Sunday, November 10, 2019
How to "Thank" a Veteran for Their Service.
"Thank you for your service." I want to say this expression came into existence in the early 2000s during the George W. Bush Administration shortly after the "War on Terror" started. These United States treated service members returning from Vietnam like pariahs near the tail end of the war and until the first part half of the 1980s. It was a losing effort and George W. Bush didn't want to see American veterans mistreated as they returned from the war to which he was sending them.
Then president Bush said to "Thank" a veteran for his or her service and people began doing so. I've heard it so many times that it almost sounds like "gesundheit" when someone sneezes. People SAY it, but does it actually MEAN anything?
The United States has ALWAYS treated our veterans with dignity and civility...right? Hardly. During our revolutionary war John Latrens the son of a wealthy South Carolina planter who raised a regiment of slaves to fight for the Continental Army. The Congress promised Laurens' men their "freedom" in exchange for fighting for their new country. Laurens died in the last weeks of the war and all the slaves who'd fought in his command were unceremoniously returned to their masters. They were given what the U.S. Marine Corps would affectionately call "the green weenie" a nice Corpism for "you've been screwed." Laurens' regiment were NOT alone, men who fought with Washington had been promised pensions but the congress reneged.
At the end of the American Civil war pensions were paid to disabled vets, homes for veterans were established, but after 1900 the pro veteran sentiment wore thin as many questioned WHY we were still paying pensions to men who'd lost arms, legs and their sight or why it was necessary to have homes for them some 50 years after their war had been fought. Men returning from World War 1 were denied pensions promised to them and staged demonstrations in Washington DC which turned into riots. The federal government after the riots gave the veterans what had been promised them.
Before world war two ended congress decided that the returning veterans would get a better deal than their predecessors who'd fought in the first "war to end all wars". They were given a "GI Bill of Rights." G.I. stood for Government Issue and was also a term American Servicemen called themselves to imply that much like the clothes they wore, beds on which they slept and boots they were they were interchangeable parts of a huge machine run by Uncle Sam.
While World War II era vets did get educational benefits and could get low interest home loans, their issues with post traumatic stress were essentially ignored and trivialized. The same applied to veterans who served in the Korean conflict. Because of intense media scrutiny, American politicians in the post Vietnam era decided that the mistakes made during the war in Southeast Asia would not be repeated. Veterans who suffered from post traumatic stress had access to mental health services. Those who had been in contact with harmful chemicals like Dupont's "Agent Orange" could receive medical care and pensions.
Present day, on Veterans day, American Vets are thanked for their service. Big corporate restaurant chains will give vets a free cup of coffee or a meal on the day in question and veterans will be bombarded with "thank you for your service." I would like to say to corporate America, rather than giving vets a cup of coffee, a stack of pancakes or an order of hot wings, hire us.
Give a man or woman who has a sense of discipline a JOB. HIRE someone who can work with people with whom they might not agree, but will put their personal issues aside and put the job and the team FIRST. Employ a man or woman who knows how to meet a deadline and knows the meaning of the words respect, loyalty, duty and honor.
If someone were to ask the average Veteran if they had a choice between a JOB and a cup of coffee, I'll wager the veteran would probably go with the former. Personally I'd say "both", but what do I know. You want to honor a vet or "thank" them for their service? Give them a job. You'll both be glad you did.
Wednesday, June 26, 2019
Western Civilization and Sliced Bread
A few years ago I was watching election coverage on a cable channel and a panel were discussing election results. One of the panelist was a member of Congress named Steve King whom I believe is from Nebraska. Someone asked King a question about minorities and he pointed out that the greatest thing to happen to native Americans & Africans and even the rest of the world was being introduced to western civilization.
He went on to say that the persons of color who occupy 75% of the planet would effectively be backward savages had they not been enlightened by benevolent Europeans who brought them culture and technology. The rest of the panel sat stunned as if he'd just publicly relieved himself on the desk at which they sat. One of the fellow panelists asked "You don't honestly believe that do you?" He said that every major invention had come from Europe of people of European dissent and he could think of no BETTER civilization. There was an awkward silence and in that brief silence part of me wished that someone would have walked up to him and caved in the back of his skull with a mace.
it's been said that "winners write the history books" and given that I live in a country founded BY western Europeans it stands to reason that every history I read prior to attending college was told from the point of view of the western European who felt it was his DESTINY to rule a country that covered a continent. It spoke of the indigenous people who lived on the land as "hostile" and treated them as "obstacles" to progress. In passing it mentioned small pox depleting their numbers and Americans killing buffalo for sport until their numbers dwindled. It mentions slavery ONLY in the context of a civil war but barely mentions the people of color who were slaves on tobacco, cotton, rice and sugar plantations from the days of British colonialism until the end of a civil war fought by those who wanted to ensure the right to own them extended for all eternity.
My history books barely MENTIONED the Jim Crow laws written in the 1870s which remained on the books until I was a high school senior in 1988.
When I studied the WORLD'S history in college I learned that Africa had NOT been a bunch of cannibals with plates in their lips who ate white explorers in pith helmets, but vibrant civilizations like Zimbabwe, the Egyptians, Cush, Sheba, Ethiopia & Mali. I learned about 14th century King Mansa Musa who was said to have been the wealthiest man who ever lived. A legend says that when he made a haj to Mecca his caravan gave away and spent so much gold in tribute that he collapsed several small economies. I learned about Africans trading in gold and diamonds and metal foundries in Zimbabwe which predate anything in Europe but that never made most of the history books I'd read before.
