Tuesday, October 31, 2017

Hollow

Monday morning my television was left on, after a fantastic 5-hour World Series game… I was half listening to some evangelist rambling on about holy water and salvation which sounded absurd enough for me to take a look.  Here was one of those fake ministers whom I could swear had been indicted and mortified in another decade--- back on-screen with his bad hair-weave and dye job, a surgically enhanced blonde wife reading letters and testimonies with the emotional presence of a talking doll.  He was throwing away crutches, walking wheelchair patients around a huge room, choosing person after person to come to the front, cast off their pain and praise the power of the monthly sum they commit to this shyster for the promise of some God-backed pay-off.  How is this legal, and how are there numbers of people-- not actors, I assume, willing to participate in this scam?

It is Halloween.  The day dawned with a chill wind… children awaking with energy-- dreaming about their costumes.  Classes will not be so bad; teachers will forego homework… townhouses in my neighborhood are decorated with ghoulish puppets and spiderwebs-- a haunted real-estate fantasy.   Most everyone has their carved pumpkins and candles out, and piles of candy ready at the door.  Then we had a mid-afternoon incident… the city takes a bullet.   For the victims, who began this day innocently-- maybe even taking a personal day since we all get involved in trick-or-treating festivities, the parade-- this was a catastrophic synchronicity of geography.

I can't help wondering who these people are who execute heinous killings-- whether they are heartless ethical mutants passing as human beings, or maybe lost, confused children wearing a costume of evil someone has loaned them or given them like a kind of armor with which to manage the world.  Indoctrination-- brain-washing, initiation… creates monstrous murderous machines which have only physical human resemblance.  Like the tales of science fiction, they walk among us, drive cars, buy groceries… and then, the switch is thrown and their image is on all our screens and devices.

Our president, of course, as he does, used personal tragedy to promote his own bizarre agenda.  The man couldn't protect us from a mosquito, let alone the threat of terrorist-driven violence; this particular murderer is not even from one of the restricted countries on the Trump list, although he would have us believe this.  He has not a clue about psychology, about deep-seated resentments and human suffering, about children who grow up without proper protection, without dreams, exposed to horrific acts of war and often without any kind of stable home or haven.  He is a tiny man in a larger man's costume.

On the airport bus in Sweden last month, I sat behind a calm young couple on their way to some honeymoon or vacation junket.  She was wearing a powder-blue coat-- haven't seen or heard that color described since the 1960's…  he in a button-down and tie.   They were chattering and whispering-- like coloring-book illustrations of perfect good Swedes talking about the weather-- friends, new clothes-- innocent and so clean… the crease of his shirt, her pristine coat-- giggling and acting like grown-ups-- the epitome of normal-- the golden-rule standard.  Struggling myself with a tape-reinforced old carry-on bag, worrying about getting through customs with my home-made sandwich-- flying on the cheap-cheap-- no luggage, no meal, no water…  an old black-haired odd freak in my thrift-shop denim… I felt like a blot on the milk-white paper of homogenized Stockholm.

I imagined my perfect Swedes in my city taking the Circle Line tour, going to see Kinky Boots and staying at some Times Square Hotel. They'd visit Brooklyn, eat soul food at Sylvia's in Harlem, walk the High Line… and suddenly, pulling out my dog-eared James Baldwin and my notebook-- I started to pity them.  They are just people-- like most of us-- with jobs and little houses and furnishings and a coffee maker and maybe a dog… wearing the costume of normalcy.  All dressed up and nowhere really to go, because it occurs to me now, in this culture of Trump and Instagram and Twitter--- that we are all followers and post-its-- the subjects of our own blogs and photo-albums, but very few of us really know who we are.   So busy are we looking at  Facebook and dumping out on the galaxy-sized digital garbage pile, very few have taken the solitary and tough independent time to dissect and analyze ourselves old-school.

How did my generation evolve-- listening to the words of men like Martin Luther King who urged us to drive out hatred with love, to shun violence and to feel the oppression of others and stand up for their dignity when they could not?  Believing his words-- that we are all one, we must not be silent, we must think and care and do right, we must protect those who cannot protect themselves.  But he also encouraged us via action to become better people.   This is religion for me-- love and truth and compassion… not praying for a shiny new luxury car, or executing an act of human violence in the name of some distorted version of God.

On the sidewalks at dusk, throngs of children went on with their ritual--- ghouls and monsters, super-heroes and princesses, witches and wizards… terrorism did not stop our Halloween.  I wonder how many of these kids become their costume-- try on their character, melt their own little soul into the persona that is already formed and clear.  Tomorrow they will just be children again, although many of their parents will continue to wear the costume of hair-weaves and plastic surgery, having learned nothing of the lessons of my generation-- of the inside shining through the outside…of beauty of heart beating out the skin-deep kind.  We are judged these days by our instagram image, by our facade… the quick profile… and so many of us have lost our own judgment.  Witness the president we 'chose'.

My person-of-the-night award goes to the little Mexican girl dressed as a Pilgrim; with her orange plastic pumpkin-basket, she explained to me how Thanksgiving is about celebrating the immigrants, how she is learning to read even though her parents cannot, and how she will grow up to be an important American woman.  Her mother's shy ambivalent smile said it all.  I wanted to hug this girl, and to cry for her future among the Trumps and Harvey Weinsteins, among the privileged UES botoxed ladies and the corrupt hierarchy of American economics.  Be true to yourself, be kind to your sisters, I wanted to say, and you may still be a victim; you may be deported and disrespected and very poor.  In my permanent costume of poverty and human sympathy,  I went back upstairs to watch baseball.

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Wednesday, October 11, 2017

The One That (almost) Got Away

 When I was twenty-something and had produced my first little 4-track demo of songs, I decided I might be-- well, special, and sent my cassette out to a few record companies.  Miraculously, I had a reply from not just a great label but a well-known producer who had masterminded brilliant releases for some of my rock icons.  He set up a meeting at his hotel; I was over the moon; the sequence was described in another blog.  For him, it was a forgettable evening; for me, it was not just humiliating and hideous, but forever fused my songwriting aspirations with a kind of cheap, lecherous, predatory prerequisite.  Not only did he deflate my ambition and my belief, but as a young 'no-one', I couldn't find the headroom to even share my experience with anyone but my own husband.

30 years later, as I divulged in a prior blog, the guy actually friended me on Facebook.  He's sober, he's old, has passed his prime.  I meant nothing to him-- maybe a twinge of morning-after guilt mixed in with his first cocktail of the day, but by evening he would have washed the proverbial blood from his hands, the hotel cleaners would have tossed the torn bits of my clothes he ripped as souvenirs.  Me?  I took my ruined outfit and went underground.  Sure, I play and write-- but I never again put myself out there in the same way.  The anger I feel?  Yes, it's been diluted with distance… and maybe I should have taken the cue differently and steeled myself into a rock and roll warrior but I was not tough.  In fact, it wasn't until I got old enough to be less attractive and less susceptible that I started to get some swagger.  Throughout my thirties and even forties, I cautiously sidestepped opportunities.

For some years I worked in the art business.  My very first job was in the massive apartment of a handsome collector from whose bedroom almost daily a variety of companions emerged-- most of them younger than his own daughter; some would even sometimes share a coffee with me.  I was extremely cautious and ignored his flirtatious remarks; he had some class and didn't grab.  I needed the job.  In fact I needed all the jobs I've ever had, and tolerated a level of inappropriate conduct we didn't learn to label 'harassment' until more recent times.  Even my female bosses schooled me on how to manage some of this without causing a scene, without losing the sale.

When I was 14, my best friend's father accosted me on the way to the bathroom one night.  I glossed it over.  Who could I tell?  My friend? My Mom who would never have believed me?  And what then-- have my best friend's life ruined?  There is a price to pay for honesty, for confessions and personal testimonials.  I adjusted my behavior, insisted she sleep at my house-- that I had a homesickness issue.

So many of the women who have come forth in this Harvey Weinstein scandal are beautiful, successful actors.  I can imagine what they've endured… especially in the 60's and 70's when women's lib was a campaign, a mindset-- but it never stopped the bullying behavior of men.  Why?  Because they can? Because the process of ratting and tattling smears the victim nearly as much as the perpetrator, but in different ways.  You get blacklisted; people call you crazy.  My own Mom turned her cheek when I tried to explain how my pervy uncle took advantage of us girls.  I learned not to sing or dance or perform at family reunions.  I kept silent and tried not to call attention to myself.  Is this fair?  It is not.

I've been date-raped, bullied, had inappropriate things insinuated and spoken by bankers, lawyers, politicians and rock stars.  Some of them were high or drunk, but this is no excuse.  One of my son's ex-girlfriends who was extraordinarily beautiful shared with me some of the reasons she was abandoning modeling.  I cried.  It seems so much more hideous when you hear someone else's story, when you see someone else's innocence spoiled, their dreams smeared.

So the question on the table-- the pink crippled elephant in the room-- why did these women not come forth?  Because they loved their career, they needed the job, they did not want to permanently taint their reputation with these heinous personal scars?  There is no way to emerge from this stuff unscathed.  You make a choice, and so many of us choose silence.  Knowledge is power, they say; there is our self knowledge, our self worth.  The really sad under-story is the enormous talent-pool who were so discouraged and burned by this kind of thing, they left the stage.

Here's a new twist.  Recently I've been the victim of some heinous back-stabbing remarks and behavior perpetrated by a jealous bystander trying to destroy one of my beloved bands.  Not only had I tried for months to 'let it go'… and to ignore, but I did not really protest until this woman insisted that a male band member had made all kinds of sexual advances.   Like reverse, slanderous sexual harassment, because it seemed credible.  So I took up the cause and began to fight back-- not for myself, but for others whom she has wounded and maligned-- why?  Because she can? Because the nature of social media allows this kind of behavior to ignite in new ways and gives her power?  Isn't that what this is all about?

How sad this is.  Our own president is a perpetrator of this kind of personal sabotage-- of bullying, of sexual denigration, of the low-level insult, of the under-the-table communique.  He sets the bar so low it is hard to pass underneath.  As for my own vendetta to save the reputation of my friends and fellow band members, the whole incident has left a mark on us.  Our little musical family is awkward and our brotherhood is undermined.  There are no winners in these cases; well, maybe the ones who are financially compensated-- but the world is full of snakes, especially where stakes are highest.  We can only keep our eyes open, become accountable-- learn to decipher fake from real news, and make sure the silent innocent have a voice.  Our children are growing up in a strange culture, where sexuality and the way we wear it is a personal choice.  There are available methods of protection, even in the face of powerful facilitators and celebrities...and no one has the right to charge an intimate nonrefundable price to promote our dreams.

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