the first door

This past Saturday in Long Island, two days after a full moon and in honor of the Winter Solstice, my friend M.C.--of partial Native American descent herself--took me to my first sweat lodge. The medicine woman had in an email addressed me as "ancestor," and she had instructed me to bring, along with the memory of my grandfathers and grandmothers, a pair of shorts and tobacco.

The house was a typical suburban two-storey with Christmas lights and wood panelling. Through a swinging gate in the chain-link M.C. and I went straight to the backyard, where our ancestors were already gathering. Among them were Y., a kindly, elfin-looking woman of about forty, wearing a vibrant and multicolored skirt and a heavy coat; a muscular man of about the same age, with red hair shaved like a Marine's; and an assortment of others, mostly middle-aged Caucasians--thinning long hair and pot-bellies on most of the men, cigarettes and knitted hats with the women.

When we arrived the day's first lodge was just ending. This was, in part, a memorial service for a young actress who had died suddenly the week prior, and many in the yard were crying. M.C. said her hellos and introduced me around. Then we went into the house.

Inside it was clean and warm. In the kitchen a pot of medicines was simmering on the stove, and on a nearby table was a plain wooden bowl filled with $20 bills. M.C. and I each put in our money, then walked about the floor while we waited. M.C. explained that the lodge involved four "doors," or stages, each of which was associated with a different season, a different direction, and a different phase of life.

"I'm glad you're here," M.C. said. "If you don't go through it with someone else, it's almost like it never happened. And I think it'll be good for you too. This is all about processing loss and life, and getting in touch with the dead."

M.C. took off her sandals. She stepped onto the woven rug where I was already standing, and I looked down at my muddy sneakers.

A few minutes later we were back outside. Men and women were coming out of the lodge, steam rising from them as though their skin was smoking. The mouth of the lodge was open and the space inside it looked simple: blankets on the floor, a heap of stones in the center, wooden support beams here and there. The outside of the lodge equally unimpressive. The structure was a chest-high dome of perhaps 30-feet diameter. Its outer skin was a black-green tarp that looked like a giant garbage bag. Layered beneath this were more tarps and thin but heavy blankets. The lodge's entrance was a flap that could be pulled up or tied down; behind and supporting the lodge was the same chain-link fence M.C. and I had passed through, connected on three sides to the dome with twine.

Out came the medicine woman. Steaming like the others, maybe 50 years old, she was wearing a patterned red dress and her skin was flushed and thick. Her hair was brown and windswept, and she had the lumbering walk of a boxer. "Welcome, ancestors," she said to the newcomers. She made small talk, swigged from a Poland Spring bottle, asked someone, "Is my son in the house?" Then she went back into the lodge.

"It's time," M.C. said to me, so we took off our winter coats and sweats and hung them on the fence. "Your glasses," she said, so I took those off too.

Just before the lodge was a large firepit. Around it was a ring of stones with an opening that faced the lodge's entrance. M.C., I, and the others got in line before the firepit, then took turns throwing pinches of tobacco onto it from four directions. M.C. had told me to say four prayers with this, which I could make up myself, so I threw the tobacco for my family, for my friends, for strangers, and for the earth.

Inside the sweat lodge I found a seat against the wall between two men and behind M.C. More and more people came in, and the medicine woman repeatedly asked how many people were still waiting outside. She had evident difficulty arranging us about the lodge and said, "All that marijuana I smoked as a kid--it's coming back to haunt me."

A woman brought in antlers, which were passed to the medicine woman. A man sat down with a drum. One at a time, ten hot stones from the firepit were placed in the lodge's center. In the meantime the medicine woman said, "I want you to close your eyes and create as much space about you as you can."

Hugging my knees to my chest, I pictured a boy hugging his knees to his chest. But he, unlike me, sat alone on a stone column high above a black ocean. The world was empty around him. Then darkness fell, complete and choking--the tenth rock was inside the lodge, and the flap was closed.

The medicine woman spoke in a language I did not know. Then she said, "Welcome, Grandfather. Welcome, Grandmother. This is the first door. This is the darkest day of winter. It is also a beginning. We pass through this together. We thank our ancestors for strength." With this she poured water onto the hot stones. The lodge, already hot, instantly for me became excruciating. My shorts and shirt soaked through. My breaths came in empty. I thought, "It's okay, just breathe in slowly." But then the medicine woman poured more water onto the stones.

She prayed more, perhaps in English, I could hardly make sense of her. She said something about the antlers. Then the man with the drum hit it and began to sing. Others joined in, while I, thinking of my brother, wondered how the song's rhythm would look in musical notation.

The medicine woman poured more water onto the rocks. The heat now broke me, and, with a shame I cannot convey here, I said: "I think I need to leave."

Humiliating silence.

Then M.C. asked the medicine woman, "Did you hear that?"

"He'll stay a couple more minutes," the medicine woman said, and I hated her because I knew I could.

