The Fringe and The Underbelly (instrumental version)

I read somewhere once that those who work in the sex industry, typically have low self-esteem. The theory goes, that because the have so little worth for themselves, they decide and set upon an arbitrary price for that which should be beyond recompense. Qualities like beauty, charm, and grace are ephemeral, and totally subjective, and thus, should be share with those with the sense and the right eyes to see it. It is a romantic view, but not a wrong one.

I don't think that's what's at issue though with those who ply their gifts for monetary recompense. It's like I say about film Directors who's work I don't particularly admire. I don't begrudge anyone for finding their audience. In the end, we're all just trying approval; people who find value in what we bring to the table; love, if you will. It comes in more than one form. And in today's reality, the value of that, does come with a price tag, especially if one is to survive on more than good wishes and a pat on the back.

We live in a world where porn stars make six figure incomes. If strippers and call girls could be accused of having less ambition, it's only because the value their anonymity to such an extant as to effectively place it off the market. But a girl's still got to pay the rent. And their aren't many easier ways to do it, and still dictate your own hours, and to an extant, choose your own client base.

So they finance their dreams... of independence and creature comforts, or even classes to insure against that day... when finally their youth and beauty begin to fade.

And after, not all we Johns are scum. Some of us are grateful, and value the time that is spent.

I have been high, and I have been low. And one day, I found myself stranded across town, with no way of getting home. Now there are more than a few strippers across town who have made good money from me. And sometimes, when I don't have THAT kind of cash to spend, I'll bring some flowers instead, and a sincere and warm thank you, hanging on my lips. I don't go unless I have a dollar for every dance. But when you can't afford to even buy a lady a drink (because they're twenty-one bucks for a split of champagne!) it's a good way to say, I'll get you next time. Your're not far from my dreams.

And so, on THIS occasion, I was in the neighborhood, and really had no one else to ask. I went inside the club and told her simply, "I'm here because I had a job interview, but I have no way of getting back. Can you lend me ten bucks?" To be honest, I was thinking about more than the ride home, which would have only cost me five. I was thinking of the ride, and picking up a cheap pack of cigarettes along the way.

And this dancer whom I have known for 7 years said simply to me, "Is that all you need? Which took me aback some, and I replied, "Twenty?"  To which she repeated, "Is that all?" I said, "Forty?" And again, she stared me right in the eyes and said, "Is that all?" And I couldn't in all good conscious go much higher than that. This is a girl who works on tips and as any independent worker hustling for commissions will tell you, there are good days, and there are slow days, and there are no guarantees. So I said, "Fifty?" And she said, "Let me go to the back and get my tips." When she returned, she slid a fifty across the bar, bought me a bucket of beer, and sat ant talked with me until I was done.

Let me make something clear here. Despite my qualifier before about about the money I've spent, or even about being the Mercury florist guy of the stripper world,  I'm not saying I ever did anything to deserve such kindness. I'm not even laying claim that I'm a particularly nice guy. As time will reveal, I have sinned, and carry those sins, both in my heart and on my sleeve. And just because I do so, doesn't give me a free pass. As time will reveal, they are numerous and they are there, for you freely, to judge or disdain.

But if one thing can be said, it is this: I AM grateful. And I keep a running tab of all my debts. This ledger, I carry in my heart. And this heart can know no rest. Not 'till the ledger is cleared. Not 'till the scales tip on its opposite side.

The Fringe and the Underbelly (on Avenue D). It's that place where we are reminded of our dreams. We negotiate their worth, in order to pay for a better day.

Emeterio Was My Dad, And So Too Was Stan Lee

My father was an immigrant, a dreamer, a gambler, a hero, a broken man. Like all of us, a bevy of contradictions to say the very least.

He was a cop in Cuba, before the Castro regime. He had a wife and three sons, and fell in love with a girl half his age. He'd seen her grow to womanhood, and then marry another man. She carried a child, and then watched that child grow. Until that young woman's husband died of cancer, just as the insurrection swept like a tide, leaving questions, contradictions, imprisonment and death in its wake.

Art had to be state sanctioned, property was repossessed. Friends and family arrested and killed, or disappeared from one day to the next. And a woman with a young daughter, with no education or skills to barter her life with in the service of the state, became afraid of the days which loomed ahead.

In steps my father to save to save the day. By hook or by crook, or the methods in between, he got her daughter out, and his sons too, who then were able to claim their parents on humanitarian grounds.

So that's why he's a hero, because all this was no mean feat. Captain America kicked Nazi ass, but the Castro regime still stands today. My dad did what he could, giving them the middle finger salute, all the way from the shores of Ellis Island.

My father was an elderly man. At least, that's how I remember him. I don't remember him having a job. I just remember him visiting once or twice a week. Because he was still married when the affair commenced in earnest.

That affair took its toll in lives disrupted. A woman with a broken heart, caring for a child mostly on her own. An unruly child with temper tantrums and hard to control. Fights I could hear from my bedroom, desperate, clinging make up sex I inadvertently walked in on, curious why the familiar noise had stopped.

My father was a champion poker player...who loved to play the ponies.

