Do Books Make You Hungry?

Green Apple Books

As a self-published author marketing my book Miss Experience White, by now I’ve gone to all the bookstores in San Francisco, many in East Bay and a few in Marin. Most of the time Miss Experience White has been greeted with enthusiasm. And these days, what’s not to like about a lavishly illustrated, surrealistic political poem cycle about destroying the demon of white supremacy (aka Tyrannosaurus Wonderbread) and dealing with white privilege?

Some stores refuse to carry small press and self-published books, and having worked in bookstores I get it, though it’s still disappointing. But I had a hilarious experience in one such store, Mrs. Dalloway’s, in the East Bay. Showing staffers a copy, I made my pitch only to be snootily informed the store did not carry self-published books. As I turned to leave, the only customer in the store said, “I’ll buy that book!” So I went back to the car for a fresh copy and she paid me on Venmo, right there in the store, as the staffers looked on.

As we swing into full holiday mode--full bellied from Thanksgiving and other feasts--to begin shopping, I hope you’ll give serious thought to giving books as gifts by visiting your local bookshop. What follows is a list of stores currently carrying Miss Experience White plus some suggestions for nearby food, shopping, or whatever. Of course, you can always order Miss Experience White directly from me and I’ll mail it out within a week.

Miss Experience White: The Book

$20.00

Miss Experience White is an illustrated, surrealistic political poem cycle about destroying the demon of white supremacy, or “Tyrannosaurus Wonderbread,” and transforming privilege into meaningful action.

Featuring 20 full color illustrations in different styles by Grammy-nominated illustrator John Seabury, this radical work of autofiction, is designed to look like a children’s book but made for adults. (132 pages, hardcover only, $20.00 with publisher’s special 30% discount off list price of $32.95).

Through a series of visions and revelations plus a decisive ancestral inventory, the eponymous narrator arrives at a new understanding of her inner landscape as it meets the changing outer landscape of America.

Johnson began writing obsessively in 2018 when she saw what Donald Trump was bringing out in many White people and the harm it was causing to so many others. Using a variety of accessible poetic forms, Johnson reveals how Whites like herself with deep ancestral roots in America might work through feelings of shame, discomfort, and ambivalence to transform them into positive, constructive actions.

The podcast version of Miss Experience White won several awards including a Signal Gold Award for Best Fiction in a Limited Series and a w3 Silver Award for Cause Awareness in a Miniseries.

Exclusively for the book, Johnson added the appendix, “Your Fire Goes Here: How to Do Your Own Bonfire of the Ancestors,” a set of instructions for a fire purification ritual created for Americans with problematic ancestors.

Is the core of the White American experience a fundamental fear of change? Or perhaps a seed of enlightenment demanding we evolve?

EDITORIAL REVIEWS

"In this brave incantation, Milo Starr Johnson ... has taken the sweep of history and paused the river for us to view, to digest, and heed our historical task."

— Tongo Eisen-Martin, eighth poet laureate of San Francisco emeritus

"At times a story, a song, a rant, a field report of the poetic mind, this piece lays claim to an accounting and cleansing of the American experience for this writer in search of an answer to our own brutality and violence. The landscape is vast, but language frees us."

— Luis Alfaro, playwright, 1997 MacArthur Fellow

"This collection is deeply true, good to read, and visually rich."

— K Shuck, seventh poet laureate of San Francisco emerita

"Milo Starr Johnson . . . throws several translucent blankets of experience over the history of America . . . The words are beautifully illustrated by the incomparable art of John Seabury."

— Ron Turner, founder and publisher, Last Gasp

"With utmost sensitivity, clairvoyance, and transcendent thinking, Milo Starr Johnson has, after years of arduous contemplation, editing, and revision, penned a volume that I think you will truly understand and enjoy."

— V. Vale, publisher, RE/Search Publications

"As a White reader, especially one with ancestry on this continent going back to the pre- Revolution era, I found these passages to be gripping and energized with shame and rage; I was very glad they'd been written, and I suspect that reaction will be shared by readers of many backgrounds and colors."

— Richard Loranger, author of Mammal and Unit of Agency

"Miss Experience White offers a transformative vision of how shame and discomfort can be channeled into meaningful action, inviting readers to reflect on their own roles in the evolving landscape of America."

— Richard Modiano, director emeritus, Beyond Baroque Literary/Arts Center

PURCHASE THE BOOK

The first San Francisco store to give my book a try was Bound Together Bookstore in the Haight. On January 18th I’ll be doing a reading there with Richard Modiano and Richard Loranger from 2 to 4pm. The Haight hasn’t changed much since I lived there in the early 80’s. It’s still a shopping street for crazy clothes and groovy oddball stuff. Across from Bound Together is Magnolia Bar and Kitchen, a pub with great burgers, brunch food, and a nice selection of beer on tap. The newly opened Counterculture Museum is about a block away.

A much different, less raucous neighborhood is Glen Park, where the venerable Bird & Beckett is located. I adore this store. While part of me always wants to straighten up the shelves, the slight messiness along with its large size tells another part of me that if I go exploring I will find some treasures—and I have! Near BART, the store has lots of music events happening all the time. The Glen Park Cafe has tasty breakfast sandwiches and the Japanese restaurant Tekka House, just across the street stays open all afternoon for excellent ramen, udon, sushi, and other Japanese faves.

Lots of bookshops in the Castro and Mission have Miss Experience White in stock. Fabulosa Books is a charming place with a friendly owner named Alvin, located on Castro just down from the theater, between the eclectic Cliff’s Variety and the Rainbow Honor Walk. Dog-Eared Books on Valencia is close to Paxton’s Gate, a gift store with some highly unusual items. Near the Roxie movie theater, Sour Cherry Comics has toys and fun gift items with 2 stalwart San Francisco eateries close by: the Pork Store Cafe and Ler Ros Thai.

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Bird & Beckett

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Dog-Eared Books

On 24th Street, you can get some deli at Wise Sons before heading into Adobe Books, where Miss Experience White is near the register in the Featured section. A few blocks east, my friend Josiah at Medicine for Nightmares put the book in graphic novels instead of poetry (as did others). Right across is a spot I like, Taqueria Vallarta, and of course El Farolito has a branch on 24th, too. Or perhaps you would rather feast your eyes on the art down Balmy Alley?

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Adobe Books

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Medicine for Nightmares

The Green Apple family of stores (Green Apple on Clement, Green Apple on the Park, and Browser Books) have showered me and my book with kindness. If you’re near Browser, La Méditerranée still has the same great lunch specials, or go upscale 2 blocks to Chouquet’s, an excellent, traditional French bistro. Over by the flagship store on Clement, the best Vietnamese sandwich in the city (IMHO) is to be enjoyed at Café Bunn Mi. Clement Street has lots of interesting shops for inexpensive gifts, including Kamei Housewares and Restaurant Supply. To my delight, Green Apple Books on the Park has Miss Experience White displayed in their local poets section. I know this neighborhood pretty well: up the street is Willow on the Green, which has a terrific selection of British beers and cheeses, On the Run Shoes has great customer service for folks whose feet require special care, right across from the bookshop is Misdirections Magic Shop and a branch of Tartine Bakery. There’s an entrance to Golden Gate Park at 9th and Lincoln and the Botanical Garden and Shakespeare Garden are nearby.

A wonderful neighborhood spot is the Russian Hill Bookstore on Polk near Vallejo. The place is overflowing with new and used books, games, and gifts. A half block away is a classic indoor newsstand, Smoke Signals, with a small section of books. I wandered in on a whim and showed the owner Miss Experience White. When he saw the illustration of the reptilian Wonderbread Family, he grinned and took 2 copies. This is not an uncommon reaction: most buyers have been willing to give it a try because it’s obvious this is a product that will sell to the right demographic. If you’re feeling that particular need for a super healthy salad, Café Reveille at Polk and Pacific will supply you with a very delicious one. A fun place to take out of town visitors for dinner is Leopold’s Gasthaus, a traditional Austrian restaurant at Polk and Union.

Another place to take visitors—or really anyone—is Clio’s Books in Oakland, next to Lake Merritt. Clio’s is an underground (literally) new and used bookstore, bar with snacks, and event space. It’s a pretty fantastic place, well-curated in every department. I spent the first half of my childhood in Oakland and went to school a few blocks away from where Clio’s is now. I enjoyed a yummy old fashioned with writer pal Debby Segal to celebrate Clio’s purchase of 3 copies of Miss Experience White.

Clio’s Books

East Bay Booksellers was an an early supporter. Based only on my phone pitch, the buyer ordered 2 copies and one sold right away! A spot I’m curious about is Oori Triangles, right by the bookshop. Up the street is a lovely bakery, La Farine, and back down the street is the pricey but impeccable vegan restaurant Millennium. Moe’s Books on Telegraph was also an early supporter of my book. It’s a big store, so you’ll want a big sandwich at Mezzo before or afterward, or perhaps tuck into a plate of mo-mo’s (Tibetan dumplings) at Himalayan Bite.

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East Bay Booksellers

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With John Seabury at Moe’s Books

I had a great time discovering and rediscovering so many bookshops and their respective neighborhoods. Other stores in the East Bay and Marin may have it in stock in the next few weeks. I hope you’ll get out and support these small shops. Any store anywhere can order it, and if they’re sold out, please ask them to re-order it. Or, if you’d prefer to for any reason, you can always get it wholesale from me, using promo code MEW for a 30% discount plus tax and shipping.

Miss Experience White: The Book

$20.00

Miss Experience White is an illustrated, surrealistic political poem cycle about destroying the demon of white supremacy, or “Tyrannosaurus Wonderbread,” and transforming privilege into meaningful action.

Featuring 20 full color illustrations in different styles by Grammy-nominated illustrator John Seabury, this radical work of autofiction, is designed to look like a children’s book but made for adults. (132 pages, hardcover only, $20.00 with publisher’s special 30% discount off list price of $32.95).

Through a series of visions and revelations plus a decisive ancestral inventory, the eponymous narrator arrives at a new understanding of her inner landscape as it meets the changing outer landscape of America.

Johnson began writing obsessively in 2018 when she saw what Donald Trump was bringing out in many White people and the harm it was causing to so many others. Using a variety of accessible poetic forms, Johnson reveals how Whites like herself with deep ancestral roots in America might work through feelings of shame, discomfort, and ambivalence to transform them into positive, constructive actions.

The podcast version of Miss Experience White won several awards including a Signal Gold Award for Best Fiction in a Limited Series and a w3 Silver Award for Cause Awareness in a Miniseries.

