In this presentation we will continue on with our comprehensive problem. In prior presentations we took a look at the trial balance. We created the standard type of income statement from it. Then we created the contribution margin income statement. That's what we're generally using with the CVP analysis. These are the tools we have breaking out between variable and fixed costs. And then we have the contribution margin per unit showing this information on a per unit basis, which is doable given the fact that we have broken out the variable and fixed portion and therefore have that relationship for the revenue and the variable costs and the contribution margin. We then looked at the break even point, which is going to be our standard type of calculation, break even in units, two methods to calculate the break even in dollars. Now we're going to look at forecasts into the future. This is what the CVP is very, very useful for. Once we have this broken down into variable and fixed costs, we project out into the future and try to think of what would happen, what if this happened, what if that happened, and then think about different type of forecasting scenarios into the future. So that's what we will consider now. And we're going to basically set up our same kind of contribution margin type of income statement just with a different mindset. Our mindset now, of course, is that we're forecasting into the future. Whenever you consider forecasting into the future, just remember that we're always looking at the last year's numbers. And then we want to consider any modifications to those numbers. So we've calculated our break even point and our CVP analysis to contribution margin contribution margin per unit sales sales per unit, variable costs, variable costs per unit, all with prior time period numbers. And that's prior time period numbers is usually what we have with financial accounting. That's our starting point with projecting managerial accounting as well. But then of course, we would modify that in any way that we think is appropriate as we think about the future, things that will change in the future that may make the last time period different from the future time period. But as you think about this shift your mindset, we're of course now in the future now, we're forecasting in the future, we're just kind of saying, what if what if this happens? What if that happens? What should we do? What's the plan here? And we will work through a similar contribution margin income statement for that type of questioning. So we'll start off with the revenue or sales is going to be our first items, we're going to break out those items that we can put into a variable type nature, those that will that will change with the level of production, things like revenue, sales, the variable costs and the contribution margin. So I'm going to break this out into a per unit basis. So we're going to say that the revenue per unit is in essence our sales price, which we calculated over here, that's going to be our sales price. Again, it could change if we're forecasting into the future, we're going to use the same number here, we're going to assume that our revenue is going to be constant, same sale per unit of what we're selling in the next year. Then we'll have variable costs per unit. So I'm going to say that this equals, and I'm going to go over to the variable costs. So we got total variable costs per unit. And that's going to be our second item. And the number will be pulled over as well as this 168 variable costs per unit. And that's going to give us our contribution margin per unit. So the contribution margin per unit, which once again, I'll pull over from here, it's going to be the subtraction of those two. So sales or revenue per unit, total variable costs per unit, subtracting those out, that gives us our contribution margin on a unit by unit basis. Now, what we want to be able to do here is say, well, what happens if we sell different levels of units, different numbers of units, what will happen to our bottom line number? Let's start with the break even point, which we've calculated, and that'll allow us to test the break even point in units, as well as see the test for the break even point in terms of the dollar amount. So we'll say, okay, what would happen if we had the break even point at 3,321 units? We'll say, all right, then the revenue is going to be equal to, I'm just going to pull over these same units, that same 3,321 units that we sell. Therefore, the amount per unit times this 3,321 is going to give us our revenue 946346. That's our sales amount that of course matches the break even point in revenue in dollars, as well as the break even point here in units calculated on this one. And then we're going to say the same, I'm going to bring the same number of units down to the variable costs, because they act in a similar fashion. And therefore we'll take the 168 times the 3,321. And that gives us our 557,846. And then the contribution margin also acts in a similar fashion. So I'm just going to say this equals the 3,321. And we can calculate here two different ways, basically double checking our number one, we can take this number minus this number, sales or revenue minus variable costs, totals, these are the totals now, that gives us the 388500. We can also calculate that number as the 117 contribution margin per unit times the 3,321. Isn't that nice? That's the beauty of the, this type of format, the contribution margin type income statement format. And then we're going to say this is going to be the fixed costs. So I'll say fixed costs. And we'll then pick up the fixed costs by saying equals and we'll pick up the fixed costs, we can pick it up here. So the 388500 is our fixed costs. And you'll notice those two are the same number. That's because we just calculated our break even point. And therefore our forecasted profit, or net income forecast net income is this number minus this number or zero at the 3,321, because that's our break even point in units, break even point in dollars, we just basically verified that the nice thing we can do now is say, well, obviously, we're looking to make the profit here, we can say, well, how many units do we have to sell to make a certain profit? Well, one way we could do that is we could just change this one number with the forecasting, something we cannot do easily with a standard type of income statement. This allows us to set things up pretty easily. So I can say, well, what would happen if we sold 4000 units, for example, and then the forecasted profit would be 79500. What would happen if we sold 5000? Then we can say, well, the forecasted process profit would be 196500. This is the type of forecasting we want to be able to do. This is the type of forecasting that is allowed through breaking out the costs by behavior variable and fixed costs. Next thing we might want to consider is, what if we have a certain number of profit in mind, like 150,000? That's what we want to make. What if we have that in mind? How can we do a calculation using these numbers, using this method, CDP analysis, to get to that profit number? One way we could do it, of course, is to just keep on changing this. I'm not going, I'm at 196500. What if I change this and made it 4000? Now it's way, it's too low. What about 4500? Now it's getting close. It needs to go up a little bit. How about 4600? And so on. That's pretty close. So we could do that. But if we want to do it exactly and go to this number, we can do a pretty simple calculation to do that very similar to the break even point type of calculation. So similar type of calculation, we can take the fixed cost. I'm going to pull that to the inside and say that that's going to be the 3885. And then we're just going to add to that the targeted, let me just call it call it net income. It might just be called income sometimes, but that's a little deceiving, because you might see think that that is the top line. And we're really talking about the kind of the bottom line, the net income in essence, and we want it to be 150,000. So then if we add those up, we're going to sum these up, we're just adding those two items up, I use the sum function to do that. This is basically our forecasted cost and income forecasted cost and net income. And now we're going to take our contribution margin per unit. So the contribution margin per unit, and that's going to be our 117. So this is going to be equal to the 117 up top. And then we have the units to achieve the target. And that's going to be equal to the forecasted cost and targeted net income, divided by the contribution margin per unit. So if we if we think about that, let me add some I'll add an underline here and we'll double underline this one. So if we consider that, that would make sense. It's the same calculation that we have over here, we have the fixed costs, that's the fixed cost. This is how much money we're making each time we sell something over and above the variable costs, then we have to divide this into that to get how many units we need to sell. Well, if we need a profit, in addition to the fixed cost of 150, we would have this is the fixed cost plus the profit we want to get to the net income. And that would be the fixed cost plus the profit. This is how much we get with each unit sale after variable costs. And if we divide that in, that means we have to sell 4603 units, that's our break even point in units. Now if we wanted our break even point in terms of sales, we can apply these two methods in a similar fashion as well, to break out that the sales number that would be needed. And notice we can kind of do that up top to if I if I say that we want this it's pretty close here right. If I said this equaled the 4603, then of course we would get our net income of 150,000. So we'd have to sell 4603 to get to 150,000. Our revenue that we would need then is this 1,311731, which of course is this number times the sales per unit, the revenue per unit.


