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.  

23 Skidoo

One of my cousins voicemailed me recently, apparently thrilled with news that he'd had his DNA analyzed in one of those kit-lab mail-ins and discovered that we are related to a scandal-besieged low-grade criminal art dealer.  Apologetically, I failed to be either shocked or impressed... in fact, in this facebook and instagram world of over-exposure and data breaches, why would anyone want to participate in a cellular-level scientific confess-all to God-knows-what information-bank or repository? I have already shared the maiden name of my second-grade school teacher, my first dog breed, where I met my husband (which one?  The Palladium or the Camden market one?) and my favorite author in so-called security locks on various online forms.  Not to mention my unlisted number and private email... just so they can be extra sure I am not an imposter.

We've all been warned that a large percentage of Pap smears and other tests and biomarkers have come back with false positives or negatives... so how can we trust a chromosome-mill which has no biological or genetic responsibility?  The number of people I know who are now claiming Navaho heritage from these kit-results is suspicious.  I don't think the Native Americans were that quantitatively promiscuous.  One of my friends has taken to wearing moccasins and beads.  Her daughter claimed dual ethnicity on her college application to play the diversity card.  And wasn't it a local president of some NAACP chapter that turned out to be faking her Afro-American-ness?  Not only is she a biological Caucasian but a confirmed fraudster who extracted many thousands in public assistance for which she did not qualify.  A perm and a dye-job did wonders for her-- maybe weekly time in a tanning bed.  Did anyone see Kim Kardashian on the news last night standing beside the newly-freed Diane Johnson and looking many shades darker than her previous press appearances?

So do we really need these identity kits to prove or discover who we really are?  Okay, I had to have amnio-centesis to rule out genetic disorders in my unborn fetus.  And disease-wise--  transplant candidates, biomarkers-- for these purposes tests can be useful and life-saving.  But as a teenager I'd already had a white-haired man approach me and swear he was my real grandfather.   Since my own had long since been ousted, it was enough for me.  Fake or real, he sent me great books and gifts and listened to my little demo-tapes with some kind of pride and love I never had from my own family.

My older sister as a teenager used to claim she'd been adopted.   I'm not sure my son could pick his real father out of a lineup.  What is the point?  Besides the forms we fill out and the college applications and census data, we are all mutts in this culture that seems to rather value pedigree and blue-bloodedness only where horses and dogs are concerned.  The new royal Princess or whatever her title is a mixture of things.   Even her name sounds oddly popster or like a plastic doll: Princess Meaghan.  Not historic nomenclature.  But there she is, holding hands with the Queen of England, slated to carry truly royal blood in her bi-racial American womb.

We are all one, was the great mantra of the 60's... embracing human brotherhood and diversity.  But the data-machines and marketing hoovers need to know what makes us all uniquely susceptible to bait-and-hook consumerism: how to use our genetic and acquired predilections to manipulate and influence our buying habits;  how we, as individuals, can be corralled and herded into transferring our money into huge corporate pockets.    So for all those angry facebookers who took the little personality tests and the aptitude quizzes, voted for grey or purple, circle or square, salt or pepper, Beatles or Stones.... do not be fooled by these advertisements promising they will reveal your 'ancestry', your ethnicity and heritage-- your profession suitability and athletic potential.  They are collecting more information from a speck of your spit than Cambridge Analytica amassed over years of sifting through a million posts.

My neighbor was holding court with the little dog-clan he parades around at night.  The new mutt, he was explaining, is part samoyed, part sharpei, part retriever, part spaniel.  I wondered how he was so sure about all of this.  Canine DNA testing?  I had a mongrel dog for years I'd found in Harlem-- abandoned, in bad shape.  He continued, over the years, to show marked preference for black people.  It was uncanny.  As for me?  His adoptive keeper? He tolerated me.  My black husband?  He went to the door 5 minutes before the guy came home; ditto his friends.  Love and devotion.  It was like they were brothers.  Do Not Ask.  Do Not Analyze.

A friend of mine years back had a strange phonecall from a woman he'd apparently slept with in a drunken amnesiac stupor after a party in Washington DC.  She claimed she was quite pregnant with his baby... he balked for a while, but began sending money-- child support.. even visited the baby periodically, paid for her college education.  She looked not at all like him-- went into the military (he was a 60's love-child/ardent pacifist) and married young.  Did he ask for a paternity test?  Not even.  That's the kind of genetics I'd be proud to have in my heritage.  A father.  Accountability.

We are what we eat, my nutritionist friend maintains.  She believes our blood-type determines the optimal individual dietary choices.  I can see the logic in this... but for a narcissistic culture with the flood of information available to us-- the choices and surgical options-- the supplements, treatments, neuro-biological neutralizers and enhancements-- if you don't know who you are at this point, well, I doubt an ancient family crest is going to change you much.   Get your face out of your phone and have a conversation with the person next to you.  You'd be surprised at how much you will uncover.