Poker is a long game. It's one of small wins and losses, and then small wins again. And even if you possess that rare ability to count cards, and keep it all in your head, (and from the accounts I've heard of my dad's play, he most certainly did) it ain't like Rain Man. There's no system that's fool proof. But he was good enough to buck the odds, enough to let them win, so they'd come back another day.

But he loved to play the ponies. He liked the action, the big payouts, and the long odds that made his winnings sweet.

Of the people who knew him, someone once remarked, if he'd been alive today, with all the Poker Tournaments, and the legitimization of the game... he'd be a millionaire.

But maybe not. Because my dad was always smart enough to set some money aside. Enough to meet his obligations: to buy his food, and to pay his rent.  He had enough to buy presents and toys and comic books for me. But he died without a penny to his name. All I inherited was a brass ring whose gold patina had faded, and the cubic zirconium stones long since gone cloudy and dull, but which he never took off his hand. 'Cause he liked the long odds. So he took it all with him, and left with just a pretty corpse to mourn.

I'm grateful to him. I see the flaws now. I see the heartaches, and disappointments, and my the reasons for my mother's patience wearing thin. This is a life that demands so much from you. So much more than just a dream.

But I got my ability to dream from him. The dreaming was his legacy to me. 'Cause my dad liked the long odds, and I guess I do too.

He used to ask me, "When I'm a millionaire, what do you want me to buy for you?" And I answered, "I want an animal of every kind! I want a dog, and a cat, and horse, and a dolphin!" And the next day, a pekingese puppy showed up to call our place home. I remember when he died I asked, "Where is Snoopy? I can't find him anywhere?" And my dad replied, "Snoopy was sick, and we had to send him to a farm where the air is pure so he can get better."

God bless you dad. Because I believed you at the time.

My dad was a dreamer, and so now I am too. He bought me  comic books, which my mom didn't see the sense in. They were "funny books", and beyond that, I don't know what she thought. Was she afraid they would corrupt my mind? Was she afraid they would fill it with trash? Did my father know what he was doing? Filling me with an insatiable curiosity to read? Or was he simply indulging a son, in the sunset years, of his last journey through fatherhood?

Regardless, that's how I discovered Stan Lee. Stan taught me to love the written word. It helped that Jack Kirby and John Romita were there to make the words palatable. They kept the story moving. They gave it breath and life. But Stan would look at the thesaurus, to find another word to say what he meant. He banked on his readers insatiable curiosity to find what it meant. And he wasn't wrong. It's how I learned to read.

He wrote EPIC stories: about Galactus, a force of nature; the eater of worlds! And he wrote of a power far greater: the will of man to stem the tide of chaos and steer destiny by the reigns.

He wrote of a young man, not much older than me, who in a fit of selfish pique, caused the death of his uncle, and learned we are all responsible for so much more than ourselves. At least that's how I took the lesson, "With great power, comes great responsibility", whenever I stopped to dwell.

He wrote of a Doctor, searching for a cure for himself, and a way back to his old, selfish life. What he found was enlightenment instead. I think the Rolling Stones still said it best: "You can't always find what you want. But if you try, sometimes, you get what you need." (Ahh yeah)

And in the midst of the civil rights movement, he wrote of a group of teenagers, shunned for no other reason, than being unique.  And I could relate to that.

Stan Lee not only taught me to read, he taught me some of literature's great themes. Those themes that resonate in your heart, because they feel true, and color the way you view this world.

I have learned to love the written word, and now here I am writing some for you.

I was illiterate before I picked up my first comic book. I was shy, and introverted, and wanted nothing more than to be not noticed by anyone on either side of that aisle between the teacher's desk and ours. I lived in a world where I din't know anyone, having moved around from time to time. I lived in a world where the only thing constant, was that my parents loved to fight.

But I learned how to dream: past the shouting, and the fighting, and divorcing, and the getting back together again just in time to see my dad pass away.

I learned how to dream, and express those dreams, in terms which I could control.

In that respect, I'm luckier than my dad, though not as skillful by far. I have to work twice as hard for everything I do, when it seems to have come so easy for him. But I recognize where my talent lies. And the same cannot be said for him.

He never knew Damon Runyon, but I knew Stan Lee. These word I've shared today, are all because of him.

Dreams Do Persist

So here's the thing. My life is shit. I'm hanging on by a finger nail. But I had a good night, and so I've given myself permission to dream.

I had a job interview today. Now a couple of days ago, I had another interview, in which the two that led up to it I aced, but then bombed on the final third.

It was for a part time store security position in which I had practiced responses by now for the same standard questions.

But the interview took a slightly different turn when at first he asked me, "Why store security?" and then "Tell me about the duties and responsibilities of the position and how you intend to fulfill them." Which took me aback and I blurted out, "Well I haven't read the job description in over a month, when I first applied for it, but based on my responsibilities in store sales, I see it as such..."

And I think I blew it right there. I think the interviewer was not pleased that I didn't have the job description memorized and available right there.

So today, I had an interview scheduled for a furniture sales position, and area of fashion in which I have no experience. I was determined not to let that be a determining factor.

