There have been only a few “Where were
you?” moments in my lifetime.
9/11.
President Obama’s inauguration.
These are the watershed moments in my lifetime, events that changed my
perception of the world. And eight years
after the last one, another inauguration is poised to do that yet again.
Say hello to President Trump.
I’m going to make this as non-partisan
and non-political as I can. This is a “Where
were you?” moment. It is the end of an
historic presidency with one of the most universally-beloved public figures in
recent history, and the beginning of a new one, with someone who is one of the
most divisive figures in recent history.
It is a history-making moment in ways that are too numerous to
count. And while I will not watch the
actual ceremony, nor will I watch the ball afterwards, I will be entirely cognizant
of where I am when he takes the oath of office, whether I’m taking a nap, or
making a sandwich.
However, I encourage you all to be aware
of where you are, because for better or worse, the world you live in is going
to change. It may not change all at
once, or even in ways that are immediately noticeable, but change is most
definitely imminent. And we should all
be aware of not just where we are, but what we’re doing and how we got there.
I remember when I was in high school,
and I talked to someone who remembered where they were when Kennedy was
assassinated. I remember talking to
people who remembered where they were when Reagan got shot. Hell, I remember where I was when the
Notorious B.I.G. was murdered. And I’m
sure we all remember the events in our lives leading up to and immediately following
the first tower impact, as well as what we were doing when Barack Obama took
the oath of office.
This is one more of those times.
Take stock of where you are and what you’re
doing, because you’re going to want to tell your children about this. This is going to be historic.
Last month I did a 30-day writing challenge. I posted about it in my last post. Writing prompts were given and it made me think of writing in ways I hadn't before. Some of it was good, some of it not. Some of it was deeply personal. I'm going to share some of my favorites.
#2: My Earliest Memory
My earliest memory comes from July of 1983. I was four and change. I sat in the bedroom that was partitioned off for my brothers. We lived in a pre-war apartment building in Brooklyn, so we had the space to cram four boys into half a bedroom.
I was watching WPIX 11, New York's local independent station at the time, and home of the New York Yankees. Stuff happened that I didn't understand until much later in life. The game was honestly boring to me. Then this happened:
It was weird, like a light went on in my still forming head. This game was cool. Anything that could make grownups act like this was beyond cool. And that day, I became a Yankee fan.
My brother is a sleep tech, just like I am in my normal life.
In the sleep lab we get all sorts of people from all walks of life. My brother, fifteen states away, stumbled onto an editor. Not just any editor, though, one who has worked on NYT bestsellers. And he convinced this person to take a look at my writing.
Happiness ensued, followed immediately by nervousness. All I have to show is the first few chapters of the rough draft of my novel. It's a first draft and therefore is supposed to suck, but what if it sucks sucks? I've been working on this for the last four years, and as any writer knows, that first moment showing it to someone outside your circle, well, it makes your sphincter pucker.
This person is busy, and the feedback won't be coming for quite some time, but she has already been invaluable. First she gave me some advice -- don't publish your first three novels. Write them, shelve them, return to them after you've written some more and polished your craft. It was great advice, I just wish I'd heard it ten years ago. My first two attempts at novel writing are already published. Might as well steer into the skid.
Second, she asked me to critically think about what went wrong on my first two efforts. That was hard, admitting my own mistakes. The Fab 5 was a good concept undone by a touch of arrogance. I didn't listen to anybody who said anything negative about it. I didn't hire an editor and thought I could do it myself. I used the f-word A LOT. I didn't understand what it took to self-publish and was shocked about how much I had to do myself. It was a rude awakening.
The Favorite took some of the lessons I learned and applied the knowledge. I started with writing a stronger story, hired an editor, and tried my best to shamelessly self-promote. The problem is I wasn't very good at the last part. Also, sports novels are a tough sell to people who aren't sports fans. But hey, there were less f's given. (bad pun, sorry.)
I'm nervous as to what this person will say about my current work. It's like sending your four year-old to preschool for the first time. But hey, the kid may prove to be a genius.
Another day in Brooklyn started with the gym and no other particular agenda. Ahh, that is the life. I knew I wanted to hang with my niece, and that I wanted to go to Coney Island. She, however, wanted to get a pedicure first. I sometimes forget that she's 24 now, and the condition of her hands and feet are important tools in attracting men that my brothers and I would later intimidate. Recalling that I very recently (and accidentally) shredded my girlfriend's sheets with my feet, I elected to join her. It was relaxing, and right after we made our way to the train to Coney Island.
My niece and I went to the same high school, twelve or so years apart. As we passed it on the train, we both fondly remembered some of the neighborhood's food options, largely consisting of bagels and pizza that I can confirm are simply much better in Brooklyn than anywhere else. It's the tap water. After that, we watched as the Q train pulled up past Brighton Beach and the iconic Parachute Jump came into view at Stillwell Avenue. Welcome to Coney Island.
I hadn't been to Coney Island since 2008. Know what? That's too far to start in the story.
I'm a contradiction: I'm terrified of heights, but I love roller coasters. I grew up with one of the most famous ones in the world in my own backyard, so to speak. I last went to Coney Island in 2008 with a good friend of mine, and while the rides mostly sucked, the corn dogs were tasty and the log flume ride wasn't so bad (okay, okay, I screamed like a little girl and it was caught on camera). But it was Coney Island, Astroland as it was called then, and it's heyday was well, well past. Before that afternoon, I hadn't been to a real theme park, on a real roller coaster since 2004 or so.
