Will (Not) Tell On You

One of the first tasks required of all entering Princeton freshman is the signing of the Honor Code. In my day, it stated something like 'I will not cheat (or a euphemism)' on exams'.  The second part-- the corollary-- was, simply stated, 'and I will report anyone who does'. Being the philosophical and slightly rebellious student that I was, I questioned the necessity of the corollary, assuming everyone adhered to the 'not cheating' oath.  Otherwise, what good is a signature? 

So I had to have a conversation with the Dean of Academic Affairs... it wasn't like me to ruffle the waters, but maybe like me to think about what I signed up for.  I took things seriously. It was hard to believe no one had had issues with this before; presumably they were so glad to be embarking on their Ivy League privileged journey that they just agreed.  In the end, I crossed out the second part and swore to the first.  I had never and have never cheated academically.  I have always tried to be original and not to lie; it's an unspoken covenant with some higher power, or a terrific sense of guilt instilled by my strict father.

Cheating, as it's commonly known in our culture, seems to refer primarily to relationship violations. There's a reality TV show dedicated to this, and in fact, the highest-rated episodes of most reality shows deal with this subject.  People are shamed, smeared, maligned, interviewed... everyone seems to know the score.  But this is greatly exaggerated.  Unfortunately, infidelity is more common than its opposite.  I noticed it as a child--- before I was fully aware of the meaning-- I saw people's fathers with women, people's mothers flirting with the gardener or their tennis instructor.  

We all know, biologically, humans are not monogamous the way penguins are.  We don't mate for life; we're adaptable. Reproductive biology is biological; love is something else.  There are even cheaters in the Bible, multiple wives (Jacob, for one-- Thomas Mann elaborates on this); it is part of the Genesis narrative. The damn President of the United States has historically had lovers... Monica Lewinsky made a career out of Clinton's indiscretion; Hillary maybe gained greater political access because of her loyalty.  Former President Trump fabricated an entire political brand based on cheating, lying, infidelities, disrespect, narcissism... his romantic infidelities don't seem nearly as heinous as the rest.  Except maybe for Melania, but she's not stupid... she made a marital contract.

Still, even when I married a rock musician, knowing the occupational hazards, I had a certain belief in the institution of marriage.  Our hip little wedding was in a church; we took vows and and exchanged rings; it mattered.  And then things wear... the bonds after multiple washings become threadbare... you try not to look, not to digest toxic rumors. But at a certain point, you weaken.  You question-- is it your own insecurity that caused this?  His insecurity about you? There seems to be no emotional answer.  And it hurts.  It wrecks you... it implodes the oath, the sanctity of this thing in which you believed.  So you make a choice-- either you weather the instability... or you leave.  More pain.  Or, as many couples do,  you cheat.  Yes, you... you mimic the same behavior as your spouse-- you even the score.  

I came of sexual age in the 70's.  Fidelity was not generally on the menu, lol. But we chose marriage-- the whole covenant, the tradition.  I loved my ring. I knew my husband had cheated; I tried to look away, but after a time, I grew apart-- and the first time I actually 'cheated'... well, the marriage was close to dissolution.  But I also slept with someone whose marriage had similarly disintegrated; we felt a commonality... it was like one step further away, because we were both victims of an unhappy arrangement.  For me it was a temporary narcotic... I felt better, I felt amazingly adored... and I felt like I'd taken a step back.  It slowed the emotional hemorrhage to a very slight drip.

But the fact is... the reality of discovering a cheater is jolting.  It's painful-- rejection, abandonment... and the scenario of one's paramour being intimate with a stranger is disturbing.  It exposes part of us, too; we are involved.  Cheaters don't always consider this-- the way we are forced into an intimacy with a third person we might hate... with someone who has disrespected us and weaponized our emotions. 

Do we heal from this?  I don't know.  I do know one can't unsee what one has seen.  And in this culture-- is digital cheating, or emailing or meeting up without actual sex... is this cheating?  Is it not 'your cheatin' heart' in the words of Hank Williams, that really kills us? 