So I did the research. At first, I tried to memorize all the pieces they carry. I don't know what I was trying to memorize, but I went from page to page on their web site, looking at different furniture pieces, styles and prices, and quickly realized I cannot possibly memorize all this in just under forty eight hours.

So the next day, I decided to memorize the "About us" page, detailing the history of the company and where it stands today. I learned it is a family owned business, three generations deep. I learned about how it started in Cuba under a different name, and continued in America just seven months after escaping the Castro regime.

I learned about a particular designer who's signature pieces we carry ("WE" listen to me now...) but because of poor web design, when I did a search on the company web site to find his pieces, all I got was two pages of mattresses. And so I googled him and found his web site where I found many pieces designed in that Spanish/Mediterranean style that is so prevalent here in Miami.

I researched the names of the people I was interviewing with (again, with no clue or idea why, or what I might find) and found that one of the interviewers received a humanitarian award for saving the life of one of her co-workers on the verge of a major heart attack.

I arrived to the interview the next day and said, "I'm sure you have a lot of questions about my background and experience, but one of my strengths as a sales professional is I like to research and know about the merchandise that I'm selling, so that any questions that may arise in the process of making a sale, I have an answer for. That gives me confidence. And when I researched the company, this is what I found."

I had also researched design tips for furnishing your home, and learned about two design styles; the Modern and Spanish and some of their relative strengths and weaknesses. I didn't get to use that with as much detail as I would have liked, partly because it's an area in which I still feel I have much to learn, and partly just due to nervousness. I was after all, in effect, taking over the interview process; and indeed, when I stated I wanted to make a presentation, the first reaction I got was a pair of raised eyebrows and the comment, "Well, we really wanted to go over your resume, but go ahead." And so I launched into my presentation, at the conclusion of which, I patiently sat and waited for their questions. When it was over, and we shook hands to part ways, I asked if I came across as too pushy, to which one interviewer replied, "No, no. You came prepared. You had a presentation and everything."

And I left with my head held high, and with a confident stride.

I left and celebrated by going to my favorite sports bar and ordered the happy hour bucket of drinks.

I talked to a pretty girl and shared a drink. I told her the story, and no, no numbers were exchanged. I was honest about my financial situation, and she was far too young for me.

But she was warm, and supportive. And positive and upbeat. She was studying to be a medical assistant and went to school three times a week.

But the persistence of dreams prevail, and so I started to think... Wouldn't it be nice if this panned out, and I could afford to move into a place of my own? I could start an open mike night and charge a dollar for drinks.

I could be THAT guy, who creates his own atmosphere to thrive in, beginning with the creature comforts of home.

I could make something, do something, build something, that however permeable it may be, could sing to the heavens, this is how it should be.

And isn't life grand, when you're able to say that? Isn't life good, when you can say you've done more than pass the time and eat food?

I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm in danger of running off the rails. But the persistence of dreams calls forth our secret selves. "This is who you really are, and this, the path towards your becoming. Take a look, this is what your life can be."

And is there a better moment, than that one in which you answer,  "Yes, it is."

A Circle of Drums

Five days now since I got stood up by a woman I should've known better than to ask out on a date. Five days too, since I got word I didn't get that job I hardly wanted but so desperately need. Five days since a "friend" I don't know posted on facebook she was going to the drum circle in Coconut Grove.

I had had a few beers and wallowed in self pity, stuck with the incessant chatter of the voices inside my head which patiently explained, "these are the days" and "this is the way things have always been."

I see Nikki's post: as if to say, "You know, this is what I'm doing. Nothing much. Just the usual."

Nikki is a Fine Arts grad who runs and event; sometimes at her house; sometimes at an outer venue. "Words and Wine" is an open mike, spoken word event. She has a tattoo of her favorite poem, not by Wordsworth, or Cummings, but by a very dear friend, that takes up most of her back. She has a Chihuahua that is jittery and curious, and which she carries as her baby, nestled in her arms.

And she was going to the drum circle, because this what you do, when you're young and art matters.

When you're young and art matters, you seek out the forces that transfix and transform.

When you're young and art matters, they do.

I'd been meaning to go to "Words and Wine" for some time. But honestly, I can't even afford the bus fare, and I don't write poetry anymore.

I want to write scrips, but I'm stymied by the form. I want to tell stories, but I have nothing to say. I want to feel alive, but feel dead inside instead.

But this day, I needed to get out of the house. This day, I needed to step outside of myself, away from the voices inside my head.

And so I punched a few keys on Google and found... the address and the time... and ate a big plate of shit, as I rummaged the net, to all the familiar places, the ones and the zeroes I call home.

Then decided: "Fuck it." I need to get out. I got there 45 minutes late. By the time I left, it had started to rain. I showed up with a six pack, a book, and a journal (just in case) not knowing what to expect.

A full pack of cigarettes. A clean pair of jeans. A black corduroy jacket and a t-shirt underneath. An open mind and a prayer barely realized, I step off the bus, see Nikki and her date, introduce myself as I thank her for her post, and stood outside the circle, to see what is what.