Exclusively for the book, Johnson added the appendix, “Your Fire Goes Here: How to Do Your Own Bonfire of the Ancestors,” a set of instructions for a fire purification ritual created for Americans with problematic ancestors.

Is the core of the White American experience a fundamental fear of change? Or perhaps a seed of enlightenment demanding we evolve?

EDITORIAL REVIEWS

"In this brave incantation, Milo Starr Johnson ... has taken the sweep of history and paused the river for us to view, to digest, and heed our historical task."

— Tongo Eisen-Martin, eighth poet laureate of San Francisco emeritus

"At times a story, a song, a rant, a field report of the poetic mind, this piece lays claim to an accounting and cleansing of the American experience for this writer in search of an answer to our own brutality and violence. The landscape is vast, but language frees us."

— Luis Alfaro, playwright, 1997 MacArthur Fellow

"This collection is deeply true, good to read, and visually rich."

— K Shuck, seventh poet laureate of San Francisco emerita

"Milo Starr Johnson . . . throws several translucent blankets of experience over the history of America . . . The words are beautifully illustrated by the incomparable art of John Seabury."

— Ron Turner, founder and publisher, Last Gasp

"With utmost sensitivity, clairvoyance, and transcendent thinking, Milo Starr Johnson has, after years of arduous contemplation, editing, and revision, penned a volume that I think you will truly understand and enjoy."

— V. Vale, publisher, RE/Search Publications

"As a White reader, especially one with ancestry on this continent going back to the pre- Revolution era, I found these passages to be gripping and energized with shame and rage; I was very glad they'd been written, and I suspect that reaction will be shared by readers of many backgrounds and colors."

— Richard Loranger, author of Mammal and Unit of Agency

"Miss Experience White offers a transformative vision of how shame and discomfort can be channeled into meaningful action, inviting readers to reflect on their own roles in the evolving landscape of America."

— Richard Modiano, director emeritus, Beyond Baroque Literary/Arts Center

PURCHASE THE BOOK

I’m so full of gratitude this year for so many things, including Trump sinking in the polls. Yay! And Happy Holidaze!

Milo

"Bold, Bizarre, and Blisteringly Honest" — Book Review, Upcoming Events & Other News

After a summer spent settling my mom’s affairs, I’m getting back to work promoting Miss Experience White. The first review, by Richard Modiano for The Literary Underground, was published on August 28th.

“A surrealist incantation and visual explosion that cracks open whiteness with wit, rage, and unsettling beauty ... What elevates Miss Experience White beyond polemic is its refusal to deliver easy moral certainties ... navigating a fractured landscape where identity, history, and complicity collide ... bold, bizarre, and blisteringly honest ... John Seabury’s illustrations are outstanding.” Read the full review here.

The other big piece of news is that I’m going to Texas this month. I’ll be doing a reading in Fort Worth on Sunday, September 14th, at Second Sundays, a monthly literary event hosted by award-winning poet Tammy Gomez. Actually, I’d planned to be in Houston on September 14th, to visit the grave of the woman I dedicated the book to, Alberta Walker, on her 110th heavenly birthday. Fort Worth is only a few hours away. This surrealistic illustration by John Seabury shows the character Sophia, inspired by Alberta, with young Experience White.

© John Seabury

Thanks to brilliant poet pal Richard Loranger—whose day job as Power Unit 17 is helping other writers market their work— for getting me the Fort Worth reading. I’ll be flying in and out of Austin to go to a couple of open mics and take the book around to bookstores.

After I get home, I’ll be circulating throughout the Bay Area, taking the book around to stores here. I just started this project, and so far Miss Experience White is currently available in San Francisco at The Beat Museum in North Beach and Bound Together on Haight Street. In the East Bay, you can get it at Moe’s Books, and East Bay Booksellers has it on order. It’s also available at Beer’s Books in Sacramento.

Farther into the future, on December 7th I have a double-header. During the day I’ll be selling the book at the Howard Zinn Bookfair in San Francisco. (Zinn was a historian, writer and activist best known for his book, A People’s History of the United States. His work popularized the practice of telling a “history from below” of workers, women, immigrants, racialized people, LGBTQ+ people, dissidents and radicals.) Then I’ll head over to Spec’s 12 Adler Museum Café in North Beach. One of the poems from Miss Experience White appears in Maintenant 19: A Journal of Contemporary Dada Writing and Art and I’ll be singing it at the San Francisco release party.

One more distant event on the calendar is on February 5th, a reading in Eureka, California. Many thanks to David Holper, a former high school sweetheart, award-winning poet, and poet laureate emeritus of Eureka, California for getting me this gig.

Yikes, I just turned 65 at the end of August. It’s definitely a milestone which I refuse to wear as a millstone because let’s face it, getting old beats the alternative. And I’ve lost enough close friends to that alternative already. But I’m feeling the necessity of slowing down, finding ways to work more efficiently in a lower gear, and appreciating the benefits of a power nap. This Texas trip will be a chance to incorporate all of the above, but no power naps while on cruise control somewhere in Texas, please!

Milo

Miss Experience White: The Book

$20.00

Miss Experience White is an illustrated, surrealistic political poem cycle about destroying the demon of white supremacy, or “Tyrannosaurus Wonderbread,” and transforming privilege into meaningful action.

Featuring 20 full color illustrations in different styles by Grammy-nominated illustrator John Seabury, this radical work of autofiction, is designed to look like a children’s book but made for adults. (132 pages, hardcover only, $20.00 with publisher’s special 30% discount off list price of $32.95).

Through a series of visions and revelations plus a decisive ancestral inventory, the eponymous narrator arrives at a new understanding of her inner landscape as it meets the changing outer landscape of America.

Johnson began writing obsessively in 2018 when she saw what Donald Trump was bringing out in many White people and the harm it was causing to so many others. Using a variety of accessible poetic forms, Johnson reveals how Whites like herself with deep ancestral roots in America might work through feelings of shame, discomfort, and ambivalence to transform them into positive, constructive actions.

The podcast version of Miss Experience White won several awards including a Signal Gold Award for Best Fiction in a Limited Series and a w3 Silver Award for Cause Awareness in a Miniseries.

Exclusively for the book, Johnson added the appendix, “Your Fire Goes Here: How to Do Your Own Bonfire of the Ancestors,” a set of instructions for a fire purification ritual created for Americans with problematic ancestors.

Is the core of the White American experience a fundamental fear of change? Or perhaps a seed of enlightenment demanding we evolve?

EDITORIAL REVIEWS

"In this brave incantation, Milo Starr Johnson ... has taken the sweep of history and paused the river for us to view, to digest, and heed our historical task."

— Tongo Eisen-Martin, eighth poet laureate of San Francisco emeritus

"At times a story, a song, a rant, a field report of the poetic mind, this piece lays claim to an accounting and cleansing of the American experience for this writer in search of an answer to our own brutality and violence. The landscape is vast, but language frees us."

— Luis Alfaro, playwright, 1997 MacArthur Fellow

"This collection is deeply true, good to read, and visually rich."

— K Shuck, seventh poet laureate of San Francisco emerita

"Milo Starr Johnson . . . throws several translucent blankets of experience over the history of America . . . The words are beautifully illustrated by the incomparable art of John Seabury."

— Ron Turner, founder and publisher, Last Gasp

"With utmost sensitivity, clairvoyance, and transcendent thinking, Milo Starr Johnson has, after years of arduous contemplation, editing, and revision, penned a volume that I think you will truly understand and enjoy."

— V. Vale, publisher, RE/Search Publications

"As a White reader, especially one with ancestry on this continent going back to the pre- Revolution era, I found these passages to be gripping and energized with shame and rage; I was very glad they'd been written, and I suspect that reaction will be shared by readers of many backgrounds and colors."

— Richard Loranger, author of Mammal and Unit of Agency

"Miss Experience White offers a transformative vision of how shame and discomfort can be channeled into meaningful action, inviting readers to reflect on their own roles in the evolving landscape of America."

— Richard Modiano, director emeritus, Beyond Baroque Literary/Arts Center

PURCHASE THE BOOK

Looking Back, Moving Forward: A Successful Book Launch For Miss Experience White

We celebrated the official release of Miss Experience White last month on May 10th. Thanks to guest readers Kim Shuck, Kimi Sugioka, and Deborah C. Segal, and to Richard Loranger for planning and hosting the event. Thanks to the Clarion Performing Arts Center for having us. Thanks to everyone who chose to spend a beautiful spring afternoon celebrating the end of this seven-year creative project, sipping wine and nibbling on cookies.

I should’ve posted here a few weeks ago, but with my mother passing away in late April and her memorial the day after the book launch, I’ve been totally preoccupied dealing with everything that happens when a parent departs.

Thanks to my mother’s younger sister, Eddy Ancinas, for taking so many great videos at the book launch. I’ve shared a few on Facebook as well as here. My aunt has been primarily a travel writer for decades. I recommend her travel memoir, Tracing Inca Trails: An Adventure in the Andes, for summer reading. She too has won awards and written about our ancestors, although very differently than I have. And actually, I wrote about my Aunt Eddy and her husband, my Uncle Osvaldo, in Miss Experience White. This passage near the end of Part III, The Other Feast, was inspired by them:

Cut back to Feast, another guest
Osvaldo Lucero
Olympic skier born and raised
Down Argentina Way
He marries an American
and takes his bride back home
but they decide the States are best
for work and family
As cultural ambassador
this uncle changes things
and cousins play, the brown with white
They run, they laugh, they climb
And when he’s called a Mexican
Osvaldo tells them off
He says, “I taught the fools about
some countries they forgot”

Thanks to John Seabury for bringing some prints of the illustrations to sell, and for taking part in the Q & A, which was a terrific idea of Richard Loranger’s. I hope we can do more interviews in the future. Overall, John and I had a mutually satisfying creative collaboration. We understood each other very well most of the time.

But we did have a few disagreements. In one case I’d asked him to do an illustration of a vision an indigenous shaman might’ve had looking out over the Atlantic at night. It would show kind, hopeful faces in the waves to suggest a radical, alternative unfolding of American history and appear near the end of the book. The illustration (on the wall in dark blue between us) never felt positive enough to me, but successful collaborations require flexibility, and the solution turned out better than the original idea.

The seven-year phase of writing and book creation has ended: The courtship and wedding are over and the marriage begins! It’s time to sell books. Miss Experience White is available to purchase here on my site. And, thanks to my distribution company, you can ask any bookstore anywhere (except maybe Australia) to order it.

Miss Experience White: The Book

$20.00

Miss Experience White is an illustrated, surrealistic political poem cycle about destroying the demon of white supremacy, or “Tyrannosaurus Wonderbread,” and transforming privilege into meaningful action.

