Jill Rants and Raves

the albany bulb RIP

Deb from Minnesota, who reads my blog (thank you Deb!) and often comments, noted that my description of what is happening at the Albany section of the much hyped Eastshore State Park seems so at odds with the official version. Now there's a shock. It's almost impossible to describe what the old Albany Landfill (aka The Bulb) feels like, unless you have been there - but when you have, and especially when you have allowed yourself to go there with one of the many self appointed 'tour-guides', the question you will ask is 'Why don't they just leave it alone?".

It's absolutely true that were it not for the preservationists of the 60,s, 70's and 80's - early visionaries in this area who wanted to slow or stop the rampant commercial and business park development along the Bay shoreline - this expanse of former landfill would already be lost as open space. I'm not arguing that.

The filling and polluting of the Bay is one of the terrible consequences of the rush to build postwar suburbia. And the same profiteering now fuels the development of tract housing and gated communities on what used to be farmland and open space less than a generation ago, so that even a simple task like shopping for bread and milk requires you drive your massive SUV to a store in a developed mall a few miles away.

But the good intentions of those activists have become the proscriptive doctrines of those who build and run parks. The big lie is that the park system will give greater access to more of the 'stakeholders'. These days, a Bay Area politician without a 'endorsed by the Sierra Club' stamp on their election door hanger means virtual banishment from the corridors of power. But the reality is that doctrinaire environmentalists have the politicians by the throat and support in the next election depends upon their buying into the creation of so called 'natural habitats' and 'resource protection areas' where humans are shut out and made into observers of nature instead of participants.

This is the backdrop to what has happened with the Eastshore State Park.

But it is at the Albany piece that an almost epic battle has been waged. And while I could try (and probably fail) to describe the evolution of the battle and as importantly the battleground, I'm just going to say that the place has become a jewel - simply by being ignored by the authorities. For years, it was allowed essentially to self regulate, plants grew without being tended, animals and birds arrived, reptiles and rodents emerged, rose bushes bloomed hidden between concrete slabs dumped 40 years ago, artists came and left a treasure trove of outsider art, the homeless moved in for over 10 years. It was a dump for chrissakes. Everything that grew and breathed there came because it could, because it bubbled organically into a cauldron of life and eruptions of leaves and berries and trees.

The remnants of the dumped concrete and rebar plunges from the earth in sculpture of its' own making. As my friend Osha Neumann (one of the artists and one of the few civil rights attorneys to represent the homeless when they tried to resist eviction) says, "It is a place of wild imagination".

And now, they have started the process of destroying that imagination, to replace it with something that can be controlled, contained and coerced into compliance with a 'park plan'.

It is breaking my heart. As much as any love affair gone wrong. And in a few years all that will left of this imagination will be a few 'interpretive' signs. I will not soon get over this heartache. I once said to a good friend that when the Landfill is taken by the forces of conformity, I would leave this area. Native plants (what exactly is native to a landfill) are meant to replace the palms, the roses, the vines, the fruit trees and the lone eucalypt on the Bulb, the art has long been deemed 'unsuitable for a family park' and the dogs - like the art - will be leashed, forever.

This photo taken today:

All photos by Jill Posener © All Rights Reserved

f'OWL play

Look , I don't hate burrowing owls. I like 'em. I love birds of all kinds, and owls have a special place in my heart because as a small child I found a young owl inside a paper bag stashed into a garbage can in Kuala Lumpur. Does that sound like a far fetched story? Like so many in my strange and wonderful life, it is 100% true. My brother and I carried the owl home and my Mum drove us to a wildlife centre where they were enthralled at our find. I was pretty in love with the owl till I saw them feed live mice to it. When I met, much later, an animal rescuer called Ronnie who had liberated hundreds of mice from a vile research lab in England, I wondered whether he had released them in fields (where presumably they became prey for, among other things, owls) before he was arrested. I didn't ask. Ronnie served 7 years in jail for the act of placing animal life above the corporate greed and scientific stupidity of human beings.

So, don't accuse me of not caring about the wild, of not being sensitive enough to 'habitat preservation', or 'resource protection' or whatever fancy phrase some khaki pants and button down shirt 'park planner' wants to come up with.

