I’m shooting a dandelion in the seeding stage, using a 15-second exposure. It’s nearly 2 a.m. and there’s no moon, it’s overcast and dark out.

As I compose the shot, I’m trying to imagine if it were video, instead of still images. Someone told me recently that it’s okay to compose still and live video the same way, in fact I should be doing that. I never imagined it that way, I always considered these things totally separate. No reason why.

Radiohead’s “The Bends” is blaring in my headphones: “The planet is a gunboat in a sea of fear.”

In my periphery, I notice a struggle, and see this brother fighting with his girlfriend across the street.

The couple then transitioned to the middle of the street. Suddenly he cocked his arm back, like a rage-fueled quarterback, he paused after he drew back as if he were posing for a magazine cover. At that point, I saw that he held a smartphone in his hand. Hers.

Release. He threw it like as far down field as he could, putting all his weight into it. The smartphone went flying, the glow of the screen flipp, and threw her smartphone at least 50 meters. Toward my house. It landed in the backyard. She punched him in the chest, then she started walking away, at a fast pace – toward Benjamin Ave.

She was screaming “I don’t care!” loudly, repeatedly, but in an unsettlingly calm voice. Soon I can’t hear her shouting, as she fades in the distance.

The angry boyfriend is pacing up and down the street in front of my house, yelling out the lyrics to “99 Problems” at the top of his lungs. Midway through the second verse, he beelines toward my porch; but he diverts left, marching into my backyard – assumedly to find the phone. Moments later, he walks back toward the street, hitting the second verse of the song. Then he notices me: I am sitting in the dark, holding my camera. He stops and says, “You like this song, n—a?” I pause before saying anything. “It’s probably my favorite,” I answer. He keeps walking, launching back into the chorus.

The shutter clicks on a 30-second exposure and it’s still too warm, even though it’s the lowest value.

I’m still hearing him belt out “99 Problems.” Doppler effect as he hits Benjamin Ave. It’s unforgivable, what he’s doing to this song.

To my right, an older neighbor yells out a second story window, telling everyone to quiet down: “These little n—-s got school in the morning, shut it down!”

The girlfriend comes back, apparently to find her phone. She’s still yelling “I don’t care,” screaming it multiple times before howling, “I don’t give a f–k about no pizza!” I’m not even trying to understand that.

I set the camera to bracket exposures and I tried a different white balance.

Then, out of nowhere, a neighbor who’s affectionately nicknamed Dirty South …started shouting from across the street that he’s “loyal.” Over and over. “LOYAL!”

The camera clicks as it finishes the long exposure. No better.

Then, all around, up and down the street, it all stopped. Silence. Everyone went indoors, as if cued – lights out.

I pressed resume on Radiohead. “Where do we go from here?”

I decided I’d solve the photo problem by simply exporting the image as black and white. I set my camera aside. I picked up my glass of wine.

It’s summer on Dunham St.

Photo taken on Dunham Street at 3 a.m. on May 15, 2013 (15sec exposure, ISO100, f7.1)

My Old Days: TV from thevirtualimage on Vimeo.

Last night at a GRPS picnic I watched all the kids playing with each other, this unintentionally diverse mix of little humans. And it hit me: “cultural competency” is something that a lot of Grand Rapids Public Schools (GRPS) kids share, effortlessly. They aren’t “talking” about the value of co-existence, they are co-existing, naturally.

During the picnic, Riley was playing football with a group of boys. Most of them were African American. Riley was not quarterback. When we had to go, one of Riley’s friends said, “Peace out, Riley.” It wasn’t some big cross-cultural moment in time, and that’s what makes it so amazing.

At the same time, we all know the white kids will have it easier, in life. You may be a person who says “I don’t see race” – you can go around saying that all day, but it doesn’t make it true. In 2012, as an adult raising a family in a multicultural, urban-core neighborhood, I’d never say “race doesn’t matter.” In fact, my everyday existence is why I’d say it does matter. I observe that it matters a lot. Most times, when I hear someone say “race doesn’t matter,” it turns out they live in a middle- or an upper-class white ghetto. Of course they don’t see race! It’d equally astonishing for me to point out that I don’t see dragons flying around the skies of Kent County.

An evolution

My kids will have inherent advantages when applying for a job, or a loan. Or when they interact with authorities. They don’t know it (now) and maybe they won’t recognize it when it’s happening, but it’s true. The hope, the beautiful hope, comes into play when they are the ones making those decisions about jobs, or loans. These GRPS kids, with a lived experience that leads to effortless cultural competency… they won’t have to tell themselves that race doesn’t matter, in their decisions. Just like I don’t have to remind myself that I don’t see dragons.

Bias is a virus that cannot be turned off like a switch. It is transmitted from generation to generation. I’ve got the virus although it’s in remission, it’s still there. Bias is fed and nurtured by absence of interaction. Fear cannot withstand interaction because it’s a gaping hole filled in by supposition. Fill it in with lived experience, and it’s a closed hole, capped. It’s no longer a hole.

