A friend from home

10/24

Friends from home. My old friend Diana arrives with her friend Paul and Pat Arnow, free lance journalist and photographer. (http://arnow.org/)  I give them all the full archi-socio-cutural tour of West-Park. Tell all the stories. Pat taking photographs the whole time.

My friend Diana is a journalist with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette who covers neighborhoods wit her own blog. (http://blogs.post-gazette.com/news/city-walkabout ) Although Diana and I had pretty much the same circle in Tulsa, she arrived as I was leaving and our paths didn’t cross until Pittsburgh. A random mention of a favorite Tulsa Vietnamese restaurant in her column caught my eye. A lunch and many conversations led to a friendship. And at a low point in my life, she helped me to rediscover some important parts of myself.

During a newspaper strike she had created a ‘zine  called the Recession Supper Digest (http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1129&dat=19930213&id=eIRIAAAAIBAJ&sjid=x24DAAAAIBAJ&pg=1740,4530613) as a creative outlet for first out of work journalists and then writing and cooking friends of hers around the world. Each issue was an adventure. And before I knew it I was writing a regular column.  The writing helped keep me alive and get through a rough time. Reminded  me I could never go without writing again.

Diana also played in a zydeco band that went by the Pittsburgh clever name of Mon Gumbo. I also needed to get back to my music and in Christmas ’94 some of her Mon mates a former Eddie and the Otters member or two and my favorite lounge singer minister turned out two nights of  seriously fun seasonal music with slide guitars, rubboards and all. Mainly I’ve always appreciated her appreciation of neighborhoods and the people who make them.

So I wanted Diana and her friends to meet the inimical RL. After a lunch at the Gate, we returned to the church and went to RL’s studio where he introduced them to the world of Dusty Withers, famous side kick and the wonder mule, Mr. Blithers. All of course initiated into the fan club with a CD and a Dusty badge. (http://www.rhapsody.com/artist/rl-haney/album/the-lost-episodes-and-dusty-tales/track/the-adventures-of-dusty-withers-famous-sidekick-episode-one)

I gift my friends with Angelo’s angelitos. I wish they could have been here for Amanda’s ice cream truck and Indian Summer Tour. Or a Friday night open mic. But as I watch them leave, I’m thinking how important it is to always give thanks for the people in our lies who remind us of who we’re supposed to be. 

Where's the shell?

1/26

RL once told me the difference between being crazy and being nuts. If you’re crazy, he said, you don’t know it. But if you’re nuts, you know where the shell is. And how to use it to protect yourself if need be. I’m not even sure what that means, but somehow it seems to make sense.

A Saturday facing down serious blues. 

Cara has come in to help me with Sunday preparations. We go out side, I’ve got the broom, she the dustpan. And we do a thorough sweeping of the steps, the sidewalk, getting our entrance clean. We throw away all the stashed cardboard to dissuade any prospective steps sleepers in this weather. 

Inside, we move the meeting table out of the way. Fold up all the folding chairs and get the out of the way. While she sweeps the sanctuary, I get out the green paraments and place them on the communion table. Get out the candles and place the around. Get out the Spanish Bible. My green Jerusalem stole. 

We’re trying to locate all the necessary pieces to a vacuum cleaner. She asks if there’s budget to buy a new vacuum or even a dust buster and I say, what budget? We’re checking out the cleaning closet. Marc has now joined the search when RL appears.

RL needs to have confirmed the availability of a quality keyboard for the after concert for Teddy’s memorial service. Marc begins to describe his Korg. Cara begins to describe her electric piano in her crib in Queens. That of course would require a pick up. Marc has plenty of electric pick ups. No, she needs a pick up truck. Soon everyone is excitedly talking at once, all well intentioned. And wanting to help. What I want to do is just vanish, disappear. (It’s my problem, okay? It’s just their eagerness to help...) But I play teacher and ask everyone to speak one at a time.

RL winks and says and you thought you had to import all these theatre people to bring drama to this place. And I wink back and say, longest running performance art piece on the Upper West Side. I’m still expecting Andy Kaufman at any time. And he sings, Here I come to save the day...and I get it if no one else does. He’s soon describing his Dusty Withers (Famous sidekick!) radio cowboy show recreations. And his wonder mule Mr. Blithers!And Marc is onto Lone Ranger reruns on TV and RL responds with Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels. Cara looks intrigued but puzzled. She wants to give RL a big hug, but I can see it gets him flustered. She is energy.

