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Apologies to Village Woodies And Others

By Kevin Six | Posted February 24, 2011, 9:09 a.m.

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My name is Kevin Six. I am the one who wrote the blog about the Village Woods in which I compared the condo complex to Nazi Germany and the president of the Village Woods Owners' Association to Adolph Hitler.

Read more here:http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/la-vista/2011/feb/24/apologies-to-village-woodies-and-others/

The D Effect By Kevin Six

({this was one of the monologues I wrote/performed for the MENding Monologues last week})

I heard about this study in which an ape was put in a room with a bunch of bananas.  He had access to all of them, including one up high that was wired to give him a shock. When the ape touched this Electric Banana, he received a shock. 

Then the scientists introduced another ape into the room.  When the second ape tried to reach for the Electric Banana, the first ape, not wanting his new friend to receive a shock, hit him over the head.

The scientists then removed the first ape and turned off the Electric Banana.  They kept rotating apes into the room but none of them ever touched that banana because, if they tried, the ape that was already there would hit them over the head. 

Something scientific had just happened.  And I don’t know what it was because I’m neither an ape nor a scientist.  I call this it Electric Banana Effect: an ape will hit you over the head to keep you from getting a shock.

I think humans could use an Electric Banana experiment.  But I don’t think we’d go for it because, well, we aren’t apes.  We can speak, for one thing.  We can say, “Say old boy, don’t touch that banana or you’ll get quite a shock.”

We also have Social Conventions.  We would never think of hitting you over the head to keep you from getting a shock.  Especially in a laboratory with scientists looking on.  

But you’re going to get the shock, aren’t you? Even if I say the banana’s wired, you’re going to touch it.  The shock you receive is your punishment for not believing me; and my punishment for not being ape enough to hit you over the head. 

But are Social Conventions more civilized?  In a classroom, on a committee or at work, Social Conventions actually keep us from telling each other what would help the communication process.  We don’t want to shock anyone with A, B, C… so we hit them over the head with A, B, C…

I call it ABC Theory: A is a shocking thing that happened to someone; B is how A makes someone feel; and C is how someone comes to terms with A&B.  ABC Theory used to drive me crazy.  Why can’t people just say, “I have ABC, so please go easy on me”?

Then I took part in an experiment also known as a V-Day rehearsal.  As V-Day is a global movement to end violence, many of the people involved have experienced violence.  These people felt comfortable enough to share their As, Bs and Cs; and hearing them didn’t kill me.  In fact it made me want to help.

That’s when I came up with the D Effect. If A is a shocking thing that happened to you; and B is how you feel about that; and C is how you’re coping with it ; then let D be what I can do to help. 

I never wanted to shock anyone with my ABC so I hit them over the head with it. I resented people for not telling me about their ABCs and I would never ask for the D Effect because I didn’t think I deserved it. 

And then I realized that the people who need the D Effect most might not know how to ask for it.

And that hit me like an Electric Banana. 

If the D Effect is part of the solution, why am I withholding it?  I mean The D Effect works if people have an ABC or not; or tell me or not or if they have ABC and don’t know it.  So I’m going to use it on everyone and, if they’re working through something it will help a lot and, if they aren’t it will still work.

When you look at the statistics it’s pretty safe to assume that everyone you meet might be a little bit broken and might be putting some pieces back together and might not have thought to mention it, because, well, we’re not apes. 

So the D Effect works best when liberally applied.  I think it’s what separates us from the Apes.

MENding Monologues an emotional nod to the eradication of violence against women

Male call

MENding Monologues an emotional nod
to the eradication of violence against women

BY MARTIN JONES WESTLIN

I'd almost forgotten about some totally serious silliness I'd recently heard about in the ozone someplace—but leave it to the San Diego cast members of The MENding Monologues to rehash it (which, after all, is their job). For upwards of $35,000, women can score a spankin' new designer vagina, complete with chunky de rigueur lips, a coiffure and (at that price) a splash of made-to-order jewelry. “One person can make a difference,” the cast constantly reminds us here—and given the size of his wallet, one plastic surgeon did exactly that.

Derek Dujardin filled a pressing need, thereby assuring that the world will never be the same. (Courtesy photo)

But the show's “one person” mantra centers on someone else—and, far more important, the role he assumed in helping to end the epidemic of violence against women and girls worldwide. Derek Dujardin wrote MENding as a companion piece to Eve Ensler's iconic The Vagina Monologues, and the former is performed with extraordinary honesty as 11 local actors come clean on everything from domestic violence and male sexual victimization to the extraordinary hope for disaffected women to the untold arousal within the male nipple.

There's an unlikeliness to the two turns by Kurt Kalbfleisch—he of the ill-fitting suit and the relatively older comportment—which is exactly why his performances in the self-authored “The Advocate” and “Four or Five Words” work. Kevin Six is alternately funny and appropriately understated in a program of about 20 stories that Dujardin says men need to tell and women need to hear.

“By telling these stories,” Dujardin has said, “men regain a measure of control over something they have felt powerless to help, heal, fix or smash.” This David Kelso-directed production nicely fits Dujardin's ideal, even as one more newly outfitted nether region rolls off the assembly line.

MENding is part of San Diego's 2011 V-day performance program and runs Feb. 13 at Diversionary Theatre, 4545 Park Blvd. in University Heights. $20. For more information on the remaining events, see innermissionproductions.org.

Look to Humanism

I keep wondering what Jesus would do with my Association and the President; or Mohamed, or Buddha or any religious icon.  But I keep ending up with an answer that takes the fight and makes it meaningless.  I'm looking for Jihad, struggle, a righteous war.  Over what? 

Safety from some bad neighbors and use of the Clubhouse, it turns out.  That and not living in fear of the Association and the President.  But that last one is a simple choice and the second one isn't worth fighting. struggling, Jihading over.  And I haven't really brought up the most important one, officially.

While the President and a lot of the members of the Association are odd, they aren't dangerous.  And, just because they don't really know how to handle dangerous members, doesn't mean I have to fight them. I do know that this movement doesn't have many more members than the Association has board members.

Than just tells me that the vast majority of the people just don't care.  And why should they care if I can't use the stupid Clubhouse?  That scary people visit my neighbor? That I want to get rid of the old regime and put in a new regime that will be bad, unresponsive and fearful in new ways? Why should anyone care?

I just assumed that because one person made a mistake, refused to admit she made a mistake and didn't apologize about the time it took for me to rectify the mistake - that she was making a mistake about all the things I didn't like about the Association.  No.  All she was doing was proving to me that she is a member of my race.  Human.

And, instead of doing anything Human about it, I was mean.  And she continues to do nothing.  Just like Buddha it turns out.  Maybe we have more in common than I thought.