GRPS is the best school district in Kent County

Perhaps the reason I didn’t realize my kids were learning “cultural competency” is simple: it’s unteachable. Maybe it only comes from lived experience, and you don’t even know it, when you’ve got it. Stop-gap measures like holding a “diversity workshop” seem like a bandaid on a heart attack – delusional. A lie we tell ourselves to feel better about doing virtually nothing. If you looked at society objectively, like it were someone else’s society, or a version of the game “The Sims,” you’d conclude there’s no other possible outcome: of course race matters, it’s inevitable in the design of this thing.

So, sure, there are districts in outlying suburbs with more funding, better buses, smaller classrooms, and so on. But as I watched these GRPS kids playing with each other so naturally, as they do everyday… I thought, to them, race actually doesn’t matter. They don’t see it. What a precious, rare thing. Maybe SAT scores are 45 points higher at a school in the suburbs, and maybe the Debate Club has its own van with air conditioning. But maybe, of all those things, and all the things you could learn at school, maybe the most important thing is what you don’t learn.

Either way, I felt such pride last night, seeing this generation of kids interact. I hope my kids read this someday and wonder how this ever mattered, how I ever had occasion to give a damn – how any of us did. And they can point at the sky and ask me, jokingly, if I see any dragons.

I’ll say I don’t know, maybe there were dragons, once. I mean, how would I know?

If we determine a purpose could be realized more effectively, and more efficiently, we’re entitled to augment the process. Perhaps it’s our obligation, to refine and replace less useful ways of achieving a desired outcome. So long as we authentically believe in the value of the outcome.

Furthermore, when there is resistance to adaptation, especially with so much at stake, it’s worth asking a simple question about the status quo: “Who benefits?”

Who benefits from cable television?

In the Year of our Lord, 2012, the concept of “regularly scheduled programming” is no longer useful. The idea of a show being “broadcast” at a certain time, on a certain day, is antiquated to the point of (being) ridiculous. When we consume series programming in this way, tuning in at a certain time on a certain channel, there is a tinge of sentimentality; but that’s not enough to justify its existence

We hold onto things in West Michigan, sometimes only because they are “tradition.” But traditions are useful only so long as they are useful.

Think about what would happen if all programming were designed to be made available for download (i.e. via iTunes) on demand, a la carte? In an instant, the cable industry would become nearly irrelevant. All those boxes and converters and subscriptions and packages and hundred-dollar monthly bills for service… pointless.

The cable industry is a broken epoxy holding together a false paradigm: an industry motivated by its loosening grip on billions of dollars in centrally controlled revenues. The idea that series programming needs to be “broadcast” was once a fact, but now it’s a construct, propagated by the people who benefit most from it. And let’s be clear: when a tiny sliver of the population benefits entirely at the expense of the majority, we have a problem.

Online voting advances a good purpose

Online voting would improve the goals of direct democracy, and it’s not only doable – it’s way overdue. It wouldn’t have to “replace” polling places as we know them, but it could exist in harmony with onsite or by-mail options.

There is an understandable perception of nobility about the tradition of polling places: physical locations where we participate directly in our democracy. But at the end of the day, it’s a process like any other: it’s designed to achieve a purpose.

We’re represented by a lot of 50+ year old white males. There’s a direct correlation with the way people get elected. More choices for consuming and acting on ballot questions would result in elections that reflect a wider and more diverse set of the electorate.

Centralized polling places once were the most logical and useful means of achieving the purpose with fidelity. Not to say polling places were ever free from fraud (remember “hanging chads”?)

Almost every category of finance – and even national defense – have significant assets with virtual interfaces. If Chase Bank and the Pentagon have found a way to conduct business online, we have to ask the question about the status quo: “Who benefits?”

“Work ethic” is a bogus barrier

You might hear this if you proposed online voting:

If you can’t get your lazy butt to a polling place, you don’t deserve to have a say in the direction of this country.

I don’t know the exact date or time when “convenience” and “virtue” became mutually exclusive interests, but apparently we ought to contrive some weird obstacles and difficulties to voting. Like the show “Fear Factor.” Maybe we should have people lift barbells of a certain weight, and do jumping jacks, before casting their vote.

Look, if we’re going to talk about “work ethic” as a standard for participating in our democracy, let’s consider that many people need three jobs to get by, these days. Because we don’t have access to livable wages, anymore. Because we’ve been represented by people who have no clue about life in the real world (half of our Congressional leaders are millionaires; the average annual income of a U.S. Senator is $2.5 million.)

The point is, a lot of people don’t have time to go to a polling place during its hours of operation. So one could say that “work ethic” is exactly the reason we need more convenient options for voting. And one could say “voting” is more important than ever, because the fact we need 2-3 jobs to get by… is something we could correct, if we removed barriers to participation in the decision-making process.

