Thursday, May 31, 2007

MARIJUANA

A poll in the weekly Santa Cruz paper ‘Good Times’ asks: “Should marijuana be legalized?”

The answers:
54.4% Oh, totally.
25,8% Yes, if it’s heavily taxed and regulated.
11.0% Usage should be legal but not sales.
8.2% No.
0.5% other

This amounts to 91.2% for the usage being legal. Quite impressive! But of course this is Santa Cruz!

I never understood the position that usage should be legal but not sales. It’s so illogical. Should only those who have a possibility of growing marijuana themselves be allowed to smoke it without breaking the law? If something is legal to consume, it must be legal to buy and sell.

What would actually happen if marijuana were made completely free to produce, buy, sell, and consume? Like any other herb. Would everybody start smoking? Would our society collapse?
The price would go down for sure, but it would still be possible to make a decent living as marijuana farmer. The government would save a lot of money they now use in that sector of the War on Drugs. The other parts of the very useful hemp plant could be freely exploited to the benefit of mankind. A sizable group of inmates would be freed from prison and again much money saved.
It might harm the tobacco industry, but tobacco is much more harmful to the health than marijuana.

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

19TH DUNUN VILLAGE

The gathering was smaller than recent spring gatherings, probably because the Guinea Conference was held simultaneously in Oakland. No African teachers graced this gathering with their presence, but it was good to confirm that we have enough talented dancers and drummers to raise the energy by ourselves. The weather was perfect, hot enough to warrant a refreshing dip in the river, but not a debilitating heat.
There was a nice community feeling; things were not organized but they were still taken care of: the food, the fire, the cave-like tent – I don’t even know who did it all, but it manifested and I extend my thanks to those who worked for the common welfare. And a welcome to the newcomers, several of them born within this last year.
Saturday I went on an expedition upriver with Mario and the twins, Trillium and Silas, skipping rocks and evading the alligators that the boys were slightly nervous about.
Here are some pictures:

Conquering the wilds

Friendships are made

The boys can dance too!

The cave

Paul's place

Nuksak cooling off

Simon

Geno and Paul

Judah, a new face

Sosha, a beautiful dance teacher

Thursday, May 24, 2007

INTERMISSION


I'm off to Dunun Village Gathering for an extended weekend.
I'll be back with photos!
Have a great weekend!

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

BEING GAY (AN INTERVEIW)

Would you choose to be straight if you had the choice?

I have noticed this question being posed several times on the net. The answer was always ‘No!’
For myself, the answer is the same and the reason is simple. Being gay is an integral part of who I am and all through my life renewal and expansion has come through my love for boys. The memories of all these boys and the feelings that they inspired are precious to me.

So, what do you think caused you to be gay?

For me I think part of the cause was in my surroundings when I grew up. I was living with three women and had virtually no connection with male energy until I began school, an all boy’s school. I had a thirst for male closeness, nothing sexual really, but when I awoke to my sexuality it naturally connected with the intense interest and attraction I had to my school friends. I liked girls well enough and felt at home with them, but I was not attached to them and did not wish them to be attached to me. When a girl was in love with me, it was flattering in the beginning and maybe even a bit exciting, but after a while it felt restricting and I lost interest.
There are so many shades of gayness-bisexuality and I think they have different combinations of causes. Someone else might have grown up in circumstances similar to mine and not have become gay, who knows? There might be something else in my character that disposed me towards the way I developed.
As a believer in reincarnation and karma I think the ultimate cause lays there, so you can say that you are born to it, which is another reason that I would not wish it otherwise.

When did you first become aware of your gay feelings?