A couple of years ago, Astroland closed and the area was almost completely razed except for the three landmarked spots: the Parachute Jump, the Wonder Wheel, and the world-famous Cyclone. In its place was Luna Park, with upgraded and updated rides and attractions. There were two that caught my eye: the Soarin' Eagle ride, and the New Thunderbolt.
My niece accompanied me to Luna Park, and it's nice to hang out with her as an adult. She had been like a little sister for so long, it was interesting and refreshing to finally interact with her as an adult and a peer instead of as a really smart kid. I kept that in mind as I watched her descend into a terrified mess on the Wonder Wheel. To be fair I wasn't much better. It's a 94 year-old Ferris Wheel with selected cars that swing on a track. We were on a swinging car. I won't pretend like I was brave, but I couldn't panic the way I wanted because my niece was freaking out (Jesus, take the wheel, and such).
So after five minutes of protracted circular terror, I decided to venture on to the Thunderbolt. Coney Island was going to be an abbreviated visit this time as we were meeting friends for drinks later that evening. I had to decide between the Thunderbolt and the Soarin' Eagle, and the Thunderbolt looked interesting. To me, at least; my niece decided that she would sit this one out.
Remember what I said about her being really smart?
From a distance, the Thunderbolt looked interesting. It had a 90 degree initial ascent and a 90 degree initial descent, and loops and twists and the like. There had been a couple of steel coasters in Coney Island's past, but they were mostly designed to scare seven year-olds. I assumed the Thunderbolt was just a cool-looking continuation of this design sensibility.
Then I got up close and saw the thing got up to about 120 feet. And it moved along at a pretty good clip.
Still though, I thought, this is New York City, where in the past a coaster of sufficient size and speed to actually be a thrill ride couldn't exist alongside the Cyclone, simply for reasons of not enough real estate. How bad could it possibly be?
Spoiler alert: bad. Very, very bad.
The thing about a 90 degree ascent is that the car pointed straight up. You were basically on your back, looking straight up. The chain pulley towed the car straight up. Most roller coasters drag out the terror with a gradual incline. Even the legendary Cyclone, whose terror is based in its age and its composition (90+ years, made of wood, I believe it's the oldest wooden coaster still standing in the US) only had an initial drop of 58.1 degrees, and that drop was 85 feet. Not this nightmare. Nope, the Thunderbolt would not delay gratification. It went. Straight. Up. After the hump, it went straight down.
Allegedly. I had my eyes closed on the drop.
There were twists and turns and zero gravity sensations abound, and when it was over, all I could muster were a vacant stare and a constant drone of "Oh $#!7. It went straight up." My niece, the smart one, laughed.
Afterward, we grabbed a quick bite to eat. Neither of us had much in the way of food, and it was a long train ride to Park Slope, where we would meet old friends of mine for food and drink. She had a knish, and I had a funnel cake. Bits of happy all around.
Last night, I had a chat with a patient, like I always do.
Every night I chat with my patients in an effort to keep them calm, comfortable and focused on something other than the time it takes to put so many wires on them for a sleep study. Usually, I'll talk about them: where they're from, what they do, their family and so on. Sometimes, I talk about myself: the move from New York to Bellingham, being a Yankee fan in Mariners country, that I'm a writer, or how I got into sleep disorder treatment.
Last night, I talked for half an hour about my family, specifically my grandmother.
My grandmother at her 88th birthday. She hasn't changed.
My grandmother is 95 years young. If you've ever met her, young is absolutely the right way to say it. When we were kids, she lived with us. My mom did the single mother thing and while that was an impressive and Herculean undertaking that I can't be grateful enough for, it's nearly impossible to do with seven children without some form of co-parenting. My grandmother has been directly involved in our growth and raising since well before I was born. She served as secret-keeper, disciplinarian, security guard, chef. She told stories, offered guidance, encouraged moral values. She got us out of bed (usually against our will) and made sure we got to school on time. She helped guide my six older siblings and me to a strong work ethic and a sense of right and wrong. And if the story stopped there, I'm sure all of you would be singing her praises.
What if I told you that she didn't stop there?
Starting from my earliest memories in the mid 1980's, my grandmother ran something of an impromptu day-care form our apartment. Flatbush was a working-class, Caribbean immigrant neighborhood back then. New parents who simply had to return to work to make ends meet would drop children off at our apartment in the morning and come get them after work. These children were young, some just a few weeks old, and my grandmother would care for them as she cared for us. They would be in our apartment every day from the time they were little until their first day of school, with my grandmother charging a generously small fee ($50 a week, if I remember correctly). And after their first day of school, those children would often end up in our apartment until their parents got home from work.
Now, no story is completely happy. While most of those kids would go on to be normal, functioning members of society, some of them fell victim to the trappings of a bad neighborhood. Some of them got involved with bad people who did messed-up things. But they would see my grandmother in the street and they would stand up straight, smile a smile they likely forgot how, and politely say "Good morning, Mama, how are you today?" like they were the kids she remembered them as. Respect, from people you wouldn't have expected it from.
My grandmother is 95 years young and thankfully still going strong. While she can't lift children the way she used to and she can't chase around toddlers the way she'd want to, she still loves children. I think they keep her young. She's been telling me since my mid-20's that she's waiting around for me to have kids, that she wants to see my kids. I tell her the same thing every time.
My girlfriend wrote a lovely essay about summer on her blog. She mentioned awesome things like sunshine and your favorite ice cream (Peanut Butter Explosion from ColdStone Creamery, if you were wondering). The point she was trying to make, in my opinion, that for some reason, be it the sunshine or the heat, or the fact that it was ingrained in us since we were all children to do so, is that summer is usually the time we take the foot off the gas and kind of coast. We're more inspired to do things for ourselves that are geared toward pure joy. For me, that's always been sports.