Ballot question: yes, exactly

Think about the number of times you’ve been approached by people with clipboards, touting ballot proposals. Sometimes one person carries half a dozen clipboards, and explains them in a sentence, if that. Many times the so-called advocate for the ballot question… barely understands what he or she is suggesting you sign. So what’s the point?

But it’s the only option, right now. And why? Because there was a time when pen to paper was the only means available for gauging the will of the people. And there was a time before that when quill pens were used, on parchment. The advent of the internet has not occurred as a triviality on the margins: the internet has redefined everything, everywhere, for almost everyone.

Having the ability to consider and vote on a ballot question (at home) is vastly superior to being approached at the entrance to a supermarket, when you’re rushing in for diapers or milk. Especially when people are getting paid to collect signatures about ballot questions they couldn’t otherwise give a damn about, we’ve got next to nothing to measure against.

The plain fact is, many of us consume and interact with issues on screens. Say what you will about this, it’s our reality. The availability of online voting would complement the way we individually research almost everything else. A process that results in more voters who are more informed… seems categorically positive.

In conclusion

If we really believe in democracy’s purpose, and I believe we do, we have to be agile with its process. Means of voting, as a process, has got to be considered fungible, malleable, fluid, dynamic – with integrity as a prime directive, of course.

It wouldn’t be hard to establish a high threshold for gaining an online identity, and keep it. In many ways, it’d be easier to verify the results, because sample verifications could be trackable and random voters could be contacted to confirm their submission, in random surveys.

The internet is a tool in the toolbox, and it’s got a lot going for it – especially consider that the status quo, as the only means of polling the electorate, filters out a wide swath of the electorate.

This grand democracy certainly can withstand, and possibly obligates us to (some examination of process.) It is after all an experiment we are running, and an art we are practicing. It is a thing intended to serve the people.

So let the people have at it.

RAPID GROWTH MEDIA
The Good Of The Many
No Longer Interested In The Russians
Today A Young Man On Acid

THE RAPIDIAN
Give Away The Stone Pt. 1
Give Away The Stone Pt. 2
Give Away The Stone Pt. 3
Oh Lord, Please Don’t Burn Us
Pleased To Meet You
Chase You Down Until You Love Me
More Than The Walls
Pseudonymous
Discrimination Is An Onion
Revolutionizing Historic Preservation

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As it happens, two of the most iconic figures from religion and rock ‘n roll have roots in Grand Rapids: Mars Hill Pastor Rob Bell, and Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan. Pastor Bell is openly referred to as a rock star; Maynard’s lyrics and performances are nothing short of religious.

While Christianity and rock ‘n roll suffer institutional stagnancy, Pastor Bell and Maynard have – each in his own way – challenged established norms and evolved his respective framework.

I submit for your consideration two of the most defining contributions each has made to our culture.

Maynard: Back From The Fore

I’ve always found it odd that lead singers would automatically get to stand in the foreground, get the spotlight(s) and get all the attention. I know, I know, they “front” the band. But it feels disproportional: all the musicians seem equally important.

Almost inevitably, the lead singer would develop a big ego. Maybe leave the band. Then – bam – no more band.

I sometimes wondered what it’d be like if a singer stood upstage (back) of the other bands members.

Then, out of nowhere, Tool “frontman” Maynard James Keenan began doing this: intentionally refusing to set himself in front of the band. It started out with body paint (i.e. navy blue) and blue lighting, which gave him nearly zero contrast. By declining to set himself apart from the background, he changed the focus by design – restoring balance, in a sense, and allowing all elements of the performance to have more authentic proportion with one another.

Then he began standing in shadows, an absence of light. Other musicians were lighted, but not him.

And then he took it further – I’ve seen Tool shows where he was positioned behind a scrim, nothing more than a silhouette, which allowed other band members to get noticed more (although this probably wasn’t the specific goal.)

Simultaneously, as Maynard divested himself of the spotlight, Tool guitarist Adam Jones’ brilliant animation work began to take its rightful place as part of the performance. This strengthened the rendition.

So this was significant. To me. It marked a shift. If you read the reviews from the time of this transition, many fans’ reactions ranged from confusion to frustration. But he stuck with it. Ego can be ravenous; letting go can be impossible. I think Maynard evolved rock ‘n roll (by doing so).

Pastor Bell: Out Of The Fire And…

Fast forward to present, similar gripe about something disproportional: hell. Actions (or thoughts of actions) occurring during one’s relatively brief existence… carried eternal consequences. Even people who didn’t accept Jesus Christ as their personal savior (would burn in hell forever.)

This meant – for example – generations of indigenous Amazonian tribes would be condemned to damnation without any malice, having done nothing against God. Except for being born inside a jungle that wasn’t Westernized yet. I’m not saying people ought to go into these jungles and create missions. I just thought that was pretty harsh, to say so many people would go to hell for what was – in effect – an accident of birth.