A drum circle is the truest form of communal spirit and communication you can find. It is an expression of a vast consciousness searching out and speaking directly to you. It finds its expression in the rhythm you create or the dance you articulate, and tells you, you are not alone.

I stood outside the circle, listening to the rhythmic voice, watching the dancers fill the spaces in between.

Now there are parts of me that are closed: that are guarded and are jaded as disappointment has taken its tole. There are neurons that do not fire, and so no longer listen to the music of the spheres.

So here is what I noticed, so obvious it hardly need be said. The drums: where they came from, I do not know. But the drummers were nearly all men. And the dancers were nearly all children... and women: young, old, and in between.

There were hula hoops aplenty. There was grace, and what I can only describe as possession.

There was one middle aged woman, graceful, a dancer in leotard, trying something new: a way to express herself with a pair of hula hoops, refining an art she was creating for herself.

A few days prior, I had seen on Youtube a dancer with a multiplicity of hula hoops and a command of her instruments that defied logic or belief.

This was not that. But I understood what she was getting at, and it was the creation of something uniquely her own, born in that moment, finding supplication and release.

The men continued to drum as a younger woman entered the circle. She was tall, thin, with long hair that went down to her hips. Dressed in Indian garb, she shut her eyes and allowed herself to be possessed. She shimmied and she shook. She undulated and swayed. She was beautiful: a Goddess who served her subjects by filling them with desire and the energy to enjoin her to continue to do so.

I stepped from outside the circle and joined the ring of drummers within, determined to beat those drums and pray for release. She danced for two hours as I beat my hands raw, and then, mindful of the rain, and the long walk I would have to make underneath, I got up and left.

There were children. Beautiful children: completely unselfconscious, reminding me what has been lost and can be so easily regained.

The event did not transform me. I am no mystic warrior. I do not commune with those gnostic gods of pre-consciousness who act as guides through the unfamiliar terrain of self and inspiration, past the demons of doubt and that remorse, which is at times extreme.

But you could say I walked up to the gates of Heaven. I walked up and strained my neck to see just past that guarded rail. What I saw will have to do for now.

Like a thumb tack on a world map for the places you mean to go, the route is obvious. It's the getting there that is the trick.
 

In an Alternate Dimension... (I would've rescued the cat)

There is me... and then there is the Earth 2 version. In Earth 2 Clark Kent wears a fedora; doesn't fly, but leaps over tall buildings in a single bound and strangely enough, is not involved in American war effort against the Nazis but elects instead to fight corruption at home. Lex Luthor is a scientist, Green Lantern's ring is vulnerable against wood, and his greatest enemy is the Sports Master who clubs him on the head with a base ball bat.

In Earth 2 I moved out of my parents home at the age of 18 despite protestations and warnings of failure. I moved out, self assured and confident that my destiny was of my own making and subsisted on Rament noodles and four hours sleep while I worked two jobs and payed for acting class and head shots I could ill afford. In Earth 2, I did not need the reassurance of others in order to validate my dreams.

In this alternate dimension, I wrote myself a check for one million dollars, tucked safely in my wallet with a promise to cash it as soon as I was able, for services rendered in the pursuit of my dreams. The Flash wore a helmet like the Mercury florist, Batman drove a plymouth and was free of the complex neurosis we demanded of him post Dirty Harry and the disillusionment of Watergate.

In this alternate dimension, I was nowhere near the corner of 36^th avenue and 28^th street in Miami, Florida when I heard a plaintive cry for help.

At approximately nine, as has been my custom of late, I was hanging around with cheap four pack of beer after buying my groceries for the day. With an armful of groceries, a knapsack slung over my shoulder, and a book and pair of reading glasses inside, I stopped at the midway point between the grocery store and home, and there, on the oudside lobby of a bank after hours, underneath the arc lights of the extended roof overhang, I sat on a bench intent to read a few pages of Supergods by Grant Morrison as I smoked and drank and passed the time just to get out of my closterphobic room that I rent because it's all I can afford. Crowded by books I cannot beaar to part with, and a cat who has too little room to play, and thus, misses me extremely when I'm gone even for a minute (though I cannot deny, it's a side effect that is extremely endearing to me) this is what constitutes a vacation from the certitude of failure that has become the passage of days in which I have travelled alone.

It has begun to rain, what wound up a very slight drizzle, but I don't know this yet, only that it feels as if I have arrived in time. Time to relax. Time to escape. Alone. Always alone. But a different alone at least, from that which I usually feel. And as I pop a can, and open to the marked page, I hear a mewling; a squeeking sort of meowing; high pitched and defenseless and crying or rescue.

At first, and for a while, I try to ignore it. I am not in a position to rescue anybody or anything. I own a cat I am barely allowed to have in a space too small for him as it is. I am on foot, I am blocks away from home, with an armfull of groceries and a knapsack I have to hold the strap of, lest it slip from my shoulder. I could not carry him if I wished, and he's not a dog who would follow me home. I resolve to mind my own business and continue reading my book.

But I do not move from my spot. Just get up and move to someplace out of earshot. I do not. I cannot (and more on that later). Time passes, and the mewling is sometimes short, sometimes long; sometimes loud, and sometimes soft. Until at last, I get up to investigate. I cannot do a thing for this poor creature that needs more than I can provide.

I stand and I walk towards where I think the sound is coming from. I am reminded of the pain in my right foot because I've been sitting down for five minutes now, and whenever I'm off my feet for more than two minutes, the heel of my foot screams in exucrutiating agony to me and reminds me of the Podiatrist I cannot afford to see because I'm not working and I have no health care. I just let the problem get worse, which seems like an acurate metaphor for my life as I try to make a difference for someone else's. I make kissing noises, and meowing noises, and move the branches of the bushes as try in the dark to peer inside, and the noise subsists, as if afraid, and I see nothing... and begin to doubt what I have heard. So I go back, take a sip of my beer, and pick up my book because I'm minding my own business when a page and half later, I hear the noise again.

I go back to the bushes. I make the same noises. I get the same quiet response. I still see nothing as I circle around trying to peer from every angle. And I go back, and when next the sound fills the air, I wait a good long fifteen minutes before I get up again.

It is at this point I think of moving to the other side of the building: escape the sound; escape responsibility for an action which who's conclussion is doomed to end in disappointment. And I cannot. I am afraid of what that says of me if I do. I'm not a saint. I'm not even a good person. I have lied, I have cheated, I have stolen and sinned against the angels and played upon their sympathies for absolution, knowing that the world is what it is, and I'd do what I had to do in order to get by.

But I have stuck my hand out and helped those better off than me based upon their needs in the moment. Because if anyone can relate, it's me. I have known the kindness of strangers, and I have resolved to do no less than the same. It's not karma or grace that I seek. It's a way to live with myself.

Bono once said, if you can play three cords, you can change the world. So I got up and searched for those three cords, as I got up again to search for the cat. And this time it seemed as if the sound came from across the street. So that's where I went, as I searched the bushes there and drains there, making kisses and meowing noises to the same strangely silent effect. In the dark. With my groceries and open beer across the street; feeling foolish and mystified.

We are all helpless: subject to forces we cannot control.

We are all capable: moved by forces we cannot comprehend.

People, like satelites, come withen our orbit, pulled by the gravity of our lives as they slingshot to their own exit point. Signal to noise. Some we save. Some save us. Some we bear witness to what seems an inevitable downfall. And what and how we feel, is the only choice we can make.

I am not asking for absolution or a reasuring statement that I did what I could. When next I heard that kitten, it sounded as if the sound was coming from the glass door of the office building I was sitting in front of. No matter where I went, the sound was just as loud as it was before, just as likely to be there as anywhere else, and just as silent as my reply with an offer of help. So yes, the sound carried both ways. And none of that matters. Because I'm making a statement of fact. The fact being, how I felt, and how I feel still.

In an alternate dimension I am a successful and working actor, rescuing a helpless kitten too small to climb the walk up steps from the basement of a tenement brownstone, and taking him home to meet a jealous and wary cat of my own.

I could have done better. I should have done better. In an alternate dimension, I did. I owe that dude, that other me, an explanation, and they all seem like excuses to me. I'm still searching: for those three cords that'll change the world; or at least, take me to the other one.  