Growing up in New York, we may not have had as much access to greenery that my friends in the Northwest do. We didn't go fishing or swimming in the creek (because honestly, that might kill you), we didn't go hiking through the woods, but what we did was make use of our environment. Fire escape rungs became makeshift basketball hoops and one-way streets and alleys became makeshift football fields. Before we were allowed to head to the further out parks where blacktop courts and open meadows became our arenas of play (and even after, on days when we lacked the funds or the time) we dominated our blocks, then took our talents to other blocks in the neighborhood. And we enjoyed ourselves.
This summer, as I have for the last five summers since I moved out here, I played rec league softball with a team called the Shakrz. It tends to be the high point of my summer these days, because it brings me back to when I was a teenager and played with my friends. Am I particularly good? Hell no! But it's fun And I enjoy these people. We wrapped up our season this past weekend in a tournament where our best moment was a thrilling 14-13 win in extra innings.
Fun moment with the team. Photo by Amy Hill.
And just like that, we look up and the summer is almost over. God, that sucks. You look up and smile as you realize the roses smelled sweet, the heat that licked your skin left its indelible mark, and that there was never enough sunblock. You think of the sand between your toes and the picnic blanket you have in your trunk and you smile wistfully as fall approaches. You keep in mind one thing that will get you through the cold dark months ahead.
It's no secret: I'm a big fan of summer. All my favorite things are summer things. All my favorite activities are summer activities. And not just any summer, either. City summer, the kind I haven't been a part of in half a decade. Once the weather gets warm, everything about life I find worthwhile starts to happen.
Back home, summer meant kids. After June 22, schools were out and all the kids in the city ran rampant around town. To some that means playing in creeks and woods and what have you. To me, it was no curfew, football in the streets (I had a mean arm once) until you couldn't see the ball. It was basketball from noon 'til dusk, or later if the court was near a streetlamp. It meant movie hopping from one summer flick to another, sneaking around ushers and cameras to turn a matinee ticket into an all-day film festival.
It meant the Mister Softer Ice Cream trucks, whose distinct jingle could be heard from blocks away like an approaching T-Rex. On the hottest of those summer days, that jingle meant relief was coming and sprinkles were free. It meant the Spanish dude selling Icees on the corner of Church and Flatbush Avenues, and how with a little hustle and the guts to stand the heat, you could turn a 20-pound block of ice and some syrups into shaved ice treats, happy kids, and money.
It meant baseball, and who didn't love baseball? It was the middle of the season and the pennant races were either really starting to get interesting, or really getting out of hand (I'm a Yankee fan, guess which end I usually saw?), and we waited in anticipation of the Home Run Derby. It meant work for some, play for others.
As adolescence set in, summer meant exposed midriffs and cut-off shorts. It meant teased hair and bikinis. It meant sundresses. It meant sweat making every inch of fabric, no matter how thin, stick strategically to bronzed skin. It meant girls in their late teens and early 20's knowing full well they had me and my hormones in the palms of their hands. As an adult summer meant late nights chasing women and thrills, fueled by drink and dance. It meant that even if the temperature cooled slightly, the streets were just as hot as they were in the daytime. It meant watching the transformation as women traded in their business wear for outfits that were less confining to their bodies and attitudes.
It meant thunderstorms. It meant that just before one would hit, the air would be heavy with a certain energy, thick with humidity and heavy with expectation. When it was over, the air was cool and light and if you were outside, you were happily drenched and enjoyed a powerful lightshow full of sound and fury.
It meant Coney Island and the rides that, even though you had been on them a million times, you still once in a while ponied up that $5 for one more go at the Cyclone or the Zipper.
It meant not having a backyard pool, but having a fire hydrant and a hollowed out tin can. It meant skelly in the streets, and if you're from Brooklyn or the Bronx and I have to explain that to you, you need to put the video games down, son, and get out more. (For my Canadian friends, think curling, only with bottlecaps on asphalt.)
Summertime was eight short weeks of wide open possibility, that always seemed to last forever until it was almost over. And even though as a working man I never had summers off, there's still a conditioned mind-shift that you anticipate in late May, starts in earnest late June, winds down around Labor Day and ends around the first day of school.
I recently watched a documentary on Calvin and Hobbes. Well, most of it. It WAS five in the morning.
This documentary focused on the impact that little comic strip had, and inevitably, I thought about the impact it had on me.
When I was a kid, Calvin and Hobbes was one of the handful of reasons I ever touched the Sunday paper. As I got older and developed an interest in the world around me (and sports), I developed a system for reading the New York Daily News on 15 minute subway ride to my high school: lead story on last night's Yankees or Knicks games, comic pages (Calvin and Hobbes, For Better or For Worse, Doonesbury), league standings. Everything I needed to know about the world.
Calvin and Hobbes, for the uninitiated, is a strip about a six year-old boy and his stuffed tiger. The tiger comes to life in when he and the boy are alone and they have adventures that range from the closeness of their backyard to the far reaches of time and space. The boy's boundless imagination, as well as what would today be diagnosed as ADHD, lead him into hilarious situations with his parents and teachers, and he observes life with a simplicity and poignancy that only a child could. It's one of the few things created in a decade of cheesy schlock that holds up years and years later.
I won't lie and say I saw myself in Calvin. By the time I was reading that strip, I was old enough to know that stuffed tigers didn't come to life, that girls weren't so slimy and that a cardboard box was just a cardboard box. I did get the messages in the story, that imagination is priceless an that life is best lived with a friend. As I got older, a lot more of the jokes made sense, and a lot more of the subtle philosophy became clearer, but it was always about a boy's imagination to me.
