Taking Comfort in Our Stupidity

You’ll see, MFers!

Today I came across a person on twitter making the argument that we shouldn’t get vaccines because she hadn’t. “Never been vaccinated and have never been sick.” (A clever commenter, @1980Dorothy, replied, “I’ve never been skiing and I’ve never chewed tobacco.” I do love the smart people on twitter.) My immediate reaction to this anti-vaxxer’s “logic,” as usual, a kind of shocked fury. Advocating risking her own life, the life of her children, and the lives of others based on this kind of ignorance is just … I can’t.

It reminded me of another time I came across something similarly dumb but far less dangerous. When my son was an infant, my ex- was advised not to eat Thai food because it would prevent my son from nursing. There are more than 69 million people in Thailand. Lots of them are moms. Lots of them are perfect healthy, nursing babies. My son has turned out just fine. (Quite a bit better than just fine, frankly. He’s the best of us!)

And then I remembered something a bit further back. It was, oh, I’d say somewhere between 2.5 and 3.5 billion years ago. The world was ruled by cynobacteria. They could not communicate with one another via twitter. They didn’t have any voices among them warning them that changing the atmosphere might be a bad idea, because they didn’t have voices. So they changed the whole global atmosphere with their emissions and … wait for it … killed off most of the world’s cynobacteria. And most of the world’s everything else. The cynobacteria that remain have to hide out in weird caves or at the bottom of the ocean next to the mouths of volcanoes because they made the rest of the planet unlivable to themselves. This was a very stupid thing to do. Cynobacteria are not smart.

Now, fast forward 2.5-3.5 billion years, and this other species comes along who study the world and learn about what happened to the cynobacteria. We can communicate. We invent language. we invent this amazing technology to tell the story off the cynobacteria to other members of our species all around the world. And then we use that same technology to say, “Fake news!” and we go right back to doing the same thing the cynobacteria did to themselves. If the cynobacteria were dumb, we are dumber. This is stupidity on a global scale, and we are currently winning the prize for the stupidest species this planet has ever produced.

Oddly, I take comfort in this. This anti-vaxxer? People who think the world is flat or 6000 years old? People who think they are better than other people because of the country they live in or their religion or their race or sex or gender? They are very stupid, sure. But they are humans. I don’t share those particular beliefs, but I am just self-aware enough to know that, as a human, I have other stupid beliefs, but I’m too stupid to figure out what they are. So I’ll die right along with the rest of us.

That’s not the comforting part. Holding hands and singing Kumbaya with the great mass of the dumbest species ever isn’t that comforting. I feel terrible about all the suffering we will cause, not just to one another, but to all the other species who we will wipe out in the great mass extinction event we are causing. We deserve exactly the outcome we produce; they don’t. I take comfort in the theory that something else will come along after we’re gone. Probably some form of sentient cockroaches.

via Gfycat

And one day one of them will be tapping away at their version of twitter (feeler? antennae? TM), and will want attention, so he’ll write, “Hey, everybody, what if we just made the planet into a place where cockroaches can’t survive? How does that sound?”

And the other cockroaches will respond: “Remember the cardinal rules, you stupid human-hole!”

(They won’t call them “cardinal rules,” though. Their religion will be organized in a much smarter way. And they won’t have the birds because we will have killed them all.)

The stupid cockroach will say, “Oh, yeah. Rule #1: ‘Never be as stupid as cynobacteria or humans.’”

The others will prod him. “And?”

“And Rule #2,” he’ll intone. “‘Vaccinate yourself and all 400 of the offspring in your ootheca.”

But maybe he won’t give in that easily. Every species has it’s outliers, their fragile double-downers. Maybe he’ll write, “Fake News! We can destroy the planet. It will be fine. And no one should get vaccinated. I haven’t, and I’ve never been sick.”

And then do you know what the others will do? First, they will kick him off social media.

And then they will eat him.

Because cockroaches are willing to turn to cannibalism if it will protect the survival of the species. They are smarter than we are. I just whine online about our inevitable destruction at our own hands. So take heart; the next dominant species will almost certainly be smarter. We’ve set the bar this low.

So, um, Technically, Legally, it's "Lord Benjamin Gorman" Now

I bought part of a castle in Scotland. A small part. Specifically, a square foot of it. But that’s enough.