Featuring 20 full color illustrations in different styles by Grammy-nominated illustrator John Seabury, this radical work of autofiction, is designed to look like a children’s book but made for adults. (132 pages, hardcover only, $20.00 with publisher’s special 30% discount off list price of $32.95).

Through a series of visions and revelations plus a decisive ancestral inventory, the eponymous narrator arrives at a new understanding of her inner landscape as it meets the changing outer landscape of America.

Johnson began writing obsessively in 2018 when she saw what Donald Trump was bringing out in many White people and the harm it was causing to so many others. Using a variety of accessible poetic forms, Johnson reveals how Whites like herself with deep ancestral roots in America might work through feelings of shame, discomfort, and ambivalence to transform them into positive, constructive actions.

The podcast version of Miss Experience White won several awards including a Signal Gold Award for Best Fiction in a Limited Series and a w3 Silver Award for Cause Awareness in a Miniseries.

Exclusively for the book, Johnson added the appendix, “Your Fire Goes Here: How to Do Your Own Bonfire of the Ancestors,” a set of instructions for a fire purification ritual created for Americans with problematic ancestors.

Is the core of the White American experience a fundamental fear of change? Or perhaps a seed of enlightenment demanding we evolve?

EDITORIAL REVIEWS

"In this brave incantation, Milo Starr Johnson ... has taken the sweep of history and paused the river for us to view, to digest, and heed our historical task."

— Tongo Eisen-Martin, eighth poet laureate of San Francisco emeritus

"At times a story, a song, a rant, a field report of the poetic mind, this piece lays claim to an accounting and cleansing of the American experience for this writer in search of an answer to our own brutality and violence. The landscape is vast, but language frees us."

— Luis Alfaro, playwright, 1997 MacArthur Fellow

"This collection is deeply true, good to read, and visually rich."

— K Shuck, seventh poet laureate of San Francisco emerita

"Milo Starr Johnson . . . throws several translucent blankets of experience over the history of America . . . The words are beautifully illustrated by the incomparable art of John Seabury."

— Ron Turner, founder and publisher, Last Gasp

"With utmost sensitivity, clairvoyance, and transcendent thinking, Milo Starr Johnson has, after years of arduous contemplation, editing, and revision, penned a volume that I think you will truly understand and enjoy."

— V. Vale, publisher, RE/Search Publications

"As a White reader, especially one with ancestry on this continent going back to the pre- Revolution era, I found these passages to be gripping and energized with shame and rage; I was very glad they'd been written, and I suspect that reaction will be shared by readers of many backgrounds and colors."

— Richard Loranger, author of Mammal and Unit of Agency

"Miss Experience White offers a transformative vision of how shame and discomfort can be channeled into meaningful action, inviting readers to reflect on their own roles in the evolving landscape of America."

— Richard Modiano, director emeritus, Beyond Baroque Literary/Arts Center

PURCHASE THE BOOK

In these challenging times—which often shock but don’t completely surprise me—I’ve found getting out and about to be a crucial part of self-care. So next month’s blogpost will be a guide to Bay Area bookstores interested in carrying Miss Experience White along with recommendations for nearby cafes, bars, and eateries. Until then, to borrow from Walt Whitman as I did in the Prologue, remember that each of us really does contain multitudes. And if that’s not enough, there’s always that line from The Handmaid’s Tale which has gotten me through many a hard time: “Don’t Let the Bastards Grind You Down.”

Milo

Come to the Book Launch & Party for Miss Experience White!

You’re invited to celebrate the publication of my poem cycle Miss Experience White, illustrated by John Seabury, at the Clarion Arts Center in San Francisco on May 10th from 3 to 5pm. John and I will sign books, and the event will feature brief readings by notable local poets. Illustrations from the book will be on display with prints of some available for sale.

Miss Experience White is a lavishly illustrated, surrealistic political poem cycle about destroying the demon of white supremacy and understanding white privilege. The podcast version won several awards in 2022, including a Signal Gold Award for Best Fiction and a w3 Silver Award for Cause Awareness. The book version, with 20 full color illustrations in different styles by Grammy nominated illustrator John Seabury, is designed to look like a children’s book but made for adults. (132 pages, hardcover only, $29.95)

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© John Seabury

Reading briefly will be Kim Shuck, seventh poet laureate emerita of San Francisco, Deborah C. Segal, 2024 Pushcart Prize nominee, and Kimi Sugioka, poet laureate of Alameda, followed by yours truly reading from Miss Experience White. Host Richard Loranger will lead a Q & A session, and then we’ll sign books, chat and enjoy some light refreshments. Most forms of payment (cash, check, Venmo, Paypal) will be accepted, but not credit or debit cards.

Seven years ago I began writing Miss Experience White because I saw what Donald Trump was bringing out in many White people and the harm it was causing to so many others. As I wrote, I discovered an important connection between the present and the past: I found a way to heal my own conflicted feelings about my colonial ancestry.

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© John Seabury

But I didn’t write Miss Experience White for only Whites with deep roots in this country. I wrote it for everyone seeking to understand why we remain so deeply divided. Now, more than ever, all of us who are opposed to the fascist agenda of the Trump administration must rise up and work together for a better future.

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© John Seabury

If you can’t come to the launch, you can always order the book online from IngramSpark, or Amazon.

But I do hope to see you at the launch. And please consider taking advantage of the Clarion’s location—there’s lots of great food close by in Chinatown, and North Beach is only a few blocks away.

 

“In this brave incantation, Milo Starr Johnson ... has taken the sweep of history and paused the river for us to view, to digest, and heed our historical task.”

— Tongo Eisen-Martin, eighth poet laureate of San Francisco emeritus

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Milo

(Oh No, It’s Another) Thanksgiving with the Whites

© John Seabury

This war of limericks makes it clear that politics and religion are actually the only topics that should be discussed at family gatherings.

Please enjoy this 3.5 minute excerpt from the surrealistic, award-winning podcast Miss Experience White with Erik Ian Walker on piano, with sound design by Jim McKee.

Thanksgiving with the Whites

“There once were some thankless brats,
Who buzzed and whined like gnats!”

Daddy Demon shouts out,
Old snout in a pout,
“But I made them all scaredy cats!”

“Oh, but gnats are almost extinct!”
The Fire Children sing with a wink,
“You made it too hot,
You stupid big shot,
Your religion and revenues stink!”

“You insult the rich at your peril!
You are Godless, socialist, and feral!
The rich will provide,
But not to the snide.
Go race ‘round a rodeo barrel!”

“Well I would, but I injured my neck.
Got addicted then fell into debt.
What Jesus would do
Would not be like you,
Tearing down our entire safety net!”

“So now you’re some kind of Christian?
You once said the Bible was fiction.
Look at our money.
God’s on it, honey.
Stop talking in self-contradiction.”

“Ever heard of the Constitution?
What began our whole evolution?
We do separate
Our churches from state,
Hence the whole bloody Revolution!”

“What a load of liberal vanity!
Conservatives value humanity!
Ban abortion always!
No marriage for gays!
Bring America back to sanity!

“If sanity had much to do with it,
You’d never sell guns to a lunatic!
I see your brain shrinking—
A reptile is winking!
You’d probably say racism’s over with it.

“Well I’m not a racist, but
Some people are running amok.
They’re trying to oppress us
With political correctness
They’d better not push their damn luck!

“Or what?
What the hell does that mean?
How fragile is your self-esteem?
Please try a vegetable.
Change is inevitable.
Don’t mess with the voting machines!

“The Mexicans stole our jobs!
Behold the invading mobs!
What they’re doing is heinous,
Crawling up in our anus!
They’re terrorists with kebabs!

“Infectious old Mr. Bigot!
It’s past time we closed your spigot!
No place for you here,
Or anywhere near.
You’re terminal, can ya dig it?”

Listen to the full podcast on all the usual platforms, or right here.

Milo

A Letter to Tucker Carlson

What happened to you, Tucker? A long, long time ago you used to be sort of cute, with your wavy brown hair and sexy little boy pout. Almost cute, in a nerdy, stick-in-the-mud kind of way, maybe like Ryan O’Neal’s character in What’s Up Doc, looking hot in suspenders and boxers. As a small “c” conservative, you showed signs of intelligence with reasoned thinking. And while I usually didn’t agree with your analysis on any given issue, I could tell you had an analytical process in place.

But now? You’ve gone totally nuts, bonkers, insane. Or more accurately, you’ve become a giant asshole. What happened? Was it all because of Trump? As you wrote in a text to a co-worker at Fox, “Trump is a demonic force.” Have you been thoroughly possessed? Was that text a cry for help? Are you afraid of the Dark still, my sweet baby? Those Dark people who live in your closet at night ready to jump out and get you like the Bogeyman? Why so afraid, little man?

Well, I know what happened. I know about your biological mommy. How she rejected and abandoned you when you were little. She was an artist (of all the terrible things!) who moved to France (of all the terrible places!) and you never ever saw her again. And what’s worse, even though she left you a million dollars in her will, she changed it to one dollar when she saw what you’d become. And that was back in 2015, right when Trump came into prominence. Oh, my bleeding liberal heart goes out to you, poor baby.

She didn’t love you, sweetie, but I will. You and I come from the same fine stock, old San Francisco money, and we were even born in the same hospital, San Francisco Children’s Hospital. Isn’t that romantic? I’m going to be the mommy of your dreams, Tucky-Wucky-Duckies! But first, you need to know what a bad boy you’ve been. You’ve been a very, very bad boy. Mommy can forgive everything you’ve ever said and done except for one thing. Being a Grateful Dead fan. You know so much better than that! As a San Francisco native, you know very well that the Grateful Dead was the most mediocre of all our 60s bands. If not for the strong LSD going around, nobody would’ve paid them any attention. Later their cult-like following developed because stoners, being stoned, can neither tell bad music from good, nor a 20-minute guitar solo from a 20-second one.

So you’re going to get a well-deserved spanking for being such a stupid little boy. You’re going to pull down your pants and show Mommy your butt. And I’m going to spank it hard. And then you’re going to say, “I’m sorry, Mommy. I was wrong about the Grateful Dead.”

And then, my sweet boy, you’re going to pull up your pants like a little man and come sit on Mommy’s lap and listen to me. I’m going to tell you what you need. Do you know what you need? You need titty. Lots and lots of titty. What does than mean? Well, for one thing, you can play with my breasts anytime you want. Yes, sweetie, in public is fine. Here in our hometown of San Francisco there are naked men riding bikes and people having sex in taxis. No one will even notice you playing with my boobies. Boobies, boobies, titty, titty, titty! You won’t be able to get enough. In fact, we’ll be polyamorous to make sure you get all the titty you so desperately need. And with your mouth full of titty, you will shut the fuck up.

