sweaty)...

but mostly, hakim makes me feel like a new yorker. i'm out there, taking on the cars, almost hitting pedestrians, cussing people out, in a rush or taking it all in. im just doing me, flying up 1st avenue from the lower east side, only a little drunk (yes you can get duis on a bike), tough you might believe, that is unless you happen to see the smile plastered across my face.

i'm making a challenge to myself.  i will post something every day this week.  even if it's just a paragraph about some bullshit that happened that day.  i will sit for five minutes and write.

here's today:

so it's sunday night and i went with a bunch of the boiz to see the movie noah's arc.  in case you're not familiar with the tv show, it's pretty awful but some how oddly appealing, which might have something to do with the fact that it's about the lives of a group of relatively hot black gay men.  the very fact that this show exists is, in a lot of ways, a positive step.  gays have been on tv for a while, lets be honest, but mostly in stereotypical and peripheral roles.  but this is a show that is entirely centered on not just gay men, but black gay men, a group that is all too often doubly marginalized, ostracized even from mainstream gay culture, not to even begin to speak about mainstream urban culture.  

it's just too bad noah's arc is so bad.  but that's part of what makes it good.  

see the acting is atrocious.  the story lines are over the top (tranny messes with an over heaping side of drama).  and honey don't get me started on the clothes.  but yet the movie still got to me.  for all it's insanity, it did (at least attempt to) show gay men living the messy, difficult lives that we live.  

and like the sex and the city movie, it was surrounding the wedding of the main character.  the men were talking about long term relationships and children and how damn hard it is to keep an honest and loving relationship (gay or straight, i gotta say) together.  

and then i realized.  i want to get married.  i want to have kids.  no not today, but actually kind of soon, i think.  i KNOW it's going to be a mess.  i am not the easiest person in the world to love.  sometimes i make it downright difficult.  and when my (our, see there i go) children get involved, i'm going to be more than a bit extra.  so i guess the movie was a bit bitter sweet; for as messed up as some of those boys are, i hope i find (or make) that same kind of love.  and i hope i have the same ability to fight for my relationships.  cause god knows, i'm going to need it.  

so, i'm going to try to put that sarah palin post into a bit of context. so much of our identities are formed by our first 18 years, by friends and school and ultimately by our physical location, our town or city. that's why one of our first small talk questions is 'so tell me, where are you from?'

it's a question that rarely has a simple answer.

i am from outside of seattle washington. to most people outside of the pacific northwest, this congers up images of gray skies and rain, starkbucks, evergreens, the wto protest and, perhaps, hippies. and this is probably an accurate representation of certain parts of the city. but read back, i said 'outside of'. and those two little words make such a difference.

arlington washington (go ahead, google map it) is a small town that for probably a hundred years was supported by dairy farming and the railroad tracks that came through carrying timber from the mountains to the mills. in most ways it's a fairly typical small town with slightly more churches than bars, although telling which are more frequented can be somewhat difficult. country music reigns. cb radios and trucks are ubiquitous. don't even ask me what braffing is.

my experience in arlington, like that of so many who have grown up in similar places, is hard to pin down. when i go home now, i am absolutely shocked by the beauty of the trees, the mountains, the hills, the ocean. arlington, you see, is literally sandwiched between the cascade mountains on the east, the pugent sound on the west, with mt rainer to the south and mt baker to the north. seeing this everyday, it becomes seconds nature, but returning home after several months or years, it has a tendency to take your breath away. i simply cannot believe i grew up somewhere so beautiful.

small towns, for all that they are maligned by the liberal mainstream, elite media, have real and honest benefits. you know your neighbors, you tend to like them, you say hi to them. when a neighbor's husband leaves her you have her over for the holidays. yes it is awkward to have this near stranger huddled over your thanksgiving turkey, but it's the least you can do and you'd hope that some one would show the same compassion if you were hurt. i went to school with the same kids, my family knew the same families from kindergarten through high school.

i'm not saying that this makes up for the not-so-well-hidden racism and homophobia that permeates rural life. i think the education that i got at my rural public high school was, in many ways, an absolutely joke. but i have to say that arlington is in me, it's in my blood. i'm over country music, i will never drive a pick-up, i have sex with (black) men. but the sense of community and of home marked me from the get go. watching so many poor (white) families struggle through issues of job loss (i WAS there in the 90 just in time for the crunches that hit both the logging community and small, family run farms) housing, healthcare, education, drug abuse and alcoholism. good people got left behind, lost hope. all this, the good and the bad formed the base for the person i was to become.

so sarah palin, my new obsession, represents for me both the good. and the bad. but mostly the bad.

that's where i'm from. or rather, that's the first paragraph of the first chapter of where i am from. tell me, where are you from?

lately it's seemed as though everyone with two neurons and a computer have been writing about our new girl du jour, sarah palin. it's time i join in the fray lest people think that i don't have an opinion.

i love sarah palin.

yup. you heard right.

and it's not just because i think she is hilarious, which i do. honestly, you cannot write fiction this good. there's a reason that the funniest tina fey bits are when she repeats the candidate's words verbatim, it is blurring the line between farse and reality. i honestly didn't know that the real sarah palin actually told katie couric that she'd 'get back to her' with some examples of mr mccain's voting for deregulation. that just HAD to be the snl writers, right? wrong.

