As a demographic unit, I'm a tasty morsel for financial marketers. Born in the center of the baby boom (1957), white collar, single, urban, nicely cash-flowed, investment oriented, and educated, I'm a "good catch," as somebody recently said in another context.
So the American Express spin-off, Ameriprise Financial, had people like me in mind for its new advertising campaign now being flogged on TV and Metro-North trains. These ads tout Ameriprise's financial planning for a generation as "unique" as mine. You may have seen the ads with a VW hippie van morphing into something more modern. Train ads show 15 or so iconic images of the 1960s and 1970s carefully balanced between the social categories we referred to at Mission High School in Texas as the "dopers" and the "ropers."
So, you'll see peace symbols and Cub Scouts, long-haired hippie freaks and cheerleaders, groovy types and squares, images that make me want to tune in to VH1 more than they inspire me to ponder my financial needs.
For this baby-boomer, alas, Ameriprise is establishing a negative brand image. I cringe to see the calculated cultural shorthand that supposedly speaks to my generation, whatever that is. The opening music on the Ameriprise website, "Gimme Gimme Good Lovin'" by Crazy Elephant, only compounds the problem by showing a total lack of creativity. What could be easier than to dust off 60s music to support a marketing message for baby boomers? I don't learn anything about Ameriprise (not that I'm curious, anyway) but I got a heavy load of 60s shtick. I can only hope Crazy Elephant makes a fortune off the licensing fee -- sticking it to the Man, if you will.
If Ameriprise wanted to grab my attention, its marketing must take risks. Let's start with life insurance. I've got SBLI term insurance with my son as the beneficiary for the day when I'm gathered unto my fathers (later rather than sooner, but living in NYC you never know). So, in all honesty, life insurance is all about dying. With that cheerful thought in mind, I suggest Ameriprise frame its insurance pitch with the song "Don't Fear the Reaper" by the Blue Oyster Cult. That would cut through the clutter and get directly to the point of insurance. I would be mightily impressed. Better yet, have the members of the Blue Oyster Cult talk about their insurance choices.
The same thinking goes for retirement investments. Don't show me gauzy images of silver-haired men and women out boating or dancing at their country club. Talk about survival in a world very unlike the world of our parents, a stable world where my mother worked for 21 straight years at exactly the same job as a secretary at the insurance agency of Conway, Dooley & Martin. What could be more appropriate for retirement planning than Gloria Gaynor belting, "I will survive!" in all her disco majesty? My tagline suggestion for Ameriprise: "You survived Nehru jackets, puka beads, Jimmy Carter, punk rock, and Enron. Now, get ready to survive . . . retirement." Now that's what I call marketing.
I doubt Ameriprise will move in this direction. Probably the baby-boomer narcissism pitch will fizzle out into something even more pedestrian. Then again, perhaps Ameriprise will get desperate and won't fear the reaper.
Full disclosure: By this point you're thinking, "OK, Mr. Mission2Moscow, you think you're so smart, what's your approach to financial planning?" Good question, quick answers: The two biggest influences on my actions have been:
1. Columnist Jonathan Clements of the Wall Street Journal, who strongly supports the use of index funds, which I use for the bulk of my retirement savings
2. Financial expert Andrew Tobias always makes sense to me, with his ruthlessly practical advice. He is a big fan of SBLI.
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
Don't Mourn; Organize (My Thoughts)
This blog has been sporadic for several months, a place to post links to articles in the Princeton Alumni Weekly and essays I was writing for Texas-based website "The Back Word." Over the summer the Back Word went down the drain, and I've spent several months mourning the loss of a forum for essays I loved writing.
Today I posted the text of those essays here, as a way to organize my thoughts. I'm tired of mourning, for the Back Word and other matters that I'll write about one of these days. If I want to write, I'll write here and let the "getting rich and famous" part come later. This being the first day of the month, let the new approach begin today, with an observation on the Village Halloween Parade I attended last night.
How to Have a Truly Transgressive Halloween Parade
I've lived in and around New York for 25 years, but had never ventured downtown to this drag-queen driven festival of fun known as the Village Halloween Parade. In this new mode of experimentation, I walked from my cushy office high over swanky Park Avenue to 6th Avenue and 21st Street, at the conclusion of the parade, to see what the fuss was about.
I did what all good New Yorkers do when a big event takes place; I stood around waiting and waiting. Finally the parade reached its north end. I'm glad I stayed around. Some highlights:
* The poignant New Orleans kick-off, with a band playing "When the Saints Go Marching In."
* Two men dressed as the Pope doing a ring-around-the-rosy dance, then kissing
* Various S&M themes, usually a woman whacking a man (that's the PC way to show things, isn't it?)
*At least three groups dressed as "The Gates," the enormously popular exhibit from February that festooned Central Park with thousands of, well, gates, with orange fabric flapping in the cold Gotham breeze
The parade had surprisingly few people dressed as President Bush, sparing it from becoming a dreary political event. I saw more people dressed as priests and nuns.
Which brings up a thought: For all the daring, outrageous, transgressive New Yorkers in the parade, couldn't anybody work up the nerve to dress as an Islamic imam, perhaps running amok with a guillotine? Or as break-dancing burka-clad women? That's topical. The opportunities to be naughty are huge, and surely sophisticated New Yorkers would get the joke. Well, except for the folks found on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn and other places normally under FBI surveillance. Unlike Catholics who must put up with a lot of hilarity aimed at their faith, the Islamists are a little touchy and may not react with the live-and-let-live attitude so prized in tolerant societies. They, you know, kill people who cross them (definitely they don't like anything involving crosses).
Perhaps next year some Halloween Parade denizens will decide to not play it safe and show a truly transgressive spirit. But I'm not holding my breath.
Today I posted the text of those essays here, as a way to organize my thoughts. I'm tired of mourning, for the Back Word and other matters that I'll write about one of these days. If I want to write, I'll write here and let the "getting rich and famous" part come later. This being the first day of the month, let the new approach begin today, with an observation on the Village Halloween Parade I attended last night.
How to Have a Truly Transgressive Halloween Parade
I've lived in and around New York for 25 years, but had never ventured downtown to this drag-queen driven festival of fun known as the Village Halloween Parade. In this new mode of experimentation, I walked from my cushy office high over swanky Park Avenue to 6th Avenue and 21st Street, at the conclusion of the parade, to see what the fuss was about.
I did what all good New Yorkers do when a big event takes place; I stood around waiting and waiting. Finally the parade reached its north end. I'm glad I stayed around. Some highlights:
* The poignant New Orleans kick-off, with a band playing "When the Saints Go Marching In."
* Two men dressed as the Pope doing a ring-around-the-rosy dance, then kissing
* Various S&M themes, usually a woman whacking a man (that's the PC way to show things, isn't it?)
*At least three groups dressed as "The Gates," the enormously popular exhibit from February that festooned Central Park with thousands of, well, gates, with orange fabric flapping in the cold Gotham breeze
The parade had surprisingly few people dressed as President Bush, sparing it from becoming a dreary political event. I saw more people dressed as priests and nuns.
Which brings up a thought: For all the daring, outrageous, transgressive New Yorkers in the parade, couldn't anybody work up the nerve to dress as an Islamic imam, perhaps running amok with a guillotine? Or as break-dancing burka-clad women? That's topical. The opportunities to be naughty are huge, and surely sophisticated New Yorkers would get the joke. Well, except for the folks found on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn and other places normally under FBI surveillance. Unlike Catholics who must put up with a lot of hilarity aimed at their faith, the Islamists are a little touchy and may not react with the live-and-let-live attitude so prized in tolerant societies. They, you know, kill people who cross them (definitely they don't like anything involving crosses).
Perhaps next year some Halloween Parade denizens will decide to not play it safe and show a truly transgressive spirit. But I'm not holding my breath.
Friday, August 26, 2005
Ranchito Morbido, Never to be on The Back Word
All good things must end, but must it be before my essays get published? The Back Word, the Texas website that brought several essays to the public, is no longer publishing new material. That's a shame, because I had more topics I wanted to explore. The shutdown came just before the site was going to publish this essay, a "lighter" version of an essay that should appear a Jewish paper in October.
I'll miss the Back Word, the thrill of waking up on the first of the month to check for a new essay being posted, the chance to email the URL to friends. I had fun and I got my creative cogs kickstarted, so I'll buckle down and try to market these essays and others still a-borning to other outlets (perhaps some that will even pay me). And now, the grand finale:
Ranchito Morbido: My Little Place in Texas
I grew up in a rented house on a dusty alley in Mission, Texas, about three blocks from the Missouri-Pacific tracks that divided the town into Hispanic and Anglo sections. My mother rented the house, which didn’t even have its own mailbox, for 21 years and never had any interest in buying real estate. She preferred to invest in the stock market. I still have shares of General Motors, Sunoco and TXU (formerly Texas Utilities) that I inherited when she died in 1984.
Yet, her legacy includes a little bit of Texas land that proudly bears the Wallach name. I haven’t seen our portion of the state since 1989, but I think about it often. I can picture it in my mind’s eye, shaded by the oak and mesquite trees in Gonzales, the historic town on the rolling road from San Antonio to Houston. In the distant future that draws closer every day, I’d like to return to Gonzales and the only property I’ll ever call my own in Texas.
I’m referring to the Jewish cemetery on Water Street in Gonzales. The place always fascinated me, as the final resting ground for my mother, two grandparents, two great-grandparents, and one great-great-grandmother (Charlotte Bath, died 1912), along with aunts, uncles and cousins. I want to be buried there, too. In doing so, I’ll be part of a family presence in Gonzales that goes back at least to the 1890s. The last living Gonzales cousins headed to the bright lights of Lockhart in the 1970s, but the deceased liked Gonzales just fine, and there they remain.
My mother died in Tyler, where she lived with her older sister Charlotte during the last three years of her cancer-shortened life. Afterward, Aunt Charlotte arranged for the headstone in the Jewish cemetery. It was as simple as Mom’s life. It says, “Shirley Lissner Wallach, March 11, 1920 – January 12, 1984.” It lies a few feet from her parents, Jared and Eva Lissner.
I first saw Mom’s gravestone on July 3, 1989, when I visited the cemetery with my then-fiancé. I hadn’t visited the place since 1966, when Mom brought my younger brother and me there to see the gravestones of her parents, both of whom died in 1959. On that 1989 visit I had to chuckle at the thought that Mom finally had some land to call her own under the Texas sky. I was starting to build a family life in the Northeast, so I saw the Gonzales cemetery as part of my past, nothing more. My fiancé and I followed the ancient Jewish tradition and put a rock on Mom’s grave, then left into our radiant future together.
Fast-forward 12 years, and the radiant future was flickering out in divorce. Fortunately, my ex and I hadn’t bought a joint burial plot, so I had the freedom to get buried wherever it so pleased me. The Northeast never held much appeal in that regard for me, since the place has never felt like “home” in a gut-level sense.
I quickly decided to be buried in Gonzales. As a final resting place, it has a lot going for it: all those family connections so I will be among my own landsmen, as the word goes in Yiddish; a temperate climate so my gravestone will last for centuries without the wear and tear caused by snow and cold in the Northeast; an inland, semi-rural location unthreatened by excessive housing development, global flooding, or any other unpleasantness coming down the pike to endanger Yankee cemeteries. As the real estate agents love to chant, “Location, location, location.”
OK, sounds great, I’m sold on the place! Where do I sign up to buy what I call my ranchito morbido?
And that’s the funny part. My efforts to find out who controls the Gonzales cemetery and buy a plot there have been utterly inconclusive. In Gonzales, as in other Jewish communities, cemetery records fade away, synagogues close, the old folks die and the young ones leave and forget about cemeteries with headstones written in the Hebrew language few can read, let alone understand. Even when a paying customer comes along, it can be impossible to find somebody in charge of Jewish cemeteries, somebody to take the check and give title to a few cubic feet of prime memorial space.
God knows I made a determined effort to find an administrator. During the divorce, I called my cousin David “Buddy” Michelson in Lockhart, formerly of Gonzales, one of the last members of my mother’s Depression-era generation. We talked about the cemetery, but he did not know who ran it. A Texas Jewish Historical Society member provided leads to information, but not what I needed.
A few years passed and I tried again. I learned that Buddy had died in 2004. The Gonzales city government directed me to Buddy’s family and I soon had a long talk with his widow, Abbi. She reminisced about the time, shortly after their marriage, when Buddy showed her his parents’ graves in Gonzales. She said Buddy cared deeply about the cemetery, establishing a trust fund to ensure its perpetual care. Ironically, Buddy wanted to be buried in San Antonio, near the graves of Abbi’s parents.
My cousin Linda, Aunt Charlotte’s daughter, recently sent me photos of the place, showing Mom’s grave and the Texas Historical marker at the cemetery. She wrote, “The cemetery is well maintained and appears to have room for more graves.” Abbi is now checking around Gonzales to find definitive information about the cemetery’s management.
In the mean time, life goes on. The divorce that led to this sequence of discovery recedes into the past, while my new life unfolds day by day. My ex and I recently wrapped up post-divorce financial matters that give me the resources to become a homeowner if I so desire. Given the run-up in real estate prices, I may delay before I take the plunge again into homeownership. I imagine I’ll buy my little plot of earth in Texas, my ranchito morbido, before I get something fancier up here.
I'll miss the Back Word, the thrill of waking up on the first of the month to check for a new essay being posted, the chance to email the URL to friends. I had fun and I got my creative cogs kickstarted, so I'll buckle down and try to market these essays and others still a-borning to other outlets (perhaps some that will even pay me). And now, the grand finale:
Ranchito Morbido: My Little Place in Texas
I grew up in a rented house on a dusty alley in Mission, Texas, about three blocks from the Missouri-Pacific tracks that divided the town into Hispanic and Anglo sections. My mother rented the house, which didn’t even have its own mailbox, for 21 years and never had any interest in buying real estate. She preferred to invest in the stock market. I still have shares of General Motors, Sunoco and TXU (formerly Texas Utilities) that I inherited when she died in 1984.
Yet, her legacy includes a little bit of Texas land that proudly bears the Wallach name. I haven’t seen our portion of the state since 1989, but I think about it often. I can picture it in my mind’s eye, shaded by the oak and mesquite trees in Gonzales, the historic town on the rolling road from San Antonio to Houston. In the distant future that draws closer every day, I’d like to return to Gonzales and the only property I’ll ever call my own in Texas.
I’m referring to the Jewish cemetery on Water Street in Gonzales. The place always fascinated me, as the final resting ground for my mother, two grandparents, two great-grandparents, and one great-great-grandmother (Charlotte Bath, died 1912), along with aunts, uncles and cousins. I want to be buried there, too. In doing so, I’ll be part of a family presence in Gonzales that goes back at least to the 1890s. The last living Gonzales cousins headed to the bright lights of Lockhart in the 1970s, but the deceased liked Gonzales just fine, and there they remain.
My mother died in Tyler, where she lived with her older sister Charlotte during the last three years of her cancer-shortened life. Afterward, Aunt Charlotte arranged for the headstone in the Jewish cemetery. It was as simple as Mom’s life. It says, “Shirley Lissner Wallach, March 11, 1920 – January 12, 1984.” It lies a few feet from her parents, Jared and Eva Lissner.
I first saw Mom’s gravestone on July 3, 1989, when I visited the cemetery with my then-fiancé. I hadn’t visited the place since 1966, when Mom brought my younger brother and me there to see the gravestones of her parents, both of whom died in 1959. On that 1989 visit I had to chuckle at the thought that Mom finally had some land to call her own under the Texas sky. I was starting to build a family life in the Northeast, so I saw the Gonzales cemetery as part of my past, nothing more. My fiancé and I followed the ancient Jewish tradition and put a rock on Mom’s grave, then left into our radiant future together.
Fast-forward 12 years, and the radiant future was flickering out in divorce. Fortunately, my ex and I hadn’t bought a joint burial plot, so I had the freedom to get buried wherever it so pleased me. The Northeast never held much appeal in that regard for me, since the place has never felt like “home” in a gut-level sense.
I quickly decided to be buried in Gonzales. As a final resting place, it has a lot going for it: all those family connections so I will be among my own landsmen, as the word goes in Yiddish; a temperate climate so my gravestone will last for centuries without the wear and tear caused by snow and cold in the Northeast; an inland, semi-rural location unthreatened by excessive housing development, global flooding, or any other unpleasantness coming down the pike to endanger Yankee cemeteries. As the real estate agents love to chant, “Location, location, location.”
OK, sounds great, I’m sold on the place! Where do I sign up to buy what I call my ranchito morbido?
And that’s the funny part. My efforts to find out who controls the Gonzales cemetery and buy a plot there have been utterly inconclusive. In Gonzales, as in other Jewish communities, cemetery records fade away, synagogues close, the old folks die and the young ones leave and forget about cemeteries with headstones written in the Hebrew language few can read, let alone understand. Even when a paying customer comes along, it can be impossible to find somebody in charge of Jewish cemeteries, somebody to take the check and give title to a few cubic feet of prime memorial space.
God knows I made a determined effort to find an administrator. During the divorce, I called my cousin David “Buddy” Michelson in Lockhart, formerly of Gonzales, one of the last members of my mother’s Depression-era generation. We talked about the cemetery, but he did not know who ran it. A Texas Jewish Historical Society member provided leads to information, but not what I needed.
A few years passed and I tried again. I learned that Buddy had died in 2004. The Gonzales city government directed me to Buddy’s family and I soon had a long talk with his widow, Abbi. She reminisced about the time, shortly after their marriage, when Buddy showed her his parents’ graves in Gonzales. She said Buddy cared deeply about the cemetery, establishing a trust fund to ensure its perpetual care. Ironically, Buddy wanted to be buried in San Antonio, near the graves of Abbi’s parents.
My cousin Linda, Aunt Charlotte’s daughter, recently sent me photos of the place, showing Mom’s grave and the Texas Historical marker at the cemetery. She wrote, “The cemetery is well maintained and appears to have room for more graves.” Abbi is now checking around Gonzales to find definitive information about the cemetery’s management.
In the mean time, life goes on. The divorce that led to this sequence of discovery recedes into the past, while my new life unfolds day by day. My ex and I recently wrapped up post-divorce financial matters that give me the resources to become a homeowner if I so desire. Given the run-up in real estate prices, I may delay before I take the plunge again into homeownership. I imagine I’ll buy my little plot of earth in Texas, my ranchito morbido, before I get something fancier up here.
Monday, August 01, 2005
Rebel Soul: Notes From a Texan Abroad
(originally published on The Back Word)
A picture taken when I met my father after eight years apart reeks with irony. He left Texas after my parents divorced, heading to Michigan and then New York City. He never returned until he paid us a weekend visit in the fall of 1970. My brother and I, aged 11 and 13, stand with him in a yard in Mission, Texas. Looking warily at the camera, standing far enough from my father to signal unease, I have my arms crossed over an orange University of Texas sweatshirt.
This is ironic because I learned, often and in rough terms, that my father hated Texas. Whether this dislike stemmed from the failed marriage, his dismay at Mission’s lack of urban sophistication, or most likely a combination of the two, he never missed a chance to knock the state. He was from St. Louis and suited to cities, my mother was from Del Rio and listened to the morning farm report on the radio. Beyond speaking English, they had nothing in common.
I saw my father a few more times, when my brother and I flew to New York to visit him and his wife. Despite escalating tension, I kept returning, lured by the bright lights and big city. He never accepted us for who we were, and instead tried to mold us into what he was and demanded we become. He started about 10 years too late, and squandered whatever goodwill we felt for him with constant attacks. The Texas we saw through our father’s eyes was a nasty place—conniving Southern Baptists intent on stealing our Jewish souls, crude mercantile behavior, no European-style culture, grubby people who couldn’t speak French. “That’s Texas thinking” was the second lowest insult possible, slightly higher than “you’re just like your mother.” He called us savages because we didn’t attend operas or symphonies! He warned, “Van, they’ll eat you alive at Princeton if you don’t know classical music.” (In fact, I discovered at Princeton that Monty Python mattered far more than Mozart.)
Texas became the symbol of the push-pull of my warring parents. The harder he tried to hammer me into being a prep-schooled, wine-sipping bon vivant in Brooks Brothers suits, the more passive-aggressively I attached to Texas. Other kids rebelled with long hair, drugs, and that damned hippie music, but I opted for a hard-edged appreciation of my Texas identity.
The mental process went like this: You don’t like Texas? That’s tough—check out my Sesquicentennial belt buckle, my beard, my taste for the twangiest mountain music and the border’s norteno sounds. To this day, a few months shy of my 48th birthday, I take intense pleasure when my father goes goggle-eyed at the Texas flag in my apartment and my faded Levi’s blue jeans. Confused youthful rebellion evolved and remained part of my adult identity. You don’t like the way I dress or act? I couldn’t say the following when I was 17, but I can easily say it at 47: That’s just too fucking bad.
Ultimately, I split the difference between Mom and Dad. In his own ham-handed way, my father profoundly influenced me. Those visits to New York opened me to post-high school options beyond my family’s traditional loyalty to the University of Texas. Like a character from a Larry McMurtry novel, I found a way out of the restless alienation I felt in small-town Texas. I did leave Texas for Princeton, moved to Brooklyn, got married, moved to Connecticut, got divorced, and never went back for more than a few days after 1977. At my 10th high school reunion, a friend reminded me, “Van, you said you were going to get the hell out of Texas.” And I did.
And I like aspects of the Northeast—the weather, New England, the career options, New York’s endless appeal to what I call my “action junkie” tendencies. But I’ve never viewed New York State or Connecticut as home. Buffalo? Syracuse? Waterbury? East Hartford? I have no childhood memories of the area, no rootedness beyond my young son and the walls of my apartment. That’s typical Wallach behavior. I’m just the latest in a paternal line of dream-chasing drifters; after all, my father, his father and I were born in three different countries, men blown like tumbleweeds across borders in pursuit of elusive fulfillment.
My late mother’s family, on the other hand, has modest dreams and happier lives. Her family has remained in Texas for seven generations, since my ancestors got the hell out of Germany in the 1860s. For proof, go to the Jewish cemetery in Gonzales, on Water Street, where you’ll see gravestones of people born as far back as the 1840s. I’m related to almost all of them.
As I’ve gotten older, my Texas identification moved beyond rebellion to become an intense, if physically distant, sense of who I am. That sense always existed in me, and friends and relatives always tried to stoke the flame of affection. Bill Austin, the late owner of the Upper Valley Progress in Mission, where I had been a teenage reporter, regularly sent me packages of clips from the McAllen Monitor, usually detailing political corruption in the Valley and the many dangers of Mexico. My mother sent me charming gifts such as a heavy brass armadillo, a crocheted armadillo, and a t-shirt with armadillos saying, “Homesick for Texas, send chili soon!” (Come to think of it, my mother had an intense affection for all things armadillo). So in terms of remaining attached to my roots, I am very much my mother’s son, perhaps more than when she was alive.
As the decades passed, I made peace with my father. We’ve lived within 50 miles of each other for almost 30 years. We talk and get together with my son so he can know his grandfather. I’m more outspoken when my father crosses me. We don’t talk about the past.
Being from Texas is a point of pride, an outsider’s badge in an area where practically nobody comes from the South. To identify myself as a Texan means to say, “I look at the world a little different from you. I’m not exactly like you, and I’m glad of that.” People take note of Texans while folks from, say, Ohio and Virginia are politely acknowledged, if that. Everybody’s got a Texas story, friends who moved there, a comment on the President, and saying I’m from Texas makes me the lightning rod for whatever opinions they care to spout.
Not that I’m a mindless booster or Texas-right-or-wrong type. After all, I live up here, not down there, and I’m not looking to relocate. The closest I ever came to that was when I tried to find a job in Austin in the late 1980s after I got married and my bride and I wanted to escape New York. I doubt I could ever emulate Larry McMurtry, who returned with riches and fame to open a bookstore in Archer City. Go back to Mission? No way, Jose!
Instead, I’ll build a virtual Texas through contacts with relatives and occasional visits. I’ll write essays like this that mine a deep vein of memory and conflicted emotion. I’ll cruise the websites of the McAllen Monitor, major papers, and the Texas Observer to keep up with the state’s kookiness. Of course, if I ever become McMurtry-like rich and famous, I might consider a Victorian mansion in Gonzales, the kind that looked so huge and splendid when I was a kid growing up in Texas.
A picture taken when I met my father after eight years apart reeks with irony. He left Texas after my parents divorced, heading to Michigan and then New York City. He never returned until he paid us a weekend visit in the fall of 1970. My brother and I, aged 11 and 13, stand with him in a yard in Mission, Texas. Looking warily at the camera, standing far enough from my father to signal unease, I have my arms crossed over an orange University of Texas sweatshirt.
