Householders' Gazette

Dedicated to the compromised pilgrim, stumbling toward nirvana. (Expect pictures of kids.)

[householdersgazette]

The phone saga. Continued.

He’s usually pretty cool, but this cellphone thing he drops the ball on. Totally.

Dad said that I have to write a blog on why I want a phone. So, here it is!

(Daddy, I need a phone, and listen to this quote….)

“A phone makes a human being an apple. It makes them smart and happy. It provides gratitude.” - Whitney Houston

Phone:

It will make me be more responsible. 1

It will cause me to stop whining. 2

Instead of carrying around a iPad to do my homework, I could do it on my phone. 3

It will help me make good choices on what I do on the phone. (And in life) 4

I will learn how to protect myself on the internet. 5

It will make me feel safer because I know that in case emergency, I only need to press a button. 6

It will let me search on google with my phone, not your phone. 7

1:A phone will make me more responsible because if I lose it, break it, or do something bad on/with it, I will need to pay for it or suffer the consequences.

2: It will cause me to stop whining because I really want a smartphone, and I keep whining for it. Hence, if you get me a phone I will not be whining about wanting a smartphone.

3: On this phone, I could get google classroom and synergy. Google classroom and synergy is what my homework is on, and I only have those apps on my iPad. The/a phone is smaller and easier to carry around.

4: It will help me make better choices on what I do on a phone and in life because I will learn how to make choices and stay with my choices, but I will also learn how to make correct choices.

5: I will learn how to protect myself on the internet because I will be using the phone often, going on games, sites, and people will be on the same apps, and I will learn how to make sure I am safe on the internet.

6: In case of an emergency, I will only need to press one button. On flip phones, I will need to press a button, then press another button, and then press one more button and then I will call someone. Also, it takes a long time to text something on flip phones. On smartphones it’s so much easier and faster.

(Not needed-extra credit)

7: An iPhone will also help me because a lot of the time you say go and search something but I cannot search anything on my flip phone. That’s why I always use your phone. With a real phone, I can search things.

I hope you will take this phone thing into consideration.

Quite appreciated,

Moon Welte

[householdersgazette]

I wish I could remember where I read this--only recently!--but I can’t, so it goes without attribution, sadly. It’s a great little metaphor for meditation. Here goes:  

If you work at a pizza shop, you’ll smell and see the same pizza as the hungry man coming in off the street. But, being around pizza all day, you’ll be less likely to want a slice. So, by meditating, you’ll still have the same kind of thoughts everyone else has; but you’ll be desensitized to them, and so less likely to nom-nom-nom, overthink-think-think, at the expense of outer health and inner peace.

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My word. I have been observing my thoughts a bit more closely lately, and am taking greater notice at how much absolute bullshit is in my/our minds, and how so much of it is ego-based, and it’s mildly nauseating. Even on my bike, when I am presumably supposed to be paying attention to the road, my mind is filled with such absolute garbage, all a cloaked defense of the ego, it’s awful. Now, don’t go thinking I’m going mad or running away to the hermitage, because I’m not, not in the least. Rather the more stately challenge is to diminish this mental (and spiritual) chatter, and in my role as householder, try to pass a greater clarity of mind and motions on to my daughters, without becoming authoritarian in the process.

The upside of this self-observance is that, whereas I was previously highly judgmental toward others—although fairly adept at concealing it, or so I like to think—my judgement of them has become less stern, and I have become more accommodating to the human within each of us, and try to apply succor to every moment. It means that I sometimes behave more honestly, in more brutal chunks, but from which in the end a more beautiful form of living emerges.

It might sound as if I’m seeking an anti-intellectual, “natural instincts”-led form of life, but no, that is mere animal living. I’m seeking to continue learning, continue to reach for a life of integrity, but according to a more human, maybe even more divine chord, to which we can aspire.

[householdersgazette]

Self-improvement

The great irony of self improvement is that at core, there is no “self” to improve. We often undertake a course of instruction or develop a new habit to “better” ourselves personally or professionally: but as long as we’re still stuck on a result-oriented outcome, we don’t gain the longer-lasting wisdom that is the true differentiator in creating a life lived. What we end up accomplishing is making a move to a different step on the staircase that only leads us to ever desiring more, ever finding ourselves deficient in some way.

