Stop the Mayo Clinic from creating genetically engineered kittens for FIV testing and research.

Paper Blues

I’ve got the blues about paper today

I walk around my house examining notes, short stories,
papers from high school written in long hand

looking through papers to throw away

Thinking about days long gone when we learned to write script

My mind jumps ahead: future generations where no one will know how to write script. Writing by hand will disappear except for a few who carry on. Handwriting will become a fine transcribed art that no one teaches and that no one knows how to do anymore.

My cabdriver explained how now-a-days, children do their assignments online on the computer so they don’t write anything down at all anymore not like we did back in the day. He said they barely learn print, they type everything on the computer.

Columbia forced me to buy a typewriter in 1978. They said hand written assignments get lower grades. Hasn’t anyone explained this to you before? I mean I ‘m sorry to break it down to you like this and feel bad no one told you before that at Columbia. Miz. Leftow, you already lost one grade this term by handing in hand-written homework. You would have gotten a B+ but because it was hand written you only are due a C+. Sorry…

When I explained how poor I was she said you’re smart, you’re here at Columbia so you’ll figure out a way to survive.

Back then all I had was two pairs of jeans a skirt a few blouses and one sweater from the $10 store. I had no money to spend but needed that typewriter. Back then I couldn’t conceive a typewriter had a memory so you wouldn’t have to typewrite the whole page if you made a mistake.

My cabbie ‘s conversation brings me back. He’s telling me how hard it is to get by with four children, two are teenagers. "The only way we get by is because my wife lies and says I don’t live there so she can get food stamps Medicaid and section 8," he said as he drove his Lincoln Town Car, working and paying for High Class radio service trying to make a buck. "It ain’t easy out here and that rent we pay would cost us 2100 instead of the 900 we pay and in this way we get by," he confided.

"Four children and us and two cats. I show the vet our Medicaid card," he continued, "and then we don’t pay. Medicaid for cats is good," he said. "We’re doing the best we can to get by and she works on the side too. My wife’s a certified home health nursing aide and she gets work a few days a week at a hospital up in the Bronx. After they take out the taxes it’s about 50 bucks for a 12-hour day then she got to make sure it don’t get in the way of watching out for our children so thank God she doesn’t work everyday."

"It gives her time off to cook and clean house and watch over our teens and younger children. We pay for catholic school – and they have to go to college. There’s no jobs out there you know. We try to get by – but it’s hard to qualify. That’s why she wants to work too. She works off the books. There’s just too many bills to pay. You know growing children need clothes and shoes - those are expensive."

"It’s a different world out there," my cabby alerts me that the ride and story have come to an end. I look around me at all the paper, the notes and each piece of paper seems to have so much meaning I don’t know how to throw it out.

They don’t do things the way they used to. My cabbie is a young man. He’s only 42. His radio comes alive. A voice asks his location in Spanish.

It’s a lot to chew on. I think about all the finagling I did to get by twenty-two years working professionally to help our young – a noble job made harder by the huge bureaucracy I functioned in.

I wanted a house but it went into foreclosure but I still have my state subsidized Mitchel-Lama. They’re hard to come by now-a-days and they don’t intend to build more. Now the Mitchel-Lama rentals are so high that when people don’t lie andtell the truth about who lives where, no one can afford to live anywhere anymore.

In Washington Heights where I live most of the people survive on a lie because otherwise they’d live so poor they’d be in deep shit .

Worked hard for that money and still

Can’t get me no no no no - satisfaction

I will overcome some day

I sing misty blue for you today

Misty blue just for you today Daddy

Sing misty for you every day

Waiting to hear you say

You’re coming on home today

My life’s on hold – my mind strays

I see you in my mind’s eye drinking that Bombay Gin

Sitting alone in a Starbuck’s café

Knowing life plays me like a Violin

But I can’t stop myself from hoping there could be a better way

Please tell me you’ll always love me Daddy

The way you know that I love you

So please come on home to stay

My soul has turned misty like the weather before the storm

While it keeps playing the same old song

Play it in reverse today and tomorrow

Let me coerce you to come on home

Let your worries disperse

Things can’t get much worse

So come on home baby

We’re going to jam the night away and 

play new music all day today Daddy

until the moon wanes in the sky and 

the sun shines again today

Someday I will overcome all obstacles put in my way

Compression

We laugh and make jokes about the stockings and me.

I say, “They’re holding me together.”

He says, questioning me as if I’m not telling the truth or maybe I don’t know, “They’re holding you together?”

“Yes, holding me together literally,” I repeat.

