EPIC FRIENDSHIP : Upward, Against Gravity!

Earlier this evening, I sent a random Google® Talk instant message to my dear, dear friend and former Shanti Project Social Support Volunteer, Wallace "Wes" Smith: my WALL•E!! His status icon displayed as idle, so I assumed that, perhaps by an off chance, he'd be free to join me for a spontaneous chat: a followup to the random instant messaged salutation he sent to me over the weekend. Little did I know that my spirited loquacity would suddenly seem to turn into a prosaically soliloquized epic ode to our friendship, of legendary mythic proportion.  

I felt so inspired to lavish my friend with lips-puckered, ass-kissed licentious lauding that what he struggled to read of my tenaciously frenetic fervor in typing seemed so awfully awkward in the contrived sophistication of its aggressively astute and alliterative prosaism and sophistry; so much so that I feel obliged to commemorate this haphazardly sententious and Homeric confession of best-begotten brotherly love as a disastrously dimwitted, maniacally meandering monologue, rewritten and posted in its entirety, herein below.

Heya WALL•E!! You totally left me hanging the other day, after you IMed me and then ditched in 10 mins, never to return to chat that day... Are you gonna have any time today to chat it up with me a little? I "yearn" to talk with you!

VOLUNTEERISM : SOCIAL CO-DEPENDENCY & WITHDRAWAL

Adrienne asked about you today, when we were walking to collect my weekly income check from my payee at Lutheran Social Services... She started the conversation by asking me my thoughts on finding another Shanti Volunteer.

I told her in a straightforward, matter of fact tone, "Well, thing is, I'm not sure how I feel about investing so much of myself into what's presumably meant to be a very important relationship in my life, if its just gonna end all of a sudden, and I am forced to lose a friend... again. I just don't think I could do that, at this point in my life."

She responded by asking, "Is that what happened with Wes? I thought you two were supposed to have stayed connected. Wasn't that your intention?"

So, I answered, again in a stoic, almost careless voice, "Yes, it was. But, Wes kinda just stopped responding and pulled away."

Her reply: "Oh, I can see how that could have been frustrating... [pause] ...and disappointing."

What I failed to mention to her was that I too hadn't made such a concerted effort in pursuing a sustained friendship with you, so it may have come across as me shifting blame all on you, Wes, which I regret. So, I commit to clearing things up the next time I talk to her, this week.

I just want to apologize, and say that Adrienne reminded me today how much of a giant gaping hole was left in my life after we ended our "professional" relationship. I MISS YOU!

Now, go take care of that "not so minor" issue that you're dealing with at work.

PETTY CONTRIVANCES OF A PSYCHO-UNSTABLE MIND

IF YOU'RE SCROLLING, YOU CAN STOP HERE NOW AND START READING AGAIN...

While you're off addressing that "not so minor" work issue for the next few minutes; a moment or two well spent by you, but better left unspent by me, I'm sure... I'll just continue my garrulously loquacious, leave-nothing-left-unsaid, babbling banter 'bout all the bizarre and contrite contrivances of my psycho-unstable mind, which have me anxious and worried of late, so that you can or may have an intimate and long-over-due peek into my perilously perverse and pessimistic personality! Hmmmm... Where did I leave off RE: Adrienne? Oh yeah... somewhere along the lines of:

So, I will be clearing you of the blunt force of blame for our reprehensibly reciprocal responsibility and our mutual misgivings vis-à-vis our dually shared and accepted failure to sustain our friendship past the point of its "professional" end.

I just don't want Adrienne to think that you were a bad choice as a volunteer. Heck, Adrienne already knows (I presume – and, if she doesn't, then she damn well should!) what an integral role you have played in SAVING MY LIFE! I owe so much to Adrienne for having stuck to her gut at the get go by pairing us together as client and volunteer... as would-be, could-be, forever-and-always "friends!"

RESPLENDENCE : AS "TACKLE-ANY-THREAT" TRIUMPH

But, more so, I owe much of my present success – my "Thank God! I'm thriving," tackle-any-threat, thwart-all-trials-&-traumas, tremendously triumphant and resplendent resilience, reborn amidst the tumultuously twisted travails of my recovery, rehabilitation, reconstruction and restitution of self – to you, my dear friend!

At the get-go, my joyous journey toward good health and happiness was gladly guided by the gentle and giving hand of a stranger turned beloved confidant, who courageously ventured well past reason, into a realm beyond responsibility where the rightfully righteous regalia and splendor of spirit dwell, to share his wisdom with a wounded, woebegone, godforsaken gay boy wanting of nothing more than exactly that which was delivered: LOVE!

My WALL•E!! Wallace "Wes" Smith
Facebook Photo, posted: June 16, 2010
© COPYRIGHT 2011 | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

SISYPHEAN STRUGGLE : AS PANTHEON TO FRIENDSHIP

I OWE ALL THIS FOR WHICH I HAVE TO BE THANKFUL TO YOU, MY DEAR FRIEND!

That is why I feel obliged now to persevere through the challenges of time and temerity, of entangled temperaments, of trials and tribulations brought 'bout by the blatantly bold, always bogus and unbecoming bastions of best-not-a-brick-wall-between-us "business."

To conquer – in a Sisyphean struggle steep & unsound enough to shake all shame, pride and courage from me – the cold, heartless and selfish demands of "convenience," in order finally to build the perfect pantheon to our still living, still thriving and resilient friendship, up atop the mythic mountains set between us

Let us together carefully carve, with courage & compassion, this megalithic monument to ME & MY WALL•E!! right from the Acherontic behemoth brimestone boulder that we together were once forced to push persistently past a presumed point of no return...

In a moment of inspiration, I lay claim to the rolling rock of our friendship as the necessary foundation of a forever extant and extraordinarily exultant temple, built to honor our two chance-selfless, yet yearning, souls. Thus, ad infinitum, we witness our two souls, serendipitously united by the unbreakable, ne'er tarnished bonds of brotherhood, made beautiful by perfectly platonic LOVE AND DEVOTION...

THE LACHRYMOSE, MOST LEFT SIDE OF MY MIND

LOVE AND DEVOTION duly deemed determined to destroy the could-be, would-be reckless and caustically corrosive contrivances of that aforementioned obstacle we've confirmed unspoken to speak of as "convenience." Agreed? And, don't worry, Wallace... I myself do not know what to make of all of this bombastic banter, either. It's all just "spewage" straight through the levies of the "last-ditch, last-chance, leftover" and lachrymose, most left side of my mind.

There, where my creative compass spins sporadically lost in all directions, a lasting light continues to shine. Despite the trifling trepidation and turpitude that has threatened to thwart the forever flamboyantly flagrant and fervid flame of our friendship, such incessant fear and intimidation still shall not stomp out our fire, nor even wash it away with waves of wearily woeful worry and doubt.

CONCEDING TO THE "CONTRIVANCES OF CONVENIENCE"

At very best, be it not 'bout time that we together concede to the "contrivances of convenience," admitting altogether that this could-be, would-be, whenever, wherever compelling of raucously chaotic commotion – preposterous pandemonium that continues to create a chasm of disordered discord straight through the center of our still quite celebrated and cherished friendship! – must be quenched, harnessed, muffled, exhausted, breached, and bridged before our bonds be beyond all possibility or chance of reconstruction, rehabilitation, recovery, and as well as – of course! – of redemptive restitution, in their own right?

My response to such discordance, as I hope would be yours as well in return, is this: THE TIME IS RIPE FOR US AT LEAST TO EXHAUST ALL OPTIONS!! The time is ripe for us to explore all earthly passages toward a point of position, where such a presumably implausible possibility of peace together might take its proper place ahead of all our pettily plebeian, yet boulder-like and burdensome, "CONTRIVANCES OF CONVENIENCE!!" Yes! The same phrase is refrained, as if for effect again, with emphatic force; of course!

I myself chose to remain courageously committed to the notion that naught near nothing aught keep us – Matt(e)o and his wholeheartedly happy-ever-after, astounding and amazing friend, WALL•E!! – from catapulting together the ungodly gargantuan boulder up atop the snow-capped cresting summit of a good-godly majestic mountain, there, where we have been meaning for a mighty long time to leave our lasting mark. Only this time, the behemoth rolling rock of our Sisyphean struggle should no longer conveniently contrive to create could-be, would-be impenetrable barriers and obstacles between us; instead, however, our mark shall be sculpted from that stone into the shape of a pantheonic monument, as previously described.

A SPLENDID TORCH : OUR STILL LIVING, THRIVING STORY

Tell me, dear, close friend and confidant – you, who once bravely buttressed the stumbling, fumbling, crumbling facade of my "fagged-out, ferocious, Fog City Freak Show," with naught near nothing more than mighty words of wisdom and a regular barrage of hugs...