Which leads to another question, about a different “accident of birth” – sexual orientation. Straight, gay or even asexual: many rational people would agree it’s not a ‘choice.’ Additionally, its manifestations between consenting adults do not hurt anyone. Love is love is love.

Nevertheless, I’ve heard people tell me, to my face, that my gay friends were going to hell (unless they became celibate.) This damning judgment – issued by people not necessarily pure in their own hearts – was the fundamental reason I’ve drifted from openly referring to myself as a Christian. Because fuck that. Please.

And specifically, several years ago, I began to question the entire notion of hell. It seemed ridiculous, sadistic to the point of sociopathic. Eternity? As Prince said so famously in the song “Let’s Go Crazy,” it means forever and that’s a mighty long time.

But then Rob Bell comes along and finishes the lyric: I’m here to tell you there’s something else. The possibility there is no such thing as hell? Controversy!

To be fair, Pastor Bell has been laying the framework for years, to offer these definitive views about hell. If a recent NOOMA video (embedded, bottom) can be counted as an accurate preview, he spells it out definitively in writing, with the March, 2011 release of his latest publication: “A Book About Heaven, Hell and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived.”

The outcry of righteous indignation by traditional and fundamentalist Christians has been almost overwhelming – it’s as if they expect the worst to ensue, absent the threat of eternal punishment. As if we had no moral compass, and cannot exist lovingly, if at all, without the “stick.”

I certainly didn’t take the proposition (by Pastor Bell, questioning the existence of hell) as a slippery slope to chaos. I don’t imagine people to be so subject to their compulsions. “Original sin” aside… I think we’re basically good.

In fact, I think you could almost take what Pastor Bell implied as a challenge to rise to a higher standard: love wins, as he says. Be loving. Even if you don’t believe in what Pastor Bell has said about hell, or like me you don’t attend Mars Hill or otherwise follow his teachings… maybe we could simply agree to get ourselves to this standard (practice love). And then we go from there. It’s a good place to start, and imagine how different things could be.

Aside from fundamentalist condemnation of Pastor Bell’s book (despite the fact nobody has read it) there is also an outcry from “contemporary” churches. Suddenly the word “heretic” is trending on Twitter. There seems to be a lot of cross-generational agreement on this: Pastor Bell’s views on hell are heresy. Christians interpreting the Bible… determining nothing shall be added or removed from Scripture. This contradiction among many others leaves me flummoxed but – nevertheless – for the first time in years I feel excited about the concept of belief.

I’ve met Pastor Bell several times where I work (Wealthy Theatre). I haven’t attended any church since I left NYC over ten years ago, but I know a lot of smart people who attend Mars Hill. And amongst my own close friends, who may be less admiring of Pastor Bell… I’ve opined openly that I feel he’s uniquely qualified to challenge stubborn and perhaps false paradigms within the overall “church” of Christianity. It is an interesting moment in time. He is indisputably gifted.

And this thing he’s saying about hell… it’s absolutely a paradigm shift. Just for the fact that he said it. The implications are immense: without hell, the fire & brimstone crowd loses its ability to judge and condemn their fellow man. That one dickhead who goes to military funerals will be out of business. The ‘stick’ of damnation is something we’ll have to pry from their dead hands. But when I think of the many Christians I know who relish judgment a bit too much… the trade-off, even on speculation, seems to outweigh any costs. And yes I know what I’m saying there.

And again, there always seemed to be a huge crevasse between “practice” and “preach.” Many fire/brimstone preachers have been caught in torrid affairs, some with same sex partners. I’m not saying any of that is good or bad, because mine is not to judge; however, it bears pointing out that Pastor Bell appears to be in a committed, loving and long-term monogamous relationship, raising lovely children, and being a father and a husband of the highest order. All without the fear of eternal damnation – a fear which that apparently had little influence on other major figures in the Christian church.

And let’s not forget how quickly believers were able to forgive those fire & brimstone preachers, after their transgressions. As they cried in front of us, in their veluptuous studios, wearing their immaculate clothes and jewelry.

Again using gay people as an example: you can’t say they’re going to hell (without a hell.) Which works out logically, as no commandment explicitly says it’s a sin. The whole conversation is academic, unless you can find me a living Greek person from 11 B.C. who can explain the word “malakoi.”

Basically, here’s my interpretation of Pastor Bell’s interpretation (which I feel entitled to draw): if you’re saying there’s no hell, at least in the fundamentalist sense of the word, ipso facto you accept same-sex relationships.

And going back to the add/remove thing, heresy, all that. I sincerely ask anyone who admonishes adding/removing Biblical law… how do you manage most of Leviticus? Really, I need to know. If you eat lobster, or ham… how do you reconcile these things? Leviticus is only the tip of the iceberg. But using that as an example, if you wear two different types of cloth (cotton and wool, for example) on the same day… do you not have a plank in your eye, as you cast stones against two men (for example) in a loving, committed relationship, harming no one?