This is ironic because I learned, often and in rough terms, that my father hated Texas. Whether this dislike stemmed from the failed marriage, his dismay at Mission’s lack of urban sophistication, or most likely a combination of the two, he never missed a chance to knock the state. He was from St. Louis and suited to cities, my mother was from Del Rio and listened to the morning farm report on the radio. Beyond speaking English, they had nothing in common.
I saw my father a few more times, when my brother and I flew to New York to visit him and his wife. Despite escalating tension, I kept returning, lured by the bright lights and big city. He never accepted us for who we were, and instead tried to mold us into what he was and demanded we become. He started about 10 years too late, and squandered whatever goodwill we felt for him with constant attacks. The Texas we saw through our father’s eyes was a nasty place—conniving Southern Baptists intent on stealing our Jewish souls, crude mercantile behavior, no European-style culture, grubby people who couldn’t speak French. “That’s Texas thinking” was the second lowest insult possible, slightly higher than “you’re just like your mother.” He called us savages because we didn’t attend operas or symphonies! He warned, “Van, they’ll eat you alive at Princeton if you don’t know classical music.” (In fact, I discovered at Princeton that Monty Python mattered far more than Mozart.)
Texas became the symbol of the push-pull of my warring parents. The harder he tried to hammer me into being a prep-schooled, wine-sipping bon vivant in Brooks Brothers suits, the more passive-aggressively I attached to Texas. Other kids rebelled with long hair, drugs, and that damned hippie music, but I opted for a hard-edged appreciation of my Texas identity.
The mental process went like this: You don’t like Texas? That’s tough—check out my Sesquicentennial belt buckle, my beard, my taste for the twangiest mountain music and the border’s norteno sounds. To this day, a few months shy of my 48th birthday, I take intense pleasure when my father goes goggle-eyed at the Texas flag in my apartment and my faded Levi’s blue jeans. Confused youthful rebellion evolved and remained part of my adult identity. You don’t like the way I dress or act? I couldn’t say the following when I was 17, but I can easily say it at 47: That’s just too fucking bad.
Ultimately, I split the difference between Mom and Dad. In his own ham-handed way, my father profoundly influenced me. Those visits to New York opened me to post-high school options beyond my family’s traditional loyalty to the University of Texas. Like a character from a Larry McMurtry novel, I found a way out of the restless alienation I felt in small-town Texas. I did leave Texas for Princeton, moved to Brooklyn, got married, moved to Connecticut, got divorced, and never went back for more than a few days after 1977. At my 10th high school reunion, a friend reminded me, “Van, you said you were going to get the hell out of Texas.” And I did.
And I like aspects of the Northeast—the weather, New England, the career options, New York’s endless appeal to what I call my “action junkie” tendencies. But I’ve never viewed New York State or Connecticut as home. Buffalo? Syracuse? Waterbury? East Hartford? I have no childhood memories of the area, no rootedness beyond my young son and the walls of my apartment. That’s typical Wallach behavior. I’m just the latest in a paternal line of dream-chasing drifters; after all, my father, his father and I were born in three different countries, men blown like tumbleweeds across borders in pursuit of elusive fulfillment.
My late mother’s family, on the other hand, has modest dreams and happier lives. Her family has remained in Texas for seven generations, since my ancestors got the hell out of Germany in the 1860s. For proof, go to the Jewish cemetery in Gonzales, on Water Street, where you’ll see gravestones of people born as far back as the 1840s. I’m related to almost all of them.
As I’ve gotten older, my Texas identification moved beyond rebellion to become an intense, if physically distant, sense of who I am. That sense always existed in me, and friends and relatives always tried to stoke the flame of affection. Bill Austin, the late owner of the Upper Valley Progress in Mission, where I had been a teenage reporter, regularly sent me packages of clips from the McAllen Monitor, usually detailing political corruption in the Valley and the many dangers of Mexico. My mother sent me charming gifts such as a heavy brass armadillo, a crocheted armadillo, and a t-shirt with armadillos saying, “Homesick for Texas, send chili soon!” (Come to think of it, my mother had an intense affection for all things armadillo). So in terms of remaining attached to my roots, I am very much my mother’s son, perhaps more than when she was alive.
As the decades passed, I made peace with my father. We’ve lived within 50 miles of each other for almost 30 years. We talk and get together with my son so he can know his grandfather. I’m more outspoken when my father crosses me. We don’t talk about the past.
Being from Texas is a point of pride, an outsider’s badge in an area where practically nobody comes from the South. To identify myself as a Texan means to say, “I look at the world a little different from you. I’m not exactly like you, and I’m glad of that.” People take note of Texans while folks from, say, Ohio and Virginia are politely acknowledged, if that. Everybody’s got a Texas story, friends who moved there, a comment on the President, and saying I’m from Texas makes me the lightning rod for whatever opinions they care to spout.
Not that I’m a mindless booster or Texas-right-or-wrong type. After all, I live up here, not down there, and I’m not looking to relocate. The closest I ever came to that was when I tried to find a job in Austin in the late 1980s after I got married and my bride and I wanted to escape New York. I doubt I could ever emulate Larry McMurtry, who returned with riches and fame to open a bookstore in Archer City. Go back to Mission? No way, Jose!
Instead, I’ll build a virtual Texas through contacts with relatives and occasional visits. I’ll write essays like this that mine a deep vein of memory and conflicted emotion. I’ll cruise the websites of the McAllen Monitor, major papers, and the Texas Observer to keep up with the state’s kookiness. Of course, if I ever become McMurtry-like rich and famous, I might consider a Victorian mansion in Gonzales, the kind that looked so huge and splendid when I was a kid growing up in Texas.
Saturday, May 28, 2005
Stepping Into Wonder: New Kid at Princeton
An abridged version of this essay appeared in the Reunions Guide edition of the Princeton Alumni Weekly (PAW), as part of Reunions Weekend. I wrote it as part of my 25th Reunion, which I enjoyed greatly. It does not appear online, hence I am including a longer version here. The PAW version is what I call the "broadcast" version, while here I include "cable" material that would never make it into the prim pages of PAW. The "nice" title is "Stepping Into Wonder," while the "naughty" title is "My Keyceptor is Trying to Seduce Me! And Other Tales of a Princeton Freshman." Enjoy.
------------
Stepping Into Wonder
On August 30, 1976, I flew from McAllen, Texas to Newark, N.J. to start my freshman year at Princeton. As soon as I stowed my bags and a creaky manual typewriter at the Nassau Inn, my experience began. Map in hand, I wandered the campus and found a lecture in progress. I wrote in my journal, “Finally, I discovered just what I had stumbled upon—a lecture by psychologist Carl Rogers, before a convention of Humanist Psychologists.”
That lecture, on my first day on campus, set the tone for what Princeton was, and continues to be. Coming from an isolated part of the country, where people like Carl Rogers were seen as subversive, I immediately confronted challenging people and ideas. I stepped onto campus and gained a sense of wonder at the sheer immediacy of what Princeton offered.
The experiences and impressions tumbled over one another. My journal from those days recorded the shocks of the new on social, political and sexual topics. Displays at Dillon Gym from the Association for Humanistic Psychology, for example, had “a variety of HP pamphlets and literature, each containing its own pitch toward the reader. Some had odd titles and psychic goals. The gay/lesbian arm of the meeting had a very large display of boards illustrating moderate and severe examples of anti-gay activities and also pro-gay displays.”
A few days later, I attended a “lecture-slide show by Timothy Leary on space colonization . . . I called home from Alexander Hall and told Mom of the day. I also mentioned the coed bathroom-showers here [I soon discovered this applied only to the convention]. I think it is a sane arrangement—we all have our minds potty trained.”
As a hormonally normal teenager freed from the social strictures of South Texas, I just knew Princeton would enfold me in a riotous social scene. Or so I hoped, anyway. One evening in those first weeks I met with my “keyceptor,” an upperclassman assigned to newbies to answer questions and smooth their entry into Princeton. Mine made a big impression on me, albeit not in the way Princeton hoped: “We sat in a living room and talked. She is a classics student, short, intense, buxom. ½-way through our discussion of classes I noticed she was acting rather seductive—she was lying down on the couch diddling a pen between her breasts, one of those BIC-types. I thought, ‘I guess I’m willing if she is,’ but nothing happened, that time, anyway.” We never saw each other again, but I still hear the click-click of that pen snapping through my brain synapses.
That raunchy perspective colored other aspects of my earliest Princeton days. Consider my attendance at a meeting of Undergraduates for a Stable America (USA) in Whig Hall. “We spent most of the meeting dreaming up new names for the group. Nobody likes USA. I said it first struck me as corny. I suggested the Adam Smith Society, A.S.S. I thought of a marvelous promo campaign to bolster a fun loving image: ‘Grab a piece of the A.S.S. . . .!’”
From USA my focus swung to the other end of the political spectrum. One day I was returning from a Psych lab with Jeff Sellers ‘80, “Walking back to the dorm we stopped to listen to a very intense fellow representing the Spartacus Youth League (SYL) at a table cluttered with propaganda on the walk east of East Pyne. He was probably in his early 30s, late 20s, conservatively dressed, short hair, glasses, real lefty. Finally broke away.”
“At dinner my roommates and I, stimulated by the SYL, discussed the physical traits of Communists lurking in Commons with us. Although no properly lurking males could be seen, we did see 2 girls with frizzy hair, somewhat East Europe dress. No self-respecting Red has straight hair.”
A few weeks later, I went with friends “to hear an Isaac Asimov lecture in McCosh 10. We arrived 30 minutes early but all the seats were taken except in the balcony. The lecture’s main thrust centered on the threat of overpopulation and the methods of curing it—persuading women to not have so many children.”
Ever eager to expand my cultural horizons, in late September I joined Film Society, and went to see Federico Fellini’s 1973 film Amarcord at midnight. “Jeff and I situated ourselves near the front-center. Comfortably, too much so, for after about an hour my resistance caved in under repeated assaults of sleep and I dozed a while. I saw the last 40 minutes of this Italian flick. Outside I felt so cold. It was 3 a.m., and Jeff and I walked mostly in silence to the dorm. He enjoyed the symbolism and photography and thought the subtitles detracted from his appreciation of the visual beauty. I chattered my teeth in a semblance of agreement.” The next weekend I switched gears and saw Monty Python’s And Now for Something Completely Different.
The fall of 1976 marked the presidential campaign between Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. Always a political junkie, I joined the University Democrats on an Oct. 10 bus trip to attend Columbus Day political events in Newark. Along with USA and SYL, the University Democrats spoke to the utter political confusion (or, as I like to see it, my independence) that puzzles my friends to this day. I wrote, “I got my 1st close view of Newark, the epitome of urban Armageddon. For a funny reason I felt at ease there and sensed a town still living an ethnic dream of a long time past.”
“In due time a procession with the usual police and fire attachments and on-the-take politicos came waving past, and finally, yes, WALTER MONDALE, looking a bit heavier than I expected. Totally uninspiring. He jumped from his open-body old car and starting gladhanding the adoring masses. . . . We began trailing Mondale along the crowded street, although my Republican leanings kept me from taking a banner or yelling. Finally he got in the car. We followed him down to a speakers’ stand, and although we could not see him, we heard a very brief nonpolitical blurb on the great contributions of Italian Americans to American culture, from Christopher Columbus to Don Vito Corleone. Retracing our route back down the street we found the GOP VP nominee, Bob Dole. My group trailed him from the sidewalk while waving posters and yelling and acting like perfect representatives of the party’s symbol.”
One encounter stands out as truly mythical. During the summer of 1976, my budding interest in the USSR led me to read Russia and the West Under Lenin and Stalin, by George F. Kennan ’25. Before Freshman Week, I noted a discussion at the Woodrow Wilson School on the theme of “Solzhenitsyn as a Historian of 1917,” as I remember. Having had my fill of humanistic psychology for a while, I wandered over. Among the attendees was an elderly man, who listened attentively and asked some questions. With a jolt I realized George Kennan himself attended the discussion. “So this is Princeton,” I thought to myself. “Wow!” (Kennan died this spring just weeks short of his 80th Princeton Reunion, at the age of 101.)