Are you ready, willing and able now – dear friend! – to join in my cause courageously, compassionately, and without any cute and quaint "contrivances of convenience," to excavate, dust off, cleanse, polish and restore to its resilient shine the splendid torch of our still-to-be-told, living, thriving and triumphant story?

For, this story of ours, and ours alone, is the only chance we have together to inculcate our worse-off and ignorant brethren, by inspiring in them, as exemplars, an understanding and appreciation of the importance of our stolidly shared, striving, and thriving efforts to extend the life of brotherly bonds between friends well far past a few expectantly forgotten farewells, and all the way infinitely onward and upward, toward Everest or Olympia; there, where every man atop each his own majestic mountain may finally rest together, basking in the company of other likely heroes.

With this, our legendary tale of triumph through travail so quite unlike and contrary to others' staid or saturnine stories of dissolute dysphoria, we may finally and forthwith fill our heavenly hubristic hearts with the ne'er forsaken but full-force fuel of the forever-lasting flames of friendship: a fire from whose embers the diamond-crystalline core essence of our energetic enthusiasm, our exultant exuberance, and of our dutifully indestructible do-good-only devotion to and love for one another erupts as a miraculously mythical, flame-tailed fowl aflight.

A PHOENIX a'FIRE ... OF FRIENDSHIP!!

From the smouldering ashes of what could have been our failed, forgotten folly, "A PHOENIX a'FIRE ... OF FRIENDSHIP" shall burst forth in explosions of celestial brilliance and be reborn into so-white-hot-she's-red, resplendent glory.

This fiery immortal and all-knowing animal-prophet will take flight with unmet and outstanding wisdom, through the telling of our tale as an oracle of obligation and duty for those few who, wanting such to sustain the boundless and unbroken bonds of brotherhood, shall serve so many could-be, would-be countless, courageous others, as god-sent, spellbinding, and brilliantly living beacons of fire's light: the immaculately inextinguishable exemplars of faith in friendship and devotion to hope!

We must share with the as-of-yet ill-fated throngs of death-defyingly isolated, outright tormented and lonely others of the world our own unique unhampered hope in happiness, exponentially multiplied by the mutually endless and perfect power of our platonic love!

For, it is now, in writing and reading this quasi-Homeric epic enunciation of our shared story, that we bear witness to the very real possibility, the probability or perhaps even persistent truth which, pondered in properly mythic proportion, tells a time-willed and wistfully whimsical tale of the forever-lasting and eternal life of our fraternal love; such that is rightfully redeemed through the rapturous resilience of friendship's bond. 

NEAR TO UTOPIA : DANCING UPWIND OF DOOMSDAY

Through reincarnate duet dancing, such brotherly bonds that we share do tenderly touch our flat-footed heels and toes to the dew-dropped golden petals and emerald green glowing grasses of heavenly Elysium.

In our loving embrace of a fraternal order, our spirits sprint a fervent and inflamed, mighty marathon heat: a mad, mad mercurial dash upwind of Doomsday! Together, we freely frolic forward – as desultorily dithyrambic dancers do! – to unfold the footprints of those propitious gods who unknowingly lead us ever more near to Utopia. 

OUR WILDLY WOVEN & TENDERLY UNTANGLED STORY

It is this, our untold story – composed of a tightly wound, full-colored dreamcoat of woolen, silk and linen threads – which we must commit to continue telling, not only through its own wildly wondrous weaving, but also eventually through its tenderly touching but tough-knuckled untangling, as time doth pass.

We must commit to continuing our story, born of our passionately platonic and brotherly bonds of fraternal love and friendship. As long as there still remain even the most random and unreasonable threads of debauched, clashing hues to be woven into the coat of arms that sheaths and enshrines the time-worn epic corpus of our friendship against all brief abeyance and absconding of pages, we must never thread sparingly the spindle but only weave on with gusto, grace and gratitude.

Even now must our story continue, as – or, at last, until! – we stumble together surefooted, in our first few eager steps, high o'er the chaotically libidinous currents of the rivers Acheron and Styx. May we courageously coax ourselves onward, in our tumultuously trying trek, to conquer the Sisyphean mountains and the 'bout-to-be-bested boulders before us.

Let us gladly, gracefully, and with genuinely gregarious gratitude, thank gods for the heavenly happenstance and dear twist of luck that brought us together...

MS. ADRIENNE ELIAS : OUR SOLE HEROIC INTERMEDIARY

Or was it more, perhaps? Yes, indeed, I posit proudly and am pleased to say that we owe all for which we are thankful – which has made us far more fortunate than all but a few of our brave brethren esteemed and emboldened by love! – to the arguably naive and innocent, albeit wonderfully wise and bright-witted, instinct of our sole heroic intermediary: she, who carefully and cajolingly navigated us both each in the direction of the other... God bless Ms. Adrienne Elias! She, who brought us together!

Dear friend, I challenge we two to courageously commit as well to gratitude. Let us duly express our thanks to that "hip and happenin' queer grrl" from whose innate social instinct and stellar performance on the job was born serendipitously our most saliently stoic, solemn, and sometimes flat-out fervidly phlegmatic bond of brotherhood!

NOTE: Please, leave room for some "limp-wristed, fagolicious, and freaked-out," irreverently licentious PIZAZZ! Lest we forget to exaggerate such sibilant fricatives with our good, godawful "gay lisp!!" Hehehe! Even if I've added in an ounce of my own outrageously unrelenting and vulgarly splenetic sense of salacity... 

In honor and respect of the immensely lasting impact of Ms. Elias's offhand, off-the-cuff, but consequently on-target decision to pair the two of us as Shanti client and volunteer, may we permit ourselves to be empowered, me and you: Matt(e)o and WALL•E!! (a.k.a., Wallace "Wes" Smith), to continue our journey together!! 

PARADISE : LOST, FOUND & RIGHTLY RECLAIMED AGAIN

May we only pause to ponder past pitfalls and triumphs, as we resolutely commit still to climbing up skyward, toward the heavens, where at last we may leap together and dive dancing into the blissful beauty of the full-blooming and fruitful fields of our own emancipated Eden: Paradise Lost, Found, and Rightly Reclaimed Again!! by you, able-bodied and by me, with my "miscontoured" mouth and cane!! 

THE INDOMITABLY STURDY STANCE OF OUR FRIENDSHIP

Dear friend, Mr. Wallace "Wes" Smith, won't you please take your place once again right next to me? Would you so kindly permit me please to pass my arm under yours, so as to lock us into an indomitably sturdy stance, poised shoulder to shoulder, heal to heal, ready and raring to risk all our "contrivances of convenience" and to step simultaneously a few feet forward, toward our best-begotten yet unfurled future of good fortune in friendship, as confidants and family, as brothers and ... best friends? 

IN CLOSING : FRANTICALLY FUMBLING FOR WORDS

Eager to know all the thoughts which my epic prolix prosaism has left you to ponder, I now frantically fumble over a proper closing salutation, so that you may have the chance even to consider a reply!

Despite the tremendous chasm that has been carved between us by time, distance, and yes, even "convenience," I continue to cherish the profound loyalty and trust, which still – I hope! – defines our personal relationship, together.

Furthermore, with utmost confidence in the potential of genuine friendships, like ours, to remain resilient in their compassionate and caring capacity to reap reason from duly deserved recompense, restitutory requital, and redemption. Despite things gone a wry, I do very much happily hold you in the highest esteem. 

SISYPHEAN MYTH : A REFRAINED MOTIF OF RESILIENCE

While I wish we could be closer and have more time to spend together in each other's company, I still am very much devoted to seeing this expansively epic, Sisyphean myth through to the end of our long and illustrious, sometimes challenging, but always courageously and compassionately careful, caring and, of course, carefree journey together through life.

Wherever the rock of our friendship may roll, I hope, plan, and pray to be by your side, as we toil over the physical, intellectual and emotional mechanics of putting that damned boulder back into motion against gravity, by pushing and prodding it to the zenith of life's myriad mountains. With honest and unhampered hubris enough to mimic Homeric myth, may we own for ourselves together the ferociously thunderous and omnipotent force of faith, courage and pride in humanity; in other words, let us proclaim our pride in the human kind: a kind in which the God of all gods so often dares to boast believing! 

May we, like the God of all gods, one day boast, as unabashed and deep-bounded brothers do, of that piously peculiar Promethean fire, which has lit our flaming-feathered wings – where wax once was! – and which has lifted us into flight, skyward toward the heavens. There, settled contentedly into the soft, sumptuous comforts of Elysium, shall we have the untried and true contours of our still boyish busts carved out of alabaster marble stone, and beset – as if by birthright! – with perfectly pantheonic and divinely illustrious laurels dipped and gilded in gold.

