Turn To Your Art

When I was pregnant, I gave up my daily practice of formal meditation because I had morning sickness so bad and for so long, that I could barely make it off of the couch to use the bathroom, let alone sit before my altar. My husband reassured me that my spirituality would adapt and evolve along with me as I grew into my new role as a mother, and he suggested I try giving up my fantasy of flying off on the wings of a Goddess for a more Zen-like form of spirituality, finding moments of connection “on the fly” from then on. He was right. I haven’t managed to make it back to the meditation altar. My meditation at this point in my life is getting up at 5 a.m. to watch the news and drink two cups of coffee before everybody else wakes up and grabs on to me before I can.

My relationship to my art (which is also part of my spiritual practice, as it is with most artists), has had to adapt to my changing identity, too. I may not always paint, draw, or write on a daily basis, but I do create lots and lots of things (all the time), some of them obvious and tangible, some not. All mothers and teachers do this.

As a child, my art saved me. I escaped the pain and uncertainty of my home life by recreating my own happy world, one that I could escape to, to avoid the real life I had been born in to. When I drew, painted, crafted, or wrote, I was the master of my own universe, and I was in control. I credit my talent and the ways that I expressed myself for getting me through my very difficult childhood. I came out of it with only a few scars, not nearly as many, I believe, as I would have, had it not been for my art and a safe place to go. Creating a safe and healthy place to express one’s self is another important reason why I advocate for the arts in schools, but I don’t talk too much about that publicly because it isn’t appropriate. The adults in charge are preoccupied with money, time, and their own careers. To talk about a child’s soul is pointless because the Status Quo knows nothing about such things, for it has no soul. Even though I don’t talk about children’s souls when I argue for the arts publicly, they are in my heart and mind. Protecting them is what gives me the will to keep up the good fight, even now, in the face of soullessness in Los Angeles. I rely on my creativity to lead effectively, and I rely on my creativity to keep me happy and sane while leading, raising my kids, and trying to survive in L.A.

I have always made money on the side by doing all sorts of freelance work. When I was younger, I was a sign painter, illustrator, a draftsperson, a cartoonist, calligrapher, and painter. When desk top publishing came along, I created a small, monthly magazine which helped me develop new skills; publishing, marketing and selling advertising. At the age of 25, during a deep, meditative moment, I realized that it was time for me to leave my home in Colorado, to see if I could make it as an artist in Los Angeles. I knew that if I didn’t go then, I might never go, for the timing was right - I was young, single, and fearless. I packed my clothes, dog, and art supplies and headed off to California. I had about $400 in my pocket, and no job, but I didn’t care. I was determined to give it my best shot. If I failed, I could always go back to Colorado, satisfied in the knowing that I had tried, when some exceptionally talented, funny and smart people in my family never did. Close members in my family were just as talented as I was, but they withered up and collapsed in on themselves, which scared me to death. I didn’t want to end up like any of them.

Soon after I got to L.A., I got a job as marketing manager for Denecke, Inc. Mike Denecke, owner, had invented the TS-1 Time Code Slate (the electronic clapper board that is regularly used and shown in videos, commercials, etc.), amongst other post production products used in film, video and recording studios. I created a comic strip called, “Father Time” (a caricature of Mike and an entourage of behind-the-scene characters who don’t get enough credit for being part of the team that produces successful shows and helps make stars). The strip was used to market Denecke products. Mike had a huge impact on me. He was raised by professional, classical musicians (his mother was a flautist in a symphony in Minnesota, and his father, the conductor). He would speak highly of his parents, especially his mom, who encouraged him as a child to go for his dreams, and reminded him that everybody is born with a gift, he just needed to find out what that was. He did. He became a classically trained guitarist (having studied with Andres Segovia), a sound engineer and an inventor. Mike believed in me and encouraged my talent. As an artist himself, he knew how important it was to give me, and his other employees, space. He trusted us. He was a great “boss”. I strive to show the same sort of confidence and appreciation for the talented people I have chosen to hire over the years. I worked for Mike for seven years, developing a line of comic books, calendars, ads, t-shirts, mugs, etc. I only left so I could care for my newborn son. A few years later, Mike died of a heart attack. I like to think I’m having one of those Zen-like, “fly by” moments whenever “Dancing in the Moonlight” by King Harvest comes on the radio. Mike recorded that song in a hotel room in Paris in the early seventies. I get to say “Hi Mike!” whenever I hear that song.