Looking back at Calvin and Hobbes, I will say I found a degree of inspiration from that strip. It's just way more fun to embrace your imagination than to suppress it, way more honest to think things like a child would. Bill Watterson left behind something timeless, and that's something every writer or artist would want to do.
December 31, 1995 was a sad day for me. It was the day that this strip ran:
The last one. One that suggested it was time to move on, to turn the page, to explore new possibilities, and (dare I say) to grow up. I was 17 years old. And I cried a little.
I made a promise to myself that when the book came out, when I would start to promote, I would tone down the political stuff that came out of my head and ended up in my blog. I would tone down my comments on racism, I would stop spreading my unsolicited liberal opinion. I made the conscious decision to make no comment on perceived injustice in this country, in the news, in any viewpoint. I'm a fiction writer, not a political journalist. I stopped watching the news, interested myself only in the sports pages.
Unsuprisingly, I've had very little to write in this blog for quite some time.
Then came the Jordan Davis trial.
I heard that Michael Dunn was convicted of everything but murder 1, to the outrage of most. I didn't understand why, so I read up on the trial. Horror crept into my mind. We've got another Stand Your Ground case.
Short version: White dude drunkenly tells SUV full of black kids to turn their rap music down. Black kids politely (maybe not so politely) tell him where to go. Drunk white dude goes thinks someone is pointing a shotgun at him, goes back to his own car, grabs a gun and caps off 10 times into the SUV. Nine shots hit, one kid dies.
It makes me want to puke writing it.
I'm not even going to talk about the verdict. That is it's own animal. I'm going to rant for a second on the horrific racial injustice inherent in the murder and the racist nature of the SYG law in and of itself. It speaks to an era we convinced ourselves ended when Martin Luther King Jr. marched on Washington. It speaks of a mindset people declared over with the election of President Obama. The idea that you can blast someone when you feel threatened is not universal. Those kids in the car were threatened. If they produced a weapon and shot Mr. Dunn, would there be any doubt as to the treatment they would receive in the legal system and in the media? There would be referendum on the violence inherent in rap music, a call to arms to stop this scourge to our youth, and oh yeah, those kids would ALL be put away for life. Trayvon Martin was shot dead in his own neighborhood because a white guy, who we now know is batsh** crazy, saw his hoodie and decided he was a threat, and for half a minute people blamed the hoodie.
I think we can agree that a law is unjust if it is not or cannot be applied evenly, which was the driving force behind eliminating the "Separate, but Equal" thinking behind the Jim Crow laws. The Stand Your Ground laws are of the same ilk. It punishes people for being Black, assigns a threat level to being Black, makes it okay for citizens fearing a phantom menace to police you for being Black, and to what end? So that we'll tip our caps to every white person walking by and greet them with a "Good mornin' suh" to put them at ease? So that we'll keep to "our own" neighborhoods with people who look like us and therefore stay where we're supposed to be?
If you've never met me or spoken to me, I'm a threatening looking Black guy -- 6'4", 260 pounds give or take. I like wearing hoodies. I like rap music. Have I signed my own death warrant? Like the quote says, "There ain't much I can do about being big and Black at the same time."
Last night, a friend of mine made me feel like a grown-up.
I hadn't seen him in a while, so there were of course pleasantries exchanged as well as the updates as to what we've been doing with ourselves. He congratulated me on the book and asked me how it was doing, to which I honestly have no earthly idea. He then told me his young daughter wants to be a writer, wants to pursue a career in writing, and what should he as a father tell her.
Now, I have no clue what qualifies me as someone to give advice on how to be a writer. I have an unfinished degree in journalism, wrote one unsuccessful novel, and another one that may or may not do better. My blog has a grand total of 6 followers (change that, please, and subscribe). But he's a friend, and I tell him what I was told in high school. "You want to be a writer? Write. Read. And Write."
A day later, I had a little more time to think about it, and I want to give this addendum to that little nugget of advice.
Take writing classes. Creative writing, journalism, English composition. Any class that gives you a different experience and feel on the craft, do it.
Read. A lot. Read anything you can get your hands on, and finish it. Even if it's terrible. ESPECIALLY if it's terrible.
Keep a journal. Not only does it give you great practice in organizing your thoughts, but it makes you used to writing every day, makes writing second nature.
This last bit is important as anything. Read what you want to write, and write what you want to read. Writing is one of those things that you should do because you love it. Not for the acclaim. Especially not for money (spoiler alert: there isn't a lot for most of us at first). Rejection is part of the game, no matter what you write. Your work should make you happy before you parade it to the world. If you write something you would read, your enthusiasm will carry you through.
Writing has been an extremely rewarding thing for me. It's gotten me through some tough times mentally and emotionally, it's chronicled my greatest moments and memories. And if someone can benefit from that experience, then that's what I have to share.
I've been in deep thought since the recent death of my father.
One of the things I keep thinking about is how my childhood is really, officially over. I know, I'm almost 35, my childhood should have been over almost two decades ago. I'm not talking about being grown up, I'm talking about not having the previous generation available for guidance.
And such is the circle of life, I guess. Every generation tries to teach the next through guidance and absence, through lessons and examples both good and bad. They try to teach how to be. How to be a provider, or how not to be one. How to be responsible for a life, or how not to be. How to gain or lose respect. And while they're around and able, they're a valuable resource to have in your back pocket. They are a valuable sounding board, they are your biggest cheerleaders, they believe in you without reason, or at the barest minimum give you a continuing example of what you either want or don't want. Once they're gone or infirm, or to a lesser extent relocated, the time for theory is over. The responsibility is not of the teacher anymore to teach us, but of the student to apply what we have learned and to infer what the proper course of action. Training is over. The keys to the world are bequeathed to us.
My father was a flawed man, as we all are, but at his core he was a good man. While he was never as much a presence in my life as either one of us would have liked, I do feel the absence. I have learned all the lessons I can from him in regards to how to be a man, and how to balance pride and humility, joy and pain, success and failure. My brothers and I can only hope to apply the lessons learned from this man's life to our children when the time comes.
And in doing so, prepare the world for its next keyholders.
So, I spent much of the summer radio silent on this blog, poking my head out only once or twice to call for men to better to the women in our lives and so on. It's not like I stopped writing, or stopped caring, I just got busy. This has been a very interesting summer on a lot of levels, and while I usually don't talk too much about personal life details all that often, I'll get nice and personal right about now.
My summer began with the grand adventure of dating. Those of you who know me best know how much I hate the dance of getting to know someone, and pretending to be the sexy version of myself so that I can have the privilege of buying dinner and paying for a movie so that maybe, sometime down the road, we can possibly have sex at some point (Yes, that IS sarcasm, but it's bleak out there). I was reminded that things tend to work out better when I don't try to be the sexy version of me, or the smart version of me, or whatever version I think someone will like. I tried being myself, a move I haven't done in a few years. The result? I get to hang out with an amazing girl on a regular basis. We're sappy and cute and disgusting -- in public, no less -- and it's kind of cool. Don't get me wrong, if I were to watch a couple like that from a distance I would probably projectile vomit all over the place (I'm a hypocrite. I'm also probably bigger than you.) but it IS nice to be so comfortable with someone you don't really worry about what the rest of the world thinks about it.
Midway through the summer, my brother and his wife announced that they are expecting a baby (everyone after me... awwwww). And then then world got like, hormonally crazy. People I knew are dropping babies like crazy. I haven't seen an epidemic like this since my days in the Diamond District! (Seriously, don't drink the water.) In a few days, a wonderful couple I met through my brother are expecting their own bundle of joy, and after the story I heard about the kid's sonogram pose, I acquired the nickname rights and hereby dub the soon-to-arrive person "L'il Baby Cool Breeze." I also expect to not hear from those parents until the kid is 6 with that nickname.
Of course, no story worth living is completely happy, and toward the end of the summer I said goodbye to my father. Without airing business, I will say that while we weren't as close as I would have liked to be (and I take a portion of the responsibility for that), I loved him, respected him, and will miss him dearly. I hope he was proud of his children, because we all turned out pretty damn good.
The positive to that story is in several parts; number one, it reunited my family under one roof for the first time in a while. Six boys, two girls, with spouses and children and baby bumps all over the place. It was chaos. I was in heaven. Secondly, my brother took my dad's SUV in order to have a vehicle to drive their kid around in (sidebar: newborns live the life. They get valet service, chauffeur service, room service, free rent, AND they get adored for it. It's their world, we're just living in it.). He's living in Louisville, Kentucky now, one of those places that no one ever thought any of us would move to on purpose, and he's happy there. Go figure. Anyway, getting the car there meant one thing: Road Trip! I logged my first ever road trip, getting to see Pittsburgh and pass through some very pretty country on the East Coast. Definitely one of my better memories. Lastly, my father's death made it necessary to do something I was looking at doing anyway. Last minute flights are expensive, so in order to do the flight back to New York, I had to take a loan. But since I was going to take a loan out to publish anyway, I did that. My next novel, The Favorite, should be out by the end of the year!
This summer has been a big one for me. I can't think of one that's had this many stories in it worth telling, and summer don't end until the Yankees are done playing, so who knows what more can happen? If the Yankees make the playoffs though, I'm going to be hard to deal with.
I don't have any children of my own (and there are those that would argue that being a very good thing). My oldest niece, however, I'm very protective of. I have been since the day she was brought home from the hospital. She's kind of like the hybrid of the child I don't want right now and the little sister I never had. So, in the hybrid role of what I perceived to be one of the (many) major male role models in her life, I issued the half-joking decree that any unfortunate lad that tried to date her would have to get past me. You know, as screening, to make sure their intentions were pure. And if they weren't... well, somebody gonna get-a hurt real bad. "I'm trying to protect you from guys like me," I said. "And I'm one of the good ones."
I told her this because I distrusted the intentions of anyone she would meet, largely because I'm a guy, and even at my best my intentions with dates are always slightly dishonorable. (Even my current girlfriend, who will no doubt at some point read this, and with whom I was on my best behavior, my ulterior motives could be construed as slightly dishonorable). Some guys are hardwired to be douchebags, and even the best of us can have somewhat asshole tendencies.
I joke all the time that I would likely be the father polishing the shotgun, or challenging my daughter's unsuspecting date to Russian Roulette, or some other violent, crazy act that would dissuade said unlucky boy from trying anything stupid, lest he suffer my Biblical-type wrath. I was only half joking.
Until, that is, I read this article, where the author, a father, tells his daughter to go, experience, make the mistakes, get laid, and oh yeah, trust guys, because he's a good man and raised his daughter right. The quote in particular that got me was this one:
It doesn’t lessen you to give someone else pleasure. It doesn’t degrade you to have some of your own. And anyone who implies otherwise is a man who probably thinks very poorly of women underneath the surface.