Together, after a long life of shared stories – good or bad, iniquitously ignominious or spectacularly resplendent and successful – may we conquer all mythic challenges that good-natured guardians chose to cast o'er we two as shadows of sullen gloom, by holding tight to our godlike friendship with a powerful grip of fervent loyalty and trust, by climbing and cresting mountains with boulders before us, and by flying sky high toward the heavens as reborn birds of glory, with inflamed wings. 

TRIUMPH : AS CROWNED LEGENDARY EXEMPLARS

Ultimately, together, we will triumph and be crowned legendary exemplars of bravely bold and beautiful brotherly bonds, as we gawk and goggle mockingly in the face of those fastidiously funereal and dolefully despondent, godawful, good-for-nothing naysayers who near as never relent in their efforts to foul our flight and drag us down from the skies into petulantly vile, outright opprobrium. 

So, join me! Or not! Dare I fly, trek or climb this heroic journey alone? I pray to the all-present, all-knowing and all-powerful divine forces which guide us through life, with or without compliance, from birth to rebirth a thousand times fold, until finally we transcend all earthly contrivances and courageously trek through a frenetically fantastic phantasmagoria of all things transmundane.

Only then, once triumphed and transformed, may we yet be transeuntly transfigured into incomprehensibly perfect and indubitably divine demigod creatures meant to compliment the cosmically stellar, celestially surreal Olympian menagerie, where all other blessed, immortal chimeras eternally rest and reside. Join me? Lest I falter and fall, alone!

IN ANTICIPATION OF YOUR LOSS OF WORDS

As I anticipate your loss for words apropos of your likely quite surprised, yet delightfully honored and impressed reaction to my, as stated, ranting and railing "Homeric prosaism," I leave you with a poignantly simple and straightforward request: Please, respond if you would like, but only at your leisure!

The rest is better left unwritten, and shall stay that way, safely kept in the caressing arms of angels, at least until a time when the echoing voice of prophecy doth guide me (or you!) to give into garrulity once again and to wrench open our hearts with words of epic grandeur.

As one would say in French, my surrogate mother-tongue: À Très Bientôt, mon cher ami!! – Until So Very Soon, my dear friend!!

Ever most fondly,
Matthew

Respectfully submitted,
Matt(e)o | QHereKidSF
Matthew D. Blanchard
matthew@qherekidsf.com

San Francisco, CA USA
[20110601T234738PST]

RE: LONG LOST FRIEND!

Indeed, “long lost,” but never in a moment forgotten! Throughout the span of a decade, with a mind tempered (or tormented) by “what-once-was” well-wishing nostalgia, remembrances and a deep longing desire to redeem the unearthly, unending exuberance of youth, I have often found my thoughts drifting towards you, my baby blue-eyed, porcelain-paled, lusciously lipped lil’ lady friend of times far past & gone. Indeed, “friend,” but oh so much and so many things more!

April Manteris, you were my Perestroika as Millennium Approaches; you were one above many of my arch-guardian Angels In America! How fitting that in my later, more recent life, I would battle with disease-induced malediction & delusions of messianic manic psychosis, much like the enlightened torment of Prior Walter told by Tony Kushner in his “Not-Yet-Conscious, Forward Dawning,” damned devilish drama staged as “A Gay Fantasia on National Themes.”

My own, personal, proprietary and unprecedented “Gay Fantasia,” told as follies of the mind and frailty of the body, was rife buttressed by more universal themes. In a demented state of holier-than-thou HIV/AIDS-instigated happenstance and insanity, I foresaw a full faith reconciliation of all conflicting religious around the world; the real-time cultivation of a post-apocalyptic, new-growth Garden of Eden; and my transsexual impregnation as an irrationally self-proclaiming, prophetic “Gift of God” with Christ Child incarnate.

Delusions of near godly grandeur galloped as chariots of fire along the strangely strung-out or awkwardly wrought and wired synapses of my parasitically enslaved psyche toward a new and evermore illustrious Elysian Fields. I was a hopeful, kindhearted and jubilant psychotic; not a criminally paranoid sociopath.

In my lonely, lachrymose, lunatic madness, I believed that all humankind would fall down under the watchful rule & gaze of intergalactic warring Angel/Alien brigades, led by Michael, Gabriel, Beelzebub, and Lucifer, only finally to be throttled full flight into a world far more beautiful, blissful and serene that anyone could have ever imagined before.

Funny thing for me though, during my drug-delayed, disease-induced delusional psychosis, I actually possessed the superhuman scope of mind and intellect to imagine the unimaginable as actual and real! What a harrowingly exhilarating experience! Moreover, you were there with me in spirit, all along the way.

For, I was convinced that you, April: my dream dancing “tell-it-to-snow” Eskimo named Harper Pitt, were suffering from a simultaneously paralleled, prophetic psychosis there, on your side of the world.

In my dreams, I imagined our union as beleaguered, but still sun-beaming and boisterous, biblical brethren, once each of us (and countless other young-spirited saints, psychics and soothsayers) had rightfully sown the heavenly seeds of a new beginning for our separate communities, cultures and societies on this dying-to-life, righteously reincarnate Earth of ours.

So much coincidental quizzicality has shaped the “nefand, sullen languid stories of my last-ditch, last-chance life,” including the serendipity of that first meeting of our two minds.

Our two submedially mature yet still quite sycophantic student souls were somehow, at some point, so mutually confounded, mesmerized and inspired by the truly enlightened intimacy we would go on to share, that we often (if I remember correctly!) smothered each other in self-obsessed, other-opposed & ostracized narcissism.

I fondly reminisce, remember and recall just exactly how we together, as the closest of friends, dealt only in the immaculate intimacy of trusted truth (or truthful trust). Tantamount to our unfettered ferocity of faith in one another, such truth tightly intertwined our hearts & souls together in both telltale-tangled threads of deliberately disgruntled dysfunction or malcontent malaise and sumptuously bittersweet stories of irrational, unreasoned, and misguided boy/girl romance gone awry.

Truth is, all throughout our first two years of undergraduate, I tormented myself terribly in confused and conflicted recognition of the dichotomically opposed binary between mainstream, most fortunate and “full-worth-the-effort” male-female love and its exact opposite: gay love, or “queer” love, since there was nothing “gay” about such love for me, during those years, or even ever after!

Truths is, that one occasion of my coming out that you so fondly remember in email, could have panned out in two very different ways; and trust me, when I say that you would not at all have been pleased by the alternate “outcome” of such proceedings!  WINK! WINK!

Oh! I should scream it from my rooftop! I’M IN LOVE WITH YOU, APRIL MANTERIS! I always have been and always will be! Never once have I not regretted the decision I made to proclaim my homosexuality to the world, because all that led to was me being pigeonholed in to a nasty, putrid, pestilent and perverse segment of society, where I subsequently succumbed to a lifestyle of depression, then deviance, then drugs, then disease, then delusions, then death, then disfigurement.

And, all that’s been done to me without my ever having witnessed once again the trusted truth (or truthful trust) of such mutually equitable & reciprocal platonic intimacy as we once shared, let alone anything remotely resembling the romantic!

So, that said, I’ll conclude in recognition of how immensely blessed I am to have found you meandering back into my life with such a generously opened mind and heart, with such forgiveness of the trifles of the past, and with such dignified poise, to reclaim our friendship from the exact point where we once left it off.

I welcome you into my life with widely opened arms, April! Moreover, I do ever so hope that we can rekindle that platonic intimacy that once existed between the two of us and that defined our very profound and beautiful friendship!  I look forward to a future with you in it, and I hope you do of me, as well…

With fond memories…
And, In fond regards,

Most sincerely…
Your dear friend,

Matt(e)o | QHereKidSF
Matthew D. Blanchard

matthew@qherekidsf.com

http://www.qherekidsf.com

http://bit.ly/qherekidsf

San Francisco, CA USA

[20110401T223247PT]

MY BRO' BRAD: Comeuppance as Prodigal Son

When U.S. Navy Musician First Class Bradley Blanchard was in his adolescence, he was a typically rambunctious deviant child who liked to disobey authority at every opportunity he could find and with all the force & fervor he could ever possibly muster. As his younger brother, with a fork scar slashed down my belly to prove it, I often was on the receiving end of the blunt blows of his teenage boyhood violent rage.