The real certificate is in the mail, but they send you a PDF right away. You know, a PDF? The extension most often used by official government agencies? More evidence that this is 100% legal.

On my birthday, I decided to get a new tattoo, but I am still playing phone tag to schedule that appointment with a new artist. Tattoos do not appear immediately when one decides they ought to. “That’s a good thing, because I have had some really bad tattoo ideas before which luckily did not make it onto my skin.) I wanted to receive a gift for my birthday, even if it meant giving it to myself, and a Groupon offer came through my email which provided a means to contribute to the restoration of a Scottish castle in exchange for the title of “Lord.” It seems this is something a castle owner is entitled to, so the folks behind the restoration are giving these titles out (along with fancy certificates and rights to visit the … I mean MY property whenever I want) in exchange for funds for the restoration. So I got myself one.

Now, I can guess what you might be thinking. “You can’t just buy a title of nobility.” Yes, you can. That’s the second most common way to get a title. The most common way is for your parents to give it to you. Which mine did! I used the birthday money they sent me to buy the piece of the castle, so I can even say I inherited the title!

Now, your next concern might be: “Is Benjamin Gorman the kind of pretentious douche who is going to make us call him ‘Lord Benjamin Gorman’ all the time now?” No. Lord Benjamin Gorman is not that pretentious. Lord Benjamin Gorman will not be updating Lord Benjamin Gorman’s bios to include the title or adding his very legal and real title of nobility to the front cover of his books. Lord Benjamin Gorman isn’t like that.

And, just so we’re all clear, I am not your lord. Unless you live around Dunans Castle and are still my vassal. If that’s the case, I officially set you free. Or, at least, I grant you whatever tiny fraction of your freedom I can, since you probably have thousands of lords and ladies who might want to keep you in bondage to the land. What does my tiny fraction of freedom entitle you to? I don’t know. Maybe a smoke break or something. Get in touch and I’ll see what I can do about convincing the other lords and ladies to set you free.

Also, I am not The Lord. Please do not pray to me. That would make me very uncomfortable. I do not have any wish-granting powers. In fact, it might be best for all concerned if you don’t believe in me. Be an atheist regarding the existence of Lord Benjamin Gorman. Think of me as imaginary. You can still read my books and presume they are pseudonymous, and you can politely respect other people’s right to believe in my existence while scoffing occasionally at their poor judgement, and since I don’t exist, I will never disappoint you by failing to grant your prayers. It’s really better for everyone that way.

I’m going to go get some new business cards made.

Drink (a poem?)

Drink

I don't drink often.

A friend gave me a very nice bottle of Scotch.

I thought I'd save it for a special occasion. 

A rain forest caught fire 

  and that president sided with the arsonists.

A continent caught fire 

  and that prime minister sided with the arsonists.

An impeached president is trying to start a war

  to distract people

  from more evidence of his crimes

  and too many are excited to send too many

  to kill and be killed

  for lies.

             Again.

He would set the world on fire

  and the people would side with the arsonist.

If this isn't a special occasion

  just the new normal

  all the more reason

  to drink the bottle today.

Is this even a poem?

I don't understand anything anymore.

Introduction to the Shout anthology

I am honored to be in the company of the writers in the new book Shout: An Anthology of Resistance Poetry and Short Fiction from Not a Pipe Publishing. My co-editor Zack Dye and I wrote the introduction, and I thought I would share it here and encourage you all to share it as much as possible. I often feel a bit ashamed of plugging things online, but in this case I am willing to be as tacky and desperate as necessary because Not a Pipe Publishing will make a donation to the ACLU, Black Lives Matter, Planned Parenthood, and Raices: Texas for every copy sold, so I want this to get into as many hands as possible. Also, I’m hopeful it will inspire some of the readers to stand up and be counted in the same way the brave authors in the collection are standing up by sharing their writing. So check it out, share it, and please consider getting a copy.

The No-Rest Stop

I do not have good luck at rest stops. They always seem to invite drama for me. Tonight I pulled into a rest stop on the way home from a show in Portland, and a guy came up to me. He seemed to be slightly drunk, an unsettling thing to note about a fellow driver. I asked him how he was doing. He said he was feeling glad to be alive. I didn't probe why. We made some pleasant conversation, and then he said, "You're Irish, right?" 

I immediately got nervous. I said, "I'm Irish and Portuguese and Scottish bunch of other things." I really should have said that I'm Jewish, also. But maybe this worked out for the best.

