For most of the 20th century self publishing had a stigma attached to it that was hard to overcome.  Those budding authors who paid to have someone publish their literary work were seen as losers who weren't even worthy to be read except by family and a few close friends.  The publishing houses made sure that this stigma was perpetuated ad infinitum to protect their own financial interests.  As these publishing houses merged into a handful of really big publishing concerns owned by multi-national financial corporations, getting one's literary work out to a large number of readers became nearly impossible.

One bit of information these big publishers held closely to their chest was the fact that most all of the great literature and documents published in this country from its founding through most of the 1800's was done privately.  From Ben Franklin to Edgar Allen Poe they first published their literary works by their own hand or paid someone else to do it.  During this era there wasn't any stigma involved in self publishing one's book, essay collection or pamphlet.  In fact it was considered more of a rite of literary passage and an expectation from the community of readers.  Can you imagine a big corporate publisher telling Thomas Paine that his political tract The Rights of Man wasn't financially or culturally feasible to be published?

The few mega publishing houses we have today publish books based first and foremost on a financial bottom line, secondly how least offensive and controversial that book may be, and thirdly what cultural and literary value the work has for the community of readers.  There are thousands of examples of this kind of publishing that can be found in large chain bookshops, malls, airports, and grocery stores.  Any serious reader who picks up one of these corporate literary offerings can tell immediately that it was published to make a fast buck; to be read once and tossed aside!  On the other hand I don't want people to get the idea that just because a book, poem or essay is self published it is somehow better than the stuff that is spewed out of the corporate publishing houses.

In the old days of the private back room, hand cranked lithograph press there were pamphleteers and poets who had no business picking up a pen to write, let alone publish the result.  The Internet today has magnified this situation fifty million times.  It seems that in today's highly accessible, global free press everybody sees them self as an Ernest Hemingway; whether they are a pimply-faced teen with zero life experience, an illiterate slob whose past time is drinking Coors Lite beer on the weekends, or a racist skin-head who fantasizes killing ethnic minorities.  If you are a serious and discerning reader, and take the time and effort and combine this with a little luck, you will find some of the most incredible, illuminating and brilliant self published writing in the world today.

If it wasn't for the freedom of the Internet and competent, self published writers, we would all still be held captive to the safe, bland, corporate literary mush that passes as literature.  Because of the explosive accessibility of the Internet those previous budding authors with something truly important to say and creative ways of expressing it, can now be read by millions across the planet without corporate greed and banality standing in the way.  It truly is a new era for self publishing as well as for the written word.  And the remarkable thing about this new era is the financial cost.  Anybody can create a free web site and publish their writing for millions to see just for the cost of an Internet connection.  How extraordinary!

Needless to say I never got beyond the opening paragraph.  After a total of seven readings of the author's opening effort I was still unsure what he wanted to say on the subject as well as where he might be headed, which are two very critical pieces in any opening statement.  Another matter that abruptly brought my interest to a screeching halt was the length of the paragraph.  I counted eight-hundred, twenty-two words that had more the appearance of a short essay than a paragraph.  I found sixty-seven misspellings, virtually no capitalizations where needed but a plethora of capitalized sentences, many run-on sentences, an embarrassing amount of double negatives, and acronyms that weren't immediately explained or even foot-noted.  The end result was a piece of very illogically constructed, sloppy and meaningless writing.

I sent an email to the author of this article and very diplomatically pointed out my concerns about his writing.  I expressed that he indeed missed a great opportunity, not only of getting his particular interpretation on the subject at hand to many readers, but also of possibly winning some converts to his way of thinking.  He returned my email with a long rambling, reactionary response that made even less sense than his article I had critiqued.  His email was a four page mightmare of unruly and choppy grammatical indiscretions.  It took a couple of readings before I could glean two of the points he was trying to make.  There seemed to be a third point somewhere in the chaos of textual vomit but unfortunately I couldn't figure out what it was.  The author of this email hinted at chronic under-employment and poverty which was the fault of people like myself who "are incapable of seeing the world outside the box of capitalist rules."

He accused me of being a "puppet of the mainstream media and everything it stands for."  He also found disfavor with the rules of grammer "as a capitalist mind game to keep anarchists and other solidarity workers chained to the wheel of poverty."  He further concurred that "in order for workers to be fully liberated they must liberate themselves from the rules of grammar--a capitalist tool."  It almost seemed as if he delighted in his anarchistic philosophy of grammar where all the normative rules of communication are tossed out the window.  What this person is not owning up to is the fact that his beloved anarchist hero, Rudolf Rocker, who he sited many times in his email, exercised the principles of not only good grammar but overall excellent communication skills with others.  Read any of the writings of Rudolf Rocker and you will be provided a scrumptious feast of really good writing, regardless where you stand on the political philosophy of Anarcho-syndicalism.