The Promper is Blinking at 1:00 AM

“Mary is typing”, is what the prompter was blinking. The prompter that is a part of the chat
aplet that hangs on the bottom of my Facebook page. “Mary is typing”, and then nothing; and then,
“Mary is typing” once again, as I waited for a reply to a comment I made in answer to a call for a
sympathetic ear. I get those calls a lot these days it seems.
My generation seems to be having a hard time of it lately. Judging from my own circumstances,
I shouldn't be surprised. Nor am I in any position to give advice. I've fallen on hard times, and I am
absolutely my own worst enemy. But I'm kinder to others than to myself, and so I give it a try.
My generation. Generation X: which sounds so cool. Counter culture warriors against the
prevailing zeitgeist. We saw the mistakes of the 60's and 70's and resolved no one would pull the wool
over our eyes. We saw institutions fall from having been built on inadequate foundations; we saw
hedonism for the empty, meaningless pleasures it provided. We resolved to believe in nothing, and
walked bravely towards a field of bricks and mortar and no tools with which to build with. Yeah, we
were so cool.
I've only been on Facebook for a little over two years. I spent much of that time trying to
reconnect with people from my past that I've lost touch with over the years. It is nothing short of
astonishing to me how many people I've known who were homeless for a time.
I've been unemployed for nearly two years, and as I face what I fear is its inevitable conclusion,
I try to draw strength and comfort from those who've traveled down this road before me; and tried to
take the measure of what they've gained from their experience.
I live in constant fear, but sometimes I do wish it: to start over; to be reborn; to hit
control/alt/delete and reboot the chakras so whatever crap is in the buffer of my memory is wiped
clean. But then I'd lose my books, CD's and DVD's; and finally, I'd lose my cat.
Most of what I'd lose are just “things'. But these 'things' reflect my tastes; which inform my art;
which is inextricably bound to my identity. Which admittedly hasn't served me well in more years than
I care to count, but more from neglect than misuse.
They tell me I'm talented, and they know talent when they see it. So I'm forced to conclude that
I've squandered my talent. And so, like some asinine equation: x=y and so of course why must equal
ex, I walk away satisfied, until I realize I've answered none of my questions.
Questions like how a driven and talented actress can find herself homeless and living in a car
miles away from anyone who knows or can help her; or how an improvisation performer and teacher
can find herself in an abusive relationship, until one day she leaves with no where to go and soon after
finds herself admitted to a hospital for malnutrition and other medical complications after which, she's
sent to a home for battered woman with nothing but the clothes on her back.
I've known people who've lived on grape jelly and bread for a week and a half as they waited
for the next check to clear. And a once dear friend succumbed to drugs and alcohol in an attempt to
destroy himself by inches until he found religion and is now, technically still homeless, but living in a
commune, inhabiting the austere life style of a temple monk. He too was tented and brilliant. Much
more so than I.
I have not been tested as these others have. I am a blade that has never known the hammer or
the anvil. So what makes me think I can cut to the truth?
“Mary is typing”. She is unhappy in her marriage; miserable even. She remarked once that she
knew she was marrying beneath her but felt she had no other options. She contracted syphilis years ago
from a sadist and coke fiend with a confident air and forceful personality. He cheated on her regularly
with street hookers after first trying to entice her in joining him on this quest for a three way. Somehow
the lights didn't blink. But I'm not one to judge. I think everyone's got a burned out bulb in their attic.
She takes pills regularly, and the disease has been in remission for years. But such is the weight
of our past mistakes that we feel we must pay for them until the end of our days. Like dropping anchor
in the middle of the ocean and the tide pulls, but takes us nowhere.
“Mary is typing”, because she has something to say. This woman who was my first love; and
who's nature and character forever defined my notion of love, through all my succeeding relationships
for more than twenty years.
We were kids when we fell in love and she was forced to move to New York. There, she made a
go of it: went to college and studied opera singing; became a member of the New York Metropolitan
Opera, no less. As a member, she took fencing and stage combat from some of the finest instructors in
the world, worked side by side with some of the top names in Opera, and was directed by Franco
Zefferilli no less. To a Shakespeare geek like me, that's royalty. She has traveled the world and been
paid for doing what she loves. She is legend in my mind, and I envy, but do not begrudge, what success
she has achieved.
And she's fallen on hard times. She works sporadically, and her husband part time. She lives
under the constant shadow of her house being repossessed. She has a child she loves very much; and is
not enough to quench this unshakeable passion and possession she feels.
She says she wants to leave her husband, but she has nowhere to go. I say she doesn't mean it,
and it sounds like they (and he) need counseling. I say I know she doesn't want to hear it. I know she
doesn't believe in it. But it seems like they (and he) are stuck in a rut, and an objective point of view
can help you see the forest for the trees. I tell her also, if she's serious, she can file for divorce. That she
can apply for food stamps, as as a single mom, she'll get money too, from the Department of Children