but this is not why i love sarah palin. and it's certainly not for her policies. i feel like snl's version of hilary clinton, 'we don't agree on ANYTHING'. in terms of policy, the woman is genuinely frightening. yup, let's keep giving the rich tax breaks. we should definitely take away the right to choose, except when it's my family, then i want our privacy to be respected. it's definitely unpatriotic to criticism illegal wars. gays marrying would ruin this sacred institution, but forcing your underage daughter into a loveless marriage to ensure your viability as a evangelical conservative is a-ok. we've all heard all of this, so i'm going to stop.

the reason i love sarah palin is that she talks to people. she relates to them, and they relate to her. yes, apparently she is now worth $2 million, but you get a sense that she gets what it's like to live like a normal person. i like obama (even though i don't know if he'll get my vote, i'm still planning on writing in kucinich), and he can make a powerful speech (who remembers the 'race' speech of the primaries?), but there seems to be a disconnect between him and the average person. and it's not just obama. it's the vast majority of politicians and almost every single democrat. they wouldn't say things like 'like most americans i talk to, i am just sick about this bailout plan'. yes, the rest of palin's repsonse to that question was an absolute train wreck, and her analysis of the situation is straight ass backwards, but she seems to get it. at least a little.

it's the right's attempt to be populist, to put the people above those 'elites' they're always talking about. but hang on a second, who do republicans really care about?

the thing that i don't understand (although i'm starting to) is why no democrat can ever talk like this. listen, the sarah palins (and bushs) can talk all populist and then continue to fuck over 'the people' with every single economic policy. trickle down economy my ass. that shit don't work and we all know it. i'm going to tax health care benefits from your employer, but i'll say daggonit and wink. it's slick.

i want just one democrat to sound populist. imagine the power of a sarah palin-like person who could stand up and say, listen, health care is important and should be a higher priority than trillions in defense spending. education, too. daggonit. we're mad, we're frustrated, the government has failed us, i'm an outsider, and i'm kinda like you and we know how to fix this. hey joe six pack, don't you want better insurance? hey hockey moms, don't you think we've wasted enough money and precious lives on wars abroad? and who wants to keep sending their kids to shitty public schools? not ME! and who is worried about their savings while ceos that risked entire institutions gets millions in severance and retirement? I AM!

also they can't be an idiot. cause palin is a joke. and, populist or not, we do not want an idiot in one of the highest offices in the land.

i could go on for a while about why i don't think democrats talk like this, why they cannot be openly populist. but i won't, at least not now. i just want to say that i think it's a bit naive to brush off sarah palin as a back water hick and a republican hack. she certainly is the latter, but i think we often miss the fact that she is talking to a group of people who are pissed off, and rightfully so, about the state of the world in which they live. we need to stop making fun of her, and of this population more generally, and we need to start actively competing for their hearts, minds and votes.

last friday night i had a moment of reflection and realization.  and due to that moment this blog was born.  i'm still struggling with the birthing pains (i can't imagine what birthing democracy would feel like)...

i have looked forward to the new yorker festival every year since i've been in new york for one main reason: zadie smith.  i love her and her writing, but seeing her in person is an amazing experience.  the first time i saw her speak, she gave a lecture on reading and writing, from both the novelists' and critic's point of view, and i avow that it changed the way i look at literature (you can download it from amazon.com, it's called how to fail better or something like that).  unfortunately, no zadie this year.  instead i went to a panel discussion on race and class in american politics, mostly to see cornel west, a personal favorite.  and, despite the overwhelmingly white and unbelievably self-important audience (it IS the new yorker festival after all), the panel was inspiring, not necessarily because novel topics were being discussed, but largely because the panelists were all excellent writers whose talent translated into the spoken word.

there was barbara ehrenrieich, author of nickled and dimed, the aforementioned dr west, as well as a surprisingly eloquent leftist columnist for the wall street journal (who knew that such a thing existed?  i guess after the times hired william kristol, the journal had to follow suit with an ideologically opposed columnist).  these speakers made me think, made me laugh, made me angry, and most of all, made me want to write. 

it's been a long time since i've had to write everyday.  being a graduate student in biochemistry means i get my hands wet a lot (quite literally) but i rarely have to sit down in front of a word processor.  at those rare moments where i am reacquainted with microsoft word, i stumble around for a week, trying desperately to find the paper-writing-machine that was once nicely located in the easily accessible part of my brain.  it makes me miss college, and not in an 'old school' i want to do a beer bong sort of way.  

the written word is important to me.  this is why i read.  and one of the most important people in my life constantly tells me that writing is like any other activity; it is a skill that comes largely through practice, practice, and more practice (unless you're nabokov, in which case you can learn a language and write enduring literature only years later.  i hate nabokov).  so this blog is more for me than anyone else (not that i'm self centered or anything; also i have an annoying habit of injected unnecessary parenthetical statements into sentences.  i'm working on it).  

for those of you who will actually read these posts every now and again, you'll see that i have a couple of favorite writers that i will often cite.  so in that spirit i will end this post with a thought from james baldwin.  in the introduction to his memoir 'notes if a native son' baldwin talks about the importance and difficulty of finding a space for writing.  he ends with,

'i want to be an honest man and a good writer'

it's the simplest of sentences, yet it relates two goals that are terribly difficult to achieve.  lately i don't think i've been working hard enough on either front.  this blog will be an attempt to reverse course, to write honestly about topics that are important to me, to share with you my thoughts, hopes and fears, and hopefully to hear a response or two.  

here's to being an honest man/woman.  and a good writer.

jso