June 30th, we found ourselves on the way to the tattoo parlor, where the teenager had intentions on something permanent. As usual, we listened to music and chatted about what it meant. Sierra Ferrell was singing about hopes and dreams, “honky-tonks..dos and don'ts…” :
“All that I want is a place I can come to
To give away the love I have inside of me
Everything in life, it comes back full circle
So don't do something to someone you don't want done to you…”
I guess we all have that feeling. Listening to the song, I thought about a moment a dozen years prior with Elizabeth as I was completing an interview. You sat listening, drawing a picture of a circle that “has no end, that's how long you are going to be my friend.” Elizabeth is long gone, but the circle continues, from her story, inviting us into both activism and friendship, from Sierra Ferrell to Royal Street and Decatur, that runs parallel to the Mississippi River, where freight train hoppers find themselves on the road in the hot summers, returning for cool winters.
This spring we found ourselves there looking at a mural inside an old thrift shop, with words from Confederacy of Dunces, "we see that even when Fortuna spins us downward, the wheel sometimes halts for a moment and we find ourselves in a good, small cycle within the larger bad cycle.”
I think about the cycles of feelings, the ups, the sadness, the separations and detours, turning and turning, as we try to understand. The celebrations and realities mixed together: "Sadness is caused by intelligence," says Charles Bukowski. "the more you understand certain things, the more you wish you didn't understand them."
And we find ourselves in that space between wishing and understanding.
I think about all the circles we’ve been through, cycles of living, back to that day 18 years ago, when Italy was playing in the World Cup and you came. And we drove to Princeton for fourth of July and then to California. And you accompanied us on road trip after road trip in the back seat, up and down the left coast, from Long Beach to Santa Cruz, Venice Beach to Joshua Tree, Los Angeles to San Francisco, looking at murals, eating Chinese food, and back East, off to school, to the library, where we brought home countless books, and you let me read to you, off to Italy and Germany, Sweden, Costa Rica, France and Spain to hike for four summers, Italy and France. Japan, Hong Kong, Vietnam, and Cambodia. On and on, the circles expanded from Sarajevo to Berlin, vines in Angkor Wat enveloping old buildings, signs of time.
Over time, your smile grew, along with dreams and paintings on canvas. As did your voice, ever moving, navigating the hard parts, dad yelling when you didn’t want to read together, kids bullying, moving forward and backward, Ali dancing, rope a dope, eluding blows, toward something, away, as you tried it all out, found what worked for yourself, pushed away, discovered your own books and came back. Friends said goodbye and fell apart. Parents departed too early. Some left; others remained. Friends knocked on the door, late at night, confessing they were on the same road. But they didn’t know if they’d stay. Kids smoked and convened at Pink Louds show at Tompkins. You listened to a thousand podcasts, painted, and a pandemic ebbed and flowed. At some point, you went back to school. But it felt strange. And then a summer on an Odyssey to camp, swimming all night in a lake in the woods with new friends.
You played Harold and Maude and consoled me when Tim and Dorris left.
"What kind of flower would you like to be," asked Maude. "I should like to change into a sunflower most of all.…. It's best not to be too moral. You cheat yourself out of too much life. Aim above morality. If you apply that to life, then you're bound to live life fully.”
And we visited Emily’s house.
And joined the Earth Celebrations.
And you talked with Dion about Carson McCullers and the loneliness.
And said goodbye to Nunu on Halloween.
And you became you.
And you played me more music and we rode bikes across the city, to Nico’s grave.
And listened to Bowie and walked through the broken glass.
And said goodbye to Spider.
And hiked around Scotland.
And wandered Berlin.
You hiked and took trains through the Czech Republic. We ate döners on the balcony when you came back, and talked about The Stone Butch Blues.
Back in Brooklyn, you walked with me to Red Hook, where you climbed a tree; we looked at the water and you told me everything.
And we went to see Kimya and Frankie Cosmos and ate pizza and you stayed up all night and we walked through the cemetery and flipped through the records at Princeton Record Exchange and you told me about the blues, Woody Guthrie, Pete S., and Daniel Johnson, and laughed about the X-Files podcast and I learned from you.
And we visited Gladys and said goodbye and mourned for Nex.
And you kept going.
Skipped school for road trip after road trip to a cemetery in Albany in the snow, and a music festival in Courtland, where April sang:
“This city isn't big enough for the two of us
One of us has to go
One of us has to go
This city isn't big enough for any of us
So it's on to the next one, on to the next one.”