Alright, welcome back everyone. Hope you're enjoying this series on the Over the Wire Bandit Wargame. My name is John Hammond, and let's jump right back in. We were at level 15 just previously, finished up 14, which is a small netcat connection. Now we're going to be doing kind of the same thing, but connecting through SSL, through a secured encrypted layer. So let's get to level 15 with the paths we have saved in the file, using SSH paths, and using the correct user for SSH connection. So nothing in the home directory, because it says the prompts here. The password for the next level can be retrieved by submitting the password of the current level to port 30,001 on local hosts using SSL encryption. So, netcat is normally how we would use a pretty simple, easy, raw sockets connection for just a TCP or UDP port or service. When we're using SSL, we do it in a different way. And I could Google around, and I guess I suppose I will, how to do this OpenSSL, connect to SSL. And I can show you, okay, you can Google around to how to connect to these things, and you can see the example syntax. And this is exactly what I needed to tell you, because I feel bad that this is like a, hey, you just got to remember the syntax. But you literally, you literally just have to memorize that these are the words that make you connect with SSL.  That's all. So let's rock through this. Like this isn't going to be hard now that we know that syntax. Let's get our current password, right, bandit pass for bandit 15. We can read that that's our password. And let's open SSL, s clients, s underscore client, tag connect, pull it local host. And this is the weird one, because not like SSH where it needs attack P, not like netcat where it doesn't need anything, but it needs a colon to denote the port number that you want to use, just like you'd normally see in a web browser. So gross got a lot of stuff. Huh. What is our output? Did we get anything? Let's check out what it says here. It says, Oh, if you're getting heart beating, try using IGN, you F. Okay. Let's ignore and the file is out with that is you F. And okay, cool. That just fits it out for us. That is the password for the next level. Let's jump that put it in bandit 16. And we can keep cruising. Put that one in your back pocket open SSL s client connect. I don't do that practically ever. This is in fact the only CTF cybersecurity thing where I've ever had to do that, but it's a neat thing to know. If you met that making SSL connection stuff like that. All right. 17 the credentials for the next level can be retrieved by sending a pass of the current level to a port on this computer ranging from 31,000 to 32,000. Find out which these ports of the server and then find out which of these speak SSL which don't. Hmm. Okay. Well, we could use net cat and just try and brute force everything from 31,000 to 32,000, but that would be kind of gross and messy. So the other option, something that kind of suggests here in the commands, you may need to solve this level section is end map. So if you haven't used that map before, it's awesome. And you totally should. It is a network mapper network scanner. I'll find open ports and stuff like that. I won't go into the details on it, but we will use it to poke at our website or not our website, but our server, the server here and see what we have open. So it is installed right now. I don't think it's usually installed by default. I could be wrong. So end map the host that we want local host. And if you wanted to, you can check the man page to see how this really goes through. But you do need to specify the host name, obviously. And then if you want to specify more ports, like we can use a port range or something, you can see it takes tack P. And if you wanted to go through specific numbers, you can use that number through like start and stop. So let's try that. Let's try end map local host, 31,000. I'll tack P sorry, tack P 31,000 to 32,000. And we get results just like that. There aren't a whole lot here. So I'm going to be okay with just trying these one by one. If you're cool with that. Let's get our password for one thing. Bandit pass mandate 16. Now let's pump that to open SSL s underscore client. That connects local host with that port number. Let's make sure we include our ignore into file or IG and EOF. Doesn't look like that happened. Okay, let's try the next one. Doesn't seem to work either. We're just kind of expecting the password, right? So let's try again. If you know a smarter way to determine this. Hey, please fill me in. Okay, that didn't connect. So that probably again doesn't. Maybe maybe that's not speaking SSL like the first one or something. Let's check the next one. Getting pretty close to the end here. So one of these has got to be it. Oh, hey, okay. Correct. Now we have a RSA private key. Okay, let's use this to connect to Bennett 17. It's 17. Let's save this in our home directory on our server on our own computer. And now we've got to use that as our special key, right? Bennett 17, bandit.labs.overthewire. Remember, I'm doing that with just attack I flag an argument. Oh, we need to chmod that file, change the permission so only we can read it. No one else. Now it'll be okay to use. We'll go ahead and have a, oh, we aren't connecting. What? We may only be able to use that on like from that server. Maybe, maybe it won't accept remote locations. So let's put this in our, in our temp file. I totally broke it. No, no, no. Into 27. Or did I, did I not go into, I don't need, I don't need like those right visit permissions. I'll just do it with VI. I paste WQ. So I just used Vim or VI and then I hit I to insert. I pasted it in and then you would escape to get back into edit mode. And then colon WQ to save. Oh, let's save this as bandit 17. Why can I not open this file? Oh, I don't own this directory. Duh, because I made this directory as another user. So, okay, let's make directory temp john2. Goodness gracious guys. I'm so sorry. I wasted all your time. Now we can use nano for real, properly paste it here. And now let's try an SSH attack I bandit 17 at using bandit 17 at localhost. Yes, I want to do it. Let's change these permissions so only we can read it. And let's connect. Please work. Yay. Okay, cool. Bandit 17. Now, what is this challenge? Two files in the home directory, passwords old and passwords new. Pass through for the next levels and passwords new. And it's the only line that's been changed. Okay. How, how big are these files? Not too huge, but still tracking them down, tracking down the difference would be kind of hard to do manually. So the commands you may need to solve this level, there's one peculiar, one peculiar command that you might be able to see called diff. And that will probably tell you the differences between two files. You can check the main page if you haven't done it before, but we'll compare files line by line, which sounds like exactly what we need. And you can compare any files that you pass as arguments. So let's diff passwords old and have it compared to passwords new. So it looks like the new file on the right, that's what these arrows are trying to say the new has been changed to this. And that's the only line that has been changed. So this must be what we need. Let's just throw this in Bandit 18 and break out of all these connections. And let's try to connect to Bandit 18. Now that we've done that. And we're in. Oh, okay. It says bye bye. And we're immediately kicked out. What's going on? It says, if you solve this level and see bye bye when trying to log in. This is the next level. Okay, sweet. Let's try this. Password for the next level is to read me a file in the home directory, but someone has modified the bash RC file to log you out when you log in with SSH. So a bash RC file is what happens like immediately, like once you have the bash program started, like once you have a shell, it'll automatically execute the things in that script. So if it's trying to log us out immediately, we don't really get a shell. But we can get around this because SSH will allow us to run commands. Really, once we have our connection without being in the shell, you can actually pass these as an argument. So you may not be able to see, but I'm at the very, very end of my line here. If I were to say cat, read me or any other command just like ID, you can see the command output just like that before we're at our shell and we're immediately back to where we were before. We didn't keep a persistent connection. We just ran that command. SSH pass will handle this as well. So we can just say cat, read me as the command that we want to run at the very, very end. And now we've got our password. Cool. Let's put this at Bandit 19. And we are moving. Great. Thanks for watching guys. Hope you're enjoying these. We don't need to actually cat anything else now once we're connected, but we want to make sure we are connected. And we got level 19. Alright, see you in the next video guys. We'll jump in pretty soon.


Whatever path you take, celibacy, if it is imposed on yourself or on the seeker, will actually turn out to be detrimental to the path of seeking. What happens to the male then is that he's able to keep the female satisfied, but at the same time he's able to maintain his strength. He doesn't lose the virya, which would then take him twenty-eight days to build up that strength again. Namaskar. It's Ana again. What are the benefits for someone who is not a sannyasi to be celibate and to not be expelling that sexual energy, I guess, in today's world? Celibacy is not something you can impose on yourself. If you impose celibacy on yourself, if you force celibacy on yourself in an attempt at spiritual realization, which many, many, many seekers do, you know, monks and matthas, matthas are the Indian version of it, but the Buddhist monks, the Christian monks, they impose celibacy on themselves with the idea that if you're celibate, you have a better chance to reach something divine or to reach source or truth or God or whatever. And this is a fallacy in thinking. It's a fallacy in spiritual transformational work because when you impose something on yourself, you are suppressing something. Celibacy is something which arises on a spiritual journey. It arises automatically and sometimes disappears again and then arises again. So if you take up a spiritual path of self-transformation, there will come a time when there is no sexual desire in the system because that is the period when the system is meant to gear all its energies towards certain actions that are needed for that transformation.  Whatever path you take, celibacy, if it is imposed on yourself or on the seeker, will actually turn out to be detrimental to the path of seeking. So it is much better to move into transformational processes and spiritual processes leading what one would call a normal sexual life, that as far as imposing celibacy on yourself. Of course, for a man, if he can hold back that expulsion, he can train himself to have the experience of an orgasm but without losing his energy. That's a training he can do. Something which actually was common to males around the world in the preceding millennia. And you can see that reflected also in the Tantra Shastras and various texts that speak about this, something known, that a man could derive the joy of sexual communion without losing his energy. And those techniques have been lost in the last few hundred years. It's not something that men can't relearn. It's a matter of discipline for a while and after that it becomes second nature. And what happens to the male then is that he's able to keep the female satisfied but at the same time he's able to maintain his strength. He doesn't lose the virya which would then take him 28 days to build up that strength again. So it's not worth it. It's not in his interest to do that. But because the expulsion of the virya and the orgasm have been seen as one, when they are not the same thing, they are fundamentally different experiences. That is where the problem lies in the weakening of males. With females the thing is that the release of substances which are similar to virya in men and the orgasm are separate. They are not close together as with the males. So the females lose much less in that process. So the orgasm of the female is not depleting her of the energy as it would for a male because those two things are so close together for the male whereas for the female they are separate. Which is why encouraging a female to expel that is modern age nonsense because she loses her strength like that. So celibacy if it is practiced at the beginning of a spiritual journey with that kind of fervor and discipline and everything is just going to result in a lot of mess and misery. Most of the time there are always exceptions but not that many. It will result in various kinds of degenerations in the system also. Celibacy appears automatically when the seeker is focused on living from the truth in a state of surrender. The more you bend and the more you say, okay, this body, this person, this thing here is an instrument of the truth. It is living in the truth as an instrument of the truth. It is refusing to go with the ahankar, with the ego. The more you will be on the path of self-realization. And there comes a time when celibacy appears and it's not something you have to do, it just is there then. And it may disappear again depending on what the system needs to fulfill its experience and to be fulfilled in the growing experience of self-realization because self-realization is not a goal. It's something that deepens as you grow, you move into older age and closer towards leaving the body. It just grows and grows and grows and you become more and more the truth in expression. So that would be the better way to go. The idea that celibacy is the starting point which many systems preach actually is a dangerous way to take a spiritual quest forward. And most of the time unsuccessful.


Yeah, I mean, our ultimate goal is to make it easier for donors to find nonprofits that they want to support and cause areas that they are committed to or feel strongly about, but to identify those nonprofits that may be better positioned for success, right, success being achieving achievement of their mission and goals. And so the Encompass Rating System is our effort. It's the initiative that we launched last year to do just that. And beyond the financial health and sustainability metrics that we review, which we've tweaked and adjusted based on smaller scale revenues and budgets. But beyond that, looking at other aspects of an organization's existence that that affect the likelihood that it's going to succeed, looking at their leadership and adaptability practices, looking at their strategic goals. Are they positioning themselves for growth? Do they have a set goal to actually downsize and focus more on their core mission? Looking at culture and community, is this an organization that is engaging their beneficiaries listening to their constituents, then using that data to improve their performance and their service delivery to their beneficiaries, looking at aspects of, looking at aspects of impact and results. And we've started with one methodology that we're building out, looking at primarily cost benefit of program versus results and we'll be branching out from.