My second husband seemed to fall madly in love with me.. .and while I'd sworn off marriage, I gave in.  It turned out he'd been living with someone else... so we started off on the wrong beat.  Were we doomed?  I'm not sure.  We even went to counseling where I was told that minor infidelities were super common in newly engaged couples... it was sort of a growing pain.  But I realized-- we all have a different tolerance for this stuff.  Some people keep their relationships going with extra partners, or fantasies... they watch porn, they act out little dramas.  

I seem to be the same idealistic person who refused to sign the flawed honor code.  I've been equally disillusioned, academically, by reading about plagiarisms, data crunching, scholarly truth-stretching even among venerated professors.  I'm also realistic about the person I am.  I love my son unconditionally.  His biological father abandoned him as a baby; today we celebrate me, the sole cross-gendered parent.  But me as a wife?  I've been jaded and spoiled... I don't know what's expected of me, or even what I expect.  There are times in my life I've had two lovers, or many... or times when I disconnected from someone who maybe truly loved me. The bottom line is-- people fall out of love.  For some, there is enough 'residue' to sustain a family. For others, they crave passion, and you can't, as Bonnie Raitt sang, make someone love you. I think in our hearts we sense this... and it's painful... it's also human... but it's breaking.

So for me Father's Day has a few meanings.  It's about my father who was unhappily faithful to his family... but who knows where his emotional meanderings took him?  It's about other people's fathers who were and weren't role models.  My son's father no longer exists except as a broken romance memory, and a set of divorce and custody papers from long ago.  And for me-- I toughened up, as a parent, and took up the reins.   Having some sympathy for people in unhappy situations, do I judge?  Children suffer and I tried to prioritize mine over my attraction to passionate entanglements. And like most of us, I made a ton of wrong choices.  But did I lie?  I did not. I adhered to my own honor code.  And one thing I do know... no matter who wins this election, no matter how the court swings, no matter how great or lousy America may be, cheating is here to stay. Amen. 

Kissing and Telling

Statistically there are children in the five boroughs who are regularly abused-- beaten, chained like dogs and deprived of necessities. There are women who are daily beaten-- men, too.  There are handicapped people who are mistreated and neglected... unable to cry out or ask for help.  There is also kindness and those who give of their limited and precious life hours to ensure the comfort of others. Saints and angels.

Politically incorrect as it may be, I confess I am a little baffled at the press war on our governor.  Women of my generation are less horrified by the accusations because we spent much of our careers, up until deep middle age, sidestepping and leapfrogging such innuendoes and advances.  We squirmed out of arms, turned our cheeks and kept vigilant and sober at professional parties.  One night I was out with some major music business executive and assumed my boyfriend was giving me some under-table affection until he got up to use the men's room and the hand remained.  Shocked?  I could not disclose because telling the tale had its own sorry repercussions.

The woman who spoke up last night-- not to belittle her trauma-- had to read her account.  These are carefully prepared-- clinical and not exaggerated, but honestly-- I could not really understand what the complaint was all about.  There were plenty of witnesses-- including her son-- she looked charmed and flattered, not really horrified or traumatized.  Virtually everyone kisses me twice, like it or not.  I met the governor once at a reception... it was maybe 30 years ago, he was newly married and extremely friendly and sort of avuncular although I am a bit older.  I thought nothing except the politically ambitious often greet one with an air of forced familiarity and affection.  Bill Clinton had a similar habit, lol.  It's like they want you to remember their held-over handshake or embrace; it affects your sense that they care about you-- not YOU, but us. Cuomo is a little clueless and old-school.  But don't we have larger fish to fry?  Like Donald Barracuda Trump?  Do we need a scandal distracting the more important business of our Attorney General at this moment when the pandemic is still raging and our democracy is under attack?  Not really.  