If there’s any sin to “adding or removing” from the law of Scripture, let’s be consistent, at least. It appears these pro-hell Christians are taking an “all or nothing” view, so let’s see more walk and less talk.

Or here’s a third option: let’s consider the possibility that we’re all interpreting, adding, removing… and for now, maybe we just set our sights on something universally achievable: be loving.

I feel like Pastor Bell has moved a number of people to be more loving. I’ve always been intrigued by his abilities as a communicator. Honestly, the main thing that kept me away from his church was the betrayal I would feel, in participating in a belief structure that portrayed my gay friends as having only one fate: burn in hell. There’s no grey area there, for me: I can’t be part of that sort of lunacy.

Admittedly, I hoped for a long time that Pastor Bell would come out and say gays are welcome in his church. Not “welcome” in the sense a fur trapper might welcome a fox; but rather, accepted, wholesale, as loving souls. He hasn’t done that, per se. He has done something much more comprehensive, calling into the question the concept of hell – the supposed destiny of Ghandi and gay people. Pastor Bell has gone beyond “do not judge,” and removed the canopy underneath judgment. Which is a holy relief because so many “declarers of damnation” exhibited convenience selectivity… and it reeked to high heaven. Farewell to the refuge of hateful people.

So what Pastor Bell has done – in my (admittedly selective) interpretation – is much more than simply endorsing something as good. He has perhaps eliminated something that was illogical, sadistic and subjective. Much better. Much more effective. I was narrow minded to expect anyone to go around saying “x, y and z” are good. Instead, Pastor Bell said much more.

I’m really interested in this, now.

Here’s a video I made after the a State of Michigan ballot proposal failed, that would have allowed partner benefits for same-sex couples – much of the objection stemmed from religious-liberty complaints by fundamentalist Christians. Which is ironic. The inaction by Christians who are supposed to “get it” on social justice issues… is a hell of a lot more than ironic.

In 1999, I tended bar at an upscale restaurant on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. I worked for an impeccably dressed, unintentional philosopher named Bill. He resembled a “pre-facelift” Al Pacino. He said cool things. He said things cool. Bill was a real New Yorker, born and raised on the island of Manhattan.

But one day he revealed something almost unbelievable:

“I’ve been off this island two times in my life, for a total of 48 hours.”

This didn’t make a bit of sense to me. Bill was at least 50 years old. Manhattan is small and narrow: you can walk its width in an afternoon. There is so much more!

“Everything I want I can walk to.”

This part stuck with me.

Ten Years After

Yesterday I was accidentally listening to BBC Radio. The reporter described how Russia has begun laying claim to vast Arctic oil reserves that have become accessible now that global warming has melted sea ice. This is why I don’t listen to BBC Radio. Not only have we burned enough fossil fuel over the past several decades to tear a hole in the sky… but in doing so, we gain access to more oil and natural gas. The human race is a junkie refinancing the mortgage on a burning house.

This made me think of Bill. Not because he was an elegant heroin addict (he was) but because I realized something: I no longer cared about international affairs. In fact, I didn’t care about much outside a one-kilometer radius from Wealthy Theatre. I’ve become hyperlocal. I have seen the light of the City of Grand Rapids’ amazing Master Plan: live, work and recreate in the city you call home.

My partner listens to National Public Radio like she’s getting paid to. It’s on in every room. It’s her version of leaving the toilet seat up. I systematically stop the podcast and put on Charles The Osprey, or A.B. & Coconut Brown.

I’m no longer interested in Russians.

I’m no longer interested in driving to Barnes & Noble for something I could find at Literary Life. No longer interested in furnishing my home with the same lighting fixtures from the same aisle at Home Depot. No longer interested in franchised cool: hipsters with mustaches (unique like all their friends) in some manufactured homage to Brandon Flowers. I want original, independent. Make something. I’ll buy it. Build an entertainment center out of anything other than pressboard: make it out of bones and bananas, I don’t care, just make it interesting.

We have to be smarter than the junkie refinancing the burning house: we have to move beyond disposable consumerism. The good news is that sustainability tastes better. If you live near Wealthy Street, you’ve got half a dozen superlative options for coffee, within walking distance. Your dollar is more important to the people who own Sparrows or Rowsters, than to the pre-fab “baristas” at the Woodland Mall Starbucks. And it’s better for you to spend your dollar closer to home, because local stores are generally more invested in the community. The dollars you spend there go directly to the ownership and staff, not to a cadre of VPs and CEOs you’ll never meet – people to whom you are nothing but a trending line of data in another market analysis.

I was living in the East Village (NYC) when the K-Mart went in, near Union Square: it was reviled. A Trojan horse of disposable consumerism, in a defiantly independent neighborhood. Fortunately, Uptown (Grand Rapids) is inherently unappealing to big-box franchises, because we don’t have an expressway running through Eastown. There will never be a Wal-Mart on Lake Drive. Our infrastructure is naturally better for small, independently owned businesses. We are blessed for the factors that limit us, this way – just as Wealthy Theatre is “limited” by its 400 seats, which make it ideal for Michigan performers playing to Michigan audiences.