I learned of people in central and western Africa who invented farming techniques that were exploited in the United States when their descendants were sold into slavery and brought to the Carolinas. In high school I'd never heard Mansa Musa's name and the only African kingdom I'd heard of was the Egyptians, but the history I learned said that they were Europeans. Truthfully Alexander the Great took over Egypt and the Ptolemaic Greeks DID eventually rule Egypt, but the original Egyptians did NOT have fair skin. I read about the European "dark ages" after the collapse of the Roman Empire" and the renaissance which came about to rise from it, but don't remember ever reading about a "dark age" anywhere in Africa or Asia.
I learned about the great civilizations of Mesopotamia, India, China, Vietnam, Korea and Japan and how when the Chinese invented gun powder they initially refused to use if for military applications as they considered it too inhumane. I learned about Indians inventing the concept of "zero" and Islamic scholars devising Algebra. I learned about how mechanical clocks and paper were invented in China, (papyrus had existed in Egypt centuries earlier) and at the time Europeans still used sun dials.
I learned of the civilizations of the Americas which had languages written in glyphs. I read about some native cultures who had systems of government not unlike direct democracies which had councils.
The purpose of this piece is NOT to speak ill of western civilization, to paint it as one of conquest or anything of the sort, but merely to point out that HAD Europe simply traded with Africa, Asia & America the way they traded with one another, that the world in which we live would be a much different place. We wouldn't have random "Supremacists" who were brainwashed to believe the patronizing, racist justification some had for Europeans plundering the world for her riches and that Kipling's "White Man's Burden"is just a poem written by a man who was born into a charmed existence in an "India" created by a British East India company for its executives who ruled with brutality as they took, tea, spices cotton and all they could from the conquered people whose culture they denied had defeated the armies of Alexander the Great centuries earlier.
He went on to say that the persons of color who occupy 75% of the planet would effectively be backward savages had they not been enlightened by benevolent Europeans who brought them culture and technology. The rest of the panel sat stunned as if he'd just publicly relieved himself on the desk at which they sat. One of the fellow panelists asked "You don't honestly believe that do you?" He said that every major invention had come from Europe of people of European dissent and he could think of no BETTER civilization. There was an awkward silence and in that brief silence part of me wished that someone would have walked up to him and caved in the back of his skull with a mace.
it's been said that "winners write the history books" and given that I live in a country founded BY western Europeans it stands to reason that every history I read prior to attending college was told from the point of view of the western European who felt it was his DESTINY to rule a country that covered a continent. It spoke of the indigenous people who lived on the land as "hostile" and treated them as "obstacles" to progress. In passing it mentioned small pox depleting their numbers and Americans killing buffalo for sport until their numbers dwindled. It mentions slavery ONLY in the context of a civil war but barely mentions the people of color who were slaves on tobacco, cotton, rice and sugar plantations from the days of British colonialism until the end of a civil war fought by those who wanted to ensure the right to own them extended for all eternity.
My history books barely MENTIONED the Jim Crow laws written in the 1870s which remained on the books until I was a high school senior in 1988.
When I studied the WORLD'S history in college I learned that Africa had NOT been a bunch of cannibals with plates in their lips who ate white explorers in pith helmets, but vibrant civilizations like Zimbabwe, the Egyptians, Cush, Sheba, Ethiopia & Mali. I learned about 14th century King Mansa Musa who was said to have been the wealthiest man who ever lived. A legend says that when he made a haj to Mecca his caravan gave away and spent so much gold in tribute that he collapsed several small economies. I learned about Africans trading in gold and diamonds and metal foundries in Zimbabwe which predate anything in Europe but that never made most of the history books I'd read before.
I learned of people in central and western Africa who invented farming techniques that were exploited in the United States when their descendants were sold into slavery and brought to the Carolinas. In high school I'd never heard Mansa Musa's name and the only African kingdom I'd heard of was the Egyptians, but the history I learned said that they were Europeans. Truthfully Alexander the Great took over Egypt and the Ptolemaic Greeks DID eventually rule Egypt, but the original Egyptians did NOT have fair skin. I read about the European "dark ages" after the collapse of the Roman Empire" and the renaissance which came about to rise from it, but don't remember ever reading about a "dark age" anywhere in Africa or Asia.
I learned about the great civilizations of Mesopotamia, India, China, Vietnam, Korea and Japan and how when the Chinese invented gun powder they initially refused to use if for military applications as they considered it too inhumane. I learned about Indians inventing the concept of "zero" and Islamic scholars devising Algebra. I learned about how mechanical clocks and paper were invented in China, (papyrus had existed in Egypt centuries earlier) and at the time Europeans still used sun dials.
I learned of the civilizations of the Americas which had languages written in glyphs. I read about some native cultures who had systems of government not unlike direct democracies which had councils.
The purpose of this piece is NOT to speak ill of western civilization, to paint it as one of conquest or anything of the sort, but merely to point out that HAD Europe simply traded with Africa, Asia & America the way they traded with one another, that the world in which we live would be a much different place. We wouldn't have random "Supremacists" who were brainwashed to believe the patronizing, racist justification some had for Europeans plundering the world for her riches and that Kipling's "White Man's Burden"is just a poem written by a man who was born into a charmed existence in an "India" created by a British East India company for its executives who ruled with brutality as they took, tea, spices cotton and all they could from the conquered people whose culture they denied had defeated the armies of Alexander the Great centuries earlier.
