Two amusing anecdotes

1) Firstly, despite my dreams of having a blog where I write about important issues and philosophy and world events and yadda yadda yadda, I seem incapable of sticking to that dream. When one lives in New York and works at an art gallery that attracts completely insane rich people, sometimes the stories are just too good not to tell.

On that note, yesterday I was handed a check made out to the New York Times, which was to pay them for ad space we've bought. I was to hold it at the front desk until someone from the Times came to pick it up. No big deal, I've done this before. They usually send nice people to pick up the checks.

A few hours later, I heard the elevator doors open, and a moment later saw arms flapping in the entry way. I looked up to see a grown man walking toward me, arms spread straight out to the sides, leaning from left to right as he came, and make a "whoosh" airplane noise. Like a five year old playing airplane. I thought, "Well maybe he's a little, you know, slow. No big deal."

Mr. Airplane whooshed right up to me and smiled, laying his hands on the desk. "Hi," he said. "I'm from the New York Times." He smiled and I saw that he was missing his canine teeth. From the way he spoke, he didn't sound slow at all. (Far be it for me to think someone is slow because they're having fun walking - I do strange things while walking to keep myself amused a lot. One just doesn't see it very often in a high-end gallery where everyone takes themselves VERY seriously.)

"Oh," I said, getting up to open the drawer I had the check in. "I have something for you."

As if he hadn't heard me, he continued, "I think there's a check here for me somewhere. Is your name Lynsey?"

"Yes," I said, and handed him the check. "Here's your check."

"Oh, great." He took the envelope and looked at carefully, then back at me. "You're Lynsey, right?" he asked again.

"Yes," I repeated.

"You're a good looking woman, Lynsey," he said as he turned to leave.

"Thanks," I said, holding myself back forcefully from adding "...airplane guy..." to the end of the sentence.

That's the whole story. Not oh-so-exciting. Just amusing.

2) Also, far be it for me to pass judgment on the other sex. I mostly try to refrain from being one of those "Men do this, women do that, we're so different, blah blah blah" people. Because in truth I really LIKE men, and I think that it's counterproductive to focus on differences between the sexes like I'm straight out of a Cosmo article. I think that treating the differences inherent in our biology and culture like a vast gulf between us only serves to widen that gap and increase hostility between the sexes, which helps nobody.

But, this just struck me as so amazingly true that I had to put it up:

On being bitchy

I've had a bit of an altercation with the people at ZipCar.
You see, over Turkey Day, I had rented this car to drive to Pennsylvania and back over the course of 27 hours. ZipCar is a car rental program that uses a fleet of cars, all parked in specific locations all over the city. You pick up the car you reserved for a specific trip, drive it, and return it on time, and you get low low low rates and free gas. It's pretty fantastic all around. As long as you honor the contract you sign when you become a member, it's all good.

Well, on that contract it says that before you get in the car to drive it, you must do a walk-around inspection of the car. If you find any damage, you must call the people at ZipCar to tell them about it so that you won't be billed for it if it wasn't your fault.

When I went to pick up my car the day before Thanksgiving, I was chomping at the bit to get out of the city ASAP. When my friend and I arrived at the parking garage where it was located, we found our vehicle parked in a dimly lit back corner, next a pole on one side and parked in by other cars all around it. I could clearly see the driver's side, but that was all. There didn't seem to be anything wrong it.

Now, according to the contract I signed, where I promised that I would do a complete inspection of the vehicle and call in any damages, I should have driven the car out to a well-lit place and immediately inspected it, then called in all damages. But, this being my first ZipCar experience and myself being so excited about driving, I just kept on going and assumed everything was fine. Big mistake.

Apparently there were some black paint scratches and a dent on the car after I brought it back on Thanksgiving. Thse damages MUST have been there when I picked the car up, since I didn't hit anything, and since I didn't even park the vehicle anywhere I couldn't see it for the entire time that I had it. Nobody hit it, it hit nobody, and nothing happened.

But last week, I got an e-mail from ZipCar saying that they were "investigating" damages to my car that appeared to have occurred while I had it. I e-mailed them back, explaining what had happened - and what had NOT happened. And that was all.