As I look back at my creative career over the past 30 years, I see that the most prolific times in my life have always been when I was the most stressed, or was at some sort of impasse. Becoming a mother was a life changing experience for me, as it is for all women, and I was fearful that I would abandon my own dreams and goals for a life lived in service to others. I chose to be a wife and mother, and I wanted to stay home with my son, but I didn’t want to lose myself in that. So I threw myself into my cartooning. Painting would have to wait because having toxic, messy, permanent paints around with a baby in the house was not something I wanted to deal with. So I chose to put all of my energy into my cartooning because it was clean, easy, and I could be interrupted, a lot. Anyone who has stayed home with babies and toddlers knows what that means. You can’t complete a thought, let alone finish an involved creative project. While my baby slept, I cranked out a couple of new strips and went about the business of self syndication. I created a line of greeting cards and calendars. I was determined to keep my own art alive, and thus keep my own self alive, in my new role as wife and mother. As my son grew, I became more and more interested in teaching art to young children, so I started doing that. I really, really loved it, because I love preschool aged children. They’re a kick and I get to be a big goof when I’m with them. At the same time, my father in law had come to live with us because his health was failing. The added stress of caring for an aging, depressed family member put a lot of extra pressure on me. To get through it, and to mitigate the guilt I suffered due to the resentment I had towards an innocent loved one who needed my help, I turned to my art. I had the old shed in our backyard converted into a studio for myself and proceeded to throw myself into painting landscapes of the San Fernando Valley. By this time, my son didn’t need my constant supervision, which meant I could break out those messy, toxic paints. My studio, and my art, gave me a place of my own. I painted over 40 canvases. It made me feel better. I also opened my studio up to teach more art classes. Teaching art turned into full blown activism after my son entered public school at the age of five. I was outraged by the lack of arts education in schools, so I channeled all of my creative energies into starting and running a nonprofit organization that gets the arts back into schools. Another crisis! I took it on, head on, and have managed to lead it over the past eleven years in the most creative fashion I know how, even now, during one of the most devastating financial periods in our nation’s history.

The economic crisis has put us all into crisis, and I have once again turned to my art. I have had my heart broken by what has happened to my country, my state, my city, and the school system that I have worked so hard to improve. The greed, lack of heart and conscience, and hypocrisy that surrounds me just seems to be getting worse. The wide spread anger, disgust, and apathy is really getting to me. I am pissed. I feel so defeated by forces outside of my control.

So, just like when I was a kid, I am once again an innocent victim of circumstance, and have turned to my art to get through it. I distract myself by being constructive. I have thrown myself into my own work, painting, cartooning, and writing like never before. Through painting, I can really be alone with myself – getting away from “them”, so I can release my anger, frustration, and fear through the process of creating. Through my cartooning and writing, I can say things that I haven’t been able to say as a nonprofit leader, PTA president, or woman with kids in tow. My art is freeing me. I love it. I’m excited. I’m as happy as I would ever hope to be, all things considered, and I have a lot to show for myself.

Trying to save the arts for others has turned me to my own art, so I can save myself. Fellow artists: Turn to your art.

To Sirs, With Love

It’s been over thirty years since I last played my alto saxophone. That was when I was a teenager, playing in the school band. I had played consistently for eight years throughout my public schooling in Colorado. I was pretty good, and I will always be grateful for the many opportunities that playing music afforded me, even though I didn’t pursue a career in music. I grew up to be a visual artist and an arts education activist. I started a nonprofit organization in southern California to give kids the same arts education experiences that I had growing up.

We raise money and donate music programs to low income elementary schools. We buy the instruments and pay for the weekly instruction during the school day. Our graduating fifth graders move on to middle school with the ability to read and play music (unheard of in the Los Angeles Unified School District today). For existing middle and high school music departments, we raise the funds necessary to purchase much needed materials as well as offer assistance towards the costs of competitions and other expenses. We also produce a number of different arts festivals.