Wednesday, June 5, 2019
The Apprenticeship...
When I was growing up my dad didn't believe in the concept of an "allowance". He told me at a very early age that in the real world people only gave you money if you did something to earn it. My dad was a paint contractor so he figured I could learn HIS trade.
From the age of nine whenever I needed money I put on my painters whites and earned money as I learned the construction arts of dry wall installation, painting and applying wall paper. Dad's deal was pretty straight forward, initially he paid me minimum wage, but eventually my salary went up as time went on. I spent part of every summer, many weekends and sometimes some evenings doing jobs with my father. The summer of 1985 he came to me with a deal I couldn't pass up as he wouldn't give me a choice. There was a HUGE job at a hotel that was coming up and it paid more than he did. Dad's jobs were small commercial properties like strip malls and office parks but mostly residential. Residential was dad's bread and butter. This was different, he wasn't the contractor on this one, he was just another guy applying wall paper and he'd gotten me a job as an "assistant".
There were only two painters assistants on this job and our job was to sandpaper dry wall and later to clean up excess plastic tarps and wasted wall paper. The other "assistant" was the supervisors son. Unlike myself he showed no enthusiasm for the job. He was a quiet blond kid who had a permanent look of disinterest on his face. It was a large building and there were several crews operating at once on different floors. I mentioned to the boss' son that if we separated we could get more done, that is I'd take the odd floors and he the even. He dismissed that idea and said that the day would go by faster if we worked together.
Initially I thought I'd made a new friend, but then I realized that aside from being the same age and on the same job, we had absolutely NOTHING in common. We had no conversations of substance. He didn't want to talk about music, girls, politics, school or anything other than the car he wanted to buy how drunk he liked to get, how much weed he could smoke without his dad finding out and when we were either going to lunch OR getting off work. I soon realized WHY he didn't want to work apart from me. When we were "working" I was doing the lion's share of it. He did as little as possible and only seemed to want to work as hard as I was when he saw his father on the periphery. He did that act once when I stopped to go to the bathroom and his father showed up, he pretended that he had done all the work on our floor and of course who do you think his father believed. Other painters would later come to my defense but it was still a pain.
I was on this job for a month before they told us that most of the hard work was done and they didn't need two assistants anymore. Guess which one of us was let go? Here's a hint, it wasn't the blond kid with the casual work ethic. I took the money I made and saved it for school clothes and didn't give the job a second thought until two weeks later when my dad told me that the supervisors son had quit. Supposedly he told his father that he'd gotten tired of being on the site and that it bored him. I laughed because I knew that he finally had to do some work for a sustained period of time and didn't have someone else for whose efforts he could take credit. He had to sink or swim and sank.
I worked harder than he did and we made the same money, but when he had to do exactly what I'd been doing for a month he folded like a card table. Maybe he was smarter than I am. He figured out that all he had to do was show up and do the bare minimum and he'd still get paid. He even took three "sick days" which he informed me were days when he was "sick of working." Whether he was a con artist or a malingerer I'll never know but he taught me three valuable lessons that summer: 1. Hard work is good for one's self esteem as you're either going to take pride in what you do or quit. 2. It's not WHAT you know, but WHOM and 3 and this was the most important lesson, every lie ever told eventually is exposed. You can only maintain subterfuge for so long before it's ultimately discovered and you're revealed as a fraud.
Regardless of my opinion of my former "co-worker" (I use that term ironically) he did at least show up on a job. Little has changed as there are still young people working on summer jobs, but many more who simply wait for mom and dad to hand them what they want. I can't help but wonder, when did an entire generation stop equating work with rewards?
From the age of nine whenever I needed money I put on my painters whites and earned money as I learned the construction arts of dry wall installation, painting and applying wall paper. Dad's deal was pretty straight forward, initially he paid me minimum wage, but eventually my salary went up as time went on. I spent part of every summer, many weekends and sometimes some evenings doing jobs with my father. The summer of 1985 he came to me with a deal I couldn't pass up as he wouldn't give me a choice. There was a HUGE job at a hotel that was coming up and it paid more than he did. Dad's jobs were small commercial properties like strip malls and office parks but mostly residential. Residential was dad's bread and butter. This was different, he wasn't the contractor on this one, he was just another guy applying wall paper and he'd gotten me a job as an "assistant".
There were only two painters assistants on this job and our job was to sandpaper dry wall and later to clean up excess plastic tarps and wasted wall paper. The other "assistant" was the supervisors son. Unlike myself he showed no enthusiasm for the job. He was a quiet blond kid who had a permanent look of disinterest on his face. It was a large building and there were several crews operating at once on different floors. I mentioned to the boss' son that if we separated we could get more done, that is I'd take the odd floors and he the even. He dismissed that idea and said that the day would go by faster if we worked together.
Initially I thought I'd made a new friend, but then I realized that aside from being the same age and on the same job, we had absolutely NOTHING in common. We had no conversations of substance. He didn't want to talk about music, girls, politics, school or anything other than the car he wanted to buy how drunk he liked to get, how much weed he could smoke without his dad finding out and when we were either going to lunch OR getting off work. I soon realized WHY he didn't want to work apart from me. When we were "working" I was doing the lion's share of it. He did as little as possible and only seemed to want to work as hard as I was when he saw his father on the periphery. He did that act once when I stopped to go to the bathroom and his father showed up, he pretended that he had done all the work on our floor and of course who do you think his father believed. Other painters would later come to my defense but it was still a pain.