I don't think poorly of women; quite the contrary, I think women, in all their mystery and splendor and varying states of sanity are generally amazing creatures, capable of being incredibly strong and vulnerable in ways men simply cannot (I'm referring, of course, to the child bearing thing. Ouch.). So I thought about it, and realized something. Men make statements like mine all the time. We remember the kind of boys we were and cringe at the thought of our daughters, our sisters, our nieces bringing someone like us home. But the fault isn't entirely the potential suitors, who want to get laid, or the teenaged girls, whose minds are a swirl of hormones and approval ratings. It's on us. The male role models. The ones who these young girls are looking at and looking up to from the moment they get home from the hospital. The fathers, the brothers, the uncles, we are their first taste of love from a man, and everyone who follows is eerily similar to that.
So we need to be better.
We need to be the example of what to bring home for dinner. You don't want your daughter to bring home a thug? Don't be a thug. You want your daughter to bring home a smarter dude? Read to her when she's a kid. Want your daughter to seek someone loving and attentive? Spend time with her before she's sent off to school. Make her feel safe if you want her to seek someone protective.
Now for those men out there who have sons, this pertains to you as well. You don't want your boy to be like you. You always want him to be a better man, to do what you do well as a man (provide, protect, team member or what have you) and you want him to do it better. So I implore you, please teach your sons too.
Don't let him be the kid that my future daughter makes me have to shoot.
This is a message in two parts. Part one is positive. Part two is a call to arms.
We are all possessed of something special. We all have something that sets us apart. It's not necessarily physical, although some of us are athletic, or tall, or beautiful. It is not necessarily mental, even though some of us are intelligent or creative. It is not necessarily social, although some of us are funny, charming or charismatic. It may be all of these things or none. But we all have the ability to change the world.
At the lowest common denominator, life is made of impact ripples. One thing impacts another, which impacts another and more until we inexorably feel the impact, big or small in return. It's a greasy frictionless pool table with no pockets. And everyone -- EVERYONE -- is capable of setting something in motion. Everyone is special. Whether you impact one person or a thousand, you make an impact. And because of your existence, your direct or indirect impact, someone's life has been altered. We would all do well to keep this in mind when we question our place in the world.
Part two.
I am not alone in thinking that I am not meant to be simply a cog in the great machine. I am not just a little part who keeps spinning until worn to nothing, then replaced and discarded. I am not alone in this.
We have the power, you, me, all of us, to remove ourselves from the machine, to become more than just parts. We have the ability to do it ourselves and/or with others. We have passions that will elevate us from the machine, even if we are not entirely sure what they are or how to properly use them.
I encourage you, writers, thinkers, creators, artists, athletes... step outside the machine. Let us create our own machine. Let us fulfill our destinies.
I've been asked a few very interesting time-travel questions lately.
The first one I was asked was, given the choice, would I rather (a) go back to 1999 and be 21 again, with full possession of the knowledge and experience I've acquired in the intervening years or (b) be 21 now in this day and age.
Tough question.
When I was 21, I thought I was mature for my age. In reality, not so much. I worked full-time and I lived at home, but my education had stalled and I partied way, way too much. I had a ton of tools to make adulthood so much easier and I squandered most of them. I had a great, great time and I don't regret any of it, but I could have made my life so much easier. That knowledge is irreplaceable, the experience is completely invaluable.
But being 21 now would be fun.
Being 21 now would mean that I would be more proficient in the technology of today, that many adults sometimes struggle with. I would be able to enjoy the music of today the way young people do, instead of being this old and crotchety guy who rails on and on about how the music today is silly. I would be able to have access to an amazing group of people, a generation or two behind me, who have grown up in the world that I have inherited and such.
I think I'd rather go back.
Way back in 1999, I did and saw some amazing things. They may not have been extraordinary, but they were definitely life defining. It would be amazing to see all the people I had in my life back then, meet some of them again for the first time. And going back would allow me to correct the mistakes I made, like being smarter about money and school, or inventing Facebook. It would be great to go back armed with the knowledge of who and what would be a waste of my time. I wonder if I'm alone in this thought.
The second question was What would your 17 year-old self think of you now?
I'd like to think that me from half a lifetime ago would be amazed at what he would become. But I'm probably wrong; my 17 year-old self had lots of ideas that were simply different from the way the world works. I expected to be successful at 17, not quite realizing the hard work that goes with it. I thought I'd be working for the New York Daily News, not even close to realizing that the print newspaper industry was going to be circling the drain at this point. At 17, I expected to be married by 34. All I can say to that is "oops, sorry dude."
Anyway, I ask these questions of all of you. Please, sound off in the comments section. Would you choose to be (legal drinking age) now for the first time or back when you originally were knowing what you know now? And what would the self that's half your age think of you now?
The other night while I was getting a patient ready for bed, she flipped the channel on the TV to one of those Hallmark Movie Channel Christmas flicks. You know the ones, the overly sappy love story with the slightly religious feel-good message about change, growth and the meaning of the holiday and life in general. Secretly, I kinda like 'em. Laugh if you want, just keep in mind that I'm likely bigger than you.
Anyway, in this movie there's this horrible shrew of a woman who rails against the commercialization of Christmas, saying how much better she is and her family is than that, how they spend Christmas on missions in Mexico or Botswana, or some other poor nation doing good deeds, and how dare this school have her daughter join a choir and sing songs. Christmas is about the love of Christ, she said. It was a particularly annoying diatribe that did what it was probably supposed to do.