He said, "I'm German." (Now I realize that there is nothing German about this man. His ancestors were German. The only German words he knows are "Heil" and "Hitler.")

Then he leaned uncomfortably close to me and whispered, "We're going to take our country back." This is how racism is expressed in Oregon. In whispers.

I said, "What do you mean by that?"

He said, "You know. From them." And he looked across the parking lot at a couple of other guys of indeterminate race.

Now, I could have just changed the subject. I could have shaken my head and said, "How about that Niners-Ravens game, eh?" He probably wouldn't have pressed. But I didn't. 

"I disagree," I said.

He looked surprised. In fact, I could see him sobering up, becoming more attentive almost instantly. He said, "What do you mean?" 

I said, "What do you mean we are taking our country back? This country was taken in the first place." 

"What do you mean?" he said again. 

I said, "Our white ancestors stole this land from Native Americans who were already here, and they only did it because they could profit from the land with stolen labor."

He didn't even addressed the slavery issue. He just said, "Well, the Native Americans had been fighting with each other for thousands of years."

And I said, "So had our European ancestors. They'd just figured out how to do their conquering and slaughtering on a much bigger scale. That doesn't make them better. It makes them more evil."

He said, "So what do you think it means to be an American, then?"

I said, "Being an American should be about an idea. About welcoming people to a place where they can be free just like our ancestors came to a place where they could he free. It's on the Statue of Liberty. 'Give me your tired, your poor, your hungry yearning to be free."

He said, "But that's not in the Constitution." 

I had a suspicion this man was not a Constitutional scholar, so I didn't try to explain that the Constitution is a racist document codifying that some people are three-fifths human. Instead, I said, "This country literally had open borders until the early nineteen hundreds. That's why you and are standing here having this discussion. Trying to kick people out or keep people out or keep people down: That's un-American. Or at least I think it should be. And the people who want to tell you we need to take this country back? They are depending on your fear. I refuse to be scared of my neighbors."  

"I'm not afraid," he whispered, but then he went really quiet because just then one of the guys that he had referred to as "them" came over and asked if either of us had a tire iron. I went over to help him change a tire, and that rescued the racist who was getting a lot more than he bargained for.

I'm sharing this not because I want to toot my own horn, but because there's a lesson here. This is something I hope to teach to my son and to my students. Conversations like this are not comfortable. In fact, they can be downright scary. The guy wasn't particularly big or menacing, but he was my size and kept his hands in his coat pockets, and there were moments when I wondered what he might be holding in there. It's not always easy. There will be times when we miss these opportunities. I have. And the opportunities may be very rare. This guy would not have approached a person of color to commiserate about the dangers of "them." And for many people, talking to a stranger in this way would not have been safe. But for some of us these opportunities will be more common, and they won't be as dangerous. This is the third time I've had conversations with total strangers who thought they were talking to a fellow racist just this year. They have been emboldened by the Criminal-In-Chief. He knows how to activate them, maybe because he shares their racist views and maybe because he sees them as a means to power so he can raid the public coffers and feed his ego. But he speaks to them intentionally, and I know this because they parrot his language. They talk about making the country great again and taking the country back for people like "us," and, of course, building a wall. And they want to know if some of us are on their side. So when we have a chance, we need to try and grab those opportunities. One of the lessons that's been drilled into me painfully and repeatedly over the last few very difficult years of my life is that the people who want you to be silent, who want to avoid confrontation, who want us to dodge the most difficult conversations are doing so because they value their own comfort more than the well-being of others. This is how silence becomes complicity in evil. 

This conversation was not a pleasant experience. But my discomfort is nothing compared to the real suffering people like the guy at the rest stop would inflict on people who don't have all the privileges that I have. If I don't leap at the opportunity to speak out, I am taking advantage of the suffering of others to protect myself.  I am ashamed of the opportunities I've missed in the past, and I am grateful that tonight I got to be uncomfortable, and I'm glad I walked away unscathed so I could share this story and encourage others to do the same. 

When they whisper, speak up.