Remember how you used to take the National Geographic magazines into the bathroom to look at the bare titties? No, that wasn’t naughty, but aiming at the titties, making the pages stick together later was rather thoughtless, sweetie. Well now, in our hometown you can have all that Black titty like from the magazine, plus Brown titty, Yellow, titty, and even Red titty—rarest of all thanks to our genocidal pioneer ancestors. So we are talking about a smorgasbord of delicious titty! The women of our multicultural, racially diverse hometown are lining up to suckle that little-boy pout into a big sloppy smile. They know and I know that with your mouth full of titty, you will shut the fuck up.

And no, you’re not going back to your wife. That poor old titty is worn out. You’ve been at that breast since high school. You are starved for new titty. And a new religion, too, as you’ve complained about attending your wife’s Episcopalian church. Well, getting plenty of titty will lead you to worship the Goddess, the Great Mommy, and you will dance with me in the forest naked. In service to the Great Mommy you’ll perform all household chores as sacramental duties. This reverence and deep obedience to Her, as personified in Me, will awaken an ungovernable Lust in you that only I can satisfy—which I will do only if you are a good boy. And when you’ve been a bad boy, you will offer up your bare little bottom and cry, “I’m sorry, Mommy, I’ve been bad. Spank me! Spank me now!” And I will spank you—then cover you with kisses.

And finally, you will be the leader of the New Great Replacement Movement, which says that change is good and natural, just like titty. You’ll head down to remote parts of the border every weekend with a big Welcome sign and plenty of water and snacks, waving and cheering as exhausted people go stumbling by.

And maybe you’ll be inspired to try some Man titty (Daddy!) or Trans titty, which might be best of all, given your very busy schedule, because Trans titty is the 2-for-1 Titty Special.

So get ready to tuck in to the Great Rainbow Titty Smorgasbord, my sweet little man. Just like in the song, “The breast is yet to come.” And shut the fuck up.

Milo

This blog post was inspired by and directly references Henry Rollins’ Letter to Ann Coulter.
Thank ye kindly, Mr. Rollins!

The Book is on the Way!

Change is in the air! The book of Miss Experience White, my surrealistic political poem cycle is now in layout phase and due in late November. John Seabury’s illustrations look fantastic.

© John Seabury

On a personal note, I just turned 64 and have been thinking a lot about getting old. Besides noticing and adjusting to physical changes, there’s a profound awareness that most of my life has passed. I’m not freaking out about it—I did that back in my fifties—because the math is undeniable. Being 64 means I have about 20 good years left. That’s actually a long time, I accomplished a lot in the last 20 years, but it’s still something to think about. And so the Miss Experience White project, begun in 2018, will be one of my last big projects. I sense I have one, maybe two more big projects left to do, in addition to many small ones.

Miss Experience White is something I felt destined to create, meaning a set of life experiences compelled me to tell a story that only I could tell and which I felt needed to be told for the greater good. I hope that doesn’t sound too grandiose. Creatively, I’ve always worked from the place of asking myself what story do I need to tell versus what would be the most fun. And most of the time the answer is the same. Although a series of personal setbacks made for a slow transition from podcast to print, the poetry is better for it—well polished and looking pretty on the page. Of course, the podcast is still going strong, streaming on all the usual platforms. If you haven’t already, I hope you’ll take a listen to enjoy the brilliant, cinematic sound design by Jim McKee (Earwax Productions) who also regularly works the same magic for the popular, long-running podcast, the Kitchen Sisters.

© John Seabury

Hooray, I’m old enough to be voting for a presidential candidate younger than me! I was born in 1960, and Kamala Harris was born in 1964. I remember watching political conventions on TV as a child—grainy black and white images of old white men yelling and waving skinny signs. I’m feeling so much more positive with Harris as the nominee, but I don’t trust Trump to concede nicely. He isn’t going to gain many new followers now, but the ones he already has are true believers. I’ll be greatly surprised (and relieved) if those people give up quietly. I love how Tim Walz is calling out the Republicans as “weird.” Appropriately enough, Miss Experience White, a surrealistic poem cycle about banishing the demon of white supremacy, will arrive right in the heat of the likely post-election “weirdness.” Miss Experience White is weird in the very best of ways. It kicks ass and wins hands down in any War of Weirdness. Why? Because I wrote it to do exactly that!

Next month I’ll be set up for you to reserve a copy in advance.

Milo

64,000 Women Need Justice Now

© Emily M. Martin

On April 10, 2024, Arizona became the 10th state to enact a total abortion ban.

On May 1, 2024, the Arizona Senate passed a repeal of the ban with two Republicans joining them.

(Warning: Please be advised the following contains graphic descriptions of sexual and physical violence.)

I used to have a male friend who was raped as a teen in the 1960s. As I remember the story, he was a gangly hippie kid who went to stay in a squat on a visit to New York City. In the middle of the night he awoke to several men holding him down. They took turns. My friend knew what it felt like to be physically overpowered and penetrated without consent. Years later when I knew him, he was a happily married father of three, a lifelong radical, political activist, and dedicated feminist. I always thought the assault gave him a particular sensitivity regarding certain issues. He died in 2009 as Trump was beginning to attain political prominence.

According to a new study, since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision in June of 2022 about 64,000 women have been impregnated by rape and cannot get abortions. The researchers admit the data was hard to quantify: on one hand some tools they used may have increased the number, but on the other, because only about 30 percent of rapes get reported, the number could well be higher. 64,000 women, and about 26,000 of them are in Texas.

This is a terrible, heartbreaking amount of human misery to consider. Please try to stay with me, and further down I’ll offer suggestions for how you can help.

Some of these women may have beliefs that enable them to separate the pregnancy from the crime. Others will die by suicide. A significant percentage, having had the right to control their own bodies taken away twice, will give birth and keep the babies whether they can afford to or not. This article from Ms. magazine explains why adoption is not the tidy solution the Supreme Court suggests it is.

Another study done some years ago found that legalized abortion following 1973’s Roe v. Wade decision accounts largely for the decline in U.S. crime rates since the 1990s. While other factors likely had influence too, it does make sense. It’s easy to imagine a woman raising a child who was the result of a rape she suffered not being a great mother regardless of class or race. It’s easy to imagine this unplanned pregnancy becoming a child growing up in difficult circumstances and potentially drifting into crime later in life.

I can offer anecdotal evidence to support some of these ideas. In 1979, at age 19, I was beaten and raped by an ex-boyfriend. He was born in 1956 into a working-class family in Virginia. He told me stories about how his mother had “tortured” him—his word, as “abuse” was not yet commonly used. He was sure she hadn’t wanted him and her other kids. The father was an alcoholic who beat her. My ex had a juvenile record but was seemingly attempting a respectable life when we met and were together. After a few months I ended the relationship. He was devastated. One night he attacked me. He hit me and kicked me. He tried to drag me into the bedroom by my hair, and when I resisted he pulled out a small bunch of my hair by the roots. Finally he punched me hard on the left side of my head, and the next thing I remember he was on top of me, raping me in a psychotic rage. He warned me he’d kill me if I told anyone so I didn’t go to the police. I did tell my boyfriend and a few close friends, minimizing the event and blaming myself—not uncommon reactions, especially back then. I did not seek counseling for a long time.

I’ve processed this trauma and written about it before. I don’t need to revisit it, but with so much violence against women happening in the Christian Right’s culture of misogyny I feel compelled to tell my story again in the hope it will somehow be of benefit.

It’s very painful for me to imagine what would’ve happened if I had been impregnated. Would I have known if the sperm came from the rapist or my boyfriend? I would’ve gotten an abortion in any case, but the horror and disgust over even the slightest possibility of an egg being fertilized during that assault would’ve been overwhelming. And what if I’d been denied an abortion like one of the 64,000? I would’ve put the baby up for adoption, but that probably would’ve meant disappearing, leaving college for a while. My boyfriend was kindhearted, but not a saint. I don’t think he would’ve stayed with me and I doubt I would’ve wanted him to. I can certainly see myself trying to cause a miscarriage. With the memories of the brutality, seeing the roots of my hair coming out with bits of scalp attached and blood . . . I might’ve killed myself.

Abortion rights must be reinstated, and this time at a federal level. Women need justice now. About 64,000 have been cruelly denied it. They will never really get it. What can we do? With enough Democrats elected to Congress the right to an abortion will become federal law. Every time the right to choose is on the ballot, even in red states, choice wins. Please do what you can to Get Out the Vote for Democrats. Make a donation. I list some suggestions further down. Then do a little more.

Write postcards to likely voters.

Phone banking—I don’t like it but I do it anyway. If you’re shy but curious about phone banking, take one of these fun training sessions and learn why introverts actually make the best phone bankers.

If you’re really brave, knock on doors.

Like millions of women, I was thrilled when E. Jean Carroll won and won again. She was terrified to testify in both cases but got over her fear and did it. She’s said publicly that the settlement money will go toward political action to help women. Normalized in part by her rapist, the former Pussygrabber-in-Chief, there is a culture of misogyny thriving in parts of this country that must be called out. The abortion bans without exceptions for rape or incest are hideously misogynistic, not to mention the decisions forcing a woman to carry a nonviable fetus to term, or putting her own life in jeopardy. I can smell the stink of hate, the indifference to suffering. While it’s true we must win in November to reinstate the right to abortion, a right that belonged to half our adult population for 50 years, we must also fight the insidious culture of misogyny. Many women today, including me, feel uneasy, even threatened, in ways we never imagined. Let’s take action for our daughters, sisters, wives, girlfriends, mothers, aunts, nieces, cousins—especially those third cousins twice removed living in deep red states with total or near total abortion bans—American people just like you and me.

It took me decades to get over the trauma of my assault. It was several years before I could have an orgasm during intercourse, and that was just the beginning. If I’d gotten counseling earlier, the trajectory of my life would’ve been different. I finally did EMDR therapy, which helped profoundly, and used my creative skills to share the terrible experience in dramatic and musical works. At last, in my mid-50s, almost 40 years after the incident occurred, I filed a police report. The detective who took my statement was in her 20s and listened with compassion as I told the story. As I spoke, I realized she was young enough to be my daughter, and this memory brings tears to my eyes now. I never wanted children, but if I had, I‘d be proud to be the mother of a detective working in the Sex Crimes Department of the LAPD. She stapled the photo of my attacker to the report, saying, “This is very good. If anyone ever charges him, this report is here, and the prosecutor can find it. It will show a pattern and help get him convicted.” I walked out of that office a transformed woman.

