Selfies with Black Pets?

One of the side effects of the rise of social media is that shelters are finding it harder to get cats and dogs that are primarily black adopted. It appears that the sharing of photos and the difficulties of photographing black animals have combined in an unseemly manner.

Pretty sad, when you get down to it.

I know very well the problems of photographing a primarily black animal, having been the papa of Tuxedo going on twelve years now, and having taken literally thousands of pictures of him.

Some turn out great, but many wash his beautiful features out. Tux is one of the most gorgeous cats I've had the pleasure of knowing, and even the great pictures never really capture his classic Greek Platonic Cat-form statuesque look.

Is it a shame or a sign of the times that a decision on whom to rescue may be heavily influenced by the quality of selfies?

I would never want to change anything about cohabiting with Tuxedo for these dozen years---from saving the charismatic kitten with the white goatee, to shaking our heads as we find him passed out covered in crumbs with the remnants of half a loaf of bread at his feet, to watching him defend his patch of territory in Brooklyn, to napping with me in between gigs in Austin, to his recent health issues out here in Long Beach.

Also, one of the great animated films waiting to happen: Tuxedo, Bullet, and Cous-cous...

Anyway, does it make me a cranky old man that I think it's both a shame and a sign of the times? Is that precisely what defines a "cranky old man"---thinking that signs of the times are a shame?

Anyway, here's a blast from the past, a picture from Post 50, from the sultry Brooklyn summer of 2009 (and a pretty good pic to boot):

Memories: Revisiting a View

There are experiences in life that teach us lessons. Sometimes they are painful, sometimes they're blessings, sometimes they are both.

Four years ago around this time I had one of those experiences when I sheared the lateral condyle off my left femur.

Over the past four years, though, every time we've, or just myself, walked down 3rd Street, where we live, I've been able to look down Linden and see off in the distance, at least half the time, one of the great ocean cruise ships out in the water beyond where the street ends:

That is the exact view I was going to take some pictures of the day I broke my femur. I know this picture is blurry...I took it earlier today just to prove my point to myself.

And I've been able to revisit it on a nearly constant basis.

I have made my share of mistakes, and had my share of painful experiences, but rarely do I confront them on a nearly constant basis. Actually never. I'm better at reflecting now than I was before, the busted femur un-involved in that evolution, and I've tried to examine the mistakes I've made and learn from them in a mature fashion.

And I do believe that seeing this same view, virtually fifteen to twenty times a month in the four years since the accident, has helped hammer home the foundation of a belief system that was in place far before the accident: the randomness and absurdity of tiny decisions and events in the face of an indifferent universe.

And then the scroll of time brings me back to that summer, where by now I was spending each day laid up on the couch, wearing one of Corrie's Thai drawstring-skirts and watching Ken Burns specials on Netflix. If you were abut to start high school that summer, about to be a 9th grader, then by now you'd have just graduated (if all went according to plan).

Of course the four years from ages 33 to 37 are far different than the years aged 14 to 18.

The later ages made me experienced enough to be equipped for the confrontations with a decision---let's go get a closer look and some pics---and the ramifications of the randomness and indifference of our universe.

Vagabond Lifestyle: "No AC? No Problem"

This past Sunday and Monday were relentlessly hot, blast furnace in the window hot. Not like were my mother lives, on the sun in Scottsdale, but they were two of Long Beach's (maybe four total) 100+ degree days.

And we don't have AC, which could be a problem for those of us who are teeny-tiny. And we don't those of us who're teeny-tiny to get addled...

Sunday was a busy day of lounging quietly and damp rags to keep cool.

Monday saw us at an appointment, and then off to my work, where I could do some cleanup and we all could hang out with the air conditioning cranking on high.

It even got nice enough to nap:

When you don't have AC on one of the random days you kinda need it, it becomes time to get creative...

Sounding a Barbaric YAWP

Read to them. You must read to them so their vocabulary will grow, and large vocabularies directly correlate to academic success at all stages of life...

Or something like that.

So I read to him.

The first day we had him home I was holding him and went to my bookshelf. What should it should it be, what should it be? My eyes darted along the hundreds of spines.

Eventually it became clear. "Of course!" I told him, like he really cared. I'd located my tattered copy of Leaves of Grass.

I opened to "Song of Myself" and started reading:

          *
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
          *

Seven or eight pages I read, and his eyes were fixated on my voice, the sounds being created by my tongue and lips. It was magical.

The next night I opened Leaves of Grass to a different section and started reading "Pioneers! O Pioneers!"

Holy cow does it sound cool to read aloud! Each tiny idea stanza ends with the exultation phrase "Pioneers! O pioneers!"

         *
     O you youths, Western youths,
So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendshiop,
Plain I see you, Western youths, see you tramping with the formost,
     Pioneers! O pioneers!
         *

And:

         *
     We detachments steady throwing,
Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep,
Conquering, holding, daring, venturing as we go the unknown ways,
      Pioneers! O pioneers!
         *

The next day we tackled Walt's trip to "Mendocino Country" as he calls it, for the "Song of the Redwood."

But during all this, the reality set in for me.

I've been told, during my AP English class in high school, during my college literature classes (which were minimal considering my math major-ness), and in other forms of paying-attention-to-what-"experts"-say: Walt Whitman is an American Treasure, genius, and master poet.

But reading it aloud I realized the reality: WALT WHITMAN IS A FREAKING GENIUS! Hearing the words and intonations of the man was good, I figured, for my boy Cassius, but I never thought it would affect me.