and families. She can sell the house, move in to a cheaper neighborhood, and sue for child support. It
won't be ideal, but maybe it'll be for the best. Maybe it'll give her husband the kick in the pants he
needs and it'll be a kind of perch from which she can rebuild her life. Go back to school, and start
again. Plenty of woman do.
To which Mary types her reply, and after a few moments the words “Mary is typing” flashes on
screen again. This is an indicator she's changed her mind a number of times over what she wants to say.
This, at last, is what she types:
“
I just want to be a rich wife with time to be spoiled, cherished, and cared for.”
“How's that working out for you?”
“Fuck you.”
I have been largely unemployed for two years. I have subsisted on the kindness of strangers; the
the unemployment compensation fund that I have earned; the food stamps I've begged for; and I've
squandered the time to finance those dreams I never had the courage to pursue. All this time off, and I
never used it to write a significant piece of work: a novel or a screen play; some sort of magnum opus.
So I should be the last one to talk.
“I see all this potential, and I see it squandering. God damn it, an entire
generation pumping gas, waiting tables: slaves with white collars.
Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we
can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No
purpose or place. We have no great war. No great depression. Our war is a
spiritual war... Our great depression is our lives. We've all been raised to
believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, movie gods, and rock stars.
But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very
pissed off.”
-From the 1999 film Fight Club
And 911, which should have been a wake up call, belongs to another generation entirely. We're
still chasing the dreams of our youth, and wondering why they haven't come to fruition. In this new
economy we're collecting unemployment checks and food stamps in compensation for the bill of goods
we were sold that were never delivered. We have become dependent on the very institutions we have
always disdained. How did this come to pass?
Well, in point of fact, the evidence for this is inconclusive at best. We don't suffer from the same
level of unemployment as 18-29 year old’s, but we do find a harder time of recovering from job loss or
catastrophic illness than our parents did. The value of our homes fell drastically when the housing
bubble burst, and we became one bad day away from financial ruin. The majority of foreclosures fall
squarely on Gen X'ers according to the Pew Institute. So, not only did we never become rock stars, we
didn't even get to enjoy the same level of middle class our parents did.
I never wanted to become a rock star. I wanted to be a working actor. I wanted to be Bob
Ballaban. He is a man who shows up from time to time, in some of my favorite films. When he tried his
hand at directing, his film was nominated for an Oscar. He showed up on Seinfeld too.
What I wanted, was to be just a guy, who gets paid for what he loves to do, shows up on time,
delivers the best work he's capable of, and is appreciated for his efforts. I can fore-go the accolades. I
can fore-go the awards (even though I've had my Oscar acceptance speech memorized for over three
decades). I just want a pat on the back and some assurance that work will be there on the horizon.
When you put it like that, it doesn't seem like much to ask. But I'm a writer also, and I know
how to load my words. Self pity is abundantly available precisely because it's free and serves no
purpose. The reality is, it's up to me to see past that, and it's up to me to navigate through it.
“Beneath the surface of characterization, regardless of appearances, is the
question who is this person? At the heart of his humanity, what will we
find? Is he loving or cruel? Generous or selfish? Strong or weak?
Courageous or cowardly? The only way to know the truth is to witness him
make choices under pressure to take one action or another in pursuit of his
desire. Pressure is essential. Choices made when nothing is at risk mean
little.
-Robert McKee from the book Story
He was talking about the relationship between structure and character in story telling technique.
But it sounds a lot like a primer to life to me. Like the words I wish my father had spoken before he
passed away when I was just fourteen.
Here's something else from one of my favorite writers, Neil Gaiman.
“A freelance life in the arts is sometimes like putting messages in bottles,
on a desert island, and hoping that someone will find one of your bottles
and open it and read it, and put something in a bottle that will wash its way
back to you: appreciation, or a commission, or money, or love. And you
have to accept that you may put out a hundred things for every bottle that
winds up coming back.”
So those are the odds. As any Las Vegas bookie will tell you: when you're playing the long
odds, you've gotta last the night, if you're going to cash out at the end.
I have squandered my reserves and I have watched them dwindle down to nothing. But here's
another truism for you: when you have nothing left to lose, you have everything to gain. This is the
state of mind I feel we must have as we face the challenges of this new economy.
We are no longer a manufacturing based economy. We are a service oriented economy We find
or sell the things the things that people need (or merely want) and tell them it will make their lives
simpler, or at least more enjoyable. We provide a service that relieves them of their stress and we tell
ourselves it is a noble endeavor; and it is. What we sell, is piece of mind.
So I hope I've given you something to talk about; certainly much of it has been for my own
benefit. I'm hoping you see your life as a series of challenges instead of obstacles. Because challenges
can be met. Obstacles must be overcome. Obstacles are your enemy. Challenges can be your friends.
We could all use a friend or two in our lives.

