Iconoclasts

Tonight, after a rather upseting evening at the office -- read, theatre -- I watched a little Shear Design with Abbie. After she went to bed I watched a little more TV waiting for my blood pressure to come down to a reasonable level without the help of drugs or alcohol. In the process I ate something and watched more TV. Only this time I tuned in on Iconoclasts ... it was Baryishnikov and Alice Waters.

For those of you not born in the 50s like my soul was, Alice Waters opened a little bistro in Berkley, CA in the 70s using nothing but organic produce grown locally. Her entire menu was and remains entirely seasonal. Walking in there, you never know what's going to be on the menu from day to day, month to month. Thus, the menu and the chefs are constantly evolving, growing, changing ... organically. So it rained for a month and your patch got squash rot, a very irritating thing to be sure ... so what does on use instead? How does a dish that relies on squash changed to accomodate another ingredient that IS available?

To say that I identified more with Alice than I did Barishnykov (or however you splee it), is not unsurprising as I fancy myself pretty damn good cook and a budding chef with aspirations of greatness with a modicum of talent to build on.

But anywho.

Barishynkov has opened a building in New York where all sorts of artists can work and interact with one another ... specifically it was about the dancing, but still ... the The Hell's Kitchen Dancers, with Big Balls B, went on a tour ... and yes, you guessed it, went to Berkley where Alice and her chefs (mostly the chefs, Alice is too busy giving talks about Land Stewardship, organic produce, etc, etc.) made them a meal. In the 45 minutes that this show was going on, I nearly cried three times.

1) I've never been so glad that I am in the arts, nor have I been so motivated to just do what I love and do it to the best of my ability and share it with others.

2) I've spent my life reading books written in the sixties and seventies, living with parents who went through it, dreaming about and identifying with legion characters living, loving and dying nearly three thousand miles away in California ... a seeming promised land of love and beauty ... and now I'm finally moving there, even if it's only for four months. I was talking to one of my friends from freshman year of college today. I told him I was leaving in three weeks and more than likely, aside from that week in July, won't be back to Pittsburgh for, at minimum, three years. And he said that now he has a reason to come to California. And so does my best friend, Bummy. And I had this image in my mind of the three of us standing on Alcatraz Island, the San Francisco Bay and the city behind us and we're smiling and it's so beautiful ... so fucking beautiful. My two closest friends and I in the one city I've wanted to visit my entire life. And what's more, I'll be so close to Berkley when I'm in Sacramento. I just want to rent a motorcycle, a Harley, and ride from Berkley, down through Oakland, across the bridge into San Fran ... or whatever the run was the Hell's Angels did in Hunter S. Thompson's book of the same name. But mostly I want to be in California, eating great food in the sun on a different coast as adults with my two best friends ... and damnit, I'm crying again.

3) I'm really going. I'm really going to start my life. My real life.

Wow. Originally I meant to sit down and write something about why my blood pressure was so high and I wound up writing more about dreams coming true. Guess I'm growing up. When two bitchy ass queens in a booth on headset acting all of 13 with their catty comments and snide remarks about people you know and love ... just being completely judgemental and "superior" (if that's even for these people to be in actuality despite what they may think) ... Ugh. Fuckers.

The philosopher, Spinoza, once said, "I'm not a moral man, but I'm an ethical man." When I first heard that in Dr. Judy's class, one of many classes I took with that most amazingly brilliant teacher, I realized that it was totally a quote I could relate to. I'll take a lot of shit from people, but I will not tolerate ANY about people I know, care about, am friends with ... LEAST OF ALL I'm friends with. I would end a life if it meant saving any one of my friends ... who, when they are a friend, are really more like family to me. And I would slaughter a village of kittens without batting an eye for any one of my blood relations.

I have no moral qualms about killing you if it's ethically justifiable. Don't fuck with my friends. And don't think you can call me out about my ability to inflict pain. Especially if you're an outsider. But it's now two am and I'm losing cohesion ... and frankly, I'm more touched and excited about California than I am some Jihad against two Point Park queens with a life relegated to petty snipping because they are intrinsically annoying people who are ugly at heart.

To be gay is to be happy ... classically. Why does being gay now so often have attached to it the stigma of bitter and jaded? Frankly, why is anyone under thirty bitter and jaded? What point is there in that. You're just missing the smell of roses and jasmine and ... if you're me ... garlic cooking in olive oil.

Sniff the oil!! SNIFF THE OIL!!!!!

Fuck Finals!

Fuck finals with a capital FUCK! It's Monday, I have one presentation to give and one paper to write ... one of the two will be done by 9pm. This is the most wonderful feeling ever! I'm SOOOOO close to done with the fucking degree and with Pittsburgh and cannot wait to start my life over again somewhere new. Most people this week will hate finals, will find the idea of leaving for another summer bittersweet ... if they're leaving that is ... or all their friends are. But you know what, it's better to be a leaver than a levee. Leavee? Leavie ... Leavey. Whatever. Come on 6pm. I can't wait to embarass myself with this presentation and then blow out of there like a gail force wind ... much like the ones whiping around the Cathedral today.

Look out Sacramento, here I come. Boston, consider yourself warned. Gentlemen, gird your loins.