We both laugh hysterically hardly able to catch our breaths

bursting as though about to explode

We act like this is the first time we laughed at this.

Our laughter is like a rhyme held together by glue and impending time.

 “They’re holding me together,” I repeat and again he repeats after me, “They’re holding you together, “ and again we laugh hysterically.

It is better to laugh than cry. Sometimes I cry and laugh at once because of the absurdity of life. Don’t try to anticipate the unexpected. It can’t work. It’s a joke on me just like my father before me. Tears stream and peals of laughter burst through at the same time. I laugh so hard I cry and cry so hard I laugh. Maintaining mirthfulness merriment helps me get by with a little help from my friends.

Life plays jokes while I dance through with songs in my head. The fatuity is not futility. I remain hopeful to a new cause. Each joke has its own device; No more criticizing –I pray that way – if I refrain so will they. One crazy white Jewish poet is one of the 99 percent – they’re moving everywhere, like a silent storm creating a new reality, I struggle to see the light, make wrongs right with the rest of the 99 percent.

I love how they squeeze me tight, expand my sight, I don’t fit it with the left or the right, helps me feel more strong & erect.

“They’re holding me together,” I tell my dentist.

My dentist replies, “It’s good for your circulation.”

Another friend asks, “Doesn’t it hinder your blood flow?”

“To the contrary,” I say, “They improve my blood flow.”

“The elastic band on the stocking’s top, I mean, doesn’t that cut off your blood flow?”

“I wear them all day – all night and they don’t bother me.

They’re keeping me together.”

 “Wouldn’t it be better if you wore pantyhose up to your waist?”

“No, my pelvis likes to breathe and be free,” I say, “I prefer these even if later in the day the elastic on top feels slightly tight but that’s only least ten hours at least. So soft tender cotton caresses my thigh.”

“Oh,” she replied, “If I had to wear them I’d wear the other kind.”

You have no idea I thought in my mind’s eye I didn’t say out loud.

“OK,” I say out loud, mind on overtime to report, create a retort resort to.

don high-quality blue workman’s gloves with smooth rubber fingertips and palms

I stretch and pull them, almost pure skintight up to my thighs.

My legs enjoy the ride. Umm… Umm.

Holding my craziness and me together forever whenever.

Compression…

Zuccotti Park & Occupy into month two - Links to use!

I have worked hard at compiling this list and although some links are repetitive I have done that so that one doesn't have to begin new searches to find something to see the important things. You may wonder why is a poet interested in this. Much of my poetry focuses on the inequities in our society.

I am licensed clinical social worker and a double alumna of Columbia University. I attended Columbia in the Johnson era through the auspices of the Higher Education Program. I was admitted because I showed potential and fit the economic criteria and had been educationally disadvantaged. I was a single mom raising a child who had various disabilities and let me tell you - it ain't easy.

I too, was raised very poor. Mom had cancer and was left disabled after surgery and even though my dad worked he could never make enough to get us into a larger apartment. My dad, my mom, my brother, my two sisters and me all lived together in a one bedroom apartment and it was too tight.

Poverty is not noble. Other children made fun of the holes in my shoes and my limited wardrobe. I hand washed and ironed my own clothes at seven years old because my mother could not do it. She couldn't lift her right arm even to waist level because doctors had removed all of her muscle tissue along with lymph nodes. They did their best to help my mother live. She only wanted to survive to see her children grow and take care of themselves.

My dad was part of an immigrant family. At eleven years old he was forced to go work to help support his family. All my dad and his brother wanted to do - being the natural musicians that they were - was to be in vaudeville. They got to participate but they were not permitted to live artistically and were forced to ignore that part of themselves. They were forced to help support their families.

As a humanitarian and a humanist I see that things are getting even worse in many ways now. We poison our environments and habitats and it is permitted legally for big business to survive. So mostly what needs to change is that we must be here for each other and we must do things to benefit the greater whole of humanity not private enterprise. Fracking our water supply and denying the future consequences is not good. Promoting the use of oils and other expensive methods of energy are no longer necessary. We have the technology. Now we are back to the times in my childhood when it is becoming harder and harder to survive unless people know how to connive their way through the system to get more than they are supposed to. Now, more than ever, it is becoming harder to make a living support your family and to get an apartment to live. Many adults are forced to share and rent rooms. Many families join together to share rent on one bedroom apartments to survive.