Where these inherent “limiters” do not exist – for instance, Downtown – it becomes a question of curating. The new bar “Pyramid Scheme” is a brilliant addition. It’ll be run by by people who give back to the community. Local bands will have a great, new option, for live performance. Michigan beers will be sold. Sustainability.

Artprize is another fine example of curating: it attracts international artists to our city in a framework that celebrates Grand Rapids. It is a funnel of light. It benefits locally owned businesses, and motivates people far and wide to experience and examine original beauty.

If you took a highway to get to ArtPrize, you probably saw billboards featuring McDonald’s latest ad campaign. These provide a valuable “compare/contrast” opportunity, prior to seeing art Downtown. One billboard features human lips contorted to resemble a heart, symbolizing love for a quarter pound of microwaved, colorless ground beef. The imagery doesn’t require you to interpret, it’s all made very plain, nothing left to the imagination – sort of like pornography.

These billboards display the low art of disposable consumerism. Whenever I’m returning to Grand Rapids, I count these as markers back to what Bill described as the island he never wanted to leave. I turn up the Paucity CD and drive a little faster, hastening my way back to the brick pavers on Wealthy Street.

Where everything I want I can walk to.

I was anxious for what came next; Siona mostly saunters when she’s done something wrong.

Through the haze of my morning head, I remembered: her room.  She was supposed to be cleaning her room.  You know, clean your room.  Move some stuff around.  Discover a shiny object.  Become terminally distracted.

I was gearing up to get my “parent” on.  Siona knew it.  She beat me to it.

“Papi?” she said, presumably batting her eyelashes.  “Can you… *read* this, to me?”

She held the little blue book high in front of her, clenched from the bottom by her thumb and index finger – the way you’d hold a cross to a vampire.

A cross – yes, yes, that was it.  The little blue book was a pocket-size copy of the Gospel According To Jesus Christ.  I was pleased with my ability to remember – I hadn’t seen it for years.  It was technically Riley’s (our nine-year old son) but Riley was technically an evangelical atheist, I don’t know any other way to put it.  I think Riley’s skin would start smoking if that book touched him.

Either way, why the h-e-double-hockey-stick was my six-year old daughter asking me to read her the New Testament?  How about Where’s Coco Going?  Or Stinkyface?

“Isn’t that book just tiny words?” I asked her.

“No, Papi!” she said.  “There are pictures!  But Papi?  Jesus looks weird in these pictures.”

I can’t always follow Siona’s thinking, and sometimes, honestly, I’m scared.

I asked her to bring the book to me, which she did – I mainly wanted to confirm it was the King James version.  Bingo.  One chapter and she’d be happy to resume cleaning her room.

“Papi?” she asked.  “Can we go outside, and can I sit on your lap while you read to me, Papi?”

Girl melts me.  And as anyone on the SE side knows, the front porches are where it all goes down.  The food, the conversation, the music, the… reading of Scripture to Siona.

“Sure,” I said, smiling, and off we went, outside on the porch.  I sat in one of our folding camping chairs and she climbed on my lap.  I opened the little blue book, as she nuzzled her head on my shoulder.

“The Gospel According to Jesus Christ,” I began, turning the first page.

Siona took a deep breath, and slowly exhaled.

I could feel her nodding in agreement, against my shoulder.

“The real truth,” she said, slowly.

I’m not making this up.  This is verbatim.

“Yeah,” I said.  “Yes.”

I began reading.

I had expected her attention to completely drift by the time I finished Matthew 1, with its antiquated King James dialect, the sequences of lineage, the names of the ancestors of John The Baptist.  I mean, I could barely comprehend what I was reading, myself.

But this girl – this six-year-old version of Bjork on nitrous oxide – found it gripping, and comforting.

I finished Matthew 4 without so much as a hint of boredom from Siona.  I, however, was starting to lose it: by the time I got to “blessed are the peacemakers,” I began reading verses a la Monty Python’s “Life of Brian.”  Right out loud, to the whole neighborhood, in a falsetto cackle and bad English accent, “Blessed are the meek! Oh, I’m glad they’re getting something, they have a heck of a time!”

Siona smiled and nodded.

I wasn’t trying to make a joke of it, I really wasn’t.  I was raised a Christian.  I’ve sat through a thousand sermons, taken Communion many hundreds of times, and been baptized twice.  Regardless: once you’ve seen “Life of Brian” a certain number of times, “peacemakers” becomes “cheesemakers.”  There is no going back.

I got serious as I began Matthew 6, about prayer.  As I read Jesus’ instructions about how to pray, Siona slowly straightened up – slowly, like Noseferatu rising from the coffin.  She extended her hands up in the air in front of her, and drew them together, clasping her hands, and lowering them to her chest.  Praying. Really hard.