Um, San Francisco public libraries committed to working. Um, we're not basically we're not in a neutral institution. And that's one thing I love about my job. We are actively working to end systemic racism and to acknowledge it and be part of the solution by providing useful and factual information, as well as information about black joy celebration and black art and everything like that. And I will definitely send everyone a follow up email. And I am relinquishing this all over to the poets now. Well, hi folks. Um, I'm here. I'm glad to see you guys here. I don't know what I'd be doing if it weren't for zoom as much as it gives me a bad headache. I just can't live without seeing y'all. What I was thinking of doing tonight is I mean obviously thank you to the San Francisco Public Library for letting me take up their time and energy doing these poem jams. Also, you know, I've really loved working with John Smalley for the entirety of this so far, and that's really exciting. Tonight we have a really great group of people. It is by no means all of the people in this book but everybody who is reading tonight was in the Civil Liberties United book that Shizue Siegel put together. There are a lot of other incredible people in that book. But I get these horrible zoom headaches and so I kind of have to keep the zooms more sensible. It's entirely on me and I picked who it was. So this is not Shizue's fault at all. But I'm grateful to her for all of the incredible work that she does. And I was going to start out introducing her because she put the book together and because right now is her project. And I just, we're taking this summer to really celebrate a couple of the institutions that really support writing in the San Francisco Bay Area and support writing for various diverse groups in the San Francisco Bay Area. So today it's right now and I'm going to introduce Shizue Siegel right now and she's, I'm hoping she'll say a little bit about right now and then read some. Yeah. Okay. Shizue Siegel. Hey, I always click the little red microphone on my tiny soft one screen as they're doing it down below. So that's the reason for the delay. Anyway, thank you so much, Kim. I can't tell you how much I appreciate you supporting right now. And this is the Civil Liberties United Book. And this was our third anthology and this, it was our second anthology Endangered Species Enduring Values. Civil Liberties has a hundred writers and artists of color and allies. People of color are 60% of the local population and we're still underrepresented. Our voices are underrepresented. And how can we end racism if we don't understand each other. We don't understand the full humanity of the people that are, that we tend to think of as, oh, just the people that wait at our tables and drive our buses, take care of our health. Oh, well, we don't have to see them as people. They're the people that keep us comfortable. And my question is, as civilization starts to disintegrate, maybe we need to listen to what those folks have to say about how to live in a society that is a circle where everyone is valued and where the earth is wiser than any of us creatures on it. So, yeah, I'd like to read a few poems, and I have to say, Kim, I really liked your choices. I'm glad I didn't have to make the choices but Kimi Sugiyoka and Tony Aldorando and James Cagney are all amazing. I was so grateful and honored to have you all in the book. You guys are amazing. And if I, if I can't make it to readings as much as I would like to and hear people like Natasha Dennerstein and Kitty Costello and Susan Dambroff and Richard Sanderl and, you know, all the other people, it's partly because I'm spending a lot of time supporting some of the people of color that are emerging that many of them are brilliant writers they have sensitive brilliant observations and they they don't have necessarily the time or the confidence to get themselves out there. So, so that's one of the things I do with my time and as some of you know I can get really cranky when I'm tired. I see you laughing Tony. Anyway, so let me get started. This is a, this is a, I'm going to start out with a poem from the book and then the other books are more in response to the pandemic, the other poems current the Buddha and St. Francis bum around town trolling for wisdom along the margins. We're all in it together, us and them, a hairs with a part, eyes melting with the moon and folding hearts clutch tight against the erosion of hope. Love always wins, but who sticks around long enough to find out, especially with gentrification. This is fears saying heaven and hell lose direction. Nirvana is a state of mind here and now always accessible if we simply stop to notice. Existence was never easy. Sediments settle slowly as we drift along in this thanks and stew of yes, no, right, wrong, many decisions, microphone moments. The answer is always yes. Elusive Time remains elusive. The ground shifts beneath our feet, sense and schedule virus scattered, but meaning very clear. The earth and sky are calling us to remember who's really in charge. Celestial cycles grind on. Heads of the risen south topple besides Caesar's and Pharaoh's earth mounds and monoliths pyramids and guillotines civilizations have fallen before too many times to count.  We have only to look up to see how small we are. Skies clear after scattered showers upon a super bloom of spring, a wealth of Dudley in Acacia, native Californians, Australian imports, blossoms fraying, turning to fruit and then seed and a proliferation of tense mushrooms as the world keeps turning, turning upside down and backwards. How the mighty rise and fall, but the people endure by bridging the salt of the earth to the stars in our eyes everlasting gold in our hearts. This one is dedicated to some of the single women I've seen walking in my neighborhood. Alone with COVID. Breathe yourself into a new life, propelled from an enclosing womb where you were bathed in the amniotic fluid of guilt, shame, fear, rage, bathed in others thoughts and the impulse to make things right for them. Now alone with no one to answer to, propelled into new life. Breathe in hope and light and love.  You bring joy just by being right here in this moment as dawn lights the sky in a now hushed city. Birds stir to a new day. Strangers wave from across the street. Even cars stop to let you walk. Unfortunately, that didn't last long. The mission. I could stay away no longer. The mission was like a second home, though rarely invited into its dwellings. The streets and shops, a pulse of the city, a thready read, profound connection, how deeply one can love a stranger, a wordless bow from the heart. Sharing a moment, ancient stones calling pueblos, calloused hands, bent backs, children's wide, wide dark eyes, who cannot taste the love in a plateau. The 20% tip returned with it with an extra helping of beans. A clot of homeless shelter in place on a Medusa raft of sidewalk, side by side, huddling close, heads inclined to the same angle, shielding each other from hate that kills as surely as virus. Letter to two unhoused women. To the young woman, a shade lighter than cafe au lait, bleach dreads bunched in a topknot, tied with a scarf, talking loudly on a cell phone. No. She's arguing with herself and shrieking, sharp yips and sudden jumps as if she wanted to jump out of her own body, escape her own skin. I want to take her into my arms. She who fears touch and longs for it, what demons are chasing her and for how long. To the young woman sitting on the sidewalk, legs crossed as if in meditation, hoodie huddled head erect, searching for the peace she knows is there, but not here, not in the grit of Mission Street. She's haloed by orange peels, discards or a gift. Before I can reach her, a man comes out, towers over her screeching like a banty rooster. Her neck shrinks down into her shoulders as he spits invective in Espanol. I wonder if you understand. I wait until he turns away. Sneak close but dare not speak. Our eyes connect as I slip you a five rolled tight so he won't notice that you now have something more he can take.  I wish I could tell you how sorry I am. I wish I could take you in. Behind the badge. This is a story from the other side of the street. Yes, there are some good cops. And there are those triggered by rage and terror. There are cops that believe in community policing heart and soul. And cops who know they are warriors of the apocalypse. Cops that glory and camouflage and tanks, cops acting out what they see on TV. Cops that suffer from PTSD, cops on the take, cops on the make, cops that cave to the culture around them, wondering why they ever joined the force.  My neighbor and Marin was a cop. We lived side by side and starter homes along the marsh. Tom was a patrolman, member of the vice squad and then the squat team and finally the horse patrol. A nice guy, but quiet. Great wife and kids, studied at St. Mary's, aspired to be a Jesuit priest until he discovered girls. Now that he was grown, he and his boyhood pal set up their lawn chairs in the driveway every weekend, cranked up the boombox and drank their way through a whole case of beer, a whole case of course, just the two of them, the brands important. He wore his silence like a like a cloak, secrets to the brotherhood, sanctity of confessional. Sometimes he dropped crumbs about his sprawling family, successful fish merchant dad, gravel voice, canasta loving mom. Tom was the eldest of 10, constantly bailing out his brothers, sobering up his sisters, picking them up after they wrecked their cars. Marin's toxicity is well hidden, but real. And Italians don't quite count, don't quite count as white no matter how much money they make. Tom's partner had steel wall bearings for eyes, walked like a cowboy, a Harley rider even on foot. In vice squad, musty, he bought beers for underage kids and jerked around the homeless just for kicks, especially if they were black. He found his true place on the tax squad. He brought his home with him, his work home with him. He brought his home, he brought his work home with him to and dominated his wife. She pulled a pistol on him once, plucked it out of the console of the pickup truck, held the muzzle to his head in the middle of the Golden Gate Bridge and made him let her out because she couldn't stand to be with him one second more. Tom believed in patients, going through channels. He finally got away from that partner, got off the tax squad, made them out at police, patrolled the park, decorated parades. He thought he had it made until the day in the police locker room. He asked his new partner to check out his baby sister's jammed pistol. Why didn't the man think to check the chamber before he pointed the gun at Tom's head and pulled the trigger?  