#gogetgone

via: Casey Newton, The Verge  

An anonymous Instagram account has outed more than 30 people as crime witnesses who cooperated with police, according to a new report, posting their photos, police statements, and testimony to its nearly 7,900 followers. The account's goal: to "expose rats," according to its Instagram bio. Philadelphia police and prosecutors are investigating the account, rats215, telling the Philadelphia Inquirer that witness intimidation has become a significant problem for the local district attorney's office.

Laurie Anderson's Farewell to Lou Reed

via: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/laurie-andersons-farewell-to-lou-reed-a-rolling-stone-exclusive-20131106

I met Lou in Munich, not New York. It was 1992, and we were both playing in John Zorn's Kristallnacht festival commemorating the Night of Broken Glass in 1938, which marked the beginning of the Holocaust. I remember looking at the rattled expressions on the customs officials' faces as a constant stream of Zorn's musicians came through customs all wearing bright red RHYTHM AND JEWS! T-shirts.

John wanted us all to meet one another and play with one another, as opposed to the usual "move-'em-in-and-out" festival mode. That was why Lou asked me to read something with his band. I did, and it was loud and intense and lots of fun. After the show, Lou said, "You did that exactly the way I do it!" Why he needed me to do what he could easily do was unclear, but this was definitely meant as a compliment.

I liked him right away, but I was surprised he didn't have an English accent. For some reason I thought the Velvet Underground were British, and I had only a vague idea what they did. (I know, I know.) I was from a different world. And all the worlds in New York around then – the fashion world, the art world, the literary world, the rock world, the financial world – were pretty provincial. Somewhat disdainful. Not yet wired together.

As it turned out, Lou and I didn't live far from each other in New York, and after the festival Lou suggested getting together. I think he liked it when I said, "Yes! Absolutely! I'm on tour, but when I get back – let's see, about four months from now – let's definitely get together." This went on for a while, and finally he asked if I wanted to go to the Audio Engineering Society Convention. I said I was going anyway and would meet him in Microphones. The AES Convention is the greatest and biggest place to geek out on new equipment, and we spent a happy afternoon looking at amps and cables and shop-talking electronics. I had no idea this was meant to be a date, but when we went for coffee after that, he said, "Would you like to see a movie?" Sure. "And then after that, dinner?" OK. "And then we can take a walk?" "Um . . ." From then on we were never really apart.

Lou and I played music together, became best friends and then soul mates, traveled, listened to and criticized each other's work, studied things together (butterfly hunting, meditation, kayaking). We made up ridiculous jokes; stopped smoking 20 times; fought; learned to hold our breath underwater; went to Africa; sang opera in elevators; made friends with unlikely people; followed each other on tour when we could; got a sweet piano-playing dog; shared a house that was separate from our own places; protected and loved each other. We were always seeing a lot of art and music and plays and shows, and I watched as he loved and appreciated other artists and musicians. He was always so generous. He knew how hard it was to do. We loved our life in the West Village and our friends; and in all, we did the best we could do.

Like many couples, we each constructed ways to be – strategies, and sometimes compromises, that would enable us to be part of a pair. Sometimes we lost a bit more than we were able to give, or gave up way too much, or felt abandoned. Sometimes we got really angry. But even when I was mad, I was never bored. We learned to forgive each other. And somehow, for 21 years, we tangled our minds and hearts together.

It was spring in 2008 when I was walking down a road in California feeling sorry for myself and talking on my cell with Lou. "There are so many things I've never done that I wanted to do," I said.

"Like what?"

"You know, I never learned German, I never studied physics, I never got married."

"Why don't we get married?" he asked. "I'll meet you halfway. I'll come to Colorado. How about tomorrow?"

"Um – don't you think tomorrow is too soon?"

"No, I don't."

And so the next day, we met in Boulder, Colorado, and got married in a friend's backyard on a Saturday, wearing our old Saturday clothes, and when I had to do a show right after the ceremony, it was OK with Lou. (Musicians being married is sort of like lawyers being married. When you say, "Gee, I have to work in the studio till three tonight" – or cancel all your plans to finish the case – you pretty much know what that means and you don't necessarily hit the ceiling.)

I guess there are lots of ways to get married. Some people marry someone they hardly know – which can work out, too. When you marry your best friend of many years, there should be another name for it. But the thing that surprised me about getting married was the way it altered time. And also the way it added a tenderness that was somehow completely new. To paraphrase the great Willie Nelson: "Ninety percent of the people in the world end up with the wrong person. And that's what makes the jukebox spin." Lou's jukebox spun for love and many other things, too – beauty, pain, history, courage, mystery.

Lou was sick for the last couple of years, first from treatments of interferon, a vile but sometimes effective series of injections that treats hepatitis C and comes with lots of nasty side effects. Then he developed liver cancer, topped off with advancing diabetes. We got good at hospitals. He learned everything about the diseases, and treatments. He kept doing tai chi every day for two hours, plus photography, books, recordings, his radio show with Hal Willner and many other projects. He loved his friends, and called, texted, e-mailed when he couldn't be with them. We tried to understand and apply things our teacher Mingyur Rinpoche said – especially hard ones like, "You need to try to master the ability to feel sad without actually being sad."