A couple of years ago we created a Battle of the Bands for middle schools as a fun competition to win cash prizes. It also gave teen rock bands the opportunity to get more public exposure, as well as give parents a chance to meet different music suppliers and program providers in an exhibition area. As the RSVPs started to come in from different band directors, and as we got to know more and more teachers through the production process, my own memories of playing in such festivals and competitions started to come back to me. I realized, on a much deeper level, just how lucky I was to not only have had such music programs offered to me in the schools I attended, but that I had the best music teachers around. I appreciated them as much as any kid could at the time, but now, as an adult with over eleven years experience of running an arts education nonprofit against all odds (dealing with the bureaucracy of the LAUSD and steering a public charity through the high seas of the recession), and getting to know more art and music teachers who are dealing with the same challenges, I have grown to appreciate my former band teachers all the more.

We invited every single public middle school teacher to participate in our Battle of the Bands. About half of them declined, not wanting to give up a day on a weekend to do it. The rest of the teachers accepted our offer happily, which insured that our festival would be a rewarding and successful event. The school bands that won reminded me of my former school bands. We seemed to win everything. We won because we were good, but how good could we have been were it not for great teachers?. After the festival, I reflected more on how fortunate I was to have had such incredible support and guidance. I wanted to find my old band teachers and thank them.

I will never forget C.J. Shibly from Isaac Newton Junior High School, or Ross McClure from Evergreen Junior High School. Because of them, I got to be in a marching band, a concert band, and a jazz band in junior high school. We played in parades and performed at school sporting events. For three years at Evergreen High School, I had the good fortune of having Jim Stranahan as my teacher. He was straight out of college - young, energetic, and very, very optimistic. He was cool. He was also an incredibly talented musician in his own right. In the three years that I played in his bands, we cut two albums (one in a studio and the other live at a national competition in Miami, Florida). We played every competition he could get us in to. He even got us gigs playing private parties (one was a gig at McNichols Sports arena for a pro basketball game). All of those weekends and evenings…..he gave up a lot of his own time (and money, I’m sure) for us.

I started searching for my old band teachers so I could let them know how much I appreciated what they had done for me as a teen. I decided to look my former band mates up, too, to see if any of them had pursued careers in music. I found some: Doug Jackson went on to play guitar for well known rock bands like Iron Butterfly, Kenny Loggins, and Ambrosia. Our pianist, Willie Hammond, is a working musician in Boulder, Colorado, and Nate Birkey is a successful trumpet player with his own jazz quartet in New York City. We were just ordinary kids, going to public school. We took the music classes that were offered to us. What would have become of Doug, Willie, Nate and me if we hadn’t had those music classes and those incredible music teachers?

As a parent myself, I argue that music education is vital and necessary, not just because it improves academic scores and keeps kids in school, but because no education is complete without it. Every kid should know how to read and play music, whether they grow up to be musicians or not. The experiences and rewards derived from playing in school orchestras and bands last a lifetime. If I hadn’t taken band for eight years, I may never have met my best friend, Greg Ruland, or traveled to Florida, or set foot in a recording studio, or had a chance to really listen to others, or take so many risks by working through stage fright, putting myself out there so I could bust through my own teen fears when it was my turn to play a solo. I would have been denied the opportunity to honor my deceased father by playing on his silver plated sax, or to give my grandfather (a retired jazz musician) a reason to be proud of me. On top of all that, I would have missed out on the rare opportunity of having an adult outsider validate and show concern for the problems I was having at home. My family had been torn apart by divorce, death and alcoholism. Very few adults dared get involved, even my own family members. Most of them looked the other way. Jim Stranahan did not. He couldn’t fix anything for me, but he could let me know that he could see me, and that he cared. I’ll never forget the day he took me aside to ask me if anything was wrong. I told him. My secret was out. Nobody else had ever done that for me before. He was a true artist, connecting to me and all of his students, not just through music and his training as a teacher, but through his own heart.

I never did find C.J., Ross or Jim. I presume they are all retired from teaching now. I hope they’re all happy, healthy, and playing music. Wherever you are: Thank You.

In Honor of Pay it Forward Day, I took a new mom out for coffee and filled her in on how to play the Magnet Game

As is the tradition with all reluctant public school moms in Los Angeles, we share information with each other about schools – turning each other on to great schools with open enrollment, charter schools, private schools, home school programs, work permits, how to sneak in to public schools in the better zip codes of the San Fernando Valley, and how to navigate the magnet school point system.

