Bisesquicentennial Harmonies

I'm reading another massive Hungarian novel.  Not sure if it's the Satantango ripple effect or just coincidence, but these novels have engaged me in 2026.  It occurred tonight that I once picked Hungary for a European country report in primary school-- those days when an encyclopedia column and a globe was all that was required. I remember making a topographical map out of colored clays on a piece of plywood... I loved doing these things... but aside from the Magyars and Saint Stephen I recalled little.  My current book-- Celestial Harmonies-- is a sort of tour de force of legend, history, personal recollections and downright lies and fabrications. It's wildly baroque and epic.

Surely these modern authors would be thrilled by their recent election; the literature is suffused with Communist resentment and Nazi guilt. For some reason the city of Budapest itself fascinates me-- the two sides, like yin and yang, separated by water, joined by a bridge. My novel is divided into two parts which fact seems to echo this geography like a metaphor; meanwhile I have much trouble with the names and have no clue of pronunciation.  

In personal experience I have known three Hungarian men-- all of whom were named Imre. One of these was my 'date' for the Bicentennial celebrations in the summer of 1976.  I'd just graduated from college and Imre was a political science PhD candidate.  He had a kind of Brian Jones haircut and wore khaki suits with blue shirts that matched his eyes.  I guess he was cute but I only remember seeing the Tall Ships downtown, and walking from the seaport all the way uptown to Yorkville where he ordered some Hungarian traditional dinner in his native language.

Here I am with this memory which surfaced fifty years later in another American celebratory milestone year in which I curiously find myself steeped in Hungarian lore. There's a tiny irony.  And the fact that this is a year of patriotic guilt as opposed to celebration... American politics and the way our national spirit has been distorted into a Munchian monster resembling Shame more than Pride.  

For those of us who are born and raised with cumulative guilt, this keeps us awake.  Guilt, as they say, is a Motherfucker. I lie awake some nights trying to invent metaphors for the couple-- like shame is the distorted haunting shadow of guilt... the hangover that doesn't clear.  I have friends-- recovered alcoholics and more, who seem married to shame. And yet... there are people like our president who don't seem to understand the meaning of either concept. They golf away their cares while we empaths toss and turn, worry about immigrants and displaced Palestinian children-- wounded Iranian protestors and the starving babies of Sudan. 

King Charles, for one, never looks happy. His expression is appropriately pained and compassionate most of the time-- his known pleasure was rock music-- Status Quo and loud bands that drowned out his sorrows and worries... the guilt that is implicit in anyone so privileged by birth. There is nobility in being a sad king. He has his reasons, too.

The stepsister of guilt and shame is blame.  We empaths tend to point fingers at ourselves... if only I hadn't left my college boyfriend he might not have died... if I'd skipped that Theoretical Shes gig at CBGB's my daughter might have been born healthy. How far can I go? Parents who have lost children in mass shootings and other tragedies manage to find a way to place blame... on the shooter's parents, or the gun companies... on the Camp Mystic administrators.  Lawyers encourage this thinking. It's profitable. Does this make anything better?  Yes for justice, no for misplaced cause and effect.

The shocking killing and suicide by Justin Fairfax last week shook us all. How does one pay for mistakes and crippling guilt or shame or self-hatred?  It's a hideous chain of emotional disturbance and a residual curse for his children. Yesterday's mass shooting by a father in Louisiana is nearly impossible to process. How does one begin with love and arrive at these hideous endpoints? How to minimize damage in these cases? What makes some of us fret and suffer over things we cannot control? I read somewhere that without man, God would be horribly bored.  And without God man would be innocent. Is it fear of judgement that makes us behave or not?  What is compassion and how can one keep it reasonably humanitarian versus uselessly dramatic?

As someone who feels small things disproportionately, I have had to temper my instincts with a kind of rationale-- hiding parental worry and panic, blinking back tears on the subway and streets for struggling unfortunates. Does empathy help? If one is a physical therapist-- yes, or as a musician, executing an ensemble vision...  But not always.  We get in our own way, we suffer and damage ourselves and others. I recognize and adore my friends who love too much, too easily, who fall on their proverbial face time and again and end up as victims... emptying pockets for undeserving predators we don't always recognize. Manipulative panhandlers park themselves outside posh restaurants to try to extort these feelings. It's painful but one must draw a boundary.

Hungary is among the landlocked countries... I think of these as having little relief, somehow... nowhere to breathe. The 2026 celebratory year creates a kind of memory arc for those of us who recall 1976.  I wonder what happened to my friend Imre who walked the city with me in his suit-- whether he returned to Budapest and worked for change in a new generation which could perhaps forget their former German alliance. Here... what a different post-Watergate America we walked-- hopeful enough to elect Jimmy Carter who stood for decency and humanity.  I was old enough to have my young guilt and shames but Vietnam had finished... the guilty president resigned. I had none of the dreadful national guilt and shame I feel now especially when I leave the country. Lost integrity, trust... and where is the blame now? Not a question of nostalgia, but future.  It took the Hungarians a long time to effect change, but they managed. On the 4th of July, I imagine all those who voted for the current president standing up and raising their guilty hand in admission.  Then I will celebrate.

