HAPPY BIRTHDAY PATTY, MY SISTER.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PATTY CAKES! 65 STAYIN’ ALIVE!

Patty cake, patty cake, baker man

Bake me a cake as fast as you can!

I call these pics “Soul Sibs.”

        

Marti on her 60^th.

 Happy birthday to my sister Patricia Ann...The Goddess Vanessa. 

                

February...Already. Happy Valentine's Day...Mom.

On the 7th day of the 6th month in the year 2014, mom departed this life, my life, our lives.

It has been just about seven months, and I miss her terribly, especially on rainy days, of which this is one.

I feel like getting the Rose tattoo on my left shoulder with MOM in script beneath. She would NOT have liked that. Nor would she like my full, scraggly bear of a beard which I have been cultivating since Thanksgiving. She would have seen me around Christmas and complained and I would have shaved by now.

Instead I just sit here, dragging a comb through my face, and writing a love story about my mother.

Perspective. It is something one gains only with distance. Many can imagine distance. Then there are those with a lack of imagination, or imaginations drifting in different directions. Until one day, it suddenly becomes clear. You think of the time when some one was about to let you in on a pearl. A pearl of wisdom, and someone else shushed them. And now you wonder "what the hell was that all about?" 

Why I insist on learning everything the hard way is rooted deep in the old adage: "No Pain, No Gain." The rock I stand upon is the sense that I have earned my way. I know that could be seen as a fantasy since I am the recipient of white male privilege. Privileged to be male and white! Imagine, to be duty bound to sacrifice my life for the common good, a privilege! Wonder what mom would say about that! I know what she would say: "Don't be ridiculous," (she would say stupid, or dumb, but she would mean ridiculous).

Well, it hurts not to have my mother to talk to. We talked about nothing of import. Gossip about the family. How she was feeling, which she did not like to linger over. Her many and varied activities at the Pointe. In that talking though, there was an indescribable comfort.  And we knew, we both knew, the end was coming. I did not want to see it. Chose not to see it. 

There was a commercial during the day yesterday, maybe even during the Super Bowl. People born in 1914, 1916..I think it was a Dodge commercial. They all looked fantastic, spry, glowing at 99,100 years old. I wanted that for mom, for her to linger here till she was maybe 95. It was selfish of me. She was suffering. Now she is at peace.

And I am in the process of making my peace with that.

It Came to Me In a Dream

It was lovely
As the woods
Were dark and deep

The very lap
Of high society

But their teeth were
Stained you see
For these were ghosts
That came to me

Ghosts that came
To haunt my dreams
And remind me
Of more bizarre scenes

A grand ball
In a grand hall
Or the lobby

Where our revered kin
Stumble in
And mumble marvelous
Pre-Motion Picture Lines
Of real verse

Like the thoroughly modern
1920's

When poetry
And all its didactic charms
Held us thrall
To magic

SAD FAREWELL

SAMPLE

(Free Stuff on the Streets of New York)

When we moved
Into the hood
Drugs were easy to
Get
Coke and weed

But the best
Things Are Free

The sun blazed on
A late afternoon
And was pleasant
Even if it
Was early January
And the air itself
Froze inside your
Nose
Sterilizing  bronchi
With
          Each
                     Inhale

Still people stop
From brisk walking
To peruse a box
Of books, trinkets
And a chest of
Drawers curbside

Leafing through
Dante’s Inferno
And an IKEA creation
Wondering

How to get it
Back 5 blocks
And up four flights

In some bars
At happy hour
Blue flamed sternos
Warm wings and
Jalapeño poppers

For the price of a
Guinness or two
You can dine there
Most days of the
Week

Outside the arena
On game day
Samples of soaps
And creams
And sometimes
Dreams
Flow from
Bottomless plastic
Barrels

Thursday is bulk trash
Day
And furniture
Found on sidewalks
Really paved with gold

Filled our studio
In early 4th floor
Over-heated eclectic style

The City giveth
Weekly as
We walked
Naked
Through someone's former
Possessions

Happy to have
Found free stuff
On the streets
Of New York

We made love on
Sundays
To the chime
Of
Church bells

So thankful
For smiles
Laughter
And tears

Flowing like red wine
We tasted
At the free
Tastings!