YOKOSUKA, Japan (Feb. 1, 2010) - Musician 1st Class Bradley Blanchard of Virginia Beach, Va., plays a trombone during a 7th Fleet Rock Band rehearsal held at Fleet Activities Yokosuka. The 7th Fleet Rock Band, ORIENT EXPRESS, deploys with USS Blue Ridge (LCC 19) and supports events throughout the entire U.S. Navy Seventh Fleet area of operations

http://www.c7f.navy.mil/imagery/galleries/monthly/2010/02-February/index50.htm

February 01, 2010, U.S. Navy Photo by Mass Communication Specialist Mike R. Mulcare; 

(accessed 13:45 UTC March 19, 2011 via http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navy_Music_Program)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:C7FBand_MUBlanchard_20100201.jpg

Call it angst or anxiety over never having amounted to much as a child, compared to his overachieving brown nose of a brother! Or else, call it simple recognition of & rebellion against the authorities' inability to control, confound or even cajole into question the genius of his intellectual & artistic talents!! Whatever possessed my brother to give up in school, act up at home, fall into miscreant criminal behaviors, or in the very least to joist a fork into me just above my bellybutton, we may never know! But, I do have my suspicions...

You see! It is my understanding (albeit naively biased and begrudged under boyhood battery) that my one-year older brother, Bradley, came across as an awkward, tubby, ill-tempered & tough-taught teenage trouble child by choice, as if simply to cover up his own quite coveted prodigal musical talents, as well as to scoff in the face of his younger brother's exhausting track record of academic excellence & extracurricular achievements from early elementary school through to high school graduation.

As I'd expect to hear from any critic on the matter, it would be inappropriate, pompous & self-conceited of me, that younger "better than, but best unbegotten" brother of his, to venture any conclusion which conceives to acknowledge and/or appraise (however lowly) the pantheonic pedestal upon which I was so uncomfortably perched by parents, teachers, and fellow pupils alike.

A comparison between the idolatrous accolades & aplomb that I received as an academically overachieving adolescent and the unfortunate reputation Brother Bradley earned for being a lower life do-dumb deviant denigrate who didn't know the a-squared from b-squared or c-squared of the Pythagorean Theorem, or else, who didn't care too much to make it known what he really knew for fear of risking his supposed illicit & ill-natured set of mores & morals revealed as quite the opposite, would serve a great injustice against my brother, while only reinforcing my naive bias as his battered, yet so long beloved, younger brother.

For, my big, bold, daring & now quite dapper do-good brother, was then during childhood (just as we all might witness him to be today) quite as prodigal in his musical talents, as I was in my scholastic, artistic & leadership-related achievements. Unlike his young brother, Matthew Blanchard, however, big brother Bradley didn't cringe and crave for the positive affirmations of attention & accolades as a child, adolescent or teenager.  Bradley was kindly humble enough to recognize that recognition & a reputation of positively perfect accomplishment was all I lived for as a student; and, therefore, it seems to me that at an early age, Bradley relinquished any possibility of positive achievement to me, the younger of us two, out of mere kindness of heart and perhaps even in a awkwardly silent attempt to express love to his kindred spirit, his family, who forever so seemed his foe.

Nevertheless, true talent cannot (should not) forever go unnoticed or unappreciated by the masses. For my elder brother, Bradley, recognition & reputation for his prodigal musical gifts came only finally when he made what should have been a quite difficult decision between serving six-to-nine month stints underwater as a nuclear technician of a U.S. Naval submarine or traipsing around the globe on a better-than-average rock star salary as a U.S. Navy Musician First Class and lead vocals of numerous U.S. Navy Rock Ensembles throughout the World.

The decision between the substantially better pay-grade and advancement patterns of an enlisted submarine tech or the hyped up happiness and good humor incumbent upon a career in music for the Navy was instead quite simply a matter of greater-than & less-than logic for my brother, who valued his happiness (obviously) well over his pay rate or the terms of his possible rank advancement. Obviously, my very intelligent, very impassioned musical prodigy of a brother chose love over logic; such was the logic behind his decision to follow the passion which had dutifully & determinedly defined the unfathomably focused good fortune that befell him at every awkwardly successful instance of achievement during his young life, while in the arms of music.

In honor of my elder brother, Bradley D. Blanchard, I am privileged to offer this living testament to the tremendous talents possessed by this one damned terrific young man. Not only is Brad an extraordinary father and husband, much loved by his wife & son, but he is also an ungodly gifted musician, who could, should & will one day take the world by storm; what if not to the likes of America's next popular television talent search or else by the grace of one or two generous celebrity patrons of his art who might promote and make possible an on-air performance by my brother, as lead vocals of the U.S. Navy Commander, 7th Fleet Rock Band (Twitter® - @C7FBand / Facebook® 7th Fleet Band) : ORIENT EXPRESS.

U.S. Navy 7th Fleet Rock Band: ORIENT EXPRESS (August 7, 2010; YokosukaFSD, JAPAN)

"I'm Yours," lead vocal by MU First Class Bradley D. Blanchard

http://youtu.be/CnTbD5bCmyc

 

It is with great pride that I post this video of my brother singing lead vocals to "I'm Yours," with the U.S. Navy Commander, Seventh Fleet Rock Band: ORIENT EXPRESS. I remember vividly the first time I heard my brother sing. It was on the occasion of my visit from Florence, Italy (where I was studying graphic design, at the time) to Naples, Italy (where my brother was stationed with the U.S. Navy Band, at the time). 

We were both in our mid-twenties. I was reeling from a "GREAT DEPRESSION," brought on by my then relatively recent sero-conversion and diagnosis as HIV-positive, though I didn't muster up the courage to tell my brother this until after the trip down south.  My brother on the other hand was glowing happily, unabashedly in his youth, and tried with all his might to share his happiness with me, to let it roll off his husky, well-built shoulders on to mine.

His manner of sharing was unique to me; I'll say that, in the least.  Bradley invited me as a special guest to a gala performance showcase for his U.S. Navy Rock Band somewhere up the western coast of Italy, near about to Cinque Terre. The band set up amongst the lavish & luxurious decor of the sumptuous entertainment hall at a hanky-spanky swanky five-star Italian riviera hotel, and I was their surrogate helper or stagehand for the day...

Once the equipment was set up, the musicians (not the vocals, i.e., my brother & his female counterpart) began to rehearse. I settled in to a deeply intriguing discussion about my brother's soon no longer to be boyhood lifestyle contrivances with the wife of one of his military cohorts, but was to my astounding delight brashly interrupted by the sweet, melodic, perfect on pitch and in tone sounds of my brother's voice singing "Stand By Me!" That was the cover number with which he chose to open the show, and he honored me in singing it, "I dedicate this song to my only brother... God knows I love ya'Man!!" God knows, I love him, too!!

So, now that I've gone ahead and made this video available to my blogsphere of fans & followers, either via http://www.qherekidsf.com or else via my Facebook Profile Notes at http://facebook.com/mblanchard79, then I hope to receive comments & feedback from all y'all folks out there with opinions on the matter that I might maybe could share with my big Southern Puppy Brother, Bradley!! Please be courteous & kind; although, critical remarks are not uninvited!! I look forward to hearing back from some gentle, tasteful souls!! Cheers! Ciao & Namaste: I bow to the gods with you...

Respectfully submitted,

Matt(e)o | QHereKidSF

Matthew D. Blanchard

matthew@qherekidsf.com
http://youtube.com/qherekidsf
http://www.qherekidsf.com
http://bit.ly/qherekidsf

San Francisco, CA USA
[20110319T07:4513PT]

FERGUSON : A Loquacious Look Inside...

Daniel Cardone, an Australian film/television producer & director living & working in San Francisco, was recently matched to me as a subject for the three to five minute HIV/AIDS survivor's story film documentary he has been commissioned to direct as part of a compilation of 15 to 20 short films of various genres that is now being called The HIV Story Project.

Jörg Fockele, a German film/television producer & director who is Executive Producer of the project, was introduced to my story when I met him as a youth liaison member of the Board of Directors of Bay Area Young Positives, Inc. He was searching for youth to profile for the film project, but was coming up short with the membership of BAY Positives and the clients of Larkin Street Youth Services, Inc. Assisted Care/After Care.
I did what I could during the conversation between Jörg and myself to advocate as well as I could for a focus on youth-aged subjects for short film exposes, but we were running into an obvious brick wall. That's when Jörg asked me how it came to pass that I had been associated with the project.

I gladly explained that Derrick Mapp, an HIV Health Counselor and L.I.F.E. Institute Facilitator from The Shanti Project, had told me of the Project and was immediately moved to get me involved either in a development capacity or as a short film subject. Derrick incubated the original idea of a short film compilation commemorating the 30th Anniversary of the emergence on the scientific scene of the "Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)" as a nominal spoken word diagnosis for the then popularly known "Gay Cancer."

Then, sitting there at an empty desk in the back of the BAY Positives' office(s) with Executive Director Curtis Moore, MPH (a dear, dear friend of mine, as well as one of my most distinguished professional colleagues) at my side and Jörg Fockele sitting across from me, I downed my mask and recounted my story of disease, drug dependency, delusional psychosis, and just short of death, disfigurement, etc. Jörg was stoic in his reserved response to my story, and in a very unexpected matter-of-fact sort of way, he confirmed Derrick's assumption, "Yes, you'd surely make a decent subject for a short film. I'll have to see if I can find a director who is up to the challenge." I, in turn, smiled in delight and then just waited to discover who he c/would find to direct me in my own short film documentary!!

Of course, in light of all the anticipation of knowing that I would soon be collaborating on and starring in a documentary short film about my climactic curtailing and confounding of my desolate doom in a destitute room: a slovenly studio begrimed in blood, urine and other gross indecencies of death at the door, I eagerly awaited the opportunity to meet my director. 

More so however, I eagerly anticipated the opportunity to broad cast my nevermore nefandous net to work my story through communities of survivors: a story of a reluctant rebounding, a refusing at first of the miserable misfortune that was meant to map out my unfathomably forlorn future of disconsolate discomfort and disdain, to reclaim courageously, confidently, and above all conspicuously my right to life well-lived.

Thus, in waiting for eventual contact with the film director assigned to document my story, I went ahead and proclaimed to the world that I was going to be a star. Short of posting the news to my blog for all the world to see, as I'm doing now, I've told everyone I know that I am going to be featured in a short film as part of The HIV Story Project. And just in time for me to begin to substantiate my claims to stardom, Daniel Cardone has entered my life as a true Godsend!

The following text is taken directly from my most recent email to my documentarian, regarding our struggle to find a logical link between the performative spoken-word aspects of the excessively loquacious, prosaic pedantry and pomposity of my creatively written exposes or essays (or whatever you'd like to call my boisterously shit-for-brains, blabbering behemoth of a blog?) and a certain naturalism of the cinematic narrative.

Yesterday evening, after pondering further the myriad of possibilities for juxtaposing the performative spoken-word with stoic straightforward naturalism in film, I realized that the production dates that Daniel had proposed to me perfectly coincide with my one-year anniversary of sobriety.  I realized also that a speaker's visit to Ferguson Place, my Recovery & Rehabilitation House (spotlighted in previous blog entries) was long overdue and that one could easily coincide or conjoin with a community celebration in honor of my "WATCH" (i.e., my achievements and accomplishments since first establishing my sobriety a year ago).

Below, you will read a very intimate depiction of Ferguson Place, as well as a downright dutifully dramatic portrayal of my personal experiences disclosing my disfigurement and disease(s) to my community there. In writing this email and sharing it here as a blog post, I have no intention or desire of breaching confidentiality clauses or the confidences of my confidants there.  I can only say that I intend with this presentation of text to pay homage in a very real and honest fashion to my friends and family at Ferguson Place. Enjoy the read!! Thus, I quote:

Let's see.. What happens/ed at my Recovery House?

Well, Ferguson Place is a Triple Diagnoses Residential Substance Abuse & Mental Health Rehabilitation & Recovery House for people living with HIV/AIDS. To graduate from the program, one must transition successfully through four phases:

a.) ORIENTATION PHASE: a two-week in-house lock-down usually meant to empower the recovering addict to recover completely through the withdrawal of most illicit substances and to attend to medical and psychiatric appointments, putting their schedule into place for the subsequent three phases;

b.) PHASE ONE: the recovering addict can only attend medical and psychiatric appointments on their own; at all other times, s/he must be accompanied by a PHASE TWO or THREE buddy to all social activities and out-of-house recovery meetings (including 12-Step);

c.) PHASE TWO: INDEPENDENCE = recovering addict (usually after one month of in-house semi-lock-down recovery) can leave the house solo as s/he pleases but only to pre-approved recovery-related appointments and social activities.  The purpose of this phase is to prove your ability to maintain sobriety on your own through near independence, while demonstrating that you are able to be relied upon by other housemates in lower phases to accompany them to appointments and social activities;

d.) PHASE THREE: TRANSITION = During this final phase, the recovering addict is meant to focus all of their time on maintaining their recovery and health regimens, as well as to devote concerted effort toward the process of transitioning into short-term to long-term co-operative Baker Places, Inc. sober-living housing. During PHASE THREE, recovering addicts/residents/clients are expected less to accommodate to the needs of their housemates and more to focus on their own individual transitional needs.

During these four distinct periods of progressive recovery, the client/resident partners with their primary counselor to set their weekly schedule of mostly recovery-related activities. Primary Counselor's are all extensively trained in substance abuse recovery, mental health disorders and their psycho-social treatment, and HIV/AIDS health promotion and advocacy.

___________________________________________________________

With the primary counselor's guidance during ORIENTATION PHASE & PHASE ONE, the client/resident sets the following "PLANS" for their time in residence at Ferguson Place, as needed:

a.) RELAPSE PREVENTION PLAN: a step-by-step worksheet with numerous questions related to trigger identification & monitoring, and exploration of safety/sobriety response tactics that the client/resident would use ultimately to prevent relapse. In this plan, you also define the repercussions to any unexpected relapse, including demotion from your present phase, one-week lock-down, urine test, properties search, etc.

b.) HIV/AIDS HEALTH PROMOTION PLAN: a progressive plan meant to augment one's HIV/AIDS HEALTH PROMOTION practices through regularly scheduled appointments with specialists, any necessary additional appointments to follow-up on important HIV/AIDS health related issues, and prescription regimen adherence. In this plan, the client/resident defines the requirements s/he must meet to eventually hold their own meds; otherwise, meds are kept locked in the main office and are monitored and administered under staff supervision. The purpose of this plan is to optimize one's HIV/AIDS Health through weekly rehabilitative activities during the entire length of stay at Ferguson Place, with the hope/expectation that the client/resident would maintain the activities, therapy, psycho-social and prescription regimens well after they leave the program.

c.) MENTAL HEALTH REHABILITATION PLAN: much like the RELAPSE PREVENTION PLAN, this plan starts from a comprehensive fill-in-the-blanks worksheet which challenges the client/resident to define the triggers of symptoms of their mental health defects or disorders. The Primary Counselor offers general guidance and community health education about the client/residents' specific mental health disorder(s) and suggests to them avenues for ongoing treatment needed to maintain mental stability through difficult and challenging times (especially as their mental health is integrated with their substance abuse disorder).

d.) TRANSITION PLAN: This is the final "plan" that a client/resident completes, only after having defined their day-to-day psycho-social & medical treatment structure. This plan is meant to be introduced and initially adopted during PHASE THREE of the program, challenging the recovering addict to devise a three month schedule of recovery and rehabilitation-related health promotion activities that they would follow once they have graduated the program. This plan often has ulterior foci, including vocational education development, financial planning, residential/housing planning, and recovery maintenance.

The first plan listed: the RELAPSE PREVENTION PLAN, is the most important and often overrides the stipulations and expectations of all other plans, for the simple reason that RELAPSE DURING RESIDENCY is taken very seriously (albeit, less seriously than I would have liked!!). Client/Residents are only permitted TWO (2) relapses during their residency at Ferguson Place, and with each consecutive relapse comes more severe repercussions.

Client/Residents sign an universal substance abuse testing release, granting any member of the Counseling Staff to test all residents for the presence of illicit substances (including everything from alcohol to amphetamines, from barbiturates to opiates and other narcotic substances) in their urine at any time of any day for any reason or under any suspicion of use whatsoever.

____________________________________________________________

Ferguson Place houses a total of 12 recovering addicts with HIV/AIDS and mental disorders on a rollover basis, meaning individual addicts enter into residence at any time that there has been at least a two day vacancy. While I was a resident for three months at Ferguson Place, from July 14 (Bastille Day) to October 11, 2009, I saw only five residents graduate the program, not including myself. Evidently, the program was much more difficult to maintain for others than it was for myself.

In total, I saw 25 residents enter the program and 19 leave before they had graduated the program, either due to relapse, or psycho-social tensions in the house, or because they simply felt that they were ready to move on. Across the board, every resident of the house who was unable for whatever reason to graduate the program, left only to relapse within two to three weeks (usually in much less time).

As for the graduates, we are all invited back twice a month for alumni activities, where we can keep a pace of each others' achievements (or failures) at maintaining sobriety. I've counted four graduates that I know of since my residency at Ferguson Place ended who have relapsed. The sobriety and health maintenance success rate of graduates of Ferguson Place is somewhere around 7 to 1, success to failure (for lack of better phraseology), I would estimate.  Which, I believe, are outstanding figures.