Progressive writing, or for that matter any writing, is an art form that needs to be developed over time and cared for like a small infant child.  Progressive writing, more so than any other form of writing, needs to be rigidly focused on the act of communicating an idea to the audience in a coherent and literate fashion.  There are many examples of what I am talking about here.  Pick up a book or essay by Thoreau, Lenin, Ghandi, or King, and you will experience writing that is not only beautiful but well constructed.  This is why the ideas of these great individuals spread like a wild fire across the globe:  they were well written.  A teacher I had in 12th grade advanced literature told the class that when we have mastered the rules of good writing then we can break those rules if needed to get a point across. Her examples were T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, William Faulkner, and James Joyce.

I would like to say that my encounter with this anarchist's attempt at writing was an exception to the rule but I can't.  It was painfully obvious that the writer had never learned the basic fundamentals of good writing.  And too many times, up until recently in fact, when I have attempted to read essays, investigative writings or tracts on Portland Independent Media Center web site, I have encountered writing that is often so sloppy I can't bring myself to finish it.  The people behind this kind of slop probably view themselves as cutting edge revolutionaries, investigative journalists and the vanguard of an intellectual-political-cultural elite.  Fine!  I will let them suffer their delusion while the rest of us progressives who know better, will accept common standards of communication and actually enjoy talking with one another and writing thought provoking articles that others can understand and enjoy reading.

This was the question asked of me by a man during a conversation about personal beliefs a number of years ago.  The gentleman I was talking with at the time was a devout, fundamentalist Christian who was also an activist in the Republican Party.  He also held dear to his heart the belief that "liberalism was a mental defect and those who perpetuated such a philosophy were sick."  I am not making this up--I have met such a person!

During the course of our conversation this man realized that not only was I a confirmed liberal (and a proud one at that) but that I did not hold a belief in God like the Christians, Jews, Muslims or Buddhist.  He seemed to be so shocked about my comfort level of disbelief in a supreme being that he raised his voice in an almost aggressive manner and said:  "If I didn't believe in God there would be nothing to live for.  I might as well go out and rob a liquor store and shoot the clerk just for the fun of it."

This statement speaks more about that individual's personal pathology than about living a good and honest life just for the sake of doing so.  If I had to live the good life because some big guy with a big stick up in heaven told me to, that wouldn't be much of a life worth living.  I would probably commit suicide if that were the case.  I have always and will continue to live the good life because it is the moral and ethical thing to do, and the advancement of the positive aspects of world civilization depends upon it.  This is what I would refer to as my higher calling.

Now back to the question of "Why do you even get out of bed in the morning?"  There are many reasons extraordinary and mundane that keep me going day after day, even when it seems like the entire world is coming apart at the seams.  The one extraordinary reason that gets me out of bed each and every morning is the hope of putting into practice during my day one of the higher humanist ethical principles like respecting others, doing no harm, self improvement, helping those in need, etc.  It is the same way of looking at life as did the character played by Jimmy Stewart in the classic film "Its A Wonderful LIfe."  Every word and action has som rippling effect on your personal world as well as the world at large for good or bad.  So if you have a chance to make the world just a little better--why not?

There are many mundane reasons also that get me out of bed each morning; it's a new day--anything can happen--that's very exciting; discovery of a new book to be read; having a new culinary experience; walking through my neighborhood and discovering new things and meeting new people; sitting on the porch after a thunder shower and smelling the damp sweetness around me; watching how happy my dog Clifford gets while waiting for his breakfast; anticipating the stories my wife will bring home from her work that day; and the discovery of colorful birds, insects and butterflies in my garden that I haven't seen before.

These are the things that get me out of bed every morning and no matter how ugly, nasty or brutish the world becomes, these will always be important enough to me to keep on going, to live life to its fullest and maybe, along the way, discover an extraordinary moment in time.

A twenty-somthing man was sitting at the table next to me and reading a section of the Oregonian newspaper about the demise of Russian Nobel Laureate, Alexander Solzhenitsyn.  I noticed after a few minutes he started shaking his head slightly and murmured, "Why haven't I ever heard of this guy?"  Because I have read nearly everything written by Solzhenitsyn that has been translated into English, I struck up a conversation with the young man with the purpose of offering him a few anecdotes about the author.

I told this man that Solzhenitsyn was considered one of the great moral voices among writers of the twentieth century.  And because of the state repression, torture and atrocities he experienced first hand it gave him a unique perspective on the world and the human condition.  Thusly, his writings will no doubt become timeless.  Solzhenitsyn was a giant of a man in many ways that not only survived but outlived the very state apparatus he fought against all of his life.

Since he seemed eager and a willing listener, I further told this young man in order to really understand and appreciate why Solzhenitsyn was so bigger than life, it would be beneficial for him to read the major works of Shakespeare, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky since Solzhenitsyn was heavily influenced by all three authors.  This man had only heard of Shakespeare and Tolstoy but had never read a single word from them.  His experience of these two authors was strictly from television specials.  This startled me that he was completely unaware of Dostoevsky, and never had the opportunity to read a Shakespeare play or a story or novel by Tolstoy.  I asked him how that could be.

The man admitted that during his high school years in Portland Public Schools he never read Shakespeare, Tolstoy or Dostoevsky, nor was required to do so for graduation.  He further admitted that he read as little as possible and only when he was forced to out of necessity.  He offered another striking admission that while pursuing his Bachelor of Social Work degree at Portland State University he only read what was required in order to get his degree.  He also said that as soon as he graduated last month he swore that he would never read another book again unless it was required by his job.  My stomach did a flip-flop when I heard this man speak so passionately of his lack of desire to read books of any substance.

I told him that he seemed interested in the newspaper article so what held him back from tackling one of Solzhenitsyn's novels.  The man told me rather bluntly that he found it easy to read twenty or thirty paragraphs in a newspaper, magazine or on the Internet, but anything longer was too time consuming and too much of a commitment.  I shook my head that I understood but deep inside I was raging against this young man's unwillingness to taste the sweet wonders of a great work of literature, and view the world through the eyes of its author and possibly uncover a great truth in the process.

As the man finished reading the newspaper article I thought about how different I was at his age.  I had been blessed with a home environment at an early age that fueled my passion for reading.  The older I got the more interest I gained in books, especially really great books, really meaningful and significant books.  During my twenties I couldn't seem to find enough time to read the long list of books I created for myself.  This was by choice and no one forced me into this passionate past-time of reading.  When money was low I deliberately missed a few meals just so I had the money to buy certain books.  The reading material I was craving at the time couldn't be found at the public library. 

The young man finally finished his drink and the newspaper article, got up and left.  On the way out he thanked me for the conversation.  I sat there for quite awhile feeling very sad for this young man; feeling sad for all the rich delights and wells of wisdom he will never know by being a non-reader.  I'm not sure if the public school system failed him, or he just had a basic character flaw against reading in general.  I would safely bet that he is the exception and not representational of his generation.  It still makes me sad that anybody can go through life and not have a desire to read the great masterworks of world literature.

A teacher in the seventh grade who I greatly admired told our class one day: "Great readers make great writers, and great writers make great leaders."  This just poured more fuel on the fire of my passion for reading.  I will never forget that teacher or his statement of truth.  I graduated from high school in the era when it was a requirement to read and have a passable understanding of Homer, Virgil, Sophocles, Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Faulkner before one got a diploma.  I found that two years after my graduation the state of California dropped that requirement as well as the study of a foreign language.

This young man is culturally and intellectually crippling himself to the point where he will be unable to focus his mind on sustained high level reading and critical thinking.  The experience of attaining any meaningful and significant leadership role in his life may turn out to be an empty sham, causing himself and others around him distress and hurt.  Unless he goes through a miraculous turnabout I tremble when thinking that one day this young man could attain a position of grave responsibility in our country.

REST IN PEACE MY WONDERFUL COMPANION

Murphy Girl

Died Tuesday, June 17, 2008

12:35 a.m.

14 years, 10 months old.

Murphy taught me many things over the years, especially like how to enjoy the simple pleasures in life and take it one day at a time.  She also taught me how to endure frailty, old age and how to accept the inevitable.

Murphy was very active until one year ago when the frailty of old age set in.  She could no longer endure the beach vacations and the long hikes at Indian Beach, Tolavana, etc.  She was content to just stay home, go for short rides in the car and get hugs and treats.

The house seems very empty now without her.  When I go into the bedroom I almost expect to see her big wonderful brown eyes, aviator ears and that big Irish grin.

She went peacefully into that good night!  All that is left are memories and tears.

At the time it really didn't seem to bother me that I was only 21 years old, completely unknown in my home town, had no life experience to speak of, no public service experience, completely broke and unemployed, and wasn't even registered to vote.  Despite these small negatives I spent two months mapping out strategy and creating lists of people and businesses that I could depend on as donors.  I went to city hall, filled out the proper paperwork, paid the fee, and even borrowed $500 from a friend to sit on my butt for two months thinking up a game plan.

To make a long story short my campaign for public office never even made it out the front door of my apartment.  Four candidates, including myself, were listed on the ballot for that particular water district.  One month after the election I went to city hall and found out that I had received a wopping nine votes.  The winner and two runner ups received thousands of votes more than I could ever hope for.  Of the nine votes cast in my favor, six of them I already knew but the other three were mysterious unknowns.  It made me feel rather proud that I had a constituency of nine people in Napa and I never even had to take a bribe, kiss a baby, shake a hand, or tell a lie to win their support.  What politician today can claim such a feat?

Looking at the current 2008 Democratic Presidential primary, it never ceases to amaze me just how much of a big ego, psychological cunning, personal deviousness, and physical stamina one needs to run for elective office, especially for the Office of the Presidency of the United States.  I came across a cute but sad cartoon on the Internet during the 2004 Democratic primary that showed all the candidates marching single file into a meat grinder and coming out the other end completely unrecognizable for better or for worse.  This is probably why most of those who do run for the Unted States Presidency say that it is a "life changing experience."  And it is probably why that thousands of the most gifted and qualified never run for office.

I must say that I have nothing but respect (and a little bit of sadness) for anybody who runs for the Presidency of the United States of America.  I could never do it in my wildest dreams, even if Microsoft mogel Bill Gates offered me a check for one billion dollars.

This email brought up an important issue with me about my writing, or I should say my lack of writing.  I have too many other things in my life to feel guilty about and I don't need my lack of productive writing to be one of them, especially when ardent fans remind me of this.  It may sound silly to my readers, considering the fact that I am not famous or even well known, but comments like the one she made, puts a lot of pressure on me and I end up over thinking the issue and actually produce less.

When I responded to this woman I offered her six reasons (she later said the reasons sounded more like rationalizations...) why my writing output was probably so sparse.  I told her that the great bulk of writers in the Internet blogosphere are there to get attention, to show off or to impress others, to compensate for weaknesses or frustrations, to try to secure oneupmanship over another person, to try to impose their will or ideas over others, and lastly, as an outlet for frustration or tension or hostility.  These six reasons, by no means discrete or inclusive, are personal reasons.

Writing of this type pervades the Internet like so much emotional vomit.  It tends to be intellectually impotent, lacking maturity, and filled with unnecessary fluff.  It is easy to spot this kind of writing because it usually rambles, goes off on all sorts of tangents, is filled with much irrelevancy, and often with much misplaced emotion.  There is often considerable hyperbole, overreaction, and confusion in thinking something through.  The personality of this type of writer, not the outcome, is what appears to be at stake.  There is rarely a harmonious conclusion or resolution to such writing; usually it just stops.  This type of writing becomes a form of play, sometimes very aggressive play.  A person writing from any of these six motivations may not be seeking a higher road to truth about themselves or the world, or writing for writing's sake, or to achieve perfection of an art form.

My writing is an exercise to discover hidden truths about myself, others and the world at large.  A good example of this was my short story, "Konstantin's Birthday," posted earlier on this column.  The motivation behind this story was to force myself to become better acquainted with the suffering that happened during Nazi Germany's airborne assault on the island of Crete during World War Two.  And it is primarily for this reason only that I am incapable of any sort of hack writing that is so prevalent on the world wide web today.  The few words that I do write I want to count for something substantial and offer others something to chew on intellectually and cogitate upon during their quiet hours.

I would like to end this essay by stating that good and endearing writing always has purpose.  At the core of my personal essays or stories is the supposition that there is a certain unity to human experience.  As the great essayist, Michel de Montaigne said:  "Every man has within himself the entire human condition."  I would add that how a writer manifests that human condition, or simply overlooks it in favor of the trivial and mundane, shows whether they are a moron or someone struggling to find truth within themselves, others or the world.

Immanual Kant

Essay:  What Is Enlightenment

It was August 1994.

A very great and everlasting change came upon me suddenly but not without some warning.  I was a seeker without a home, walking the side streets of the universe, begging a cup of nectar from the gods.  All I had left in the world was the memories of my previous homes, homes that I was unable to return to.

Then one fine afternoon I sat down, staring at a blank wall, with the intention of never arising until I found home again.  Seven hours later I stood up and found myself in my new home.  The same one I had been born into.  It was startling!  I had come full circle.

Images of all the religious figures I had studied and honored over my life swirled in my brain like fast moving pictures, going on, and on, and on.....then subsiding into the far reaches of memory.  A calmness moved over my entire being.  I felt light, as if I could fly or jump over trees with a single push.  Then peace and knowing washed over me like a breaker wave at the beach.  I suddenly knew!  Then I laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed.....until my stomach ached and my eyes watered.  I finally knew what I had been searching for all my life and it was inside of me all the time.

I walked outside into the warm August evening and looked up into the dark sky and trembled slightly.  Everything was now crystal clear.  I had no where to go, no one to see or no one to follow.....but myself.  With that awareness I looked at the task before me and trembled again.  I would be walking alone once again on the back streets of the universe with nothing but a knapsack full of memories and a cup to fill back-up with new experiences.

(This is a true story)

Steffan often waxed philosophical about the world and its primary players, especially when he had a bit too much to drink.  This was the first time, though, his philosophical searchlight directed itself at me personally.  I was intrigued by the question and after a deliberate and measured pause, I decided to play the game.

I told him that the state of my soul at the time was rather complicated and couldn't be adequately explained to another without reading first three novels that had had a moving anf profound influence on my life.  These novels were:  Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov; Knulp by Hermann Hesse; and The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft by George Gissing.

Goncharov's Oblomov tells the story of a wastrel member of the Russian gentry class who spends his whole life dreaming and wanting to be happy like other people but dies a very lonely man, passed over by friends, his first love and life in general.  Hesse's Knulp was the author's spiritual autobiography so to speak.  It tells of a wandering tramp who never does settle down to the domestic life like his former classmates and friends, but always in search of freedom on the road.  In the end he's speaking with God and re-evaluating his life and finds that he couldn't have lived any other way even if he had wanted to.  While he lay dying in a snow drift, babbling to God about his life, he finds true freedom.  Gissing's The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft is simply about failed literary ambition. 

I told Steffan if he would just take the time to read and try and understand each of these novels, he would fully appreciate the hopes, dreams, failures, and the philosophical condition of my soul.  Later that evening I let him borrow copies of these three novels.

Several weeks later we found ourselves at the same Chinese cafe having lunch.  Steffan had brought the books along with him.  I was eager to know his opinion on my reading material and he didn't disappoint me.  He had only gotten half-way through Goncharov's Oblomov before tossing it aside.  He claimed he came very close to using the novel as toilet paper.

While going on and on about the novel in particular and Russian literature in general, he used phrases like "moral bankruptcy," "spiritual illness" and "tragic oneupmanship."  I remember him leaning across the table and wagging his finger in my face and saying quite loudly so everyone in the cafe could hear, "Keep on reading this crap and you'll end up just like them."  He then gave me a big wink.

I immediately felt quite insulted and reminded him rather tersely that when he asks to peek into a man's soul he should be prepared for anything-and if not-don't be asking in the first place.  After a dramatic pause on his part and a thousand yard stare, he grabbed the Russian novel, tore out several pages, stuffed them in his back pocket and smiled saying:  "I need something to wipe my ass tonight."

It could be a fragment from another life, another time, or pure fantasy contrived by a mind without enough practical work to keep it busy.  It has been a persistent memory throughout the years, popping into my conscious life like fast moving storm clouds on a spring day in the Pacific Northwest.  From childhood through my adult years it has always come into my life without request, when I least expect it.

The memory came back today.  It seems to come and go like the wind (excuse the worn out phrase).  Usually when it comes it is a slow, hot and lazy day when I feel at peace with myself and no pressing problems to distract me, or it comes on a day when I'm sick or under heavy and profound stress.  A day just like today.  It was the same as before, but seems to linger a bit longer this time, casting a spell of permanence and realness, when I fully realize that there is none to be found. 

The most significant memory of this memory, if that's the proper way of expressing it, is the absolute clarity of the otherworldly silence.  A deep and pregnant silence.  The best way of describing this silence is like sitting in a big movie theater watching a film that has no sound.  The visuals are strong and resonating but the lack of sound makes for a sureal experience.

Each time this memory quietly invades my life I'm left with a deep and powerful longing for childhood; a time of beauty, discovery, goodness, satisfaction, and innocence.

Looking around the periphery of this memory are mighty old growth eucalyptus trees, almost touching the sky, standing as if they stood for a thousand years and will go on standing another thousand years.  The ground is hard and dry.  Fallen leaves are heavy-laden, giving me a deep and rich carpet to walk upon.  As I walk, the gentle crushing of leaves bursts into pungent aroma in the warm summer air.

In the middle of this memory stands an extremely large house, and its stark whiteness clashes greatly with the brown and green surroundings.  It is a rich and solid house full of history.  There are four massive pillars in front that is reminisent of the old antebellum mansions in the deep south of the United States.  As I concentrate and focus on this scene the smell of many mounds of burning sandelwood becomes apparent but never getting in the way of the eucalyptus odor constantly but lightly swirling about. 

Actually, now that I think of it, it is merely the memory of this long past olfactory experience that still persists.  I get the impression of something straight out of India; the gods, the diversity, the passivity, the slowness, the heaviness.  No people populate this memory but their individual and collective memory lingers as if they were still somewhere in the background or had just recently left.

Everytime I smell eucalyptus or see an orchard of oldgrowth eucalyptus trees this memory gently slides back into my conscious life.  After about an hour the memory fades.  Each time this happens I long to be in that memory forever and entirely forget this world.

The story of Nick Romano exposed me to a part of the life struggle that was unknown to me at that time.  This composite story of a troubled street youth fired up my imagination and left me wanting to read more of the same.  I was fortunate enough to have had a sympathetic English teacher at the time who recognized my passion for stories about people, and further exposed me to what he referred to as "protest literature."  He gave me a short list to work from and at the top of that list was the novel, Down These Mean Streets by Pere Thomas.  Also on the list was the play, Westside Story.  From there I jumped into nonfiction literary treats such as Blood In My Eye by George Jackson.

This literature of troubled youth had such a poignant impact on me that I ended up with the unintentional result of working with these same kind of troubled kids later in life.  From 1984 until 1988 I worked as an outreach worker and emergency services coordinator for Outside In's street youth program.  At the time Outside In was one of Portland, Oregon's premier socio-medical aid stations which provided free counseling, referrals, emergency services, and a medical clinic for the down and out.  It was here at Outside In that I met many Nick Romano's with their own unique and passionate stories.  One lad went on to spend five years in prison for first degree arson, another committed suicide, while yet another died so very young of A.I.D.S.  The lives and stories of these street kids eventually became too overwhelming and I had to leave that part of my life behind for other things.

 My fascination with troubled souls is still alive and well today.  I have collected around 25 character novels which I consider keepers, to be read and re-read many times over.  The characters in these novels are most often dubbed anti-hero's by the mainstream literary establishment, and often referred to in negative terms as:  lonely oddballs, self-absorbed individualists, mental cases, contrarians, non-conformists, deviants, as well as many other names too numerous to list here.  The better label for these colorful characters would be heretic.  Whether these character's heretical lifestyle and thinking patterns are merely self-made protective barriers against normal society, or a way of accessing the ultimate truth about existence, they have one thing in common:  they were born heretics, held hostage by their genetics, social culture, and family upbringing and had no choice but to be who they were.

The best of these character novels that truly represents the heretic in my humble opinion is Against Nature by J. K. Huysmans.  The copy I own is a translation (and one of the best methinks) by Robert Baldick.  The book hit the literary scene of 1884 like a cosmic big bang.  Oscar Wilde found this the "strangest book that he had ever read" and it became a key text for his own writings.  Zola called the book "a terrible blow to Naturalism."  The general public condemned it as a work of depravity.  In colorful and flowery prose the book tells about the strange, exotic and perverse pleasures and practices of one Duc Jean Floressas des Esseintes, a composite character of several "gorgeous dandies of the time."

Some have accused Huysmans of writing about himself in the thinnest of disguises.  As Robert Baldick writes in his introduction:  "Des Esseintes is more than his creator's alter ego and the quintessential Decadent.  He is also, and above all else, the modern man par excellence, tortured by that vague longing for an elusive ideal which we used to call the mal du siecle; torn between desire and satiety, hope and disillusionment; painfully conscious that his pleasures are finite, his needs infinite."

As the charcter Des Esseintes was the epitome of the heretic during his time of the 1880's, so Nick Romano was the epitome of the heretic during his time of the 1950's.  Both of these characters in their own uniquely tragic way captured Baldick's "the modern man par excellence."  Both Romano and Des Esseintes were very painfully aware that their pleasures were indeed finite and their needs infinite.  And I have come to the conclusion that the street youth I worked with and cared so deeply about in the 1980's suffered the same fate.  Heretics young or old, from all ages of history and well into the future, will always be who they are and no matter how much we have sympathy for them, or even try to help protect them from themselves, they will continue to follow the path that fate has bestowed upon them.

This is my forever friend, Torme who passed away August 17, 2007. 

For those of my readers who are unfamiliar with the 'tunnels' underneath the city of Portland, Oregon, a little bit of background history is a must.  In the words of Michael Jones:  "Shanghaiing was an illegal maritime practice where able-bodied men--sailors, loggers, cowboys, sheepherders, ranch hands, construction workers, and vagabonds, in addition to other hard workers who were either employed or who frequented the waterfront, were grabbed or kidnapped and sold to sea captains who forced them to work aboard their ships for no pay.  Portland was unique because trap doors (known as 'deadfalls') were used to drop the unsuspecting victims into the 'Portland Underground,' where they were forcibly held in cells until the ship was ready to set sail.  From 1850 to 1941, the so-called Victorian-refined Portland was known as the 'Unheavenly City' or the 'Forbidden City,' due to this shocking practice.  And, during 'Prohibition,' the saloons literally went 'underground' and occupied a portion of this so-called 'Underground City,' creating an even greater opportunity for men to find themselves aboard a ship bound for the Orient."

Mrs. Douglass and me arrived a bit early at the designated meeting place:  Hobo's Restaurant, located on Northwest Third Avenue, in the heart of Old Town-Chinatown.  This area used to be called the 'Old North End' and was one of the most shadiest, violent and crime-ridden neighborhoods of Portland at one time.  While awaiting the arrival of Michael Jones, Mrs. Douglass enjoyed some happy hour food while I had a glass of amber ale.

After Mr. Jones arrived we joined the rest of the tour group which numbered around fifteen, outside the back door of Hobo's, in a little walled in outside patio area.  After giving his introductory speech on the 'rules of behavior' and making sure everyone was dressed properly, Mr. Jones passed out the flash lights.  He took us outside and around the corner to fourth avenue, where a heavy plywood door with a big lock took us down a flight of decrepit stairs where the tour began.

The first leg of the tour brought us immediately into a large room with a mostly dirt floor that can only be described as trashy, dusty, decrepit, musty, dirty, dank, hot, and suffocating with unbearably low ceilings!  In fact, these same words can be consistently used to describe everywhere we went on the tour.  We didn't traverse any 'tunnels' although we walked long dark corridors with rooms of differing sizes and shapes.  The amount of trash was phenomenal, even though Mr. Jones and his 'volunteer crews' had cleaned out much of the trash to make the tour possible.  Between the dirt, dust, smells, and low ceilings, and the incredible hot air generated from the ceiling pipes from business' on street level, made the tour a little bit too suffocating in my opinion.

Along the various passages Mr. Jones would stop and relate historical trivia about the 'tunnels' and some juicy tidbits about the city of Portland in its bygone days.  Since it was a Halloween tour he threw in the required tales of ghostly visions and sounds.  Most of the stories were from volunteer crews who helped clean out the trash to make the corridors easily traversable.  Some stories came from individuals from past tour groups.  Mr. Jones related one of these stories that was quite striking in its content.

The first large room we were in, Mr. Jones showed us the remnants of an 'oven' where the bodies of kidnapped men were cremated, because they had died in the 'cells' awaiting transfer aboard a ship.  Mr. Jones told the group that a man from one of his past tours actually caught on his video recorder a 'disembodied head floating about the room.'  I don't remember the reason given by Mr. Jones of why this 'video' is no longer available, but as he related this ghostly tale I noticed Mrs. Douglass with that famous smirk on her face, and I was thinking to myself:  "Yeah, right!  Just another bullshit story."  I had to admit though this story at the beginning of the tour created a sense of overpowering excitement of what might happen tonight.  What added to this infectious excitement was Mr. Jones himself.  Michael Jones is indeed a first class story teller and his remarkable knowledge of Portland's past gives him an immediate authority.  His rotund body, full beard, longish hair and incredibly squinty eyes makes him the perfect tour guide for something like this.

During the rest of the tour Mr. Jones showed us some of the remarkable finds of the volunteer trash removal crews.  We saw eating implements, belt buckles, shoes, clothing, plates, a silver cigar box, jewelry, small holding cells, and other intriguing tidbits from the latter half of 19th century Portland.  One of the most interesting things we were shown was an actual trapdoor ('deadfall') underneath where the old Erickson's Saloon was located.  The various holding cells were miserably cramped, hot and dirty.  It's a wonder that anyone survived down there long enough to make it aboard a ship.

The tour ended about an hour and a half later in a room just before we exited to street level in front of Hobo's.During the last ten minutes of the tour something indeed strange happened to me.  The incident took place in the last room where the group had assembled in a semi-circle around Mr. Jones to listen to his closing speech.  I stayed towards the back of the group because I was feeling rather claustrophobic due to the low ceiling, the warmth and the large group of people.  The oppressive atmosphere of the place made me want to get outside onto the street as soon as possible.

As Mr. Jones talked I was just observing the backs of the crowd, including the back of Mrs. Douglass.  Then it happened!  I felt  a very firm, deliberate, slow stroke from the spot between my shoulder blades down my spine just above my butt.  It felt just like someone's open palm.  And I actually heard the faint sound of something sliding on my jacket material.

I immediately thought someone in the group was trying to play a prank on me.  I stood my ground without moving and quickly counted to ten.  I slowly and very casually turned around and nobody was directly behind me, just twelve feet of dusty space and the far back wall.  To my immediate right was the other wall one foot away.  To my left, about ten feet away were two members of the tour looking ahead, seemingly absorbed in what Mr. Jones was saying.  No one else was around or close to me.

If one of those two people did play a prank on me they would have had to be extremely fast and deadly quiet.  There was enough debris on the dirt floor to make any movement just a little noticeable.  My peripheral vision would have had to been completely on the fritz also.  They seemed just to far away to have had done anything.

I am not a believer in ghosts!  In fact, I consider myself a hard-boiled skeptic.  What happened that evening I can't explain rationally.  Could it have been the result of the small glass of beer, the anticipation and excitement generated by Mr. Jones, my overactive imagination on the re-bound, or was it a combination of the entire evenings events?  I guess it will just be one of those mysterious, unexplained events that I'll never be able to resove one way or the other.

In the summer of 1994 I was one of these people.  But certain things happened that year in my small and safe world which forced me to wake-up and smell the coffee.  I spent the next two years re-evaluating my entire life and questioning absolutely everything I was taught and believed to be true.  Some ideas were thrown out with the mental garbage while others were kept, but refined or adjusted.  By the end of this emotionally anguished and turbulent two year period I felt clean inside and like a new man.

I was feeling so much like a clean and re-furbished human being that I decided to sit down and start writing a personal vision statement for myself, less I forget the process I had just gone through, and not fall into a future trap of becoming a true believer all over again.  Writing this statement, after many false starts, took me almost a year to complete.  I always have this vision statement close at hand to remind me of what I was before, and re-read whenever I feel troubled about some great moral issue I see on the television newscast or read in a magazine or book.

A personal manifesto or vision to live one's life by is not necessarily a finished product that has already been implemented in one's life.  It is generally an idealistic goal to achieve, something to strive for, something to make one's daily life worth living, something to give hope, and something to base one's dreams upon.  It is something that needs to be sought after on a daily basis and sometimes has to be won and re-won each and every moment of the day.  After this being said my personal manifesto is as follows:

My personal philosophy of life is a system of convictions and practices offering a pragmatic skepticism as a method of inquiry, evolutionary Darwinism as a cosmic world view, naturalistic morality as a life ethic, and democratic pluralism as a social polity.  It is an integrative approach to living life to the fullest, leading to happiness, peace of mind, and a feeling of oneness with nature.

One of the greatest lessons I've learned in life is that a person needs a vision, something larger than themselves, or else they become like a rudderless boat on the stormy seas.  If one is to live life with any sense of meaningfulness, honor, and integrity, they must not only have the courage to be, but the courage to become in spite of it all.

And so my vision is this:  to live life as an unceasing meditation on a vision that is both personal and social.  The personal aspect is this:  devotion to the principle of universal respect, caring for what is noble, for what is beautiful, for what is gentle; to allow moments of insight to give wisdom at more mundane times.

The social aspect is this:  to constantly visualize and sustain in my imagination the society that needs to be created.  A society where we grow freely and in cooperation with the planet's ecosystem with reverant respect.  A society where the values of democractic pluralism, separation of church & state, and the right to privacy are held in highest esteem by all.  A society where people have access to the five necessities of life, which are, good healthy food, fair and just work, warm and safe housing, affordable health care, and time for an avocation.

My primary position on social action is one of total activism, an unswerving commitment to complete self and world transformation.  These things I ardently believe, and the world, despite all of its horrors, leaves me unshaken.

Everyone needs a book or collection of inspirational writings and one or more philosophical-intellectual-ethical role-models to reinforce their hopes and dreams for a better life and better world.The Christians have the Bible and their savior jesus Christ, the Muslims have the Koran and their prophet Muhammed, the Buddhists have the Buddhist Canonical Works and the many hero's that dominate that literature, and the Jews have the Talmud and their hero Moses.  My own collection of inspirational writings include Ernesto Cardenal's epic poetic masterpiece Cosmic Canticle and the Humanist Manifesto 2000.  My intellectual hero's are Bertrand Russell, John Dewey, Sidney Hook, Corliss Lamont, and Paul Kurtz.  My philosophical role-models are Socrates, Aristotle and Epictetus.

I have found that there is a downside to re-evaluating one's life, writing their own vision statement and attemting to live by it.  Many cherished and safe ideas and opinions I had prior to 1994 had to be dismissed.  And this dismissal came with a huge price of losing two good and dear friends.  In their minds I had sunken into a black and bottomless hole of unforgivable heresay, and they might have feared a sort of philosophical contagion by keeping in close proximity to me.  Another downside is the inability to accept without reservation membership in a political party or religious organization, however benign they appear.  The solution for me has been to cut all member ties with organizations in general.

I wouldn't advise anyone to go through the re-evaluation process I did unless they were willing to give up their moral, emotional and psychological safety net for a long time.There is nothing more horrible than waking up one morning and finding your glass completely empty, and then trying to figure out what to put back into it.  But if you survive the ordeal, without committing suicide, becoming a drug addict or mentally unbalanced, the consequences are indeed profoundly sweet.  You become a new human being, possibly a prototype.