And the last one, stubborn weeds. In my neighborhood of stubborn weeds, I hope that COVID came just in time to save us from total eradication, preserving the last of the grit from million dollar scrubs of virgin olive oil, oatmeal and sage used by the pampered, who can afford to bathe their skins and what the lesser folk can eat. Will the virus slow down greed like the bursting of dot com one or the 89 earthquake? Coastal fog used to be enough before global warming to keep away those who did not love this land. The fat fragile interface with sea and sky sometimes unseen all summer long, shrouded by fog tendrils, micro droplets bursting against our cheeks, reminding us like fog horn blasts and mournful bellows signaling ships at sea and land lovers alike that we are all adrift on life. A float on a fragile vessel, reality rising and falling, heaving and lolling by turns. There are no guarantees, only the invitation to risk. We are a hearty people, buckwheat and sorrel, dandelions and succulents.  We are a plain people whose meager dollars sent a generation to college so they could look down on us too. Now they're learning something priceless.  Life comes from how you need it. Thank you. Thank you so much. That was excellent. I think that last one was your piece on Palma Day. Is that right? Yes, it was. Thank you for that honor. So if you want to read that in person, you can go onto the Palma Day into the archive and see it. I'd like next, Tony Aldorando, who is one of my favorite reading voices in the area poetry scene right now. I love his work. I love his way of being in the world and I'm really looking forward to hearing you read, Tony. Thank you. Thank you very much, Kim. Thank you. It's an honor to be here. Hi, Natasha. Hi, James. So good to see all these faces because we can't see them walking into the places. Here we go. At the age of eight, the police broke down our door with a battering ram and pointed guns at my daddy's face.  These days they have the letters I see E on them. I heard them talking to each other into their walkie-talkies. And then over all the distortion and noise, I heard the words, stand down, disengage, mailer, we've got the wrong address. I remember after that day, both my parents were a mess. Daddy used to say, son, Miho, many of us are used in the U.S., confused in the U.S. and sometimes told and taught, we are less in the U.S. But that, Miho, they will never confess.   In this land called our country, I can't believe the things I see. So much police brutality, so much police brutality. Police in blue, I speak to thee. Servant protect, please don't beat me. Servant protect, please don't beat me. Thank you. Here we go. This one's titled Heroes. I speak in Lengua, Franca. Local poets are my heroes. The art exhibition of the dead in my head of Picasso's Frida Kahlo's and Miro's. I've got the spirits of dead poets in my head when I close my eyes, I see them. Like last night, they sold out an open mic at the Oakland Coliseum. Miguel Piñero tocando lo cuero. Peter Tomas reciting verses. Frida Kahlo pintando Frida Kahlo on stage with her colores, her love disperses. With her colores, her love disperses. I've got James Brown and Prince living on the funky graveyard side of my mind. Where the smell of funk is in the air and the music's not hard to find.  Played over and over and over again until they blow my mind. Until they blow my mind. I've got Langston Hughes and William Shakespeare living on the poetic side of my mind. Where the pens and quills are in the air and the smell of ink's not hard to find.  Read over and over and over again until they blow my mind. Until they blow my mind. This next one's titled, Latinos. This is in the book, Civil Liberties. Latinos, Latinos are the colors of the rainbow. I said the rainbow, yo. Latinos are blanquito, negrito, trianguito and afro. Afro-listic, realistic, simplistic, always mystic, always real, really real, sometimes too real, always told we love to steal. So some Latinos become violent.  Others become angered. So angry and angered some have become endangered. Or misinformed, uninformed and uniformed into the penitentiary. Right into the next century. Others misinformed, uninformed and uniformed into the war.  Latinos, I can't take it no more. I said the U.S. military. Well, we're first on the front lines, first to die, then we have to bury.  We're used in the U.S., abused in the U.S., confused in the U.S. and told we are less in the U.S. Come on, system, confess. We've been infected, rejected, corrected and almost never. Almost never elected. Yet always selected to clean, clean, clean, clean, clean.  We are the Latina nannies. That white, the mielda out of the president's grandchildren's drawers.  For a visa pass. Latinos, Latinos are immigrant slaves with eyes open wide and no place to hide. Latinos risk their lives to reach the U.S. and can't come inside. Latinos are young men and women who serve this country with pride. We're here, there and everywhere, tall, short, bald and even Indian looking with long hair. Latinos are you, Latinos are me, we're straight, queer, yes, LGBT. We rock the baggy pants, love music and dance and we're born to romance. Latinos can become what we dream, can become what we dream if given a chance. Latinos, Latinos are stars, sports stars, movie stars and superstars like Celia Cruz. Latinos influence people around the world like Orquesta de la Luz. Latinos are united farm workers, teachers, preachers, activists, poets. Borinquen, Puerto Rican, New Yorkan poets like Willy Peldomo, Pedro Piedre, Avacha, Pirito Mas, La Bruja y Miguel Piñero. Y nacimos fuerte hasta la muerte como lo machetero. Somos doctores y profesores de colores. Y en dinero, gente como Clemente de los mejores peloteros. Somos híbaros de la montaña y nacimos todos al cero. Hay mis laborinquen como yo te quiero. Te llama Puerto Rico, pero no hay mucho dinero. Te amo, te amo, te amo y me encanta. Y en el nombre de Dios si poesía. Puerto Rico se levanta. Thank you. This next one's we are poets. This one's dedicated to all the poets out there in the house. Here we go. We are poets. We are poets. We're in your neighborhood at open mics. We're not that hard to find.  We are poets. We can take pretty words, put them in a poem and plant a mental seed. Or we can take shitty words when we're filled with rage, put them on a page and make it bleed. We can put words together describing an aroma and make you think that page was scented. We are poets. The reason the exclamation point was invented. We write, recite and perform. We never, ever conform. It's the way we poets know damn well we were born. Pushed out performing and crying since birth. Our hearts already broken and torn, but we as poets. We can take pieces of broken words, turn them into spoken words and give a broken heart a fresh new start. Take a young child's broken dreams and mend them with spoken themes. We are poets. Blessed and filled with words. We create with words, relate with words. Transform and relocate hearts and minds with words. We are poets. We say things like five times five divided by pi equals the number of rainbow stars in the sky. And have you asked why? It's simple mathematics times, dramatics factored into a poetical third eye. And the answer in the back of your mind's book is even simpler. We are poets. Love making keyboard, breaking erotic poets. We can make a pen, make love to paper and make it come. Make words intoxicate your mind like a strong Puerto Rican rum. We are poets. From our hearts the words flow through our tongues, mouths and lips. Those words magically know where to go. In our heads the poets of the dead are awoken. We speak from our hearts with the voices of the broken. We are poets. This much we know. We give birth to words, touch mother earth through words and that open mics open our mouths and pull out our hearts through words. We write and rewrite and double check the last rewrite because we know the last rewrite is the one that has to be right. We are poets. We share our breath with words and we will write and recite till our death with words. We are poets. And one last, I'll end with this one. This is a letter to who else but her. A letter to who else but her. How come I need sleep but can't fall asleep but I can write this poem? How come I inspire you when you're my inspiration?  How come when you visit me and it's time to go I never want to let you go? How come roses fade? How come when I look at you I think of us? Spring is my favorite time of year. How come I pray for you at night and forget to pray for me? And how come everyone says I need to slow down? How come we always care what other people think and material possessions mean more to people than people? How come in Puerto Rico it rains when the sun shines? How come I love you more than life itself and what more than anything for you to be happy and free even if it means not being with me? My love is eternal, can't you see? How come you feel like destiny?   How come I'm happy when I light my candles? How come I'm sad when they go out? Maybe it's because I don't have a lot of candles. How come money makes the world go around and love doesn't? Is it because love hurts so much? Do you believe in angels? How come each snowflake is shaped differently? How come? You know when I was a kid and it rained I thought God was crying and sometimes I got so sad that God was crying that I would go to my room and cry with him. I tell him to stop crying. I thought God was in pain. I was just a kid, what did I know? Actually, I still don't know and still have questions that begin with how come? Like, how come there's so much war in that place called the holy land? How come I can close my eyes and see God but I could never ever hold him?  Where's the glory? How come when we make love we can come together but out in public, out on the street in front of family and friends when they ask about our relationship you say we could never go together? How come?  Some people make promises for the simple pleasures of breaking them. How come I knew I would write this letter but would never ever send it? I'll come. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. You have some new projects Tony? Anything you want to advertise? You got to unmute yourself. I'm actually doing a book and I think I'm done with my first one, so I think in August I'll be done with the whole manuscript. I think I'm actually, yeah, so thank you. Yeah, that's it right now. Yeah. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you. Kimi Sugiyoka. I just looked it up. You haven't been posted yet, but you will be.  