On to the next one, years of circles and stories, one after another, one cemetery, another hike, one tree to climb, one book, another podcast, looking at the world, looking at you, walking to school every day, year after year, morning after morning, first by foot, then by bus, tandem, and subway.
Off to the library, we read stories about the universe in the sky, and in you, inside the universe in you. And you stopped reading with me, picking up manga, and then 100 Years of Solitude, Master and Margarita and Unbearable Lightness of Being, three of my favorite novels, and learned what a novel could be.
“Are you gonna read Borges?” I asked.
“Dad, I’m still reading Gabo,” you told me earlier today, referring to Love in the Time of Cholera.
And you taught yourself banjo and dreamed about freight trains, walking into my office asking for reading recommendations, looking at the rubble and paraphernalia from a thousand road trips, a lighter from China here, old bones there. “Best library in the world,” you told me.
And you found a book about the road, As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning, the 1969 memoir of the Spanish Civil War by Laurie Lee, grabbing your attention. Stumbling into history, between his front door and the world, on a hike that began with a whim: “I remember standing one morning on the windy roof-top, and looking round at the racing sky, and suddenly realizing that once the job was finished I could go anywhere I liked in the world. There was nothing to stop me, I would be penniless, free, and could just pack up and walk away.”
Borges and Me took us into the labyrinth.
Stories of Blaze Foley reminded us it can all fall apart. You broke down reading it on the subway.
And you went back to Children’s Magical Garden and cleaned up again after the fences went down, just as you did when you were a kid.
“The garden of the world has no limits, except in your mind,” wrote Rumi… “Everything in the universe is within you.”
And you walked to school and got the grades, put on a red robe and got ready for high school graduation. I sing the body electric. Graduation from Fiorello H Laguardia High School of Performing Arts or as the parents say, the Fame School. From Pandemic to Berlin to a majestic old theater on 175th Street for graduation, I still remember when you got into Lag celebrating four years ago. “I got into lag.” What a trip.
Celebrations, highs tides, ever receding, the Old Man of the Sea with his fish consumed by sharks, Garp mostly dead on arrival back home, Huck Finn and Jim, floating down a river, eluding a cruel world and its alarm clocks of reality, ever about to ring, the Iron Claw, joys and despair mixed together along the way. Look at the sadness, said Rilke, and learn from its lessons. Let it flow through you. You gotta talk to the blues, sing to them. Look at it all.
You seemed to learn it.
14 to Lag.
18 to now.
Another June, another birthday.
Still a Laughing Heart
“your life is your life,” says Bukowski.
“don't let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.”
It looks to me as if you see it.
I see it when Aresh tells me about your day with him in the garden.
Or Lisa greets you and tells me you rock.
And you meet me at demo after demo.
And did my friends… throughout the summer.
Onward friend, throughout the circle.
Don’t forget the light out there.
Don’t forget your old road trip buddy.
Enjoy the trip; circle round back home from time to time.
Thanks for the folk punk tips.
Pride to Picketlines Postlude.
June rolled, with beer, buddies, Barbes, and best friends, celebrating the birthday of my bestie, friends at Barbes, Slavic Soul Party playing on a super day.
Happy birthday mon amour.
Hello JC, Hello Burlesque Mermaids, hello Vampire Goth Mermaids, hello Gene, hello JC, Hello Norman, hello PeeWee, hello plastic protesting mermaids, hello Brooklyn summer. For one day all of us are mermaids going back to the sea.
A strange and wonderful Coney Island in the rain..#mermaidparade Saturday, into the ocean.
Hot Sunday, fire hydrants popping, biking to Mister Sunday, where the mist pours and house and soul spins all weekend long at Nowadays. Mom and I grabbed lunch before. Summer days.
And then sometimes the good ones win. Congrats @emilyassembly, seen here showing off her St Walt tattoo. We can still come together and win when we talk about climate and safety and labor and sustainability and affordable housing .... lovely to see so many wonderful organizers, including @austinhorse .
Off to see Grandmom, where Shannon has a summer chalet.... Grandmom welcomes Shanny for the summer. And we tried to watch the debate.
And made it out for court the next day, before my charges were thrown out for my summer of heat disorderly conduct bust, and off for a summer picket line at 9 AM. After a night with no sleep, I spent the morning with the movement,at the picket line with the PSC, then at CitiBank, joined by family and friends, dozens of arrests in the #summerofheat, generations of activists calling for Citi to stop investing in fossil fuels. Every crisis is an opportunity, this time for more democracy.