Magnet schools started over 30 years ago in response to the mandatory busing that was imposed on students to integrate racial populations and give kids from lower performing public schools a chance to get a better education by busing them to better schools. The magnets were created as an alternative to mandatory busing, as a voluntary integration program to promote desegregation.

The magnet school student bodies are based on racial quotas. The schools have to maintain a certain ratio of all races. The students are selected through a lottery system. Some magnets specialize in a specific academic area or are arts based. They tend to attract students who perform well in school (scoring better in English and Math), and have higher attendance and graduation rates, with very low drop out rates. This is due, in great part, to their parents placing a high value on education and seeking out these magnet schools. They are persistent and savvy enough to work through the complicated system. Generally, magnet schools have a great deal of parental support. They also attract new teaching methods, exceptional teachers (gifted schools offer extra training for their teachers), and special curriculums. They have safer campuses and are more racially diverse. There are 169 magnet schools and centers in Los Angeles. If you live outside of a two mile radius of a magnet elementary school, the school district will provide free transportation (three miles for middle and high schools).

The LAUSD established magnet schools in 1976 to help prevent racial isolation in the school system in order to comply with the California Supreme Court's order to voluntarily integrate. Some magnets are school wide, and some are a schools within existing schools, led by a magnet coordinator. Originally, magnets were designed to combat low academic achievement, low self-esteem, lack of access to college opportunities, interracial hostility and intolerance, and overcrowded schools.

Thirty years ago, the racial demographics of LAUSD were quite different, and the courts intervened to make education fairer for minority groups. Today, the demographics have changed dramatically. Only 9% of the student population in LAUSD is white. The demographics have changed, but the model has not. Names are still drawn in a lottery based on race. Parents still seek this alternative out, but not because they want to avoid forced busing, but because they want to escape their low performing neighborhood schools. Magnets have been the most attractive alternative to the average LAUSD school (charter schools are gaining in popularity now, too). The magnet system has gone from being a system that once promoted fairness amongst the races, to being an unfair public school alternative, privy to the savviest of parents. The racial demographics may be even and balanced, but the system is anything but fair. The only kids who attend magnet schools are kids who come from households that place a very high value on education. Parents who are unaware or uninvolved prevent hundreds of thousands of children from being able to take advantage of the magnet system.

Now, thirty years later, the United States Supreme Court has pondered whether magnets in other states are violating the Constitution by making enrollment decisions based on skin color. This could mean that LAUSD’s magnet program could be at risk. Those who don’t get in may one day fight the system as not being constitutional. Until then, it’s every Angeleno for himself. After spending two hours with my new mom friend, going over the Magnet Game, I set her loose with a checklist for the day (she took the day off from work to deal with this BS): first she was go to the highly gifted magnet middle school to inquire on their admission policies, then she was to walk in to a certain, really great elementary school in a very desirable part of the Valley to find out if she can enroll her two children on a work permit (she works two blocks from the school). After that, she walked in to another school near her work, just to make sure she covered all her bases, and then, based upon the plan that emerged from talking to these three schools directly, she bubbled in the proper magnet selections in her Choices brochure, slipped them in the mailbox, crossed her fingers, and said a prayer.

It’s That Time of Year Again: Magnet Mania for L.A. Moms (Better Known as “What the Hell Are We Going To Do For Middle School?”)

Tis the season: the Choices brochures have gone out and Los Angeles moms are confronted, as they are every year at this time, with whether or not they want to try and get their kids into a magnet school via the annual lottery system known as “Choices”.

My own experience with Magnet Mania started before my first child entered kindergarten thirteen years ago. On the advice of several of my mom friends with older kids, I was encouraged to apply to the only magnet school in the Valley that had a kindergarten, not because it’s a great school and I would want my son to go there, but because I would hope that he WOULDN’T get in. The neurotic strategy? The more parents who do it, the more we all increase our chances of our kids not getting in, giving them extra points each year that their names don’t get drawn. The points pile up over the years, giving your child an advantage when you want them to get into the magnet middle school you want, many years in the future. Every time you apply and don’t get in, you are awarded four more magnet points. The object of the game is to have as many points as possible when you go ahead and apply for middle school. Since our neighborhood school is a PHBAO (Predominantly Hispanic, Black, Asian, and Other Non-Anglo) school, that gives my kids an automatic four extra points, which means, if they don’t get their name drawn before I want them to, then they’ll be WAY AHEAD of the other kids when it comes time to try and get them into the school we really want. Confused? You should be. It is CONFUSING!

