Me, Myself, and this blog

Home, but not.

I’m sitting at Intelligentsia in Silver Lake drinking a cup of coffee from Burundi. In many ways this feels familiar, and if it was 2009 it would be unremarkable. But it’s 2019 and it feels weird, to say the least. A coffee shop that was once the mecca of LA east side hipster culture, in many ways the unquestioned north star of 3rd wave coffee culture. I’d often sit here for hours writing and chatting with friends who happened by, surrounded by celebrities and punks, bike messengers and young local politicians. A place so iconic that it was represented in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. It felt electric and exciting. It was the town square.

Today my company includes standouts such as people obviously from out of town taking selfies of themselves to prove to friends they were here, some possibly homeless people taking up half the seats outside, a definitely homeless guy who keeps coming in trying to fill an old paper cup with all of the milks and sugars they have on the condiments counter, spilling most of what he tries to pour all over the floor, screaming that the containers are empty and leaving, only to come back 10 minutes later and repeat the cycle, and while the milks get refilled, the puddle on the counters and floors remains. A 25 year old Veruca Salt song blasts from the ceiling mounted speakers. Everyone inside has a laptop, no one outside does. There’s a mother who handed her child a bag of goldfish crackers so that he won’t distract her from Facebook on her iPhone, the kid not having it has dumped most of the crackers on the ground, the mother hasn’t noticed. A artist in one corner has filled half a notebook with with nothing but straight lines, suspiciously glaring at anyone (me) trying to see what he’s up to. Someone’s dog just shit on the iconic blue geometric tiles.

It feels weird.

In many ways, it’s kind of representative of my visit to LA. The reason I’m at this particular coffee shop is because the 3 previous coffee shops I visited were a bust. No parking anywhere near, or no seating available in the shops. These places used to be Cheers for me, I’d walk in and know everyone. On a bad day I’d only know half the people. I’m exaggerating but you get my point. I haven’t seen a face I recognized all day, but honestly why should I? Having moved out of this city more than a year ago, I wouldn’t expect things to stay the same. Shops I’d hoped to visit have closed, restaurants have new menus and friends have busy schedules. I’ve made, and cancelled several dinner reservations. I’ve found myself driving around without any real idea where to go, I’ve parked somewhere and put 2 hours on the meter, walked around for 5 minutes and then gone back and driven away, calling it a day and going to sleep by 5pm. It could just be jetlag.

I have a confusing relationship with LA right now. I don’t want to rely on that cliche’d ex-lover analogy, memories of attraction balanced with self preservative distance and 2020 hindsight, but it’s apt. When does home stop being home? I wrote about the idea of “home” almost a decade ago, questioning what makes something home. I don’t think I answered it very well then, I don’t know that I have the answers now but increasingly for me, home is more of a feeling and less of a place. I feel at home in various places, but no place really feels like home to me. I used to say that Los Angeles was the first place that I ever lived that felt like home, but I think now that’s more about the time and the people, and less about the location. I feel at home when Tara and Ripley are near me, and they are too far away right now. They get into town tomorrow, so maybe they will bring some home with them.

Happy Accidents, a post about the Doughboys

I’ve been listening to a lot of Doughboys recently. Out of the blue about 2 months ago, for no reason at all one of their songs popped into my head and inspired me to go dig up the albums. This is always a dangerous prospect because when you remember liking a band that you haven’t heard in a very long time sometimes the memory is better than the real thing and when you go revisit them later in life they just don’t hold up. I’ve ruined a handful of childhood favorites by listening to them with a critical adult ear. Luckily, Doughboys held up and have been on almost constant repeat since I put the files onto my phone so I could walk around with them. Listening to these songs again has been really interesting for me beyond just rediscovering some music I used to like.

In 1991 when I was 16 I went to a show to see a band called the Doughboys who had some members from The Asexuals though I didn’t really know what they sounded like. The show I’m thinking of was at a venue called Janus Landing so I knew I could get in free via any number of means, and important consideration for 16 year old me growing up in the middle of Florida. There was a secret back alley entrance next to a sandwich shop that had a fence I could jump, if I got there early enough I could grab a piece of gear and carry it in walking right through the front door with a purpose. There was a guy named Fred who always set up a table inside selling records and I knew I could act like I was helping him carry things in too. Or in the worse case I could find Tony who was the promoter of the show and beg. Looking back now there is no way he didn’t know I was sneaking in to all his shows, but never once gave me any trouble for it and helped me out in many ways over the years. But that’s a different story.