Driving Home

As I was driving out of that giant apartment complex, with its enormous speed bumps that make you slow down and contemplate all those little dwellings, I hurt so badly, and I thought about all the people there who faced some kind of explosion in their lives, a divorce, a death, debt, people who are far more accustomed to the kind of pain I'm just getting to know, and they carry this around inside their stomachs every day, and I just wanted to start knocking on doors and hugging people and crying on their shoulders until they let some of it out with me and knew that someone got it. That someone else who was stumbling through their lives, oblivious to all their suffering, finally understood. And then I drove past the trailer park. And then my little suburban neighborhood with the little-houses-made-of-ticky-tacky-and-they-all-look-just-the-same, and I knew most of them contain people who are hiding their pain inside those houses. And I just can't hug enough people. And I just can't cry enough for them.

Tomorrow I will put on a smile and push through another day, greeting all the other people who are also trying to push through, flashing our plastered-on smiles at one another, our eyes vacant, unfocused, looking inside at that place we don't want to see. I can't pretend I'll be more observant or more sensitive or the saint you deserve. I'll just be with you. But I'll be more with you. I won't tell you that you aren't alone. But we'll be a little more together in our loneliness, and I hope that's some timid little knock at your door.

"Shipwrecked" in the Willawaw Journal

One of my poems was published in the Willawaw Journal. I came across it today and was relieved to find I still think it’s pretty good! Let me know what you think.

http://willawawjournal.com/benjamin-gorman/?fbclid=IwAR3ASVtUbx1JUr4SRQSbdPi1jjtbdmZc7rbd1BBDhiKdIxoKEeBFaPxucZg

Authors of the Pacific Northwest Podcast Interview

I was on the Authors of the Pacific Northwest Podcast with Vikki J. Carter​, and it came out really well. We talked about publishing quite a bit, and I read from Don't Read This Book which hits store shelves tomorrow. If you like what you hear and want to read the novel, you can pre-order it now from your favorite online retailer or ask your favorite independent bookseller to carry it (I always want to encourage folks to support indie bookstores), and if you want a signed copy I'll be at Books Around the Corner​ on Wednesday and the Northwest Micropress Fair​ on Saturday. Or come celebrate the launch with me Friday night: Book Launch Party for Don't Read This Book​. Enjoy the podcast and please consider supporting Vikki's work. Click below to listen!

I Wrote You a Poem

You

When the ship capsizes

And the water is too cold and too much

And fills my lungs

I will try

To be buoyant enough

That you can hold onto my corpse

And survive

When the ground shakes

And yanks out the foundation

Pulling every beam askew

And the ceiling surrenders to its weight

And proves my skull’s fragility

I will try

To land sideways

So you can wedge yourself

In the width of my shoulders

And survive

When the brakes go out

On the city bus

And the wide white crosswalk lines

Offer no protection

I may let go of your hand briefly

And my slow wit

That can never invent the punchline in time

Will fail to alert my limbs

Thus discovering the last joke but

I will try

To be soft

And absorb

So you can rebound

And survive

When the blizzard

Of all the little cold, furious, buzzing

Distractions I employ to hide

From myself

Melt away

And my need to be the hero

And the center of the storm

Resolves into a man-shaped

Soggy pile of drowned, buried, flattened, unread books

No hero, not much of a poet, sometimes barely a person, not much, but

I will try

To say, “I love you

“I believe in you

“I do this for you

“For you

“You.”

And I will try

To lift you

To hurt with you

To hold you

So you can smile

And survive

Bethany Lee

Tonight I got a chance to go see one of my favorite poets, Bethany Lee, sing and play her harp to accompany Kim Stafford, the Oregon poet laureate. Mr. Stafford assigned us all to write poems. “A ‘great poem,’” he said, “is something we put in an anthology and force high school students to analyze. An important poem is one you give to someone that speaks to them in their time of need.” Bethany Lee is the person who taught me, many years ago, that I am allowed to write in church as an act of worship, and though I don’t know who to worship anymore, I will always be grateful to her for teaching me to give myself permission to enter that state of worship in my preferred way. So, while Stafford read his wonderful poetry and Bethany played her harp, I jotted down some notes, and they became this poem. It’s still a draft, of course. If you have suggestions, I would love to hear them. More importantly, I hope this is discovered by someone who needs to hear they are loved. I may not be much, but I can offer that, and I hope it helps someone.

The Cover Reveal and Pre-Order for Don't Read This Book Is Live!

So excited! Pre-order your copy of Don’t Read This Book (and consider getting one for your local library) using the Kickstarter here!

And here’s a little teaser trailer for you: