Sittin’ on the dock of the bay…

When I first went to my father about this project, I had only a few sketches and some raw materials. Not knowing if he’d have much time to help, I really only hoped to use the tools and workshop in his basement. Working on my own, I probably could have assembled a serviceable TV bench. Working with him, we’ve managed to build a rock-solid, well-trimmed piece of furniture, and for a fraction of what it would have cost to purchase a similar product in a store.

But the real value of what we’ve done isn’t in the quality of the cabinet we’ve built or the money we’ve saved. It’s in the time and experience we’ve shared. It’s in every ounce of his wisdom that finally gets through my skull. And every time we share such an experience, my eyes open a little wider, and I become just a little more aware of what an amazing man my father is.

As a member of Indy Hall since the fall of 2010, I’ve been subscribed to their project management site for over a year and a half now. It’s part of my effort to never let my email inbox feel lonely (as if that had been a problem). As a result, I get several new messages a day about the goings on at Indy Hall. Some are mundane, like housekeeping messages; others are momentous, like the announcement of a town hall meeting this past Thursday evening. The town hall was called for Thursday to discuss the proposed expansion of Indy Hall from one floor to two, specifically by taking over the first floor of the Daniels Building on North 3rd Street.

The expansion was spurred not just by growth in membership terms (there’s been a waiting list for non-basic members since last fall), but also by other goals, such as adding classroom space, “team” rooms (for some of the start-ups already calling Indy Hall home), and a more visible street presence. It’s all pretty exciting, and maybe even a little scary, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. What gives it real potential, and what has always given Indy Hall potential, is that it’s a community much more than it is a mere business. And everyone who’s already on board has the capacity to shape, fund and benefit from the expansion of an already great community.

There are risks, and not just financial ones. A great community risks losing its personality as it grows, but this community has been quite scalable over the first few years of its existence. I tend to believe the model put into place from the beginning has the capacity to grow without diluting in quality. That speaks not only to the leadership of folks like Alex Hillman and Geoff DiMasi, but also to the quality of the community that’s been cultivated and outfitted with a tremendous knack for self-adjustment.

Anyway, I’m excited about it, and I’m far from the only one.

This is the first line in a poem I wrote 8 years ago.

There’s a lot of pain and dysfunction in the world. Billions of broken people. Healing and growth are so much easier when we don’t pile guilt and shame on top of everything else. We’ve all been broken, no matter how well some of us hide it. No one has it all figured out.

I just wish more people realized that, especially those who drag themselves down by comparing their insides to someone else’s outsides.

The original version of the poem is below:

everyone here has been broken;
each soul has been snapped in two;
don’t think that the pain left unspoken
makes anyone stronger than you.

some of us dream of compassion,
while some beg for crosses to bear,
where martyrdom chases contrition,
and martyrs line up to compare…

The first step toward digitizing the book was to create naturallines.analogimpulse.net, which hosts an interactive gallery of items from the original book.

The second step is Natural Lines Digital Edition. The digital edition is in PDF format and offers all the content of the original version with a slightly inverted sense of style.

You can download it now and contribute whatever you wish. You can even download it, take it for a spin and figure out what it’s worth to you. I won’t mind.

Click here for the download page.

we made politics
the art of telling lies and
praising ignorance

Most people seem willing to accept that political campaigns are rife with nonsensical, if not brazenly dishonest, advertising and rhetoric, but very few seem willing to accept any responsibility for the nonsense. In watching the U.S. Republican Presidential contenders, it strikes me that the ludicrous nature of campaign season is analogous to the free market: the candidates, in general, will dish out whatever crap they believe the electorate will lap up. And the electorate’s palate has only gotten less refined over the past few years.

A case in point would be a woman who spoke up at a recent Rick Santorum event. She rambled about President Obama not having a right to hold his office. In the course of her incoherence, she asserted that the President was an “avowed Muslim.”

At the conclusion of her brief (but not nearly brief enough) statement, Santorum didn’t bother correcting her. Rather, he claimed a stake in her goal of seeing the President unseated, without speaking to whether or not he thought her statement was based in reality.

While it’s sad that people vying for the leadership of the free world lack the decency to call out this type of dishonest rhetoric, I understand Santorum’s decision not to contradict a supporter. I didn’t say I excused it; I merely understand the impulse of a man already engaged in the quagmire of American politics to cater to the delusions of his clientele. After all, there’s a reason they call it “retail” politics — and isn’t the customer always right?

As much as I may not like or agree with Rick Santorum (or any of the other clowns running for my former party’s nomination), I know he’s not stupid. His decision to cater to a delusion is the sort of condescension too many politicians engage in. Rather than demonstrating real leadership, a key trait for a president, they alter their messages, withhold what they know to be true and even flipflop on positions as needed — all to avoid alienating people who range from pathological to merely inattentive.