My older sister used to think everyone was ogling her.  She actually got a teacher suspended and fired for antics calculated to distract him.  Of course he was crucified for weakness; she was annoyed that he'd discouraged her.  Maybe my familial shame has prejudiced me... but I was forced by my sister to testify on her behalf when I'd spent nights in the back seat of an old Firebird while she and a married young Phys. Ed teacher touched each other in his backyard toolshed. Teenagers.

Meanwhile there are truly horrendous acts of war being perpetrated-- racial profiling, violent acts of hatred and aggression... suffering people.  There are the horrific Epsteens and Weinsteins who seem to have got away with abusing women for years.  The Governor stood up to our former president and protected New York during a health crisis.  I miraculously received the assistance I needed just to survive. Why is it that I feel this campaign has an underlying motive?  I apologize to any women who have been genuinely hurt.  I just find the timing 'off' and I am fairly certain the good he can do will outweigh any behavioral mistakes going forward.  He has maybe sinned and transgressed and confessed and been duly hand and face-slapped.  He has not tried to discredit his victims, like our ex-President. He has apologized.  

The women of my generation broke ground in many sectors.  We are still under-acknowledged, underpaid... but we did not have the freedom to dress as we chose in the workplace-- even onstage without risking extra attention from our male colleagues who crossed lines freely and knew we would not tell.  Most of us did not kiss either; to be judged by equal standards, my first all-girls band refused to bare our legs and glam-out for management.  We wanted to play.  

I've written before about the music producer who  propositioned and then beat me when I would not respond.  It changed my life forever. Besides some karmic baggage, he seems to have enjoyed his life.  I moved on-- abandoned a solo career-- did not have the stomach to weather these episodes, and at the time predatory behaviors were difficult to report and prosecute.  My career as it was would be scarred.  Now that I'm old I can tell the tale and it is far from Governor Cuomo's style of border-crossing.  Not that any of it is okay... but there is a learning curve-- there are resources, and there is also a door.  The smarter among us recognize a 'bad' boss... we have options.  In all cases, dignity must champion ambition.  

General Knowledge

I had this book of riddles when I was small... and besides the chicken and moron jokes, there were a few philosophical sphinx-worthy entries that have stayed with me.  One was 'To What Question can you never answer 'yes'?  The answer was 'Are You Sleeping?' but of course this was the PG version of 'Are You Dead?'  I don't quite know why, but trying to filter the meaning of the Petraeus resignation today, I kept coming up with alternate riddles like: 'To What Question can you never answer yes and keep your military appointment?' Or for Eliot Spitzer... '..and keep your political office'... or for Anthony Wiener... or Bill Clinton, who maybe never actually answered the question... etc., and kept his office, his wife, the money, and besides a karmic and perhaps metaphorical cardiac crisis, he seems to have maybe increased his rockstar politician status.

But really, what is it about this 21st century culture that makes adultery so newsworthy?  And considering the horrific bloopers and perverse incidents that have smudged the broad heroics of our troops in the Middle East, is a little romance or a little affection really criminal?  It hadn't really occurred to me that there were 'General' groupies... but why not?  And why can't the media leave politicians to their jobs and let them have their human flaws.  God knows our Founding Fathers dipped their pens in several inkwells and whichever bullet assassinated JFK, it was undoubtedly not fired by a jealous ex.

As a musician, I've heard all kinds of tales about the habits of rockstars-- their sexual preferences, their obsessive little idosyncracies... but rarely do I hear this kind of thing from the guys in their band.  Professionals know they're privy by proximity to a certain TMI level... and they respect this.  It's really no one's business.  To be crass, how many times have you found yourself in the next stall from someone you know on another level and absorbed information you simply flush away and delete before you go back to your table?  No one's business.  So what is wrong with these people?

A mere week ago I was biting my nails and fretting about the elections.  Has anyone noticed how quickly the looming monster-head of Mitt Romney has receded?  A bit like the Wicked Witch of the West after the bucket of water  I read today his Facebook fans were abandoning him in droves.  Just like that....all his beautiful wickedness... pay no attention to that man behind the mask...whatever...  we are Mitt-free for at least 4 more years...onto the horrific hurricane aftermath, the long winter of financial difficulty for my small family, thankfully untouched in our neighborhood,  the pathetic inappropriate omni-coverage of this Petraeus scandal like the military version of Bachelor.  I suppose the Hollywood treatment of CIA and FBI has done much to bolster their image... and am I the only one who wondered why a 4-star general and super-hero would feel the need to color his hair?  Has anyone taken a poll of Republican vs. Democrat hair-dyers in Congress?

When I was kid, reading my little joke book, I also had Bible class.  Among the enigmatic Ten Commandments, I misunderstood Adultery as kids pretending to be grown up--- maybe lying about it--- or maybe something that happened to cream.  I didn't ask questions back then.  So how can people be criminalized for consenting private adult love?  What is inappropriate except this voyeuristic supposition... or the suspicion that something official and dangerous was exchanged, betrayed?  Can't he pull a Bill Clinton....or is he too honest?  What do Mormons consider adulterous anyway?  And what did Mitt have to do with this whole story which broke on election day?  Was this some Republican desperate last-minute attempt to slime the administration and  complicate the Benghazi story?  Is the insinuation that Petraeus was too busy having biographical sex to respond to a crisis?  Is there something more heinous for which the sex scandal is simply a smokescreen.. and what a news-greedy screen it is providing... now another General is involved, the word 'scandal' is viral, the adjective 'explosive' is  already in overuse... now it's 'bombshell'... and I am beginning to yawn?   Ironic that it is Veteran's Day, people are homeless and hungry and cold-- many of them veterans who cannot afford hair dye or extramarital women and will never have a biographer or a jealous groupie or even a pension and proper healthcare if we don't start straightening out priorities and get on with the business of balancing the budget.

Tonight a shindig next-door with a DJ-- while we were underpaid, working long hours slagging out our old veteran analogue music, well-dressed party-goers  dancing to LLoyd Banks, Fifty Cent, Bankie Banks--- (such names-- how about Goldman's Sack?)... maybe they are celebrating the End of Capital Gains Tax Cuts? Or maybe just Capital Gains? Certainly a common denominator, judging from the coats, bags, and jewelry.

But on the way out,  2 AM, a young beautiful girl passed out, police standing around, ambulance on the way--- we hope she can be revived, she seemed seriously unresponsive... and they dance on, the drunk happy people in their finery--- young, carefree, drunk and unafraid--- they have everything; they wait in the VIP line, they text, they fail to look, some of them undoubtedly failed to vote... they fall on the dance floor, they get up; turns out the unresponsive girl, despite fake ID, is merely 19--- my version of 'Adultery'... so what is the crime, the accountability, the punishment, ... to what accusation can you never respond 'Not Guilty'?

Kerb Your Enthusiasm

Some mornings I wake up to a strangely un-urban quiet and I wonder, ever since 9/11, has 'it' happened... has my city been wiped out and I am a lone survivor... and I look over at my old clock radio, and there is still electricity... and my phone works... and I can hear the birds now... but I step out into the day with this sense of being newly baptized or finding out no, it is not cancer... and I vow to keep this attitude--- of grace and awe and innocence-- despite the nasty/smelly/greedy meanness I am bound to encounter on my daily route.

I have caught myself several times this week muttering expletives under my breath when someone shoves me aside to get on the bus first or runs a red light and clips my guitar case as I jump back onto the kerb.  When did I become this impatient old crank and how far will it go?  My friends have been leaking bad language, sneering and frowning and growling more than usual.  Is it the humidity?  The Republicans? When does cynicism become malevolence?  In an election year when name-calling and one-downmanhip seem to be the standards of our leadership?

