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None ever talked about the Free Breakfast for Children program, the free health care clinics. No one ever talked about the actual genesis of the movement, what was actually happening in Oakland at the time.
All we were taught was about angry, scary black men with guns. Much like the Irish defending their own country against imperialist attack were also labeled, “terrorists.”
I’ve always drawn a strong parallel between the Black Panthers and the IRA.
Terrorism is a matter of perspective.
I started the Mustang tonight. It’s been three weeks. I sat there and listened to the low rumble of the small block, I pushed in the clutch and touched each gear. Sitting there in the cold and dark until the engine was warm.
I get to spend a lot of time at Storm King Art Center.
I don’t claim for a moment to understand the art. I connect to something I can’t discern; a confounding beauty. The season doesn’t matter, the weather doesn’t matter. Sometimes I think cold rainy days are the best days there.
In a world that grows darker and more dangerous every day, this place stands as some kind of bastion.
I’m not sure the end product of any art is as important as the work that creates it.
I don’t or won’t claim to understand these structures, maybe it’s the mechanic in me, or my years in the welding shop, but I’m struck by the effort.
It is art assembled with backhoes and cranes and large bolts and wrenches and ratchets and cables and chains and welding rods.
I’m counfouded, but I understand it’s importance . This is hard-core art. This is metal and concrete art; heavy equipment art.
My thoughts are too dense and linear and practical to absorb the true message, I’ll accept my own understanding.
I’ve wondered if the art is the land and trees and hills that surround the confusing structures. Like the space between notes when played by a great guitarist, Carlos Santana.
I’ve watched men burn the weeds, raging fires, to kill off invasive growth, to keep the weeds native Orange County weeds, and sculpt the landscape. I’m fifteen generations deep Orange County, the native weeds are important to me.
That someone is a conservator of my home’s weeds is important to me.
Sculpting with flamethrowers and fire hoses. Sweaty, dangerous art.
The beauty is in the work. Art needs to be hard, you need to bloody a knuckle and sweat and get scared every now and then.
If you don’t maybe it’s not really art, it’s just stuff.
One of the toughest and bravest guys I ever met spent the Battle of the Bulge, WWII, shitting his pants, literally.
He was a 19 year old gunnery sergeant from Chester, NY. The most anti-war person I’d ever met.
I always found it remarkable; here was a guy who really was a hero, volunteered to go to stop the Nazi’s, he didn’t have to, he had a farm deferment.
He wakes up early, squinting at sunlight raging through grimy windows and ripped white curtains, yellowed from years bathed in cigarette smoke.
The room was cold. The sticky sweat of summer faded too quickly to this frigid morning.
He reached down to the floor, found yesterday’s shirt, still buttoned halfway down, and pulled it on over his head. Reaching in the pocket he found his Lucky Strikes and his Zippo lighter. [Read more…] about Writing Prompts