Now that I'm mature enough to understand the heart of what Uncle Walt was trying to get at, it truly speaks to me, and I'm amazed by what the dude was doing with words-as-Art.

Hey, newsflash: WALT WHITMAN IS A NATIONAL TREASURE!

I was just a little late to wrapping my hairy head around the whole enchilada.

Humans: Unlikely?

Are we the Unlikely Primate?

I don't want this blog to turn into a series of silly posts about baby, so I'm trying to be measured in my observations.

Like: How has Homo sapiens become a preeminent earthling? Maybe the preeminent earthling?

The chances a woman gets pregnant are pretty slim, since the window of fertilization is small and when she's ovulating. Healthy men have in the neighborhood of 20 million sperm per attempt, so already the chances that each person are who they are are, like, (1/hitting ovulation perfectly)x(1/20,000,000). Which are Lotto jackpot odds.

And then newborn Homo sapiens are on the short list for most vulnerable living thing on earth. Have you see the footage of the sloth slowly trying to cross that highway in Costa Rica or wherever? It makes you start yelling at your computer monitor (or pocket super-computer), "Holy hell, hurry up you little death-wish haver!!"

Newborns are way more vulnerable than that.

I guess communication and newborn care are Homo sapiens' weapons in the fight against the worldly onslaught.

Our Biggest Adventure Yet

I used to stride confidently down Malcolm X Blvd in Bed-Stuy at late-night hours, the only white guy out in the 'hood looking for bodega beers.

I used to ride my bicycle from Watts five miles west through South Central to get to unincorporated Westmont for work, the only white guy crazy enough to be riding a bike out in that 'hood.

I once flew half-way across the planet, then sat in customs for two hours, then rode in a taxi across Ho Chi Minh City to get to a bus-station, then rode a bus for five more hours before paying a random dude to drive us to our hotel.

I once squeezed my (relatively) gigantic ass into a tiny Toyota minivan Autobus as a means of getting around in Honduras.

None of those things were as terrifying as being handed my fire-engine-red five-and-a-half pound newborn son---a baby I pulled from my wife's body---minutes after its arrival.

I don't mean terrifying in a conventional sense. Women are always shocked by how men, sometimes the toughest and most macho specimens, are dumbstruck with fear in the presence of newborns. There's just something about a being so tiny and vulnerable that makes men feel likewise. Like the memories are embedded in our DNA.

After all the preparations, and reading, and classes, and nutrition skills, and planning--the baby came five weeks early. Of course it's our kid.

After all the nerves, and anxiety, and fears over being forced to be medicated during birth, after all the labor and the contractions and unmedicated pushing, after doing all of these things in a hospital instead of our birthing center, I'm holding this tiny red human, a human I helped create.

He's the culmination of both months in the immediacy and a-decade-and-a-half in the long-term, the culmination of a love that is difficult to describe, and for the first time in my life there's a human that needs me to make sure it stays alive, for the next ten minutes as Corrie showers, for the next two weeks as we get his weight and jaundice under control, and for the next sixty years that I will be alive.

The fear comes from the absolute vulnerability of this tiny thing. Not afraid for the future, like whether I'll be a fine dad (frankly never a fear I've had), but having never really been around infants, having never changed a diaper, the fear is born from the thought that ignorance may jeopardize this awesome, amazing, little human I helped create.

Many things from June 10th, 2016 I won't ever forget. Like the red. I won't ever forget the red. The books said "a healthy, unmedicated newborn will be either pink or red," but this little guys RED, like Hellboy from the movies red.

I'm trying to figure out how to post about the birth (which was awesome) and the postpartum recovery (which was sub-optimal) along with the wider narrative of how we got to where we are and where we're going. That stuff won't be here.

Our son, Cassius Alexander, was born at 35 weeks (technically late preterm), and weighed in at 5 lbs 8 oz and 18.5 inches long. He was covered in blonde hair, head to toe, which elicited an excited, "You've got your daddy's hairy shoulders!" from me (I know it will all disappear soon enough).

So far he prefers Walt Whitman to Thomas Pynchon, but that may have just been a timing issue. Time will only tell.

Now we have all summer to hang out instead of only half...

Our Biggest Adventure Yet!

Corrie and Cass

Trash I've Kept

I'm doing my best to reduce my paper waste, trying to end years worth of pack-ratted-ness. It's an ongoing battle.

The other day I found a nifty artifact:

A coupon, sweet? Half-dozen bagels for free when you buy a half dozen? Okay...oh wait, it expires when? APRIL 15th 1997! (Sigh) Also, I have no idea why the Hazel location is circled---Norm and I would have walked over to the Roseville place or the Loehmann's location while caffeinating ourselves had the desire to grab some bagel and shmear grub taken hold.

Maybe the reverse has an answer as to why it remained in my possessions for so long:

Phone numbers for people I don't remember (except Chris Newton) and a doodle of a spiral and curved lines emanating from the center. This type of image I've been obsessed with for decades, so there's that.

Good thing I still have this...

(Also that machine-gunning Eddie and Lou just needed to be shifted down...)

Plying with the GIF Maker

I've been playing with Frinkiac.com's GIF maker device, which is still in beta, but there's some cool stuff you can make. The following extra-violent take is the only one that isn't all effed-up. The other GIFs I have are from the psychedelic Insanity Pepper episode, but they didn't work so well here.

I'll try and right that bummer, but until then, here you go: