Macho creeps and other zen masters

Last night Cris and I went to see an entertaining play written by a local author, a comedy that looks at the authorship of Shakespeare's plays. The play suggests that Shakespeare himself was merely a front, or beard -- thus the title "The Beard of Avon," yuk yuk -- for several different people in Queen Elizabeth's court, contributing only the odd poetic figure or monologue here and there.

That was fun, and light, and pretty well done. Outside it was raining and blustery, and this morning is gloriously clear and cold. I'm still getting up every morning at 5:25 and going over to the zen center in the Castro. They are friendly and encouraging. Today they gave me a copy of "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind," the classic collection of lectures by the Japanese guy who founded all the zen centers in northern California. It's one of those relics of the 60s that eveyrone in California reads sooner or later; the phrase "beginner's mind" has crept into the lexicon. I remember a dance teacher criticizing me in 1982 telling me I should "have more 'beginner's mind,'" and I didn't know what he was talking about. I really resented him saying that because his statement typified the kind of Californian arrogance that assumes everyone had read certain key alternative-movement texts. I suppose everyone had; but I only arrived in 1979, and I totally resisted all that shit at the time. I didn't want to be a hippie.

I'm also reading a collection of interviews of San Francisco poets of the Beat movement. It's interesting how many of these poets, who generally arrived in California in the 1940s or early 50s, became involved in zen.

I suppose that's all I'm going to notice for a few months. It's like when you buy a motorcycle and start riding it -- for several weeks you notice how many other motorcycles there are, and you feel like you're part of a big movement, when it's really just your perceptions that changed.

The Diane DiPrima interview is great -- she talks about how women were totally treated like beasts of burden by the macho male poets, who acted just like the macho men who were doing abstract expressionism. And there's plenty of evidence of that throughout the book, in interviews of people like Lew Welch. Even Gary Snyder -- he talks about all his experience with zen and all, but also takes pains to mention what a macho outdoor guy he was, "mountaineering" in his teenage years, working on a "trail crew," whatever that was, and generally being Mister Competent Alpha Male.

I get so tired of competent alpha males. There are plenty in business, of course -- it's the successful realm of ex-frat boys. There's a guy I work with who is never wrong, and who behaves impatiently if someone else displays less knowledge than he. Yesterday in a meeting, while someone on a conference call rattled on and on and repeated himself, this guy punched the "mute" button on the phone and shouted "Blah blah blah blah blah! I love the mute button! I love the mute button!" What a jerk.

Not that I'm above showing off or putting down people who I think are being stupid. In fact, I acted so superior when I was a kid that all the other kids basically ostracized me. It took me many years to see my part in this. I guess my co-worker is successful enough at hiding his scorn at key times so that a select group of people like and respect him; of course, they all consider themselves superior and more technical than everyone else.

This kind of elitism used to bug the hell out of me when I did contact improvisation. Now it bugs me in the software industry. I just think people should be more humble and egalitarian -- my own history as a know-it-all notwithstanding.