OK. She will clean some more and then play piano. I promise to ask Jeremy about the keyboard issue. Tomorrow. Right now, I need to head up Amsterdam. And home. 

The gated city grows

1/21

It's Martin Luther King, Jr.'s national holiday day. And Obama's second inaugural day.

There were two visitors, Sandy volunteers, who just came in to take a look. One was a member of First Presbyterian, Honolulu. The other was being given a good Sanctuary pitch. I did my best to explain the difference. 

RL continues to face Jobian afflictions that would be close to unbelievable if they weren’t true.  At least one or two exhibit the kind of brainless sadism that only certain state bureaucracies can inflict. Still, he can listen to my complaints.  And it’s a good time to pull out Dusty Withers: the Lost Episodes, his homage to and recreation of old time radio cowboy shows with a theme song that surreptitiously burrows into your brain and stays there an unwelcome guest. (Ask Danielle) http://www.rlhwindtide.com/index.htm#Lost

Cara has been hard at work on clearing the sanctuary of left over papers, etc. from the Sanctuary service yesterday afternoon. She finds a French press with some left over coffee. Hmmm, we’ll have to ask about that. It’s a blessing to have her here when shes not  playing piano for dance classes. But I love to hear her play when after some warm up exercises she floats off into various shades of blue.

Finally time for Bible study. Tonight we pick up with Mark 12: 35, which immediately follows the discussion of the greatest commandment. (28-34). It’s at the end of a whole series of conflicts and dialogues with the various parts of the national and religious establishment. Into this comes the question about David’s son. In essence, Jesus basically negates the idea of a triumphant Messiah from the Davidic line who will overthrow the Romans and reestablish an empire. To which he says, just plain no. That’s not what my movement is about. Empires are no better just because our side runs them. (And so welcome our reformed critique of any party in power. Or community organizing’s holding any party in power accountable. All systems of dominance and control are over. And the people listen  to him with delight? It can only be they enjoy his tweaking the establishment so much they overlook his critique of the whole thing. (Occupy Temple?)

Which easily leads into his critique of the scribes, (38-40). Who wear fancy clothes, enjoy being treated with deference in the marketplace, seats at the dais at charity banquets, all all too familiar of religious leaders who cozy up to the elite. He could  throw in country club memberships as well. (Yes, not like this ended with scribes...it’s endemic...) Worst of all, they devour widow’s houses.... Because heirless widows were considered incompetent, they were often appointed trustees over their property, exacting their own administrative fees and then ultimately the property itself. Reversing the basic demand of scripture to care for the widows and orphans. 

I think of this every time  I'm in housing court and see the weak and vulnerable who have been barely and courageously  holding on pushed out of their rent stabilized apartments  so that landlords can get market rate.  In every gentrifying neighborhood. The gated city grows. And the Bloomberg city hall ends rent subsidies for the most vulnerable. They devour widows’ houses....they will receive the greater condemnation....

Which you have to read in  order to understand the story of the widow’s mite...(41-44) Often used as a romantic paean to the spiritual superiority of the poor, it is actually more a lament. For the widow put in all she had, all she had to live on... Yes her faith is the better for its total trust. But the system has exploited her. 

No wonder that what comes next is the destruction of the temple foretold. (13: 1-8)The symbol of the nation itself must come down because the entire system is hopelessly corrupt. Jesus the (non-violent) Django to the Temple’s Stephen....those who serve in the master’s house are as much a part of the problem as the master. Jesus is announcing the end of privilege and exclusivity and the dawning of a new community of mutuality and inclusivity.  ...the beginnings of the birth pangs....

Barack Obama was inaugurated today to begin his second term. He gave a good progressive speech. Seneca Falls, Selma, Stonewall.....a good construction, that... The agenda is clear. Is the will? 

John helps me lock up and I head home in the growing cold...

(Once again Bible study inspired and informed by Ched Meyer's Binding the Strong Man...)