This is what happens when you do too many things. I edited you into an around with a couple of things. Kimi Sugiyoka is one of the, oh how to say it, just an amazing, an amazing poet with some really great published work as well. New book just came out, right? Yes, ma'am. There it is. Thank you. I'm a very good poet. I'm a really good poet. And a longterm Bay area person and just really somebody who shows up to things, even if they're not reading is very supportive in the community. And it's just sort of generally wonderful. You're laughing, but that's a big deal because there are a lot of people who kind of come in for their set and then, you know, Okay, thank you to Kim, to She's Away, to the San Francisco Public Library for your support and appreciation. I'm grateful. Caroline Casey says, be confident, curious and kind. Good thing to remember in times like these. Can I give you a song poem sandwich? Why would anybody want to see somebody die? Why? Some things are not meant to be burned into your mind. We cannot erase them no matter how hard we try. They traumatize and haunt us until the day we die. A curriculum for fools is what we learned in school. Fools. Now is the time to exhume all the skeletons of truth. Remove every arrow and tend to ever rewound. Repair and restitution are the tools we can use. The blood of the innocent saturates this country, country. This is our inheritance no matter whether or not we believe, believe. This is our inheritance whether or not we believe, believe. This is our inheritance whether or not we believe. Thank you. It's Tuesday in paradise. Held by sand warmed by sun, caressed, rest by wind, kissed by waves. A turn cries and dives fighting the western wind. Hunting, prodigiously hunting. Hurdles east, unable to dive in the grip of the gale. Turns, flies to cry and dive and hunt again. When faced with suicide, overdose, murder and pandemic. No escape from intent or decree. Some are Jacaranda bloom. Whose baby will be found hanging?  Whose life threatened or taken at random whim? Whose child will disappear in an ice prison? Whose grandmother will die from a lack of COVID prevention? Whose home will be taken? Who will be the next to go hungry, houseless? Whose ears can separate truth from lies? It's Tuesday in paradise. The birds are singing an anthem for us to keep struggling to breathe. Thank you. Breathe. Signs, two morning doves nest in a crown of thorns. Two hummingbirds with ruby throats kiss in midair on the beach, where egrets comically do the Egyptian when they stretch their legs to hunt. Two finches light on a skeletal fern, fern, stay awhile, twittering. A morning dove steps from time to the head of the Buddha in solidarity with tranquility. All this while my inconsolable heart wrestles with death, messengers from the ether are signifying hope. Thank you. When your foyer is flooding and you open the door and try to bail out the three inches of water on your floor, you might want to notice the bear cub playing in your yard. You might want to wait a while to bail because if you are so intent on getting that bucket that you aren't paying attention, you might not see that 400-pound grizzly bear mama barreling towards your door. Thank you. In temptation, I believe this is the one that was in the public library page, poem and date. It's a spell I tried to write. Let the moon interrupt the sun till tides cleanse this empire of sons and fathers whose fortunes rest on the skulls and bones of the ravaged, conquered and murdered. Let fire ebb from coals of rain and loose the fragrance of cedar and sage to bear the seam of mourning to the hem of night, to ignite in us the audacious tenacity of the ancestors who earned and won our continuance. Let us cover our faces with earth, twine life with death that one remembers the other in all acts and intentions, bloody the acts to exact humility from hubris, summon the kestrel and the dove that they may nest and procreate within this crown of thorns. Let the moon interrupt the sun's momentum till the tides cleanse this siege of generation. May all beings flex the muscle of love and tend to the wounds of the world. Thank you. A couple more for you. The days scuttled by like cockroaches on parade. Quarantine is like a congenial house arrest. Simple chores and tasks scaffold day after day. If the virus doesn't kill us, maybe the repetition will. The daily intimacy of human to human contact is ominously reduced to masks and distant encounters. I walk three miles every day along the bay. Birds and babes assave and escape. In a catillion turns cry here. No here. No here. Lone turns are silent. The wavelet sparkle beneath my feet, lapping my ankles with their silvered tongues. Time is an apple, a broken string, a reliquary, a bomb, or a bomb. Okay. So I'm going to try this. I rewrote the words to a song. That I actually wrote for the Lost Coast Writers Retreat. So now I have two versions of the same song. But just felt moved to, to do this, this way. I'm going to try the Lost Writers. Now George. Now George Floyd, he was killed. Because the police didn't believe that his life was, was worth the price of a $20 bill. It's hard to face the truth. For so long we believed that we weren't wise enough to let others, and let others take the lead. Broken is not that layover. Shelter where you can is not that layover. Speak up when we see injustice stand up and start fighting. The game is fog. The people won't change is here to stay. We honor and cheat the devil. But I just rewrote the words yesterday. Thank you again, everyone, for your ears, your hearts, your minds, your souls. Just keep loving each other. Thank you so much, Kimmy. I don't know if you noticed because you were performing, but you had a lot of people singing along.  People were singing along. Our next reader is really, I mean, nobody here today was not spectacular. But James Cagney is one of those people who just, I think the job of poets is to change the way you experience events and words. And I think it is undeniable that James Cagney is one of those poets. You know, we met in a funny way. I invite him as regularly as is, as does it look like favoritism. To come read it like that I have control over. But I generally wear my heart on my sleeve. And when I'm feeling like I need something to realign my vision, I usually want to hear James. Your most recent book is Steel Magnolias, right? Yes. Are you going to hold up a copy? Cover it. Cover the book. Long as downstairs. Here we go. There we are. That, that book. That is a necessary book. Okay. I'm going to let you read now. Thank you. Everybody welcome, James Cagney. Thank you guys. Love the Kim. Thank you so, so very much. And Kimmy, that set that you just did was incredible. Much love to you. Love you Tony. Love you. Love all you guys so much. Thank you for being here. Let's, let's go to work. Yeah. The tongue as knife as grenade. The tongue as pilot light to volcano. The tongue as butterfly shrapnel. Spraying radioactive glass. The tongue as battering ram. Acts handle desecrated cross trigger. The tongue as begging puppy as howling wolf. The tongue as assassin. A ninja jangling with blades. Cross stepping the grassy no. The tongue as wooden stake, silver bullet and earthquake with lightning in its hair. The tongue begging kryptonite to free base. The tongue as apple and serpent rolling its jellied eggs into the ear. The tongue loaded and unlicensed and steaming with cordite trying to start something. The tongue as a wall. A trench. A gate. Fools gold in moonlight. The tongue tied into a straight jacket. Scatting. The tongue a lead weight dropped onto a garden of sand. The tongue as a wall. A trench. A gate. Fools gold in moonlight. The tongue tied into a straight jacket. The tongue a lead weight dropped onto a garden of peonies, a nest of starlings. The tongue misfired, misplaced, misspoke in our last conversation. The tongue blows a hole through its nearest cheek, armed with the right language at the wrong time. The tongue thorny and uphill, single-bladed and double-barreled. The tongue as museum, snowing through autumn. The tongue gets it. Yes, yes, yes. But how it loves spinning, no. This was inspired by homeboy holding up a Bible. And this is called Flames of Genesis. Every night I am murdered in my sleep. I am awakened radiant and naked beneath dawn's monsoon of blood. This white genesis occupied by the proudly illiterate after labeling the tree of knowledge a controlled substance. Every night the bushes open its jaws of switches and my shift begins anew. My job in this garden of perennial fistles I am forced to sharecrop, name the bite style of each fresh animal rushing from the double-gated house above me. Describe the complex flavors in poisoned saliva, pepper, citrus, rust. Tag ivory monuments in bubble lettering, new words for being spat out and eaten again. Determine the fine tasting notes between mauling for recreation or slaughter triggered by fear. I am made in the image of illegally moving targets. My ribs open nightly. Blossom of beef mushrooms. It's aroma singing to the sky. Night opens its drooling jaws in praise of me. All right. This is for the ancestors.  I wrote a short story called Inheritance. Shout out to you, Kimmy. This poem is called Inheritance, a keyword you used in your set. This is Inheritance 2. I am the dustpan on kitchen floors of seven great grandmothers. My macrame DNA chain, a potpourri of cornbread crumbs and goose feathers. Swept out one back door, quipped through another.  My horoscope, a circular arc of lives repeating through me. My father spit me out between tipperillos. I am the yoke of certain truths he was unable to swallow. But his, all his, lit and slid from the end of the bar. It is not me, but the ghosts moving through me needs to kick the walls, throw the porcelain. The revival drums its snake throwing pentecost down my spine. There are rituals of ripple, purification through gun smoke, and a few words said over a pool table, ignited with whiskey. If you catch me hollering on the lawn to an earth erupting hurt, know that it isn't me who screams, but the foaming gumbo pot of men and women simmering through time.  Righto, righto you guys. This, I'm working on this huge project about my childhood memory. And this is one of the poems from that piece. This is called invention of intimacy. We liked one another better than our fathers liked us. Our favorite stories were always myths involving vanquishing soldiers eating down to the bone, cities exploding beneath waltzing monsters, wrestlers binding, coiling, adjusting another's will, mechanics of pain. We kick started together once we realized things with aroma had flavor, a plastic action figure, a ribbon of ripped fabric, a golden thigh, a spray of hair, its bushy rabbit, the soft medicinal rule of a tongue tracing folding, Greco Roman pantomimes. Touch me like you're blind. My ribs, my spine, rhyme in braille, punctuation in hair, tiny commas stuttering, periods on sentences left incomplete, thought bubbles, hiccuping ellipses. Pretend it's a joke toppling you into tickles. On the tarot card, the tower, towards a prank that sent everything toppling. Is this too inside like clothes being seasoned for laundry? Red briefs, raw interior, scalding broth, spilling, spraying, springs droplets, boys armed with flowers, promoted to guns or swords, beaten senseless on the fence post, dancing dirty, auditioning for hell, nasty as shovels for ditches, or spoons still needing to be licked. And why don't we do this one? Maybe let me know, Kim, maybe this is my final piece. This is called compliance. Education is a weapon that scares some people. So we've outsourced our knowledge, our memory, our choices to the bugged robot in our pocket. Ask Siri, what do you need me for? Ask Alexa, what should I do now?  I give thanks for choices. Just thanks no bombs ever dropped, it's atomic yoke kicking across the sky. No selfie zombies trudged through the streets starving for likes. Still, the world did end and the poor survived long enough to deliver weed and dildos to the pretty sheltering houses on the hills. Outside appears emptied for grief. Only bird calls and sirens find work now. The curtain closed on our culture and the house lights came on. No one moved or thought to applaud. But still, I give thanks. Fear is not extinct. What people remain still donate plenty of room to me on the sidewalk. Both dressed like train robbers or crash cart nurses. Give thanks.  