I was on this job for a month before they told us that most of the hard work was done and they didn't need two assistants anymore. Guess which one of us was let go? Here's a hint, it wasn't the blond kid with the casual work ethic. I took the money I made and saved it for school clothes and didn't give the job a second thought until two weeks later when my dad told me that the supervisors son had quit. Supposedly he told his father that he'd gotten tired of being on the site and that it bored him. I laughed because I knew that he finally had to do some work for a sustained period of time and didn't have someone else for whose efforts he could take credit. He had to sink or swim and sank.
I worked harder than he did and we made the same money, but when he had to do exactly what I'd been doing for a month he folded like a card table. Maybe he was smarter than I am. He figured out that all he had to do was show up and do the bare minimum and he'd still get paid. He even took three "sick days" which he informed me were days when he was "sick of working." Whether he was a con artist or a malingerer I'll never know but he taught me three valuable lessons that summer: 1. Hard work is good for one's self esteem as you're either going to take pride in what you do or quit. 2. It's not WHAT you know, but WHOM and 3 and this was the most important lesson, every lie ever told eventually is exposed. You can only maintain subterfuge for so long before it's ultimately discovered and you're revealed as a fraud.
Regardless of my opinion of my former "co-worker" (I use that term ironically) he did at least show up on a job. Little has changed as there are still young people working on summer jobs, but many more who simply wait for mom and dad to hand them what they want. I can't help but wonder, when did an entire generation stop equating work with rewards?
Sunday, March 17, 2019
There was a Green Book?
I know a little about history. I won't say I "KNOW" history because neither I nor any other person who didn't live in a given time has encyclopedic knowledge of any time period though some come close. My parents told me about certain things which were realities of the segregated south of their youth and early adulthood. I was told about "sundown towns" which garnered that name because blacks could not be there after sundown for fear of their own safety. I was told about restrooms, restaurants, hotels and motels where black business was NOT accepted and about clothing stores where black clients couldn't even try on articles of clothing they wanted to buy.
My parents and some of my teachers who had survived the same thing told me about their experiences, but NONE of them ever mentioned The Green Book. The Green book was written by a former Pullman porter (rail road worker) who compiled a list of every black friendly hotel and restaurant in the south and published it in the north and midwest and made a nice chunk of change doing so.
In 2018 a film by the same title examines race relations in America circa 1962. Our protagonist ISN'T a black motorist going across the south, but rather a Bronx tough guy who occasionally works as muscle for the mob who lands a temporary assignment as a chauffeur a black concert pianist who is embarking on a tour of the deep south. For simplicity's sake, let's call him by his Bronx moniker "Tony Lip". Tony earns this name because of his ability to seeming charm and BS virtually anyone. Tony's character is supposed to represent the average working class white guy. He doesn't HATE black people per say, but his only knowledge of them is based on superficial contact & stereotypes. He embraces black music and what he perceives to be black "culture" without knowing any actual black people.
Enter Doctor Sally a black piano prodigy who has been playing piano since the age of 3. Tony travels throughout the midwest and later the south with Dr. Sally and discovers quite a bit about himself and his attitudes about his fellow man. Over the eight week odyssey Tony learns about elements of the black experience that he never knew existed that chances are most white people didn't know existed in the south for blacks at the time.
I've always enjoyed the films of Spike Lee and Spike both HATED and dismissed this film as a white knight saving a helpless black man. I saw this film and disagree with Spike. I saw a guy realizing that he didn't get it and neither did most of the people he knew. Dr. Sally didn't need "rescue" he was in fact the person signing Tony's paycheck, the guy living in (as Tony put it) in a castle. Dr. Sally's talent segregated him from most blacks and the color of his skin segregated him from everyone else. In the course of the 8 weeks that Tony and Dr. Sally do their own version of "Driving Miss Daisy" in reverse, Tony and Dr. Sally grow and form a friendship and both are richer for it. I'd recommend this film as a fun piece of history as it's based on two people who actually existed and no one dies in the course of the film. I recommend it as a nice buddy pic for anyone who knows what it's like to learn about someone else on an interpersonal level and make an honest to goodness friend.
Monday, February 25, 2019
Movin' on Up...
I'll help fools move, but you EITHER need to feed me ...WELL or get me disturbingly drunk off GOOD alcohol. There are people whom you'd drive to the airport, give a kidney and for whom you'd take a bullet, BUT whom you wouldn't help move. Seriously, you'd take a slug for a guy but you won't help him move his late grandmother's piano.
Hey, wounds heal and chicks dig scars, but movin' a piano is a pain in the butt. Okay calm down if you REALLY don't want people asking you to move, you have to make them think that they REALLY don't want you to know where they live. Make 'em think you're nuts or at least bizarre or slightly odd. Here are a few helpful hints to help you get out of the "moving" draft.
1. Have an unusual "emotional support" animal. I'm not talking dogs, cats, exotic birds or ferrets. Get a llama and have him clad in silk pajamas and one of those pimp hats with a feather. Get an aardvark and put a Parliament Funkadelic shirt on him. Michael Jackson had a llama. How many times did you see that muff-hugga carrying the end of a couch?