Justice can take many forms. Call out sexism and misogyny when you see it. Report acts of sexual violence and support the victims and survivors. Volunteer for a hotline or at a shelter. Do whatever you can to get Democrats elected this year and please share this blog with someone who might be interested. As the saying goes, “Nolite te bastardes carborundorum” or “Don’t let the bastards grind you down.”

Consider adopting a red state and make a generous donation directly to its Democratic Party to help with small down-ballot races. Putting liberals in power wherever possible will change the conversation and the culture and help get programs and services in place. Then make a matching donation to an organization in that state or region that helps victims of sexual violence and works to end it.

Below are the states with total abortion bans. The first link is to the Democratic Party there. The second is to a state organization concerned with ending sexual violence and helping victims. Here are links to NAESV, the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence and RAINN (Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network) If you want to learn more or donate on a national level.

Whew . . . a lot to take in. Thank you for reading and for your support.

Milo

STATES WITH TOTAL ABORTION BANS

Alabama

Alabama Democratic Party

Alabama Coalition Against Rape

Arkansas

Democratic Party of Arkansas

Arkansas Coalition Against Sexual Assault

Kentucky

Kentucky Democratic Party

Kentucky Association of Sexual Assault Programs

Louisiana

Louisiana Democratic Party

Louisiana Foundation Against Sexual Assault

Missouri

Missouri Democratic Party

Missouri Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence

Oklahoma

Oklahoma Democratic Party

(The Oklahoma Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault has closed, making Oklahoma the only state without a coalition to support its shelters, crisis centers and victim service programs.)

South Dakota

South Dakota Democratic Party

South Dakota Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault

Tennessee

Tennessee Democratic Party

Tennessee Coalition Against Sexual Assault

Texas

Texas Democratic Party

Texas Association Against Sexual Assault

It’s A Wrap, Slathered With Gratitude

© John H. Seabury

Last month, shortly after wrapping up production on the Miss Experience White podcast, I rushed out of town to check on a friend who’d suffered a personal crisis during the pandemic. As I drove down the highway, I left Miss White behind. Because, although there are plenty of similarities, I am not Experience White. Yes, I incorporated both tiny and huge chunks of my life and family history to assemble the story, but I made particular, deliberate choices, so another set of choices would’ve led to another assembly—another character and story. But again, not really me.

I saw my friend, and it was much worse than I’d imagined. As I drove back, I thought about old friends who’ve passed, new friends who’ve come, and the collaborative creative process itself, where friendships so often are born. I thought of all the amazing luck and terrific support I’d received.

Richard Modiano, old friend, Executive Director Emeritus of Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center, read the manuscript and pronounced it “Overall, excellent.”

Kathleen Winter, award-winning poet and teacher, offered valuable feedback.

John H. Seabury, acclaimed Bay Area illustrator. My initial idea was a no-frills podcast along with an elaborate wall calendar: both would promote a published book of poems. John could do the calendar plus make the book very special with his images—not your usual poetry chapbook. His intense dedication got me through a couple of rough patches. He’s a great artist who inspires me every day by his example. We’ve become dear friends and yes, a book is still the plan. Also thanks to John’s friend and fellow artist Bruce Horton who, along with Bruce’s assistant Gidget, helped John meet the deadline.

David Lawrence, a close buddy from high school, much like a brother. Initially, I thought Dave could produce the podcast, but after reading the manuscript he declined, saying he was going to send me to “the best.”

Jim McKee, of Earwax Productions. It turned out Dave knows one of “the best” sound designers in the world. Jim came on board as sound designer and co-producer while Dave stayed on to co-produce with me, and the podcast suddenly bloomed into a surrealistic radio play with cinematic production values. Working with Jim is what I refer to as “getting the airlift.” There’ve been a few times in my life when an important collaborator or teacher has appeared. It’s like a rope dangling down from a helicopter overhead, and if I can just grab it and hold on for the ride, I’ll go places I never thought possible.

Charlie Varon, acting coach, who is also an acclaimed writer/performer. I am especially grateful to Charlie for his writerly wisdom. Some of the poetry was too dense for the ear and needed revising: very few acting coaches are fine writing coaches, too.

Erik Ian Walker, friend, musician, and composer. Very early on, I asked Erik to come aboard as music director. He played keyboards on The Perambulator, so I knew ours would be a successful collaboration. What I did not know was that Erik is an amazing film composer. Later this year I’ll put a music soundtrack page on my site, featuring his original compositions.

Kate Sheehan and Andy Hamner, my friends and the zealous researchers for the “on this date” events in the Miss Experience White 2021 calendar. None of us knew how challenging the research and fact-checking would be. I could only fit in a tiny fraction of what they provided.

Alexandra Fischer, graphic designer, who gave me fair warning that calendars are a whole lot of work.

Sarah Miller, a good friend and professional editor, who graciously offered her expertise because I was finding out that calendars are… a whole lot of work!

Lynn Zanandrea and Melanie Clarin DeGiovanni. Each gave their permission to use the music of Mark Zanandrea and the band It Thing. It was important to me that my dear friend Mark, who passed away in 2019, be meaningfully involved with the podcast. Melanie, Mark’s longtime music partner, also played some robust accordion in Part II.

Musicians Omar Ledezma Jr., Dave Mihaly, Daniel Fabricant, and Dan Compton. All contributed inspiring, evocative musical parts. Producer/engineer John Karr, Ear Relevant Recording, brought expertise and positive vibes to our music recording session.

Kristy LaFollette, a friend who did something many friends wouldn’t bother to do; she urged me to reconsider a provocative promotional graphic, suggesting it might inflict more harm than stir up controversial good.

My mother Carmen Liston, who is a much more well-rounded, accomplished person than the mother of Experience White.

And finally, my deepest, most delighted “Thank You!” to everyone who shared links, helped promote the podcast and wrote positive reviews. Because of you, hundreds of people have already listened, and the audience continues to grow.

As a producer for over 20 years, I’ve seen the varying degrees of commitment people bring to a project. Body and mind come naturally, a heart may come too, but a soul commitment is rare. With Miss Experience White, both calendar and podcast, I saw people bring their souls. Some worked for free or very little, others donated their fee; all of us worked through a global pandemic, historic election, and ongoing right-wing coup. Because we knew the soul of America was in peril. It still is. And my anxiety and gratitude do not work against each other. They actually make me work harder.

Milo

Throwing Like A Girl

Am I making assumptions about someone or some group based upon how they look? If so, exactly how am I acting with this individual or group? Given that I’m a decent person and want to contribute to the greater good, what if I learned more about the daily life experiences of this person or group? Why is it so hard sometimes to simply listen?

These questions represent one basic tool I used in writing The Other Feast, Part III of Miss Experience White, which sketches out stories of prejudice and the determined work of shedding it. Experiencing sexism and misogyny throughout my 60 years turned out to be very helpful in my writing process. Often, I could transpose the objectification and othering.

When the MeToo movement was going strong with women doing inventories and posting on social media, I couldn’t do it, although I am fully credentialed. I became overwhelmed by so much expressed pain; I couldn’t get my list past high school. But now, a few years later, after researching 400 years of American racial violence and genocide, I’ve come to a broader, deeper perspective of what my eighth grade teacher referred to as “Man’s inhumanity to man” (although I’m sure she meant to include women, too.) Here is my list.

Flashes – 2. These were not funny. It’s shocking when a man exposes himself in public. The eye contact is the worst part of it.

Gropes and grabs – more than 6. These are now called “assaults.” I remember feeling stunned when I first saw that word used. Stunned and validated.

Institutional discrimination. Yes. Most memorably in college in the early 1980’s, when the same male professors who complimented me on my camerawork and directorial skills repeatedly advised me to change my plan of being a cinematographer-then-director to being a screenwriter-then-producer. Because of my sex.

Peeping Toms – 2. Scary, creepy. One was a neighbor.

Verbal harassment on the job – I’ll estimate over a dozen times, but mostly by co-workers. Twice by a boss.

Rapes – 2. The first one was in high school when I was too drunk to give consent. The boy told his friends and everybody laughed and made jokes. The second one was a terrifying attack by a sociopathic ex-boyfriend. I did not “quietly submit” as women were instructed to do back then. I lost the fight when he knocked me unconscious. When I came to, he was raping me in a psychotic rage. He threatened to kill me if I told anyone, and I believed him. Decades later, I filed a police report just in case it would help get him convicted for a more recent charge.

Insults, slights, situations of fear... Thousands? Going out of my way to avoid walking past construction sites, carrying a knife or mace in my hand from car to front door, wearing shoes I can easily run in... normal things women do to stave off unwanted attention and keep safe from predators.

Life in a man’s world. Predominantly a white man’s world, and I’m white, too. What do I know about the experiences of women of color compared to my own? A few close to me have provided glimpses by sharing difficult, sometimes terrible stories. Through research, I’ve learned more. Miss Experience White is not my first project about white supremacy because I followed my professors’ advice and wrote several screenplays, including one based upon the activities of a 1980’s white supremacist group. This time around, more than three decades later, I discovered the new academic discipline of intersectionality: the study of how systems of prejudice overlap. Women of color face 2 fronts of oppression at once. It’s beyond my imagination. I’m continuously humbled and inspired by their courage.

Back to my list. I’ve recovered from much of the harm described above. I worked as a stripper for a little while, making a nice living off men objectifying me. Later, I became a member of an artistic community that was as diverse in sexual preference and gender as it was multi-ethnic and racially diverse. Straight whites were at most 30% of our community, and mostly female. It was healing to take a little break from the straight white male world. Also (written about elsewhere), I came into some money, and used this financial privilege for different kinds of trauma therapy, like EMDR. Ultimately, everything becomes grist for the artistic mill of theater, music, and poetry.

I don’t hate men. Not at all! Only a small percentage of men are predators. Most are well-intentioned and gradually coming to terms with how they benefit from living in a sexist society. When I make a new male friend, I want to learn where he is on the sexism spectrum, and, more importantly, how self-aware he is of his bias. That will determine how comfortable our friendship will be. Gender is a complicated issue because we women undeniably have some power in our sex. It’s way too big a topic for a blog.

But nobody said it better than writer Margaret Atwood, “Men are afraid women will laugh at them. Women are afraid men will kill them.”