Last spring, at the last minute, he received a liver transplant, which seemed to work perfectly, and he almost instantly regained his health and energy. Then that, too, began to fail, and there was no way out. But when the doctor said, "That's it. We have no more options," the only part of that Lou heard was "options" – he didn't give up until the last half-hour of his life, when he suddenly accepted it – all at once and completely. We were at home – I'd gotten him out of the hospital a few days before – and even though he was extremely weak, he insisted on going out into the bright morning light.

As meditators, we had prepared for this – how to move the energy up from the belly and into the heart and out through the head. I have never seen an expression as full of wonder as Lou's as he died. His hands were doing the water-flowing 21-form of tai chi. His eyes were wide open. I was holding in my arms the person I loved the most in the world, and talking to him as he died. His heart stopped. He wasn't afraid. I had gotten to walk with him to the end of the world. Life – so beautiful, painful and dazzling – does not get better than that. And death? I believe that the purpose of death is the release of love.

At the moment, I have only the greatest happiness and I am so proud of the way he lived and died, of his incredible power and grace.

I'm sure he will come to me in my dreams and will seem to be alive again. And I am suddenly standing here by myself stunned and grateful. How strange, exciting and miraculous that we can change each other so much, love each other so much through our words and music and our real lives.

my eyelids are closed, their pale thin skin a curtain between chilly, grey-black now, and a warm, honey-colored then. behind them, i’m roaming.

i’m standing in front of the hall closet in my parent’s house two years ago, pulling out my black arc-teryx coat; the singed one, with all the patches. i’ve been gone a long time, and it’s a short visit--i’m already leaving, or thinking about it at least.

‘hey gimme that.’ my dad holds out his hand for the jacket.

‘what for?’

‘it stinks--your mom’ll throw it in with the jeans.’

‘oh--nah, thanks; it’s fine.’

‘it stinks. you should wash it.’

‘i don’t think it smells bad.’

‘you stink too. where have you been?’

i smile a little now, opening my eyes; i’m still wearing the jacket, and i curl tighter into it, dipping my face into the shoulder, then into the fold of my crossed arms. he’s probably right--it probably does stink, but i don’t want it washed. don’t want the ground in dirt, and the blotchy sheen of old oil worked loose and rinsed away. there’s too much in there. too much time, too many places, too much of me. i’ve never been the kind to miss the past--i’d rather stew in it--rather wear it like a skin.

“you ready yet?”

d’s voice catches me by surprise and pulls me back, back, back. all the way. i cough and nod, blowing my nose into a bandana. it’s a little after 1, and cold now. i hop a little, swinging my hands, my breath a hazy plume in the desert night. 

“how long?” i ask, glancing at him. his back’s to me and he doesn’t answer. i shrug, emptying sand from the cuffs of my jeans before re-lacing my boots. half an hour, maybe less, otherwise he'd have left me to myself. 

the moon’s high and full, painting the rail-bed white as i climb up one side and down the other, staring down the tracks like thin black veins in a pale arm. i listen to the dull grind of gravel under my feet, the hollow clatter of stones rolling over one another in the vast silence. i listen for anything, for the far-off scream of metal on metal, for heat. 

we’re in ocotillo, midwinter, headed for new orleans for no reason. seems like i’ve been doing a lot of that lately--going places, for lack of a better idea. keeping my feet picked up and my back straight. keeping my heart wide open and my mouth closed. maybe it’s getting me someplace; maybe it’s not. i couldn’t tell ya.

so what’s the point? 

getting by, i guess, on as little as possible. building a life the way you’d build a house--if you didn’t know any better--each element painstakingly scavenged and fit with haphazard precision. moving like pack animals; follow the food, follow the money, follow the good weather. 

making yourself something strange and right and real. something outside the window of child-student-worker-parent. 

make don’t let. let. make. 

quit or fight. 2005. 2006. too many times--quitting, and fighting.

it’s there now--that high thin scream in the distance--and i scramble back up and over. my backpack’s shoved under a creosote bush where i left it, and sand hisses down my shoulders as i shrug into the straps. 

To: RWallin 

Fr: CLucas

"today you are going to have lunch with me."

it isn’t a question so much as it’s a demand, and i listen willingly. i obey, take off my coat, put down my work papers, pencil, stretch and join her at her kitchen table.

"i feed you like my kid," she jokes, twinkling. she stands maybe 4 and a half feet—i am a giant in comparison. her hair is straight, jet black, strands of grey mixed in; she moves quick like i’ll change my mind—like i have somewhere else to be. i wouldn’t dare, and i don’t.

she makes us lunch. she pulls ziplock bags from her freezer, a jar filled with a dull yellowish substance, 2 slices of fresh bread, and coffee. 

the first ziplock is filled with dried, smoked smelts. she prepares a smelt by ripping open the belly of the 3 inch beast, peeling off the skin, and picking out the meat; she places pieces of brown flesh in front of me. 