While watching this, the brain/mouth filter switches off and I launch into my own speech about the commercialization of Christmas. The fact is, people like stuff. Especially in wrapping paper. There's the act of unwrapping stuff which makes people feel good and makes people feel like the person that went through all the trouble of putting it together really cared. Christmas is supposed to be about love, about togetherness, about letting the people around you know how invaluable they are to you, regardless of your religious affiliation. That is why we give the gifts, why we sing the songs and roast the chestnuts and drink the eggnog. Well, that and because eggnog is awesome.
I know that the original intent is to celebrate the birth of Christ, but when did they have pine trees in the desert? I think we should embrace the spirit of what Christmas has become, where we open stuff in pretty paper from people who took the time and care and effort to wrap it. Where we eat terrible fruitcake, and gingerbread cookies because they make us feel good and connected to the people around us. Where we stuff our faces and tell good stories with family and friends that we may or may not see for another year Where for one day, and by extension the six week stretch that precedes it, we're not so focused on our differences, but our commonalities.
And then, as I finished the set-up on my patient, I realized I said this out loud. She looks at me and smiles, and says "You should write that down."
Embrace your family. Your friends. Have a drink. Smile, laugh and sing songs. Enjoy shredding that wrapping paper. It is one of the few pure joys we have. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and Happy Festivus to us all!
This past Friday, a terrible thing happened, and 20 little lights were extinguished, along with 6 who would guide them. A school got shot up. As I write those words, those words that I've been avoiding writing for several days, I still get a little choked up. I struggle with the notion that it happened, and I can't help but think of how this horror could have been prevented. I still am rather disgusted. I still am angry. This should not have happened. And yet...
This event, this horrible happenstance, opens the door for certain conversations that we have long avoided about the realities of our own culture. The absence of those 20 little lights shine a beacon on what's tragically wrong with us in oh so many ways. If there's any good at all to be taken from this, it's that certain accepted paradigms about us as a people are going to be taken to task, for better or for worse. Our gun culture, unique in the world for it's stubborn persistence and its effectiveness in killing innocent people, will be looked at. Our media ideals, where we have more and more eschewed news for entertainment, will be looked at. Our views on mental illness will be looked at.
The debate going on immediately, and rightfully so, is about gun control. The 2nd Amendment guarantees the right to bear arms for all US citizens. As an interesting sidebar, the 3rd Amendment gives us the right to not have soldiers quartered in our homes. That part is important because at the time it was written, British troops had the unfortunate tendency to camp out in the homes of random citizens under orders from the crown, with the citizens of the country unable to do anything about it. In order to prevent that from happening again, the founding fathers put into legislation this right for all Americans to be able to refuse quartering by force if necessary, and of course, allowing for armed revolt if necessary. No invading soldiers in the home. This little bit of history is constantly glossed over in gun control conversations that involve the 2nd Amendment because times have changed. For starters, the US military is the elite of the world, largest in numbers and most effective in killing power, a development the founding fathers surely could not have envisioned. We're not shooting soldiers, not without swift, immediate, and likely final reprisal. Secondly, the founding fathers could never dream of the destructive killing power of the guns we have today. Single shot smoothbore weapons were the order of the day, musket balls and the like. Chambered weapons were still a good eighty years away, as were guns that you could wield with one hand. I believe that if those great minds who wrote the Constitution were alive today, they would make a case to clarify and adjust the amendment for today's time. After all, who really needs a scoped, automatic, military-grade rifle to hunt?
The bespectacled gentleman to the left is Joe Scarborough, MSNBC host and former four term Republican Senator. He was an ardent defender of the right to bear arms. After last Friday's massacre, he changed his mind. (Watch the video. the speech is actually quite moving.) Our culture regarding guns employs the fantasy of one man, alone, defending his land and his family. Our firearm based entertainment employs this belief. What they fail to realize is the reality: that putting a gun in the hand of an average, untrained, and scared civilian is going to get him/her and others killed. Movies purport the notion that all shots fired find their target, and when they do, death (and usually justice) is quick, clean and swift. Reality check: it doesn't work that way. Famously in the early 2000's, 6 trained NYPD officers fired 41 shots at a suspect and only managed to hit him 8 times. Untrained, frightened people with guns would muster a far inferior hit rate. The other part of our gun culture that needs to be addressed is ease of access. In many states, firearms are easier to obtain than a Driver's License. For Driver's License, you have to demonstrate physical ability and proficiency in operating a vehicle, and in some cases you can only attempt to show that proficiency after logging extensive hours from approved trainers. You also have to show proficiency in each vehicle you intend to drive-- separate licenses for trucks, boats, motorcycles, and cars. To obtain a gun in most states, all you need is a Driver's License and no criminal record. In some states, the criminal record thing is negotiable. Like with cars, just being here shouldn't automatically allow you access to a projectile weapon.
There is a thought process of late that says that teachers, principals and school personnel should be armed. Really? Is that the kind of world you want to raise your kids in, that the teacher is strapped in a school?
Shortly after the shooting, a response attributed to Morgan Freeman was circulated via social media:
You want to know why. This may sound cynical, but here's why.
It's because of the way the media reports it. Flip on the news and watch how we treat the Batman theater shooter and the Oregon mall shooter like celebrities. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris are household names, but do you know the name of a single *victim* of Columbine? Disturbed people who would otherwise just off themselves in their basements see the news and want to top it by doing something worse, and going out in a memorable way. Why a grade school? Why children? Because he'll be remembered as a horrible monster, instead of a sad nobody.
CNN's article says that if the body count "holds up", this will rank as the second deadliest shooting behind Virginia Tech, as if statistics somehow make one shooting worse than another. Then they post a video interview of third-graders for all the details of what they saw and heard while the shootings were happening. Fox News has plastered the killer's face on all their reports for hours. Any articles or news stories yet that focus on the victims and ignore the killer's identity? None that I've seen yet. Because they don't sell. So congratulations, sensationalist media, you've just lit the fire for someone to top this and knock off a day care center or a maternity ward next.