One way or another I’d get in. And the funny thing about doing this kind of reminiscing in 2019 is that in some cases someone actually has the event on video and has posted it to YouTube. The quality is questionable, but I’m certain that one of the heads bouncing around in front of the stage in this is mine. My friends and I all looked the same so it’s hard to pinpoint, but I dead center in the front for this entire show.

That was a long lead up to the main point that at this show I completely fell in love with this band. Their crazy long dreadlocks, poppy as shit songs and overall attitude was incredibly refreshing at the time. And added bonus was that at this show they were selling a purple long sleeve T-shirt giant yellow writing on the back that read “I’M SO FUCKING HAPPY.” It was a favorite of mine for years. This tour was just after their “When Up Turns To Down” but the first record I bought of their was their then most recent album “Happy Accidents” and that’s the one I always went back to and have listened to perhaps thousands of times. If you have one of those records where you know every single word, every single note, every single tempo spacing then you know what I mean. I feel lucky to have a number of those kinds of records, but “Happy Accidents” is on of them for sure. And of course, someone has posted the entire album on YouTube and if you did nothing else for the next 48 minutes besides sit and listen to it that would be 48 minutes well spent.

Every single song on this record resonates with me for different reasons and in different ways. It brings me vivid memories of the swampy smell of the unfinished garage I lived in at the time as our housing complex condo was only 2 bedrooms and I didn’t want to share a bedroom with my mother or brother, long sticky summer days driving across the state with friends, car air conditioner broken, windows rolled down and stereo blasting, or walking through neighborhood streets in central Florida, yards alternating from perfectly manicured to hosting a collection of rusted cars on cinder blocks. The songs were catchy and often about girls and being in love but not in the sappy way that would have put me off at the time. The song “Wait And See” can be found on almost every mix tape I made for any girl over the next 5 years.  You might not think  think that a song with  lyrics like

..If I could take for granted all my faults and second chances, there’s one chance left to take, you could be my maiden and I could fight off all the dragons, but it never seems to work out that way…

would have clicked for a little hardcore straight edge kid in the middle of nowhere obsessed with grindcore and hiphop but they did in a big way. “Intravenus De Milo” “Happy Sad Day” and “Sunflower Honey” were also common mix tape ingredients, though the sample in “Sunflower Honey” that says “What does sex amount to without a sense of guilt” made including that one tricky depending on the hidden messages I was trying to sneak in there.

Their previous album “Home Again” was no less beautiful and I copied the CDs that I had onto one long playing cassette so that when driving around we could listen to both albums back to back easily. The unquestionable standout track on that was “I Won’t Write You A Letter” because with that sugary hook and lyrics like:

…Now and then I might remember, mostly I try to forget, and right now I’m in the middle wondering if it’s over yet, and I know it doesn’t matter because the road will never end, well so I won’t write you a letter I know I’ll be home again…

how could it not? I cued up the video below to that song, listen to the whole thing and wait for the baseline break down 3/4ths of the way through. Holy shit it still gets me even to this day.

Digging further back, their first album “Whatever” just didn’t grab me, I think if I’d heard it when it came out I may have had a different take on it, but by “Home Again” and “Happy Accidents”they had really found their sound which they hadn’t quite figured out on “Whatever” though it there are glimpses of it if you want to hunt for them, but I never really felt the need.

A few years later in 1993 “Crush” came out accompanied by their first music video for the first song from the record “shine” which got picked up on MTV2 which was a really big deal in those days. I remember someone getting tipped off when it was going to be played and we all went over to watch it together. This video, much better than the live Janus Landing one I posted before shows what weirdos they looked like, and really captures what they felt like in my memory.

They were Canadian too so had some added mystic to us Florida kids, in fact now that I think about it it was probably the Doughboys and The Nils who first made Canada interesting to me. Years later I’d re-release the epic “And Such Is Progress” by Grade and then eventually marry a Canadian girl, so maybe they can all thank Doughboys for initially pointing me north. When you think about it Canada and Florida are both weird places that most people have only heard about and are probably a little afraid of so we have some social outcast kinship right out of the gate.

Anyway “Crush” kept going, here’s a song called “Melt” that you can’t even pretend doesn’t rock.

Their final album “Turn Me On” took a big step forward and felt totally different to me than their earlier work. But not in the way that Jawbreaker’s “Dear You” felt totally different, where you were shocked at first, almost taken aback, but it got interesting on the second listen and the brilliance began to show by the third listen and every successive listen after that becomes clearer and clearer that it’s perhaps one of the greatest records ever recorded without ruining the trio of perfect records that had lead up to it. No, “Turn Me On” was just different, and it wasn’t my thing. It’s not a bad record in any sense, but it’s not “Happy Accidents” and that’s what it was all about for me.