Whiskey.  Tango.  Foxtrot.

By this time, Riley had walked outside.  Great.  He had just awakened, I could see it in his eyes.

He saw us reading, and came closer, squinting his eyes and staring in disbelief.

“Siona!” Riley said, with disgust.  “OMG!”

Siona didn’t care what his issue was: she wasn’t having it.

“RILEY! We’re reading about Jesus!  Or wait – no, wait.”

She got quieter – she began whispering in my ear, so Riley couldn’t hear her.

“Papi,” she said, “I *always* get that mixed up: Papi, is Jesus God?  Or is God Jesus?”

I looked at her as if her head… had just rotated around 360 degrees.  This was the first time we ever talked about any of this!  Since when did she “always” get that part mixed up, about Jesus being God?  Since earlier this morning?  Since 45 seconds ago?

But she wasn’t done.

“And the other thing that I always get confused,” Siona continued, still whispering, “is why God is always standing in front of the letter ‘t’.”

The letter… oh, no, she’s talking about the crucifixion.

“The cross?” I asked.

“Yessss!” Siona said.  “That thing the black man stands in front of is a ‘cross’.”

Siona’s primary exposure to the crucifixion of Christ… were paintings of Black Jesus.  Framed paintings on walls of homes we visited, meetings at churches where she accompanied me.  I tried to find comfort in the fact that it’s probably more historically accurate; but I wasn’t even halfway through my first cup of coffee, this was just too much, all at once.

“Well…” I started, fumbling for an explanation.

Riley was shaking his head, looking at me like I lost my mind.

I heard Jerry Seinfield’s voice, saying, “Who are these people!?”

Riley took a step closer.

“Siona, you know that’s all fake, right?” he asserted.  “None of that ever happened.  Please tell me you know that.”

Again, Riley is nine years old.  For reasons I cannot explain, he has been a fundamentalist atheist since he was four-years old.  Any reference of Jesus Christ, or God, angels or the Holy Ghost… causes a reflex in him, which includes head-shaking and the “bleh” iteration of “Oh GOD.”  Try it next time you see him.  He is allergic to religion like a diabetic to sugar, and I couldn’t for the life of me tell you why.

Siona firmly demanded that Riley go away.  She sweetly asked me to continue reading.

“Con-tin-ue,” she said, again nuzzling her head on my shoulder.

Riley shook his head.  He was really at a loss.

“You’re only encouraging her,” he chastised me, before walking away.

Correction: Riley is a 90-year old man in a nine-year old body.

I continued reading nonetheless, because nothing made sense anymore – I figured I’d keep reading the New Testament to my six-year old daughter until something made sense.

You know how… when Monty Python couldn’t figure out how to end a sketch, they inserted a spontaneous detonation, and everything blew up, and then the word “fin” appeared on the screen?

Picture an explosion.

fin.

[Originally published in The Rapidian]

A paranoid friend once told me cocaine residue is present on 90% of all paper currency in circulation, in the United States.

Then he leaned in closer. He told me that – by “cocaine” – he actually meant conservative politics. And by “United States,” he meant Grand Rapids.

Well pleased with himself, my paranoid friend sat back in his chair.

I should say that by “paranoid friend,” I actually mean a cokehead named Frank. And by “Frank,” I mean everyone I’ve met since I moved to Grand Rapids.

“Kid,” Frank continued, apparently channeling Humphrey Bogart, “the dollars that fund the arts in this city are sticky with the residue of conservative politics.”

Aside from the fact that Humphrey Bogart impressions make me want to punch people in the FACE, fine. We’ve all heard the trash-talk about Grand Rapids’ conservative reputation: one church for every three residents; more faith-based, private schools than public ones; companies sending employees home with pay while G.O.P. phone solicitors use their cubicles; homeless people needing to sit through a sermon before getting food, run of the mill stuff.

And I fundamentally disagree with the inferred conclusion, that the “residue of conservative politics” is a bad thing. It’s a great thing. Artists aren’t addicted to what Frank figuratively referred to as “cocaine” – they simply (to paraphrase Richard Pryor) love the way it smells.

The Conservative Thing: Basic & Deluxe

Grand Rapids proper hasn’t voted Republican on much. The conservative thing doesn’t really reside in the city; but it surrounds the gates. That’s where it lives, pays property taxes, and builds really big houses on the lake.

One could sort the conservative thing into categories: “Basic” and “Deluxe.” They overlap on many views (e.g. “Without good education, you have no future,” and “GRPS is no place for a child”) but there are notable distinctions:

1. Basic: you go places in nice cars, enjoy vacations in exotic locations, own some minor artwork, and eat in nice restaurants.
2. Deluxe: you go places in helicopters, enjoy vacation homes in exotic locations which your salaried curators furnish with fine art, and you eat meals prepared by personal chefs, occasionally on the yacht you own in Saugutuck.