The first person I saw at 100 Wall Street for the PSC Picket was Erik R. McGregor, snapping shots of my union. Eric writes: “PSC CUNY Contract NOW Demonstration at 100 Wall St - The unionized faculty and staff of the The City University of New York represented by the Professional Staff Congress/CUNY (PSC) organized a demonstration outside Board of Trustees Chair Bill Thompson's Investment Bank at 100 Wall Street in Manhattan on June 28, 2024 to hold him accountable for CUNY's attacks on job security and governance, and to make sure he knows that he needs to tell his bargain team to change course and agree to a fair contract with real raises. #APeoplesCUNY #AdjunctsHoldUpCUNY #Allin4SUNYCUNY #CUNY #CUNYfaculty #CUNYContractNow #CUNYcontracts #ContractNow #cunyneedsaraise #CUNYrising #CUNYstruggle #CUNYstaff #SaveCUNY #FairContracts #FreeCUNY #FundCUNYnow #HonorOurContract #NoLayoffsCUNY #LaborRights #NewYork #PSCCUNY #ResistAusterity #StopStarvingCUNY #ND4C #NewDeal4CUNY #TuitionFreeCUNY.”
And then I rode my bike up the street for the demo at Citibank.
SUMMER OF HEAT: 68 PEOPLE ARRESTED TODAY AT PROTEST WITH 1,000 CLIMATE ACTIVISTS IN BIGGEST ACTION OF THE SUMMER DEMANDING WALL STREET STOP FUNDING FOSSIL FUELS
Over 200 Black, Indigenous, and Latine environmental leaders from the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana joined the protest to call out Citigroup’s racist investments devastating Black and Brown communities
Friday’s march and mass civil disobedience was the largest protest to date in the Summer of Heat campaign of relentless, disruptive actions to end financing for climate chaos — so far there have been a total of 259 arrests
CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS AND VIDEOS FROM TODAY’S ACTION
New York, NY: On Friday, June 28, 1,000 protesters gathered at Zuccotti Park in Manhattan for a march to demand that Wall Street stop funding the fossil fuel projects causing environmental devastation in mostly Black and brown communities in the Gulf South and across the globe. The march culminated in a mass civil disobedience action at the global headquarters of Citigroup, the largest funder of fossil fuel expansion in the world.
68 protesters were arrested today bringing the total number of arrests so far in first three weeks of the Summer of Heat on Wall Street to 259 — and we are just getting started!
CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS AND VIDEOS OF TODAY’S PROTEST. All members of the media have permission to use photos and videos with credit to “Summer of Heat on Wall Street.”
Over 200 Black, Indigenous, and Latine environmental leaders from the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana traveled to New York City to join this week’s Summer of Heat protests. On Monday, climate activists from the Gulf South and allies held a roving speak out in front of financial institutions backing the fossil fuel industry, including KKR, BlackRock, and Bank of America. On Wednesday, protesters held a civil disobedience action in front of the insurance conglomerate Chubb, which insures petrochemical projects destroying the climate in the Gulf South and around the globe. And today, Gulf South activists joined the biggest protest so far in the Summer of Heat on Wall Street.
Roishetta Ozane, founder of the Vessel Project of Louisiana, said, “Projects that kill our communities like Freeport LNG, Cameron LNG, Corpus Christi LNG, and others would not exist without the backing of financial institutions like Citigroup. Money made from them is blood money. Since they destroy our homes we’re coming to pay them a visit. We will break this cycle of violence and exploitation now because later is too late. We want Citigroup to stop funding fossil fuels and to stop hurting our communities and our families.”
Autumn Fain, Coastal Bend Exports Organizer, Corpus Christi, Texas Campaign for the Environment said, "Until you've seen the devastation these petrochemical facilities have caused in our communities, it may be easy to overlook our region and the reason we're bringing our communities to New York for the Summer of Heat. That's why we prioritized getting over 200 people from the Gulf South up to New York City this week. We are tired of people treating our communities as if we're voiceless. We are here to use our exhausted but strong and loud voices to demand dirty banks stop funding dirty projects threatening the livelihood of the people and places we love."
“I want Citigroup’s CEO Jane Fraser to look me in the eye and tell me who is supposed to take care of our community members who are sick from pollution — because we have a lot of illness from pollution in our community. And who is going to bury them.” said Manning Rollerson, founder of the Freeport Haven Project for Environmental Justice. “Who is going to pay for the ongoing harm to our community? First, Black residents of Freeport were ordered that we could only live in the East End, then we were denied services for years while paying taxes, and now our whole community has been displaced so that Port Freeport can build warehouses and parking lots to continue shipping petrochemicals.”