When the first door ended the medicine woman called for someone to open the flap. Several seconds passed, then someone asked, "Do you think they heard you?" But then the flap opened, and in poured sunlight, and out I ran. Into the air. Straight to my glasses. Cooling, drinking water, filling my lungs with oxygen, I stood by the firepit and watched others leave the lodge lingeringly. They stretched and smiled, they were sleepy-eyed and steaming. A few lay on the grass and rolled, while others threw more tobacco onto the firepit. M.C. came to me glowing. She said she was sorry.

"I told you it was hot," she said, "but I didn't tell you how hard it was." She asked how I was, and what had given me trouble. I said the breathing, and she said, "I think it's also that you're going through some gnarly stuff. If you'd just had a baby, you'd get through this no problem." I said my next door wouldn't be today. She said that was okay.

For the next three doors I waited by the fire. Many thoughts and feelings passed through me, among them a memory of another firepit some fifteen years ago. It was night and I was on a mountain. Maybe twelve people were with me, campers and counselors, among them L., the trip's supervisor. "There are four parts to a person's well-being," L. said: "physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual. I want you think about these four parts, and ask yourselves where you are strong and where you are weak." And on that mountain, while I was able to assess with the expected adolescent distortions my physical, intellectual, and emotional parts, I discovered that my spiritual part simply did not exist. Perhaps, I thought both on the mountain and outside the sweat lodge, perhaps I am missing something--a piece of God--a soul, if that is the right word. Was I made without it? Did I lose it along the way? Am I supposed to find it again?

For each of the doors, someone different carried ten new hot stones from the firepit into the lodge. This was an honor, I ascertained, and a challenge. The muscular man I described as a Marine turned out to have a palsied hand. He was clearly embarrassed by how long he was taking, by how the stones shook as he carried them. But from within the lodge came the medicine woman's voice: "Grandfather can wait," she said with a laugh. When the man finished his duty, he returned to the lodge, and the flap was closed behind him.

After the final door everyone left the lodge and made a circle around the firepit. A few people lit cigarettes. A dog named True ran among us. The medicine woman brought out a peace pipe, which she raised high, then turned in several directions, and then prayed over before lighting. She went from person to person with the pipe. We blew smoke over ourselves in four directions. Then she clasped our hands, fingers-up and palm-down, and she said thank you in her language, and then goodbye. On our way to the car M.C. said, "I don't know if you noticed, but she was staring crazy hard at you. She was totally checking out your spirit."

That night I had my first good night's sleep in many weeks. In this morning I thought this:

Perhaps it didn't matter that I hadn't gotten through all four doors on my first try. Perhaps it didn't matter that the sweat lodge had proved yet another Big Moment I had watched rather than experienced, or that my soul was still missing in action. There would be other doors, I supposed, other opportunities for me to dig deep. Until then, Grandfather could wait.

The Classic Whale Channel

In this episode, it's Christmas day, the fourth day of a four day weekend, and I have to choose and then navigate through an activity for the day. Since I received a $10 gift card to any Regal cinema at my work holiday party, I decide I will see a movie (Juno), something I never do due to the outrageous price and Netflix. To see Juno and use my gift card, I need to skip the closest theatre (not a Regal) and go a bit further, but still within a reasonable distance. When I arrive, I realize that I'm actually going to a matinee, whose cost is $7.50, as opposed to the $10 regular price. My choice is to either use my giftcard and be stuck with $2.50 on the card, or to pay my own way and save the giftcard for the next time I go to a full fare show at the Regal, when I can use my gift all in one shot. This dramatic moment has first time viewers of this channel on the edge of their seats, but those familiar with the show have no doubt guessed correctly that I choose option two, leading to the result of my paying for a movie that I had decided to see mostly because I would not have to pay for it. A classic end to a classic episode.
In the closing credits, viewers find out I liked Juno very much, and Ellen Page even more.

pretender to the coat

Near Lathrup Village, about a mile from where Sweatshirt and I used to play two-square, there was a small music store called Off the Record, a mom-and-popper that fed and nurtured my early album collection. It was here I bought a used copy of Whipsmart, which I still listen to every couple months; it was here I sold Girls, Girls, Girls, a decision I now regret.

One day I visited this store with my then-friend D., and for around a dollar I bought a used tape, The Grateful Dead's Skull & Roses album. I was maybe 13-years-old, and my expectations were high. The album art, the band's name, the T-shirts I'd seen on certain neighborhood punks--all foretold greatness, all pointed to Marlboros and leather and amphetamines. I was ready for heavy metal: I was looking for an older and scarier Guns n' Roses.

My disappointment, then, was severe and enduring. 15 years later the band still disgusts me, and while a few of my grievances may have some basis in legitimacy, most I suspect probably crystallized in that initial, preposterous letdown.

Since college, however, I've carried this dirty secret: for all my tirades, (and despite the trauma of buying and not liking a one-dollar used tape), I've always enjoyed the song "Ripple." It's smooth and sweet and relaxing: it does for me, I suppose, what American Beauty did for Lindsay Weir in the final episode of Freaks and Geeks.

For years my affair with "Ripple" festered. Questions haunted me, and I wept over them in dark rooms and with strange women: how could the Dead have written this song? How could I like it and still respect myself? Was there something wrong with me--should I pop a peyote button and be done with it? Perhaps "Ripple" reminded me of another song, one with strong positive associations, one I liked for reasons extra-musical? Or perhaps--hope upon spite--"Ripple" was composed by someone else, a man or woman of actual talent, someone such as--I don't know--Andrew Lloyd Weber?