Over the weekend, during which I was in Pennsylvania dealing with a terrible tragedy, attending a funeral, and generally being out of touch with the rest of the world, I had two missed calls from ZipCar and no access to my e-mail. When I returned to new York on Monday I was so exhausted that I hardly remember getting to my apartment, where I slept for the rest of the day.

Yesterday morning, my first day back to work after my horrific weekend, I received an e-mail from Zipcar alerting me that, after an "investigation" that did not include actually speaking to me about what had happened, the Powers That Be decided I had been responsible for the damage. They tried to stick me with the maximum bill allowed on the ZipCar member contract: $500.

So I called the guy at ZipCar and explained to him that I hadn't been able to see the whole car when I picked it up, that I realized I could have given it a look later on, but that I had been so nervous and excited that I'd just taken off. I told him I was sorry for not having done so and called in all damages I saw, but that I had not been responsible for them and that I had two passengers who could back me up on that. I told him where I had gone and where I had parked the car and for how long.

He said that he could lower the amount that I owed since I seemed sincere and since it was my first experience with ZipCar, but that since I had not called in the damages, and since they had been reported after my time with the car, he could draw no other conclusion than that I had caused them. He lowered my bill to $250, I thanked him, and that was the end of it.

Well, after this had all gone down, I got word from the two friends who had been in the car with me on my trip. They both told me that I should have bitched and moaned and made a huge stink about the whole thing. That I should have told the ZipCar guy that it was a breach of their end of the contract for not having the car placed in a well-lit, open area where I could do a walk-around inspection. That I should have denied responsibility for anything and demanded to talk to higher-ups until I got someone on the phone who would take all the charges off my account. That I should have been a bitch, rather than be held responsible.

I thought about it. I really did. After all, I know that I'm not responsible for those scratches or that dent. In all likelihood, the person who had the car directly before me banged it up and didn't report it, and that person is sitting back on his ass laughing right now about the poor sucker who got stuck with the bill. And that really sucks for me. I mean, since when should I have to pay $250 for something I didn't do?

But the truth is that I still cling to an antiquated belief in three things that might make me old-fashioned, but I don't care. Those things are: responsibility for one's actions, accountability for those same actions, and keeping one's word. It might be silly of me, since in this case it's costing me way more than I want to pay. But no matter how firmly I know and believe that I didnt mess up the car, I refuse to ignore the fact that I signed my name to a contract which bound me to do something I just didn't do. I knew at the time that I should have done it. I knew I had promised to do it. And I didn't. I threw caution to the wind and decided that I'd do what I damn well pleased, consequences be damned.

Well, the consequences came knocking, and it turns out that while I might have the power to tell them to go to hell, they have a piece of paper with my name signed on it, which says that I'm responsible. And while I might have it within my grasp to scream and whine and caterwaul until those consequences go away - if I'm bitchy enough - I choose not to do that.

These days I know plenty of people who seem to get out of everything by being intractably rude to customer service people, who refuse to be held responsible for any expenses they have incurred or damages they have caused or problems they have initiated, just because they are able to make a big enough stink. I have been told over and over, and have witnessed the proof, that people who are willing to be total assholes can and do get what they want. And especially in a PC, customer-service focused, poor-me, I-could-sue-you-for-this-and-probably-win climate like the one we're in today in America, it's true. You can get into or out of just about anything you want if you're willing to overlook your own responsibilities in favor of being a rancid bitch.

But I'm not into the idea of suing some just because you can, or revoking promises you made just because it hurts to go through with them. Maybe this makes me stupider than noble, but I'm going to stick by it. And I'll freely admit that I'm a huge wimp when it comes to sticking up for myself. But I do know when I'm being walked on, and this time I wasn't. After all, I knew what I should have done. I signed something saying I'd do it. And I didn't. And now it's landed me in a big old hole. But, next time, I'll damn well do that inspection.

Well, there it is.