I was around ten years old when I fell in love for the first time. He was the cousin of a boy who lived on my street and he came the first summer I lived there and stayed for a while. I was totally in love with him. There were both the bliss and the despair of passionate love. When I slept over at his place and we were in bed together, even though there was nothing sexual, I remember the happiness of being warm and close and cozy. But one time when we played in the street he said something nasty to me and I ran home in despair. I stood in front of the mirror in the bathroom with tears running down my face, when a light sound made me turn and I glimpsed his eye in the chink behind the door. Others did not seem to have that kind of feelings; I knew they were exaggerated, but there was no denying them; I could only try to hide them.
There is another memory: playing with my best friend from school, I reached over him and as my body pressed against his I had an erection and I noticed the pleasant feeling of it. But these memories stand alone and unconnected. It was not until my first orgasmic experience with Poul when I was twelve that my sexuality came to bloom.
Poul was the grandson of an older couple who were friends of my mother. They lived in a small town and when we visited I was lodged with Poul’s family where I had him and his sister as playmates. Poul, the youngest, was two years younger than me. At a visit when I was twelve, we were put in the same bed at night and his sister on a cot next to us. While she was asleep Poul and I fooled around with each other, and for the first time, being not alone, I came, while Poul was still too young to have an orgasm.

How did you feel about being gay?

Well, I didn’t think I of myself as homosexual. I had heard very little about homosexuals: it seemed that they were effeminate and so a bit ridiculous and also sad and lonely. That was not me at all. I knew how I felt, but I expected to find the right woman some day and I would be like everybody else.
I did find happiness in the close friendships of youth and during the teen years this closeness included mutual masturbation with Poul, whom I didn’t see often, and also with my best friend in school. The noose tightened when they didn’t want this anymore. I tried out with girls but it never went very far. Still, my way of dealing with it was to not think too much about it.
I was more or less waiting for a solution to appear, and when it finally did, I had no hesitation in accepting it. I was gay and there were others who felt like me.

So, how old were you when you came out?

I was 25. It was an incredible release to come to a conclusion and I was very happy. The energy that had thus far been used to fool others and myself as to my sexuality now became free to be used in a constructive way and I began a new life as an artist.

Did you find a mate?

That was quite another thing. This was 1950 and there was not much of a network to support gays. My first lovers were not interested in long-term relationship, or available. There was one club for gays and I went there and found only effeminate and sad older homosexuals that I didn’t feel any affinity for. All that was left was cruising and I was not very bold and also quite specific in my tastes. I seemed to fall in love with straight boys and more or less continue in the pattern already set.
I did finally find a mate when I was 28. He was ten years younger and moved in with me, but it was not all happy harmony. He was not into monogamy and it lasted less than three years and left me rather depressed. After that I had only shorter affairs; it seemed to be difficult to combine the sexual with the emotional aspects.
Later I lived near a cruising place, a small forest where gays came during the white nights throughout the summer. The Danish summer is so short and the weather is unstable, so I didn’t go that often, but I had some gratifying encounters. There was something romantic in the mutual pure lust given free play in the silent summer night.

What are your specific tastes?

Oh, they cannot be categorized. Maybe I can say that they often duplicate my early attractions. There are so many levels of attraction, from the intense love–at-first-sight to the slowly ripening interest. I have a hard time separating the emotional from the sexual and the sexual from the spiritual in my relations with boys. It’s all expressions of the same, but it is impossible to explain.
I could say that my specific tastes in the visual department are shown on my blog BOYS I LIKE.

You started a discussion of boy-love on that blog. Are you attracted to younger boys?

Yes, sometimes. And I really sincerely believe that there is more abuse out there, in relationships among adults, than there is between men and boys. To me, the worst thing our society does to the young is denying their sexual nature and their power to know what they want, and trying to ‘protect’ them by lying to them and concealing the truth.
For many people this issue is totally taboo, there is nothing to discuss. Well, I think there is a lot to discuss. For one thing, just as there are men attracted to boys, there are boys who are attracted to grown men. There is a balance in things. And we don’t choose our attractions, so we should respect how others feel. The feelings are god-given and how we act on them only God can judge. But there are people who profess to know what God’s intensions are and what God wants, and they are not open to any form of discussion.
In many cultures boy-love was the very definition of homosexuality; it was part of learning how to be a man.

How is it to grow old being gay?

I think each age has its advantages and its drawbacks. It was never easy to be gay, emotionally, but maybe it’s just that all human relationships are difficult. I have more peace of mind now than before and that is the most important, isn’t it? And I still have young friends around who are a source of joy and keep me alive.

What do you think of gay marriage?