The other great memory of those early days involves my try-out for The Daily Princetonian. I thought about this story in 2003, when former Georgia Governor Lester Maddox died. As background, Maddox ran for President in 1976 representing the American Independent Party, a candidacy that generated something other than enthusiasm among Princetonians, as I was to discover in October . . .
As I recorded the event: “Candidacy period, Monday afternoon I was flailing away with my Econ story and Ben Engel ’77 asked me if I wanted to do a story. Sure—so I was introduced to Andy Steinberg ’80 and we began working on the now-infamous Lester-Maddox-at-Cottage flap. Monday morning pranksters distributed flyers at all dorm rooms proclaiming the appearance of the good governor at Cottage that night. The 3rd Worlders raised a ruckus and by 5 Andy and I were in WWS for a pre-march meeting with Kathy Kiely ’77 and somebody else. Then, off to a larger meeting in the TW Center. On the way over I interviewed Provost Snowden. So, as for the rest of the happenings, read the Tuesday Oct. 19 edition. I get a mention at the very end. Did not finish until almost midnight. I stayed at the office to finish reading the sheets to make sure that the info I contributed to the story was correct.”
That store plunged me into national politics, an amazing experience for a 19 year old. In a few months, I wrote my first lead article for the Prince, on a lecture by Simon Wiesenthal, renowned hunter of Nazis. As with the Kennan encounter, I felt I had entered a special place where amazing people and events were part of the landscape. I didn’t just learn history, I touched it, and saw and heard the history makers.
------------
Stepping Into Wonder
On August 30, 1976, I flew from McAllen, Texas to Newark, N.J. to start my freshman year at Princeton. As soon as I stowed my bags and a creaky manual typewriter at the Nassau Inn, my experience began. Map in hand, I wandered the campus and found a lecture in progress. I wrote in my journal, “Finally, I discovered just what I had stumbled upon—a lecture by psychologist Carl Rogers, before a convention of Humanist Psychologists.”
That lecture, on my first day on campus, set the tone for what Princeton was, and continues to be. Coming from an isolated part of the country, where people like Carl Rogers were seen as subversive, I immediately confronted challenging people and ideas. I stepped onto campus and gained a sense of wonder at the sheer immediacy of what Princeton offered.
The experiences and impressions tumbled over one another. My journal from those days recorded the shocks of the new on social, political and sexual topics. Displays at Dillon Gym from the Association for Humanistic Psychology, for example, had “a variety of HP pamphlets and literature, each containing its own pitch toward the reader. Some had odd titles and psychic goals. The gay/lesbian arm of the meeting had a very large display of boards illustrating moderate and severe examples of anti-gay activities and also pro-gay displays.”
A few days later, I attended a “lecture-slide show by Timothy Leary on space colonization . . . I called home from Alexander Hall and told Mom of the day. I also mentioned the coed bathroom-showers here [I soon discovered this applied only to the convention]. I think it is a sane arrangement—we all have our minds potty trained.”
As a hormonally normal teenager freed from the social strictures of South Texas, I just knew Princeton would enfold me in a riotous social scene. Or so I hoped, anyway. One evening in those first weeks I met with my “keyceptor,” an upperclassman assigned to newbies to answer questions and smooth their entry into Princeton. Mine made a big impression on me, albeit not in the way Princeton hoped: “We sat in a living room and talked. She is a classics student, short, intense, buxom. ½-way through our discussion of classes I noticed she was acting rather seductive—she was lying down on the couch diddling a pen between her breasts, one of those BIC-types. I thought, ‘I guess I’m willing if she is,’ but nothing happened, that time, anyway.” We never saw each other again, but I still hear the click-click of that pen snapping through my brain synapses.
That raunchy perspective colored other aspects of my earliest Princeton days. Consider my attendance at a meeting of Undergraduates for a Stable America (USA) in Whig Hall. “We spent most of the meeting dreaming up new names for the group. Nobody likes USA. I said it first struck me as corny. I suggested the Adam Smith Society, A.S.S. I thought of a marvelous promo campaign to bolster a fun loving image: ‘Grab a piece of the A.S.S. . . .!’”
From USA my focus swung to the other end of the political spectrum. One day I was returning from a Psych lab with Jeff Sellers ‘80, “Walking back to the dorm we stopped to listen to a very intense fellow representing the Spartacus Youth League (SYL) at a table cluttered with propaganda on the walk east of East Pyne. He was probably in his early 30s, late 20s, conservatively dressed, short hair, glasses, real lefty. Finally broke away.”
“At dinner my roommates and I, stimulated by the SYL, discussed the physical traits of Communists lurking in Commons with us. Although no properly lurking males could be seen, we did see 2 girls with frizzy hair, somewhat East Europe dress. No self-respecting Red has straight hair.”
A few weeks later, I went with friends “to hear an Isaac Asimov lecture in McCosh 10. We arrived 30 minutes early but all the seats were taken except in the balcony. The lecture’s main thrust centered on the threat of overpopulation and the methods of curing it—persuading women to not have so many children.”
Ever eager to expand my cultural horizons, in late September I joined Film Society, and went to see Federico Fellini’s 1973 film Amarcord at midnight. “Jeff and I situated ourselves near the front-center. Comfortably, too much so, for after about an hour my resistance caved in under repeated assaults of sleep and I dozed a while. I saw the last 40 minutes of this Italian flick. Outside I felt so cold. It was 3 a.m., and Jeff and I walked mostly in silence to the dorm. He enjoyed the symbolism and photography and thought the subtitles detracted from his appreciation of the visual beauty. I chattered my teeth in a semblance of agreement.” The next weekend I switched gears and saw Monty Python’s And Now for Something Completely Different.
The fall of 1976 marked the presidential campaign between Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. Always a political junkie, I joined the University Democrats on an Oct. 10 bus trip to attend Columbus Day political events in Newark. Along with USA and SYL, the University Democrats spoke to the utter political confusion (or, as I like to see it, my independence) that puzzles my friends to this day. I wrote, “I got my 1st close view of Newark, the epitome of urban Armageddon. For a funny reason I felt at ease there and sensed a town still living an ethnic dream of a long time past.”
“In due time a procession with the usual police and fire attachments and on-the-take politicos came waving past, and finally, yes, WALTER MONDALE, looking a bit heavier than I expected. Totally uninspiring. He jumped from his open-body old car and starting gladhanding the adoring masses. . . . We began trailing Mondale along the crowded street, although my Republican leanings kept me from taking a banner or yelling. Finally he got in the car. We followed him down to a speakers’ stand, and although we could not see him, we heard a very brief nonpolitical blurb on the great contributions of Italian Americans to American culture, from Christopher Columbus to Don Vito Corleone. Retracing our route back down the street we found the GOP VP nominee, Bob Dole. My group trailed him from the sidewalk while waving posters and yelling and acting like perfect representatives of the party’s symbol.”
One encounter stands out as truly mythical. During the summer of 1976, my budding interest in the USSR led me to read Russia and the West Under Lenin and Stalin, by George F. Kennan ’25. Before Freshman Week, I noted a discussion at the Woodrow Wilson School on the theme of “Solzhenitsyn as a Historian of 1917,” as I remember. Having had my fill of humanistic psychology for a while, I wandered over. Among the attendees was an elderly man, who listened attentively and asked some questions. With a jolt I realized George Kennan himself attended the discussion. “So this is Princeton,” I thought to myself. “Wow!” (Kennan died this spring just weeks short of his 80th Princeton Reunion, at the age of 101.)
The other great memory of those early days involves my try-out for The Daily Princetonian. I thought about this story in 2003, when former Georgia Governor Lester Maddox died. As background, Maddox ran for President in 1976 representing the American Independent Party, a candidacy that generated something other than enthusiasm among Princetonians, as I was to discover in October . . .
As I recorded the event: “Candidacy period, Monday afternoon I was flailing away with my Econ story and Ben Engel ’77 asked me if I wanted to do a story. Sure—so I was introduced to Andy Steinberg ’80 and we began working on the now-infamous Lester-Maddox-at-Cottage flap. Monday morning pranksters distributed flyers at all dorm rooms proclaiming the appearance of the good governor at Cottage that night. The 3rd Worlders raised a ruckus and by 5 Andy and I were in WWS for a pre-march meeting with Kathy Kiely ’77 and somebody else. Then, off to a larger meeting in the TW Center. On the way over I interviewed Provost Snowden. So, as for the rest of the happenings, read the Tuesday Oct. 19 edition. I get a mention at the very end. Did not finish until almost midnight. I stayed at the office to finish reading the sheets to make sure that the info I contributed to the story was correct.”
That store plunged me into national politics, an amazing experience for a 19 year old. In a few months, I wrote my first lead article for the Prince, on a lecture by Simon Wiesenthal, renowned hunter of Nazis. As with the Kennan encounter, I felt I had entered a special place where amazing people and events were part of the landscape. I didn’t just learn history, I touched it, and saw and heard the history makers.
Monday, May 23, 2005
A Brazilian Vacation: My Astral Week
[This appeared on English-language site in Sao Paulo, Brazil, all about my big Brazilian adventure. The site, Gringoes.com, is now what is probably a permanent vacation, as of November 2020, so here's what I wrote in 2005.]
My Brazil experience differs from others who write for Gringoes. I‘m not a long-term expat or immigrant, nor am I married to a Brazilian. I don‘t speak Portuguese. Still, my week-long visit to the country in November 2004 made a deep impression on me. Seven months later, my interest continues, so I offer to you a series of impressions, snapshots from a first-time visitor without any deep comments on national character or cultural differentiators.
My growing awareness of Brazil began in early 2003 when a woman I‘ll call Kitty in Rio de Janeiro contacted me through an online dating site. We‘re both Jewish, enjoyed writing, and had increasingly friendly online chats. I called her several times and she talked about me visiting her. Because of the distance and post-divorce emotional hesitance, I didn't take the offer too seriously and never considered a visit‘s pleasures. Kitty and I drifted apart and by early 2004 she met somebody local and that, as the phrase goes, was that. In retrospect, I missed a wonderful opportunity.
In September 2004 I contacted a woman in São Paulo. Let‘s call her Astral. Again, we formed a connection, as best one can online. She also invited me to visit. This time, I felt more confident and eager for an adventure. Instinct said "do it," so I surprised her, myself, and most of my family by agreeing. After considerable checking of calendars and airlines, we settled on the last week in November as the best time.
The complexities of a cross-cultural romance emerged after I ordered my tickets through my employer‘s travel office. Soon, the corporate security service sent a lengthy email wishing me "success and a safe voyage on your upcoming trip to Brazil." After that cheery opening, the email got down to the nitty-gritty. I learned, for example:
"Crime rates have been rising in Brazil, largely the result of drugs, gangs and poverty. The most significant crime problems are in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. Petty theft is especially common in the tourist areas, hotel districts and beaches, while more violent crime tends to be reported in the slums surrounding these cities. In several recent incidents, however, violence has spilled over from these slums into popular tourist areas."
"Additionally, Sao Paulo has reported thefts at Guarulhos International Airport, involving carry-on luggage or briefcases that have been set down, sometimes for only a moment. Arriving and departing travelers should be especially vigilant and take the necessary precautions at this and other Brazilian airports. Sao Paulo also suffers from the same problems of street crime, which appears to be on the rise in nearly every part of the city."
"Tap water and ice may not be safe. Drink only bottled or boiled water and carbonated drinks."
The alert also listed every possible health vaccine, including for hepatitis, rabies, malaria, typhoid, yellow fever, with the bold-faced warning, "Areas of Brazil have chloroquine-resistant P. falciparum malaria." Fortunately, I read, Sao Paulo did not have a problem with malaria.
Given that I‘m a paranoid gringo when it comes to international travel, the well-intentioned warnings left me doubting the wisdom of instinct. Kidnappings, airport theft, rabies; what was I getting myself into? I forwarded the alert to Astral, writing, "What do you think? I'd better not send this to my brother-he'll freak out!" (My younger brother in Texas strongly opposed this 5,000 mile jaunt to visit a woman I barely knew in another country).
Astral replied with a light-hearted note, saying, "The only serious advice I have for your safety is that you get the best health insurance you can just in case you collapse after meeting me. And also, just in case I kidnap you to the best places in town just have plenty of valid credit cards! Now if you wish to go to the jungle in the Amazon rainforest than get all those vaccinations darling."