But this isn’t a post condemning the politicians. The folks who have been letting me down, letting us all down, are the voters. It’s the voters in primary contests who are gullible enough to let candidates reinvent themselves endlessly without scrutinizing those reinventions. It’s the voters in the general elections who fail to hold the candidates accountable for the ludicrous positions they try to soften (or disown) going into the big contest. I fall into one of those sets of voters, and if you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you do too.

The only price most politicians will pay for betraying the truth (or the people) is to be denied office or removed from it. When we fail to exact that price from irresponsible or dishonest politicians, we are complicit in whatever we’ve allowed them to do in our name. We are the foundation of the political system, and when we lay a week foundation, democracy starts to crumble.

I’m not the biggest fan of Whole Foods, but I’ve been impressed with the coffee selection at the location around the corner from where I live. Mainly, I’ve been impressed with their selection of local and fair trade choices.

A couple shelves below the more conspicuously-placed brands, I found a new favorite coffee.

Burlap and Bean is a family business that roasts fair trade and organic coffees in Newtown Square, PA. After a brief conversation with a woman in the store who gave it a glowing recommendation, I picked up a 12 ounce bag of their Ethiopia Harrar. I tried it a few hours later, and thoroughly enjoyed it.

I like this Burlap and Bean as much as I like Joe’s House Blend from Philly Fair Trade, which has been my favorite coffee so far. Both are full city roasts. Both are fair trade and organic. Joe’s House Blend is a mainly Central/South American-sourced coffee, and B&B’s Ethiopia Harrar is mildly fruity by comparison. I didn’t think I liked fruity coffees, but this may cause me to reconsider.

What I like most about both the Philly Fair Trade and the Burlap and Bean options, beyond the way they taste and their sustainable sourcing, is that I can drink them within days or weeks of their roasting. Joe Cesa at Philly Fair Trade roasts his beans to order, while Burlap and Bean (along with other locals, like La Colombe) stamp their coffee bags with a roasting date — so you know whether the beans were brewed ages ago, or just days ago. The Burlap and Bean purchase I made was roasted just a couple weeks ago.

How much more would other grocery store coffees if I could buy them in bean form less than a month after they were roasted? I’ll probably never know.

My girlfriend loves dogs. A scene like this is just enough to break her heart. She promptly walked up to the neighbor’s door to knock and see if he might take the dog back inside. No answer. Approximately ten minutes later, she knocked again, this time pounding on the door. He answered. She explained that his dog appeared to be freezing (it had frozen saliva on the hair around its mouth). He told her it was okay because he put the dog outside. She pleaded with him to take the dog in, but he just repeated his refrain and shut the door on her.

We promptly went inside and called the local police — they said someone would be out to check on it. About 15 minutes after our initial contact with the man next door, and almost half an hour after we spotted the freezing dog in the first place, I had finished unpacking the car. I noticed the dog wasn’t doing its dance anymore or making as much noise.

I walked up to check on it. As I pet the small animal and briefly comforted it, the man came barreling out of the door and told me to get off his property. I did, but even after stepping back on my side of the line, he kept coming until he was right in my face. He threatened me a little bit. I stayed relatively calm and told him it wasn’t a smart idea to pick a fight with the cops on their way. He was a little stubborn about it, but he eventually retreated, taking the dog with him.

Finally.

We thought that was the end of it, until my girlfriend left for work a couple days later and found all four of her tires slashed. Thank God for good insurance, because four tires would have cost over $600 out of pocket. As it was, it still cost a couple hundred. We haven’t heard anything new yet on the police investigation (regarding the tires or the dog).

Since then, a few kind people have decided to place orders for cards just to support the money lost to the cost of tires. One of them even told me not to send the cards. I’m still going to send them, but I will redirect the money toward the “slashed tire” fund. The kindness of the folks placing these orders impressed me, and I decided to share the story.

The title of this post is “No good deed…” — short for “No good deed goes unpunished.” In an effort to turn the tire-slashing incident into a positive, I’ve decided to redirect card sale proceeds to the aforementioned “slashed tire” fund for a while. And if the tire fund is fulfilled before, say, the middle of February (or we recoup the money some other way), the excess will go to a local organization benefiting animals.

To those who have already been so kind, as well as to those who will be in the near future, thank you from the bottom of our hearts (and possible our neighbor’s dog’s heart, as well).

If you would like to help by ordering some cards, click here.

With the new pricing and options, individual letterpress cards can be ordered right here. And they can be had at even better prices when ordered in packs of five or ten.

Click here to visit the card section now, and find a note card or thank-you card to help get your message across.

There are some very special people who milled through my mind as I scribbled this haiku. All of them are impressive for one reason or another, and no generic blog post could ever do them justice.

These people are my benefactors, my heroes. Whether they made grand gestures or simply did what came naturally, I’m determined to identify them and let them know. Personally, if possible.

That’s why I’ve decided to make 2012 the year of “thank you.” It’s not a resolution, and if it were, it wouldn’t be one I’d expect to fulfill by year’s end. In fact, it may take a lifetime. But I’ll get as far as I can with the time I have.

we all need someone
to believe in who we are
and who we’ll become