You can help by forgetting you ever read this man's name, and remembering the name of at least one victim. You can help by donating to mental health research instead of pointing to gun control as the problem. You can help by turning off the news.
It, of course, came out after the fact that he didn't say it, but whoever did has a point. We glorify the shooters, the Dylan Klebolds and Jared Loughners, the Adam Lanzas and the Trench Coat Mafias. We may not glorify their actions, but we make celebrities of them, independent of the victims. Their suicides are massively played up, and if they're brought to justice, their trials are far from subdued. In the effort to make their deeds infamous, we make these people-- ultimately, these criminals -- famous. So why wouldn't a troubled person-- whose personal troubles make right and wrong muddy in favor of being noticed-- shoot up a school? Or a movie theatre? Or a hospital? Or a Congresswoman's campaign stop? The media coverage will get them noticed. Over the last 30 years, news has gone from informative to sensationalist. We went from informing on the events of the day, to an invasively voyeuristic entertainment system that focuses on the trivialities of life for famous people. This is the news. It's not supposed to be entertaining, it's not supposed to be sold. Its purpose is to inform the public conversation. No bias, no context, just information.
Much is being made of Adam Lanza's mental problems as the story develops, specifically his Asperger's syndrome. And once that tidbit of information came out, there was almost a public sigh of relief, like "Oh, whew, okay. He's crazy, he had Asperger's, so that's why it happened." What this shows is a tragic ignorance about mental illness, and that ignorance comes from avoiding what it means to be mentally ill. Asperger's does not necessarily make people prone to violence. It's a social disorder, meaning the way one interacts with other people is somewhat skewed by normal standards. Conversely, people with Asperger's tend to show extreme interest and proficiency in specific tasks and subjects. We usually observe high levels of intelligence in people with these types of social disorder.
So what now? Obviously there was something wrong with the kid. The answer to that is that we may never know what exactly was going through his head in the days leading up to last Friday. Maybe that's the point. Working in healthcare, I've noticed that mental illness is used as a catch-all for a lot of things that aren't so bad. I'm not saying that Clinical Depression or Bi-Polar Disorder don't exist. I'm saying that the large majority of people who claim it don't have it. Mental illnesses have been for a very long time over-diagnosed, over-medicated, and under-treated. The response to depression is to give brain altering chemicals. Bi-Polar disorder treatment involves mood-stabilizing medication. ADHD sufferers get Speed. But how many of these people actually have these disorders? There's nothing you can see in a CAT scan that shows depression, or bi-polar, or whatever. Again, this is not to discount the people who suffer from these illnesses. I've seen the people who do, and these meds are life-saving.
Tell me if this sounds familiar: You're watching TV when a pharmaceutical ad comes on. "Do you feel down? Less energetic? Like you don't want to get out of bed?"
You think, "yeah, sometimes."
"Then ask your doctor about Pill X!"
For most of us it ends there, but then there are the people who do have a talk with their doctor and do get a sample of Pill X, which after using they feel amazing, creating a false set of symptoms they must continually treat. Think about that for a moment.
These are a sample of the conversations that we will be having as a people over the next few weeks and months as we figure out what happened and and how it could have been averted. Not all of it is useful, or pointed in the right direction, but all of them are conversations we need to discuss.
On October 1, a school district in Texas began requiring its students wear new ID badges with an RFID tracking chip, similar to those used in passports and Enhanced Driver's Licenses. The purpose of this is to track when and where a student is in school. This was met with obvious and appropriate outrage, leading some parents and students to balk at the idea of wearing them. In response, the schools in question restricted their access to the cafeteria, library and deny them the right to participate in extracurricular activities.
Whoo boy. What's wrong with this picture?
I'm going to skip over the idea that the schools in question have a large Latino population, largely because that is an assumption not based in anything but how bad this COULD be. However, the bagging and tagging of children, essentially turning school into house arrest, this seems a little over the top. Put aside the fact that an intrepid student can figure out how to beat the system when and if necessary; treating our kids like inmates in school isn't going to keep them safer, or make them go to class. The measures, as well as the consequences for non-compliance, simply enhance the notion that we are turning into an Orwellian state, where Big Brother is watching you. The school system essentially becomes a stalker.
To be honest, why hasn't anyone even thought of the idea that RFID isn't the most secure tracking system in the world, and these children can be tracked by anyone equipped to do it, such as people with card scanners.
I've said enough. Read it here for yourself, draw your own conclusion.
First of all, read this. And props go out to the Black Youth Project.
I applaud Jada Williams for calling it as she saw it. That took guts, as well as the kind of honesty you can only get from a child. It was an analogy that I never even thought of, yet is so scarily appropriate.
One of the more poignant comments to that article raises the issue that we don't teach kids critical thinking anymore, so that they don't grow up to challenge anything. I was having this very conversation last night at work; the system has become less about education and more about training middle management. Creating cogs for the machine. And (inflammatory statement alert) part of the machine is creating inmates out of our underprivileged. This isn't just a black issue, this is a middle/lower class issue that isn't going to go away.
Until we stop listening to the people who want to phase out quality education at public schools, the people who can't afford private schools, charter schools, or the like will continue the cycle that does nothing for our society but keep cops and corrections officers employed. Don't get me wrong, students and parents have to do their parts. The information is out there, and in this day and age there is no excuse for not getting it. But we the working class have every right to demand a quality education from our system.
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