You be the judge. Listen to "Ripple," then to "Any Dream Will Do," written at least two years earlier.

Poor, poor Joseph. First they nicked his coat. Then they took his song.

A hypothetical situation

Imagine that you start a group blog. Several months in, your friend Smith (or I guess we should call him Smiths, since that is his real name), joins the blog, and writes a funny introductory post.

Now lets imagine that after reading Smiths' post, you check the nickname that he has chosen for himself, and notice that the name he has selected for himself is also the nickname that people have called YOU for the last ten years or so of your life.

WHY, SMITHS, WHY!?!?

Have an idea do an idea

Today I was twice reminded that some people have ideas and do ideas. There is this guy who has taken his picture every day for years and turned it into an aging movie, and there are these guys featured in the NYT for giving up their high paying jobs to evaluate charities to see which are most effective.
I think it's high time for me to have an idea and do an idea. Something even more ground breaking than trying to maximize how many netflix movies I can watch each month. How do I top that?

Dude, why aren't you drinking?

One of my regrets is that I didn't do more things to regret in my youth. One thing I didn't do, until a vat of jungle juice raced down my throat at an apartment party full of strangers freshman year of college, is get drunk. The complete cause behind such abstinence will not be known until an ambitious nobel-bound doctoral student of psychology decides to use me as the case-study that will catapult him or her into stardom, but the effects are more easily observed.
While it wasn't until afterwards that the pang of regret set in for not having a few pocketfuls of comical teenage tales involving humiliation, escapades, and rudeness, the suffering I knew even then was the steady stream of predictable peer pressure whose defining catch phrase was, "Dude, why aren't you drinking?" And of course there was no answer. To certain people, certain choices and behaviors simply don't process. I'll never understand why given the choice to smoke cigarettes or not, one would choose to smoke them. And others don't really get why, given the choice, someone would choose not to have a drink when one could be had.
Since the jungle juice turning point, my drinking habits, in the language of online dating multiple choice traits, could be described as "moderate" or "socially." And while less frequently than before, there's no shortage of people who don't consider it a party until there's beer, and who look suspiciously on anyone whose reason for not drinking is anything other than being pregnant.
But all this is just the lead-in. Because, as looking back I wish my behavior never would have prompted one to ask "Dude, why aren't you drinking?", so now the internet peer pressure is causing me to change my behavior so that no one will be tempted to ask me, "Dude, why aren't you blogging?"

The Jerky Boys

I've always had an affinity for making prank phone calls. When I was a kid, I can still remember the exact calls I used to make and to whom I was calling. Whether I was calling the "Sexy Sisters" Escorting Service or Dr. Merial Wagner, the jokes never got old. My passion for pranking people has not waned. I've even gotten my wife into the mix.....

Two nights ago I was watching the Ann Arbor Public Access Channel. They pretty much let any old Ghazer do or say whatever they want on that channel. I found this weird dude that hosts a live weekly show about local and world conspiracies. I don't remember the name of the show but the best part was you could call in and talk live on his show about whatever you want. Without any hesitation, I called in immediately and go the guy going. I won't go into the details but when I was finished, I convinced my wife and Ming, an autistic friend of ours, to call in as well. We easily took up 30 minutes of his 45 minute show. I can't wait until next Tuesday to call in again.

parallel irresolutions

Today though I was too ill to work, I was healthy enough to watch the final episode of Freaks and Geeks. My feelings are now most uncomfortably mixed. Part of me is still exhilarated: I have, after all, been following a great adventure. At the same, though, there is loss: my new character friends are forever gone--I will never hear from them again--I will never know what became of them.

There is almost too much to praise in Freaks and Geeks: the writing is excellent, the acting superb; and to my private satisfaction the show evokes both the same 80s suburban Michigan I grew up in, and the same two cliques I mostly then moved with. (To complete the regression, while writing this post I am wearing sweats and consuming my third successive bowl of Corn Chex.)

Most impressive to me is how well, even how ingeniously, the Lindsay and Sam plotlines intertwine. In some episodes the points of contact are subtle and thematic, in others they're brash and literal; but in each the Weir stories contrast, compliment, or unexpectedly complete one another, and often they manage to do all three at the same time.

The combined effect of these interactions is tremendous. Emotions are blended, resolutions few and pointedly unconvincing; and so the series delves increasingly into the feelings between feelings, which to my mind is a mark of great art.

In the final scenes Lindsay says goodbye to her family and boards a bus. She calls out to her mother, as if she has something important to say, but then manages only another goodbye. Sometime later she sneaks off into a hippie wagon, and so we understand that she's lied to her parents, presumably after having taken their money, and will now follow the Grateful Dead for nine days...Part thrilling escape, part conscious betrayal, Lindsay's decision leaves the viewer at once amused and uncomfortable. The emotions are strong and contradictory here, and while part of me wishes that Freaks and Geeks had a thousand more episodes, I couldn't imagine a more suitable ending.