Give thanks. I haven't heard another living being cough or sneeze or say hello or thank you in months. Give thanks that my phone still works. Who is there to speak with? No one talks anymore except a monologue. There are too many monologues about toilet paper and not enough about how touch quietly got outlawed.  The simplest of funerals, liking my pastor's tweet. I need a real conversation. If you could just stand in the middle distance and nod. For example, should I wear a white face mask or a black one? I guess that depends on where I think I'm headed. All right. Thank you guys very, very much. You stay safe and good out there. I did warn you. Sometimes I feel like I just, it's like my grandmother's cooking, listening to James read. I have a little special surprise for people and this happened. This is why. Paul Corman Roberts is going to read a couple of poems. I'm thinking to, if you will. And the reason that's happening is because at least six different people advertise this gig has also featuring Paul Corman Robert, which he wasn't supposed to be on this. Now that happens because he and I work together so often that it's almost always true that Paul is involved in everything I do. But I figured since I almost never asked him to just read, it would be a good moment to ask him to just read a couple of posts. So I love the idea. And I went fine and texted him today and asked him if he could come by and actually be here for this. So Paul, can you read us a couple of poems, darlin? I got a couple for you. Kim treats me really well despite how hard she works me. She's written the forward for my upcoming full-length collection of poems coming up from the Matic Press later this year. I'm eternally grateful to this wonderful muse in my life. So I'll do a couple of poems from that. And this is a poem about the greatest donut shop in Oakland called Dick's Donuts. Dick's Donuts. Every empty corner. Every wooden, bare, stripped room in receipt of palpitation echoes. Assault and pepper panther party. Retired angry eyes. Cast up from bones on the back table. Shortness and gasp. And repose. Pre-tremor. Pre-view. Yeah, here at the Hotel Indian Wells. Check out. No one slips away with meat sack intact. Just want. Right practice. Right mojo. Right timeline. This is what right looks like Shriners. Some invisible forces are preferable to other invisible forces. Never after the aftermath of all that because nothing is left after all that. And anyway, we need some kind of siren song. Five week two-tone hundred K smile in a lock step cardiac event horizon marching right up to the vortex of the pre-tremor landscape. A butter strewn apocalypse. The hardening of the chi while the token prerequisite in-house soundtrack backdrop buck Dharma song wailing. Did I hear you say that this was victory? Let these shakes go on. It's time we had a break from it. We always needing an excuse to justify this ritual that counts as something. Some kind of wonderful. Some kind of hope. Some kind of somehow. And this next poem is a collaboration between myself and Collet you bozo. This was a poem we wrote together. I'm sorry. It's kind of surprised that she's not surprised that she's not here. She's very hard to get a hold of. She's very mercurial and definitely going off on her own artistic direction. But I appreciate having her in my creative life. And so this is with Collet she and these are all of our words woven together where I end and you begin. The woman who pours my copy here's voices, the voices of ancestors, the voices of guides, the voices of the low level of the world. The woman who is like a black ops illuminati mind control engineers live above her one bedroom apartment, the paper thin ceilings of her afterthought housing development. Broken mirrors chuckle at her misfortune. In the old days during natural catastrophes, people like us would be lassoed and tied to trees because the jails and sanitariums had all burned or collapsed. Fishbowl frenzied ever so sharp and condescending. She's a woman who has been following her when she is brushing her teeth after a shower or when she is going mad with passion on top of her lover's body. She swears they can see her with hidden camera devices. She had the aroma of tenderness, sweet honeysuckles and earthly spice. Her care for others never quite seeped to the bone marrow. I can't tell the difference between the broken ice cubes and broken teeth in my mouth. And yes, I think this lasso is fraying just because I'm still being gaslit. Shadows giggle and dance behind her. Taunting and teasing, shallow with projection depth.  Her lover's new vacant eyes withering with appearance of the sun. She tells her it's better than living in a rental storage unit or an unsmogged car. It's like living in a fishbowl. She says she needs to be a good fish. They got lost in her emptiness, safer to be carefully blank, harder to crack further. We all need a rude awakening. We all need to score that union gig in the body, which is probably far more honest than working as a consultant for a green marketing firm. She was just an echo, never a complete. She tells me this as a way of distancing when she realized I might be more than a little interested. Honestly, I didn't expect a gift to be returned with passion or affection, though maybe I hoped, maybe I scare her, maybe there is something scarier than me, no fishbowl for you, poet. You can be yourself on one condition, smile. Submission is always demanded through clenched teeth forever in search of compliant tongues. She dreamed of red, white, and blue, or was it red, white, or blue, maybe just red drenched in sweat, walking nightmares to flames of the burning crosses on her freshly manicured lawn, pinching brown skin and fingers, squeeze skin, the pain connecting her to reality, the unreality, was she being deprogrammed or reprogrammed? I've never questioned the reality of my dream, or is that the dream of my reality? I've never taken the swatting the mosquitoes I never noticed before. Where did they all come from? Madness growing in her interior prison where she has held hostage. Demons are real. Dear bougie, welcome to the real world, sucker. Sorry about your permanent Disneyland. You can be yourself on one condition. Be quiet. They walk among us. You don't know where you can't see them. Predators who need to feast on something more than flesh, bodily fluids that are not easily parted with under any economic crisis. How can we protect the pack when we don't know the shifting sands of currency? She travels on back to the California roads, hiding from fate, destiny, the furies, whatever disaster this month shall bring. Farewell to festivals, farewell to abandon, farewell to Babylon. We're in the new age of the new path and it doesn't smell like incense and peppermint baby. What did you think the man meant when he said your ballroom days are over? I don't know. Twisted carnage, bones, what is the point? We'll be dancing on my grave, this turning in my gut. I don't want the people I love to face this road. Either do I want to face it alone? We may not get to choose. I know what I would choose, but you can only be yourself on one condition. Silence. Don't let them hear us. If you want to live. Thank you. Well, that made me happy. Thank you so much to all of the readers. Shizue, Tony, Kimmy, James, and finally Paul, who really got asked at the very last moment to do this as a whim, because so many people thought he was going to be here. Thank you to the San Francisco Public Library, the people who attend poetry readings, because wow. And this was a pretty big attendance to this one. Thank you so much. Thank you to all the people who keep saying the silly and slightly abusive thing that I should continue to be the poet. Laureate of San Francisco. I really do want to nap. Submit your nominations for whoever you think should be the person and continue to look at the poem of the day, because the poem of the day, man. Everybody's indulging me and there are some, there are some special guests coming up in the next week or so. So definitely keep an eyeball out for it. I love you all. Thank you so much for being here. Oh, you guys are awesome. Quick question, Shizue. I need to buy two books. How do I buy them? Um, you can go to, uh, the easiest thing I think is to go to right at the right now SF.com. And click on the books, um, uh, pull down menu and that'll take you to P's press. Got it. Thanks so much. I'll type it into the chat too. I want to mention that the library is planning to, uh, open up a kind of curbside service for checking out and returning books in August. And we do have some of Shizue's books, including endangered species. Also Kimmy's an earlier book by Kimmy. And of course, uh, James Cagney's Marvel, the steel magnolias. So you'll be able to check those out. And we have a ton of like hundreds of ebooks by poets, including recordings of poets reading their own works. Uh, so that's something else to explore, uh, in the digital collections. I just want to say that, um, that, uh, next month, we're hoping to have the po poets back. I know it's really quick, but things have changed dramatically. And I think their perspective on, uh, poetry and homeless communities is absolutely essential right now. So I feel like people will probably forgive me for having the back so soon. And then, uh, in September, it is my intention to, uh, have the, uh, some people from the Colossus home Colossus, uh, anthology, which is, um, Sarah Beale and, um, Carla Brundage have edited that and it looks really amazing.  And my focus for the near soon is basically to have, to feature, um, not collections of, of poets, but rather poets from. Collectives and collections that I think really support. Um, the community and, uh, the poetry community being a community, which we need to do right now. And if you look across the Vista of the people who showed up tonight and the people who generally show up to these kinds of things, I think we're doing pretty well with making sure that a real serious variety of people are being served by this. And I'm really happy about it. So thank you for being here. Thank you again. And honestly, John Smalley, you make my life so much easier. Paul Corman Roberts is basically my right hand. And I think everybody knows that. So we're not going to go into that too deeply because that gets awkward. And Mary G Roberts and you are sitting in my kitchen. I am upstairs directly from, from that woman. So anyway, everybody really delightful to see you. And I guess we're going to close this out now. Thank you. And this as well, who I don't see on my screen, but I'm sure it's here somewhere. Um, so, uh, if you are excited by that book, it looks like, um, Peace Press is linked in, in the chat. And I'm going to go have some water. Take care, everybody. Hi. Come out. Next month. Definitely come out next month. Thank you. Thanks everybody.