2, Three words: "Giant...Carnival...Cigar". Carnivals and fairs occasionally give out foot long, thick novelty cigars as prizes. Go online and buy a GROSS of them and smoke the dang things AROUND that friend who juuuust can't seem to find the right apartment who seems to move every six months. If every time he sees you you're blowing smoke in his face from this funky, cheap cigar...you're as out as Sean Hayes.
3. Randomly bolt! When around someone whom you suspect will be moving soon, travel with him/ her by cab or Uber. When at a stop light, get out and run the hell off. If they later ask where you were or what you did, be amazingly vague and elusive.
4. "Sister Christian" them! Everyone who's seen the film "Boogie Nights" remembers the "Sister Christian" scene. REENACT IT! When the "friend" is over for a dinner or social gathering, LITERALLY hire a prepubescent Asian kid to light and randomly toss firecrackers as you're talking to them...and pretend he isn't there...or that you can't hear anything.
5. Refer to yourself in 3rd person. "Rodney feels that we should go to Ricos for lasagne. Rodney thinks they're better than Demiglios." Not only will they NOT want you to help them move, you'll be lucky if one of them doesn't lunge at you with a steak knife.
6. Get a "title". Insist on your friends referring to you as "your grace", "Your eminence", "Lord Balvaird" or "Grand Ayatolla." It's annoying as (rhymes with duck). If it doesn't kill your invite to the big move then my name isn't "His Highness Prince Regent Jesse Handy"
7. Charlie Daniels. Charlie Daniels is a talented country artist from the 70s and 80s His greatest hit which was a crossover on the pop charts was entitled "The Devil Went Down to Georgia". Play that song CONSTANTLY when around the friend whom you're trying to avoid. No OTHER music from Charlie or anyone else...JUST play "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" over...and over...and OVER again. If you're lucky they won't try to have you killed.
8. Bubba Gump them. If you've seen the film "Forest Gump" you remember Forest fellow developmentally challenged Army buddy "Bubba" whose knowledge of shrimp and how to prepare it was encyclopedic. Learn EVERYTHING there is to know about a particular food...then ramble incessantly about it. IT WORKS!
9. Get a CATCH PHRASE! I can promise you that if you punctuate every other sentence with "Well don't that butter your biscuit?" , "Aint that a soccer kick in the ballz?" or "Shave my butt and call me fluffy!" People will lift their OWN piano to see if they can throw it at you.
and FINALLY and this one is THERMONUCLEAR
10. The Hank Hill. Go to somewhere where either the person who you know will ask (or someone you both know) is getting their freak on and just burst in and say (in your best Hank Hill voice) "OH MY GOD IT'S SO JUICY!" from one of the Thanksgiving episodes. Not only will they NOT want you to help them move, they might NEVER speak to you again. Of course the downside is...they might ask you to join. Either way...good luck.
Hey, wounds heal and chicks dig scars, but movin' a piano is a pain in the butt. Okay calm down if you REALLY don't want people asking you to move, you have to make them think that they REALLY don't want you to know where they live. Make 'em think you're nuts or at least bizarre or slightly odd. Here are a few helpful hints to help you get out of the "moving" draft.
1. Have an unusual "emotional support" animal. I'm not talking dogs, cats, exotic birds or ferrets. Get a llama and have him clad in silk pajamas and one of those pimp hats with a feather. Get an aardvark and put a Parliament Funkadelic shirt on him. Michael Jackson had a llama. How many times did you see that muff-hugga carrying the end of a couch?
2, Three words: "Giant...Carnival...Cigar". Carnivals and fairs occasionally give out foot long, thick novelty cigars as prizes. Go online and buy a GROSS of them and smoke the dang things AROUND that friend who juuuust can't seem to find the right apartment who seems to move every six months. If every time he sees you you're blowing smoke in his face from this funky, cheap cigar...you're as out as Sean Hayes.
3. Randomly bolt! When around someone whom you suspect will be moving soon, travel with him/ her by cab or Uber. When at a stop light, get out and run the hell off. If they later ask where you were or what you did, be amazingly vague and elusive.
4. "Sister Christian" them! Everyone who's seen the film "Boogie Nights" remembers the "Sister Christian" scene. REENACT IT! When the "friend" is over for a dinner or social gathering, LITERALLY hire a prepubescent Asian kid to light and randomly toss firecrackers as you're talking to them...and pretend he isn't there...or that you can't hear anything.
5. Refer to yourself in 3rd person. "Rodney feels that we should go to Ricos for lasagne. Rodney thinks they're better than Demiglios." Not only will they NOT want you to help them move, you'll be lucky if one of them doesn't lunge at you with a steak knife.
6. Get a "title". Insist on your friends referring to you as "your grace", "Your eminence", "Lord Balvaird" or "Grand Ayatolla." It's annoying as (rhymes with duck). If it doesn't kill your invite to the big move then my name isn't "His Highness Prince Regent Jesse Handy"
7. Charlie Daniels. Charlie Daniels is a talented country artist from the 70s and 80s His greatest hit which was a crossover on the pop charts was entitled "The Devil Went Down to Georgia". Play that song CONSTANTLY when around the friend whom you're trying to avoid. No OTHER music from Charlie or anyone else...JUST play "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" over...and over...and OVER again. If you're lucky they won't try to have you killed.
8. Bubba Gump them. If you've seen the film "Forest Gump" you remember Forest fellow developmentally challenged Army buddy "Bubba" whose knowledge of shrimp and how to prepare it was encyclopedic. Learn EVERYTHING there is to know about a particular food...then ramble incessantly about it. IT WORKS!