And it was

Orphan’s Christmas

At SAMPLE

And Orphan’s Halloween

And everything

In between

Now glittered skulls

And garland

Fill paper boxes

Becoming part of the

Free Stuff

On the Sidewalks

Of New York

East side

West side

All around the town

We come up out of

The F Train

And settle ourselves

Down.

There was Maio and Heather,

Janine and Rollins too

Serving up Ploughman’s platters

Wine and spirits too

We would go there often

As often as we could

And always left

So happy

That SAMPLE was in the hood

NOT the Enemy?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/12/06/i-was-a-st-louis-cop-my-peers-were-racist-and-violent-and-theres-only-one-fix/

Not everyone is a racist, but the very laws protecting minorities also protects racists. Freedom of speech, of religion, prohibitions on discrimination based on color, creed, or religious affiliation protects liberals and racists alike. Our society is woven of these disparate elemental threads. The question no one wants to address is how do we evolve into a more ideal society where people are not judged  solely on their appearance without destroying the whole cloth? Blaming the men and women who are trying to keep the peace without the use of deadly force is not fair, but turning a blind eye and being supportive of a broken system is not fair either. 

If we had no violent criminals, we would have no need for a violent police response is not a valid argument. I have, as an inspector and a private citizen had to talk my way out of difficult situations. It can be done but only if you are willing to give up the tough, macho guy image. Not so easy to do for many. The use of force must become the exception and not the rule. 

 Here's an analogy from OSHA. Once a worker willfully and knowingly disregards a safety protocol and behaves in a dangerous manner at work, the law no longer protects that worker. This is not fair and sets a bad precedent for work place safety!

Once people break the law in the presence of a police officer, that person is subject to some type of enforcement. All the media is ever showing is the enforcement of the law, not the breaking of the law. Are there are folks intentionally trying to provoke the police into scenes of violence? Are there bad cops? Or are we allowing violence to continually dictate how we shape our world?

Obey the law. If you don’t like the law then change the law is simplistic and impossible with the deck stacked against us. The bottom line: when the people summon the police, we want them to help, not hurt. 

Beliefs in a broken system has cost so many more lives. Re-reading the linked article from WP today is heartbreaking. Maybe from my vantage point at the time I could not see the problem. Or did not want to see. It is time for me to confront and identify my own racism. Long overdue. I can’t even begin to call myself “woke” until I explore this in myself and shed light on the facts.  The changes made to this post represent the start of that journey.  6/5/20

Pocatello at Playwrights Horizons

Pocatello is the most recent play by Samuel D. Hunter at Playwrights Horizons. 

Eddie manages a failing restaurant in a small town suffering the fate of corporatization. The state of our nation’s economy plays a not so subtle role here as this nondescript chain, perhaps Olive Garden or something very similar, is governed by the bottom line. Technically the inciting incident is news about the place’s imminent closing. Eddie has his demons, not the least of which happen to be that he is an openly gay man in an area almost devoid of gay culture (Eddie’s mom Doris can’t even say the word “gay.”) All of the action takes place in one dining room.

Troy is Eddie’s longest employee at the restaurant. He is married to Tammy, his high school sweetheart, and is the meat in our sandwich generation’s dilemma between a bulimic 17 year old daughter, Becky, and a father who recently had been committed to the County Care facility suffering the early stages of dementia. Of course, Troy and Tammy’s marriage is in trouble. Becky wishes they would divorce and get it over with already.