"there, dip it in seal oil, " she instructs. 

i spoon a tablespoon of it into a small dish, like the ones for sushi, and hesitate. i know this smell and i am wary. i let the dry, smoked fish sit in the oil, soaking; then, without hesitation or thought i eat it. 

it’s dense, this combination. that is the only description i have, as the flavor of seal oil is unlike anything we eat, a food without comparison in our palatable spectrum. it’s not bad—not rancid—but pungent and viscous, oil rendered from a sea mammal composed mostly of fat, adapted to live in a world of freezing temperatures. The seals’ world is frozen 80% of the time,  and now that seal is on my tongue, coating my mouth in 100% pure saturated fat.

my host is overjoyed. 

"you eat native food, that’s good. i’m happy to eat with you." she laughs through mouthfuls of seal oil and smelts. i think she is just delighted that i didn’t vomit, choke, or shit myself.

she is 79. she is an elder in her community. 

she looks younger than my mom, who is 64. 

her face is a calm river; a clear reflection, silky smooth—probably from the saturated seal fat—no stress lines from wasted hours in commuter traffic or hassles in grocery store lines, no daily grind reflected in forehead creases. she looks soft and acts tough; a simple life, existing in a harsh climate. she has lived here most her life, and still welcomes me as a stranger at her door and a friend in her home, a traveling gussuk (Yup’ik for white person). 

humming, she nudges the second ziplock in my direction: jerky, king salmon jerky. i pretend to dip it in the seal oil; i just can’t stomach any more—it’s a lubricate my guts don’t understand and my intestines feel like a slip n’slide.

i prefer the dried smoked king salmon strips in bag number 3 and i eat more of these. the strips glisten with oil, but an oil I crave—omega-3’s, fatty acids my body knows, such nutrient rich food for a place so poor in food diversity. it’s a craving I appreciate; my mouth waters for them, like salt when i’m hungover. 

sharing in this tradition humbles me. i know this meal is a result of her hard labor all summer, gathering food for the winter. 

six months of winter. 

i can only imagine winter here. i never stay in the tundra past november…and those two weeks of november can spiral me into a world of depression. the cold, the dark—the wind that sounds like freddy krugar. it’s scary. 

the arctic turns each village into a snow globe,  isolating these communities, these people, from the rest of civilization in a fury of snow and ice. even though this is their land, it’s still a challenging ecosystem, and in the past only salmon kept them alive—literally. the dense, fatty bodies of thechinook were their fuel to wait for spring.

we eat slowly; our hands are oily, and the talk comes naturally. she tells me about her late husband, her two kids, how she was the first person in her village to have running water and a flushing toilet—this year. 

"you can take that honey bucket outside with you and give it to the senator," she declares. now it’s my turn to laugh.

i love her. 

i don’t know her. we come from completely different cultures, but she feeds me like her own kid, that says it all. 

moon’s hanging sliver-bellied, silver and thin through the spring leaves and heat, and we walk, boots scuffing in the dark, swaying more than we might. 1.75, 2 miles. talking, and not talking, sweat-slick with our minds quiet, tired, but not. 

you remember?

and yes,

halfway.

who said that?

in two years, or five, is this something i’ll think about?

sure it is. i think about it all. 

i read a while ago that memories deteriorate with use--kinda like VHS tapes; the integrity breaks down, the corners get softer. the more i want to remember, the more often i think about things--tell myself the story--the more it becomes a story. not a memory, but an invention; an un-memory. 

i wonder how much i believe that. 

there’s some things i think about, maybe not every day anymore, but i did for so long...and they’ve never gone dull. denim blue eyes. pale gray sand. pain.

some faces that swim up in my mind, flawless as ever, and i still taste bile and i still flinch and it burns me; and i remember dancing in the dust and mud, waking up in cars--waking up on a shotgun. waking up wrong.

early evening, me watching a feather twitch against a deerskin, taunted by wind. trace the stitches in my boots with a pin, scarring up the dust there, wonder how it is that i’m here, sucking cloudy liquid from nopales, sucking my chili-stained fingers, smoking, crouched in dirt and glass.

i’m waiting.

for what?

i’ve been waiting so long i don’t remember.

i remember when they wanted to arrest me in the phoenix airport for waiting. waiting with my green nylon tarp spread on the floor, not huge, just enough for a body, just to keep the greasy white dust from marking me up. waiting for my mother.

the cop was old and black in the used up way that gets you stationed at an airport. he was angry at life more than me, i’m sure, but i was a dirty, sprawled excuse--sweat-stained in the AC--and he wanted me gone. 

i was angry. 

wouldn’t give an inch. 

wouldn’t even stand up to talk to him--i just shrugged, sprawled indolently with my feet up on my messenger bag, and a wad of hash, fat like a roman coin or a squished reeses’,  stuffed in the pocket of my cut-offs. 

why not? i had a right to be there. i was waiting. 

i’m still waiting; shoulders back, breathing easy--heel-toe, heel-toe through the humid night. through our tires humming down quiet streets and our long hellos and quick goodbyes. waiting to be somewhere, to be someone. 

waiting to leave. 

waiting to stay.