Wasn't there a 'luxury tax' in our old Monopoly games?  We paid it, if the dice brought us there; we went to jail and paid our fines.  We paid extra for houses and hotels on expensive blocks, as I recall.  Have they changed the game to parallel the Bush-era tax cuts?  Not that I know, but I no longer care about games.  After a brief 1981 flirtation with Space Invaders I checked out.  I hate computer games and God knows I still don't have a cell phone.

But some nights I feel I am a stranger in a strange land.  I don't 'fit in' the way I used to... I am eavesdropping more than participating, but in a way I am mentally participating while my fellow urban occupants seem to be mutually eavesdropping.  I see things in three dimensions--- not just as they are, but with their history, framed by time-shadows of meaning.  My life is vintage now-- which for me doesn't mean just aged, but suffused with long-simmered flavor.

I watched an episode of Gallery Girls.  Yes, I confess... okay, I was writing and multi-tasking while I watched--- there was not nearly enough 'meat' to warrant just sitting there-- but there it was, unlike any version of the actual art world I have known, but like most reality TV, styled and watered down with some kind of Kool-Aid-like silly additive.

But Jane Holzer was there, looking substantial and vintage-y, and a little kind.  She was always kind, I think.  And I suppose Bravo shows are a viable variation of Warhol-lite.  Andy might have approved.
At 6 AM after a night of musical drama (I mean the kind that happens among band members), I turned on a TCM film called 'Pressure Point'-- one of those low-budget black and white tough early 60's pieces that resemble theatre more than cinema.  The direction was sparse and brilliant, the acting was breathtaking and razor-sharp.  Bobby Darin--- wasn't he a pop-star? He was like verbal spitfire, and Sidney Poitier's portrayal of a prison psychiatrist treating a bigoted Nazi psychotic prisoner-- was not just heroic but godlike.  There was a story, with political 'weight'... and there was a soliloquy.  There was passion and meaning and a message.  So what happened to our culture?  And why are these micro-talents on TV and in music and film so massively wealthy and poorly iconic to our under-informed young people?

I suppose if one is brought up on an exclusive diet of boxed breakfast cereal, Rice Krispies begins to resemble a healthy choice.  Watching Bill Clinton speak tonight, I grew nostalgic for the 1990's.  Jesus, next to the lame pickings at the conventions (Michelle Obama aside--- you are a sister!), he was oratorial and convincing.  I'd follow the guy to any local bar not to mention the polling booth.  I do like Obama, but liking the man and putting him at the helm of a 300,000,000 passenger ship are different.  And Romney--- this guy couldn't get himself on a decent ballot in any past but now, with the lack of viable competition, he's a contender.  A Mormon president.  Who's next?  Tom Cruise?  These are dangerous thoughts.

Has anyone read Paul Krugman's column this week?  The question should be 'has EVERYONE' read this?  Are people informed at all?  Are they listening and/or thinking or just chilling and watching another political reality show?   Because the lack of enthusiasm is contagious.  Thank the south for Bill Clinton tonight... he had a little of last night's Poitier passion and he got the crowd on their feet.  But will anyone get this country on its feet?  Are we too lazy to stand up and walk, to do more than hit the remote buttons a few times... ?   Of course I love Tom Petty but is this song really the energizing anthem we need?  Am I willing to give something up for my political cause?  Do I have anything left to give?  Is there anyone out there or is it all just television?

My first really vivid Presidential memory was of course Kennedy.  In that era we needed to see family portraits and outings; there was serious dealmaking going on behind the scenes-- international manipulations and villainous politicos.  There was sex and bourbon and blood and foreign intrigue.
Now we don't need to see nice family footage.  We need some rolled up sleeves and some tough talk and bone-breaking conviction and some fight.  Not nasty quips and accusatory twitters and assinine exaggerations about fish-catching and marathon running.  I feel like people are placing bets rather than voting their beliefs.  Is this an election or a Superbowl?  I'd hate to base the outcome on the ratings, but I'll wager the football audience exceeds the voter count. Come on, my fellow Democrats... let's play some Offense before it's too late.