Talk is Cheap

On the way from the fireworks last night I began absorbing the noise factor in Manhattan.  From my admittedly luxurious viewing space, the  explosions were thrilling and loud enough to set off nearly every car alarm on the block.  Loved it.  But shuffling east in the massive festive crowd--  maybe it's the heat, the constant cellphone chatter in public space--- it seems to me that the general volume is louder than it used to be.  Like the glutted internet, the billion cable stations--- there is just so much chatter, people have raised their speaking level to compete.  I'm listening to snippets of conversations-- of public intimacy-- that I didn't sign up for.  And not at eavesdropping levels; these abused rock-musician ears have been gouged and tortured with cymbals, drum whackers, bad PAs, deaf guitarists with 4-figure wattage... it's a miracle I can hear my old television at night.  But the value of conversation seems to have not just declined but disappeared, while personal audio settings have skyrocketed.

Of course it follows that people no longer whisper but quite audibly discuss and promote their sex life everywhere-- on buses, in restaurants, in 5000 shades of cheap novels.  It used to be those who could, 'did'.. and those who couldn't, talked about it.  Now who the fuck knows or cares.  It seems to me, an old retired babe, that the quality of sex must be suffering along with conversation, journalism, literature, whatever.  Talk is cheap, the phone companies tell us--- we have become the Yngwie Malmsteen version of talkers.  Remember when telegrams charged by the word?  When e. e. cummings' economical response to the Academy of Arts and Letters' invitation to join was 'drop dead'?  

Maybe America needs a Twitter diet.  Like one a day.  Some quality control.  Levels of internet communication.  Asshole filtering.  And I'm not a complete old bitch; I love great loud rock; I love comedy that humiliates; I like the knife and I like the blood.  I spent a lot of years reinventing my personal sexuality brand and don't regret a minute.  But even minutes have lost their edge.  They're unlimited and cheap and low-res.  Like climbing all the way up Everest and finding you can't see a thing.  Or you get a billboard and 3-D glasses.  A view master if you're over 50.  

Look at our pop icons:  Brittany Spears has become a badly-spoken candidate for talent-judge.  We used to have Marilyn.  She fucked not only baseball allstars and the president and maybe even Albert Einstein,  but married the greatest 20th century playwright.   That was interesting.  The sex--- well, our daughters might certainly have learned something Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton didn't show them.  Now our icons (and I love Brittany--- she's so 'real' (!)) are the Barbie version of what they used to be.  What do we do when our culture is looking up at the American I-doll of what should be...and reality is a fake ill-scripted cheap version of post-Cassavetes television?  Who wants the super sized cup of diet soda?  Not Writerless.  Maybe we should all just give in and go to K-mart online and buy the doll.  Cindy Sherman knows about that.  I will order several of Eating Disorder Barbie.  Bulimic Barbie with a bulge in her stomach/ can be transformed into teenage pregnant Barbie.  Cutting Barbie.  True Blood Barbie.  Collagen lip-enhanced Barbie.  Breast augmentation Barbie in 3 sizes.  I'm not even amusing myself now.  I hate dolls.  PMS Barbie.

Did you women ever think that we spend 25% of our sex life bleeding?  The networks love anything with Blood in the title... but who writes 50 Shades of Blood?  I might.  I'm sitting in Starbucks taking advantage of the free air-conditioning and a young intern is waiting for his iced latte talking about diarrhea.  Loud.  Laughing.  Next to me a hot young Russian trophy wife is talking to her realtor.  Her ring could buy me coffee for life.  To my left a woman is making a reservation and her baby girl is yelling for another M&M cookie.  Another lady had a car accident and is reporting to her insurance company.   Building a case.  I literally hear all of this.  Not to mention the canned coffeehouse Latino-light music which is annoying.  A cheap cowbell.  Sounds digital.  Organ with too many runs... please God, spare us vocals.  Across from me a man with small hands is i-ordering his scarcely adolescent daughter a new phone.  It will be pink.  2 tiny boys in their karate uniforms coming from one of their myriad summer enhancement programs with their over-educated nanny.  Can't be too botoxed or have too many pre-school lessons here in Carnegie Hill.  Who will tell them that all their jiu-jitsu moves won't protect them from what lurks ahead?  