Still, my concerns deeply offended her. My frame of reference for Latin America stopped thousands of miles away from Brazil. I grew up on the Texas-Mexico border, and past visits to Mexico and El Salvador (of all places) merely led me to interpret Brazil in terms of those countries. "Brazil is not El Salvador," she told me, exasperated at my ignorance of the country. Even a week before I left I was asking my doctor about shots I might need. My plan to carry my passport, travelers check and other papers in a Velcro-sealed travel pack around my neck didn't impress her either.
Oh, to hell with it, I finally thought. I didn't take the shots, I didn't buy extra insurance, I just left Astral‘s phone numbers and my flight plans with my ex-wife and my brother. I simply got on the Saturday night American Airlines flight and stumbled out, the next morning, into that hotbed of criminality, Guarulhos airport.
My Brazil experience had a slow but uneventful start. I snaked through passport control and customs, going through the special Yankee line to be fingerprinted and photographed. After a long haul I finally emerged into the terminal and had my first sight of Astral in a delightful white business suit.
The next week very much reflected Astral‘s Brazil, neither a typical tourist experience nor a long-term expat‘s view. Some highlights:
Food. We visited Baby Beef, a crowded, delectable food experience, everything the travel books suggest. What I remember in even more detail is lunch on Saturday, on our way in from the airport, at a Japanese sushi restaurant downtown. Dazed from the long flight, the slog through customs, and the sheer novelty of a new city and a new friend, I think of the place as my real introduction to Brazil. A Japanese man entertained the crowd by singing American pop songs by Neil Diamond, Billy Joel and others, accompanying himself on guitar. Astral said he didn‘t actually speak English. American music by a Japanese man in Sao Paulo: in a word, surreal.
Traffic. The congestion is São Paulo is horrendous. That‘s no surprise. What surprised me was the round-the-clock bicycle traffic in Guaruja, where we spent several days for beach time. The flocks of bikes added a graceful, quiet note to the town and helped keep traffic congestion down. I even saw dozens of bikers after midnight, on the short ferry ride from Santos to Guaruja. The sturdy, practical bikes were a welcome contrast to the fashion-statement mountain bikes so popular in the U.S.
Santos. Friends of mine who had lived in Brazil and visited Santos collapsed in shock when I sang the praises of sophisticated Santos, based on a seven-hour day trip for beach, shopping, and dinner. "Santos? When I was there that was a dump!" exclaimed one. All I can see they saw one Santos, I saw another. The wide swooping beach with rocks rising from the sea proved a perfect backdrop for photos. The endless apartment buildings along the shore drive were majestic in their variety and testified to Brazilians‘ skill at constructing massive numbers of housing units (I‘m talking about the outward quantity and appeal to a U.S. apartment dweller; I have no idea about the interior quality). A few blocks inland, in the buzzing business district, we made our major touristy buys: Astral selected two CDs of MBP for me (Agora é que São Elas and Gilberto Gil Unplugged), while I got two pair of shoes.
Marketing. The weekend street-level marketing teams for upscale dwellings delighted me. Young women in coordinated uniforms tout developments by passing fliers through car windows and unfurling banners in front of stopped traffic at red lights. I‘ve never seen this kind of selling in the U.S. I even saved two fliers as marketing mementos of São Paulo: Loft Ibirapuera and Townhouse Village Morumbi.
Hebraica. The Jewish Community Center in São Paulo amazed me with its size, level of services, and friendly spirit. It stands like an oasis plopped behind (very) secure walls in the center of urban tumult. From the swimming pools to the library to the movie theater to the art gallery to the simple pleasure of strolling and greeting friends, Hebraica offered everything a close-knit community needs in a central location. It may not merit mention in general tour books, but for Jewish travelers, Hebraica is a must-see. If I lived in São Paulo for any length of time, I‘d join.
Language. The smoky bingo parlor in Guaruja suggested a great way to study numbers in Portuguese. Listening to the bingo callers, I connected what I heard to the numbers posted on the big display board. I got a double reinforcement: hear it and see it. After some time on the beach, Astral gave me a Portuguese nickname: "Peludo," (Fuzzy) which, I will always associate with that memorable week.
Entertainment. Before I left for Brazil I was already addicted to Latin telenovelas, mostly Mexican soap operas. The theme music always rocks, the star actresses are slinkily adorable, and, anyway, I could justify watching anything as a way to improve my Spanish. I had always heard Brazil does novelas better than anybody, so Astral introduced me to one of the favorites, "Senhora do Destino." One of my favorite memories of the trip was nights in Guaruja, sprawled on a beanbag chair after a day on the beach, watching "Senhora do Destino" while Astral translated. The theme music especially struck me, with its haunting, soaring vocal. The music stayed with me long after I returned, as I couldn‘t remember the performer, and Astral and I were no longer in contact. Then one evening I was listening to my Internet radio service, Rhapsody, and the unmistakable riff came on. I immediately checked the performer information, and found it was Maria Rita‘s performance of "Encontros e Despedidas." Within a week I had ordered her CD from Amazon, along with a Bebel Gilberto CD. The word that comes to mind whenever I hear Maria Rita is "magic."
And now . . . six months later, my Brazil trip slips, day by day, back in my store of memories. I have no plans to return, although that could happen someday, somehow. The place got under my skin. I‘m constantly checking out CDs from the New York Public Library, including Os Mutantes, Caetano Veloso, Virginia Rodrigues, Elis Regina, and more by Bebel Gilberto. I‘ve investigated various Portuguese language sets to study the language, which makes the music that much more enjoyable, once I can understand a little more. I pick up free Brazilian newspapers at a money-transfer place on New York‘s West 46th Street, "Little Brazil." A friend loaned me the novel Tieta, by Jorge Amado, so I will be reading that soon. She warned me it‘s "spicy," so I know already I‘ll like it. Of course, I read Gringoes religiously. So, I expect the Brazilian romance will continue.
So, all that‘s left to say is: Obrigado, Astral.
My Brazil experience differs from others who write for Gringoes. I‘m not a long-term expat or immigrant, nor am I married to a Brazilian. I don‘t speak Portuguese. Still, my week-long visit to the country in November 2004 made a deep impression on me. Seven months later, my interest continues, so I offer to you a series of impressions, snapshots from a first-time visitor without any deep comments on national character or cultural differentiators.
My growing awareness of Brazil began in early 2003 when a woman I‘ll call Kitty in Rio de Janeiro contacted me through an online dating site. We‘re both Jewish, enjoyed writing, and had increasingly friendly online chats. I called her several times and she talked about me visiting her. Because of the distance and post-divorce emotional hesitance, I didn't take the offer too seriously and never considered a visit‘s pleasures. Kitty and I drifted apart and by early 2004 she met somebody local and that, as the phrase goes, was that. In retrospect, I missed a wonderful opportunity.
In September 2004 I contacted a woman in São Paulo. Let‘s call her Astral. Again, we formed a connection, as best one can online. She also invited me to visit. This time, I felt more confident and eager for an adventure. Instinct said "do it," so I surprised her, myself, and most of my family by agreeing. After considerable checking of calendars and airlines, we settled on the last week in November as the best time.
The complexities of a cross-cultural romance emerged after I ordered my tickets through my employer‘s travel office. Soon, the corporate security service sent a lengthy email wishing me "success and a safe voyage on your upcoming trip to Brazil." After that cheery opening, the email got down to the nitty-gritty. I learned, for example:
"Crime rates have been rising in Brazil, largely the result of drugs, gangs and poverty. The most significant crime problems are in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. Petty theft is especially common in the tourist areas, hotel districts and beaches, while more violent crime tends to be reported in the slums surrounding these cities. In several recent incidents, however, violence has spilled over from these slums into popular tourist areas."
"Additionally, Sao Paulo has reported thefts at Guarulhos International Airport, involving carry-on luggage or briefcases that have been set down, sometimes for only a moment. Arriving and departing travelers should be especially vigilant and take the necessary precautions at this and other Brazilian airports. Sao Paulo also suffers from the same problems of street crime, which appears to be on the rise in nearly every part of the city."
"Tap water and ice may not be safe. Drink only bottled or boiled water and carbonated drinks."
The alert also listed every possible health vaccine, including for hepatitis, rabies, malaria, typhoid, yellow fever, with the bold-faced warning, "Areas of Brazil have chloroquine-resistant P. falciparum malaria." Fortunately, I read, Sao Paulo did not have a problem with malaria.
Given that I‘m a paranoid gringo when it comes to international travel, the well-intentioned warnings left me doubting the wisdom of instinct. Kidnappings, airport theft, rabies; what was I getting myself into? I forwarded the alert to Astral, writing, "What do you think? I'd better not send this to my brother-he'll freak out!" (My younger brother in Texas strongly opposed this 5,000 mile jaunt to visit a woman I barely knew in another country).
Astral replied with a light-hearted note, saying, "The only serious advice I have for your safety is that you get the best health insurance you can just in case you collapse after meeting me. And also, just in case I kidnap you to the best places in town just have plenty of valid credit cards! Now if you wish to go to the jungle in the Amazon rainforest than get all those vaccinations darling."
Still, my concerns deeply offended her. My frame of reference for Latin America stopped thousands of miles away from Brazil. I grew up on the Texas-Mexico border, and past visits to Mexico and El Salvador (of all places) merely led me to interpret Brazil in terms of those countries. "Brazil is not El Salvador," she told me, exasperated at my ignorance of the country. Even a week before I left I was asking my doctor about shots I might need. My plan to carry my passport, travelers check and other papers in a Velcro-sealed travel pack around my neck didn't impress her either.
Oh, to hell with it, I finally thought. I didn't take the shots, I didn't buy extra insurance, I just left Astral‘s phone numbers and my flight plans with my ex-wife and my brother. I simply got on the Saturday night American Airlines flight and stumbled out, the next morning, into that hotbed of criminality, Guarulhos airport.
My Brazil experience had a slow but uneventful start. I snaked through passport control and customs, going through the special Yankee line to be fingerprinted and photographed. After a long haul I finally emerged into the terminal and had my first sight of Astral in a delightful white business suit.
The next week very much reflected Astral‘s Brazil, neither a typical tourist experience nor a long-term expat‘s view. Some highlights:
Food. We visited Baby Beef, a crowded, delectable food experience, everything the travel books suggest. What I remember in even more detail is lunch on Saturday, on our way in from the airport, at a Japanese sushi restaurant downtown. Dazed from the long flight, the slog through customs, and the sheer novelty of a new city and a new friend, I think of the place as my real introduction to Brazil. A Japanese man entertained the crowd by singing American pop songs by Neil Diamond, Billy Joel and others, accompanying himself on guitar. Astral said he didn‘t actually speak English. American music by a Japanese man in Sao Paulo: in a word, surreal.
Traffic. The congestion is São Paulo is horrendous. That‘s no surprise. What surprised me was the round-the-clock bicycle traffic in Guaruja, where we spent several days for beach time. The flocks of bikes added a graceful, quiet note to the town and helped keep traffic congestion down. I even saw dozens of bikers after midnight, on the short ferry ride from Santos to Guaruja. The sturdy, practical bikes were a welcome contrast to the fashion-statement mountain bikes so popular in the U.S.
Santos. Friends of mine who had lived in Brazil and visited Santos collapsed in shock when I sang the praises of sophisticated Santos, based on a seven-hour day trip for beach, shopping, and dinner. "Santos? When I was there that was a dump!" exclaimed one. All I can see they saw one Santos, I saw another. The wide swooping beach with rocks rising from the sea proved a perfect backdrop for photos. The endless apartment buildings along the shore drive were majestic in their variety and testified to Brazilians‘ skill at constructing massive numbers of housing units (I‘m talking about the outward quantity and appeal to a U.S. apartment dweller; I have no idea about the interior quality). A few blocks inland, in the buzzing business district, we made our major touristy buys: Astral selected two CDs of MBP for me (Agora é que São Elas and Gilberto Gil Unplugged), while I got two pair of shoes.
Marketing. The weekend street-level marketing teams for upscale dwellings delighted me. Young women in coordinated uniforms tout developments by passing fliers through car windows and unfurling banners in front of stopped traffic at red lights. I‘ve never seen this kind of selling in the U.S. I even saved two fliers as marketing mementos of São Paulo: Loft Ibirapuera and Townhouse Village Morumbi.
Hebraica. The Jewish Community Center in São Paulo amazed me with its size, level of services, and friendly spirit. It stands like an oasis plopped behind (very) secure walls in the center of urban tumult. From the swimming pools to the library to the movie theater to the art gallery to the simple pleasure of strolling and greeting friends, Hebraica offered everything a close-knit community needs in a central location. It may not merit mention in general tour books, but for Jewish travelers, Hebraica is a must-see. If I lived in São Paulo for any length of time, I‘d join.
