w-hole

a little piece of the hole

EDDY MICHAEL DEANE | DIRECTION | DEVELOPMENT | DESIGN
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mind

Sometimes, you have to jump out of your own skin

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A brief story locked away in the dark recesses of my mind.

I became a huge fan of JFK long, long before the media picked up on him. In 1956, he startled the US Senate by giving an hr long speech in favor of Algerian independence & in support of the then fledgling insurrection/guerrilla war launched by Ahmed Ben Bella & the FLN (Front pour le Liberation National) against France — then as now a key US NATO ally. Kennedy’s speech was NOT well received either by the US Senate or by the Eisenhower Administration (meaning Secy of State John Foster Dulles) or by the foreign policy Establishment & MSM.

But nonetheless, Kennedy stuck to that position & went out of his way to draw attention to it.

When I read it — The NY Times printed it verbatim at the time — I was electrified. I was only in the 6th grade in elementary school in Queens, NY. But I totally got that he was looking at that situation from the perspective of those who had stood up in defiance of French colonialism. Kennedy was basically saying that all people have the right of self-determination & freedom from being controlled by foreign nations & populations.

Later in 1956, I watched Kennedy nearly get nominated for Vice President under a 2nd Adlai Stevenson presidential ticket. Only for him to withdraw his name from contention & allow US Senator Estes Kefauver — who really wanted that VP nomination — to get the nomination.

When Kennedy announced his candidacy for President in 1959, I was already in high school. I joined his local campaign organization in Queens, NY — & along with about 100 high school kids in Queens — gave out Kennedy for President brochures & buttons in our local Queens neighborhoods.

A lot of it was considered “advance work” to increase local NYC recognition of Kennedy’s name & his campaign for President.

In May or June of 1960, Kennedy was supposed to give a speech in person in Queens & out on Long Island to promote his campaign before the NYS Democratic Presidential Primary was held. The “kiddie corps” (as we were called) handed out notices of his planned speech as advance work.

When Kennedy came into Queens, both before & after his speech’s that day, he insisted to his NYS Democratic Party handlers that he meet .& shake hands with each one of the hundred or so “Kennedy kiddie corps.”

So, yes, I got to meet Kennedy & shake his hand for 2 or 3 seconds. I decided before-hand that I would take advantage of the “meet & greet” moment by actually quickly saying something to him.

So when he shook my hand, I told him that I had read his 1956 Senate speech on Algeria — & had been both incredibly impressed & motivated to learn more about the Algerian uprising.

His response was amazing. He stopped moving, looked me straight in the eyes, & with that not-yet-famous but still enrapturing JFK smile, said to me: “sometimes, you have to jump out of your own skin & look at things from the perspective of those who are putting everything on the line to fight for what they believe in.”

I totally fell in love with JFK in that split second in time. And basically adopted what he said as my way of thinking. Traditional “wisdom” of accepting the “party line” perspective was & still is not the way I think or feel. Because prejudice & personal bias & ulterior motive of human beings tend to get in the way of honesty & truth most of the time.

Les Garden

There seems to be a little nip in the air

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I once pursued my mild but extremely titillated interest in BDSM by having a “session” with a very experienced dominatrix. She was an acquaintance from my social circle, and, as it turned out, a rather well and highly regarded member of the BDSM community on the national level, as a submissive, rather than a dom. She had apprenticed for years as a sub to a renowned dom in New York, for whom she travelled regularly around the country to various events. Our session, in the context of the above, was rather small potatoes for her.

Me, I was thinking more along the lines of an erotic encounter with BDSM fashion trappings. But in the spirit of adventure and exploration, I was willing to go along with whatever happened; I trusted she would not do any permanent damage. [Read more…] about There seems to be a little nip in the air

Bunny

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I remember walking into our house on Juanita Avenue in Redondo beach one afternoon and finding my father sitting on the couch with a woman. I must have been four years old. I’ve had to piece together some understanding of the event as an adult, and only began thinking seriously about the logistics of it recently, so here is some background as I have reconstructed it from memory.

When I was four my family lived on Juanita Avenue in Redondo Beach. It was a very different time, 1960, and things were a bit looser vis a vis kids in those days. I realize now that I must have been under the care of Mrs. Golding, who lived a few houses down from us. I don’t remember ever going to a nursery school, or being taken elsewhere while my mother was working as a substitute teacher. But I do remember spending a lot of time at the Goldings’, going to a shopping center with Mrs. Golding and her son Danny, watching and listening to one of the Goldings’ Mexican laborors play the guitar slouched back on the couch (oh, my first guitar exposure!). [Read more…] about Bunny

Pivot

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We fight because we love. Strange, no? We struggle with the easiest things, and with ease turn hard and sharp. So easy to pierce the softness of a smile. A thought. Find a way around wonder with certitude. A girl and a boy, in love with each other with fist and nail gouge a space in each others’ hearts and flesh. Blood of the mother, wound of the child, a broken body, another pile to honor the love of a man for his god. Might as well use a pitch fork to stack that load.
We started out with care, lifting each drained body with awe and humility and placing it carefully alongside the last, with a prayer beneath our breaths and an ache in our chests. But the sun rose swiftly on such a foreign day, and soon we were grunting under the strain. The children were easier, lighter at least. We gave way to the need, and soon worked with speed despite the heat and glare and dust. And the smell no longer forced a pause to retch. First our loved ones. Then we found there was little difference between one broken body and the next. We made crude jokes knowing each would return to us as we slept, if later we slept at all. By then even a child’s foot still in its sock and tiny shoe could not inspire a tear.

Toss it on the load. Get it out of here, there is plenty of blood left in the dust for the flies. But a shard of mirror still attached to a bit of its cheap plastic frame reflects the white sky above. No bigger than your thumb, but there, just enough left to recall its whole, hanging in the market stall, reflecting the widow’s face screwed up in calculation — was it worth the eggs and oil she would have to do without to gaze again into the eyes that had reduced that powerful young man to tears of desire, that had coaxed from him his best and glowed with pride in his victories, and had sent him from his bed to drink himself to sleep by the fire, stinking of another woman? The dust, the bodies, the stones and bricks and twisted metal, the living bent to clear the shattered street, the groaning city surrounding and the vast miles of sand beyond, even the sun above the blank white sky pauses in its journey to pivot around that one point of reflection, and careen off in a new direction, uncharted, unconsidered, unpredicted.