9. Get a CATCH PHRASE! I can promise you that if you punctuate every other sentence with "Well don't that butter your biscuit?" , "Aint that a soccer kick in the ballz?" or "Shave my butt and call me fluffy!" People will lift their OWN piano to see if they can throw it at you.
and FINALLY and this one is THERMONUCLEAR
10. The Hank Hill. Go to somewhere where either the person who you know will ask (or someone you both know) is getting their freak on and just burst in and say (in your best Hank Hill voice) "OH MY GOD IT'S SO JUICY!" from one of the Thanksgiving episodes. Not only will they NOT want you to help them move, they might NEVER speak to you again. Of course the downside is...they might ask you to join. Either way...good luck.
Thursday, October 25, 2018
The "African American" Experience?
Several years ago I worked with a young, black teacher from a small town in northern state. As we have mutual acquaintences I won't say her name or where she's from. We never had an in depth conversation and truthfully I never found her an interesting enough person to engage on more than a superficial level.
After working with her for the better part of a year however I thought her to be a tad condescending. She seemed to patronize when she spoke to me. In all fairness, there are some teachers who feel the need to simplify things when they speak to their students and it carries over to everyday conversations. It sounds as if they're being patronizing, but it's not their intent, they just want to be comprehended and tend to speak slowly and in warm tones. As I had to work with this person and from time to time I had to attend the occasional meeting with her, I couldn't help but notice that whenever I spoke she had a snide comment. There were LITERALLY times when I wished I'd been born a woman so I could have slapped the hell out of her. I loathed her, but as time went on I couldn't help but notice that whenever the other southern black people spoke she would seem to talk down to us in her replies as well.
Black southerners tend to look down on blacks from Alabama. I think it has something to do with the fact that during the Jim Crow era blacks in Alabama took more grief than anyone else and seemed to be okay with it. In fact black people calling you a "Bama" is just a polite way of calling you a backward, rustic idiot. It never dawned on me that blacks from the North and Midwest could see ALL black southerners that way, which leaves me to ask What IS the "black/African-American experience?"
My grandfather in Louisiana couldn't vote until he was a middle aged man. In contrast black men in Chicago, New York and Boston COULD vote, but often felt as if they had nothing for which to vote. Did they consider my grandfather and men like him, shucking and jiving Uncle Toms and Bamas who allowed themselves to be pushed around, or did they see them as men who stared down metaphorical (and in some cases literal) gun barrels when they left their homes? Growing up black in these United States BEFORE I was born was NOT a pleasant experience, but can we compare being black in Chicago to being black in Mississippi? Was being black in Texas the same as being black in Los Angeles or was the black Georgian experience the SAME as the black New Yorker's experience? Racism existed (and to an extent still exists) in all those places, but is being told "we don't serve your kind" in Manhattan after not being able to hail a cab the same as having a mob in Tennessee threaten to lynch you because someone thinks you looked a white woman in the eye or perhaps forgot to tip your hat?
Don't get me wrong, there are elements of the black experience that are/were universal.
- The sense of isolation one feels when one is the ONLY person of color in some places. There are friendly people of every race color and creed and some will speak to you, but there are times when you become invisible. Waiters and waitresses and other patrons of some restaurants seem to gaze right through you. Some don't want to antagonize us, some simply don't want to engage us, others simply figure if they ignore us long enough we'll go away. Ralph Waldo Emmerson captured that sense of isolation best in his novel "Invisible Man". There are some who don't consider us "American" as evident by those who clamored to believe the theory that a black man born in Hawaii HAD to have been born in a foreign country as they simply couldn't accept that a black American could possibly be the leader of their country.
- Not being admitted into certain places, be it a club, hotel, restaurant, college or neighborhood which gentlemen's agreements, policies and in some cases state laws and city ordinances excluded us. This isn't an entirely black experience. The Irish, Italians, Jews and every other minority has experienced this at some point and it leaves a mental scar even if you can walk away with a smile and pretend it doesn't bother you.
-The random criminal and other stereotypes. At the end of the civil war many who considered blacks the lowest rung on the societal ladder feared newly empowered blacks. The newly freed men and women would want the education denied them, ACTUAL jobs, equality in every way and MAYBE even some kind of retrobution for generations of mal treatment. To that end laws were put into place to deny all of these things to blacks as a group. In some states there were literally laws to insure that unemployed black men would be in jail to provide a ready made labor supply for chain gangs. Generations of selective prosecution have lead to many believing that blacks are more likely to simply BE criminals. Black schools are constantly under funded and some resent their tax dollars going to fund "failing inner city schools". "Inner city" has become the buzz phrase for "black" and anyone who attended an "inner city" school clearly must have received a sub par education.
In all fairness however we can't say that all aspects of the black experience are "negative". If you're a black American in a foreign country you MIGHT be treated as the random stereotype that has been exported via mass media, OR you may be treated simply as an American. There are many who LOVE Americans.
As I sit and write this piece in 2018 I'm three days removed from having cast an early ballot in an election, a privilege that many of all races would envy. I live in a country where even the poor have running water and electricity and in some cases cable television and three meals a day.
I have access to higher education and I know that my grandfather would be proud of me, my sibling and my cousins and nephews who were able to attain it.
What DOES being black in America mean? I'd say the black experience in America is like a finger print. No two are exactly alike. I can't judge a black man who grew up in south Florida anymore than a black woman from up Delaware can judge me. The "experience" in my opinion has as many similarities as it has differences, and as time wears on those will change as all things should. What's the "black/African American experience?" How should I know?