I am fortunate to have a pension that I worked hard for plus my social security. I want to make certain that the planet and our children will survive along with the planet's many other sentient beings. It is clear that society is not protecting people or our planet. Government and private enterprise are interlocked. Can you imagine all the things that would not be done if those in charge truly took care of all of us the way we deserve to be? Someone asked me if I am a communist. No I am a humanist and I love my country and want it to be better for all of us. Meanwhile 99 percent of us suffer and try to make do and survive. It is not easy for any of us. That is why I consider myself one of the 99%.

Take your time to go through the links below and bookmark the ones you like.

These 3 links below are the official “occupy” links.

http://occupywallst.org/

http://occupytogether.com/

This following link is to the members of the Occupy Arts and Culture section. Anyone may join.
http://www.occupennial.org/

My published poem can be found here:
http://www.occupennial.org/poetry-and-spoken-word

Adbusters helped support and get the “occupy” movement started.
http://www.adbusters.org/blogs

Kevin Zeese is one of the original organizers in addition to being a lawyer. His blog is an invaluable resource and almost everything you need to know can be found here.
http://october2011.org/statement

Zeese’s listing of occupy events can be found at this link including the plan for June 2012 when all United States Occupiers will march and occupy Washington D.C:


http://october2011.org/blogs/kevin-zeese/99-are-standing-everywhere-occupy-together#comment-3036

Zeese also has a wonderful listing for media and Blogs to explore.
http://october2011.org/media

The site below is also a radio station and is one of the best sources of accurate information and news about occupy in addition to Zeese’s blog.

http://www.democracynow.org/

Another website new to me called velvet revolution is interesting.

http://www.velvetrevolution.us/newVR

More links to explore:

http://readersupportednews.org/

http://www.breakingcopy.com/occupied-wall-street-journal-issue-2-pdf

http://www.breakingcopy.com/category/news-journalism

Call to Action for Washington D.C. 2012

http://occupywallst.org/forum/a-call-to-action-2012/

http://notanalternative.com/

The Marines are coming:
http://www.in5d.com/occupy-wall-street-the-marines-are-coming-to-protect-the-protestors.html

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xlw0b7_marine-shamar-thomas-interview-on-nypd-brutality-towards-ows-protesters_news

Other newspapers or sites that maintain an alternative view and support occupy:

http://alternativenewsreport.net/2011/10/23/occupy-everywhere-demands-obamacare/students-in-iran-support-occupy-wall-street-protests_image-2/

http://www.alternet.org/

http://Credo.org

This site below is managed by Mike Palecek. He sends out regular emails and runs a radio interview show in addition to being a publisher. His email is Mike Palecek.
http://www.newamericandream.net/top_button_issue.html

More links to digest:
http://cromalternativemoney.org/index.php/en/media/news/nobel-winning-economist-supports-occupy-wall-street-protest.html

http://gothamist.com/

Below is an interesting and inspiring video. Israelis visit Syrian Border speaking out for peace ant social justice and change and peace between the two countries:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6x_p7Eksa0k&list=FLhEeHal1VUMF_wfXn001f3w&feature=mh_lolz

Another interesting movie available for free is “Shock Doctrine” by activist Naomi Wolf. Here is an interview with her.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKr_soG4DUA

The entire movie can be seen here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFF_-BrmRWE

For a little levity and humor - you've got to see this video with Stephen Colbert visiting Zuccotti and later interviewing two people, Justin and Ketchup, who were chosen by the press group to represent the 99 percent. You will laugh and I think being able to laugh at ourselves sometimes is necessary.
http://occupywallst.org/forum/ketchup-and-justin-foil-colbert-optation/

An acquaintance of mine – knowing how sensitive I am about being Jewish told me the 99% are blaming everything on the Jews on Wall Street and Bolling of Fox 5 reported this. I have suffered a great deal of prejudice about my Jewishness my entire life, starting when I was a child and other children called me “Christ killer.” Do not believe this propaganda being fed to us to keep us separate and hating one another. I researched this piece of information and discovered that Bolling from Fox 5 did try to smear the Occupy Wall Street movement as anti-Semitic.

Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, responded to Bolling in the New York Times “that while there may have been incidents of anti-Semitism in the movement ‘they are not expressing or representing a larger view." Foxman stated, "the movement is not about Jews. ... It's about 'the economy, stupid.'"

http://mediamatters.org/blog/201110270001?frontpage

Having been to Zuccotti and attended many meetings and participated in many dialogues I can honestly report and assure any of you with doubts that in the many times and hours spent with the occupy movement I never experienced any type prejudice.

I am considering doing guided tours and spoke to the person in charge at the welcome desk and they actually need someone who is familiar with the site to do this. I plan to go again to make certain I know where everything is so I can take this position.

