Salon.com > Russell Morse

Yoga with thugs

Tue, 26 Apr 2005 15:57:00 +0000

The deputy peeks out of his cage, picks up the phone, and his deep monotone echoes through the pod. "Meditation, meditation, everybody wanna do meditation, make your bed, go to the bathroom."

I thought at first he said "medication," but I already got my T.B. test, so the nurse doesn't need me for anything. I look around confused and then my Salvadoran celly blurts out bossily, "Joga. It's joga time."

What? Oh, yoga. In jail. Of course. Why not?

A moment later "Hawaii," my other celly, asks mindfully, "Is it gonna be bitches?"

Good question, Hawaii. Is it gonna be bitches indeed. We'll have to investigate.

Hawaii and I shuffle through the pod up to the classroom in our county-issue orange pajamas and flip-flops. Upon opening the door, however, we realize that instead of bitches, we've got two of the gayest, whitest, squarest hippies in America on our hands. In sweat pants. But it's too late. We've entered the "calm zone."

Nothing left to do now but sit cross-legged on the floor with our fellow inmates and listen to the spiritual musings of our sweat-panted man Jerry and his friend, the Michael Bolton of yoga. But it's cool.

Good to go

Wed, 19 Sep 2001 19:15:00 +0000

When Clinton was sending troops to the border of Kosovo and I had just turned 18, I said I would head to Mexico if Uncle Sam came for me. When I saw footage of the World Trade Center crumbling on Tuesday, I decided I would go to war if they wanted me.

I went from flag burner to flag waver in a matter of minutes.

I spoke to my mother on the phone Thursday night and she told me, "Your generation will be defined by how you respond to all of this ... We became known for the antiwar movement. Drugs. Free love. I won't pretend like I wasn't a part of it, but can you imagine? Our fathers saved the world and that is how we responded."

As a generation, we've been searching for meaning. We've been looking for a reason to care about something. Our parents united in protest against Vietnam. Our grandparents came together to fight fascism. We couldn't find anything better than sweatshops and Starbucks to be upset about.

Brad Pitt in "Fight Club" told it pretty well. "We have no Great War. We have no Great Depression. Our Great War is a spiritual one. Our Great Depression is our lives."

Misfits who don't kill

Thu, 22 Apr 1999 10:00:00 +0000

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Odd boys out

By Russell Morse

Freaks. Outcasts. Weirdos. These words are now casually thrown around by Columbine High School students in reference to the two boys who opened fire, killing 12 of their classmates and one of their teachers. One girl dismissed all the taunting and name calling they endured as "just stupid teenage stuff."

But for many of us who've been viewed as square pegs in round holes -- and tormented for it -- it's been enough to prompt the fantasy of killing our tormentors. I remember sitting in biology class trying to figure out how much plastic explosive it might take to reduce the schoolhouse -- my biggest source of fear and anxiety -- to rubble. I scowled at those who teased me, and I had fantasies of them begging me for mercy, maybe even with a gun in their mouths. Those visions of having power and control over them excited me.

Was I a sick person in need of immediate psychological assessment? Was I a warped mind among millions of high school students who dealt with their frustrations by smoking pot or playing the violin? I don't think so. I'm sure there were thousands of other students who had the same fantasies I did. We just never acted on them.

When white means “weak”

Fri, 19 Mar 1999 20:00:00 +0000

I shrugged when I read the recent news from the Census Bureau that whites have officially become a minority in the state of California, making up just 49 percent of the Golden State today. It wasn't news to me.

I grew up in San Francisco, where whites have been a minority in the city's public schools for decades. Born to a father of mixed European descent and a Latino mother, I always had fair skin, and for me, color was destiny: From early on I was a "white boy." My own brother often called me a honky.

The school I went to was culturally diverse, primarily Asian and black, but drawing people from every race and every neighborhood. I was a minority there. It was fairly segregated, mostly by race and neighborhood, and I spent time with a lot of different groups, especially blacks and Latinos, trying to find my place.

My Latino friends didn't call me "huero" -- the word for light-skinned Latinos -- even though I had a Latin mother, because I didn't speak Spanish, had an Anglo last name, and looked white. My black friends would introduce me as a "cool white boy." At first, I thought this was an honor. Later I thought, "Who ever heard of a cool white boy? And if there is one, could I really be it?" Whites were usually busy trying to pretend they were another color, or spouting racial slurs, so my options were limited. Asians showed little interest in me.