Marlena Fontes, Organizing Director for Climate Defenders, one of the four organizations convening the Summer of Heat on Wall Street, said, “Citi’s business model is frying our planet. Every credible climate scientist says that we can’t afford to put one more penny into fossil fuels, but Citi is the number one funder of fossil fuel expansion in the world. Until Citi stops funding fossil fuels, they can expect resistance from every day people like us who want our children to be able to play outside without coughing on wildfire smoke or getting sick from deadly heat waves.”
The Summer of Heat on Wall Street is thousands of frontline community leaders, youth, elders, and climate activists are coming together in New York City for a months-long campaign of relentless nonviolent civil disobedience. The movement’s main demand is for Wall Street to stop funding the oil, coal, and gas projects that are driving the climate crisis and the related widespread floods, wildfires, deadly air pollution, mass drought, and forced migration that kills and displaces millions each year.
This is the first time in history that climate activists will hold an entire season of sustained civil disobedience protests targeting Wall Street and big banks for their role in fueling the climate crisis. The Summer of Heat will take place during what climate scientists are already predicting will be the hottest summer on record.
With the conviction that cutting off the flow of money will stop the fossil fuel projects that are burning our planet, campaigners have set their sights on Citigroup after climate activists successfully pressured Barclays and HSBC to take steps toward ending their financing of oil, coal, and gas. Since the Paris Agreement went into effect in 2016, Citigroup has poured $396.3 billion into coal, oil, and gas. Citigroup is the top banking target of the Summer of Heat.
The Summer of Heat campaign follows actions in April when Black and Indigenous climate activists convened an Earth Day hearing confronting Citigroup’s environmental racism, which was followed by two days of nonviolent civil disobedience outside of Citi’s New York City headquarters. Previously, in September 2023, protesters also non-violently blockaded every entrance of Citi’s headquarters.
Climate Defenders, Planet over Profit, New York Communities for Change, and Stop the Money Pipeline are convening the Summer of Heat, which has been endorsed by more than 100 environmental and racial justice groups, including Rainforest Action Network, 350.org, Indigenous Environmental Network, Texas Campaign for the Environment, Stand.earth, Friends of the Earth, and the Vessel Project of Louisiana.
From the Bronx to the Gulf South, Black, Latine, Asian, Indigenous, and low-income communities living on the frontlines of the climate crisis – and the ones least responsible for it – face the highest asthma rates and staggering cancer rates while an unprecedented number of people are dying from heat waves. Instead of staying home and hiding from the heat, organizers are calling on all New Yorkers and climate defenders from across the globe to take to the streets and demand that Wall Street stop destroying our future.
Visit SummerofHeat.org for information on more weeks of actions.
And visited gardens throughout the Lower East Side.
Later that day, chatting with new friends all day long.
By that night, the drag march was a blur. Best night of the year.
Will even joined us. The first person we ran into was Erik.
Dyke March Saturday.
God is a lesbian
The Dyke March is always a consecration.#churchladiesforchoice
Queer Liberation March Sunday
Michael J Crumpler wrote: “With queer youth and Black and Brown youth under attack from physical violence, masses of hateful legislation across the U.S. and relentless attempts to erase their existence and community histories, this year’s 6th Queer Liberation March on Sunday, June 30st at 11:30am will be: The Queer Liberation March for Black, Brown, Queer, Trans, Gender Nonconforming, and Nonbinary Youth, and Against War and Genocide. Reclaim Pride Coalition (RPC) also announced that the March will assemble in Sheridan Square, near the Stonewall Inn, and proceed south to Battery Park. The Republican Party and their Project 2025 are planning an all-out federal assault on LGBTQIA2S+ youth, Black and Brown communities, immigrants, and people with uteruses should they win this year's presidential election, and RPC organizers feel that centering the lives, experiences, and voices of young people is of vital importance for this year's Queer Liberation March.”
And we talked about the need for nuance, for the ability to hold multiple ideas in our heads at one time.
And Norman sent me an essay by a friend published that morning, June 30th.
“The Pride March Doesn’t Have a Place for Me” By Amichai Lau-Lavie.
Many I spoke with seemed to feel the same way. Still we talked and greeted friends, out there, trying to find peace wherever we could find it.
And got word about an old friend. RIP Marty...my RNC lawyer who got me out of criminal charges.... and smelled like rum the whole time. "I spent the week in Puero Rico" he kept saying over and over. Thank you for being there for us Marty.
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