Today is April 29th, the 29th anniversary of the LA riots immediately following the acquittal of the police officers who battered and beat Rodney King. Driving home from work through downtown Hollywood as the riots got underway, I saw several attempted carjackings. Chaos, rage, and fear were everywhere. When I got home, I watched a news report about Reginald Denny, a white truck driver dragged out of his stalled truck at an intersection in South Central Los Angeles. Live footage shot from a hovering helicopter showed several young men violently attacking Denny. They were performing for the camera; it was horrifying, real time, real life violence. Denny survived, and later said he felt no resentment, that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, pointing out that his rescuer, another trucker, was black, and that some of the doctors who saved his life were also black. That was 1992.

Flashback farther, to 1979, to the cab driver who watched as I walked to his car, who looked at my beaten face in the mirror, who asked if I was sure I didn’t want to go to the hospital, who sighed when I shook my head no, who waited a bit, hoping I’d change my mind... That cab driver was a man. A white man with a kind voice, that’s all I remember.

Flash forward to 2021. After all the research, after the stories I’ve heard, a new question now forms in my mind. Would he have acted the same way if I hadn’t been white?

Milo

Why It’s So Hard For White People To Stop Being Racist

A few years ago, I was hanging out with a close friend, and we were talking about the latest Trump scandal: something awful and racist that he or someone in his camp had said. My black friend turned away from facing me to ask, “Why is it so hard for white people to stop being racist?”

We had forged an agreement around this time to have discussions about race: that any question might be asked, and then answered with the following preamble, “On behalf of all white/black people...” Sometimes this was funny, other times not.

I don’t remember how I answered the question. I might’ve talked for 20 minutes or simply said, “Because we suck.”

But the tone in my friend’s voice haunts me, and probably always will.

Part 3 of Miss Experience White, “The Other Feast,” is about “othering:” the habit my white tribe has of treating fellow human beings as alien, of less value, and dangerous. Othering is not limited to race, of course. Christians may demonize those of other faiths. Native-born U.S. citizens may demonize naturalized ones. And my experiences as a woman being othered by men have proven helpful in dealing with my own implicit biases toward people not superficially like me.

To try to answer the question, let’s first exclude white people who will take any excuse to be mean to anybody— people who get off on being mean. Let’s also exclude the herd mentality effect, those cowards who go along with the instigators because they get to share in some exercise of dominance. And let’s excuse those who want to be racists, who don’t want to change.

That leaves white people who exist in a culture of white male supremacy, operating with varying degrees of ignorance and denial about that culture. And when faced with our own prejudice, we freak out in varying degrees of intensity. As has been written elsewhere, “To the privileged, fairness feels like oppression.” This manifests as anger, confusion, discomfort, and, for those with some awareness, shame. Oh, our very fragility is upsetting! The description I like best of white privilege is an “invisible, unearned package of assets.” Well, of course, we’re angry, confused, uncomfortable, and ashamed, dealing with something invisible that we did not earn.

The work is ongoing. Anyone who has a chronic mental health issue— alcoholism, depression, etc., knows this means committing to the process and not to the goal. For some personality types, self-monitoring and management can be very challenging. But while humility is not the first value that comes to mind when I think of “American values,” a strong work ethic is, so I remain hopeful.

In the past, I’ve apologized profusely for things I said which I later worried might be racially or otherwise insensitive— only to be affectionately laughed at by the person I thought I’d harmed. (I was still glad I asked.) I’ve also been busted for insensitivities I was not aware of; this is really a kind of frontier of feeling, a new territory. The work is ongoing. Just a few weeks ago I put up a promotional graphic online for Part II, Bonfire of the Ancestors, and was informed that despite my noble intentions and clever efforts it would likely be interpreted as racially insensitive. Down it came.

While doing research for Miss Experience White, I spent a lot of time ruminating over types of privilege and the sometimes awkward remedies of “political correctness.” I got fed up with words. I came up with this handy diagram, illustrated by John H. Seabury, to explain the situation and how there’s no way to avoid negative feelings as long as we’re living in a system of white male supremacy. The deal IS discomfort, and by getting used to it, we get over it, and then move on until a more advanced lesson appears.

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To briefly recap a background I’ve written about previously, I was born in 1960 in the San Francisco Bay Area to a father who was a man of his time: admirable and virtuous in many ways but still racist, bigoted, and sexist. My mom was neither a racist nor a bigot, but she freely admitted to not liking women. So my father ruled the household, and, although my mom pushed back on some of his worst language, I still grew up absorbing plenty of toxic talk. Plus, I had to find my own worth as a female. Quite a lot of that work was done while I lived in Los Angeles in the ’80s, 90’s and early 2000’s, and I well remember the few years around 1990 when LA went from being a majority white city to a majority Latino one. I had white friends who openly said that was the reason they were leaving. I thought they were backwards. I lost respect for them

Right now in America, I see two camps. One is consciously ethno-nationalistic, believing they are the “real Americans” because they are white, Christian, and of European descent. The other camp, which I belong to, is diverse with whites in the minority, and although I sometimes feel uncomfortable, this is where I belong. I’m happy here.

What a relief! To paraphrase Chris Rock, America is a less racist country than it used to be. Why? Black people didn’t change, so what happened? White people changed. No reason to stop now.

Milo

White Disgust

Like most people, I watched the attempted coup on January 6th in shock, horror, and disgust. I watched something happen that I intellectually believed had to happen at some point, and my intellectual belief was almost no preparation for the reality.

When I hear Trump and his followers talk about how they are the “real Americans,” I feel a vast and deep disgust. I also feel ashamed to look like them, to know that a non-White person walking down the street, seeing me, might hate or fear me just because I look like one of them.

As if I needed to feel any more shame. Because as the Trump definition goes, I qualify as a “real American,” being descended on both sides from Puritans, pioneers, and slave-owners. It sure would be nice if I could brainwash myself and hop over to the other side, where unchecked white supremacy is just America being “great.” But it hasn’t worked out that way.

I want to identify here as not just White, but as a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, aka WASP. Plenty of the terrorists who attacked on January 6th wore shirts with anti-Semitic views and frightened friends of mine who are White and Jewish. I feel anger and sorrow. I try to imagine how my friends are feeling. And I continue to learn how complicated a place America is: I have a Jewish friend who told me her ancestors had owned slaves, at which point I suddenly remembered once meeting a Black person with the same unusual last name as hers.

But for the purpose of this blog, I want to keep the terms “WASP” and “White” distinct. This is also out of respect for my Middle-Eastern friends, who, like Jewish people, do not reap all the privileges of whiteness.

The people who stormed the Capitol were an ignorant, easily deceived, grossly misinformed, violent bunch of terrorists. They are delusional, they are haters, and they belong to a group of roughly 15 million Americans who believe the attack was justified. Fifteen million is a hell of a lot of people living in denial. And they’re not going away.

Then there are my fellow WASP friends and family members, curled up in shame at our ancestral past, frozen by ancestral guilt, and confused about who we are, what we stand for, and what to do next. Some of us are still talking to our Trump-supporting relatives, and some of us are not. Well, we’re not going away, either.

Denial versus damnation. Could there be a third way? Or maybe some way to guide the damned toward redemption? Then denial might start to lose some of its appeal.

Part 2 of Miss Experience White is called Bonfire of the Ancestors. Part I ended on a cliffhanger, and Part 2 does not follow convention and pick up where Part 1 leaves off. Not literally, anyway. Part 2 is radically different. I wanted to come up with a way to deal with complicated ancestors: both the heritage and the legacies. It turned out the best way to do that was through ritual, and Part 2 is my own personal ritual.

Most of the biographical information in Part 2 is “true” in that these were the ancestral stories I heard growing up. But sometimes I gave the facts a massage, and a few times I just made stuff up. Because I can! I did many hours of research to place my ancestors in their respective, proper historical contexts. I learned a lot about American history: enough to know that I know very little, and that history remains the “his story” of white men because the other stories have yet to be told.

When it came time to start working on the wall calendar with John Seabury, I wondered if there was any way to incorporate some of these “other stories” into the calendar. I got the idea to include a few for each month as “on this date” calendar entries. John’s images depict scenes from the poem cycle, and so I let the image for any given month guide my choice of entries. The calendar will be available later in January.

Initially, I wanted to donate the proceeds to a color-blind, national educational charity because I thought if more poor White students could only get a good education, they wouldn’t be so stupid. Well, how stupid of me. Ted Cruz graduated from Harvard Law School magna cum laude! This isn’t about stupidity. It’s about entitlement, privilege, willful ignorance, and denial. So all proceeds will go to One Goal, an organization helping low-income high school students of color get to and through college.

Because let’s not forget; the Democrats just won the Senate! Stacy Abrams spent 10 years and turned the red state of Georgia blue. She mobilized the Black vote, including the votes of many affluent, well-educated Black people who had moved to Georgia to reclaim the South as their own.

Please support the development of a smarter, more inclusive America, and buy a calendar. And if you, like me, suffer from pangs of conscience because of ancestral shame, I hope you’ll be inspired by my dramatic ritual, Bonfire of the Ancestors, in Part 2 of Miss Experience White, due out later this month.

Milo

MISS EXPERIENCE WHITE
2021 CALENDAR

$19 including domestic shipping

Miss Experience White 2021 Collector's Edition Calendar

$15.00

The 2021 Miss Experience White wall calendar was a limited run, but there are still a few calendars left for collectors. Acclaimed illustrator John Seabury worked closely with Milo to interpret scenes from her epic poem cycle and podcast.

In the hope of increasing understanding about white privilege, the Miss Experience White wall calendar also features several stories per month: glimpses into the historical and ongoing struggles of the marginalized peoples of America. These calendar entries were not randomly chosen, but are also not meant to be definitive or conclusive of any particular group’s historical experience.

All proceeds will go to benefit education across the United States, as donations to One Goal.

CREDITS
Artist: John Seabury
Graphic Designer: Alexandra Fischer
Editor: Sarah Miller
Researchers: Kate Sheehan, Andy Hamner

ABOUT THE ARTIST
John Seabury is a Grammy-nominated illustrator and designer. His visually addicting works of art are featured in the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame Library collection, internationally acclaimed publications, and in a broad constellation of promotional material for iconic musicians including Radiohead, George Clinton, Devo, The Damned, Kevin Gilbert, Moonalice, and The Mars Volta. He is a founding member of the historic Berkeley punk band, Psycotic Pineapple and the creator of their mascot, Pynoman. His work for Arhoolie Records now resides in the Smithsonian Institution collection.