Recently I learned that Doughboys singer-guitarist John Kastner moved from Montreal to Los Angeles just before I did and lived right around the corner from me for many years, though I didn’t know it at the time. I don’t know what I would have done had I known, but I’d like to think I would have walked over, knocked on his door and said thanks.

It’s funny sitting here a month shy of my 44th birthday trying to remember when I was 16. Thinking back on that kid I used to be I can’t help but think of things I would tell him that I know now, knowing full well he would never believe anything I had to say. Similarly, I wonder what he’d tell me, looking at the life I ended up making and where the paths I chose lead. I know for sure he never could have imagined half of what has gone down over the last 3 decades – but given the chance to look ahead at where he’d land I wonder what would be the thing he’d have hoped that I would have held onto. At that time I really didn’t expect to live to far into my 20’s so I think he would be both surprised and proud. I still like that kid when I think about him. Idealistic and stubborn, he definitely had some issues he needed to work through but he came out OK on the other side of I do say so myself.

Ten for Twenty Nineteen

Just a few things I’m thinking about as we roll into the new year…

  1. Notes and Notebooks: I have mountains of notebooks around with one or two pages filled and the rest empty. If I want to find something I wrote down I never know where to look. Recently Warren shared his approach of having one hardback pocket sized Moleskine as the master year notebook for every day notes, and individual smaller Field Notes books for individual projects. I’m going to try and mimic this to some extent. If you see me, ask me if I remembered to carry my 2019 notebook.
  2. Intermittent Fasting: I’ve had success with this in the past but 2018 got in the way in lots of ways and I forgot about it. I’m back on trying to keep all food consumption in between noon and 8pm. Coffee + MCT oil in the morning helps push through.
  3. Take The Stairs: In Tokyo elevators and escalators are everywhere, and while I walk about 10x as much as I did in Los Angeles it’s still too easy to take the easy way up. If you look around you can quickly tell the difference between the older Japanese people who have been active their whole lives and the older tourists coming from countries where people are much more sedentary and as I’m quickly approaching 45 I figure it’s a good time to remember it’s only 40 steps from the ground floor to my office, and rather than take the elevator up 2 floors every day I should just walk it.
  4. Water: Drink more of it.
  5. Waste Less: Related to the above, Tokyo is full of vending machines and it’s quick and easy to get a bottle of water anywhere anytime, the trade off is that also creates another empty plastic bottle. I’m taking one of my travel tumblers to the office remembering to carry a small one in my bag when I head out so refill those from the tap rather than buy something I’m going to throw away a few minutes later. I also have a pair of titanium travel chopsticks I’m keeping in my bag.
  6. Read More: I have a serious ebb and flow issue when it comes to books, I’ll go through months where I’m glued to several books and plow through them and then won’t look at anything for months after that. With my PhD work this year I have several books I need to be reading anyway, but I hunted down my kindle and making a rule for myself to read a bit of something before bed rather than playing iPhone games which is what I usually do. It’s a habit thing, and I just need to adjust it.
  7. Moratorium On Fuck Giving: I think overall I’m pretty good at not stressing much about how others will react to whatever it is that I do, but I also know that once I start thinking about it I can dwell. Looking back on the last 40 years or so of my life I’m much happier and prouder of the output during the times when I really didn’t even consider what reactions might be, and I can see that the times I cared more about it my creativity suffered because of it. So this is more of a note to self: Just keep going.
  8. I forgot what 8 was for.
  9. Say Yes: When my default reaction is no, that often based on fear which is often based on assumptions. I need to catch myself in that process and stop the assumptions from getting in the way of reality. I give people that advice all the time but I sometimes forget to take it myself.
  10. Say No: Lots of awesome people have lots of awesome projects and lots of awesome ideas and there’s literally no way to say yes to them all. That’s a recipe for failing and letting people down. So, similarly when my default reaction is “YES!!” I need to take a breath and step back and look at the overall situation and see if this is actually something I can do, have the time to do, and will be proud of doing after the fact. It’s it’s not, don’t do it.

TV Guide

Some of my fondest memories as a kid involved TV. The earliest show I can remember watching was Welcome Back, Kotter, I was probably 4 years old, maybe 5. I thought the sweathogs were the coolest and not so secretly hoped they would see me through the TV and recognize how cool I was and ask me to join the show. Like I said, I was 4. I next recall watching Creature Features, hosted by Count Gore de Vol when I lived in Washington DC and later by Dr. Paul Bearer when my family moved to Florida. I vividly remember scanning through the paperback TV Guide and highlighting or circling or otherwise marking the shows I wanted to watch and then making sure everyone in the family knew I had an appointment with the TV at those set times and nothing else could be scheduled because I desperately needed to watch Creature From The Black Lagoon, All Monsters Attack, Black Sunday, Them!, Forbidden Planet or whatever else these goolish curators had chosen for me that weekend. I would sit cross legged on the floor eyes glued to the TV and pretend I understood the jokes being made at each commercial break and try to figure out if these different monsters were all part of one giant story. I loved every second of them, and couldn’t wait to see what the next weeks showings would be.

I think about those movies often and revisit them from time to time. I think about how those helped refine my tastes and shape what I look for and enjoy in movies. I love good horror movies, would I love them as much if I hadn’t grown up with these proto-scary movies? I also think about how in many ways I was a captive audience. We only had a few channels and my choices were very limited so I picked the best option I could find and fell in love with it. And I learned the benefit of hunting for things, as I scanned those TV Guides trying to find anything that sounded interesting and marking it to make sure I didn’t miss it. But if I’d had other options would I have just passed these over? It’s hard to say.

I think a lot about this in context to viewing options today. My son watches TV too, he’s soon to be 7yo so pretty much right in the ballpark of when I was rabidly devouring these old monster flicks, but instead of having local television stations trying to fill their schedules with whatever broadcast licenses they could get for cheap, he’s got netflix and youtube and endless streaming and on demand options. He’s never had to sit through a commercial break, never had to choose between a soap opera, a game show and a b/w movie about a vampire. He watches an episode of Digimon and Netflix offers him every other episode ever made of that show, and then recommend 10 other shows just like it. I of course combat this by watching other things with him when I can, but left to his own devices his curators are algorithms not personalities. Some script is picking things for him rather than someone thinking about what might be complementary. Not trying to kick the algorithms off my lawn or anything, just noting the difference, and wondering how that will play out later in life. For him, and the rest of his generation.

Snipped

I spent the final days of 2016 feeling like I’d gotten kicked in the balls. I’m sure many of you can relate to that feeling, though my pain wasn’t just mental and emotional, but also physical. Two days after we were visited by the man in red and white bearing gifts, I visited a man in white bearing scissors. Yes, I got a vasectomy. If you just cringed feel free to stop reading, but I found a few friends stories of their experience helpful and useful so I thought I’d start the new year off completely oversharing and maybe helping out some others who had questions.

First and foremost, the thing that made it much more of a real option for me was learning about the new No Scalpel method. I say new though it was developed in 1974, first used in the US in 1988, and has been very widely adopted as the method of choice by urologists since the early 2000’s. The old way required making incisions and stitching them up, and came with 2-3 weeks of recovery time. This way uses super pointy tweezers to poke a hole a stretch it, then release it and it closes up on it’s own immediately, reducing recovery to a few days. That sounded much better to me.

Given the modernness of this technique I was still surprised how hard it was in Los Angeles to find a doctor using it. I called many and they were all “yeah, we know there’s a new better way but we still like slicing you open.” I found the San Fernando Valley Urology Associates who were all about it and booked my appointment there. It’s about an hour from my house but that seemed worth it.

California requires you to go in for a consultation no more than 30 days prior to the procedure where the doctor explains the technique, results, and potential side effects. As well as makes sure it’s OK with your significant other. I had to sign off on countless forms saying that yes, my wife knew and approved of my actions. A quick physical exam and then I could book my appointment for the actual event. My insurance covered both visits with a $70 co-pay, so the entire thing cost me $140, plus $10 for the prescription meds.

You are required to shave your junk before the surgery. I was advised by some friends who will remain nameless that shaving was a bad idea because it would cause things to be itchy right when they were painful and sore and healing and a better option was to book a full waxing a day or two before your appointment. That sounded scary. I tried to get some friends to join me and no one was having it. I researched and all the seemingly respectable waxing salons near me primarily catered to the ladies and offered only limited services for dudes. Which means no downstairs action. In fact the only waxing salons I could find that would dehair the ol’ twig and berries were dead in the middle of the super gay part of town, and had websites that were mere pixels away from being gay porn. Huge beards, giant muscles, oiled and waxed male bodies. I’m secure enough in my sexuality that I can pretty much role with anything and not sweat it, I’m just pointing that out because it was amusing. What I couldn’t roll with was the $120 price tag that went with it.

I said fuck that and opted for the $5 disposable razor option.

To be fair I googled around a lot and found some junk shaving tutorials and bought proper moisturizing pre and post shaving stuff and learned the proper techniques. Interesting note, while there’s tutorials on YouTube for every damn other skill you can think of it’s a bit light in this department. PornHub on the other hand has in depth how to videos. You can find them yourself, because that’s really half the fun of it.

Because I’m already delighting you with one winning visual after another, I’ll just mention that the razors I ordered didn’t show up in time and I had to borrow one of Tara’s pink flowery lady razors. So you know, sit with that one for a minute.

Day of the operation I was prescribed instructed to take a Xanex an hour before to loosen and calm everything up and down. And bring someone to drive me home after. The whole thing took 10 minutes, maybe and was almost entirely painless. I got a tiny shot on either side of my balls which felt like the expected pinch, and then the only other thing I felt was really vague tugging or pulling sensations. A simple band-aid as the bandages and I was sent on my way. I got some slightly stronger than Tylenol pain meds which the Dr said people usually don’t even need for more than a day or two. I used them them for a day or two.

Day of I was out of commission. Instructed to put icepacks on my bits to reduce swelling, and advised by friends to instead use bags of frozen peas which are better at form fitting the area you want to cover, and to get several bags so you can hot-swap them out and always have a few in the freezer ready to go. This was good advise and I’ recommend it to anyone considering the same. The procedure was Tuesday and I was told to stay off my feet for a few days. I expected to be much more mobile by Friday. I was feeling really good Thursday and went out for some errands and dinner, but Friday morning felt that was probably pushing it and went back to bed. Today, Sunday, I’ve been pretty up and around and walked around the neighborhood without much issue at all. There’s still some swelling, but very considerably better than just a few days ago.

My friends who have had the scalpel version told me they were down for 2+ weeks, so I think this is pretty good. I didn’t really have any issue with the aforementioned post shaving itching issue, though I imagine if I’d had stitches that might have been a different story and the waxing might have made much more sense. I was pretty nervous going into it, but the story telling from previously snipped friends really helped calm me down and it was much easier than I expected it to be. And Tara and Rips have been waiting on me hand and foot, so that’s a plus too. They’ve been excellent nurses.

Hopefully this has been useful or at least somewhat interesting for some of you. If not, you are crazy for reading it.

The New State Of Things

I’ve lost count how many times I’ve started to write this and then given up and deleted everything I’ve written. I try to write something and then feel like I need to preface it with something else so that people don’t jump to conclusions and then feel like I’m second guessing myself and so on and it ends in a select all and a delete. So I decided to just tell some stories instead which may explain how I’m feeling better than if I just tried to write about that.

***

I’m vegan. Many of you know that and know that I’ve been vegan for approaching 25 years now. More than half my life. In my ideal world it would be illegal to kill animals for food, but I’m very capable of knowing the difference between my ideal world and the real world, and the difference between the two. I’m able to understand that just because I want something really badly doesn’t mean it magically happens. I decided a while ago – after years of taking the opposite approach – that it was more productive to lead by example and answer people’s questions when they took notice and asked, than to attack them and try and force them to change. That’s just me.

Additionally, I like to talk to people who have differing opinions than I do. I find people who always agree with me boring and like to discuss the merits of my positions with people who aren’t convinced. I like to be able to sharpen my take on things on be persuaded otherwise. I count many people with drastically different world views in my circle of close friends and I appreciate that they put up with my hassling them about how wrong I think they are. And they do the same. I find myself agreeing and disagreeing frequently with my friends on the right and the left.

I don’t fit well into any category, which I think helps me with perspective. I try to look at issues on their own and not based on which politician supports and decries them. I know this isn’t a common position, but it works for me.

***

I have friends who were die hard Hillary supporters and friends who were die hard Trump supporters. I was neither. In the early days of the primaries I was backing Bernie pretty strongly. I said several times during that time that I didn’t believe Hillary could could beat Trump and I really didn’t want Trump to win. Once Hillary got the nomination my position remained the same. I didn’t want Trump to win, but I didn’t think Hillary could beat him. I could write many long winded think pieces and hot takes on why I felt that way but it’s kind of moot at this point so I won’t waste anyones time. I’m in a few private slack teams and private email lists. Some of these are very political. Some of these didn’t take kindly to someone not jumping on the party line. I’m not, nor have I ever been a registered Democrat so party lines mean nothing to me. I vote for who I want to based on their own merits. So while Democrats were expected to all get behind Hillary, I maintained that hopes and dreams aside, that while I didn’t want him to win, I didn’t believe she could beat him. In some of these groups I was called a Trump shill. In some of these groups I was called a Bernie Bro and a misogynist. So I left those groups.