Just, just express our condolences to Virginia, the Madden family, the Raider family, the NFL family. You know, I personally, um, very, very, very sad and disappointed.  And he would, um, he'd always send text messages, um, of encouragement. And I found that to be, um, really refreshing, um, helped me personally, you know, after, after losses or things that you second guess. Um, I would also say that, um, something that was extremely important to him was the care that the former players received. And that was a huge mission of his, uh, through that subcommittee, was finding ways to, to make the game better, but safer, and also continue to take care of those former players because he loved his players. And that was evident in the way that they played for him. So, you know, hopefully, uh, we can, we can carry on that, that legacy that he had of trying to take care of, um, you know, those former players that he loved so dearly. Mike, with the changes in the, and the COVID protocols, do you do anything different, uh, maybe protect a quarterback or something as you go into these? Well, we're hopeful that, um, that what we have set up, you know, the setup that we have in the bubble and, and the distance. We're asking everybody to wear masks inside. And, um, and everybody's very conscious, um, of it. And we're very aware of what's going on. Appreciate everybody, uh, working together as a team from, from our training staff, our medical staff, our players, coaches, you know, just to try to do everything that, that's right for this football team.  Um, no, I mean, they're here, they're here in the building, but I mean, again, we've got ample space now.   And so we're, we're very conscious of, of making sure that everybody is, is more than adequately spaced out from your time with him. And then what have you thought about his, his teams and the way they play? Well, obviously B flow, you kind of know right away. And you try to reflect upon, you know, when you first come in contact with, with different people. And again, Jim, you've been in this league longer than I have or been around it and then everything comes full circle. And now, and, you know, B flow started as a, you know, a scouting assistant and, you know, and then he'd helped on special teams and, you know, so he was around, we knew him, he was young, he was smart, could recognize early on that he was going to have a bright future in coaching. And in his teams reflect, you know, a lot of those things that we learned when I was a player in New England. And he was, he was in a coach or in scouting there. So, you know, they, they rarely beat themselves. They're very good defensively. They're very good technique when you watch and you study the technique. Those are all things that, you know, we believe in here. Up to a, as a shorter guy that allows him to avoid getting balls batted down the line. I think one defensive lineman's batted down a ball. We've been trying to study it ourselves, Paul. And I think that he climbs the pocket. I think he is quick. And I think that our court, you know, our quarterback coach would call it twitchy. I think he's very twitchy to be able to redirect and he's got a quick release.   So, man, that was, that was my theory. I don't know if that's going to hold true, but we'll have to practice that, you know, where you're normally matching with the other hand as the ball's traveling through. But he does a really nice job of, of climbing the pocket and finding those throwing lanes. They're able to get so much pressure without having to blitz. What do you make of it? Well, they do blitz. They do indeed blitz. But, you know, they're, they're disruptive.   They're long, they're fast.   And, you know, they do a great job, obviously, in coverage with the guys they have. But, you know, with Howard and Jones out there, really just playing sound, square, physical, you know, it's, you know, we have to be careful when we throw it their direction. Your love for, for Ryan, the kind of toughness he embodies, as he faces his old team, I guess, how would you maybe assess the impact he's had on this franchise, on and off the field, since he's, since he kind of first arrived in. Well, I mean, I think the focus is on this week. The focus is on the dolphins that, you know, the reflection, you know, we want our, we want Ryan to be our quarterback for a long time. And so, you know, I know he's focused on this week. That's where my focus is. That's where our football team's focus has to be, is how are we going to, you know, be able to execute the keys and taking care of the football, you know, converting on third down, recognizing pressure, being able to pick up guys from all over the place. How are we going to be able to execute our first, second down offense? So, you know, that's what Ryan's focus is on, and that's where my focus is. Dane's skill set. So good when you guys go with those tight end packages and kind of how was that idea born, I guess? Well, I think Dane, when John and I evaluated Dane, you know, he was a big guy that played multiple positions in college, didn't stick at one for very long, probably out of necessity. He played nickel. He played boundary corner, you know, and we felt like, you know, he could be, you know, a good special teams player, a very good special teams player. He's fast, he was big, he's strong, and you know, wasn't afraid of contact, and you know, we've seen him, you know, do a nice job for us on special teams, and then the more that we wanted to try to give him a role and develop him more as a safety, then, you know, things happen, you know, the injuries have happened, and you know, so when he gets, when he's there and he's available, we just, you know, try to give him everything that he can handle, and that we felt like in those particular games, that was something that his skill set allowed for, and you know, it was a good role for him to execute. We'll see where it is this week. The dangerous weapon for them, other than the fact that you line them up all over the places of all the return game. Well, he, he's got explosive speed, so I think you have to honor that. I think he's a decisive route runner. I think that he adjusts to the ball well, you know, for somebody that isn't like, maybe the length of Giseki, you know, he can go, you know, from full speed to be able to throttle down and come back and try to make the quarterback right. I don't see him fighting the football at all. They ask a lot of them, you know, they move them around and week to week, so that's a credit to him to be able to study and to prepare and to get, you know, get lined up in different spots. I know how difficult that can be for any player, especially a young one. Let's kick the swarming into this new gear the last couple of weeks. I don't know.  Harold's played a lot of snaps. Jeff's played a lot of snaps, right? So, you know, maybe a combination of getting some guys back, a combination of being sure and understanding and actually seeing that this kind of does work, you know, I mean, instead of being an innocent bystander, we had some of those, some of those on, you know, Thursday, where you can't count on any one guy making a tackle in this league. These players are too good, too explosive, too strong with the football. So, you know, we have to continue to work that. We have to continue to preach it and show them, you know, what it looks like when it's done properly. And that's, that's just really how you, how you should play defensive football. Nick Juan Jones, that's kind of shown you what kind of impact he's been able to make over the last few games. The first thing is he plays hard. That was the first determining fact. That was his redeeming quality as he played hard.  And that's what he did. And so that gave him more opportunity. And then he started to work on technique and understanding of what was going on and just continued, you know, to improve. So that would be the first thing is that he ran to the ball. And that was what noticed, you know, got him noticed. Mike, on Monday, I think Flores said that when he started, I think as an assistant there in New England, that you almost coached him more than he was coaching you. How, what do you remember of that? Not much, but I know that that was, I'm sure, tongue in cheek. You know, Brian, Brian is very intelligent.   And I would say that, that B flow would be one of those guys that I would certainly trust and call a friend. Haven't been one of the defensive players that got the opportunity to catch touchdowns. What do you think of Christian Fulton? Excuse me, Wilkins and how they changed him. Yeah, I actually go back with Christian, you know what I mean? Was that his school and in high school? And so we've actually stayed in contact and he'll send me random texts, or I'll text him in the offseason, because, you know, he was recruiting defensive linemen for Ohio State. So, and he went to school outside of Boston and, you know, Connecticut. And he's very athletic, very athletic. And that doesn't surprise me at all that they ask him to do that role. He's really good. Transitioning in the pass rush inside. He can, he runs games. He can penetrate.  COVID list to practice tonight? Taylor, I'm sorry. Yeah, Taylor Lawan is back and expected to be at practice. About December football, and now we're reaching the two final games in the regular season, what have you liked the most out of the second half of the season? And considering you have had some guys back, it probably has made it a little bit easier. But just the rallying of this group just continues to have that mindset. I mean, I think they come in. I think that there's a consistency, you know, obviously there's, there's things that we have to take, you know, take care of the football.  But I think that there's been a resolve to really say, you know, we want to just now start our season, which we talked about a couple weeks ago, we're two and one at that point in time. I would imagine that David will, you know, try to get some work in. We'll see, you know, on a limited basis, I would imagine. Jeff's tide for the lead tackles amongst defensive linemen. What's that mean when a defensive lineman's getting to the ball? I think the first thing you try to ask those guys to do is to make the plays that they're supposed to make.  So I think that's the first thing that we want them to do, which he does. And then he runs the football, and he chases the football, and, you know, extremely hard. I think that that's something he takes pride in. But then he has 40, I think it's like 40 solo tackles. This seems like a high number for a defensive tackle. What is behind it? Is that... I think some of the technique, I really think some of the technique, you know, I think that, you know, there's no secret that there's going to be some holding that goes on on the interior of the offensive line. And so, which is fine, we all understand that. But when Jeff plays with technique, that gives him extension and separation and allows him to shed and not get grabbed or tied up as the running backs going through. So I think that's been the biggest thing in his, you know, just this season and what's something I've recognized. It hasn't been like he's played any harder.  And out of David Kessenberry this year for you guys at Wright-Tacklehouse, he kind of handled that spot. Well, he battles. He competes. He's been there ever, you know, his availability and durability.  But, you know, it's been, he's been very steady for us. And, you know, we've got to continue to find ways to help him against, you know, premier rushers. Can I just come off the COVID list? Are there extra conditioning things or that you have to monitor and make sure that they're past before they're activated or anything like that? Yeah, I mean, I think that that's our duty as a team, as a medical staff to make sure that it's not just five days and rolling out there. I mean, every case that, you know, I've seen is different somehow. So I think that we owe it to the players and that's what we always have done is to make sure that they're physically capable of going out there and doing their job and not just saying, well, you know, five days, go back out there. It was in Miami that long day and tonight. Nice to have how different, obviously, the situations. But do you have flashbacks, bad memories from that day? You just try to ignore that that day ever existed?