The story involves the worst kind of political back room wrangling, park planning decisions, state parks vs local people, soccer mom playing field advocates, corporate boardrooms and environmentalist dealmakers and a population who seems to have come to believe that if the Sierra Club says 'jump' all we do is say 'which cliff shall we go off?'

The end result is that as part of the 'creation' of the Eastshore State Park, which made a homogenised whole of a set of unique and unusual ecological, cultural and functional open spaces, the meadow at the old Albany Landfill was designated as a burrowing owl habitat. Not that there ever was a burrowing owl there; not that the owl which supposedly lived where now the water guzzling, electricity hungry, environmentally wasteful Tom Bates Regional Sports Complex sits was ever actually seen; not that there has ever been (according to a naturalist employed by the parks system) a successful burrowing owl transplant in this area - but never mind reality and truth in political machinations - the fencing and the earth moving machines tell the story.

"You stupid people of this area" (the khaki 'Dockers' might say) "who thought that the vibrant plant and animal life, co-existing as it did with human and canine activity, must have been nuts to think that we could just let this organic urban wildness continue. Where would we put all of our chain link fence if not around your park? What would we do with all of the money we seem to have burning holes in our pockets? Why would we do a better job of maintaining our current parks if we can 'build' a new one, especially if it brings us Sierra Club support next time we want to fleece the voters for new bond money? Why let it just be when we can screw it up?"

The Albany Landfill - it's hard to explain what it's like. I have been walking there with my dogs and on my own for almost ten years and almost every day of those years photographing every nook, every cranny. Every day, I discover something new. Maybe one day I'll discover a burrowing owl. Chances are he'll be outside the fence, and if I ask him 'dude, whatcha doing outside the habitat area? Are you crazy?', he'll probably answer 'hey, all the mice left when we moved in and I'm tired of waiting for some animal liberationist to bring food'.

Or he might respond 'The really tasty gophers moved once there were no dogs to tease'.

Or 'hey Jill, you have to do what the environmentalists tell you to do. We don't'. Whoo hoo.

But he'd probably say 'hey I burrowed, Ok? I burrowed, and all I found was some garbage left here by humans in the 50's. You think I wanna live like that? Do you? Would you? Would you?'

scaife loves hillary

The conservative movement is so unhappy with the Republican presidential nominee they've decided to flirt with Hillary in a big way. But making out with Clinton in the back room is merely the latest deliberate attempt by the Right to subvert the election process with money, with lies and with that familiar locker room style they do so damn well.

Richard Mellon Scaife, best known outside of the billionaire's club as the man who funded each and every scandal and dirty trick against Bill Clinton, is at it again in his endorsement of Hillary. Dubbed the 'Funding Father Of The Right', Scaife openly admitted that his intent was to engineer Gore's ascendancy to the Presidency, thereby galvanising the right wing and creating a backlash against progressive policies.

Rush Limbaugh, arguably the most influentual conservative radio voice in America, is giggling his way through his self aggrandizing comedy show 'Operation Chaos' in which he has been curdling the milk in Pennsylvania and Indiana by encouraging registered Rep's to switch parties in order to vote in Dem primaries and pushing Hillary to an artificial win. At the very least, these boys who act like jocks, hope to extend the Democratic internal battle until neither candidate looks electable in November.

That's how bad John McCain is. And that is how good the Democratic chances are (or were) to win the White House come the fall. Except.

The two candidates on the right, but left side, haven't yet formulated a 'Bash McCain' strategy, but appear to be content throwing barbs (that's putting it kindly) at one another.

Rachel Maddow (d'yall listen to talk radio as much as I do? No? Good for you) who has a steaming butter type of voice and is a dyke, said yesterday that she thought that at this point, McCain looked to be the winner in November. Unless, she added, Barack and Hillary finally make this about winning in November instead of counting super-delegates on an abacus over their oatmeal every morning. Hillary supporters are banking on Puerto Rico coming out strongly for her. Are they all nuts?