My friends backing Hillary ranged from being completely sure she would win, to being completely sure she would win in a landslide.

My friends backing Trump ranged from being completely sure he would win, to being completely sure he would win in a landslide.

I knew both of these groups couldn’t be right.

Again, I’m weird so I recognized that what I wanted to believe and the outcome I wanted might not have been the same thing as what realistically might happen. This was not a welcome opinion.

The echo chamber was in full effect. All these people were only listening to people who agreed with them, and who were saying things they wanted to believe. Most of these people wanted nothing to do with anyone saying anything other than that their candidate was going to slay it.

Then the election happened.

My friends who were backing Hillary are largely in shock. They keep saying things like “How did this happen?” and “How could we have been so wrong?” Someone who called me a Trump shill for saying Hillary couldn’t beat Trump asked me with a straight face “How could anyone have seen this coming?”

***

Tonight there was a protest in Los Angeles, condemning the pick of Steve Bannon as Sr Advisor to the president. I think Breitbart News is very good at stirring people into a frenzy and very bad at reporting the news. I think picking the guy who runs that for a position equal to Chief of Staff is dangerous. I wanted to go and take photos, my wife Tara wanted to go and hold up a sign. Ripley, my 6 year old son also wanted a sign but I’m not a fan of indoctrinating children to anything, and didn’t want to write up a political sign that him carrying around would suggest he was making the statement. I told him what the protest was about, and asked him what he wanted on his sign. I told him he could put anything that he wanted. He wanted a happy sign that would make other people happy too, so he decided his sign should say “I Love Cats.” I thought it was great. On the other side he decided the sign should say “It’s past my bedtime” because the protest was at night and he would be tired and this would show people that even though he was tired and it was late he was there with them. I loved this sentiment. We drew up the signs and headed out.

Tara and Ripley joined some friends of ours on one side of the crowd and I walked around taking photos. The mood of the evening was largely positive, people were protesting something they were upset about but the crowd working together. There were the expected “Ban Bannon” and “No KKK” signs, as well as some more original and light hearted ones including one older lady with a sign that read “I’ve been protesting this same fascist shit for 50 years!” and someone with a trans flag and a sign saying “This isn’t the kind of dick I wanted.” Anytime I was near my family people were taking photos of my son and his sign, with many people telling him they loved it and it was the best sign there, which made him smile big.

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He got in on the chanting, memorizing the rhymes. He waved his sign for people and smiled when they took his photo. This was his first protest and he told me he really enjoyed it. He said he loved seeing all the people together, hoping for the same thing.

By 8:30 it was in fact well past his bedtime and we decided to leave. Tara and Rips started to move to the edge of the crowd and I was behind them. As I turned to leave two younger women tapped me on the shoulder. I only spoke with them for a moment but I’d guess they were late 20’s-ish.

“Hi, can we talk to you for a moment about your son’s sign?”

“Sure”

“It’s very cute, but we are concerned that if someone sees it and takes a photo it will misrepresent the feeling of this event.”

“Lots of people have taken photos of it all night, everyone has been enjoying it”

“That’s the problem, it’s sending the wrong message – I Love Cats? This isn’t about cats”

“He’s 6, that’s what he wanted on his sign. I’m not going to put my politics on a sign and make him carry it.”

“He doesn’t support immigrants rights?”

“He’s 6”

“There are lots of kids here with political signs”

“Sure, that their parents wrote for them”

“But what will people think if they see this sign”

“I don’t really care”

“YOU DON’T CARE?”

“Are you really upset that a 6 year old isn’t protesting correctly?”

“You wouldn’t be saying that if you weren’t a white man, maybe you should meet an immigrant and find out how they feel, you are mocking the serious people here… Racist!”

I turned around and to walk away and one of them punched me in the back of the head.

I kept walking, they shouted something but I wasn’t listening anymore.

In the 5 minute walk back to our car, at least 10 more people said “Love that sign!!”

As some of you know, my wife is an immigrant.

I’m going to sleep now, disappointed.

The sun will rise tomorrow.

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(A version of this was sent out to my mailing list last night. It’s the first thing I’ve sent out since the election. Feel free to subscribe if you want. All photos by me, I’ll probably post more on instagram as well.)