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Really Ugly Balls: A Conversation with John Seabury

The 2021 Miss Experience White wall calendar will be available in early January, illustrated by acclaimed Bay Area artist John Seabury. Half of the proceeds from this limited edition will be donated to benefit public education. A Grammy nominated illustrator and designer, John Seabury’s visually addicting works of art have been featured in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and internationally renowned publications, while his fine art is sought by collectors. John can draw anything you might imagine—and plenty that you can’t. For this blog, I sent Mr. Seabury some questions to answer. When his email came back, his answers sparked comments in my mind. I decided to weave those comments in and create a conversation.

Who are you, John Seabury?

I am myself. Born at Kaiser Oakland 1956, I have lived and worked in Berkeley or nearby almost my whole life.

I grew up in the epicenter of the youth counter-culture movement here through the 60s and 70s. Exposed to all of the music, poster art, underground comix, and independent media.

I've always been an artist, when I was young I figured that was all I would ever be good at. In my late teens I got involved with music, largely because most of my friends (and brother Dave) were musicians. Turns out I'm okay at music, too.

After the collapse of the Psycotic Pineapple, I became a mercenary bass player/singer working in a variety of oldies bands.

At the same time, I got involved in commercial art, largely music-related. Record covers, posters, t-shirt designs, etc.

A mutual friend introduced us because we’d both conceived of Trump as a Tyrannosaurus— me in writing, you in a drawing. As soon as I laid eyes on that drawing, I knew I’d found the artist for the job! We aren't the only ones to come up with this— What IS it about him?

In that caricature, I made him a dinosaur because he is a product of our cultural de- evolution. Savage, uncivilized. I did another cartoon showing a Cro-MAGA Man beside his cave, with club and unconscious, barefoot, pregnant wife.

Some might perceive the T-Rex cartoon as referring to the secret lizard people of myth. But I only intended to convey the backwardness of it all.

I’m glad you said that. I’ll go on record here and say, “Me too. I do not now, nor have I ever believed gray lizard people roam the earth.” Back in June, I sent you a PDF of the entire poem cycle, Miss Experience White. What were your first impressions? What did you most want to draw?

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It was overwhelming at first. So much detail, where to begin? The first one was the solo portrait of our intrepid anti-hero. That was a nice change from some of the boring commercial jobs I've had lately. And a unique experience having a client (a woman, no less) requesting that I draw him with "really ugly balls". I don't have to pussyfoot on this job. I've always been fascinated with ugly things, and this time around I get to have fun and get paid! Not done yet, but the climactic scene is going to be a doozy.

I love how you drew the balls. They’re actually so ugly, they’re beautiful. This job required creating 12 images, four for each Part. What made you choose a particular medium— watercolor, pencil, etc.— for an image? What 2 or 3 images really called out for a particular medium or illustrative technique?

When we first started it, I gave that a lot of thought. After reading all the way through at least twice, I decided that I would need several different techniques to illustrate the different eras in the story, and also to differentiate between reality and the dream/nightmare parts. One is a mostly pencil drawing meant to look like an old lithograph. One is watercolor, depicting a scene on a rainy day. Another is my old standby, pen and ink cartooning, only harshly colorized on the computer to portray the evil family for the common tasteless trash that they are.

Which illustrations are you personally most pleased with?

Please don't make me choose a pet from among my children.

It’s been a trip for me, working with you, watching you illustrate some scenes that have lots of personal meaning. And I’ve been impressed by how much historical research you’ve done. How has the collaboration been for you? Hopefully not too excruciating?

Very challenging, in a good way. It's easy to get lost going back and forth through all of these different scenes. And thank you for being patient and helpful with my questions. So many questions...

I’m glad I could answer them. Many times I’ve had to stop and ask myself, “Well, what absolutely has to be a certain way, and what doesn’t? Do I let Mr. Seabury run wild here, or hold the line?” Doing a calendar was my idea, and this was a huge, labor- intensive job. You brought in a couple of helpers. Tell us a little about them, and what they did.

My friend Bruce (Horton) and I have been spending a lot of time discussing art and music lately. He earned his MFA from UC Berkeley long ago but life interrupted his art career. After his daughter grew up and moved out, he got back into painting after 20 something years. We share many tastes. He has a 17 year-old protégé nicknamed "Gidget" who is an excellent painter already. I decided I wanted one scene to be an acrylic painting, which I hardly ever do, and they're both experts at it. So I designed the scene in pencil and gave it to them to complete. They did an excellent job and they are doing a second one.

Yes, the big, climactic doozy! When you and I started six months ago, the pandemic was underway, and then came the whole insane ramp-up to the election. Now the election is past, Biden won, and Trump will be out of a job soon. How has it been working on such “timely” material for these past 6 months?

It's all a bit surreal. It's been frustrating for political cartoonists and satirists, since the reality of our experience is so over-the-top weird, it's hard to come up with anything to exaggerate it.

And, after drawing a few political cartoons of my own, I gave up. 45 thrives on ANY attention, good or bad, so it felt like I was playing his game.

I think Miss Experience is different in its scope and breadth, unlike a one-shot cartoon or short SNL sketch. A record of current events and past events that have led up to the now.

What’s your next project?

There have been many discussions over the last year and a half about doing
a restaurant mural at a place in El Sobrante, but Covid and other factors have delayed it. It's frustrating, partly because, in addition to Bruce and Gidget joining in, I would also get to collaborate with my friend, the legendary graffiti artist and muralist Mark Bode.

But until that happens, I'll be finishing up a lot of unfinished work of my own. Being unemployed sucks, cause everybody needs money, but I get most of my best work done when I'm not distracted by trying to hawk my posters and other "wares'. For a short while I'll have the luxury to sit back and take time on my own ideas.

If you’d like to pre-order a calendar, please write to contact@milostarrjohnson.com with the subject heading, “Calendar Pre-Order.”

Thank you for your continued interest and support!

Milo

Miss Experience White Debuts November 13th

© John H. Seabury

We’re finishing up mixing Part 1 of my poetic podcast, Miss Experience White. I know I’m biased, but honestly, with the immersive sound design, it sounds perfectly amazing. Miss Experience White: Part 1, Vision & Revelation debuts on November 13th.

Recording the final voice track went great. The only hitch was the performer, hamming it up. I don’t want to apologize. After all these months of lockdown and no live performing, I found myself with an audience of 2, my co-producers Dave Lawrence and Jim McKee, in the control room. What’s that I hear? Laughter? Yee-Haw! My acting ham took over and ran wild. Eventually I got my ya-ya’s out and toned it down. Radio is an intimate medium, after all.

Last week all the additional music entered the mix. World-class musician Omar Ledezma Jr., with whom I briefly studied Latin percussion, plays a beautiful part on one poem. On another, we paired Dave Mihaly, known for his textural drumming style, with accomplished bassist Daniel Fabricant. They came up with some evocative sounds.

Mark your calendars for Lucky Friday, the 13th of November. And speaking of calendars, John Seabury is busy crafting the 2021 Miss Experience White wall calendar. The December blog will be about our inspiring collaboration and I’ll be taking pre-orders for the calendar soon.

In the meantime... Vote! And make sure your friends vote, too. To paraphrase a favorite quote of mine by Edmund Burke, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.”

Milo

Miss Experience White: The Podcast debuts this October!

© John H. Seabury

I’m delighted to announce that Part One of my poetic podcast, Miss Experience White, will be out late next month, produced by me, David Lawrence, and James McKee, with sound design by James McKee, and featuring the music of It Thing. All visuals created by underground artist John H. Seabury, and there’s a 2021 wall calendar in the works, too, inspired by the poems upon which the podcast is based.

Available here on my site and Spotify, the free radio drama will arrive in several parts over the next 6-8 months. Part One, Vision & Revelation, is an invocation of “Tyrannosaurus Wonderbread, the Pearly White Demon,” a personification of America’s darkest aspects, and appropriately will be available close to Halloween. (The Wonderbread family is pictured above.) Metaphors of the supernatural freed me creatively in the writing process and now appear to liberate us producers as well: we ‘re having fun while making John Lewis’ brand of “good trouble,” showing “listeners a creative way to confront some uncomfortable truths... their relationship to privilege... at a time of deep cultural reckoning and division,” as Dave says.

A radio play seems like such an obviously good idea now, but I wasn’t thinking of it late last year, when I was trying out the poems at open mics and wondering how I would perform the whole thing live. In the past few years, most of us live performers have found it’s been getting harder to coax people out to shows, what with the competition of Netflix-on-the-couch (and never mind the lack of parking.) I also wanted to reach as wide an audience as possible, so even before the Covid 19 lockdown I was thinking about YouTube (Just sit there and read? Boring!) or a dramatic podcast. But then came the lockdown, and I called up my old pal Dave, who has a commanding, comprehensive background in digital media arts, and asked if he wanted to produce a podcast with me. He was working on a virtual reality project with the band The Residents at the time.

© John H. Seabury

He read my 10,000-word poem cycle and pronounced it “epic,” later recounting how he was “blown away by the vision and scope... and realized this was the kind of project that would really shine with Jim’s sound design brilliance.” I was thrilled to hear this, knowing the work of Jim and his company, Earwax Productions. Past sound design projects have included everything from Ai Weiwei’s Alcatraz installation to the movie “Bram Stoker’s Dracula.” Jim also does sound design for the ongoing podcast The Kitchen Sisters.

David Lawrence and James McKee met at Lucasfilm in 1987 and have “worked together on some crazy creative projects for over 30 years” according to McKee. An early one of those was Virtual Paradise in 1993. I remember listening to it back then, feeling amazed while immersed in its audio realm. Today I feel extremely fortunate to be working with such gifted, skilled people; one I’ve just met, and the other an old friend.

I met Dave in high school in the mid 70’s. We were both members of “The Tea Club,” a group of prankster misfits. We’ve worked together many times (he edited most of the video clips on my theater page), but this project is different. Last year we lost another Tea Clubber, Mark Zanandrea, longtime member of the Bay Area underground music scene and frontman of the band It Thing. Because the music of It Thing is foundational to the podcast, it felt right for Dave and I to co-produce under the name “The Tea Club,” in acknowledgement of Mark’s posthumous musical contribution and to celebrate artistic bonds that began forming when we were all just kids, some 40 years ago.

The collaboration process has been exciting! I agree with Dave when he says, “Everyone's bringing their mastery and best creative juices to the table... I love the willingness to... push for a visionary outcome.”

And from Jim, “I'm enjoying everyone's professionalism and openness to new ideas and stretching the boundaries of what radio drama can be.”

Professionalism? Hmmm... I guess it was okay they saw my rumpled sweat pants at the last Zoom meeting.

© John H. Seabury

Onward!

Milo

“WHAT ARE YOU?”