I have been unable to write, as I noted earlier, all week. I just. Can't. And today I've been really pushing myself to think of something, to put something cohesive together and just f-ing DO it. The advent of a tragedy in my life has forced me to re-evaluate a few things, namely the things I have control of in my own life, and I've realized that I am very, very frustrated with my lack of discipline and work ethic. Disappointed, mostly, because I have been blessed with an unstoppable drive to assert myself creatively on my world, but simultaneously have found myself possessed of a paralyzing fear of failure in my endeavors, and a lethargy that arises directly as a result of that fear. I am always tired, too tired to do the things I want to do, because if I were to energize myself and do them I would face the possibility of them going unrecognized. For example, I never paint things to keep, only to give away. When I do paint something for myself, I never finish it, always telling myself "Oh, that needs to be touched up a little before I show it to anyone." It's the same with stories. Poems don't even get started anymore.

What's really unfortunate is that, the more I look at my few finished projects and accomplishments, the more I realize that they are, in fact, quite decent. Some of them even border on GOOD. But I'm stuck at a place of uncertainty. New York, especially, is so intimidating in the depth and breadth of possibilities for a creative individual to earn a name and perhaps even a living, but I am absolutely terrified of moving forward to a point at which I could claim myself to actually BE one of those creative individuals on a professional level. No matter how much I create, I have never once voiced the assertion: "I am a writer." or "I am an artist." These are dreams for me, goals that if they were to be reached, would carry on their backs a weight too huge to imagine - the criticism and analysis of a public beyond my own, already severe and even punishing, critiques. Because, while New York is rife with opportunities, it is also a place with millions and millions of dark corners in which hide the failures of those who attempted to be heard. It's terrifying. Debilitating.

And so, rather than really trying to succeed, I continue to let myself languish in fear and self-indulgent criticism, telling myself over and over that I'm not good enough yet to make my debut. I never finish anything, letting my ideas pile up on top of each other. Ideas for ventures, businesses I could run on my talents, never get far enough to even advertise them. "I could paint murals in people's houses! I'll put them up in my apartment, take pictures, paint in friends' places, take pictures, and post them online! I could make a living that way!" Or "I could paint cups and saucers and sell them online!" Or "I could take commissions for paintings on canvas!" Or "I could have written a way better article on this for that blog!" or "I could really be a writer." But I don't DO it. Because I'm always too busy, or too tired, or too overworked, or too underworked and listless, or whatever. It's always something.

But the quote on Jenelle's Gchat today, "Against the ruin of the world, there is only one defense -- the creative act" is making me think. A lot. Here I am making excuses, perfectly aware that they are only that: excuses. Painfully aware. But not changing the situation. I've been sitting her all day bemoaning how I'll never make a name for myself as a blogger if I don't WRITE anything, but again, I haven't been writing.

But then, a few minutes ago, something magical happened. There is indeed a muse. And he walked into my gallery. And he was a tall older man, probably from a Nordic country based on his accent and physique. He had a beard of mostly-salt and a little pepper. He was wearing a tasteful, but nonetheless plaid, suit. And he was also wearing... get ready... a FUR BERET. I am not kidding. He is still in the gallery as I'm typing this. In his fur beret. It looks like fox fur. I dont' even know where one would go to purchase such a splendid thing as this. I never would have even thought for a moment that somebody made these things. But behold. It is here. And it is glorious.

And when I saw it, I said to myself, "Well, there's your blog post for the day. It has nothing to do with anything, but it's remarkable enough to warrant a blog post, no doubt about that." And so I set in to write about it, and lo, I have instead bared my soul. And it feels good.

History lesson

This is courtesy of Mental_Floss, my favorite favorite favoritest website. The last two sentences sum it all up:

...The Grattan Massacre, a bloody clash between American Indians and U.S. troops that played out in 1854 in the Nebraska Territory, just east of what is now Laramie, Wyoming.

If you thought Mrs. O’Leary’s cow was bad news, consider what the cow that wandered away from a Mormon pioneer train on the Oregon Trail started. The rabble-rousing bovine clomped its way into a camp inhabited by the Lakota Indians, one of seven tribes that made up the Great Sioux Nation. Not being ones to turn down a free lunch, the Lakota promptly killed the presumably abandoned cow and ate it.

That might not seem like a big deal, but in the mid-1800s, few peace pipes were being passed between American Indians and new settlers. So, when the cattle owner realized the fate his cow had met, he immediately went to tattle his tale at the Territory’s nearest outpost of officialdom, Fort Laramie. In response to the incident, U.S. officials dispatched an eager young second lieutenant and recent West Point graduate named John L. Grattan to bring the cow thieves to justice.