After working with her for the better part of a year however I thought her to be a tad condescending. She seemed to patronize when she spoke to me. In all fairness, there are some teachers who feel the need to simplify things when they speak to their students and it carries over to everyday conversations. It sounds as if they're being patronizing, but it's not their intent, they just want to be comprehended and tend to speak slowly and in warm tones. As I had to work with this person and from time to time I had to attend the occasional meeting with her, I couldn't help but notice that whenever I spoke she had a snide comment. There were LITERALLY times when I wished I'd been born a woman so I could have slapped the hell out of her. I loathed her, but as time went on I couldn't help but notice that whenever the other southern black people spoke she would seem to talk down to us in her replies as well.
Black southerners tend to look down on blacks from Alabama. I think it has something to do with the fact that during the Jim Crow era blacks in Alabama took more grief than anyone else and seemed to be okay with it. In fact black people calling you a "Bama" is just a polite way of calling you a backward, rustic idiot. It never dawned on me that blacks from the North and Midwest could see ALL black southerners that way, which leaves me to ask What IS the "black/African-American experience?"
My grandfather in Louisiana couldn't vote until he was a middle aged man. In contrast black men in Chicago, New York and Boston COULD vote, but often felt as if they had nothing for which to vote. Did they consider my grandfather and men like him, shucking and jiving Uncle Toms and Bamas who allowed themselves to be pushed around, or did they see them as men who stared down metaphorical (and in some cases literal) gun barrels when they left their homes? Growing up black in these United States BEFORE I was born was NOT a pleasant experience, but can we compare being black in Chicago to being black in Mississippi? Was being black in Texas the same as being black in Los Angeles or was the black Georgian experience the SAME as the black New Yorker's experience? Racism existed (and to an extent still exists) in all those places, but is being told "we don't serve your kind" in Manhattan after not being able to hail a cab the same as having a mob in Tennessee threaten to lynch you because someone thinks you looked a white woman in the eye or perhaps forgot to tip your hat?
Don't get me wrong, there are elements of the black experience that are/were universal.
- The sense of isolation one feels when one is the ONLY person of color in some places. There are friendly people of every race color and creed and some will speak to you, but there are times when you become invisible. Waiters and waitresses and other patrons of some restaurants seem to gaze right through you. Some don't want to antagonize us, some simply don't want to engage us, others simply figure if they ignore us long enough we'll go away. Ralph Waldo Emmerson captured that sense of isolation best in his novel "Invisible Man". There are some who don't consider us "American" as evident by those who clamored to believe the theory that a black man born in Hawaii HAD to have been born in a foreign country as they simply couldn't accept that a black American could possibly be the leader of their country.
- Not being admitted into certain places, be it a club, hotel, restaurant, college or neighborhood which gentlemen's agreements, policies and in some cases state laws and city ordinances excluded us. This isn't an entirely black experience. The Irish, Italians, Jews and every other minority has experienced this at some point and it leaves a mental scar even if you can walk away with a smile and pretend it doesn't bother you.
-The random criminal and other stereotypes. At the end of the civil war many who considered blacks the lowest rung on the societal ladder feared newly empowered blacks. The newly freed men and women would want the education denied them, ACTUAL jobs, equality in every way and MAYBE even some kind of retrobution for generations of mal treatment. To that end laws were put into place to deny all of these things to blacks as a group. In some states there were literally laws to insure that unemployed black men would be in jail to provide a ready made labor supply for chain gangs. Generations of selective prosecution have lead to many believing that blacks are more likely to simply BE criminals. Black schools are constantly under funded and some resent their tax dollars going to fund "failing inner city schools". "Inner city" has become the buzz phrase for "black" and anyone who attended an "inner city" school clearly must have received a sub par education.
In all fairness however we can't say that all aspects of the black experience are "negative". If you're a black American in a foreign country you MIGHT be treated as the random stereotype that has been exported via mass media, OR you may be treated simply as an American. There are many who LOVE Americans.
As I sit and write this piece in 2018 I'm three days removed from having cast an early ballot in an election, a privilege that many of all races would envy. I live in a country where even the poor have running water and electricity and in some cases cable television and three meals a day.
I have access to higher education and I know that my grandfather would be proud of me, my sibling and my cousins and nephews who were able to attain it.
What DOES being black in America mean? I'd say the black experience in America is like a finger print. No two are exactly alike. I can't judge a black man who grew up in south Florida anymore than a black woman from up Delaware can judge me. The "experience" in my opinion has as many similarities as it has differences, and as time wears on those will change as all things should. What's the "black/African American experience?" How should I know?
Friday, October 5, 2018
Sweet Caroline
"CLEAR!" the attending physician said sternly notifying the nurses to back away from the patient before fibrillating her. The paddles sent a surge of electricity through her body, restarting her heart. She'd just given birth to a healthy, five pound baby boy and was about to go home when she suffered a heart attack. A cardiologist would tell her before discharging her that being in her mid 30s and being overweight had made her pregnancy risky and informed her that the history of heart disease in her family had caught up with her. She was told that the baby boy she was leaving the hospital with would be the LAST child she'd ever had. Her heart wouldn't be strong enough for her to carry another child to term. She went home devastated.