I don’t think gays should imitate straights, really; I think they should have the same rights as everybody else. Marriage seems to be in decline anyway, so what’s the point? It’s just a word. But gays want to be respectable and to fit in. The gay movement was not like that in the beginning. I just read about Harry Hay who was the first to organize a gay movement, the Mattachine Society; I think it was in 1950. He was trying to define the role that gay people could assume in the future society from the roles they played in the cultures of earlier times. He was radical. I think it’s sad when gays become as closed-minded as their bigoted pursuers. I wish we could go back to the times when the word homosexual didn’t exist. It was just something some people did and some others didn’t, no big deal.

Sunday, May 20, 2007

YANSANE


I met this boy from Senegal in Paris in 1951, He was one of the first Africans I got to know.

Saturday, May 19, 2007

BISMILLAH


'In the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful' is the opening sentence of the suras in the Koran.

Friday, May 18, 2007

LIKE WATER

Click to enlarge!


'Like Water Drum and Dance' send me this picture of the whole group. Six of them were here showing the film 'Illymanya' at the Santa Cruz Film Festival at the end of April and stayed in our house five days. I was happy to get to know them.

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

TUESDAY CLASS

Armand

Ryan

Eric

In my class yesterday, my camera, unintensionally set on manual, produced these pictures that rather please me!

Sunday, May 13, 2007

STYLE WARS






A friend of mine had me watch a documentary called ‘Style Wars’ about a group of youngsters in New York City who painted their names in public places, mostly on the subway trains. The paintings were executed with spray-paint in bold designs in variations of a constantly changing style that had been developed by different early masters of the art. There were different schools and influences.
Everybody who has spray-painted knows how one short moment’s hesitation leaves its mark. These guys were in complete control of their tools while they worked in the narrow space between two rows of parked subway trains, walking on the ground. They worked together two or three in different constellations and they always worked in a rush of concentrated creativity with an uncertain deadline of discovery threatening.
It was in all senses a mobile art form. Their works of art traveled around town and revealed themselves to the initiates at random moments like a confirmation of their community. These kids were also break-dancers and rappers and some were as young as 11, most were in their teens and some in their early twenties.
The group of artists was the aristocracy of the tribe of ordinary of taggers who just had a graphic curlicue signature that they tagged wherever they fancied, sometimes on top of the more elaborate designs. There was even one guy who only worked on top of others work; on the best he could find he would paint his big logo right in the middle.
It was the beginning of an ongoing cultural warfare, on one side the young fought with the spray can, on the other side the City did its best to destroy whatever they could, washing the cars in a paint solvent. They also fenced the cars in and complained of the millions of dollars they put into the fight against tagging.
The young taggers expressed their contempt for a society that had left them with the hard crusts to chew by using the property of the society as their canvas. It was all about obtaining name recognition by marking their territory.
My feelings are mixed. I have great admiration for the artists, and in boring or grim environments even a cacophony of tags enliven the place, but when simple tags spread on the perfect old buildings in Europe like a skin cancer, it is not art anymore to me, just a barbarian cultural invasion and an expression of immature desperation. The point, of course, is revolutionary, which is why society reacts so strongly.

Saturday, May 12, 2007

SMUGGLER

I have smuggled since I first began traveling. Not that I’m a professional smuggler, just a convenience smuggler. The element that I believe essential for success is to feel 100% sure that the contraband cannot be found. It is a kind of magic that cannot be explained, but it always worked for me, though it didn’t prevent some tense moments.

In the seventies a colony of Danes were living in southern Sweden. The Swedes were rather paranoid about hash and we had to bring our supply from Denmark and run the gauntlet of the Swedish customs every time.
Once we brought a harmonium, a small Indian organ. Inside it a pound of hash was screwed to the frame and the harmonium, which could still be played, was strapped to the top of the car. The customs zoomed in on us and we had to take everything out of the car and they went as far as emptying every bag of grains and lentils and rice and the only thing they never suspected was the harmonium that sat untouched on top of the car.