Who is to blame for Amerika's electoral shambles? I'll get back to you on that. Meanwhile, I think this will be an election spoken of in 100 years (just as the last troops are getting back from Iraq) as the election which finally brought a glimmer of understanding about the need for campaign and election finance reform.

bob barr, polygamists, bitter and angry urbanites

I've been tweaking about loads of stuff this week: Obama's 'small town bitter and angry' comments, blown out of all proportion by none other than his fellow democrats. I guess those of us who are bitter and angry in the cities are clinging to our soy mocha lattes and pilates classes. And if any of the negative ads are to be believed, neither candidate is good enough to win the nomination. So why would we vote for them in a general election?

I'm tweaking about the fact that it isn't just that we (the people) don't trust our government, it's that our government doesn't trust us (the people). Do you think Texas Child Protective Services is going to do a better job with the four hundred kids they just snatched out of their communal home? How about if the men responsible for the alleged abuses were snatched instead? Huh? How about that for a concept. Taking the abusers out of the log cabins instead of the children who are now being scattered around the Texas foster care system. Oh yeah, that's a good move.

Perhaps the best way to stop the spread of polygamist sects is to print a poster like the ones we use for promoting spay and neuter in cats - just look at the numbers. At the top of of the poster the question 'How many children can one polygamist crazy breed in ten years?' and then list how many generations it takes to reach a million. Anyone wanna come and screen print with me?

And I'm tweaking about the fact that they (whoever they is) have started the cleansing of the Albany Landfill from an organic place of wild imagination to the sign-posted, interpreted, non-native plant cleansed, super-park which we can all look at from manicured trails but which will be protected (from us who have been stewards of this magnificent self regulated urban wildness). There will not be another place like it in this area and we are the worse off because of it. Soon, it will be a place we can look at with our binoculars from a viewing ledge (these always remind me of the platforms built for western diplomats to stand on while staring over at East Berlin beyond the Wall). We'll be able to read off of a sign which birds we are meant to be able to see, instead of being able to sit quietly in swaying grasses at dusk enjoying the swallows and hummingbirds, the finches and hawks and the redwinged blackbirds as they share this place which thrived under official neglect.

And I'm tweaking about liberal talk show host Tom Hartmann describing Bob Barr as 'a great man'. Just a gentle reminder to the rest of you that  though Barr recently adopted the religion of libertarianism and got a little antsy about Bush's asssaults on privacy and civil liberties, he was widely considered among the most hard right conservatives as a three time Georgia congressman. Among Barr's proudest moments -

Barr was a strong supporter of the War On Drugs and adamantly opposed legalization of medical marijuana. He successfully inserted an amendment in a funding bill that blocked the implementation of a medical marijuana initiative saying it "has no place in medicine, no place in pain relief".
He's changed his tune since becoming a libertarian. Mmm.

He voted for The Patriot Act. He now publicly regrets his Patriot Act Vote. No shit.

Barr authored and sponsored the Defense Of Marriage Act. He hasn't had the guts yet to flip flop on that one.

But perhaps, as Tom Hartmann says he has written 7 books on ADD, he can be forgiven for this lapse of attention to the details of Barr's impact on our everyday lives. A man renowned for lifestyle legislation becomes a libertarian...and wonders whether we might be depriving the American  people of their civil liberties...yeah, too little too late Mr Barr.

 

blousy bountiful beautiful candye kane

© photo Jill Posener. All Rights Reserved

The news from Candye Kane Central is that the lady is doing as well as can be expected after 8 hour surgery to remove a pancreatic tumor. If you have never seen Candye perform or haven't listened to her music, go treat yourself. Check out 'Toughest Girl Alive' on her myspace page and you'll get a sense of why she decided, when she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer to go out there and show the disease just how tough it would be dealing with the indomitable Candye. Great to know that she is on the road to recovery.

The gracious Candye Kane

Photo: Jill Posener © All Rights Reserved

My friend Candye, who I've had the honour of photographing, and who is one of the gutsiest and warmest women I know, had cancer surgery today and I've been passing a few hours listening to Candye's  thumping rousing funny and sexy woman identified blues, and looking through the pictures I took of her. I went to a club in San Francisco, Bicuits and Blues, a couple of years ago to listen to her band and I'd been struck, again, by just how freaking beautiful she is, but it's when I look at my own pictures of her that I get the biggest smile, because Candye being one of the most gracious women you'd ever meet put up with a sort of date with me - 12 years ago - when to be quite honest, I just flunked. I mean, what would you do, if you're a half way decent butch, given the chance to take the delicious Ms Kane on any date you chose?