Our mother, let's call her Caroline would have to learn to live with the heart condition she just become aware of, but before she truly could a family friend, drugged and raped her and she would learn weeks later that she was pregnant. Her cardiologist informed her that her pregnancy was essentially a death sentence. Her options were: a. have a rapist's baby and die in the process or b. medically terminate the child that grew inside her so that she could be a mother to her two existing children. She knew a kind of pain that hopefully most of us will NEVER know. Like Meryl Streep in "Sophie's Choice" she would suffer and regret whatever decision she made for the rest of her days.
Before we look any further into Caroline's situation and how it was resolved, a few other facts need to be presented. Caroline was at the time unemployed and poor. She was receiving food stamps and was on Medicaid. She needed an abortion and it was life or death. When the word "abortion" is mentioned a great American debate rises like a tsunami. The image of irresponsible, impoverished minority teens comes to mind and the religious argument of a person becoming a person the moment a spermatozoa meets an egg and cell division begins. One side of the political fence paints all who would get an abortion as either amoral, irresponsible or both and wanting to get a free, surgical "do over" from the government and their tax dollars by "killing a baby." What's rarely mentioned in that argument are women like Caroline who are victims of rape, or worse women who are victims of incestuous rape who find themselves pregnant. High risk pregnancies are also never mentioned.
Many anti-abortion activists would simply tell a rape victim that the child she would have would be a "blessing from God" or to simply give him or her up for adoption. What about cases like Caroline's They're never mentioned
Getting back to Caroline, she's not only unfortunate enough to be a rape victim who has learned she's pregnant with her rapist's child and that she has a heart condition that would kill her should she have the child, she is also a poor woman in Texas where the laws governing abortion are strict and "moral". Because politicians who feel all abortion is murder dominate Texas politics, there is NO public funding for any form of abortion. Caroline must go to friends, family & special charities set up for women like her and literally BEG for her life. Texas state law REQUIRES that she get an expensive ultrasound, despite the fact that she already KNOWS that she is with child and also that she look at it.
Caroline managed to get the money and the procedure that saved her life, and spent a week in bed recuperating physically and emotionally, though whether or not she'll ever do the latter is debatable. Is she a bad person? Should we have laws on the books that tell Caroline to sacrifice herself for her unborn child? Can a childless man like myself ever truly understand the ordeal through which she suffered and should I or any man have the right to put on our religious blinders which permit no shades of grey so that we can judge people like Caroline? If ALL abortion was illegal as some in this country want, Caroline would be dead now. Her two children would be motherless and what moral truth would we have preserved in her demise?
Caroline is a real person whose name I changed to protect her dignity and anonymity. She is not the face of abortion many see when they pontificate about how immoral it is, but maybe she should be one of the people whom both sides of the debate should consider.
Our mother, let's call her Caroline would have to learn to live with the heart condition she just become aware of, but before she truly could a family friend, drugged and raped her and she would learn weeks later that she was pregnant. Her cardiologist informed her that her pregnancy was essentially a death sentence. Her options were: a. have a rapist's baby and die in the process or b. medically terminate the child that grew inside her so that she could be a mother to her two existing children. She knew a kind of pain that hopefully most of us will NEVER know. Like Meryl Streep in "Sophie's Choice" she would suffer and regret whatever decision she made for the rest of her days.
Before we look any further into Caroline's situation and how it was resolved, a few other facts need to be presented. Caroline was at the time unemployed and poor. She was receiving food stamps and was on Medicaid. She needed an abortion and it was life or death. When the word "abortion" is mentioned a great American debate rises like a tsunami. The image of irresponsible, impoverished minority teens comes to mind and the religious argument of a person becoming a person the moment a spermatozoa meets an egg and cell division begins. One side of the political fence paints all who would get an abortion as either amoral, irresponsible or both and wanting to get a free, surgical "do over" from the government and their tax dollars by "killing a baby." What's rarely mentioned in that argument are women like Caroline who are victims of rape, or worse women who are victims of incestuous rape who find themselves pregnant. High risk pregnancies are also never mentioned.
Many anti-abortion activists would simply tell a rape victim that the child she would have would be a "blessing from God" or to simply give him or her up for adoption. What about cases like Caroline's They're never mentioned
Getting back to Caroline, she's not only unfortunate enough to be a rape victim who has learned she's pregnant with her rapist's child and that she has a heart condition that would kill her should she have the child, she is also a poor woman in Texas where the laws governing abortion are strict and "moral". Because politicians who feel all abortion is murder dominate Texas politics, there is NO public funding for any form of abortion. Caroline must go to friends, family & special charities set up for women like her and literally BEG for her life. Texas state law REQUIRES that she get an expensive ultrasound, despite the fact that she already KNOWS that she is with child and also that she look at it.
Caroline managed to get the money and the procedure that saved her life, and spent a week in bed recuperating physically and emotionally, though whether or not she'll ever do the latter is debatable. Is she a bad person? Should we have laws on the books that tell Caroline to sacrifice herself for her unborn child? Can a childless man like myself ever truly understand the ordeal through which she suffered and should I or any man have the right to put on our religious blinders which permit no shades of grey so that we can judge people like Caroline? If ALL abortion was illegal as some in this country want, Caroline would be dead now. Her two children would be motherless and what moral truth would we have preserved in her demise?
Caroline is a real person whose name I changed to protect her dignity and anonymity. She is not the face of abortion many see when they pontificate about how immoral it is, but maybe she should be one of the people whom both sides of the debate should consider.
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