Denial plays a big part in the play. Nick, Eddie’s older brother seems to be well-adjusted as he was able to move on, marry, and become a successful real-estate broker in Minnesota. He and his wife, Kelly, take every opportunity they can get to travel as far away from Pocatello as possible. The inciting incident for this play, for me, happens more than 20 years in the past when Nick and Eddie’s father commits suicide after the failure of his own diner. Nick explodes with incredulity as Eddie tries to serve a dish their father’s menu once featured.

It is clear Eddie lives in that past, pining over the old family homestead which is rapidly deteriorating on the edge of town and long since passed from their domain. He has refused to tell his employees that their livelihoods’ at the restaurant are about to be terminated. His character arc peaks quickly and as the plot unravels, so does he.

One of the most fully developed characters, along with Eddie and Troy, is Becky. She goes through the play with a traditional arc and is clearly the most changed by the end. She comes to some kind of terms with the blatant and infuriating hypocrisy of life. The scene between her and her grandfather, Cole, who just wandered out in a classic Silver Alert, and walked five miles from the home to end up in the dining room, was almost metaphysical in the way Becky changed from his touch and a kiss on the forehead. It was as if he was physically passing some great unspoken pearl of wisdom from the wise old sage whose dementia is both disturbing and enlightening, to a ferocious young spirit struggling with harsh reality.

Hunter has the ability to make you feel a part of the extended dysfunctional nuclear family. Using mostly kitchen sink realism, he engages his audience by highlighting the most disturbing aspects of any given situation…in this case two families whose sole connections is the small town in which they all once, or still, live. A few of the characters may be a tad underwritten, like Nick and his wife, or the waiter Max suffering from meth addiction or the waitress Isabella, suffering from a lack of opportunity in a small town? But they are electrons caught in the orbit around the protons and neutrons of the play. As directed by Davis McCallum, all the actors shine in their roles.

Hunter taps in to our primal attachment to nostalgia with the lightest touch of sentimentality. He reminds me of another Sam who dealt with the family drama of Americans and practically invented Heightened Realism. That would be Sam Shepard.

Straight...White...Men...

Straight White Men by Young Jean Lee is either a brilliant play by an up and coming playwright or an excuse to explore normally incendiary topics (to the GOP) in a frivolous manner. I must admit I had a few laughs and was prepared to see the play by a plethora of previously published material, including an interview with the playwright featured in American Theatre magazine.

I saw her Untitled Feminist Show a few years back which was perhaps not the best way to be introduced to her work. As I read her bio, and about her process, and production history, I decided she needed to be seen again. In what she calls her first attempt at “realism” I experienced a cleverly crafted portrait of Straight White Men saying things we hear them say every day, or rarely ever hear them say, but imagine that they do. Or might.

First things first. The most memorable part of the play comes before you get through the door of the theatre where my companion and I were treated to a scene which went something like this:

SFX: LOUD MUSIC WITH RACY LYRICS (pre-show music)

Usher is standing in the door scanning tickets. He is tall, slim, and young and wears a head-set with ear-piece and microphone.

Enter- Little Old Lady (LOL)

LOL- Excuse me. (to usher) Excuse me is this music going to be playing the whole time before the play?

Usher- What? (He can’t hear her and stoops to get closer.)

LOL- I say, (Raising her voice as high as she possibly can.) Is this loud, offensive, obnoxious music that should be only played late at night in a strip club, going to be playing the whole time before the play?

Usher- Yes.

Exit little old lady.

If you entered the theatre upon opening of the house, you were treated/subjected to… an ear splitting hip-hop mix over which conversation spiked with anticipation was not possible. To many this was a sophomoric prank at best. Young Jean Lee, whose motto is: Destroy the Audience invokes Silenus, the satyr, and makes sure there is some offense right from the get.( I dug it and was rocking in my seat much to the consternation of my companion.)

While she maybe did not destroy her audience, she did her best to destroy their ear drums. I am sure she was working her “Alienation Affect” bone…with a generous amount of lube, but was it worth it?

Oh, yeah, then the lights went down and there was a lovely play.