Similar to the way we pursue the next car, the swell home, the amazing spouse, the ‘bucket list” vacation or the promotion to VP as entities we believe will make us happy, so-called “self improvement” becomes another grocery list of things standing between this moment and our happiness. The “out there” is not where happiness resides: that address is inside.

One of the best vehicles toward Happiness is meditation. During this silent, gentle focus there comes the realization that we alone stand in the way of our happiness, that it is the “self” -always hungry, always unsatisfied—that blocks the gate. The quiet moments reveals the ogre of our basest humanity, but also the giant who produces joy.

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Naked Gardening Day, 2017

I love Naked Gardening Day. Not that I wait around for it, because I don't need an external reason to wander around my land like one of God's critters, free as Walt Whitman on a Spring morning.

But on this day I can almost feel communion with other naturists out there, where we can take comfort in "our day" in a world where nude-living expressions are few and far between--or in Germany.

Growing up military Catholic, public nudity didn't really come easily. I was mortified one day at 11, standing on a beach on the North Sea one day changing out of my shorts into swimming trunks under the flimsy cover of a tucked-around-my-waist towel. Germans! what kooks! Changing at the beach! What if God saw us!

At 18, though, I had walked down the mountain with a few friends to the beach of Pelekas, Corfu, and one of our group said, "you can go find a camping spot if you like, but this place is naked as a jaybird, and I've been waiting my whole life for this!" which was enough for the rest of us to instantly drop trou and run naked into the Ionian Sea, converting to nudism on the spot. Coincidentally, as I found out years later, Lawrence Durrell loved this beach, too.

Since then, it's hard to wear a suit at the beach. What's the point. Luckily, San Francisco has Baker Beach and its nude northern reaches, and as I mentioned, our place in Sonoma is fenced off so that I can free-willy at my discretion.

This year's Naked Gardening Day was brief, though, as we had a full-on family agenda. I went up with Everleigh to do some weeding and planting--here in Sonoma you're supposed to plant vegetables by Tax Day, and on the East Coast it's by the Kentucky Derby--so it was high time to get some starters in the soil.

We planted four varieties of tomatoes, two squashes, bok choy, a few sunflowers for Ever, and something else I can't remember. I was moving at breakneck speed, and Everleigh was kind and good-humored enough to shoot a few photos of her dad doing his thing. I set a timed sprinkler that I hope works for a few months, and we drove off again. It's an act of faith almost, but one made even more primitive and cthonic, planted in the nude: like Adam in search of a future Caprese salad and gazpacho, I dug holes, planted starters, added water and some fertilizer, and hope.

[householdersgazette]

Take your girl to work

Captain Von Trapp, in The Sound of Music (a movie I've seen probably 50 times), sings a song with the verse:

"For here you are standing there, loving me Whether or not you should So somewhere in my youth or childhood I must have done something good.

It's when you know that the Captain and Maria are really in love, really loving one another, in the deepest "I found you!" sense, and if you saw it young enough in life the first time, it somewhat colors your expectations of love for the rest of your life.

But enough about love. I was really here to talk about how great it is to work at Salesforce, and how lucky I feel. Marc Benioff and crew have planned a super-duper Take Your Daughter or Son or Yet Undecided But Equal Child to Work day, and my girl and I are really thrilled.

Here is the detailed schedule of Thursday's activities:

08:00-10:00 AM Registration & Breakfast 10:00-12:00 Activity Rotation 12:00-01:00 Lunch 01:00-03:00 Activity Rotation 03:00-04:00 Parent/Kid Panel Hosted by Jane Hynes, SVP, PR and Communications 04:00-05:00 Fun Fair (face painting, balloons)

Activities: • Volunteer activity: Build-a-Bear donations to Marc Benioff Children's Hospital • Arts and crafts activity • Playwell Technologies - Children's STEM activity with Legos • Earthforce activity to teach children about environmental health

Is this awesome, or just super?

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My recalcitrant, obstreperous, and filled-with-excuses illustrator assures me that after a year of zero production, on November 20, he will deliver not one, but two new installments of the Billy Noodle project. I am looking forward to this with near-religious fervor. I am at work on the fourth book presently, as well as my memoirs of being Seattle’s best male stripper, 1984. What a life. You can’t make this stuff up, kids.

