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Obama and Me

by

Obama and me;
I dreamed of us recently,
how we came to be,
him in 1961
in a world
of ukuleles,
warm ocean breezes,
lazy days
and crashing waves
where people greeted each other
with Aloha;
me in 1938
in the Grand Canyon State
under a blazing sun
that spun
100 plus degrees
and gave birth to folks
who loved rodeos
ten gallon hats
and pointed toe boots
and yelling Yee Ha!

I dreamed of how
handsome he is actually
and how guapo I might look virtually
if I had Photoshop fluency
to any degree.
……..   [Read more…]

Two Sets of Two Moms on My Mind

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After receiving an invite to a baby shower
for my rather new friends, Alanna and Jan,
I thought to myself: Man,
it’s so nice to have lived
to see a new day
when human beings who are lesbian or gay
can more and more
feel that they
don’t have to tuck themselves away
uncomfortably in shadows of dark places
where no one should ever have to reside,
let alone stay –
What I’m getting at is, hey, the “closet” back in my day
was as crowded as Yankee Stadium
on opening day.   [Read more…]

Bringing in the New Year with My Bongos

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On New Year’s Eve
as I sat quietly
in my easy chair,
out of thin air
from a place called nowhere,
Maxi, my cat,
skittered across me
in the middle of my ease,
creating a little breeze,
landing on the mantle over the fireplace
with a couple of tip taps of her feet
and I picked up the beat
and patted rhythms on my thighs
and on my knees
and my bongos
and the next thing I know….   [Read more…]

Holding On to Hope at Casa Contenta

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Just a little while ago I boarded a plane in San Diego heading for L.A. to connect with a flight to Zihuatanejo, Mexico to kick back at Casa Contenta, mi querida’s home away from home. Basking in the sun with my hon was all that was on my mind at the time. I, however, had no idea that, at the same time, children were losing their lives at their place of learning in New England.

I wasn’t aware of the carnage until we clicked on the iPad once we had settled in at our destination. The moment before that I was just going “Wow!” in reaction to the loveliness of the home I was in and kind of chuckling to myself over images in my mind of two men who had attracted my attention at LAX.

One wore a sweater with the words “Small Arms Instructor” written on the back underneath two big ass rifles crossing each other that were to “small arms” as a butterfly is to a pit bull. I got a kind of chilly feeling from that little scene.   [Read more…]

Playing with Thoughts of a Better World in Sabino Canyon

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I don’t know if whoever is reading this has a place on earth that’s really dear to them, a spiritual place, a place that invigorates them. But I do have such a place, Sabino Canyon, in Tucson, my birth place.
Mi querida and I hiked there just the other day, the first day of December, in fact, the last month before doomsday if you want to listen to what a number of very spooked people say.

But an apocalypse was far from my mind on this soothing sunny day. I entered the grounds in a very good mood and that mood grew with each step I took as I ran the images of my stay in town through my mind.   [Read more…]

Dancing on the Playing Fields

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The other day I turned a game on just as some dude was standing over a quarterback he had sacked and before I could sit down he commenced to prancing around like James Cagney portraying George M. Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy or, to the young crowd, like Chris Brown doing the James Brown. Then I saw the score and this guy’s team was about 30 points down.

  [Read more…]

The Sun Peeking through the Clouds

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I’m still riding high as a result of the elections. It was so great seeing so many propositions that I like pass, so satisfying having the president remain where he is, so refreshing having a mayor who is a friend. I mean, hey, I’ve been voting since 1959 and this has been a real new experience for people of my voting kind.

  [Read more…]

A Change is Gonna Come

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Ahh, hope fills the air that I breathe, as I move, light and easy, like a river dancer on a cloud that’s floating in a gentle wind, as Bob Filner becomes my mayor and Barack Obama my president, again.

It’s a nice high I’m in, hallucinogenic, with music, Sam Cooke singing, “It’s been a long, a long time coming, but I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will.”

Oh, it feels so good having a couple of guys in high places who view what people have worked towards for years as earned “benefits” not “entitlements,” and see unions as who they are, “We the People!” Not “bandits.”
  [Read more…]

Rules! What Are They Good For?

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The other night I sat with other writers, in a workshop, to consider how the rules that guide one person might contrast with rules somebody else lives by. Like a man who has grown up thinking women should be barefoot and pregnant, always with a pork chop ready to put on the stove, might have a problem with a woman who is of the thinking that she should always be treated like a queen, with doors opened for her and a coat set down for her to walk on in a puddle in the rain. How could they come to co-exist was the gist of this exercise.

  [Read more…]

Sandra Fluke, My New Hero

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It was so nice at Balboa Park the other day. Sunny. Warm. Bright. People wearing smiles every where I looked. We were gathered at 6th and Laurel for a Rally for Women’s Health, featuring Sandra Fluke, a woman who gained fame for being shunned by a group with no shame who ran a sham they call the United States House of Representatives’ House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

These Big Time Charlies wouldn’t let her speak to them about reproductive freedom for women because, according to them, she had no “expertise.” And she pretty much had to tell them “Hello! I’m a woman, you know, and how much ‘expertise’ y’all got regarding a woman’s needs, I might ask, considering that every single one of you is a man?” Not to mention, (to counter what their smartassed answer to the question is likely to be) men who have not evolved much when it comes to ways of thinking things female beyond their junior high days.   [Read more…]

Mitt Romney, Serene and Credible?

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After the last presidential debate the San Diego Union-Tribune waxed romantically about how serene Mitt Romney appeared to be and all I could think was:

What kind of HD do they have that can make a man who looked like he had chugged some unsweetened lemon juice, seem to be serene?

Wearing an expression on your face that’s like a cross between a smile and a grin – a “smin” perhaps – is not a picture of serenity. A bit too Cheshire Cat for me.

They followed that up by citing a poll that showed that 60 out of a 100 voters thought Romney had looked credible, aka pretty good, on national security and I wondered “Should these people be voting?”   [Read more…]

A Timeless Red Man Speaks

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Looking through words about California history, my mind wanders momentarily, and a tall timeless man with reddish brown skin and long braids ala Russell Means, appears in the periphery of my daydreams. He says:
They, these conquering men, stepped from their boats
wearing more clothes than was necessary,
shiny metal hats and vests,
heavy leather foot wear,
bearing swords and knives,
boasting of braveries
and discoveries
and some day living in the memories
of civilizations yet to be
and when they gazed our way
they never looked us in the eye
with any deep sense
of wonder
or human curiosity.   [Read more…]

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