The “Deluxe” conservative thing is clearly more evolved – for instance, there’s no sticky white guilt, nor any compulsion to seek out friends in Eastown you can profess to relate to.

So we’ve sorted out the differences and similarities that constitute the conservative thing. Let’s talk about the nuclear bomb that went off here during the 1980s.

White Flight: Negative Phase

What happened in the city proper, over the past four decades, is like the aftermath of a nuclear blast – in a good way.

“Urban flight” (aka “white flight”) resulted from the detonation of two bombs, which were code-named Crack Man and Little Work. The bombs caused visible damage to the morale and infrastructure of the urban core (aka ground zero). The detonation phase resulted in an initial, violent displacement of air.

The explosion cleared the blast radius over the period of a couple decades. The displacement of air ultimately led to the negative phase of the explosion – the part when the blast contracts. This is roughly where we’re at now. That which blasted outward at the speed of sound… is now rushing back to the center.

At the height of urban flight, in the 1980s, some key people remained. They probably didn’t know how important their role would be, in the resurrection of Grand Rapids proper. These visionary souls (Carol Moore, now-Mayor George K. Heartwell, et al) have since become community and city leaders, and how sweet it is. In the midst of The Bad Old Days, they initiated restorative measures that shaped things to come, on the grassroots level. Buildings were saved, renters got access to programs that enabled them to become homeowners, strong neighborhoods with unique personalities rose from the ruins. It was a metamorphosis that began by converting hope into action, and resulted by restoring – among many things – financial and emotional investment.

Whether they stayed by choice or lack of it, they stayed. Thanks to their persistence and dedication, a vibrant city has emerged. We’ve come into a sense of place. We have an identity: it is unique, it was well-earned, and it is authentically ours.

Our identity is worthy of sharing. It also deserves protecting.

Enter Stage Right: The Bridge & Tunnel Club

Here’s the definitive chronology of the resurrection of Grand Rapids since the ’80s:

1. Grassroots innovation/resolve restore faith, hope and investment in the city.
2. The Deluxe conservative thing begins investing heavily in GR established arts.
3. The Basics begin coming into GR as a destination for a weekend night out.

It’s worth elaborating on No. 3 – those who now frequent the city, whether to recreate, do business here, start a business here, or even to take residence in one of our up-and-coming neighborhoods. Sort of like the “B&T Club” phenomenon, as it’s known on the island of Manhattan: a cross-section of non-residents so named because they take bridges or tunnels to get onto the island, for their weekend entertainment. They come for dinner, drink, entertainment, arts, culture, to be around artists… sounds familiar, right?

If you live here, you may recognize them on sight: physically, they vibrate at a different pitch. They gallivant. We are their playground. The Golden Rule does not apply to them. We’re red fire hydrants, they are stray dogs. We’re blooming sunflowers, they’re killer bees.

No matter how much you like to be pollinated, one factor skews the cost/benefit ratio, with the B&T Club: they don’t leave their values system at home. Their politics trend conservative. Their religion is usually more religious. They impose their value system upon our identity, as if theirs were the norm – as if ours were an absence of values (rather than just “different” values.)

This is what my friend refers to as “the overlay.” The imposition of values. These people can be temporarily amusing. But the overlay is categorically unwelcome. At best it’s a distraction; at worst it’s an active threat brought into our fresh waters by an invader species.

In spite of all of it, The B&T Club is invaluable.

(Please give me some leniency, your honor. I’m going somewhere with this.)

More Weird Science: The Conservative Thing Is A Good Thing

My perspective of Grand Rapid’s ‘conservative thing’ has evolved, over the past ten years: I now see it to be a critical constant in the equation that defines our inertia. I consider it to be like an ion, actually. A negatively charged ion. Hovering over the city. Emitting a low vibration, like that big, rusty, metal spaceship in the Star Trek movie with the sperm whales.

So anyway, negative ions tend to attract positive ions. A decade ago, I could not see remarkable evidence that the positive ion had surfaced, but it would: the emergence of an underground was inevitable. A counter culture. A series of movements. Its emergence was a chemical imperative.

The negative ion thankfully continued growing, forming what chemists call a “crystal lattice” of negatively charged ions, putting this collective negative charge into the universe, imposing a soft chemical paralysis on the culture, dominating the electro-chemical landscape.

Positive ion, enter stage left. Cue the underground.

So that’s my theory. The conservative thing provides structure, and it gives rise to the underground. It fosters a movement whose motives are in opposition to it. An ion of one polarity attracts an ion of the other. It’s basic chemistry. It’s human nature. It’s the history of all politics.

Frank romanticized codes, chemicals, and conspiracy theories. But I believe it’s about chemistry. I am a fan of the simplest solution. I openly subscribe to the lone gunmen theory. Chop up Frank’s cocaine with Occam’s Razor and you’ve got straight lines running parallel on a mirror. Chemistry.

That’s why I think the conservative thing is a good thing. Thank you.