For the 99%, for art, for artists, for all. - Blog - A Poem by Joy Leftow

For the 99%, for art, for artists, for all. - Blog - A Poem by Joy Leftow

I am proud the above poem was published by Occupennial Art Database for OccupyWallStreet artists and art actions.

Zuccotti Park & Occupy into week 4

There's an excellent energy down at occupy wall street and finally demonstrators and occupying citizens are being taken seriously. No one goes hungry and even the homeless have joined them.

The first time I was there, I'd just lost my health insurance because my ex dropped me when he lost his job. We'd both signed our divorce stipulation where he'd agreed to cover me until the divorce. Without telling me anything then, he dropped me when he was fired from his job. I went down to the employee benefits board on Rector Street and explained my dilemma as a retiree. They agreed to reinstate me from the first of the month when I explained my concerns that I had seen several doctors that month already without realizing that I wasn't covered. After finishing I decided to walk about since I am rarely in that part of the city. I looked at the world trade center and decided to get a salad. After finishing my salad I looked out the window and saw there was a crowd in the square facing me.

Entering the square I looked around me and it seemed the park had been overtaken by homeless. I found myself standing next to a young lady with blond hair who appeared very business like. I started a conversation. "Are there a lot of homeless people who have moved into this park?" I asked, this only being day two of the occupy movement and not knowing anything.

The young woman who was dressed in a plain gray skirt and blouse with a jacket looked at me and laughed at my question. "We are demonstrating here," she said. "We're the 99 percent who have nothing because the 1 percent have it all. What better place to protest than here where it starts? I guess though to answer your question, there are many young people who can't get work and since they can't get work they figure they may as well get a head start with claiming a spot since pretty soon there's going to be a lot more of us homeless than before with degrees and all. So many have moved here so they have a place to be."

We discussed the possibility of a performance space since I always think about poetry and performance. I promised to research their since I liked what I heard. I hung out for several hours walking around and checking out the boobs which were nice to see and wrote down the website, occupywallstreet.com, intending to google it when I got home. Over the next few days I kept expecting to hear something on the news but it never happened. I decided to revisit and bring my poetry hoping there would be a performance space. And it just so happened that The People Staged was on when I got there. I signed my name and performed. The audience was great and there was no one drink minimum or entrance fee and they all screamed "encore!" For the first time in years I felt hopeful about our political state of mind. The country has turned into us the worker bees, being peons, and the big folk take everything we earn except leaving us enough to be strong enough to work for them.


Below are pics taken today.

Below is G. Wagner who displays his sign along with his art and support. Occupy Wall Street is inspiring artists.

David Everitt-Carlson 
a homeless blogger getting his point across.

Good writing graffiti by homeless blogger.

We asked for change, we prayed for change, we looked for change but there's been very little.

Don't box us in. We need space and freedom to grow.

Don't give to the greedy, give to the needy - yes indeedy! We will overcome!

Jamming the day and night, to bring about peace and change. Occupy all day all week!

This man works as a home health aide but still has to live at a shelter. He works so doesn't qualify for health care or food stamps. When I told him about the "medicaid spend down" he had no clue what  I was speaking of.

The smell of people, incense and pot permeated the air along with hopes and dreams.

Yom Kipper and Russian Bluetry

 Oh my father - please rest in peace - you never had any while you lived. A musically gifted prodigy forced to leave school behind to go to work everyday - forced to help support his family and still to this day, it irks me when I hear people say Jews are rich.

A musician who loved learning, a cruel joke in life - your entire life lived in fear - the world a dangerous place. Eleven years old - forced to leave school and work; you looked for places to recluse yourself inside your head you hid from the world by living in dreams where you played your violin instead.

Father I feel for you, a young boy told, "Son, we’re sorry but you have to help support your family. There are six of us,” his Dad said, “so you have to work to help pay the rent and buy the food we eat.”

Forced everyday to work in a drug store in Harlem and of your own device going to school at night so you could finish your Latin and math and be a real pharmacist not just an apprentice. You figured you’d get a pharmaceutical license if you finished your physics and math so you did it. By the time I was born you'd lost your focus trying to stay alive and support a wife and four children. Your temperament led to arguments with bosses. Then you gave up and stayed with the apprentice license even though you performed all the same tasks. You said you made medicines from scratch using Latin formulas.

One night you were forced to work late –ordered to close up all alone. That night there was a violent riot in Harlem- forced to work late. Climbing up high to a small hidden window near to the ceiling saved your life you said. Otherwise you would have been dead. A man outside the store lay dead while you waited inside until the noise in the street died. You waited over 10 hours you said, hidden behind a heavy black curtain in the storage room, wondering if you’d get out alive.