Language. The smoky bingo parlor in Guaruja suggested a great way to study numbers in Portuguese. Listening to the bingo callers, I connected what I heard to the numbers posted on the big display board. I got a double reinforcement: hear it and see it. After some time on the beach, Astral gave me a Portuguese nickname: "Peludo," (Fuzzy) which, I will always associate with that memorable week.
Entertainment. Before I left for Brazil I was already addicted to Latin telenovelas, mostly Mexican soap operas. The theme music always rocks, the star actresses are slinkily adorable, and, anyway, I could justify watching anything as a way to improve my Spanish. I had always heard Brazil does novelas better than anybody, so Astral introduced me to one of the favorites, "Senhora do Destino." One of my favorite memories of the trip was nights in Guaruja, sprawled on a beanbag chair after a day on the beach, watching "Senhora do Destino" while Astral translated. The theme music especially struck me, with its haunting, soaring vocal. The music stayed with me long after I returned, as I couldn‘t remember the performer, and Astral and I were no longer in contact. Then one evening I was listening to my Internet radio service, Rhapsody, and the unmistakable riff came on. I immediately checked the performer information, and found it was Maria Rita‘s performance of "Encontros e Despedidas." Within a week I had ordered her CD from Amazon, along with a Bebel Gilberto CD. The word that comes to mind whenever I hear Maria Rita is "magic."
And now . . . six months later, my Brazil trip slips, day by day, back in my store of memories. I have no plans to return, although that could happen someday, somehow. The place got under my skin. I‘m constantly checking out CDs from the New York Public Library, including Os Mutantes, Caetano Veloso, Virginia Rodrigues, Elis Regina, and more by Bebel Gilberto. I‘ve investigated various Portuguese language sets to study the language, which makes the music that much more enjoyable, once I can understand a little more. I pick up free Brazilian newspapers at a money-transfer place on New York‘s West 46th Street, "Little Brazil." A friend loaned me the novel Tieta, by Jorge Amado, so I will be reading that soon. She warned me it‘s "spicy," so I know already I‘ll like it. Of course, I read Gringoes religiously. So, I expect the Brazilian romance will continue.
So, all that‘s left to say is: Obrigado, Astral.
Sunday, May 01, 2005
My Favorite Oswald
I read someplace that classical actors are judged according to how well they play Hamlet. After seeing Gary Oldman’s bravura turn in 1991’s JFK, I’ve decided that, modern actors must be judged by how well they play Lee Harvey Oswald.
Think about it: what other characters in recent American history, other than Richard Nixon and Anna Nicole Smith, have been more complex and confounding, bullying their way into our nightmares and turning history? With his bayou-coonass/Bronx accent and shifty-eyed demeanor, Oswald presents physical and psychological dimensions that would challenge the most accomplished actors.
I recently watched JFK for the first time since the movie’s release. I longed to see a lot more of Oldman’s Lee Harvey Oswald and a lot less of Kevin Costner’s New Orleans DA Jim Garrison in smoke-filled rooms. Director Oliver Stone teased the audience with fragmented McNuggets of Oswald, and left me panting for a big juicy steak of the Marine-Commie-defector.
So I started a trek to discover my favorite Oswald. Using Gerald Posner’s epochal investigation Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK as my trusty field guide to Dealey Plaza and beyond (and I’ve read the whole book, including the footnotes), I looked for movies and compared them to the historical record.
Surely, I thought, there must many films about Oswald, beyond the Kennedy biographies and factual records of the assassination. Oldman set a very high thespic bar, but I was determined to find challengers to the throne of Oswald actors.
To my amazement, almost nothing exists. Nada; zip; bupkis. While bookshelves groan and the Internet crackles with information about Oswald and the whole sordid mess, the creative film effort is pathetically small. Exhausting my web research skills, I found the Oswald shelf of your local video store would contain these films:
·JFK (1991), already mentioned. It covers the highlights of Oswald’s assassination-related life, some that really happened and others in dream-like uncertainty. Whatever one thinks about Stone’s politics, he created a hard-charging film brimming with colorful characters. Thrill at the opportunity to hear Oswald say, “I emphatically deny these charges,” “I didn’t shoot anybody, no sir,” and of course “I’m just a patsy.” Plus, Stone made good use of cute-as-a-button Quitman native Sissy Spacek as Liz Garrison. And in one easily missed line, Costner, I think, refers to McAllen as a center for gun-running. Ah-ha, I found a South Texas connection to the intrigue!
·Ruby (1992), starring Danny Aiello as Jack Ruby. Willie Garson plays a colorless throwaway role as Oswald. He doesn’t appear until an hour into this sluggish but sporadically entertaining piece of speculation, in which Oswald isn’t even the shooter. Watch for X-Filer and Princeton graduate David Duchovny in a minimal role as “Officer Tippit,” the Dallas cop killed by Oswald after the assassination. Aiello’s Ruby does get some amusing lines. In one scene, he is attacked by and then beats the tar out of the abusive husband of a stripper played by the delicious Sherilyn Fenn (post-Twin Peaks, pre-anorexia). Tough-guy Ruby bellows, “You make that the last time you take out your disappointments in life on Jack Ruby!”
· Two movies bear the proud title The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald. The first appeared in 1964 (I’m sure glad it wasn’t 1962). Director Larry Buchanan explores whether Oswald was mentally ill. The film appears in video with another Buchanan take on Texas terrors, titled The Other Side of Bonnie and Clyde. Specialty house Something Weird Video in Seattle markets this twin bill. The other "The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald" appeared on TV in 1977 and clocks in at an agonizing three hours and 12 minutes in length with John Pleshette as Oswald. This film is impossible to find.
· Love Field (1992) deserves mention not so much for its Oswald presence (just the standard TV scenes to move the plot along) but the way it uses the assassination as a mechanism to propel a Jackie-obsessed Dallas hairdresser played by Michelle Pfeiffer on her odyssey to Washington, D.C., for JFK’s funeral. On her trek she meets Dennis Haysbert (he played Senator and then President David Palmer on the first three seasons of "24") and they eventually engage in some amor prohibido. Nothing explicit gets shown, but Michelle does appear with a lovely post-coital glow on her face.
· The PBS program Frontline did an episode in 1993 called “Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald?” While it’s a documentary, the teacher’s guide on the PBS website suggests that students watch the program and then stage their own trial of Oswald. The guide helpfully notes, “The teacher should allow some latitude in legal tactics. The purpose of this exercise is not to teach courtroom strategies. It is to explore the motivations and life of Lee Harvey Oswald.” The activity conjures up images of high school students hamming it up as Oswald, no doubt defended by Johnny Cochran-wannabees shouting, “If the Mannlicher-Carcano don’t fit, you must acquit!”
By default, Oldman wins the nod as my favorite Oswald, in the acting category. Oldman’s a great actor in a tough role. Challengers will be minimal until, oh, 2060, when some bright-eyed director, now in diapers, decides the 100th anniversary of the assassination will be a swell time to finally film an Oswald biopic.
Beyond the big and little screens, Oswald’s malign presence festers and sloshes. On the printed page and Internet, anything goes. Norman Mailer wrote the non-fiction "Oswald's Tale: An American Mystery," while Don DeLillo wrote the novel "Libra." Hard-boiled crime novelist James Ellroy’s "American Tabloid" explores the down and very dirty side of organized crime and the FBI and much more in the years leading up to November 22, 1963, conspiracies, Oswald and all.
Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman added music to the mix with "Assassins." Oswald joins other killers and contenders, such as John Wilkes Booth, John Hinkley, and Lynette (Squeaky) Fromme, the Charles Manson acolyte who tried to kill President Ford, to do a little song and dance. (Interesting note: Squeaky Fromme is now rotting away in the Carswell Federal Medical Center in Fort Worth; her projected release date is September 5, 2005. Take note, Secret Service!)
Staying on a musical note, Dallas musician Homer Henderson wrote one of the great transgressive songs of all time, “Lee Harvey Was a Friend of Mine,” with the lyrics,
I was born in Dallas in 1952,
Lee Harvey moved across the street on Bentley Avenue,
He used to throw the ball to me when I was just a kid,
They say he shot the president---I don't think he did.
And Lee Harvey was a friend of mine,
He used to take me fishing all the time,
He used to throw the ball to me when I was just a kid,
They say he shot the president but I don't think he did.
Wallow in Oswaldiana for any length of time, the ambiguities and slippery connections start to play games with your head. Shadows and coincidences merge into confounding patterns. For example, Willie Garson of Ruby also played Oswald in episodes of “Quantum Leap” and “Mad TV.” John Pleshette of 1977’s "The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald" also had roles in the 2004 version of "Helter Skelter" about Charles Manson) and the 1998 TV movie "The Day Lincoln was Shot." Coincidences, you say?
The strangest dot-connecting pulls together "JFK," "Love Field," and the terrorist-battling series "24" on Fox. Hang with me here: "JFK" cast Donald Sutherland in a pivotal role, as the government operative who steers Costner’s Jim Garrison toward the conspiracy. Then, Dennis Haysbert plays a lead role in Love Field. Finally, in "24," Haysbert plays President David Palmer, while Donald’s son Keifer Sutherland plays the anti-terrorism operative Jack Bauer, who works for Palmer. Well! What does all that mean?
And now, a confession: the annals of Oswaldian speculation include my own modest, yet dare I say imaginative, contribution. You’re reading it here first, folks, a world exclusive.
In 1994, America followed the sordid case of O.J. Simpson, from the murder of Nicole through the chase of the White Bronco to the arrest, the trial, the acquittal, and the relentless search over the last decade for the real killers. Throughout the case certain facts troubled me. Echoes of past horror bounced off the walls of the courthouse into my brain, where they forced my attention. Unable to resist the compelling force of these echoes, I followed a twisting path of research that left me breathless in its stunning revelations. In the end, I wrote what is truly “my favorite Oswald” article, which I titled, “OJ and Lee Harvey: Stunning Links Revealed!”
To my bitter disappointment and undying suspicion, not a single newspaper or magazine would publish the fruits of my long and lonely hours spent delving into the arcania of two ill-led lives. Fortunately, through the magic of the Internet, I can now share my findings. My shocking thesis: “O.J. Simpson is possessed by the demon spirit of Lee Harvey Oswald!”
My research, which has yet to be refuted, charts connections between Simpson and Oswald that simply cannot be coincidences. Really! While the research and documentation run for thousands of pages (kept is a secret location to protect them from my rivals and enemies), I can provide some key findings:
· Both Oswald and Simpson trained in the deadly arts. Oswald was a Marine with extensive rifle experience. Simpson learned to wield weapons acting in movies such as "Firepower" and "Killer Force."
· In his statement read during his mad dash, Simpson wrote, “First, everyone understand I had nothing to do with Nicole’s murder.” Following Kennedy’s assassination, Oswald also denied involvement. Quoting Dallas police captain Will Fritz, Gerald Posner wrote, “He denied it and said he hadn’t killed the President.” Thus, both Simpson and Oswald said they didn’t do it. Now, you tell me: how likely is that to happen in murder cases?
· Oswald shot Kennedy from the Texas School Book Depository and fled, finally being captured in the Texas Theater. Simpson flew from L.A. International Airport to Chicago’s O’Hare Plaza Hotel. Oswald went from a storage center to an entertainment place. Simpson went from an airport—a storage center for airplanes—to a hotel—where entertaining movies are shown in rooms. Their movements show uncanny similarities.
I could continue, but these examples nail the case down pretty well, the real demonic conspiracy. Now if I could just get somebody to buy my screen play. . . Gary Oldman, baby, have I got a role for you!
Think about it: what other characters in recent American history, other than Richard Nixon and Anna Nicole Smith, have been more complex and confounding, bullying their way into our nightmares and turning history? With his bayou-coonass/Bronx accent and shifty-eyed demeanor, Oswald presents physical and psychological dimensions that would challenge the most accomplished actors.
I recently watched JFK for the first time since the movie’s release. I longed to see a lot more of Oldman’s Lee Harvey Oswald and a lot less of Kevin Costner’s New Orleans DA Jim Garrison in smoke-filled rooms. Director Oliver Stone teased the audience with fragmented McNuggets of Oswald, and left me panting for a big juicy steak of the Marine-Commie-defector.