Hey guys, what is up? Welcome to my channel. For today's video, I am going to be talking about my top five mascaras for short and sparse eyelashes. Okay, I'm going to go through my eyelash journey with you and I'm going to share with you the best mascaras that I've just loved the look of on my eyelashes the most that I feel have really enhanced, lengthened, thickened my lashes. So if you also have short, straight, sparse lashes then just keep watching. Let me first address the fact that my lashes are in a much better place than they were a few years ago. Literally, I used to have nothing. Okay, I'll see if I can go back and make older videos and find out. I have actual visible lashes now because I've been using a lash serum for two years and I'm gonna talk about the lash serum that I use as well. Just know that I used to be in a worse place. So if your lashes are shorter and more sparse than mine, I completely understand. I hope you take my tips. I also have very, very straight lashes. I am half Asian. I did get them Asian lash jeans. It doesn't matter how many times I try and curl what I use. I can't keep a curl. I can't keep a curl if I use a waterproof mascara, but I hate picking off waterproof mascara. It takes so much rubbing of the eye that I just don't care. I wear falsies. So when you're watching my mascara demos today, I want you to pay attention to the lower lashes. That's where you're going to see the most transformation because my eyelashes are so straight. So use my lower lashes as a guide to see how the mascara works. So let's get into the lash serums. Like I said, I used to be working with nothing. I use a lash serum every evening and for the first time ever, I do have visible lashes. So for the last two years, I have been using a new lash. You can get this at Nordstrom and this is quite pricey. I'm not going to lie to you guys. This is not a cheap lash serum, but I've used it for a couple years. It's never irritated my eyes and it really does work. This is the reason that I have lashes. They do stop growing at a certain point.  But for somebody who was working with such short lashes, it really is amazing what this was able to make my eyelashes do. This is by the Branskin Research Laboratories. You can see the name here. So this works. You do have to use it every single night in order to see results. But just put it as a part of your skincare routine. It's really not that bad. You do start to see results. I would say within one month, but you can see the full results after three months. Now I did want to add this in. My mom right now is using Grande Lash by Grande Cosmetics. She went through a phase a few years ago where she used new lash, which is what I'm using now. She stopped the lashes, went back to normal, which is what happens no matter what lash serum you're using. If you're not applying it, your lashes will go back to their normal length. For the past few months, she's been using a Grande Lash and she just wants to let you all know that she swears this made her lashes grow longer than the new lash. So when I'm done with my stock of new lash, I'm going to be switching over to Grande because one, it is more affordable. It's still pricey, but it's more affordable and you can get a lot of value sets that they have. They just have better deals, you know? And two, it's much more accessible. Not that it's hard to get new lash because you can get it at Nordstrom, but it's only available at Nordstrom. I feel like the Grande Cosmetics stuff is a little bit more easily accessible. So I can't speak for Grande Cosmetics, but my mom swears it did a better job than new lash and it's more affordable, so I will be switching over. But yeah, if you're looking for a lash serum, they work. They personally don't irritate my eyes. They've been in changers as far as my eyelashes. With that all being said, let's get into the mascaras that I have. So I have a mixture of both high end and drugstore. I have been using the mascaras for my overlay shots for you these last three days. So let's start off with what I used a couple of days ago. These are both luxury mascara brands. So they're around the same price point. So the first one that I want to talk about is the Pat McGrath Fetish Eyes. In my demo, I used it on this eye. So let's take a look at the bristles right here. It is a fatter one, which can be a little bit difficult to work with, but I don't care because this is my favorite mascara that I use for volume. It is so black and it really packs onto my lashes. Now beware, I would say this is probably the clumpier of mascaras I have to talk about today, but I love it. It gives me great length, but it gives me even better volume and it really makes my lashes visible. And when my lashes were a lot tinier, I still loved this mascara. The one thing I will say about this mascara is that it does flake. This is the only mascara that I have today that flakes, but it makes my lashes look so good and so full that I don't even care, but just be aware of that. So if you're looking for that volume and for it to just build and build and give you some thick lashes, I think this is one that you are really going to enjoy. I've used this one for years. I like this better than the Dark Star mascara personally from Pat McGrath, though I do like the Dark Star mascara as well, but if you're looking for volume, I highly recommend this one. It just, it looks so good. Okay, the next mascara that I have, I've never really heard anybody talk about, but it is great for a combination of volume and length, leaning more towards length being the strength, but both are good. So this is by Giorgio Armani or Armani Beauty. This is the Eyes to Kill mascara. So first of all, I like this a little bit better than the Pat McGrath because the applicator is thinner, which makes it a little bit easier to apply on shorter sparser lashes. It also provides greater length, I would say, than the Pat McGrath and also separates a little bit more. So I look like I have more eyelashes when I wear this mascara as opposed to the volume that the Pat McGrath gives me. It's a little bit more of a cleaner everyday mascara that gives me that length. I use Pat McGrath for volume. I'm not saying the Armani is better, but for day to day I do prefer this because it's not going to flake and it gives me a little bit more length and separation in my lashes. But it just depends what kind of look that you're going for, but this I discovered this year and I really have been loving it. Never heard anybody talk about it. I got it in a random PR package and I just love the way that this treats my lashes and makes it look. And you guys can see in the demo. The next mascara that I have to share with you is one that I actually didn't like at first, but now I love it. This is the Thrive Cosmetics Liquid Lash Extensions Mascara. So this is different than all of the other mascaras that I'm going to talk about today. So you can see the wand. It's a really like spiky wand and there aren't two very long bristles. It's quite different, but the formulation of this mascara, it's not normal. It's a tubing mascara.  But you cannot remove this with a regular makeup remover. It needs to be with water. So you can do this in the shower or in the sink when you wash your face at night. If you get water on your eyes, the mascara is literally going to come off in that tube shape. So it's going to look and feel like you're pulling your eyelashes off.  It's just that tube that it created around it. So it's really unique in that aspect. And at first, I didn't really like what this did to my lashes. It's not going to give you much volume, but it does give you really great length and separation. And this is my everyday mascara. So even in the demo, I was wearing my no makeup makeup look because I just wanted to look better, you know, more fresh and awake. This is the mascara that I go for for my everyday no makeup makeup look because you don't need to put in much effort in the removal of your makeup. It's a pain to me when I just want to throw something onto even my complexion and a little bit of mascara to open up my eyes and define them a bit. But I don't want to go through the process of scrubbing my eyes to get that mascara off. And that's when I use this. This way, you know what?  And then I can just go in the sink when I wash my face. And this comes off with water. It's just a lot simpler. You don't need to tug at the eyes. And this gives great length to the lashes. I wouldn't say this is, I don't know, there's no volume to it at all. But it gives your lashes so much length. It looks really great. If you're looking for length, this is the one that you are going to go for. And it's just so easy to take off, which I love and makes me want to use it very, very often. All right, we're going to move on to the final two mascaras, which I'm wearing on both eyes, which ones which I do you think looks better this side or this side. So both of these are quite affordable. They are my two favorite drugstore mascaras, and they are great. So this first one I'm going to talk about is the most popular mascara probably. This is the Essence Lash Princess. I have mine from a Disney collection, but it needs to be the green one. This is probably my all time favorite mascara of this entire video. This is my number one in terms of how it makes my lashes look. It gives me length and separation with a touch of volume as well. The bristles, let me show you what the wand looks like. So the wand looks like this. It's not too big. It's not too fat, very simple to use. And I feel like it just gives me really great length and separation. You can see every individual lower lash. I guess that I don't pay attention to how it makes my upper lashes look just because they're so straight, nobody's going to see them anyway, but it makes my lower lashes look phenomenal. Number one mascara that I recommend and it's so popular for a good reason, you know, that one is not overhyped in my opinion. Okay, the last mascara that I have to talk about, it's on this eye. This one reminds me a lot of a mixture of like the Pat McGrath and the Armani Eyes to Kill mascara in one. It does great with volume and it does great with length. It's that perfect in between. So this is by Maybelline. This is the Falsies Lash Lift mascara. The only downfall I would say about this is I do feel like the wand is a bit too big for my eyelash size. So I do have to be very careful when applying it. However, I love the way that this mascara builds and you can see compared to the lash princess, which I'm sorry, this has to go side by side with the best mascara. So the best mascara is just better. But compared to the lash princess, it does give more volume. It's not quite as separating or lengthening. But this one is going to give you that volume that you need. And I went pretty sparingly with my coats on this just because I knew the lash princess was going to outshine it so much. But this can get a little clumpy. But in a good way, not a bad clumpy. You don't want to apply too, too, too much of it. But you can build it up for that extra volume. This one, they say it's like a lash lifter. I want you to see it does kind of have more of a lifted appearance from the curl compared to the lash princess. So it also does a better job of holding a curl. Not really, but it still keeps that lift, which is really good considering no mascara does that. So it's also great on holding a curl kind of just keeping my eye open. But there I have it, you guys. Those are my top five mascaras. I know this is a very niche kind of video. But I mean, I'm here to help y'all out. All my fellow girls who have these short spar slashes definitely give these five a try. I think you will really like it. If you don't like the mascaras at first, give it some time because some of these take a bit to dry out just a little bit and then they'll work better and they won't be so heavy on the lash and they'll build better. So give it some time for each mascara that you try out. I will have all of them linked down below for you guys as well as the lash serums. So I hope you guys enjoyed this video and you found it helpful. If you aren't subscribed to my channel already, I would love it if you would consider taking the time to do so and I will see you all in the next one. Bye guys. Have a good one.