Why Spider-Man Matters and Why Geek Culture Loves Him

With the new Spider-Man man franchise kick starting just around the corner, I thought it would
be a good time to dissect our favorite arachnid and figure out what makes him tick: what works; what
doesn't; and why he's so easy to relate to.
More than any other hero in comics culture, Spider-Man is easily the most identifiable, because
he's the most like us. Forget the fact that he was gifted with the proportionate speed, strength, and
senses of a spider. Forget the fact that he swings on webs at impossible heights and exhibits acrobatic
feats the likes of which any Cirque du Soleil gymnast would envy.
Concentrate firstly on the fact he swings on webs of his own design. He concocted those webs
in a home made chemistry lab because he's a science nerd. He's a straight A book geek: a card carrying,
wedgie infused, picked upon, laughed at, member of his high school science club, with more brains
than brawn, which alienates him from the peers he so desperately wants approval of.
The thing about wanting the approval of peers that largely don't accept you, is that you can learn
the wrong lesson in seeking it. Which is exactly what happened to Peter Parker. The minute he started
thinking selfishly; about wanting his due, at the exclusion of others, is the minute the first of his great
tragedies befell upon him.
The thing is: who can blame him? What picked upon geek with his nose in Tolkien novel even
as paper ball went flying towards the back of his head, can't relate to a desire to make things right? To
get their due? To show them all that the thing they love is not so bad, and that loving it makes them a
better man or woman for doing so?
And given the chance: to make fools of them all; to score the winning touch down; to cash in
your chips a winner at a Las Vegas casino; wouldn't you take it? Sure you would. And it wouldn't be so
bad, so long as you didn't step on anyone to to do it. Peter Parker's a good guy. He didn't step on anyone
to make his money early on. But he forgot it's not enough to not step on people. Sometimes you have to
get involved. Sometimes you have to stick your foot out and jam it in society's door and say, “Wait a
minute! This is wrong! We can do better. And we should.” And that's where the phrase, “With great
power, comes great responsibility” comes in. But that phrase, succinct and perfect as it is (thank you
Stan Lee), however much it should be emblazoned on every town hall, every municipal government
building, every corporate share holder's meeting room, doesn't begin to describe the tragedy of Peter
Parker's life. What describes it perfectly, is that he didn't listen to it.
Because he didn't listen to it, he didn't stick his foot out. Because he didn't stick his foot out, his
uncle Ben died. No more powerful reminder of his civic duty could exist. No greater lesson can be
learned. It's why I wish more people read Spider-Man; certainly more people in positions of power. I'll
bet you anything the Occupy Wall Street movement is filled with Spider-Man geeks.
Peter Parker is a tragic figure in comics. There are many: Batman and Daredevil to name just
two. But unlike them, Spider-Man lost his father figure at roughly the age of fifteen.. The age where a
young man needs his father most. It's a hormone driven rebellious age where you think you know all
the answers because you think your parents are out of touch with the world. You need a firm hand to
tell you, “You haven't got it ALL figured out yet kid. What you're going through now is as old as time.
You need to stop: and consider. Because who you decide to be, whether you become him or not, will
have its reverberations throughout the rest of your life; in ways you can't imagine.”
Peter got that lesson the hard way and his uncle Ben died. But here's the thing: and it's the thing
I can tell you with absolute certainty. Because my own father died when I was fourteen. Because I still
carry the weight of that every day I wake. I'm 48 years old, and there isn't a day that goes by when I
don't think, “What would my father have made of my choices?” He wanted the best for me. He
nurtured my curious mind. He didn't care that I exhibited an interest in comics, so long as I was
reading. My mother saw them as “funny books”, and beneath me.
At one point, my collection grew so vast (they took up so much room, and that musty smell I
still love, permeated the house so strongly) that she made me take them out and store them in the shed.
In Florida weather, storing them in a wooden shed, is putting them in a breading ground for mold. To
top it off, my uncle at this time decided to keep pigeons, and the only place he could store them was in
the shed. This was before plastic bags. This was before a collector's market. This was before anyone
had any idea how valuable comics could become.
So one day, in a rather depressed state of mind, I bemoaned the state to which my comics had
fallen, to which my father asked me, “Why didn't you say anything before?” “Because I didn't feel I
had a choice.”
And this is what he said; what I will take with me to the end of my days: If you don't stand up
for what you love, then your love is insincere.”
At the time, I thought he couldn't be more wrong. But this is a man who at the height of the
Cuban/communist revolution, got my mother out; got her daughter out; got his sons and wife at time
out, and himself along too. He must have begged, cajoled, threatened, and bribed to make ALL THIS
happen. Forget Spider-Man, my dad was the Batman of Cuba!
My point here is, no matter what I do, I imagine I will always fall short of the expectations I
feel my father would have had. If this is true for me, what must Peter have been thinking on the day
Gwen Stacy died?
Gwen Stacy, Peter's first love, died for no good reason at all. She died because the Green Goblin
wanted to hurt him. The Green Goblin, at the time, was the only villain besides Ra's al Ghul, who knew
his nemesis' secret identity. But the Green Goblin (at the time) was very much a Jekyll and Hyde figure.
He only knew Peter was Spider-Man as the Green Goblin, and the rest of the time he was his best
friend's dad.
He couldn't help but minimize the threat, and he couldn't help but feel sorry for both him and
his friend Harry.
But that's me cutting Peter some slack. As he dove off that bridge and webbed Gwen's ankle,
inadvertently snapping her neck, what must Peter have been thinking? The time honored adage, “With
great power, comes great responsibility”, can be interpreted a number of ways. It was the worst day of
his life, and he still keeps on swinging.
It has become fashionable in the comics these days to cut Spider-Man some slack. He has a well
paying job in which he gets to dictate his own hours (how cool is THAT), he has a spider suit for every
occasion (much like Batman), he's in every non mutant super hero team and suddenly New York loves
him! As someone's who's grown with Peter, I couldn't be happier for him. But it's a little bit like that
indie actor you see who's made a career of making off beat choices and taking risks. Then, one day,
Hollywood sits up and notices and starts casting him in high profile movies. Finally, he's making real
money, and you couldn't be happier for him. But it seems like he's cast in the same two or three roles
over and over, and he's just sort of costing by.
It bodes well for me that Gwen Stacy is an important character in this next, new franchise of
films, because it seems to me to indicate they want to get back to Spider-Man's roots. The Spider-Man I
knew struggled with rent. He was a photographer for The Daily Bugle (and yeah, it's a bit ridiculous
that someone with his science acumen would be a free lancer – not even a salaried employee with
benefits) where once a month he'd bring in photos of Spider-Man fighting some major super villain.
With the rents being what they are in New York City, I can't imagine it was ever enough.
But he got by. Sometimes by sharing rent with his friends; sometimes by the skin of his teeth. I
can relate. That's the thing about Spider-Man: you can relate. Because like you, he's been through his
ups and downs. Because like you, he struggles to get by. Despite that, he always finds the humor in
every situation whether it's being pummeled by bad guys or teeming up with another hero. He deals
with adversity through humor and refuses to see the darkness within. He has something relevant to say
to all of us and that is, “Cheer up! It's gonna be a hard day, but today's the day you just might get to
make a difference. Today's the day you just might become the hero you've always wanted to be.
Sometimes all it takes is for you to stick your foot out.” Such is the way great journeys begin.