____________________________________________________________

Ferguson Place is like a second home to me: home away from home. The veteran Counseling Staff there and the alumni I still have relationships with are like family. They play a significant role in helping me to sustain my sobriety, because I know that no matter what happens (sobriety or none, recovery maintenance or relapse at any time), I will be accepted there with love and admiration, compassion and care, sympathy and a strident strict hand of accountability.

My individual experience at Ferguson Place was quite very unique. I arrived there on July 14, 2009 at around 11AM in the morning with my mask tightly taped to my face to completely cover my forehead flap and nose. I remember, everyone made a point to introduce themselves and to start some semblance of a conversation with me, even though I was terribly nervous.

And each new person I met brought to my attention in their own time the fact that my mask was making my glasses fog up, as it usually does when I'm sweaty or the tape is loose. Most of the residents there were kind enough to give me permission to take it off, but I had previously planned with the staff there to set aside a dinner plate, skip the meal with everyone in the kitchen, and to wait to unveil myself until after dinner during mandatory evening group.

I was my normal gregarious, outgoing self (just an understandably tense tangle of nervosity, with a mask on!) interacting with everyone one-on-one as I could; however, I didn't discover true, absolute, total comfort and acceptance of my uniquely tragic, terrible but immensely beautiful blessings of circumstance and survival, until I sat down with the entire group of residents and staff to begin to tell my story. My voice was cracking; tears were welling up in my eyes, but I just took a deep breath and committed to being 100% honest.

I told them about my accident, moment by moment; about my hospitalization and reconstructions, day by day, month by month; and I told them about the taut tight suspension cord I was delicately stumbling back and forth upon in pause, recollection and relapse, waiting either to fall again to my miserable demise (i.e., death by meth!!) or to continue onward to the other end of the tight rope, as a faithful master funambulist would do, to step square-footed in stable surety onto a platform miles high, where peace, serenity, self-acceptance and resounding love of others reside.

I expressed to them at that moment that I was standing at the center of a bowing, wickedly imbalanced tight rope, reaching in their direction for a helping hand.  I told them that I could not live in residence with all of them for three months with a mask on all the time.  It would have been unfeasible. How would I eat? How would I shower? How would I breathe when I slept? It was necessary for my safety and my success at recovery that I be accepted into this household without my mask on.

I admitted openly and without any shame whatsoever that what they would see behind the mask would surely frighten them.

"I'm grotesque.. a monster; however harsh or sad it may sound, but I ask you... I challenge you to look beyond the disfigurement and inside of my deep grey eyes or into my crooked half-smashed smile, where you'll inevitably find resounding, remarkable beauty," I told them with utmost confidence and courage.

I told them in true faith of my own pride and potential, valor and value, "Just try. Just look. Inside. Deep Inside, and you'll find a beautiful young man who's just starving for love."

That's when I deliberately dipped my fingers behind my ears to untangle the cords of my mask from my hair and began pulling it off my face.  I peeled the tape from my face that was securing the mask to my nasty mutant double-nub, single-nostril nose, and slowly dragged the mask along a horizontal directly in front of me, still blocking my face from view.

Then, "VOILA! A la Française! Quel dramaturge que je sois! Voici my quasi-moto mouth and flagrantly flagitious, nefariously nasty nose."  I had those lines memorized, as if to cap-off my performance with as much of a shock of language as of sight. "Happy Bastille Day!" I said, "I hope you'll have me."

One by one, each of the staff and residents there in my audience briefly stumbled through a silent pause of shock and trepidation, and then one by one each in his own time, curled their lips into broad outstretched smiles.  All I saw was a small throng of floating tooth-filled tender smiles.

Someone who would become a very close personal friend of mine: a heroine addict with a three year old daughter in foster care, raised her hand gently, bashfully from her lap and asked politely, "Matthew, do mind if I say something?"

I smiled back at all the smiles smiling at me, and nodded in her direction permission to go on.

She continued, "You might hear this a lot. I don't know. But, really, honestly, to be brutally truthful with you... and I don't mean to diminish your story or your pain, but you don't look half as bad as you make yourself out to be."

Of course, I had heard that before from kind, courteous paid professionals, but never from a real person. And never had I witnessed an entire room full of people adamantly affirm her observation with hugs, kisses, embraces...long, thoughtful, sincere embracing.

____________________________________________________________

That experience... my welcome to the world of Ferguson Place, to the world-at-large... was pivotal in my transition out of addiction and into good, sober health, because it was only then, in witnessing the immense impact that my story had had on this small group of strangers, that I realized that all the politicking my pious, plaintive, yet cheerfully cynical and lugubriously lonely priest had preached to me was true... Truer than true!!

Ever since first passing by my cordoned-off curtained corner of an obtrusively unobstructed and open HIV/AIDS hospice hospital ward where I wailed away the whys and wherefores of my worrisome woebegone and weary unwelcome melancholia, my priest has preached to me of our pathways toward purpose, piety, and perfection as ultimately imperfect invalids in the eyes of the Lord.

With the audience, the friends, the family I had found at Ferguson place, I realized that all the merry mentioning of mankind's mighty miracles by my propitious priest was in fact not forlorn unfortunate fallacy, but pure untethered truth! I caught a clear glimpse of veracity in that very real instance of courageous communing.

I began to believe wholehearted then that holy hubristic happenstance looms over we the lowly licentious laymen only to transmogrify us as demonic lookalike leftover lovers of life,... as admonitorial addicts who have through hyper-tragic trails and tribulation taught themselves to be teachers above all else, community leaders or heuristic heroes to the still hungover and high.

And that truth, revealed before me in this breech backward birth of brotherhood between a garishly gruesome ghoul of a boy and his blind-sided brethren, painted my pathway and purpose toward a transmundane telling of my tragedy-turned-triumph testimonials.

Just then, I realized that my definitive purpose in the world, the purpose for which I had all but almost given up an aimless search that defined every waking moment of my yuck of youth and muck of manhood, is to share my story with the world in whichever way I could.

I would for thence onward broad cast the calamity, capitulation and comeuppance of my story through tender telling in any media and any form, so that I might ultimately save others from such sufferance, such mistakes and misery, mindflux and mayhem!!  

____________________________________________________________

There! Enough garrulous gab from the so-grotesque-he-makes-you-giggle gay boy!! Consider these past paragraphs petty practice and preparation for my sumptuous sophist spoken words of wisdom we'll frame in film for the future.

Back tracking... Besides the telling of my especially serendipitous story of survival to a group of strangers turned family in an instance of wonderful welcome, for what other reason could I reason myself to be rightfully removed from the common clientele of this Recovery House?

Well, unlike most other client/residents, I came to Ferguson Place with much of my mental health and substance abuse treatment already lined up and scheduled. I would have advanced to PHASE TWO directly from ORIENTATION PHASE had I not suffered a severe withdrawal-related anxiety attack and fainting spell by throwing a riotous temper tantrum after only a week in the house.

I was convinced that I would not be accepted by the folks there because of my disfigurement and that none of the residents or staff would ever be able to grapple themselves into an intimate enough understanding of my addiction, my disease and my experience(s).

So, in light of my hospitalization due to mental instability and to my general unease and discomfort with my position in the house, my Primary Counselor decided to extend my ORIENTATION PHASE by four extra days.

This was challenging for me to accept, so I immediately submitted a Grievance Report to the Program Director asking for a new Primary Counselor. The two of them met with me. Speaking very openly, honestly, and with compassion, they told me how much they cared about my success in the program and how much they worried that the instability I exhibited could be endemic of an underlying doubt or insecurity about my sobriety, I was easily convinced that they had made the right decision.

I accommodated, obeyed, followed the rules to a tee the rest of the way and was in the end a model resident, building very strong, intimate relationships with many people there, most importantly with my Primary Counselor and the Program Director.

____________________________________________________________

As for your question related to the frequency of speakers' visits to Ferguson Place to tell their success stories in sobriety, I'll answer by saying that during my three months as a resident there, I was audience to two alumni speakers. Both individuals had incredible stories to tell. I got to know them well.

Also, exactly three months, one week and two days after having graduated the program, I myself went to Ferguson Place to present the story of how Crystal Meth and HIV/AIDS had literally destroyed my life. I went there to share the story of how I rose like a phoenix from the hot embers of the hearth that resides at the core of this amazing place of transition and have gone on to achieve full and complete reintegration into society, to achieve great success in my sobriety, in my personal and professional life, in my HIV/AIDS and mental health rehabilitation, etc.

To be honest with you (since we are at that point now already in our acquaintance), the ultimate reason I went back to Ferguson Place after I had achieved the minimum six months sobriety to speak there was to reintegrate into the community, to take off my mask(s) for a new audience of would-be could-be friends, and to reclaim my proper place at HOME.

