The Lives of Others

I won’t go into detail as to how it came about, but I found myself the other day in a situation wherein for several hours I had a choice between staring at the walls or reading a stack of fan and gossip magazines. I should have stared at the walls, for thumbing through page after endless page of the absolutely enthralling details of the daily lives of movie stars and far more “celebrities” than I ever knew or cared existed convinced me without a doubt that we, as a society, are doomed.

Children are starving in poor countries around the world, yet we cut down millions of trees to print glossy drek to let us know that Nick and Jessica (who?) absolutely are/are not getting back together, and that Lindsay Lohan (who?), and Brittany (who?) are back in rehab for the twelfth time in two weeks.

American servicemen and women are being slaughtered in Iraq, but there’s a ten-page in-depth report on Tori Spelling (who?) and her new baby...he’s only six months old and already he is cutting his first tooth!!!!

We are constantly being lied to by our own government, but who cares? Did you catch what Rene Zellweiger (who?) wore to the C.R.A.P. awards?

Global warming? Why waste your time? You can’t do anything about it anyway. But what’s really hot is that shot of Matthew McConehey (who?) In his briefs.

And how can I possibly care about skyrocketing gas prices when I am consumed with angst over word that Tom and Katie (who?) are either definitely considering a divorce or are the happiest married couple on earth.

The ever-changing status of these I mean like awesome people’s relationships ( “married.” “wed,” “hitched”, “engaged”, “living together”, “dating” , “seen with”, “constant companions”, “gal-pal”, etc.) is far more important than the petty lives of insignificant nobodys like…well, like you, for instnace..

But I am being unfair, and I apologize. People do care about bigger issues. Did you see that darling little girl Brad and Angelina (who?) just adopted from…uh…one of those places in Africa (or was it Asia? Oh, well, no matter…she’s just darling.) Nor are they unaware of human suffering: there was a heart-rending article on the agonies Parker Posey (who?) underwent when a drain backed up in not one but two of her bathrooms at the same time! and just ruined her new carpets.

I was vastly reassured, however, to derive from a careful analysis of each of these august periodicals, albeit by implication rather than stated fact, that homosexuals apparently do not exist. The supposed ratio between heterosexuals and homosexuals is not, as science has indicated, 9 to 1, but as these learned tomes undoubtedly correctly indicate, more like 99,999,998 to none. Certainly the appearance of the words “homosexual” or “gay” is scarcer than hen’s teeth. And when one of these revered bastions of journalistic excellence does use one of the words—usually on a shocking headline on the front cover, carefully placed there to draw readers like flies to a slop bucket—“Inside the Rumors: Is Ryan Seacrest (who?) Gay??!!!???!!!???”, you can take great comfort in the fact that upon reading the article, you learn that the answer is of course he isn’t gay, you silly goose!

But the most discouraging thing about my hours with this idiocy—other than that I spent them at all—was that I am not, as I had always thought, the only one who refuses to acknowledge reality. The difference, as I see it, is that while I find so much fascination within myself so as to have little time for it, far too many others apparently find so little of interest or worth within themselves that they must seek it in the delusional “reality” of others.

It is to weep.

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Different Worlds

I was reading a post from a cyberfriend on one of the many predominantly straight lists to which I belong She was telling of her Memorial Day weekend activities with her husband and family, and of picnics, and nieces and weddings and all the other wholesome things that seem to be part of every heterosexual’s life, and I was struck yet again by how totally alien these things are…and have always been…to me.

The sense of belonging to my own family is something I cannot imagine being without. It is the one solid, unchangeable thing in a constantly changing, turbulent world. Yet even with them, I am aware of vast gulfs in our daily lives…differences which go far below what appears on the surface. So much of the lives of heterosexuals revolve around the problems (and joys) of raising children, of weddings, engagements, bridal showers, baby showers, messy divorces, church functions, and the like. All integral parts of the average heterosexual’s life, and all completely foreign to me.

I don't have much trouble, day to day, dealing with straight women. But I tend to be uncomfortable around straight men I do not know well. It probably stems from the fact that while I myself am a man (and have never either doubted it or had the slightest desire to be anything else), we simply cannot relate to or understand each other. Intellectually there may be few differences, but socially.... Straight men's lives social lives understandably revolve around the wife and kids or the girlfriend or fishing or deer hunting or sitting around with their emotional peers watching the Big Game du jour (and even more incomprehensibly, getting jump-up-and-down excited about it). Sorry, but we might as well be from two different planets.

I’ve never understood, for one thing (among many) why it is that straight men seem driven to go to great lengths to prove that they are “real men”? Why in the world should the question ever even have to arise?

Straight men tend to view gays with widely varying degrees and mixtures of suspicion, mistrust, revulsion, and curiosity. I rather suspect that deep down inside there is also an element of grudging envy of some of the “freedoms” gay men supposedly have that they do not. While gays have long been condemned for their “promiscuity” (largely because society won’t allow us the rights of monogamy), I wager that more than a few straight men would love to be as unrestrained in their sex lives as they condemn (usually wrongly) gay men for being.

Straight men may well...and rightly...resent the fact that gay men are as a rule far more free to ignore the chained-to-the-wall constraints our society imposes on men. “Men” do not cry when they are sad or hurt: in fact, the less emotion they display, the more “manly” they are (or consider themselves to be), and if keeping things bottled up inside leads to ulcers or a stress-induced heart attack, well, so be it. Straighten up and face it “like a man.”.

I find it fascinating that while sex is an integral and undeniable part of human existence, it is the object of our sexual attraction which creates nearly insurmountable walls between us. Love, the most positive emotion known to our race, is only considered valid if the two people experiencing it are of different genders.

With a global population of six billion or so, and counting, one might think that the fact that Adam and Steve or Eve and Joanne cannot naturally procreate would be considered in a far more positive light than it is. (“Breeders” is a pejorative gays direct against straights in partial retaliation for the endless string of epithets directed against us.)

The fact of the matter is that our society concentrates far, far too heavily on strict adherence to arbitrary gender roles, and in so doing it prevents our focusing on those things far more basic to humanity: love, loyalty, honesty, kindness, honor, and common decency toward one another.

It is said that the mills of the gods grind exceedingly slowly. Our society is, in fact changing. But I wouldn't put off doing the laundry waiting for the change to be complete.

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The Lake

Mom and Dad at the Lake, circa 1965

We began going to Lake Koshkonong in southern Wisconsin, about 70 miles from our home in Rockford, sometime during World War II. Some friends of my parents from the Moose Club, the Olsons, had a cottage there which they rented out. We subsequently began spending our summer vacations there, in a small compound of four lakeside cottages all owned by people from Rockford

Lake Koshkonong is formed by the Rock River. It is about 2 miles wide and 9 miles long and very shallow…perhaps 20 feet deep at its very deepest point. We could wade out from in front of the cottage for a good block and a half without the water reaching our shoulders (and I was not very tall at the time). The bottom was also very, very muddy, and the water was muddy brown.

It could also be deadly. Being so shallow, the winds could quickly whip it into a froth of whitecaps. The last cottage in the row of four belonged to the Skinner family, whom we knew well. One evening, they and a group of friends decided to go across the lake for a fish fry. Nine people crowded into the 16-foot boat, and on the way back the winds rose, the boat was swamped, and seven of the passengers drowned. Their cottage was sold shortly thereafter to the Fines, a very nice elderly couple from Chicago.

When the cottage between the Olsons and the Fines also went up for sale, my parents bought it. It was small…only two small bedrooms…but it was jerry-built pleasant and had a lovely curved stone fireplace. The people who built the place had carefully gone all around the lake collecting different colored stones for it. And somewhere along the way, someone then painted it white.

While I was in college, my “gang” of friends would frequently come up for weekends, during which we’d sing college songs all the way up and back, water ski and sunbathe during the day while we were there, and play charades, cards, and board games at night. And thinking of those days as I write, I feel the sweet ache of intense nostalgia.

One of these weekend excursions was during rehearsals for a play, and several of the cast members came up, ostensibly to rehearse our lines. When we returned, David, one of the guys who couldn’t make it asked how it went, and with the spontaneity of college kids, a tale developed—with each of us who’d gone contributing a piece of the story—of a weekend from hell. My parents, David was told, were religious fanatics of the most fundamental sort. My mother, he was told, had spent the entire weekend doing nothing but quoting scripture and tatting an altar cloth. My father had insisted on loading us all into our boat and taking us around the lake to distribute religious pamphlets. It wasn’t fair to David, of course, but it was great fun.

My parents came down for the play the closing night, and I told David that I wanted to be sure he met them, though he was less than thrilled by the prospect. Just before curtain, one of the girls who had been up for the “weekend from hell” came in to the dressing room to report that she’d looked out into the audience and that my parents were there. “Your dad must really be mellowing,” she said. “He’s not wearing black.”

After the show there was a cast party to which friends and family were invited. Dad was, by pure coincidence, wearing a dark grey suit. I’d told him of the story we had given David, and the first chance I got, I went to bring David over to meet him. Poor David had been totally traumatized by this point and didn’t know what to expect, but he reluctantly came along.

“David,” I began, “This is my father…,” at which point my dad, poker faced, raised his hand in benediction and said solemnly “Peace, David.”

It is one of my fondest memories of my college career.

I miss my dad.

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His Eye is on the Sparrow

Anyone’s death saddens me, but I fear some sadden me less than others. The death of Jerry Falwell is a case in point. I was frankly amazed to think he managed to live as long as he did without a brain, heart, soul, or conscience.

Mr. Falwell fell into the class of individuals who truly terrify me: those who dare to presume to speak for God. And that so many good, decent people sincerely believed every word the man uttered saddened and depressed me more than I can possibly say. (I was surprised to learn, via Mr. Falwell, that I was largely responsible for the deaths of everyone on September 11, 2001, that I live a depraved, ungodly lifestyle...that I am an abomination in the eyes of God. On reflection it is quite probably this still-widespread notion among many fundamentalist religions that is the reason I am an Agnostic. How can I believe in a God who does not believe in me?

I truly consider myself to be a fair, honest, and decent human being; only one of more than 20 million other fair, honest, and decent members of the gay community, which has been one of Mr. Falwell’s primary targets throughout the years. He continually issued moral judgements,declaring--with no logic or basis in fact--us to be depraved, sinful, and generally unworthy. He was, in my opinion—and yours may well vary—the very worst type of bigot: one who preached intolerance, bigotry, and hatred while claiming to be a Christian. As so many people have pointed out, his Moral Majority was neither. How he or his followers could possibly justify such basic tenets of Christianity as love, the Golden Rule, casting stones, or judging others with the venomous intolerance which was Falwell’s stock in trade is beyond me.

The shortest paragraph in the bible is “Jesus wept.” And I truly believe that would have been Jesus's reaction to Mr. Falwell’s usurping and distortion of His message.

Even though I am, as I said, Agnostic, I do hope there might be a heaven so that, upon arrival there, Mr. Falwell would find exactly the “welcome” he so richly deserves. I’d love to see the look on his face.

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Nick

Nick never knew his father, though his drug-addict mother named her son after him. His name was Nicholas, and the fact that she deliberately misspelled her son’s name as “Nickless” was only the first indication of his fate.

While still very young, he was taken from his mother and placed in the Foster Care system, where he was passed from foster home to foster home like a bowl of potato salad at a picnic. His last ten years in the system was spent with a former marine drill sergeant who continually sexually abused him.

Whether he aged out of the system or ran away is not clear, but he wound up basically on the streets. No real education, no idea of how to behave in the society to which most of us belong and take totally for granted, he drifted. His few friends tended to be other lost souls like himself who simply existed in any way they could.

He was, not surprisingly, frequently in trouble with the law.

I was living in northern Wisconsin when I met Nick through a friend from Milwaukee, who had picked Nick up one evening while hitchhiking. Nick was living with a fellow lost soul he referred to as his “brother,” and the “brother”’s girlfriend. They spent their time smoking pot and dreaming the dreams of the lost.

He did whatever it took to survive, and worked at menial jobs wherever and whenever he could, but never for very long at any one place. And of course when each job ended, it was never his responsibility. Responsibility was not a word in Nick’s vocabulary.

My friend took Nick under his wing and asked if Nick might stay with me for a while, to try to break him free of those chains to his past, and I agreed.

Nick was around 23 at the time; a tall, handsome and basically good young man who, like an abused animal, trusted no one, and his entire life experience had proven him correct. But of all the things that had been denied him, from the day he was born, the greatest by far was the feeling of being loved for anything but his body. He revealed himself only through his drawings, which he kept in a tattered notebook. He carried a sheathed knife in his belt and it was with him everywhere. When I arranged for him to apply for a job at a local supermarket, he wore the knife. He did not get the job.

Even in a small area like the one in which I lived, he managed to find others like those he had left behind in Milwaukee and soon got into the pot habit—it was, after all, a form of escape from a world he simply could not relate to and did not understand.

On the verge of being arrested yet again, Nick returned to Milwaukee…where he subsequently was jailed yet again. With absolutely no other realistic options, and without far more help than is available, Nick defines the term “lost soul.” He is so deep into the dark forest that I fear he will never find his way out.

When I think of Nick, and of what he could have been had someone…anyone…taken the time to care for him, to love him as any child should be loved…my heart truly aches

I wrote a poem about Nick, called “The Broken Child.” If you might be interested in seeing it, just drop me a note.

So why have I told you about Nick? Simply because those of us blessed with all the things of which Nick was deprived simply do not comprehend just how fortunate we are. We too often are so consumed with our own petty problems that we cannot appreciate what we have.

Nick is the candle I hold up in the darkness of my own self-absorption. I hope he can somehow, someday, find his own light.

New entries posted every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back.

Gnats

The shore of Lake Superior is magnificent in summer…endless miles of pebbly beach where one can walk for hours without seeing another person. But on a warm summer’s day with no wind, there is a reason why there are no people. To walk there then is to guarantee being enveloped in a literal cloud of tiny, swarming insects I assume are gnats. The locals call them “noseeums”. And their effect can be maddening.

Problems are like noseeums. One or two at a time and they can be shooed away with relative ease. We all have them, all the time

But today is a Lake Superior lakeshore day. Why, you ask? Well, I’ll tell you.

My friend Norman is being released from the hospital today and, to save the $400-plus expense of ambulance transportation, it was agreed that I could pick him up and take him from the hospital to the nursing facility where he’ll remain during the period covered by Medicare post-hospitalization recovery period.

But in order to let me transport him, he needs the oxygen tank from his apartment, which I arranged to pick up this morning before going to get him.

At 8:30 last night he called to say that they needed the oxygen tank immediately, in order to be able to check it out. I hate going out at night because I am never sure of being able to find a parking place when I return. But having little choice, I went down to my building’s parking lot to get into my car.

But my car was not there. I was positive I’d left it there, though on rare occasions I will leave it for up to a day on the street. But I was positive I’d parked in the lot, and even remembered where. It was not there. I walked up and down the entire lot three times, then walked up and down the street in front of my building another two times. No car.

I called the police to report it stolen. Not having driven it in over a week, I had no idea when it could have been taken. They asked for my license plate number, which of course I could not remember (I’m very good about forgetting things under pressure). I looked everywhere through all my papers for the plate number and finally found it. I was told the car had been towed.

Since I have a parking sticker, I could only imagine I had somehow parked it on the street. Surely they would not have taken a stickered car from a sticker-required lot.

So this morning, first thing, I began trying to find out exactly where my car was and how I could get it. I made no fewer than seven phone calls. The police gave me a number. I called it. They did not have the car. They gave me another number. I called it. They did not have the car. They gave me a number. I called it........well, you get the idea.

Finally…finally…I found it, in a city impound lot so far away from where I live I was surprised that it is still in the City of Chicago. To get there by public transportation will take well over an hour, I”m sure.

When I called Norm last night to tell him I’d be unable to pick him up today, he suggested I go and get his car, which has serious front-end-wobble problems.

So now, when I finish typing this gnat-filled note, I shall take the elevated over to Norm’s condo (half hour plus), get his car and his oxygen tank, go to the hospital (fifteen minutes), wait until they officially release him (half-hour to an hour, probably), take him to the nursing home (20 minutes), return his car to his condo (25 minutes), take the Red Line downtown to the Blue Line, get off at Western and take “a bus”–they didn’t specify which one–to the impound lot, where I shall hand them $275, eyes welling with tears of gratitude that they don't charge--as they well could(who could stop them?)--$1,400, and they, with luck, will hand me my car.

On pondering why they had towed my stickered car from the sticker-required parking lot, the only thing I can think of is that the stickers might have an expiration date…something, of course, no one ever bothered to tell me.

Oh, the fun we have.

They’re just gnats, and they’ll all be gone tomorrow. But for right now…

New entries are posted every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back.

Potpourri

Whenever I make the mistake of turning my back on my mind for ten seconds, it inevitably goes running off wildly in all directions.

I was waiting for a bus the other day when a very short, balding little man with a horseshoe of white hair around his pate and an absolutely huge pot belly walked past carrying a briefcase. My immediate thought was: “I am May-or of the Munch-kin Cit-ty”. Go figure.

From there I for absolutely no reason thought of a place called “Preview House” in Los Angeles. People would stand out on busy street corners and offer you free tickets to see and rate TV pilots. I made the mistake of taking one.

Preview House was a very nice theater, with each seat having a small hand-held control unit with a dial and ten numbers, with which we were to record our reactions. Once everyone was seated,, an unctuously hale-fellows-well-met M.C. (or whatever it was he was supposed to be) appeared on the small stage in front of the screen to welcome us and say that we would be seeing two prospective pilots on which the networks would like potential audience reaction before scheduling them in prime time. To enhance the verisimilitude of the TV-watching experience, he advised us they’d also be showing some new commercials as well, and that we should rate them also. He gave us detailed instructions on dial-turning, which he apparently assumed most members of the audience would find difficult to grasp. The houselights dimmed and, the commercials began. Lots of commercials: it seemed like ten or twelve of them, and we all duly rated each one. Finally the first promised TV pilot began.

It was obvious from ten seconds in that this was not only the most God-awful television program ever recorded but that it had, in fact, been recorded some ten to fifteen years earlier. But there were the requisite “commercial breaks” for another endless string of commercials. I was amazed that no one got up and left the theater after the first fifteen minutes of the show. I guess, like me, they were thinking the second pilot would be better.

If possible, the second show was even a greater stinker than the first. At last it was over, and I and everyone else rose in great relief. But the M.C. hurried back on the small stage looking distraught, and said: “Ladies and Gentlemen, I am horribly sorry to tell you this, but there was some malfunction with the equipment recording reactions to the commercials, and we’ve lost it all. We feel terrible about this, but could I please implore you to watch them again?”

I suspect that the doors were locked had anyone actually tried to leave, but the guy was so very sincere and gave the impression that if anyone didn’t want to help him out, here, he might well lose his job. So we all sat back down, watched the 30 or so commercials again, and re-entered our reactions to each one.

Thanking us profusely for our cooperation, the M.C. bid us a good night.

Six months later, a friend who had never experienced the joys of Preview House said “Hey! I got us free tickets to Preview House! Let’s go!” So, against my better judgement, I went.

Need I tell you that we were treated to exactly the same execrable pilots, though of course the commercials were different. When it ended, everyone started to get up, but I did not. I knew what was coming. The M.C. appeared and said: “Ladies and Gentlemen, I’m horribly sorry to tell you this, but....”

For you see, boys and girls, the entire purpose of Preview House was to help advertisers determine which commercials worked and which didn’t. And by forcing us to sit through them twice, they were able to tell whether our opinion of the product being touted may have changed...hopefully improved by seeing it more than once.

I gave each commercial the lowest possible rating the second time around. I don’t think they cared.

I never went back to Preview House, but if you ever get to Los Angeles, watch for someone on the street passing out free tickets.

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"...And Pearls Before Swine"

I’m not sure why I take such delight in put-down lines, but I somehow find them a guilty pleasure, especially when deserved. I was thinking yesterday of the wonderful, long-running feud between Claire Booth Luce and Dorothy Parker. No one did put-downs better than Dorothy, and I sometimes felt a bit sorry for poor Claire. I’m sure you’re familiar with most of them, but I hope you’ll agree they deserve repeating.

Arriving at the same function at the same time, Claire and Dorothy met at the door. Claire stopped short at the door and with a regal gesture, indicated Dorothy should enter first. “Age before Beauty,” Claire said. “And pearls before swine,” Dorothy replied sweetly, as she swept past Claire and through the door.

Defending Claire, an acquaintance observed to Dorothy: “But you must admit, Dorothy, that Claire is always very kind to her inferiors.” To which Dorothy replied: “Wherever does she find them?”

I’m not certain this one is attributable to Dorothy or not, but it sounds like her. “You know,” a friend remarked, “sometimes Claire is her own worst enemy.” To which Dorothy said: “Not as long as I’m alive.”

There are some memorable movie put-downs as well. Groucho Marx often used the regal Margaret Dumont as a foil. I can’t recall the movie, but at one point Margaret says, in a huff: “I’ve never been so insulted in my entire life!” And Groucho replies: “Oh, you must have been!”

And I know I have referenced this classic from the movie The Man Who Came to Dinner in which Monty Wooley’s character is greeted with the line: “At the risk of being swept away in mountainous waves of self pity, how are you?”

And the classic exchange between George Bernard Shaw and Winston Churchill when Shaw sent Churchill two tickets to the opening of his new play with the note: “Do bring a friend, if you have one.” Churchill returned the tickets with a note: “Sorry I can’t make the opening, but would like to exchange these for the second night’s performance, if there is one.”

I was in a bar with friends in L.A. when someone came up to one of our group with pick-up definitely in mind, and said: “I think I went to school with your sister,” and my friend replied, innocently: “But I don’t have an older sister.”

Along the same lines (as it were) the classic response to the old saw: “Where have you been all my life?” The response: “Well, for most of it I wasn’t born yet.”

The young preacher approached after his first sermon by a little old lady who asks: “Has anyone ever told you you were absolutely wonderful?” Flattered, the minister replies; “Why, no.” And she responds: “Then wherever did you get the idea?”

Ah, there are a ton of ‘em.

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Puck Was Right

I don’t know…it has to be a missing “comprehension” gene in my DNA. Other people glide so easily through life, fully aware and accepting of everything that goes on. They are never confused. They accept things which strike me as sheer idiocy at best or totally incomprehensible at worst. Shakespeare had it right when he had Puck say: “What fools these mortals be.” And Shakespeare lived long before the advent of cyberspace, the cell phone, and George W. Bush.

I am truly sincere when I say I simply cannot understand so many, many things. I see that Prince William may have broken up with his girlfriend, which apparently sent tsunamis of shock and deep concern across the face of the earth. And they have at last (oh, thank GOD! determined the father of Anna Nicole Smith (...who?)’s baby. And Brad and Angelina are adopting their 45th third-world baby (apparently there are not enough orphans in the United States)! Singing and dancing in the streets!! And what about them Bears? Did you see last week’s Big Game? I mean, like, wow!!! But my question is always the same: how could anyone not a friend or relative of these people possibly, possibly care?

Canned cat food comes in gourmet flavors (“Sliced Roast Guinea Hen in a delicious Bernaise sauce”), and people stand in line to shell out good money to buy it. They’re cats, people! They eat mice, for Pete’s sake! Do you really think they care? I recently saw a news item (I swear, it was a news item!) on people who pay $3,000 to have their cats painted in designer patterns and colors. Of course, the paint job only lasts a couple months, but it’s so...well, just precious!! And these people taking Fluffy in for a $3,000 touch-up may have to step over 20 homeless people to get to the paint shop, but who cares? And that is the Question of Questions: Who cares?

I have for the past three years been getting vital email messages from a number of people of whom I have never heard, let alone met, who apparently consider themselves my dear friends and therefore entitled to intrude themselves into my life. They are constantly informing me of astounding advances in medical science designed to improve my sex life (“Make your girl scream for more!” “We cure all disease!”) You’d think after three years of my hitting “Delete Spam” they might get the idea. If they don’t know by now I’m gay—perhaps they’re just in denial—and that I somehow doubt that they can cure a belch, I can’t help but question the true basis for our relationship.

Whenever I sign on to something on the net, I must approve the conditions of membership, which generally consist of a five-minute scroll down page after page of legalese to which I will be bound should I hit the “I Agree” button. I am considering starting a website and doing something similar, and slipping in a line somewhere: “I agree to give up my firstborn child or, having no children, to turn over the entire contents of my bank account (including savings accounts, CDs, IRAs, contents of any piggy banks in my possession, etc.). Perhaps that is already in those “I Agree” contracts I’ve already signed. Who would know?

I do not comprehend why we are sheep. Why, when served cold food in a restaurant, we do not send it back? Why, when we are treated with utter contempt by some petty civil servant, we do not demand to speak to a supervisor then and there and, while doing so, demand the name and addresses of the supervisor’s supervisor. We are so often taken advantage of because we let ourselves be taken advantage of, and if that is the case, then we deserve what we get.

I have not run out of material for this subject, you can be sure…just out of space for now. I’ll be back.

New entries are posted every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back.

A Proud Day

On April 16, 33 people died in glorious defense of the inalienable right of every citizen to bear arms: a truly proud day for the NRA...I’m sure their offices will be flooded with new membership applications.

But I have one small two-part question: having heard over and over and over again that every decent, God fearing American must be able to defend him/herself—which I find hard to dispute—my question is this: 1) of the 30,242 people who died of gun-related deaths in the United States in 2004 (the last posted figures) how many of them were the result of decent, God-fearing Americans defending themselves and/or their families, and how many were victims of deranged individuals with a grudge; and 2) is the ratio defensible...and if so, how? The “well, criminals could still get guns” defense strikes me as a rather petulant and weak rationale.

In a classic case of the sum being greater than its parts, the vast bulk of individual members of the NRA are indeed decent, God-fearing people. It’s not them we have to be concerned about: it’s the fact that the NRA as an organization also implicitly protects the rights of those who take advantage of this same “inalienable” right to wreak their form of vengeance upon others.

This is a very short entry, and I am sure only one of thousands of blogs addressing the massacre, but I would very much appreciate it if you could ponder my questions and get back to me with an answer I can understand.

In the meantime, Charleston Heston, poster boy for the NRA, has said he will give up his gun only after it is pried from his cold, dead hands. I will happily volunteer for that job.

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Cheating, Sort of...

When I went to post today’s blog, I discovered that I didn’t have one. I normally do it the day before, but things have been a bit hectic of late—which, knowing me, I’ll probably touch on in a future blog. So, with your permission and indulgence, I’d like to post an entry from my Navy-letters blog, A World Ago (http://www.doriengrey.blogspot.com), recounting an incident I still remeber vividly from my Naval Aviation Cadet days. If you’ve already read it, I apologize for the duplication. But if you haven’t, I would hope it might pique your interest in going back in time with me. To start with the first letter, you'll have to scroll back through the "Archives" option, but I hope you might find it worth the effort.

I promise to have a new entry next time, and as always appreciate your bearing with me.

16 May 1955

Dear Folks

I awoke this morning at about five o’clock and, though it was really too dark outside to tell, decided that we weren’t going to fly today. It seemed as though I had been sleeping for several years, and had full intentions of sleeping several more. At five forty-five, though, I forced myself out of bed, got dressed, folded my bedding (I haven’t made my bed since pre-flight), washed, & straightened up my room, which always seems to be in a state of high disorder. By morning formation, at six thirty, the clouds covered about nine-tenths of the sky, but there were still some hopeful-looking holes.

Dual hops were sent out on schedule at seven-thirty, although they held solos on the ground. By eight, the western sky (where we do most of our flying) was getting ominously dark. Mother Corry began getting anxious, & called her chicks home. I stood outside the hanger and watched the little yellow J’s running home, chased by dull, flat-bottomed clouds. As soon as the planes landed, they were tied securely down, and the wind started blowing. On the horizon I could see the rain, a grey curtain hanging beneath the clouds. Finally the rain came, very undramatically, & it has been drooling monotonously ever since. Everyone is sitting around the hanger waiting for the magic words “Secure from flight operations.”

Friday was what I consider a beautiful day for flying. I went out on a solo first thing in the morning—the sky was full of huge, billowing clouds that reminded me of mountains of whip cream. We aren’t allowed to fly through them, or even get within five hundred feet of them, but it is fun to know that you could, if you wanted to . I like to dive down toward them & then pull out & skim over them. Also it’s fun to go behind the clouds, to see what’s there. Friday I found a clear spot, like a valley in mountains, completely surrounded by huge puffs of clouds. I played around, doing my acrobatics, all by myself and having a wonderful time.

On the radio, which solo students must have turned up all the time, I kept hearing someone calling the tower at Corry: “Corry Tower, this is Charlie Baker 302 (CB are on all our planes): I am on a B2 solo and would like to know if Magnolia Field is open for Corry planes.” Magnolia Field is one of our small outlying surfaced fields, usually used only by Barin Field students, but one of the fields we always use, Summerdale, is being resurfaced, & we’d been allowed to use Magnolia in the afternoon while they worked on Summerdale. B2 students are on their very earliest solos—their second, in fact (A20 is their first—B1 is a dual, & B2 is the second solo). He kept calling & calling the tower, which evidently didn’t hear him, for it never answered. Finally he shut up, and about two minutes later, someone called “Crash! Crash! Crash! Plane down one mile southwest of Magnolia Field.” I thought “Oh, oh….” I was sure it as the poor little guy who couldn’t get the tower.

Although you aren’t supposed to go near the scene of an accident lest you get in the way of rescue operations, I headed toward Magnolia, flying down alleys & corridors between the clouds. On the way, I was kept busy listening to the radio—the crash crew from Magnolia had reached the scene…the plane was completely demolished, in at least twelve pieces…they had not yet removed the pilot…Search and Rescue had launched a helicopter from Corry Field….no word yet on the pilot’s condition….

By this time I was in sight of the field. It is a fairly large field, with four runways, arranged so that, from the air, it looks like an arrow pointing to the south. They were using the Southwest/Northeast runway, taking off toward the Southwest & Mobile Bay.

Very close to the end of the S/w runway are a large grove of trees, and beyond them, plowed fields. I had used that runway the day before, & several times just missed the trees while taking off. This guy had evidently hit the trees and crashed into the plowed field beyond. I got close enough to see the crash truck and several cars around, and the tail section of the plane lying on its side, sticking up into the air. I didn’t want to get too close & have them take my number, so I headed back to Corry in a light rain shower. On the way back I learned that it hadn’t been my radio friend but some O.I. from Barin. He wasn’t killed—just broke his hip, several ribs, an arm or two, & severe lacerations. Incidentally, it was Friday the 13th.
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Ozymandius

I’ve always loved Shelley’s poem, ‘Ozymandius’. The very name conveys power and authority with a strong undercurrent of threat and menace.

And for some reason, I associate this concept of ominous threat with “political correctness” which is slowly but surely taking over our world, righteously stomping out any vestige of variation from what is considered (by whom I’ve never been sure) “acceptable”.

Like many things that get totally out of control, the basic idea behind political correctness is a good one: we should be aware of what we’re saying before we say it, and we should always be conscious of the feelings of others. But good Lord! It’s reached the point where no one can say anything without bringing down the ire of some group or another.

The recent brouhaha over radio show host Don Imus is a perfect example of the totally inane overreaction to an admittedly stupid comment. So it was stupid. So he acknowledged that it was stupid. So he apologized. And apologized. And apologized. Enough, already! Let it go! What do these people want: a public beheading?

What should dictate a response to a comment someone finds offensive is the speaker’s intent. I don’t like being called a “fag”, but if I’m sure the person using it doesn’t mean it in a derogatory way, it may still rankle a bit, but I can just let it go. I might even go so far as to let the user know that it might hurt some people. But I certainly wouldn’t demand his or her head on a platter.

I find the lyrics (if an unending string of explicatives can be considered lyrics) of a great portion of today’s popular music to be deeply offensive. Many of those who have dared to speak in Mr. Imus’ defense have pointed out that African American (Politically correct. Not “black” and definitely not “negro”) rap “artists” use the most derogatory filth when referring to women. But that’s okay. Somehow that slips under the P.C. radar. There is the odd double standard that I can call another gay man a “fag”, or an African American (sigh) can call another a “nigger” without being subject to attack, on the basis that “well, I am one, so I can say the word.” Bulls...t (to say “bullshit” would not be politically correct)!

Just consider for a moment the ridiculous lengths to which P.C. has already taken us. When’s the last time you heard Stephen Foster’s classic Amerian folk song “Old Black Joe”? Exactly what was derogatory in its message? No matter. Ban it!.

Did the children’s story “Little Black Sambo” have a strong message that this little boy was inferior to anyone else because of his being black? Of course not. But can you find a copy in any bookstore today? Of course not. Perhaps it was the powerful Defenders of Tigers League which objected to the tiger turning into a stack of pancakes. Well, that would certainly incur my righteous wrath.

What happened to the Irish jokes? And the Polish jokes? Oooooooooooooohhhh, we mustn’t demean the Irish and the Polish! The fact is that to forbid anyone from telling an ethnic joke is a perverse form of intolerance in itself. The implication is clearly that the sensibilities of Irish, for example, are obviously too fragile to withstand the blazing hatred clearly evident in a story about Paddy walking into a bar.

Political correctness is a form of blatant Puritism, which has done this country and our culture incalculable harm. And we all just sit back and let it happen.

Awareness and intent! Awareness and intent! That’s the key, and we’d better start replacing “political correctness” with those two simple concepts before we reach the rapidly-approaching point where no one dare say anything about anything.

But just as Shelley’s poem underscores the ultimate pointlessness of assuming that authority and control will last forever, I trust that one day common sense will prevail, and “political correctness” will be like those two “trunkless legs of stone” standing in the desert.

My name is Ozymandius, King of Kings. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!

New entries are posted every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back.

Frankenstein

A friend asked the other day why I am so obsessed with writing. “Life’s getting shorter every day; you shouldn’t spend all your time writing.”

Actually, that is exactly why I spend so much time writing. Fervently as I hope and much as I may want and intend to live forever, I realize it is unlikely in the extreme, and that some day I will no longer be here physically. And on the same general principle as squirrels tucking away nuts for the coming winter, I want to leave as much of me as I possibly can behind.

The subject of one’s own mortality is one I sometimes believe the human mind is really incapable of fully understanding or even recognizing, and the thought of knowing when you are going to die is one I simply cannot grasp. Yet I’m not and never have been afraid of death itself; it’s the idea that there will come a time when I am no longer able to dream, or write, or get angry over petty little things, or talk with friends, or laugh, that truly shakes me. I grieve for that time, and for myself.

So, like Dr. Frankenstein, I have set out to keep alive, through my writing, as many bits and pieces of those non corporeal things that make up who I am. I want to keep reaching out to others, just as I am reaching out to you now, long after I’ve returned to that eternal nothingness that was interrupted only briefly by my existence.

It’s all summed up in a poem you might already have seen, but because it is so germaine to the subject at hand, I’ll repeat here.

Words as Amber

The need to write; the will, the drive
to leave some proof I was alive
for future years—so they may know
I once was here, and loath to go.

A face caught in a photograph;
a tombstone’s faded epitaph
are all that most men leave behind
no hint of soul, or heart, or mind.

They live awhile in memories
till those who knew them also cease
and go the way of those before,
to be remembered nevermore.

If I believed in heaven, then
it might not matter if or when
others might know that I was here;
like them felt joy and pain and fear.

But words are amber: caught within,
the essence not contained by skin;
to read mine is a gift you give,
for when you do, once more I’ll live.

New entries are posted every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back.

Specimen

While my friend Gary was up from Texas for a recent visit, one of the things we did was to go to Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry for an exhibit called "Body Worlds 2": actual human bodies, skinned, sometimes split, opened, partly eviscerated, to show the myriad of physical components and their interrelationships that make up a human being. Each body reveals all the muscles, veins, arteries, sinews, joints, and organs, of which we are all made, and then posed in lifelike positions (kicking a soccer ball, ice skating, seated, etc.). The bodies have been preserved by a special process called "Plastination", and are complete in every detail including sexual organs, and the results are both bizarre and fascinating.