What happened next underscores the downside of history’s insistence on naming events only after they happen. Had John L. Grattan known he was riding off to The Grattan Massacre, it seems likely he might have conducted himself more civilly with the Sioux. Instead, Grattan’s approach would later prompt a fellow Fort Laramie officer to comment, “There is no doubt that Lt. Grattan left this post with a desire to have a fight with the Indians, and that he had determined to take the man at all hazards.”
With nearly 30 men in tow, Grattan met with the Brule Lakota chief, Conquering Bear, and demanded the surrender of the guilty parties. By most accounts, Conquering Bear was open and reasonable during the negotiations, and it was Grattan’s behavior that escalated tensions. At some point, Conquering Bear stood up, and nervous U.S. soldiers—thinking the chief was making a move—opened fire, killing Bear and his brother. Warfare quickly broke out on both sides, and Grattan’s entire party perished.

When news of the event reached the U.S. War Department, officials sought swift revenge on the Sioux. A little more than a year after the Grattan Massacre, on September 3, 1855, General William S. Harney and roughly 600 soldiers caught up with the Lakota tribe. Harney ordered his men to open fire, and nearly 100 Lakota men, women, and children were shot dead in what became known as the Battle of Ash Hollow. (Apparently, 30 Army men being killed equals a massacre, while 100 Sioux being killed equals a battle. Ain’t history grand?)

I have no title.

I haven't been able to write for a little while. At first I was too burned out, then too tired, and now just too... I don't know. Where are the words? I've been seeing in pictures. Some of them I will try to create and post here, to show what I can't say, but some... well I can't get to them all, and some just aren't for showing. Just like some jokes aren't worth telling, but they unfold anyway, amazing me with the outrageous nature of life's sense of humor.

I think there was a time when I would have journaled about how I feel right now in the wake of a tragedy so profound I can't talk about it. And there was certainly a time when I would have written a poem, maybe even a good one, to crystalize that picture of it in my mind. But these days my hands hurt when I hold a pen for too long, and sometime over the past few years I have started to act as if there are some pictures that shouldn't go down on paper. Some ideas that are just too painful to extract, with the perfect placement of words into verse, from myself and lay out.

I was looking at a photo of my best friends in the world, and myself, when we were young. 14 going on 15. At first I was sad to see all our fresh, red-from-laughter faces, so 'full of youth' and what not. Then angry to realize how much bullshit we've all been through since then. All of us. No matter how much we love each other, through the years, we've all been witness to or involved in truly terrible ordeals of many sorts, from the destruction of families to violation to heartbreak to... well... life. And looking at that picture broke my heart as I remembered how innocent we all were and how all that really honestly mattered to us was each other. Each other, and the vast lives we had ahead of us. But those lives have been... well... real. Too real.

And then, as I looked at it and wondered if I should cry, I realized that even then, eleven years ago when we were just kids, when that photo was taken, some of us had already been through hell. Lots of it. Life at the hands of adults.

I guess I should have been cheered by the fact that even though we'd already been dragged through pain and hearbreak and tragedy, we were all still smiling and we were all ok then. But all I could think of were the circles beneath my eyes these days, the weariness of our journeys back and forth to see each other set against the resilience of youth. Will we be ok again? Will our smiles spring back like they once did? Can our moods improve even as life continues to throw tears into our paths? Can we get back to the same paths we started out on? Should we?

This is very personal, and I'm sorry to anyone who doesn't understand it, but the only thing that could make me laugh today as I wonder what the future holds is this one joke that I think should not have been told. And yet, life cracks itself up: a friend from Illinois who I know through my old friend Bryan had a baby last night. And you know what she named him? Seth.

Boredeom = frustration = ranting.

Well, I've been endeavoring to do absolutely nothing this week, given that I have one whole day (whoopee!) off for Thanksgiving, which makes the week seem kind of pointless. I figure I should be just as useless myself as a week with no Thursday in it.