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HELICOPTERING PARENTS

With the exception of the absence of the South End Rowing Club, and swimming in the bay year-round, I am an ex-New Yorker San Franciscan who still believes that New York kicks San Francisco's ass in every way around the clock. As such, I still subscribe to four New York-originating or oriented publications, one of which is the New York Observer. The publication has changed a lot since the 90s, when it came in two sections printed on salmon-colored paper, and it was nearly a moonlighting-job effort to get through on a weekly basis, because the articles were lengthy. Jim Kramer (booyah!), Candace Bushnell (Sex in the City), and Ron Rosenbaum were complemented by bon mots baked up by Nick Paumgarten, Alex Kuczynski, and others. Reading it religiously in the 90s made me an apex of urban information living in Gotham. Reading it now makes me something of an elitist sentimentalist. So be it.

One of the contributors on the roster is Richard Kirshenbaum, who once had the hottest ad agency in the universe, and sold it for a gazillion dollars (gazillion for advertising, not finance or tech money), and has gone on to start a few other very successful agencies. He's kind of a hero to me: when I took (the one) class in advertising at the SVA back in the 90s, he spoke to us one night at his agency. He was cool, rich, creative, and young: everything one moves to NYC to become.

Richard is a great writer. Not Tolstoy great, but with such style and panache he could write about frog dissection and I'd read it.  His column details the exploits and indulgences of the Very Monied Class of NY and the world (which are coterminous, really), and last week he wrote about the 'helicopter parents' of that strata. (Of course there it's called "G5" parenting.) In an aside from his main narrative, he asks a child psychologist what is the measure and mission of good parenting, to which he receives the response, "preparing them for separation."

As a parent of two girls whom I treasure more than anything else in life, I could not agree more. For the longest time I thought the answer to the question was something like 'delivering good, useful adults to the world' or 'making productive citizens' or some such utilitarian cocktail. But to focus on that momentary transition from dependent critter to independent agent in the world puts a finer point on the definition, and a finite endpoint to the campaign of parenthood. Assuming there's a timer on your influence with your kids, what are you going to focus on?

Helicoptering our kids is buying into fear, and it is a sad consolation for having a real life. Helicoptered kids learn less about life. Almost all of our modern heroes came from under-parented children who worked things out on their own.

Let your kid climb that bar and fall. Say no to their whining and wanting everything.   Let them be bored out of their minds. Punish them if they 'demand' the screen. Let your kids get it wrong. Let them fight and lose.

When they come home at the end of the day, love them, support them, help them through their trials and not around them. 

At the dinner table, in the garage, at the market. Anywhere but circling overhead in the sky.

[householdersgazette]

The Imminent Return of Billy Noodle

I didn't grow up with an itch to write children's books, yet one day (in the 90s) I invented a character that someone thought was worthy of developing, and about two years ago, I finally did it. One of the fellows I work with is a crackerjack illustrator, and he was onboard to develop it with me, which I took as a good sign given that his girlfriend, a teacher and therapist, also encouraged him to pursue it. After a few months of sketching and chatting, he put together a set of illustrations for the first installation of what I hope to be many about a boy named Billy Noodle.

The book is intended as a first step in a long journey with Billy, in which the page count and the reading level increase as Billy ages: he starts out at the age of potty-training, so he's 2 or 3 (maybe even 4. I have girls, and we had that sorted at 25 months.) The second book was intended to be about taking a bath and developing good hygiene (humorously), but we had to put that on hold temporarily for the following business reason.

The second book now is actually a prequel of sorts, as we decided we needed to beef up the page count of the first few books, given that no print-on-demand publishing houses will accommodate a book of such (short) length. Our plan is to bundle the two together, sell in the Amazon Kindle marketplace, market it, and see what happens next. Ideally we are able to launch a "platform" and release 4-6 books over the next two years, and then approach a traditional publisher, like Scholastic, Workman, Houghton-Mifflin, and a bevy of others. Or get an agent. Or, if it's successful enough, continue to self-publish on Amazon.