All of us savvy moms are hip to how all of this works, giving each other pointers on points, so we can keep playing this confusing game, most of us reluctantly, because it’s our only hope for escape – escape from the dreaded Los Angeles neighborhood middle school.

I was playing the magnet game, like I was instructed to, for four years, with my eye on the one school most of us savvy moms want our kids to go to – the one where your kid can attend school with the same kids from fourth to twelfth grade (which, by the way, is four blocks away from our house, but it is not open to any neighborhood kids, because it is an exclusive magnet school attracting kids from all over the Los Angeles area, many of whom get up at 4 a.m. to ride the bus for a couple of hours to get to that school.) I have talked about this insane system from time to time to my husband over the years, and he does what most men who have been married a long time do: fake interest and pretend to listen. So when the magnet school I hoped my son WOULD NOT get in to called a few days before the first day of third grade to say that a spot had opened up for him, my husband, who was the only one home at the time, exclaimed, “Great! My wife will be so happy!”, not knowing which magnet was which, accepting the spot. When I got home, he shared the good news. I was anything but happy. All of those years of playing the Magnet Mania Game. All of those accumulated points……wasted! If you don’t accept the open spot, you lose ALL of your points. And if you do accept the spot, but don't enroll, you still lose all of your points.

So when it came time for my second child to play the magnet game, I had two extra advantages: my own past experience, and my daughter's stellar test scores. That means she has a special folder with a prestigious label, with a guaranteed spot on the fast track, if we choose to put her on it. After two years of applying to the number one elementary magnet school in LAUSD, my daughter got in. Phew.

But she, and all of the other kids attending this outstanding school, would not have gotten in, were it not for the anxious efforts of their savvy moms. If your mom doesn’t play the game, you can’t get in. The first year I applied to this school, I had to drive all over the Valley to various public libraries during the winter break, to find a Choices brochure, because I never got one in the mail. I finally found one, but it was the Spanish version. That was a problem because I don’t speak Spanish. So I had to go figure out what it said so I could fill it out properly. What ethnicity should I check? She’s Chinese but my husband and I are Caucasian. Magnet Maniacs recommended “Caucasian” because fewer Caucasians are applying, and we could justify it because we’re Caucasian. Magnets need more white kids for their “Caucasian quotas.” Better not take any chances, I thought, so I checked Asian. I got it filled out and out into the mail by the deadline, without knowing Spanish. Pretty savvy of me.

The rejection letter came a couple of months later, in Spanish. I had it translated, to make sure it was a rejection letter, not an acceptance letter. I double checked the translation by calling downtown to talk to a live person at the Student Integration Services. I didn't want to take a chance on blowing it and losing any points, because of the language barrier. I also wanted to request that my daughter’s language status be changed to “English” so she would be in the correct data base. After dealing with the school district for 13 years, I have grown to expect a 50/50 success ratio when dealing with district employees, since accuracy, consistency and professionalism in LAUSD is anything but the norm. If you call downtown and ask three different people the same question, you’ll usually get three different answers. So I had to be ready. I even prepared myself for my daughter being known from now on as a Spanish speaking Caucasian from Cambodia. I’d have to wait a year to find out if they got it right, when the Choices brochure arrived in English (if ever.) It did. Another phew.

Miracle of miracles: my daughter ended up getting into the top elementary magnet school in LAUSD. There were 24 open spots and she got one of them. Phew again! It really is a great school. She’s a very, very lucky girl. I can relax about middle school! PHEW!!!!!

You see, many of us savvy LAUSD moms opt for magnets for elementary school because we’re really worried about middle school. That’s right - middle school. If you can get your kid into a magnet, any magnet, in elementary school, then chances are very, very good that she will get into a middle school magnet as well. Middle school is the scariest time for us L.A. moms. Savvy moms do not wait until fifth grade to decide what to do about sixth grade. They start freaking out before kindergarten.

Does all of this sound ridiculous, absurd and confusing? It is. But that’s LAUSD: ridiculous, absurd, and confusing. And unfair. May the best savvy mom win.