So I've shut down most of my daily rituals, like blogging, have done absolutely no work of any kind besides the bare minimum of answering the phone and pretending to be civil to the people who come into the gallery. The phone calls and visitors alike have been relatively few and far between, but I swear, they must have all turned off their brains just like me! It may very well be that I am so bored and listless that anybody would annoy me at this point, since I see no reason I shouldn't be just sitting at the desk today coloring or something (but my boss does, so there goes that idea), but I really honestly think the people are just getting dumber.

Firstly, last week we opened two shows. One, which is currently on display here at our gallery on 57th Street, is a group show of Latin American artists. The other, at our 25th street location, is of giant and amazing paintings by Vincent Desiderio downstairs, sculpture and prints by Michele Oka Doner upstairs. Seems simple enough, given that our advertisements and website and everything give this information to anyone looking for it.

Well. Apparently this info is not so easy to digest for the stupid masses out there. Because damned if I haven't gotten at least ten calls a day from people looking for information on the Desiderio show, which they all seem to think is here at 57th Street. Not that I'm against people liking Desiderio - he's one of my absolute favorites and an utter genius - but for crissake, read the damn fine print, people! I don't know what price they're going for because they're not HERE. The only thing more annoying on this count than the constant phone calls are the people who actually come here, to 57th St, looking for the Desiderio show, and then get all pissy and disappointed and obnoxious with me because it's not here. Well what the hell am I supposed to do about it except sit here and smile vacantly as if I have the slightest interest in their plight? Some of them get all mopey and accusatory, like it's my fault they can't read and apparently have been in NYC for a week and for some reason waited until the morning they have to be at the airport to come see the show, only to find it's not here. I'm not sure what they want from me, but I've been adopting the "gallerista" model of receptionist-ing lately and just ignoring the crap out of them. Dumbasses.

And on top of all this confusion, I've been getting people who come in looking for the last show we had here at 57th St, as well, which came down TWO WEEKS ago. These same people get very upset when they find out it's not up anymore, and want to talk to a director about seeing some of the pieces, then get even more annoyed when the directors tell that because most of those pieces sold, we've already shipped most of them back to their owners. As if we should be expected to keep things here for months after a show just to placate them.

I've also had a host of calls and visits from people who think that, because this is an art gallery, I - as a receptionist - will know every detail about every other art gallery, not only on 57th St, or in New York, but in the goddamn world. Or, if not about other galleries, about the contemporary art world, in vast amounts and excruciating detail. Or to know the minutae of all of our artists' creative processes.

This makes no sense to me. I am the receptionist. It is my job to answer the phone for the people I work with. That's it. If I don't know the answer to your question, then it's your job to accept my answer of "I don't know" and move on with your goddamn life. I am not a 411 operator or an encyclopedia of the contemporary art world.

Hot damn.

And to top off my list of annoyances, I have been getting phone calls literally every other minute from a recorded voice at Verizon that wants me to hold on the line while I'm connected to a representative. They. Called me. And told me to hold. Are you SHITTING me?

I am so ready for a day off.

/end rant.

The kind of thing I hate to acknowledge

Some days it's really better to just avoid the news. But here I am at work on a Saturday morning, without having had any coffee or tea, with nothing to do (or at least no willpower to make myself do anything useful). So I started looking at news sites to keep myself updated on the world.

And I read about Abraham Biggs. Go ahead, Google it, then come back. I'll wait...

...aaaand Happy Saturday, everyone! Are you depressed already? Welcome to the weekend!

This poor kid. I know nothing about his personal or family life, so I'm not going to make any wild speculations about why he might have done this. Personally, I try not to bother the memory of those who have taken their own lives by digging into their private matters. I think suicides are necessarily sad, but it seems to me that it's well within one's rights to do what one wants with one's own life. I have no right nor reason to intervene.

But the facts of the case on a superficial level beg to be analyzed. This kid decided to end his life publicly by streaming it on the internet. And not in some gruesome or violent way that might just point to the last screaming moments of an adrenaline junkie with too much video gaming experience. He chose to overdose on Xanax, then quietly fell asleep on his webcam until his breath ran out, and 12 hours later was found dead by police, who covered up the webcam and ended the spectacle. No numbers yet on how many people actually watched it happen on the body-building website hosting the streaming spectacle, but there were comments and viewers in some quanityt up until the end.