Billy Noodle Easy Poo-Poo came out in October of 2015. My illustrator informs me that he will have the second book completed by the end of August. My fingers are crossed. My legs are crossed. Working with artists can be trying. I hope we have the second book on Amazon by October 1, and we can start this machine up again.

I'm getting out the pencils, and polishing the rosary.

[householdersgazette]

The End of Characters

I recently stumbled into a haircut, and walked out 10 pounds lighter.

I hadn't planned on cutting it, although I knew I needed it, but as a way to avert a kids-shoe-shopping episode I would have rather avoided, I went into a barber shop that I used to frequent a few years back, when it was owned by an older Japanese man named Asano. He had provided a nifty $17 haircut, and for the rest of the day you would look like Don Draper, oiled down in Clubman hair tonic.

The new barber was chomping on a corned beef sandwich and told me to come back in ten minutes, when he was finished eating. No politeness to his demeanor, yet nothing rude, either: I'm sure a great many Californians would have thought his brusque flavor unsavory, however, and they would have moved on to a tonier chair.

Ten minutes later I took my seat and he covered me up. He ran a comb through my hair and asked what I wanted. I told him I was hoping to grow it longer, and that I needed a trim, a cleaning up. He stopped combing the gel out of my hair and blurted out, "Who the fuck cut your hair last, your wife?" which earned a chuckle. "This is the worst haircut I've seen in a year, Crissakes. You're lucky you came in here. You might not come in again, but you're getting a decent cut today, that's all I'm saying."

He was, yes, from New York. East Village. Italian, Calabrese. We rambled on in a jocular manner, part wit sparring session, part conversation, all bare-fisted.

About eight minutes into this banter I said, "You are really refreshing."

"Yeah? How?"

"You're really an asshole."

"With a capital A, baby."

My appreciation of his unvarnished wit implies that I, too, and a capital-A asshole, which I'm OK with. If "color" brings about the chagrined frowns of other "refined"--and less fun--persons, so be it.

Unaffected by the veil of niceness and so-called "correctness" that has infected anti-tolerant America, his comments I'm sure offend some people. Yet, he seemed fair, open-minded and opinionated, and wholly colorful, lacking the modern veneer of "correct" thinking and speech. The public is forgetting that when you cut out what you "don't want to hear," and you are heading toward fascism.

Consider this two-minutes-and-change John Cleese thought bomb.

We're going to miss guys like this. Cleese, my new barber, Ricky Gervais, someone you probably know.

Not only that, but America will be a lesser place when these free-speakers are gone.

I will be maintaining this hairstyle for quite a while.

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This video was produced by a friend of mine who is a meditation teacher. Not a mindfulness instructor, but a meditation teacher. It is as honest and new-age-free as it gets about why we should all be meditating. A great little production, with a great big offering. 

[householdersgazette]

Since I lack an idea so compelling or a talent so obvious that I'd leave my job tomorrow and start a business around it, I work for others. Maybe I lack courage, maybe I'm really lazy, maybe it’s just fine this way. Whatever the truth is, the result is that over the years I have collected my salary from a varied list of employers from good to lousy, making the contrast with my current employer all the more poignant. Salesforce, that growing, proliferating, exploding San Fran phenomenon, is far and above superior to any other outfit I've worked for, in myriad ways I won't bore you with. Suffice it to say that there's nothing like working with great bosses and peers, where most people are talented and nice, and take as much ownership and assistance one could ask for in a company with nearly 20000 employees. Going into the office is never a drag. (Except for the having to wear clothes bit.)

What's more, outside of our job descriptions, each of us 20K people is heavily persuaded to do 48 hours of volunteer work every year, working for a non-profit to provide tangible benefit to parts of the world that we as well-paid corporate citizens might not encounter on our own. Mind you, this is paid time-off to do volunteer work. Six days a year. If you are active enough in your efforts to serve the full 48 hours, the company provides you with $1000 in grant money to disperse to approved non-profits of your choice.

My first year with the company I fell short, mostly because I started mid-way through the year. This year, however, I hit my target 48 hours, and have recently requested that my gift donation be split between two companies.

"Who'd you give the money to?"