And in fact, the speaking engagement definitely worked in my favor; for a month and a half afterward, I would regularly stop by Ferguson Place for visits without my mask on to interact with the new and old friends I had made there, and BOY!! WAS MY IMPACT ON THESE PEOPLE IMMENSE, OR WHAT!!??

____________________________________________________________

To sum things up in brief... Ferguson Place should be entirely accommodating to me celebrating my WATCH (i.e., one year anniversary of sobriety) at the house after speaking to the residents there and sharing my amazing story with them. We'd have to get special permission from each individual who might appear in the film as audience members.

If we do this, I would plan on inviting all of my closest friends and providers to bear witness to my achievements and to testify as well to my accomplishments, to join in the celebration as audience members. All I have to do is talk with the Program Director of Ferguson Place who is a very close friend of mine to schedule my speaking engagement for Wednesday July 14, 2010, and I'm sure she'll be excited to support the cause.

One potential snag in the plan could be that Wednesday night's from 6:15 to 7:30 at Ferguson Place, is usually reserved for a mandatory meeting between the Program Coordinators and the Residents.  What's called "Client Council" is a venue in which residents can contend with any psycho-social and interpersonal issues that might be negatively impacting the community.

Also, if there have been any relapses or phase advancements by client/residents during the previous week, time is allotted to process these milestones as a group. But I don't see why we couldn't organize to have guests arrive at around 7:30/45 to proceed well into the evening with my celebration and the filming. I'll definitely talk to the Program Director pronto!!

_____________________________________________________________

WOW!! What a terribly loquacious long-winded rambling about nothing but trifling tedium. I hope you don't mind how I've gotten carried away in this prosaic escapade of unequivocally illusive eloquence and pedantry.

Like I said, consider it all practice and preparation for my spoken-word narrative for the film. Tell me if anything I've written strikes a cord with you, or if it strikes a nerve!! Either way... I need to bridle my "boisterously babbling behemoth of a" brain, and learn to trim up the curvaceous corners of my ultimately square head.

Read in peace and in pleasure... I hope all this typing to which I've so tentatively (or should I say, tenaciously??) tended tonight (and into Thursday morning) treats you tenderly and touches your heart. Be well, and write soon.

Regards,
Matt(e)o | QHereKidSF
Matthew D. Blanchard
San Francisco, CA USA
[MDB2010.06.24@09:59PST]

Old Dreams Needn't Die [JFT, p. 167]

"Lost dreams awaken and new possibilities arise."
[Basic Text, p. 91]

Most of us had dreams when we were young. Whether we dreamed of a dynamic career, a large and loving family, or travels abroad, our dreams died when our addiction took hold. anything we ever wanted for ourselves was cast away in our pursuit of drugs. Our dreams didn't go beyond the next drug and the euphoria we hoped it would bring.

Now in recovery, we find a reason to hope that our lost dreams could still come true. No matter how old we are, how much our addiction has taken from us, or how unlikely it may seem, our freedom from active addiction gives us the freedom to pursue our ambitions. We may discover that we're very talented at something, or find a hobby we love, or learn that continuing our education can bring remarkable rewards.

We used to put most of our energy into spinning excuses and rationalizations for our failures. Today, we go forward and make use of the many opportunities life presents to us. We may be amazed at what we're capable of. With our foundation of recovery, success, fulfillment, and satisfaction are within our reach at last.

Just for today: Starting today, I'll do whatever I can to realize my dreams.

©2010 Narcotics Anonymous World Services, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

My meditation on this entry from the Narcotics Anonymous book, Just For Today, will be ripe with a certain degree of trepidation and doubt, as I have in recent days been faced with the daunting, disagreeable decision to end the working relationship I've had for the last ten and a half months with my sponsor. But, beyond all the fear and loathing lies an even more potent sense of self-satisfaction, coupled with an ubiquitously enthralling desire at last to claim my God-given right to a happy, home-bodied, not-all-too hamstrung, but hopeful future free from drug dependency (YES! I'd defend against that above all else!), disease, depression, destruction, denigration, denial, even perhaps... perchance by some off-willed shot of better than lazy luck, free from the indomitable dilemma(s) of my disfigurement, defined as dignity & disgust... (OOPS! SEE! That's where the doubt returns).

No more! Behind the doubt, perched proudly smack-dab in front of it, or even surrounding it entirely, exists my desire for a future. Beyond the stark surreality of my sins and sufferance(s) where realism takes hold again of the pious, pompous pedantry and post-dramatic spectacle of my insanity, there thrives an elaborate, extant and evocative desire for me to realize my dreams. Yes, in fact, for sure! I damn near dutifully desire to realize my dreams: new and old, unkempt and coveted, clamorous or quiet...a calming cacophony! Dreams that mesmerize the mind with their miraculous magnitude and magnificence. Dreams defined and buttressed by second chances and serendipity, serenity, solemnity, solace, smiles, or sometimes even signified by the most astute sort of scholarly study. Dreams dignified or disgusting, determined, daring, but... DAMN! Don't say it: DASTARDLY!!

NO, Not dastardly!! In no right measure would or could my decent, dauntless day dreaming be defined as dastardly nor despicable, contemptible nor cowardly. No need to pause a single second to say this: MY DREAMS MAKE ME A HERO IN MY OWN RIGHT!! My dreams denounce damned near death-defied destruction, delay and/or deter me from dipping back down the drug-drenched drain of dependency, diminish the degree of my disfigurement to near null, nil, zilch, zero. I am a hero! Thank God for that! I am a hero, if even only to myself.

Upon commencing down this path of sobriety, I have harbored much concerted, conceited consternation and contempt for the camouflaged courtship of co-dependencies that curtails 12-Step Culture via its customarily candid confabulations which cheat their critics of a cause. Hence, I am a hero for saying, "NO!" when the time was ripe for change. I am a hero for crouching no longer to the crutch of cliches of cult-like mentality. I am a hero for taking a stand, as well as for dismissing myself of such contrivances in a calm, gentile, friendly fashion. I am a hero in so far as I have saved myself from the insufferable uncertainty, the doubt (as mentioned before, and so damned near always there!), and the guilt that goes with gaming it like the "good boys" do.

Why such unabashed bellowing forth of bombastic boomerang backlash boasting of my better-than-brethren beliefs? Admittedly, there is no need to exalt myself in these pages. I get enough exaltation from every new acquaintance I meet who may or may not be hearing my story for the first time, and then even more from friends and family. Perhaps, its too late now to veil myself in an air of modesty, and perchance never too soon to lament in lambasting myself for lethargy, lassitude and lackadaisicalness? Thus herein, I have willingly succumb to surreptitiously sullying my good name with self-aggrandizing, simply since I have been in such complete and utter awe — bewilderment, even! — of my circumstances and situation so far.

My life was spared by some Greater Power from the chance tragic misfortune of never waking from such insolence as that which destroyed me already once. Furthermore, in being spared, I have learned to reinvigorate my commitment to all the tempting, tempestuous, torrid and tantalizing tickle-me-pink pretty things in life that help me breathe and smile still, such as art (in all its myriad forms), altruism, fighting for a right(-eous) cause, the capricious cataloging of my contemplations (just 'cause there's nothing else better left to do!), creative expression, academic pursuits, professional development, even people whom I hold dear to my heart, or hearts I hold close to my mind... Not to mention, Faith, religion, practice, prayer and communion with the Lord. I have a special affinity for my Higher Power, just as (S)/He holds me in high esteem, and that is plenty good news to keep me moving in a right(-eous) direction.

In closing, let me be a little less illusive with my tangled threads of thought, to speak conspicuously of the immense challenge that I faced until just recently. You see, I read this entry from Just For Today a week prior to its scheduled share, just because coincidentally, I was curious as to what my future held. When I read this entry for the first time, I found myself catapulted from a certain standstill stagnation of indecision and indecency toward a real awakening, or better yet toward a resolution. Immediately after first reading this entry a week ago, I sat down in calm, collected reserve, but with a certain sense of resolve and satisfaction, to draft a letter to my sponsor requesting that we terminate our relationship.

Why do such a thing? What on earth could have prompted such a move? Or better yet, what could have preempted it? I'll tell you what, squarely and straightforward, "Nothing!" What possessed me to even organize words on paper enough to fire my sponsor? I'll explain, briefly:

Ever since I entered into our sponsorship, I have been battling a resounding and resilient voice inside my head telling me that my sponsor was only holding me back. It got so bad early on, that it led to my acting out — not using, but buying a dog without his "permission" or joining the Board of Directors of a local Bay Area HIV/AIDS Youth Advocacy Nonprofit without first going to him for advice, not calling him at our scheduled times, lashing out when I felt mistook as nothing more than an anonymous client of sorts — not as a friend! Getting angry, sending exceedingly immature, melodramatic and hurtful text messages to him and another fellow when I was on the brink of quitting the program, and the list goes on... But all that outlandish behavior was ultimately rooted in a very real fear: I wasn't advancing through the program at a pace that I felt best suited my gifts and my potential...