Jealous at Thanksgiving

My husband, David, is the patriarch of the family. Ready for it or not, he inherited the position several years ago when the last of the elders passed away. So now he is an Elder. My husband – the old hippy, who came of age in L.A. in the sixties, who took EST training back in the day, who saw Cream, Jimi Hendrix and Jefferson Airplane, over and over again, in an altered state… is the new Patriarch, along with his sisters and cousins, who also came of age in L.A. around the same time. They are the new Elders? How weird is that? The children of the sixties are in their sixties now, man.

So now, at our family get togethers, instead of hearing old stories from the former Elders of characters who lived in a time, and in a land that few at the table had any recollection of, the conversation has turned to another time…….and a very different past. And, they’re talking about a new present – the New Elders are all sharing about the latest concerts they have gone to. They’re back in the saddle again! Why? Because they now have expendable income, time, and more importantly, energy. Their kids are all grown!

But not us. Our kids are the youngest of this generation. Our second child is still quite young so she requires a lot of time, attention and energy, which is exhausting for me, because even though I’m the youngest of the new group of elders, I’m tired. I go to bed right after my daughter does, because I’m pretty wiped out from being the mom of an eight year old, amongst the many other things that I cram into my days (which includes inspiring young people to play music!). I get up early, BEFORE her, so I can ready myself for the day ahead.

I’d love to be going to concerts right now. I’m a rock and roll mom. But I’m tired! And broke. I’m asleep by the time any show starts. We’re not going to concerts again, or the theatre, or any other high ticketed events for grown ups. Not yet.

Thanksgiving is coming up. Which means I’ll get to hear all about the shows that the other elders have seen since Passover. I’ll try to be thankful. But I’ll also be jealous. Time to plug in a Tom Petty CD and take a nap…….

November 2nd Won't Come Soon Enough For Me

Election day is three days away and I am really looking forward to it, not because I’m eager to cast my vote as a responsible member of a democratic society, but because I want to GET IT OVER WITH. This has been the sleaziest, longest, most obnoxious and painful election cycle I have ever seen. The only thing on the ballot that makes any sense to me here in California is Prop 19 (which will make it easier to legalize marijuana), and I don’t even smoke pot!

I started paying better attention to politics when Bill Clinton became president. For the first time in my life, I felt like our president was my president, for he was a regular guy, born of regular people, from a regular place. Prior to that, I had always seen our elected officials as privileged people, separate from me, who couldn’t be trusted. I became much more interested in what happened in Washington. Bill Clinton made me feel like the common man would finally be taken care of, because he was a common man. I was genuinely shocked by how much his enemies HATED him, and how much time and money was wasted on trying to destroy him, by going after him for such ridiculous, personal things. That confirmed for me what I had already believed about politics - that it wasn’t about representing the people’s best interests, or about governing at all. It was all about power, money and greed. There really is no place for the common man in politics, except on election day, after we are forced to have to endure months of sleazy TV and radio ads, full mailboxes of fliers printed on tons of wasted paper, carrying unread political messages and attacks, wasted space on our answering machines of ridiculous automated messages, over exposure on the news, conflicting polls, and long winded talking heads and political pundits who, like the candidates, never seem to shut up.

After I became a mother, I started paying much closer attention to politics, at the national, state and local levels. I did it for my kids. I decided to no longer keep myself in the dark out of disgust, but to get involved, because I wanted a better world for my kids. By paying better attention, however, I had to open myself up to the ridiculous claims and promises made by candidates. They all say the same thing, every two years, and then never make good on their promises, once elected. It never changes. Everybody claims to care about education and children. This really angers me, because if they all cared as much as they said they did, we wouldn’t keep hearing the same thing every two years, for they’d be making different promises. It’s insulting to me as a voter, because I’m not as stupid as they think I am. That’s what the Status Quo counts on – keeping us stupid and afraid, so it can keep functioning as it always has. But when we give in to our apathy, we play into the Status Quo’s strategy to manipulate the masses, proving Bill Maher right: Americans are too stupid to be governed.