So I started a trek to discover my favorite Oswald. Using Gerald Posner’s epochal investigation Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK as my trusty field guide to Dealey Plaza and beyond (and I’ve read the whole book, including the footnotes), I looked for movies and compared them to the historical record.
Surely, I thought, there must many films about Oswald, beyond the Kennedy biographies and factual records of the assassination. Oldman set a very high thespic bar, but I was determined to find challengers to the throne of Oswald actors.
To my amazement, almost nothing exists. Nada; zip; bupkis. While bookshelves groan and the Internet crackles with information about Oswald and the whole sordid mess, the creative film effort is pathetically small. Exhausting my web research skills, I found the Oswald shelf of your local video store would contain these films:
·JFK (1991), already mentioned. It covers the highlights of Oswald’s assassination-related life, some that really happened and others in dream-like uncertainty. Whatever one thinks about Stone’s politics, he created a hard-charging film brimming with colorful characters. Thrill at the opportunity to hear Oswald say, “I emphatically deny these charges,” “I didn’t shoot anybody, no sir,” and of course “I’m just a patsy.” Plus, Stone made good use of cute-as-a-button Quitman native Sissy Spacek as Liz Garrison. And in one easily missed line, Costner, I think, refers to McAllen as a center for gun-running. Ah-ha, I found a South Texas connection to the intrigue!
·Ruby (1992), starring Danny Aiello as Jack Ruby. Willie Garson plays a colorless throwaway role as Oswald. He doesn’t appear until an hour into this sluggish but sporadically entertaining piece of speculation, in which Oswald isn’t even the shooter. Watch for X-Filer and Princeton graduate David Duchovny in a minimal role as “Officer Tippit,” the Dallas cop killed by Oswald after the assassination. Aiello’s Ruby does get some amusing lines. In one scene, he is attacked by and then beats the tar out of the abusive husband of a stripper played by the delicious Sherilyn Fenn (post-Twin Peaks, pre-anorexia). Tough-guy Ruby bellows, “You make that the last time you take out your disappointments in life on Jack Ruby!”
· Two movies bear the proud title The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald. The first appeared in 1964 (I’m sure glad it wasn’t 1962). Director Larry Buchanan explores whether Oswald was mentally ill. The film appears in video with another Buchanan take on Texas terrors, titled The Other Side of Bonnie and Clyde. Specialty house Something Weird Video in Seattle markets this twin bill. The other "The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald" appeared on TV in 1977 and clocks in at an agonizing three hours and 12 minutes in length with John Pleshette as Oswald. This film is impossible to find.
· Love Field (1992) deserves mention not so much for its Oswald presence (just the standard TV scenes to move the plot along) but the way it uses the assassination as a mechanism to propel a Jackie-obsessed Dallas hairdresser played by Michelle Pfeiffer on her odyssey to Washington, D.C., for JFK’s funeral. On her trek she meets Dennis Haysbert (he played Senator and then President David Palmer on the first three seasons of "24") and they eventually engage in some amor prohibido. Nothing explicit gets shown, but Michelle does appear with a lovely post-coital glow on her face.
· The PBS program Frontline did an episode in 1993 called “Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald?” While it’s a documentary, the teacher’s guide on the PBS website suggests that students watch the program and then stage their own trial of Oswald. The guide helpfully notes, “The teacher should allow some latitude in legal tactics. The purpose of this exercise is not to teach courtroom strategies. It is to explore the motivations and life of Lee Harvey Oswald.” The activity conjures up images of high school students hamming it up as Oswald, no doubt defended by Johnny Cochran-wannabees shouting, “If the Mannlicher-Carcano don’t fit, you must acquit!”
By default, Oldman wins the nod as my favorite Oswald, in the acting category. Oldman’s a great actor in a tough role. Challengers will be minimal until, oh, 2060, when some bright-eyed director, now in diapers, decides the 100th anniversary of the assassination will be a swell time to finally film an Oswald biopic.
Beyond the big and little screens, Oswald’s malign presence festers and sloshes. On the printed page and Internet, anything goes. Norman Mailer wrote the non-fiction "Oswald's Tale: An American Mystery," while Don DeLillo wrote the novel "Libra." Hard-boiled crime novelist James Ellroy’s "American Tabloid" explores the down and very dirty side of organized crime and the FBI and much more in the years leading up to November 22, 1963, conspiracies, Oswald and all.
Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman added music to the mix with "Assassins." Oswald joins other killers and contenders, such as John Wilkes Booth, John Hinkley, and Lynette (Squeaky) Fromme, the Charles Manson acolyte who tried to kill President Ford, to do a little song and dance. (Interesting note: Squeaky Fromme is now rotting away in the Carswell Federal Medical Center in Fort Worth; her projected release date is September 5, 2005. Take note, Secret Service!)
Staying on a musical note, Dallas musician Homer Henderson wrote one of the great transgressive songs of all time, “Lee Harvey Was a Friend of Mine,” with the lyrics,
I was born in Dallas in 1952,
Lee Harvey moved across the street on Bentley Avenue,
He used to throw the ball to me when I was just a kid,
They say he shot the president---I don't think he did.
And Lee Harvey was a friend of mine,
He used to take me fishing all the time,
He used to throw the ball to me when I was just a kid,
They say he shot the president but I don't think he did.
Wallow in Oswaldiana for any length of time, the ambiguities and slippery connections start to play games with your head. Shadows and coincidences merge into confounding patterns. For example, Willie Garson of Ruby also played Oswald in episodes of “Quantum Leap” and “Mad TV.” John Pleshette of 1977’s "The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald" also had roles in the 2004 version of "Helter Skelter" about Charles Manson) and the 1998 TV movie "The Day Lincoln was Shot." Coincidences, you say?
The strangest dot-connecting pulls together "JFK," "Love Field," and the terrorist-battling series "24" on Fox. Hang with me here: "JFK" cast Donald Sutherland in a pivotal role, as the government operative who steers Costner’s Jim Garrison toward the conspiracy. Then, Dennis Haysbert plays a lead role in Love Field. Finally, in "24," Haysbert plays President David Palmer, while Donald’s son Keifer Sutherland plays the anti-terrorism operative Jack Bauer, who works for Palmer. Well! What does all that mean?
And now, a confession: the annals of Oswaldian speculation include my own modest, yet dare I say imaginative, contribution. You’re reading it here first, folks, a world exclusive.
In 1994, America followed the sordid case of O.J. Simpson, from the murder of Nicole through the chase of the White Bronco to the arrest, the trial, the acquittal, and the relentless search over the last decade for the real killers. Throughout the case certain facts troubled me. Echoes of past horror bounced off the walls of the courthouse into my brain, where they forced my attention. Unable to resist the compelling force of these echoes, I followed a twisting path of research that left me breathless in its stunning revelations. In the end, I wrote what is truly “my favorite Oswald” article, which I titled, “OJ and Lee Harvey: Stunning Links Revealed!”
To my bitter disappointment and undying suspicion, not a single newspaper or magazine would publish the fruits of my long and lonely hours spent delving into the arcania of two ill-led lives. Fortunately, through the magic of the Internet, I can now share my findings. My shocking thesis: “O.J. Simpson is possessed by the demon spirit of Lee Harvey Oswald!”
My research, which has yet to be refuted, charts connections between Simpson and Oswald that simply cannot be coincidences. Really! While the research and documentation run for thousands of pages (kept is a secret location to protect them from my rivals and enemies), I can provide some key findings:
· Both Oswald and Simpson trained in the deadly arts. Oswald was a Marine with extensive rifle experience. Simpson learned to wield weapons acting in movies such as "Firepower" and "Killer Force."
· In his statement read during his mad dash, Simpson wrote, “First, everyone understand I had nothing to do with Nicole’s murder.” Following Kennedy’s assassination, Oswald also denied involvement. Quoting Dallas police captain Will Fritz, Gerald Posner wrote, “He denied it and said he hadn’t killed the President.” Thus, both Simpson and Oswald said they didn’t do it. Now, you tell me: how likely is that to happen in murder cases?
· Oswald shot Kennedy from the Texas School Book Depository and fled, finally being captured in the Texas Theater. Simpson flew from L.A. International Airport to Chicago’s O’Hare Plaza Hotel. Oswald went from a storage center to an entertainment place. Simpson went from an airport—a storage center for airplanes—to a hotel—where entertaining movies are shown in rooms. Their movements show uncanny similarities.
I could continue, but these examples nail the case down pretty well, the real demonic conspiracy. Now if I could just get somebody to buy my screen play. . . Gary Oldman, baby, have I got a role for you!
Tuesday, March 01, 2005
Date Me, I'm From Texas
Astute marketers know the value of a good name, one that captures an essence, provokes thought, and closes the sale. I grappled with the name issue when, post-divorce in 2003, I plunged into the chill waters of online dating. And what is online dating, other than the direct marketing of a single product (i.e., me, Me, ME)? To effectively brand myself, I needed cute pictures, a compelling profile, and a snappy screen name. With a unique selling proposition, I could tilt the odds in my favor in that split-second when a woman decides whether to respond to an email—or ignore me as one more short, bald, mid-40s guy.
Upon joining the now-defunct JCupid (catering to folks of the Hebraic persuasion), I tinkered with names like Van, VW, and even Tazio, the middle name I loathe. But nothing felt quite right, being either boring or bizarre. I got closer to the mark with Zev, a Hebrew name that sounds like Van and that I use at religious services. Zev worked well enough to remain the name on one profile, and it drew women who thought I was Israeli. Still, Zev lacked a certain Van-ness and emotional resonance.
So I doodled possibilities reflecting my upbringing amidst the balmy breezes and pastoral landscapes of the Rio Grande Valley, Mission, to be exact, Home of the Grapefruit and Tom Landry, first coach of the Dallas Cowboys. Some ideas:
• ValleyGuy: Too obscure, and the U.S. has lots of Valleys, including San Fernando, Red River, and Death.
• TexDude: Sounds lame, and I never think of myself as a “dude.”
• Missionary: This cleverly alludes to my hometown, but it could excessively appeal to Southern Baptists. Also, people might assume Missionary implies a limited erotic repertoire on my part. Come to think of it, that assumption might also get Baptists knocking on my digital door.
Then, clawing up from a reptilian pre-cognitive node in my brain, there emerged “TexasHoldEm.” The more I noodled, the better it sounded. Free associations clustered around it like lobbyists at the Texas Railroad Commission. It tells a short story in three syllables. Soon, TexasHoldEm became the screen name that I use on three sites.
You might ask, why make a big deal out of my Texas provenance? I left Texas for Princeton in 1976 and haven’t lived in the state since the summer of 1977. My returns for high school reunions and family visits are rare. I’ve lived in New York and Connecticut far longer than I lived in Texas. And yet, those early years forever are imprinted in me, through education, values, memories, even my way of talking (I joke that after a few Coronas I sound just like LBJ). I’ve made my peace with that influence—and I’ve discovered that Lone Star roots are a great marketing tactic, endlessly provocative at cocktail parties and singles sites. Reflecting those roots, I note in one profile, “I practice an archaic Southern chivalry; I hold open doors, stand up when a lady enters the room, write thank-you notes, and help you get your coat off (it's good practice.)”
My profiles carry a teasing line, “Now, who can guess the multiple meanings of my screen name?” That shameless come-on indeed attracts women to my fiesta of verbal playfulness. The name and line invite women to casually contact me without stooping to something as crass as, “U R so HOTTT!” A woman I’ll call YettaFromYonkers wrote the most memorable response. Her jaw-dropping first email, in its entirety, read, “Masturbation comes to mind, but far be it from this lady of Yonkers to admit to it . . .”
To which I quickly replied, “Very good! Obviously we think along the same lines. I was thinking about holding somebody else (TexasHoldEm, after all, not TexasHoldIt), but you've certainly got the right idea. Now, the other meanings: I really am from Texas originally, so it's got that connotation. TexasHoldEm is a form of poker, and card playing was very popular in my family when I was young—my mother enjoyed nothing better than playing poker late into the night with her aunts during family vacations to San Antonio.”
Photos on my profile gave visual clues to the meanings, some obvious, others indecipherable without explanation. One photo heavy with Texas atmosphere shows me at a Houston shooting range blasting away at targets with my brother’s Glock pistol. I tell women that I was “getting in touch with my inner NRA.” In another, I clutch two squirming Yorkshire Terrier puppies to my chest, with the caption, “Holding ‘Em.” In a picture from a high school reunion, I’m grinning impishly as I sit next to an adorable and hugely pregnant classmate from Mission; she points one hand at her stomach and another at me. Call that one a vision of chaste affection.