But human beings are of course more than the sum of their physical components. I realized, as I peered inside an exposed chest cavity to see those things which enabled the body to have been an actual person with a name and a family and friends, who laughed and breathed and loved and grieved, that what I am trying to do with this blog is to present myself as a specimen in which you can explore those non-physical things which make us human. I very carefully and deliberately have set out to lay out all those non-corporeal things which originate within one human brain—mine—and which, in conjunction with the physical body, have made each of us who we are. It’s my hope that you might recognize something of yourself in them and share my contemplation of the paradox that while each of us is an individual who must enter and leave this life "alone", while we are alive we are part of a far greater whole. And knowing that we are so much alike, how can we then harbor so many petty prejudices, bigotry, and hatred towards others?

I take the fact that you’re still with me, here, as an indication that you understand what I’m trying to do, and trust you will excuse my tendency to pontificate a bit—perhaps occasionally coming perilously close to boring you silly. But there are many things about which each of us have very strong beliefs…and hope that the belief that we are all in this together is primary among them.

Okay, enough on this for the moment. I’ll try to strike a lighter—and somewhat longer—note next time.

New entries are posted every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back.

Memory and Fact

Mom, Grandma Fearn, Grandpa Fearn, Uncle Buck, 1918

Don Quixote and I, I like to think, have a lot in common. We both live in our own worlds, as independently as possible from reality. But just as Don Quixote was undone by having to face the mirror of reality, I am frequently deeply shaken by the realization that something I clearly and distinctly remember may not, in fact, be the way it actually was. Being something of a pack-rat of the bits and pieces of my life doesn’t help, since I often stumble across concrete evidence, in the form of letters or photographs, that what I was absolutely positive happened at a certain time and/or in a certain way in fact did not.

I resent reality’s unnerving ability to screw up a perfectly good memory. I do not like the fact that memories that have been like old friends, comforting me through the years can be challenged by fact and to know that despite all the pains I take to disregard it, reality always wins in the long run..

I’ve had a couple instances of this since I’ve begun writing blogs. I ran across several instances in my Navy letters home, and am doing it again with this one. I told you, for example, the story of how my Uncle Buck in effect ran away from home to join the army in WWI, and that my grandmother never saw him again. It is something I had believed all my life. And then I came across the photo shown above, showing Grandma, Grandpa, Mom, and Uncle Buck (in uniform) posed together. And therewith, a tiny thread in the fabric of my being was snagged and had to be snipped off. Uncle Buck obviously did return home on leave after his basic training. But the resentment I feel for reality’s intrusion into my memory is, I admit, offset by my pleasure in knowing that Grandma did get to see him again before she died.

In my entry about Aunt Thyra, I relayed my distinct memory that it was my cousin Jack who had found her dead. But after posting the entry, my (second) cousin Tom pointed out that it was his dad, my cousin Cork, who had found her, and I verified that by checking with Jack.

So what does it matter if memory and reality differ? To me, a great deal, for memories form the foundation of my life—they are an integral part of me, and to doubt them is to doubt everything that has made me who I am. I have built, to the best of my ability, my own world and shaped it to suit myself. I’m comfortable here, and I do not take kindly to the thought that many other cherished, firmly set memories might in fact, be untrue.

You might well think that, since I so dislike reality to begin with, I’d be quite comfortable with a little fudging. But I am not. I take it as yet another reminder that I am only human, and since my very earliest childhood, I’ve always wanted to be, and though of myself as, something more. I have no idea why this is so important to me, but it is. Why, I remember one time when I was about six….

New entries are posted every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back.

The Other Side of the Window

Let’s face it: I simply do not get it. I never have gotten it, and chances are I never will. I have spent my entire life on the other side of the window, watching life without really comprehending it.

There are so very many things I have never understood. The entire list is far, far, too long to lay out here, but here are just a few.

I’ve never understood organized religion. From everything I’ve seen, heard, read, or experienced, it has caused more human suffering than all the plagues and wars--many of which have been fought over religion--in the history of mankind. Despite the occasional notable exception, organized religion has consistently fostered hatred and intolerance and all the things it claims to be trying to counter. I have never been able to comprehend how simply and sincerely following the Golden Rule would not all but eliminate the need for organized religion. I find it infinitely sad that "Do unto others as you would have done unto you" has been corrupted into "Do unto others as we would have done unto them."

I’ve never understood organized sports. Enjoying the physical activity in the form of just-having-fun sports makes sense, and provides great exercise. Sitting on an overstuffed sofa or a barstool guzzling beer and scarfing down bowls of popcorn, peanuts, and pretzels while watching people you have never met and never will meet do what you’re too damned lazy to do totally escapes me. This week’s BIG GAME!!!! over which people seem to drive themselves into an incomprehensible frenzy, was preceded by last week’s Big Game and an endless string of long forgotten Big Games before that. It will be followed by an infinite string of others. And their point is…?

I’ve never understood computer spam. Do these cretins who so blatantly invade my privacy actually, seriously think for one second that anyone who has had a computer for more than two days is going to open a message whose subject line is: "Hi. Bedroom faucet rises the early..." or "We cure all disease" or, worst of all, those little strings of small squares with no text at all? And how could anyone with the intelligence of a hampster actually respond to a letter from a "Barrister" in Nigeria informing you that a billionaire relative you have never heard of has died tragically in a car accident and named you sole beneficiary to his (interestingly, it’s always a "his") estate. But they do, and I truly despair for humanity.

And I’ve never understood heterosexuals. Never. I’ve lived among them all my life ("Why, some of my best friends are heterosexual"), but have always felt totally apart from them, as though I were a different species. I love my family--heterosexuals all--, am deeply fond of my straight friends, and I like and appreciate many others, but never fail to be mildly infuriated by the automatic assumption of heterosexuals that everyone is heterosexual…or should be.

But the primary thing I do not understand, and which has caused me more grief than all my incomprehensions listed above, is why I am not—and no matter how hard I try, can never seem to be—the person I so desperately want to be.

New entries are posted each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back.

Hello, Stupid!

I buy a lot of chocolate-covered donuts. I buy them largely because, in the brand I buy, each one has 320 calories, and with as little as I eat, the calories are important. They come in a box of 8 large donuts and cost $3.69 a box. Lately, I’ve had some problem in finding them. Yesterday, there were none. But I saw they had apparently replaced the 8-donut box with a much smaller 12-donut box (each donut about half the size and having 160 calories each). The price remains $3.69. But, hey, they’re giving me four more donuts! Oh, thank you, donut company! So I’m getting, in effect, 1/4 less product for the same amount of money? They’re banking (literally) on the fact that I’m far too stupid to realize I’m being screwed.

H.L. Mencken once said "No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public," and business has certainly taken this as a mantra.

Try to reach any large company by phone. Call any day, any time of day, and the first thing you hear is "Due to unexpectedly heavy traffic...." followed by "Your call is very important to us." Oh. Okay. Unexpectedly heavy traffic. Sure. How can they possibly anticipate that more of their 2 million customers might want to get in touch with them than their two switchboard operators can handle? ("Your call will be answered in approximately 53 minutes.") And of course I absolutely believe them when they reassure me that my call is of vital importance to them. (Who am I, again?)

There’s a ubiquitous ad running on TV offering a "FREE Credit Report!" It’s only when you read the small print or are stupid enough to actually try to call the number they give you that you discover the "Free" only applies if you spend a fortune to join something or other—I take great pride in not remembering what.

I’ve commented somewhere else on once having been conned into buying a bag of potato chips with a huge banner saying: "NEW! Larger Bag!." The price went up a quarter, but comparing the "NEW" bag to a remaining "older" version showed that the amount of chips in the bag remained unchanged. Once again, the manufacturer is confident that the buyer is truly too stupid to see through the con.

And furniture store ads screaming "No Interest until 2215!!", are counting on your being far too stupid to realize this means you’ll be paying for it until 2215.

Fast food ads show a two-foot-high sandwich from which meat and cheese and wondrous things literally are falling out of the picture-perfect bun. They’re confident when you’re suckered into actually ordering one of the things, that you’re too dumb to notice that you need a magnifying glass to locate whatever is squashed inside an unappetizing bun. The important thing to them is that you came in and bought the thing, and I’ll bet you ten million dollars you never once said anything about it to the manager.

Debt consolidation loans, tax refund advances, and a slew of other altruistic-sounding offers to provide you with economic assistance are based on the assumption—sadly too often correct—that those who take advantage of them are too stupid to realize that they not only still have to pay off the debt for which they needed help in the first place, but have to pay a hefty additional amount to the company who "helped" them.

Hard not to despair, at times. But I’ve got to cut this short—I’m expecting delivery on my new Bow-Flex machine. In three weeks, I’m going to have a body like a 25-year-old Arnold Schwarzenegger. Guaranteed!

New entries are posted every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back.

Charles ("Buck") Fearn, 1918

Statcounter

Ursula's World

I met Ursula Schramm while I was living in Northern Wisconsin. Ursula was well-known in the area as being an eccentric rock of a woman who, in her 70s when I met her, lived alone on a 20-acre farm on which she raised sheep. She also sheared them and spun their wool into yarn, from which she made mittens, scarves, and various other items. She had electricity but no running water and no toilet.

I knew Ursula was Jewish before I met her…there were very few Jews in the area, most of the residents being either Finnish (to work the forests) or Italian (to work the mines).
I worked part time at a supermarket, which is where I first met her. Knowing she was Jewish, I wished her a happy Rosh Hashana during the holiday, and she took a liking to me, and gradually I learned her story.

She did not willingly talk of her past, and it was only in small bits and pieces, over time, that I learned some of her story. She was born in Germany of a Jewish mother and a non-Jewish father, and she had one older brother whom she adored. When the Nazis came to power, she and her family were shipped off to a concentration camp for "half-breeds". Spared the gas chamber, life in the camps was still incomprehensible to those not experiencing it.

Her beloved brother was beaten to death by a group of Nazi thugs. He was 19.

On February 13, 1945, she was on a prison train which was stopped at the outskirts of Dresden as the infamous bombing raids began. Over 100,000 people died in the firestorms that swept the city. Ursula and others on the train were forced to go through the destroyed city for three days, retrieving bodies.

When her camp was liberated at the end of the war, her mother and father went out for a walk, leaving the confines of the camp for the first time. Her father was shot and killed while on that walk…I was never sure by whom, but it didn’t matter. Murder is murder.

Somehow coming to the U.S., Ursula married a Serb emigre and had two daughters. The marriage was a disaster, and they were divorced after Ursula moved to Chicago. She managed to buy a small house and raise her daughters. During the riots of the 1968 Democratic Party convention in Chicago, Ursula was convinced that what had happened in Germany in the 1930s was happening in America. She sold her house and moved to Northern Wisconsin, where she bought her farm. She became estranged from her daughters, who moved away as soon as they could.

I would visit her frequently, picking up a few things from the store for her. She had a large garden, and would always supply me with vegetables in season. She mowed her own lawn, using a scythe and a push lawnmower.

She, I, and a gay mutual friend (one of only about 10 gays in a 100 mile radius) built a 30 x 60 foot barn for her sheep, largely out of materials salvaged from the various collapsed buildings around her property. She was fiercely, fiercely independent and resourceful.

She was also literally paranoid over the threat of government intervention. The government had installed an "ELF" tracking system throughout northern Wisconsin, and every low-flying plane or passing helicopter was an omen of danger.

We talked every day on the phone, and she would always say "We have to watch out for one another: you never know what might happen."

And then one day I tried to call her. That there was no answer wasn’t surprising: she was always out of the house tending to chores. But when after five or six calls with no response, I began to get concerned. She usually told me when she was planning to go somewhere, and she’d mentioned nothing. Finally, after about the eighth call, I was truly concerned. For some reason, I was unable to drive over (it was about a 20 minute drive) to check on her, and so I called the Sheriff’s office and asked that if they had a car in the area, they could stop and check to be sure she was okay.

I heard nothing further, and later that evening, I called again. Ursula answered the phone. I asked what had happened, and she said she had just been outside working. She then said: "You had no right to call the police. I do not want to talk to you anymore." And she hung up, and that, despite my efforts to explain that I only called the police because I was concerned for her, was except for a few cursory accidental meetings at the store during which she was painfully uncomfortable, the end of our friendship.

I was truly sorry to lose her as a friend, but I realize that in her eyes, I had done the unforgivable: I had called her to the attention of the authorities.

I heard Ursula died last year. Though I was no longer her friend, she was still mine. I miss her.