Driving home from Paris with Don Cherry, each of us had a small lump of hash. He wanted to smoke his up on the ferry from Germany to Denmark, but I wanted to bring mine with me, so I had hid it inside a piece of French cheese of the kind that Americans call ‘stinky’, and I felt sure that even a dog wouldn’t be able to locate it. We smoked Don’s piece in the car just before arriving and when we opened the door for the customs officer he got a whiff of it and right away he barked: “It smells of hash! You had better give me what you have right away before I bring the dogs and they find it.” But I was undaunted and, looking him right in the eyes, I said: “We don’t have anything.” He took a moment to process this assertion, but by sheer mental force I had conquered him and he came to the conclusion that a search would be futile.
He said: “OK, you can go.” And off we went!

Leaving the Rainbow Gathering in Minnesota we were four hippies who decided to take a swing through Canada. We were riding in a fancy SUV that Adam had bought after he inherited his father and at the border they must have suspected us of being drug dealers. The customs officer seemed determined to get us; we were told that they had found a marihuana seed in the car and now they had to do a thorough search. Our stash in a plastic bag wasn’t very well hidden in a glass with rice; it could be seen and I thought the end had come when I saw one of the searchers holding the glass up in front of his face, staring at it. Either he didn’t see the obvious or he was of a sympathetic mind for he put the glass down and nothing was found.
The immigration officer was a woman. “Do you think I should let you in?” she asked with a smile and when we said yes she stamped our passports. That did not please the customs officer, but his one seed was not sufficient to force the issue and the woman was in command.

Friday, May 11, 2007

BILL




Time: the day before New years 1984.
Place: my friend M’s house in Colombo, Ohio.
One of M’s friends brings a boy named Bill. I’m immediately attracted. His eyes are very big and black – really black. He is talking to me, but I don’t understand much of what he says; he whispers or seems to go off track. I give up and bend my head and then I hear clearly: “I’m just talking loosely, you know, just as it comes!” I look up and I make an effort to follow him. His face is asymmetric when he talks: one side is lively; the other seems to want to stop him. As he turns his head he is like two persons – and one of them is a beauty. Then he laughs and his eyes twinkle and beauty invades his whole face. He says: “I was with this guy; he is a homo, but, you know, I am a turnabout; I cannot tell anybody off.”
Next day he is there again and he is more coherent and very sweet. M gives him a haircut and makes him shave, but, really, he seemed just as good to me before.
In the evening we dance together shoulder to shoulder, rolling back to back to the other shoulder. It’s New Years Eve and I know I could have him, but there is nowhere to go. When he leaves he hugs me twice. I love the losers that are sweet as worm eaten fruit.

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

TAROT


You are The Hierophant


Divine Wisdom. Manifestation. Explanation. Teaching.


All things relating to education, patience, help from superiors.The Hierophant is often considered to be a Guardian Angel.


The Hierophant's purpose is to bring the spiritual down to Earth. Where the High Priestess between her two pillars deals with realms beyond this Earth, the Hierophant (or High Priest) deals with worldly problems. He is well suited to do this because he strives to create harmony and peace in the midst of a crisis. The Hierophant's only problem is that he can be stubborn and hidebound. At his best, he is wise and soothing, at his worst, he is an unbending traditionalist.


What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

QUOTE


If you cannot explain a concept to a six years old, it’s because you don’t understand it completely.

Albert Einstein

Monday, May 07, 2007

Sunday, May 06, 2007

LILIES ON MY TABLE




FletcherBeaver said...

Happy birthday.
My ex-girlfriend's birthday is the 29th also. She berated me for forgetting it, again. I sent her flowers every day this week.
I hope you had a great day, it looked like you did. I'm picturing some lilies, from me, sitting on your table.

Thank you FletcherBeaver, you have creative imagination!

Thursday, May 03, 2007

WORK

The corner of my room split open and my landlord, Peter, who is also a friend, came over to repair it day before yesterday and again yesterday and I helped out. He put big screws in and screwed the corner back in place and rebuild the wall under the window. The house is a hundred years old. I had to remove my book shelves and all the books, but they really needed a spring cleaning anyway. My table, that is always covered with stuff, became visible. I made this table when I lived in Santa Barbara in 1980 and it still looks good.

In the evening I caught the full moon:

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

LIGHT & SHADOW




These are black and white photos of two paintings that marked the end of my 'cubist period'