The first is Karuna-Shechen, the organization founded and run by the French-born Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard, also known as "the happiest person alive."  KS provides health care, education, and social services for the under-served people of India, Tibet, and Nepal, where he lives most of the year. I brought Matthieu here to speak about mindfulness and altruism earlier in '15 (I run a meditation group here that I call SitForce--get it?), and learned of his aid group and its mission. Having traveled to Nepal years ago and fallen in love with the country and its people, it was a no-brainer, especially after the earthquake.

The other group receiving my donation is Girl Effect. Co-run by the Nike Foundation, Girl Effect helps girls in developing nations by empowering them with the tools they need to achieve their potential, and create a virtuous cycle of change by lifting girls and their families and communities up out of poverty. The thinking behind the organization is powerful and profound: give a girl an equal and supported chance achieving something, and data bears out the case that they create more community wealth than a man does. As the father of two girls myself,  it grabs my attention.

What goes around comes around.

While the organization helps those in developing nations build and sustain tangible value, it also drives home a renewed sense of responsibility for raising our daughters to be unencumbered by existing social mores, and to instill a sense of fearlessness in them. That's not to say we turn them into brash risk-minions, but instead strive for them to be equal citizens in the larger world, and encourage them to enjoy their existence with vigor, to kowtow to no one, to be free to earn her keep, and find place in the world astride any peer, man or woman. Women are different creatures than men, but often undervalued. And that needs to change.

As the American Presidential Elections gain momentum and loom over the media landscape, let's not forget that women --our daughters, wives, and sisters--deserve a more level playing field. Reproductive rights, equal pay, professional bias--important concerns that require honest and profound thought and decisions--not just the volume put forth in sound bites erupting from political agendas having little to do with the American community.

[householdersgazette]

The Day I Became a Millionaire

Until you realize the next rung of the ladder isn’t where salvation hides, the siren song will keep playing.

A great article!

I am not a member of the moral-superiority gang who disdains others for their material wealth and comforts. We all enjoy fine things, we have the capacity for a luxury now and then. I prefer business to coach, would like to sleep on Frette, and would enjoy having a personal chef a couple nights a week. But where those 'externals' become the defining content of one's life I do draw a line.

The $70K rule (with the exception of those living in SF, NYC, and perhaps LA) about being the annual salary one needs to be content, optimistic, and healthy is largely true, yet our perennial cultural behavior largely shuns that in favor of "more." And the more portends to produce "more" happiness.

This article reveals (again) how impotent that idea actually is.

Practicing a "less is more" life, however, isn't easy, nor is it a healthy default. The antidote to what could be called a type of gluttony isn't starvation, but moderation. Moderation itself, though, can be difficult--it requires thought, pause, imagination, and discipline.

This is where meditation can help. 15-20 minutes a day. Do it for a month, and watch for yourself. Want it faster? No, it won't happen. But if you do 15-20 minutes twice a day, you will see it happen more dramatically, with new perspective, and you'll see it as the reward it is in itself.

Don't waste your time "striking it rich" before you find the wealth inside. But also don't disregard your obligation of self-interest: you do have to make a living and save for the future. With a different lens, though, you can be productive, engaged, and happy today, and for the rest of your life, with or without that pot of gold. 

[householdersgazette]

Don't teach undisciplined people savasana.

A bunch of dopey kids woke me up at 630 on a Saturday morning because they were excited for breakfast, or some other such enthusiasm. I was looking forward to the day, too, as it was the third of a great 3-day swing of yard work, and there were many things I wanted to accomplish that day, and through the window shade I could see that is was a sunny day and I would soon be enjoying my labors in my new work pants and t-shirt, with intermittent dips into the frigid pool and the hot tub, and by the end of the Thanksgiving Sunday I would have significant and noticeable achievements made in the back yard, which I was feeling good about. 

But not at 630 in the morning. 

It was 32F or less, and I wanted another hour before the rigors of being dad, husband, landscaper, part-time cook and DJ were pressed upon me. I'd watched a crappy movie the night before, and thought I deserved a little better than critter noises and appetites...at 630.

I made a deal with the munchkins that I would get out of bed if they meditated with me for 5 minutes (I was easily talked down from 15 minutes), which sounded OK to all parties. We went into the living room, I put on the timer and took my seat on a pillow as they sat in their hyper-attenuated lotus poses, and we began. With closed eyes I instructed them to follow their breath, to pause at the top and bottom of their breath, and to notice the sensations in their bodies, attempting to lead them on a body-scan mindfulness exercise. It was a sliver of nirvana, me meditating with kids and no obstructions present.