Shall I put this into context for you? Let's just say that after tonight, when I slyly slipped my beautiful handcrafted stationery into my sponsor's pouch, it will have been a solid ten months and three and a half weeks since he and I began our fumbling foray through the fundamental tenants of 12-Step, and as of today, we hadn't even really breached Step Four. That averages out to be about four months per step!! So SLOW!! I mean, could we have gone any slower? I don't think so. I mean no offense to him however, for I know he only had the best of intentions for me at heart.

It's just that our pace wasn't in sync at all. And combine with that the disturbing suspicion that my sponsor was holding me back from realizing my calling: that is to say, prohibiting me from sharing at large speaker meetings, or from sponsoring a newcomer myself, or even just making simple and necessary life decisions, such as whether or not to apply for a job, or increase my commitment to my nonprofit, etc.

I know that everyone who reads this is going to have their own distinct and strident opinions about my choice to abandon my sponsor (especially if you are in the Fellowship!!), but let me tell you!! Since giving him that letter, I feel so damn free!! Focused!! Centered!! My sobriety has been reinforced and re-energized, justified even in my own head. Where once I had been shackled to my sponsor's own dogmatic determination to develop my sobriety at a snail's pace, unable and essentially prohibited from pursuing my dreams, now I have all my dreams spread out before me, beckoning me onward and upward toward accomplishment and contribution(s), toward learning and legacy...

See! I took this entry in the NA Meditation Book, Just For Today, very seriously. I told myself: "Just For Today, starting today, I will do whatever I can to realize my dreams." It's just too damn bad that I had to fire my sponsor for the sake of dreaming big, 'cause I sure as hell would have enjoyed having him at my side as I begin to conquer one new found challenge or obstacle after another, working ever so closer to some of the solid, surefire goals I've had a mind to accomplish for the past eight years... We'll see what happens, now!! God Bless You, JJ!!

Respectfully Submitted,
Matt(e)o | QHereKidSF
Matthew D. Blanchard
[MDB2010.06.16@00:48]

ISRAEL&I : Preserving Progress

Evidence of an enduring friendship. Remarks made to console and cajole into contemplation the otherwise tamed vacancies of intellect that bridal us with ignorance and loathing prejudices. This essay is not meant to proselytize about the potency of or the pandemonium in the Israeli State, but rather, this blog entry is meant to demonstrate the intense intimacy of my relationship with my next door neighbor and In-Home Supportive Services provider: my friend, Israel R. Toro.

The following is text of a letter I recently wrote to Israel, which he will not have yet read by the time this post is published. Maybe he'll get a hint that a letter's waiting for him, when he sees a notification of this blog entry post on my Facebook Profile. This would mean that he has access to the text of the letter without having the illustrated pages in his hands first, but that's okay.  It'll still be something special for him to receive the hand-written four page letter in person when he returns from vacation in about a week.  At least, that's my hope!

Dear Israel,
Today, you left on a camping trip with your boyfriend to Washington State, where there's quick sand and where you're going to be soaked with rain. I'm home alone, listening to the silence through my walls, re-reading the hand-written note you posted to my oven fan and the text messages you sent me earlier in the day. I can't help but play back the conversation we had sitting at my kitchen table, recalling your anxiety at the thought that I possibly will no longer be your neighbor.

Frankly, I regret having been so caught up in my own excitement at the prospect of transitioning finally into independence and (hopefully!) better circumstances, that I didn't have forethought enough to anticipate your reaction or to consider your feelings. And, for that I am deeply sorry. On the other hand, I feel blessed by your reaction. Why? How? You might ask... It may seem insensitive of me to find satisfaction in your frustration and worry, but let me explain...

Through the harrowing happenstance of disease, depression disfigurement, delusions, devastation, death -- but, then through survival, salvation, sanity, sobriety, sympathy, serendipity, solace, surety, safety, serenity and yes, even through some selfish satisfaction for it all! -- I have come to believe that only one thing can sustain me in life, onward from my fight with death, and that is... FRIENDSHIP!!


Friendship is essential to my life, and since I call you proudly and gratefully a friend -- you are absolutely essential to my life. Your unexpected reaction -- unexpected to me, at least -- to some unexpected news essentially demonstrated the deep, genuine sincerity of our relationship, making real and tangible to me the enormous significance and value you bring to my life.


Essentially, by reacting with such shock, fear, anxiety and very real sadness at the prospect of losing your proximity to me, you proved to me how essential -- how necessary -- you are to my life, to my survival, and to my happiness. Don't you see now why and how I could/did find some satisfaction in your suffering?


Your pain made me happy for a brief moment, but as soon as I realized that what I was feeling could very well be wrong (or at least totally inappropriate and shameful), I shifted my perspective and my focus onto you. My focus right now is not on this satisfaction of mine that I've defined here, but it's on abetting your worry, healing your anxiety and pain by reassuring yu that I will do whatever I can that is humanly possible to preserve the status, shape, sincerity, intimacy, growth and progress of our friendship, if I am no longer to be your neighbor.

You make me happy, Israel!! You make me laugh. You make me worry. You make me proud. You make me feel lucky, special, unique, grateful...as friends should do!! I guess really that's exactly just what I want to say, and I want to thank you for saying yes, when I asked you to be my IHSS worker.  Thank you for hanging out with me when times were low. Thanks for supporting my sobriety, my health, my sanity.  Thank you for taking suck great care of me and Tanner!! 

You deserve so much gratitude in return for all the generous gifts, sympathy and friendship that you have bestowed upon me in the past seven years as my neighbor, and especially for the sacrifices that you have recently made (and that I hope you will continue to make) as my in-home care provider. 


The mutual reciprocity of our relationship (personal/professional, or otherwise!) is what gives us such trust, intimacy, potency, pride and strength when we're together; and for that, I hope never to lose you -- or our friendship. I WILL FIGHT TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH FOR YOU!! Because, in fighting to preserve our relationship, I fight also to keep my life on track, heading in the "right" direction.


NO! I don't mean to insinuate that I'm going to turn Republican on you , but I do in a way mean to say "CONSERVATIVE" -- in such a way that I'd like to conserve/preserve all the greatness, the grandeur, the bliss that has found its way into my life recently; thanks to you. BUT, I'M A TRUE PROGRESSIVE! I believe in PROGRESS. 


As my priest would say: "We are all imperfect people reaching, aiming for perfection." I personally do not know if I will ever reach perfection before I die, or if it will instead come posthumously once I enter into the gardens of ELYSIUM, but I know that in the meantime, I will only act in God's graces, and I will only surround myself with people like you. People who are not "perfect" -- per se, but whose indomitable strength of spirit only supports, encourages, buttresses (and does not contend with contemptuously) my journey toward perfection. Those who join the journey with me, only to follow their own path in the same general direction. 


That is why you are in my life. Because, in your support and through our friendship, we both come all that much clsoer to enlightenment, salvation, redemption and perfection. You sustain and nurture, cultivate and catalyze my shaping of self. And I can only dream of doing the same for you. In brotherhood, Israel, our love for one another endures... Know that I cherish you, and that there will always be a place for you in my life. Forever. THANKS!!


With Love,
Matthew

I wanted to post this text prior to delivering the letter to Israel himself, because the simple act of writing these words has inspired in me a sense of urgency in recognizing and recording the significance of this very important relationship in my life. 

What's true is that I enjoy writing (and illustrating) letters by hand to the people most important in my life; in small part, because I figure that if one day I reach infamy or celebrity or renown, then such hand-written souvenirs could be cherished as truly valuable objects. But, my immediate aim in not to reach renown. I'm not presumptuous, or even pompous enough to think that celebrity is a possibility for me in any way, so I'll settle for touching the hearts of those few and far between important people in my life who merit such gifts of graphic gab scribbled onto loose leaf paper. That's what I hope to do with this letter: touch Israel's heart! 

Maybe he'll read my blog post via Facebook, and either comment there or access my blog's true URL: http://qherekidsf.blogspot.com, to leave a comment there. We'll see!  Maybe, he'll just read the letter on loose leaf and give me one ginormous grateful, gentlemanly bear hug!! GRRRRRR. CHUB!! :) Peace Out, All! And Peace, especially to Israel! May he have a safe voyage home, and may our friendship survive the tempests and turmoil of time!!  Truth be told, he's tamed me. My gratitude is immeasurable. THANKS, IZ!!

Respectfully Submitted,
Matthew D. Blanchard
Matt(e)o | QHereKidSF
San Francisco, CA USA
[2010.05.29@18:40PST]