We went to dinner, that was a good start. I watched her eat seafood with her hands and spill juices down her chin. She grinned, she laughed. And then I blurted out that I wanted to take her somewhere special. We got in my car, and drove through the foggy evening towards the Golden Gate Bridge. Sounds OK so far, right? But I wasn't taking Candye for a sentimental view of the City from the Marin headlands. I turned off the main road and drove through the silent Presidio until we sat, on a quiet unused roadway underneath the massive pillars of the freeway leading to the Bridge. The moon was bright, the air cool and Candye must have wondered what the fuck I was doing.

I opened the door, and beckoned her to follow me across the street. And there I introduced Candye Kane to the small, old pet cemetery created by servicemen living on the Presidio military base. It's an astonishing place and Candye and I wandered around looking at the makeshift memorials to pets belonging to men and women who had returned from war or might yet die on foreign soil. It's an emotional place. But possibly not the best choice for a 'date'.

Photo: Jill Posener © All Rights Reserved

Soon after, I drove Candye back to her hotel. She's always been very gracious about my awkwardness that evening. So today, as she is  facing  pain and fear and a new beginning, I'm looking back and smiling.

sex lies and tapioca

I can't help it, I'm back on this prostitution thing. I think men who go to prostitutes are doing the right thing. And I think most women whose men do go to hookers know full well it is happening, and would rather their guys have safe sex with a packaged bimbo of their choice than be giving furtive gifts to a woman they are having an affair with and who is hoping the guy is gonna leave his wife as he keeps promising to do. Ok, ok. I know that not all hookers have myspace pages, belong to an exclusive 'escort agency' and have their 'dates' in slick DC area hotels. I also know that millions of girls and women and sold into sexual slavery every year in this fucked up world of ours where females (and many boys also) are traded like chattel, oxen and mutual funds. The two things are very different. Unlike the hypocrisy which permeates the dominant culture about sex.

I think it's a damn shame that Spitzer had to resign over his youthful myspace whore, and it's an even bigger shame when his successor, David Paterson admitted he had cheated on his wife with a number of women, but perhaps as he is considered 'legally blind', he just didn't notice that they weren't the woman he was married to.

Makes you wonder though, doesn't it? What were the real motives behind 'getting' Spitzer, at that particular moment in time, just as Bear Stearns was collapsing and the US taxpayer was gonna have to bail out another corrupt financial institution. Yup, you can always get a guy by the balls. Literally.

My checkered past includes the fact that I once threw a garbage can filled with rotting fruit and meat through the plate glass window of a London porn store, and was one of 16 women arrested during a Reclaim The Night march when the police came bearing down on us, batons and boots raised. My hardline feminist perspective gave no quarter and took no prisoners. But I've learned a lot in the last 30 years, and I've come to appreciate that when actor Hugh Grant was found entertaining a paid for blow job in his car, he was doing the 'responsible' thing. Imagine how many women throw themselves at him, how many would like to boast about their one night with a star. And he, knowing how messy that could become, opts to jerk off in the mouth of someone who does it for a living. Personally, I'm OK with that.

So, just had to get that out of the way. I'm also in a froth about how many lies are told to get the sex people wanna have, and how many lies are told to get out of the sex they don't want no mo'. I'm in a mood actually, all around.

Funny thought for the day. Condoleeza Rice as VP. I'm sorry - this is the woman who is famous for the phrase 'Mission Accomplished' and who is responsible in large part for a bunch of failed policies in the Middle East. We've already worked out that just because Hillary is a woman doesn't make her the right woman for the White House, and that just because he is black doesn't make Obama the right man for the White House, so along come the Republicans and say 'hey, we got it. Black and a woman. Bingo'.

I've found the perfect dessert - butterscotch tapioca. Need some.