 We were breathing. 

We were silent. 

We didn't get up to pee. 

But at about minute four, I opened my eyes and saw that the anklebiters were reclining--in "savasana" as they like to say with a certain air of exclusivity and privilege--and warming their feet over the heating vent under the table. My timer went ‘gong’ (Zazen Meditation Timer app, on Android only) at 5 minutes, and although they were ready to bail ship at that ding, I told them that it wasn't over, and I made them--these lazy-ass savasana meditating chillens--sit with me another 4 minutes. At that point I could sense that their little minds would explode if I left them there any longer, and I would be the victim of a mutiny that I had only myself to blame for. Dopey kids, dopey dad.

9 minutes. It's a start. And it's something to talk about (or not), for the rest of their lives.

[householdersgazette]

Thanksgiving is almost here. Have gratitude, but show it in a genuine way.

“Mindful Gratitude”

Tryptophan. Chardonnay. Triple IPA. "One" extra spoonful. TSA. Black Friday. Company party. Holiday get-togethers.

During the 'thankful season,' a 'mindful gratitude' mediation practice can be a powerful force in making sure you go through the holidays in great shape, and are in tip-top shape to welcome in the New Year.

Here's a 5-minute meditation that turns 'gratitude' into a verb, helping to make you more conscious of what goes into your mouth, what you say, spend on, and commit to doing.

1. Go someplace quiet, and allow yourself at least 7 minutes of away-time. Sit for a moment, set a 5-minute timer.

2. Close your eyes softly. Sit upright, and slow down your breath. Count your first five breaths, taking note of the gap at the top and bottom of each inhalation and exhalation.

3. With every inhalation, focus on the word "mindful." Relax your forehead, the muscles of the face, your neck, shoulders and rib cage.

4. With every exhalation, focus on the word "gratitude."

5. Every inhalation becomes a mustering of strength, of preparedness. Every exhale is the expression of that strength.

6. At the end of five minutes, open your eyes and sit for one more minute.

By focusing on a mindfulness about what you do--or are about to do--and how you value what you currently have, you are able to make better-informed decisions. It becomes easier to take care of yourself.

Do this practice daily--or 2-3x daily--and notice how it helps more of your 'best you' fit into every waking moment.

[householdersgazette]

Business InsiderSalesforce CEO Marc BenioffSalesforce co-founder and billionaire Marc Benioff has a long history with spiritual advisors and gurus.So it shouldn't

So perhaps my micro-efforts with SitForce (at Salesforce) have had a tiny effect. I’ve brought #MatthieuRicard and #DavidGelles to #Salesforce, have hosted #SitForce for over a year now, and was yesterday interviewed by our Wellness team on what I’m doing on this path, and how it’s being parlayed at Salesforce. #RichFernandez has become a friend.

I was at the Day of Mindfulness at Salesforce recently, let by monks and nuns from #Thich Nhat Hanh, and have noticed at the #Clement Street Farmer’s Market some of the #PlumVillage monks, shopping about. I don’t think they have a hermitage or monastery in SF, but staying at Marc’s house certainly would explain it.

A silent room would be great. Leave your phone and shoes at the door. Some small private enclosures, but mostly a larger room with appropriate sitting apparatus. Offer regular guided meditations by external practitioners, and schedule group sits led by people inside the company (like I do). A few bells to add an aural dimension, which seems to be effective in promoting a calmness that leads to mindfulness. 

This will be something to follow.

[householdersgazette]

I wrote a kid's book, and TODAY, Thursday Oct 29, it's yours for free.

My ‘best redneck friend’ Wes Guidera did his illustration magic, and a week ago we launched an e-book on Amazon, for toddlers. This is the first of what we hope to be dozens of books.

Download it TODAY: it's free.

Help us build an audience, and please write a (positive) review.

The little kids in your life will thank you for it.

http://www.amazon.com/Billy-Noodle-Easy-Poo-Poo-Welte-ebook/dp/B016P8CUYY