Having been asked this question for most of my 60 years, by both white people and those of color, I’ve come up with plenty of clever replies. Because my stock response, “White, completely white,” often does not satisfy. Perhaps the unusual first name gets in the way. So much exoticism in one person is suspect.

“You don’t look completely white” tends to follow. People don’t leave it alone. I’ve heard this delivered as an accusation, as a compliment, or with skepticism. They want more information. So I give it to them. I explain I’m mostly British, Celtic, with some German and French, but some of the Celtic lines have a distant North African connection, because people sailed up from the south and stayed.

“North African! So you’re not completely white!”

Well, North Africans are considered white. Just like Jews. When I first had my DNA tested, what my elders had always said seemed to be substantiated-- there was a tiny percentage of North African along with other surprises. Then, as the results were refined over time, those small percentages reduced. There were enough Celts with that same “North African” DNA to qualify as simply Celts. I mean, we’re talking about an ancestor from before the 14th century. In other words, it was so damn long ago, it doesn’t matter anymore. The tiny sliver of purple in the pie chart below represents remaining traces of North African and Middle Eastern. I should say here that these DNA tests are fun and thought- provoking, but not necessarily 100% accurate.

When I went to a private grade school I was regularly bullied about my “Chink eyes,” “Chinese grandmother,” and called a “half-breed.” One day a little boy, some junior white supremacist-in-training, grabbed me by my collar, put his face right in front of mine, and yelled “What are you! Some kind of a throwback?” I looked down at his thumb. It was close to my mouth. I leaned over and bit it. Hard. He did not bother me again for a long time.

But hey, I was still a little creature of white privilege. When the kids teased me about a “Chinese grandmother,” I felt angry and confused. I wanted to be liked. I just wanted to fit in. And their message was clear: to be Chinese was to be different, and to be different was not a good thing. Therefore, I was bad. They were insulting me. I also remember thinking how my grandmother (the one who looked more Chinese than the other) would’ve been insulted and furious, too. She wouldn’t want to be bad. I didn’t know any Chinese people, and there were hardly any on TV.

My parents were no help. They assured me I was not Chinese, and that ended the matter. In the 1960’s, bullying was considered something one had to put up with. “They’ll get bored,” my mom said.

But they did not. I remember my thinking began to change. “So what if I do have funny eyes? Maybe I am part Chinese. That might be better than being like those mean kids.”

Then we moved, and I switched from private to public school. It was slightly more diverse. There were one or 2 real Asian students, and nobody teased me about looking Chinese. Yet there were other issues that consigned me to a lower caste: I was new, short, wore glasses, and… oh yes, there was my weird name!

Milo

Attack of the Killer Post-its

If you don’t find the creative process interesting, don’t read this blog.

Twenty years ago I was diligently writing research notes on a yellow pad, developing my show Recycled Starlet, which spanned decades of Hollywood history. In reading the notes over, concepts and facts that didn’t necessarily need to relate to one another started to become sequentially linked in my mind. This bugged me, so I got some post-its and began transferring the notes onto them. Then I stuck the post-its onto pieces of 8x11 paper, organizing them by subject or theme. I could move the post-its around, making all sorts of connections. It was fun, and yes, dammit, color-coding was involved! One of the things I dislike most about writing is the black-on-white color scheme.

So for this still unnamed project, which I was calling “The Project,” I began to make notes on post-its practically from the start. I didn’t know enough yet about the actual content to color code, so I ended up with zillions of multi-colored post-its. Eventually I sorted them by historical or socio-political topic and stuck them to 10x14 drawing paper. And those papers got labels with white post-its.

Once I had a rough outline for the whole poem cycle, I made color-coded post-its for important concepts or themes, and those are the ones up on the wall in the video below. Some spilled over into the hall: literary quotes and lyrics are on pale blue, Christianity on peach-colored.

Each time I started a new section or poem I’d review all the 10x14 pages of historical and socio-political topics and take out all applicable post-its. Then I’d walk around and read the post-its on the walls. I’d pluck the useful ones like ripe fruit, then stick them along with the historical and current socio-political post-its over the framed pictures (that’d been on my walls before the post-its took over.) Finally, I’d prop these colorful writing guides up near my desk to refer to them as I worked, either directly or for inspiration, as seen in the top photo.

Uh, yes, research is always a wormhole for me. I like backstory! But when I found myself reading about The Crusades to prepare to write about American history, I knew I was pushing it. Yet even that detour paid off, because I realized how little I knew about Christianity or the Bible. (I’d tried a few times to read the Good Book and quit.) So I bought 2 Bible guides—one skewed liberal, the other more traditional— and boned up. I’m not exaggerating when I say that after I’d done that, everything that hadn’t quite been making sense became clear: all 400 years of American history. I was ready to outline the entire cycle and start scribbling some verse.

Early on in the research, about 2 years ago, I came across a description of fascism. There was a list of characteristics which fascist regimes shared, and a list of the three “must haves.”

1) Mythic past—such “Make America Great Again.” CHECK. ✅
2) Pit groups against one another. CHECK. ✅
3) Attack truth. CHECK. ✅

Milo

Something Unleashed

Barbeque Becky, Permit Patty, Pool Patrol Paula, Central Park Amy... examples of a strain of white female known as a “Karen.”

After Trump took office, some of my fellow white Americans, like the Karens above, began behaving extra badly. I heard reports of both men and women yelling slurs, and hate crimes rose higher, along with hate-related individual and mass murders. There were more police killings— certainly more videos. Something had been unleashed.

And, to my horror, I noticed that when I wasn’t having negative, hostile thoughts about Trump, occasionally a prejudiced thought would pop into my head. That wasn’t normal. I was able to contain the toxin inside me except for the times I made a few insensitive jokes or comments, and I took responsibility for them. I was nowhere near becoming a Karen, but felt disturbed and confused. WTF was going on?

My father, like too many men of his time, expressed racist, bigoted, and sexist views freely and often. Were it not for my mother and other important childhood influences, had I not grown up in the Bay Area, gone to public schools and moved to a city at age 18... My mind would have been configured much differently about people not resembling me. Still, I had some work to do when I was younger. I welcomed that work, and maintenance had been ongoing and getting easier until Trump came along. My resentment of him and his influence could not be more personal.

The presidency has a lot more “psychic” power than I ever imagined. After centuries of white presidents, or “white rule,” came Barack Obama, and white progressives like myself could take some comfort that even if he was too moderate, at least he was not another old WASP dude. But Obama was thwarted at every turn by mostly white Congressional Republicans and hate crimes started to rise. Meanwhile Donald Trump, that douchebag from Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, who cracked sexist jokes with Howard Stern, and starred in The Apprentice (which I never saw), heavily promoted the racist lie that Obama was not born in America. And then he became president! The phase of white backlash— white hostility and grievance— was now fully underway. White supremacy is the sorest winner I’ve ever seen.

I felt compelled to write about it—this unleashing of hostility onto non-white people, (including Jews and Muslims) men’s hostility to women (also validated by Trump’s words and behavior), and my own inner disturbance. So what would my form be?

Not songwriting. I tend to write love songs, both happy and sad. I write music first, and tunes don’t suggest overtly political messages, at least not yet. Besides, Trump made me want to scream, not sing. Childhood memoir? Theatrical play? A monologue I could do at The Marsh? I didn’t want to end up standing on stage, talking about my father, which might come off as self-indulgent and stale.

Perhaps I should give up and be a full time activist?

In the spirit of helping others to help oneself, I started a writers’ group along with a bass-playing screenwriter/novelist buddy of mine. We used the format created by Cary Tennis and Danelle Morton in the book Finishing School, which lays out a plan for getting and giving feedback on process only, not content.

I kept journaling, free-associating, clustering, but still couldn’t find a form. In February of 2018, I went on a 5 day writing retreat to a cabin deep in the woods of Inverness, near the California coast. The cabin had no curtains. All I could see, hear, and smell were trees. They were growing all around me. Their energy inspired me and I wrote a long, meandering poem linking my family’s history to Trump’s America.

It’s not a good poem, more of an outline, really, but I’d finally found the right form! With poetry I could tell stories in an epic style, but also explore more abstract ideas in a lyrical way. I could hone my songwriting skills using metered structures, or savor the elasticity of free verse.

Before I went back to the city, I went for a walk on the beach and took the photo below of a sea cave.

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Little did I know then what I was getting myself into. I like to refer to a writing phase as “being in the cave.” Hah! Little did I know I was about to enter the deepest, darkest writer’s cave of my life.

Milo

It Took a Pandemic

© Robert Crozier

It took a pandemic, but milostarrjohnson.com finally got an overhaul. This is much more representative of my creative output than before when the idea was to promote music.

So, you might ask, what am I selling now? Not much, except that I do have a podcast of political poetry, “Miss Experience White,” in the works to share later, based on a poem cycle of the same name. It’s psychedelic, witty, cinematic, and insightful.

Inspired (if that’s the best word) by Trump and his followers, I’ve been holed up for over 2 years, researching and writing about America’s past and present, along with my ancestral history. Can’t wait to share my creative processes with you, as things have gone kind of Unabomber with post-its all over the walls.

Meanwhile, check out the new site! My old pal and most excellent video editor David Lawrence put together some video clips of provocative past theater performances. There are poems, complemented by photos from friends including David Nelson Fox and Robert Crozier. And, of course, the music is still here.

Milo

A Video Tribute To Artist David Nelson Fox

David Nelson Fox (1960 - 2016) was a poet, musician, and photographer. We played music together briefly; later I got to know him well in his professional capacity as graphic designer for The Perambulator CD. David was a Renaissance man who spent most of his adult life in the most European of American cities, San Francisco.

Like many Americans, David fell on hard times after 2008. He lost his job, used up his savings, and ended up in a homeless shelter. It was an inconceivable situation for a middle class white dude.

Eventually he moved into low-income housing and found a job, but hitting economic bottom was a turning point in his life. Both he and the city were going through changes hard and fast. He documented it all with images and poetry.

In collaboration with video editor David Lawrence, (mutual friend and former bandmate), here’s a sampling of photography by David Nelson Fox.

Over several decades, many small journals published David’s poetry. His official music career was brief—his band signed to a label, manic touring, then dropped by the label— but not before Frank Zappa saw him playing bass in Virginia and flew him out to the West Coast to audition. He didn’t get that gig, but soon moved to San Francisco and continued to write poetry and play music.

My friend passed away from cancer. He spent his last few months in full artist warrior mode, chronicling everything from diagnosis to dying with brutal, urgent, honesty. It was some of his best work.

For more, please go to his site, Keep Backwards Please, http://davidnelsonfox.blogspot.com

Milo