What it says to me is that this person didn't want to go out in a blaze of glory. He wasn't looking for spectacle or martyrdom or fame. He just wanted his life - his memory - his last moments - to have some sort of meaning and he chose to validate it by sharing it with others over the internet. Others on the site had helped him decide what method to use, how much to take, and whether or not to go through with it when he'd announced his intentions. His watchers, for the most part it would seem, assumed he was faking it, typing in "lol" and "hahaha" and "OMFG" as he lay still on his bed for hours. It seems most of them watched the webcam tragedy half-heartedly, like an absurd funny-cat creation on YouTube.

The internet is such a bizarre mixture of raw communicative power and creative irony, dashed with a sprinkling of those intense assholes who always have to pop up in the comments with no mastery of the English language and an inability to hit "shift" simultaneously with "1" (11!1!!!!). It has become a platform for many to express their deepest feelings and thoughts in what seems like a safe environment, in which their faces can stay anonymous but their words can speak what is in their hearts. Simultaneously, for many it is the opposite: a place to make their faces famous while protecting what is inside them by building a false sense of self to show to the world. For a lot of us it's just a place to waste time in endlessly entertaining ways. For some it's a way to get news and cooking tips. But no matter what role it fills in our lives, most of us with a web presence often feel an odd sense of removal from reality in it. We can make ourselves pretty much whatever we want online. We can invent personas for fun or for evil (Google "Lori Drew"), we can write and re-write our profiles to seem as intelligent or witty or cool as we want. It's a space to connect with emails and messages and Twitters, but it's also looking through a lens of bizarre porno sites and Photoshop.

But then there are others out there, like Abraham Biggs, who lose that sense of removal, who let themselves be seen fully and intimately by their webcams or MySpace bathroom-mirror shots, who forget to keep that degree of separation from the computer screen and the people on the other end of the tubes. People whose identities have become wrapped up with their keyboards and whose Facebook photos don't have 'angles.' While most of us can look on while turkeys get killed right behind Sarah Palin with a little smirk on our faces because she seems so clueless, typing "OMFG what a moron" into the comments box, othersjust see the turkeys kicking and fighting to the bitter end and think, "Wow, that's intense." And maybe that thought connects, just like links on our sidebars, to thousand of other sites and thoughts that connect to... "Hey, I could do that to myself online. People will remember me that way."

I don't really know where I'm going with this. It's the kind of thing I hate to acknowledge publicly for fear of glamorizing something so sad, but at the same time I find the psychology in it so fascinating and the implications about internet culture so endless that I can't help it.

Here's where I wish I had a readership to comment and help me pick this apart, but then again, maybe it's not something we should hack up.

Well put

This is, once again, from my favorite old lady (maybe... the jury is still out on whether the bloggers are as old as they say, but I love what they write regardless) blog, Margaret and Helen, and it basically says exactly what I try to say every day but have trouble framing in words:

"Has it occurred to anyone else that the Republican party has become the party of money, guns and sex? It seems to be the only things they think about. Who is having sex with who? How much are my taxes? Keep your hands off my guns. I really think they would explode if a gay couple used their tax refund to purchase an AKA assault rifle. They wouldn’t know whether to hate the sinner or compliment the sin. ...

It is just so interesting to me that the voters who most value religious freedom seem to be the most willing to embrace religious values, while the voters who claim to be the most religious are clearly the least. Don’t get me wrong. There are lots well-intentioned, good hearted Christians out there. We just don’t seem to be squeaking loud enough. We’ve known for years that we have a health care problem. Bill used Hilary Clinton to try and address it back in 1992. Do you realize that was 16 years ago? Republicans squeaked that it was Government-run healthcare and it would bankrupt our county. So millions of families continued to live without adequate healthcare while the government swept the whole mess under the rug. Suddenly banks and auto industries are having trouble and money seems to be growing on trees. Says a great deal about our priorities. "

Haiku

On a wet sidewalk,
blue Dr. Schol's gel insert.
Urban jellyfish.

Hairless Apes

Ok, now that the monkey story is over, I thought I could go back to writing about subjects more befitting of homo sapiens. Things like philosophy, art, music, etc. You know, intelligent topics of discussion and what not.