The Status Quo counts on intelligent voters to be so disgusted that they won’t even bother voting. The dumber ones, who are much easier to scare and control, always show up. Sometimes I can’t help but wonder if public education is a disaster in this country, not because the problems are so insurmountable and complicated, but because that’s the way the Ruling Elite wants it. The masses are much easier to control if they’re uneducated and preoccupied with their own survival. One of the many reasons why I fight so hard for arts education is because the arts teach kids how to think for themselves, question authority, and reach outside of the box for ideas and solutions to problems - traits that are not at all encouraged by institutions that want to maintain a hold over the masses. So is it any wonder, then, that without the arts in schools, mandatory scripted curriculum and standardized tests, and medications like Ridalin, that kids are so much easier to control?

I’ll be voting on November 2. I won’t stay home in disgust. I’ll show up, but it won’t come soon enough for me.

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?

The Women’s Conference started today at the Long Beach Convention Center, and First Lady Maria Shriver lined up the biggest and brightest stars to help her wrap up her final year as host for this annual event for women. As much as I admire and respect Maria, both for her work with this conference and for her efforts to raise awareness for Alzheimer's and other causes, and as much as I admire many of her friends and colleagues who spoke at this conference, I can’t help but think, as I watch the news coverage of the conference, of the many, many amazing nonprofit leaders who I know here personally in Los Angeles who are doing incredible work, without endowments, fortunes, or the political, family and celebrity connections that Maria Shriver has. They are all small miracle workers, and they’re doing amazing things with meager resources, without any help from celebrities, politicians, or millionaires. It’s a tragedy that some of them have had to close their doors because foundations, corporations and individuals aren’t giving to charity now. The recession is hurting all of us, but it’s hurting the most vulnerable amongst us the most of all. The privileged in this country may sympathize, but they will never empathize. They have no idea what it’s like to live so close to the edge. While they’re waiting for their bottom lines to come back up to pre-recession levels so they can start “giving again”, people are going bankrupt, getting sick, or dying. Their bottom line is basic survival.

All Maria has to do is make a few phone calls and she can get hundreds of celebrities to show up to a charity event. And she can actually get the media to come out and cover her charity events, even small ones. No one I know has had that sort of pull with the media, celebrities, or politicians. In fact, most nonprofits can not afford to hire celebrities to endorse their causes, because stars make these appearances for a fee.

Maria Shriver, even though she and her family have done a lot for the common man, have no idea what it’s like to actually be one. She doesn’t send her kids to public schools. She has never been broke or alone. And while she has made many a phone call on behalf of the common man, she, just like the rest of the privileged class, is anything but common.

Two years ago, about a dozen of us commoners, known as the Burning Moms, crashed The Women’s Conference to protest that public education wasn’t on the agenda (but beauty tips and how to improve your love life were). We showed up in our pajamas and slippers (to show how tired us moms were from killing ourselves from fundraising for our kids' schools) with a long banner that read, “Public Education is a Women’s Issue”. The cops kicked us to the curb, literally, and made us leave the front steps of the convention center because it wasn’t a “Free Speech Zone”. We were forced down on to the street, where a local news team was parked. We thought that might be a lucky break for us, but they took no interest in our cause.

The Burning Moms started four years ago when local writer/performer/NPR personality/public school parent Sandra Tsing Loh organized a three day camp out and three hour demonstration at our state capitol in Sacramento to protest the cuts to public education. She got a bunch of us activist moms and their kids together to organize a protest rally. My job was to do arts and crafts activities with the kids, and have them design all of the signs for the demonstration. We had live music, barnyard dancing, street theatre, a kazoo band, and a few speeches. We sold home made brownies for $250 each to show that bake sale prices are going to have to go way up in order for us to cover the cuts to education.

At a private lunch with former Governor Gray Davis, Sandra and I learned that these demonstrations happen every day at the capitol, and legislators have grown immune to them. You have to be very, very creative to get noticed. So we got creative, with street theatre, music and messages from real, live kids. After the rally, we took our kids up to our legislators’ offices to lobby them. Our kids got to tell them how they felt about being short changed by the cuts to education. It was an incredible learning experience for our kids. Did anyone listen? No. Because we couldn’t get any big names to take an interest in us. And we didn’t have any money......or media attention.

So how do you solve a problem like Maria? Are money, connections, family name, Hollywood insiders, knowing powerful people, and being in the political know how the only way to get ahead in this country? Can positive, sustainable, long lasting change be made without it?

Ask a small nonprofit leader.