Terror and frustration created a monster inside who ate his way out of the hive and proved he was in charge. My Dad beat his first wife. The second was my mother who suffered greatly. She kept trying to stay alive to help her children survive.  Her cancer ate her alive. Poor Dad gambled our money away and came home mean and exhausted. If got worse if she fought.

My two sisters, my brother, my Dad and my mother all crammed into a one-bedroom apartment. It wasn’t too pleasant but I have a few good memories. Uncle Leo visited Dad every Sunday and they played their violins, sang tunes and lyrics they created and accompanied each other all day, showing each other what they'd learned and created.

Then Uncle Leo’s wife went off her rocker and was never the same again. Day after day, she chanted the same words, “They go to Argentina and they think they’re great!” referring to Jews who had escaped and Nazi's escaping the holocaust. Uncle Leo died when I was ten. Poor Dad went crazy too. His sisters and mother got him out of Bellevue by paying a fine of two and a half thousand. My father chased the doctor around with a knife, the doctor who’d removed my mother’s breast – my dad chasing him wielding a big butcher knife. He claimed the doctor was having an affair with my mom. Dad flipped out and never recovered either.

Poor Dad –never easy for you- your mother kvetching in Yiddish bragging about her dancing on the Russian Stage but how she gave it all up and left it behind so you could be born in America. Lucky for you – she had the foresight to see forty years ahead.

Poor Dad, working all day when all you wanted to do was be like your Dad who had accompanied your mom with his violin – the violin became yours. No one ever taught you to play but you played like a pro. Rest in peace Day - may you finally have the security and peace you longed for in life.

times are tough for the 99 %

Help me go & speak to Obama for the 99% & you!

I'm a poor artist surviving on a pension & SS. I'm seeking donations to go Obama's dinner so I can break things down to him for how it is for the unprivileged. I would love to have an opportunity to explain how hard it is for us who will never own a home, for those of us who live right in the way of people fracking our water supply so that in several years probably half of us will be dead and those of us who survive will be diseased. I would definitely like an opportunity to voice my opinion. I want to tell Obama how it is everyone's basic right to have adequate medical care food and shelter.

I want him to know that the poor need an expansion of social welfare programs like we had in the Johnson era and that he needs to stop giving big pay outs to people on Wall Street, that he needs to follow President Roosevelt's tactics when it come to taxing the very wealthy because the poor can no longer shelter everything plus pay for everything the rich want.

No one can afford their own apartment anymore. Where are people to go?
There's no jobs and what about the man who makes 23000 and has 3 young children and a wife? He pays taxes and can barely pay the rent.
Things are rough all around for the 99 percent.

For the first times in years - spending some time with the 99% in Zocotti Park and participating in their activities and sharing their space, I feel hopeful that sometime in my lifetime there will be change and more equitable distribution of resources, jobs, money for food medical care for working poor. I haven't felt this hopeful in years.

I even got to hang out with Uncle Eddie & Robin which was great fun. Robin said they'd traveled from West Virginia to be with their brothers and sisters. Uncle Eddie even accompanied me with his banjo when I performed the following poem. Very cool people.

Billie’s Consumerism Blues

What I find crazy is that none of this is being reported in the news. I mean why should we know that a grass roots organization has moved into a park on Wall Street or that this same grass roots population has the same type demonstrations going on in at least 50 more cities.

Yesterday at occupywallstreet.com I was surprised to learn that this occupation is going on in other cities simultaneously and somehow miraculously this news is being kept from our citizenry.
I was really happy to be there today and see so much going on. They even had a performance corner which I participated in which was great fun.

A lot of solidarity permeates the air!

Check the link below at Kevin Zeese's blog to see exactly where and spread the word everywhere to everyone you know:

occupy occupy occupy 
This is a great blog for disseminating information.
http://october2011.org/blogs/kevin-zeese/99-are-standing-everywhere-occupy-together

Celebrities Susan Sarandon and Michael Moore visit Zucotti park

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2042317/Occupy-Wall-Street-Michael-Moore-joins-protesters-New-York.html

Above is a profile of Uncle Eddie and below is Robin.

And here's Robin, his cohort in crime!

occupy wall street all day all week is the chant you hear!

My first short film is now online: "Toss up and Sides again"

Ben Hopper filmed his first short film - check it out! Shot over a period of 2 days using a Canon 5D Mark II during the 18th Israeli Juggling Convention in Gan HaShlosha (Israel) back in April this year.

My first short film is now online: "Toss up and Sides again"