The heat outside is omnipotent today.  My mind is withered.  My Mom who is old enough to have earned a memory award now has Alzheimers and wants to wear an overcoat.  A rebel, she is.  I wonder if she thinks about sex.  She follows my Dad around like a young puppy now.  Tells me how handsome he is.  I wonder if the sex I had is better than the sex I will have tonight.  That 50 Shades book has affected my 1001 Arabian Nights parallel serial virtual novel.  I  don't want the soft whip and satin handcuffs package in any version of a honeymoon suite.  This is corporate soft-hotel-porn.  The Travelocity gnome in heels and black leather.  They ruined rock, they ruined the economy, they ruined medicine and now they're ruining sex.

On the hot asphalt my local homeless true-reality star James-with-no-surname is talking without a phone.  You have to love the guy.  

Ipods and Benefit Cards

There’s this guy in my neighborhood with those arm crutches. He reeks of garlic and listens to NPR on some portable radio headphones. The few times I’ve overheard him he’s speaking about politics—maybe a Dennis Kucinich supporter. He has no observable handicap I can see—in fact he seems rather robust-- works out, no hint of a limp, often carries the crutches on one arm, gives me the eye and I give it back—that two dogs passing thing—the quick growl, slight rise of the lip-- just letting the other know…don’t even think about it. A bitter radical. Just over the hill…waiting for Medicare…maybe even pulling a disability scam on the MTA with those crutches, for the satisfaction of the half-price thing, sticking it to the system…yeah, that’s it, you cheap bastard.

Why does this guy bug me? Lately Writerless is acquiring this edge. A crust. Getting old-- crisping. Rarely accepting anything at face value. Maybe a good pint of American redblood replaced by something nasty.

I had to go to the ER last weekend…test the system which at its most shining is nothing less than rotten. I actually broke my foot, although the triage and admission staff relegated me to whiney white-bitch status immediately. I could tell. So I sat-- a little miserable. Huge families on welfare with the benefit cards—babies in strollers, aunts, uncles—like a party—all laughing, trading ipods, abusing the vending machines, filing in and out while I sat. No one even offered an ice-pack. I saw the diagnosis on the computer-screen: Sprained ankle. You go girl. You could sit all weekend with that one.

My hospital co-pay will be $50 if I’m lucky, and if I watch every move, I won’t owe more than a couple of hundred all told. For this --and the privilege of being last, I actually pay out-of-pocket $700 a month. Just for myself. Kids—with my musician’s income, get some state program-- great care, no money.

But for these families— those of the 400 pound aunt who forgot her albuterol, the fat girl who stubbed her toe, the baby with a slight fever--not a cent of co-pay. They each racked up maybe $3,000 for the State of New York while the unsick of them partied, consumed snacks and beverages, talked on their cellphones, told jokes and enjoyed a rent-free air-conditioned living-room for the night. There's even a decent film on the HD monitors. Kids running everywhere, screaming, jumping around, watching cartoons and playing completely unsupervised in the Pediatric ER waiting room. Heck, if one of them has an accident, they’re home-free here. And the women behind the glass-- the ones moving at 2 RPMs-- they ignored it all.

After 9 hours I somehow bypassed the front desk and went in. They claimed they’d called me hours ago….anyway, looked surprised when they saw the clean fracture on the film…and sent me home with another referral. Seems my insurance, unlike the free variety, doesn’t cover actual treatment in the ER. I’ll have to beg and plead and get additional electronic referrals to another free clinic which is the only place in this day that accepts my health insurance for which I pay maybe 1/3 of my annual income. 1/3. And I am just one slim asset away from the free kind. But I struggle and skimp and save and wear old clothes for this privilege. My kids hate me, I can barely afford basic cable, have no ipod or cell, and of course my $50 co-pay does not include use of the hospital phones to call someone to help me home because in my state of acute pain, I didn’t think to bring quarters. Vending machines are not an option for the likes of me. While the woman behind the glass is dispensing get-out-of-work-free notes to the families, because they were in the ER.

So on this eve of American Independence Day, I am looking for the meaning of a true American holiday. My teenager will be jet-skiing with his friends, dressed like a rich person and sipping lemonade on the South Hampton veranda of a brand-new mansion with a French name. Macy’s will be spending mega-millions on a fireworks display which could have fed the entire African continent. New York City will be spending more than the GNP of an average state on overtime for the beefed-up police force. I’ll be hobbling onto a stairless stage, docked $20 for making someone else set up my amplifier, going home on the train with my $100, thinking about freedom and independence. Thinking about these fat American families barbecuing steak they purchased with benefit cards, listening to their ipods and cellphones and enjoying the other fruits of their credit card debt, free American health insurance and instant disability payments because maybe they were too lazy to refill their free albuterol prescription.

Incidentally, the therapeutic boot-thing my foot requires is not covered and costs more than Prada, so I’ll rig up some old stiff-sole arrangement and hobble painfully on.

God Bless America. And Michael Moore.