Posts

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Moo

You asked me what I was afraid of and I couldn’t articulate it at the time. This is that. That moment when you wake up to pee and she’s warm and asleep and beautiful. Not concidentally her mouth is closed. And you look at her and think, “Fuck, if this doesn’t work then maybe nothing will.” How do two stupid apes rub against each other and still not tell you about the time, “I did this and no one else can know?” How can we call each other the worst words we can think of for years? How can we be happy when those words actually work? How do I look at you in all your warm beauty knowing you don’t see I’m warm and beautiful too? That you’re here because we have this unspoken agreement. That if either one of us were strong enough we’d say maybe this hurts too much. Then I go quiet and think about my life without you. Wonderful, terrible you. And that pang makes me dial. And pick up when you call.

I don’t know why cows say moo. They just do

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The system is broken

This system is broken but not because we can’t see the symptoms; those are remarkably obvious. We ask the wrong questions. We’re so busy asking what words to use that we forget to ask why write? Words are what makes us different from the other apes. Chimpanzees can drink ants through makeshift draws. They masturbate and cheat on their chimpanzee girlfriends and wives. The similarities. Modern humans are more eloquent, not quite refined; we have commandeered the larynx. Guttural groans eventually became poetry. But Shakespeare is not possible without the first caterwauls. The noises that sprang forth from that almost human. Cautiously translated to, “That one is mine.” Or, “I fuck her, not you.”

And now we go to the moon and fear death.

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Pā mai nei ka lā ma koʻu ili

I am fucking consumed with optimism, ambition, and a sense of purpose. And anger. I went to the heiau again, and the sun was drowning me in yellow rays of hope. Pā mai nei ka lā ma koʻu ʻili. Whatever isn’t forbidden is compulsory. Heads will roll, and storms will follow. But in this moment, I rule myself, and the world lies before me. And what I do next has to make a difference. Because until this moment, I have pissed on what was given to me. I make the same mistake over and over again. I know the wall is hard, but I can put my hard head through it this time. I miss my kids, and I love every single person I have ever loved. Aloha for me is not something that goes away. Not with betrayal. Not with lies. Certainly not with disappointment. Aloha means love among many other things. You don’t need to know ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi to know what it means. It’s that feeling in your chest when you pick up your daughter after her first day of kindergarten. It’s the smile that beams when you buy an unhoused kupuna a sandwich. I’m rambling, but my point is it’s all connected. Hewa in the right hand becomes hewa in the left. Aloha spreads the same way. You can’t keep it until you freely give it away.

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Animal fat

I’m going to sit here and listen to pop music. Blurred lines. It is mayonnaise. Bread is easier to chew with animal fat. She would say how does meditating bring an animal fat in to your mind? Why can’t you just breathe? Count down. Okay, 100. 99. 98. 97. 96. 68. Turn the lights on. I cannot. I cannot breathe.

You are not dumb. But you are not smart. What’s upsetting to me is that you’re not concerned about what you don’t know. You like being stupid. Not stupid, ignorant. You like not knowing the answer. For me? Never. I have to know why. You? You want a dark-skinned stranger to make the margarine flat on the bread. Me? I’m looking for butter.

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Kaumaha

So tired. So angry. So tired of being angry. This program exhausts me. The only thing I can say against it is that itʻs too much sometimes. When you preach to the choir, theyʻre listening already. Who is this for? Everyone in this class chose to be here. The way they say “white;” the anger is palpable. We needed a radical in 1993. It was so brave to say, ʻWe are not American. We will never be American. I am not an American.” I have hoahānau that served in the U.S. military. What do I do about that? I went home to Oʻahu last month and I bristled constantly. “Thatʻs not how you say that. Thereʻs a kahakō. That place is not Yokes. Itʻs Keawaʻula.” No oneʻs going to call it that. Part of me, when I watch this, makes the argument, “Sanskrit is dead. Latin is dead. Hawaiian is alive.” And if it is alive then Yokes gets to be a part of the conversation. Then I go to the palace. I walk those hallowed grounds so many times. I look out the window of that empty room where they kept her. Promulgate. I didnʻt even know that word. Iʻm getting angry again. Why didnʻt she listen to Charles Wilson? Arrest three men and take a gamble. I went to a gathering on Lā Kūʻokoʻa. What is ea? Ua huhū au nō. Kaumaha. So heavy. Sadness is correctly described in ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi as heavy. I could write about thus until you say, “Stop!” Venezuela. Greenland. Ukraine. It’s all the same fucking day, man.

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Reason

Reasons are limited by their definition. Reasons make you have a reason. Don’t choke on what you swallow. That is the only rule. Live. It’s harder than you think.

Make enemies and see more. Love life and see how life repays you.

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God

What monsters are alive right now when god is not awake? The time is short. Spacetime is a difficult concept. Matter bends spacetime in a way that’s difficult to wrap your mind around. Matter moves spacetime. More matter, more movement. But your and my time is short. We don’t live in the capacity of spacetime. I mean, we do, but our capacity to understand can only see years. Minutes. Sometimes, seconds make a difference in our understanding. Time, as we speak about it, though, is a human construct.

We talk about what I would do if Hitler were alive. Read. Read. And then read. Know. They aren’t putting Jews in an oven. But this is what happens first.

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Go

The moment is so small that it makes bigger things happen. The moment has to happen now, so it has an advantage. It insists on being like a second on a clock. It says, “Whatever the fuck you want.“

I love pace. I see why it matters. I love compulsion. I see why it matters.

I love the parts that are compelled to go, “Go go.” And I love the parts that have the self-control to say, “It will be better tomorrow.”

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Ozzy

Here’s the secret about Ozzy and about life. He didn’t write the songs. Those are Ozzy songs. He wrote none. Iommi. Lemmy, So many lessons. The smallest of which is, if you care, youre not looking where you’re supposed to look. A lot of him was an affect. What did you expect? He came from nowhere, They gave him everything. Everything. He made it 79 years. I have nothing. Iʻm trying as hard as I can to see 60.

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Santa Monica civic

I sat behind you at this concert (Portishead, Santa Monia Civic Center, if you don’t remember). You were a dancer. You did ballet. It seemed far too refined for me. For my birthday, you bought me a plastic hula dancer for my car that bobbled when the car moved.  You thought about me outside of our interaction. I suppose that was good. The hula dancer was horribly inappropriate, the worst kind of appropriation of something I actually do care about, but I wanted to fuck you, so I didn’t say anything.

Imagine flashbulbs going off. Life is that. What do you remember? A flash? Butterflies at the beginning. Love at a moment? Love ends. And then what? The way we deal with the way love folds our emomotional clothes. It puts things in their places.

Lost. It’s hard to find the bathroom.

Love works separately from how you’d prefer it to work. It’s an octopus that squeezes to fit the empty spaces. Lost is lost. Love is not different. Love only hurts a little less because there once was something. It’s gone. There will be no more questions. If there were a few, theyʻre gone.