But then today, on a whim, I started doing some research into Proposition 8, which overturned a California Supreme Court ruling that upheld the rights of same sex couples to marry. Californians voted by a 52.2% majority on election day not to extend the legal rights of heterosexuals to homosexuals. They... decided... excuse me, I'm trying to wrap my brain around this one... to outlaw gay marriage... after the supreme court of their state... said that to do so would be unconstitutional. And they voted that... the supreme court... was wrong? ...Because... their churches... told them to.
California. The state where the gay rights movement started. Where people began to realize that homosexual people are, well, people.

I'm confused.

So I've been researching what happened. And I'm just disgusted. It's the kind of thing that I guess shouldn't surprise me anymore. People being hateful toward each other for no discernable reason is part of our heritage. But even if we are just big hairless apes, and even if we've spent most of our history as a species being terrible to one another, we are still hairless. We have evolved beyond other apes. We do have bigger brains. And we have been using them for a while now. How is it that we continue to be so stupid? What is it in our genetic makeup that plunges us from the heights of philosophy and artistic achievement into the darkness of disgustingly backwards primordial goo? Why do we do this?

I realize this isn't the most well-reasoned or objective look at the issue, but there aren't enough people out there reading this just yet for me to be responsible with my interpretations or reporting of facts. So... if you want... bear with me.

The whole thing is just so preposterous to me, so absolutely awful, so bigoted and prejudicial and – yes, I’ll say it – un-American, that I simply cannot say anything about it that doesn’t sound angry.

It’s not as if Californians voted it down unanimously, or even that there was a landslide at the polls, which might anger me more. I don’t know what I’d do with myself if one of the most progressive states in the nation, which has proven itself to be so forward-thinking and open-minded in the past, was really populated by homophobes and hate-mongers. But then again, if Proposition 8, which overturned a California Supreme Court ruling that upheld the rights of same-sex couples to marry in that state, had been passed by a large margin, there would have been little room for argument. I might have been able to just shake my head at people’s narrow-mindedness, reaffirm my lack of desire to ever move to California, and move on.

But the fact is that the 14 words added to the California State Constitution on November 5th, "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California," were voted in by only 52.2% of voters. And the margin was determined almost entirely by those responding to calls by different religious groups to ‘get out and vote.' What makes that even grosser is that even groups from outside the state of California, who are somehow, magically, personally effected and offended by California gays, got involved. Specifically the Mormon church asked its members to donate to pro-Prop8 organizations like "protectmarriage.com," and their members responded with huge and numerous contributions that helped get more closed-minded Californians to the polls.

The Mormons. Who no longer officially permit, but still often engage in, polygyny. Suddenly these people have the right to tell other people who to marry? How does this work in their heads? Apparently their theory that "the formation of families is central to the Creator’s plan" excludes homosexuals... because... we just don't want to let them adopt any of the millions of children in the world who currently have no stable or loving parents. Because homosexuals can't procreate in the typical biological way, Mormons have decreed that their matrimonial union would be a threat to families rather than an opportunity to create more for children who have already been brought into this world. The Mormons, who bemoaned the fate of the "innocents" who have been aborted, don't seem to give a fuck about the kids who managed to be born but who nobody wanted.

...ok, ok, maybe I'm going overboard, but... seriously.

Anyway, the whole religious involvement thing does make sense on the one hand: religious groups tend to have very strong opinions about the institution of marriage. Of course they do. Marriage is a cornerstone of most moralistic theologies. Traditionally it has been touted as a holy sacrament in Western societies (at least ever since St. Thomas Aquinas called it that in the 13th century), and as a union between a man and a woman in Christian and Jewish belief systems. Which is all well and good. Freedom of religion and all that. In America religions are free, as privately led institutions, to back up whatever moral systems they choose. Their believers are free to hold those moral systems dear and to internalize them as their own personal beliefs, or natural truths, or whatever. If it makes them feel closer to their god, then I have no quarrel with them, so long as they are not hurting anyone by doing it.

But that last bit, “as long as they are not hurting anyone” – ah, there’s the rub. Because, well, people trying to force their religious, or religiously-based, beliefs on others in a way that discriminates against them socially and legally and economically – that’s hurting people. Church groups bringing their issues with other people’s sexuality into the sphere of legality, forcing their morality down people’s throats and into their bedrooms and bank accounts – that’s hurting people. And it’s violating a dictum that our founding fathers set down hundreds of years ago, one that has become as sacred as things are supposed to be allowed to be in our legal system: the separation of Church and State.

Given this edict, which hangs over all government proceedings like the necessarily absent word of God, how do governments justify poking their noses into people’s bedrooms and private lives on the basis of a religiously-fueled public sentiment? All forms of government, and law enforcement, exist in this country to protect their people from physical, economic, and other tangible harm. And they are allowing themselves to actually harm people. And while they are also to act in accordance with the will of the people in matters open to public voting, I can’t help but be disgusted that they are allowing nothing short of prejudice and discrimination to be part of their public agenda.

Does nobody remember Jim Crowe? Martin Luther King? What it means to allow prejudice, bigotry, fear, and hatred to govern public life? That people have died before and will die again because the law allows discrimination that gets out of control? That at a time in our history, white people considered other races to be ‘naturally inferior,’ and that now we've alloed people who consider gay marriages to be ‘unnatural’ to write laws? Doesn’t this ring a familiarly awful bell?

And furthermore, on a simply practical level, how can people not see that the “protection of marriage” line that’s being recited by those who voted for Proposition 8 really, honestly, makes no sense? How, exactly, are American marriages being threatened by the extension of marriage itself? Are married gays going to somehow go around breaking up heterosexual couples? Are married lesbians going to kidnap the children of two-parent homes once they’ve gained the same tax benefits as married straight people? Is the extension of tax and healthcare benefits to more people going to somehow rob the bank accounts of homophobes? In the genius words of Lewis Black, are there some "gay banditos" out there who will get married and then go from house to house, interrupting idyllic American dinners by fucking each other in the ass in tasteful pumps just to destroy the American family? The answer to all these questions, no matter how many times I look at them from different angles, is “no.” Of course fucking not.

The only people who will be hurt economically, socially, and possibly even physically by prejudicial attitudes being written into our laws and state constitutions are homosexuals who want to be treated the same as everyone else. And the only ones who would be hurt by those attitudes being written out of our laws would be... nobody. Sure, maybe those of us with narrow minds and feeble imaginations feel unnerved by seeing two men kissing or two women holding hands in public, but unless those two men or women force you to watch them perform their private business, or assault you, or rob you, the law should have no more right to interfere with them than you do.

The way I see it is this: if a church or an entire religion want to ban homosexual couples from sharing in their definition of marriage, well, that’s the business of that church or that religion. Nobody should be able to stop them, just like nobody has been able to stop the Boy Scouts from keeping gay men out of their leadership. They are private institutions, and people are free to choose whether or not they want to participate in their ceremonies and beliefs and sacraments, just as they are free to choose whether certain people are allowed to participate. Marriage as a religious ceremony and institution is fair game for the morality of the religion that is joining its believers in matrimony. No skin off my nose.

But when those religions try to start influencing the law, then I start getting angry. And when the law starts acting like a privately controlled religion, well then I get a bee in my bonnet. The legal code of a state or country, according to the philosophies on which American democracy is based, should have nothing to do with religiously-biased morality. If we can’t agree on who should be allowed the legal benefits of marriage, then we should all have to go without. Telling someone that he or she can’t have something just because somebody somewhere thinks that they shouldn’t has no place in a government that we are striving to make available to “all men” who were supposedly “created equal.” If we can’t agree on whether homosexuals should be granted civil unions versus marriages in the eyes of the law, then in order to prevent prejudicial treatment, we must not allow anyone to benefit from marriage on a legal level. Rather than accepting something that others cannot have for no good reason, we must legally sanction only civil unions for everybody.

Let churches handle marriage and do whatever they think is morally all right for their married faithful, and let civil unions be the territory of our laws. Let’s all pay the same in taxes once we’ve been unified civilly, and join ourselves in matrimony in whatever churches will accept us.

And... I'm spent. I can't even think about it anymore without getting angry and risking brain exolode-y. Which is frowned upon at art galleries, where primordial brain goo is frowned upon by the supposedly cultured bipedal, hairless apes who are supposed to be rising above mindless hatred and emotional violence. As if.