Just as I hope women respond to my pitch, I also notice women who use TX in their screen name. One woman with whom I’ve maintained steady contact, TexDG, says that the name generates curiosity from men. She wrote to me, “Guys from the east coast think Texas is ‘exotic.’” Many figure she supported Bush in the election; as she said, “They think the whole state voted for George—yes, a bunch a yahoos us'ns.”
“Did you get into any heated discussions? Could they get past their notions of Exotic Laurie to who you really are?” I asked.
“No heated discussions. I just don't go there. LOL-funny about that,” she wrote back. “A lot of the guys just want to know what color my undies are!”
Another woman, GoodListenerTX, commented, “I have received more emails with this name than either my first screen name of honestmom or afierytopaz. Most people couldn’t spell fiery let alone the meaning of topaz. (I know it is an obscure fact that topaz comes in other colors than blue.) I would have been a ruby but it would have been too cliché.”
These are women in Texas; plenty of men and women in the state throw TX onto their screen names. My all-time favorite is Texasbabydoll—aye caramba, who could resist that image? The contacts get even more interesting when folks (like me) fly the Texas identity like a battle flag when they live out of state. I particularly like the profile of YehuditTX, a woman I actually know apart from dating sites from our “liberal hawk” political interests. Her profile says, “I am a proud native Texan, currently a Manhattanite (lots more Jews here—including family—but the sunsets are smaller).” Then there’s my occasional correspondent TexanAtHeart, originally from Abilene and now living in the South.
You’ll notice a pattern here. TexDG, GoodListenerTX, and TexanAtHeart all responded to me, Women from the South and Latin America also have the fine grace to pen a polite reply. Some decline further contact, pointing to the distance between us, and I can understand their concerns. Others, however, have become dear and enduring friends. Whatever the future holds—as friends, lovers, or strangers whose yearnings touched for an instant—I can say to all of them zol zein mit mazel,Yiddish for “you should be with luck.”
Their behavior supports Wallach’s Global Theory of Online Dating: the probability of a reply to an initial email or instant-message invitation increases in direct proportion to the distance from Times Square. In sharp contrast to Texettes, women in New York City and even my home territory of Fairfield County, Connecticut almost never write back, even to tell me to go jump in a lake. Granted, they may be overwhelmed by male suitors, with me being just one more irritant living too far from Manhattan, but couldn’t a gal at least take 15 seconds to write a “thanks but no thanks” letter? Shoot me if you’d like, but don’t leave me to limp around neying piteously waiting for a response. A good Yiddish retort for this silent sisterhood might be, "May the only thing anyone ever writes you be a prescription."
The Texas and East Coast sides merge when I meet Texettes in New York. I can always sniff them out using “texdar,” my variation on the concept of “gaydar.” Like their counterparts back home, these urban cowgirls almost always reply to me and we sometimes meet. We’ve had great conversations about hometowns, educations, and bloodlines. One woman even had family members named Michelson, as I do, so we are probably related from way back in the 1860s, when the first Michelsons vamoosed out of Germany to settle in Marshall, Gonzales, and other places.
The Texas identity does carry risks. One on one, women are curious about the place and keep any prejudices in check, but in public somebody always feels compelled to spout off. I once attended a Friday night singles event where an Orthodox rabbi (!) said, “Oh, you’re the guy from that hick town!” Going to a Westport (Conn.) Singles Hiking event, I was trapped in a car with people who assured me that Republicans would never go on a hike because they hate the environment. Later, a man said, “You’re from Texas, so you must really hate Bush.”
I thought, What a pinche pendejo cabron, as we used to say in Hidalgo County. To this perfect specimen of BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome), I replied, “I like what President Bush says and does, and I definitely approve of the War on Terror.” That shut him up pronto.
I am ready to talk when women ask about Texas. My whole brand positioning depends on delivering the goods about that unique upbringing. Without some colorful anecdotes and family stories, I’d get an “all hat, no cattle” reputation. Fortunately, I remember everything, as the readers of Back Word will discover. Some of my favorite informational crunchies:
• “My family has been in Texas for a long, long time. There are little kids down there that are seventh-generation Texans. My great-great-grandfather, Chayim Schwarz, was the first ordained rabbi in Texas. He moved to Hempstead in 1873, from Prussia. He’s the guy on the cover of the book Jewish Stars in Texas, which you can see at www.jewishstarsintexas.com.”
• “I graduated from the same high school that my mother did, exactly 40 years later. Talk about continuity.”
• “When I was a kid, the family story I heard was that relatives passed through San Antonio in the 1870s and they could still see blood on the walls of the Alamo. The spookiest Texas stories always involve the Alamo.”
• “Texas always breeds wacky politics. I had a high school typing teacher who argued that motorcycle-helmet laws were a form of communism. At my 10th reunion in 1986, a classmate was certain that the Sandinistas were going to march up from Nicaragua and invade Harlingen. The wife of another friend used to talk earnestly about the black helicopters.”
• “Growing up in Texas and then moving to the Northeast scrambled my politics. People down there think I’m a commie-hippie-pinko-treehugger. Folks in the Northeast think I’m a crypto-fascist Texas gun nut. The truth is actually in the middle. I’m a free thinker, and that drives people crazy.”
• “Heard of Kinky Friedman? Heck, I interviewed Ol’ Kinky once for a magazine article I wrote about the Lone Star Roadhouse in New York. We had a real nice visit, too.”
• “A college roommate thought my mother sounded exactly like Lady Bird Johnson.”
After two years, what does it all mean? I’m still unattached, and still flogging TexasHoldEm© brand boyfriend in the marketplace of romance. I now know that a thin and erasable line separates amor from amoral. I have gained some great friends, slurped enough Starbucks coffee on first dates to float the Battleship Texas at San Jacinto, collected passport stamps on jaunts to Canada and Brazil, endured a few sleepless nights staring at my bedroom ceiling, and was given a kabbalistic key chain from Israel, a gift wrapped in bittersweet memories (don’t ask why). I’ve learned the gut meaning of B.B. King’s song “There Must Be a Better World Somewhere” with the lyric, “Every woman's got a license to break my heart, every love affair is over before it gets a chance to start.” What would I do differently? Almost nothing.
However, like a good salesman, I do fine-tune my message based on market feedback and experience. Sometimes I’ll even micro-market to a target demographic of one. Musing on my “perfect first date,” I wrote in a profile, “If we're really clicking, then we can share glasses of Agavot, my favorite kosher tequila, and that can give the encounter a special glow and, well, momentum.” Tequila Agavot is, in fact, a product that mi amiga in Mexico, Ana Gilda, has developed. As her unofficial jefe de communicacions, I’ve helped Ana Gilda revise her marketing and media plans, and that includes talking up Agavot on websites . . .
The biggest refinement? I’m moving away from TexasHoldEm. Even the best marketing can benefit from a fresh approach, so I tested a new name on MSN chat. As with TexasHoldEm, it emerged full blown from my churning synapses: El Van Van. It intrigued chat buddies, so the name has potential as a conversation starter. I like El Van Van because it puts a bright spin on my prosaic first name. On a less obvious level, it reflects my evolving interests in languages and music. Now, who can decipher some of its other meanings?
Upon joining the now-defunct JCupid (catering to folks of the Hebraic persuasion), I tinkered with names like Van, VW, and even Tazio, the middle name I loathe. But nothing felt quite right, being either boring or bizarre. I got closer to the mark with Zev, a Hebrew name that sounds like Van and that I use at religious services. Zev worked well enough to remain the name on one profile, and it drew women who thought I was Israeli. Still, Zev lacked a certain Van-ness and emotional resonance.
So I doodled possibilities reflecting my upbringing amidst the balmy breezes and pastoral landscapes of the Rio Grande Valley, Mission, to be exact, Home of the Grapefruit and Tom Landry, first coach of the Dallas Cowboys. Some ideas:
• ValleyGuy: Too obscure, and the U.S. has lots of Valleys, including San Fernando, Red River, and Death.
• TexDude: Sounds lame, and I never think of myself as a “dude.”
• Missionary: This cleverly alludes to my hometown, but it could excessively appeal to Southern Baptists. Also, people might assume Missionary implies a limited erotic repertoire on my part. Come to think of it, that assumption might also get Baptists knocking on my digital door.
Then, clawing up from a reptilian pre-cognitive node in my brain, there emerged “TexasHoldEm.” The more I noodled, the better it sounded. Free associations clustered around it like lobbyists at the Texas Railroad Commission. It tells a short story in three syllables. Soon, TexasHoldEm became the screen name that I use on three sites.
You might ask, why make a big deal out of my Texas provenance? I left Texas for Princeton in 1976 and haven’t lived in the state since the summer of 1977. My returns for high school reunions and family visits are rare. I’ve lived in New York and Connecticut far longer than I lived in Texas. And yet, those early years forever are imprinted in me, through education, values, memories, even my way of talking (I joke that after a few Coronas I sound just like LBJ). I’ve made my peace with that influence—and I’ve discovered that Lone Star roots are a great marketing tactic, endlessly provocative at cocktail parties and singles sites. Reflecting those roots, I note in one profile, “I practice an archaic Southern chivalry; I hold open doors, stand up when a lady enters the room, write thank-you notes, and help you get your coat off (it's good practice.)”
My profiles carry a teasing line, “Now, who can guess the multiple meanings of my screen name?” That shameless come-on indeed attracts women to my fiesta of verbal playfulness. The name and line invite women to casually contact me without stooping to something as crass as, “U R so HOTTT!” A woman I’ll call YettaFromYonkers wrote the most memorable response. Her jaw-dropping first email, in its entirety, read, “Masturbation comes to mind, but far be it from this lady of Yonkers to admit to it . . .”
To which I quickly replied, “Very good! Obviously we think along the same lines. I was thinking about holding somebody else (TexasHoldEm, after all, not TexasHoldIt), but you've certainly got the right idea. Now, the other meanings: I really am from Texas originally, so it's got that connotation. TexasHoldEm is a form of poker, and card playing was very popular in my family when I was young—my mother enjoyed nothing better than playing poker late into the night with her aunts during family vacations to San Antonio.”
Photos on my profile gave visual clues to the meanings, some obvious, others indecipherable without explanation. One photo heavy with Texas atmosphere shows me at a Houston shooting range blasting away at targets with my brother’s Glock pistol. I tell women that I was “getting in touch with my inner NRA.” In another, I clutch two squirming Yorkshire Terrier puppies to my chest, with the caption, “Holding ‘Em.” In a picture from a high school reunion, I’m grinning impishly as I sit next to an adorable and hugely pregnant classmate from Mission; she points one hand at her stomach and another at me. Call that one a vision of chaste affection.
Just as I hope women respond to my pitch, I also notice women who use TX in their screen name. One woman with whom I’ve maintained steady contact, TexDG, says that the name generates curiosity from men. She wrote to me, “Guys from the east coast think Texas is ‘exotic.’” Many figure she supported Bush in the election; as she said, “They think the whole state voted for George—yes, a bunch a yahoos us'ns.”
“Did you get into any heated discussions? Could they get past their notions of Exotic Laurie to who you really are?” I asked.
“No heated discussions. I just don't go there. LOL-funny about that,” she wrote back. “A lot of the guys just want to know what color my undies are!”
Another woman, GoodListenerTX, commented, “I have received more emails with this name than either my first screen name of honestmom or afierytopaz. Most people couldn’t spell fiery let alone the meaning of topaz. (I know it is an obscure fact that topaz comes in other colors than blue.) I would have been a ruby but it would have been too cliché.”
These are women in Texas; plenty of men and women in the state throw TX onto their screen names. My all-time favorite is Texasbabydoll—aye caramba, who could resist that image? The contacts get even more interesting when folks (like me) fly the Texas identity like a battle flag when they live out of state. I particularly like the profile of YehuditTX, a woman I actually know apart from dating sites from our “liberal hawk” political interests. Her profile says, “I am a proud native Texan, currently a Manhattanite (lots more Jews here—including family—but the sunsets are smaller).” Then there’s my occasional correspondent TexanAtHeart, originally from Abilene and now living in the South.
You’ll notice a pattern here. TexDG, GoodListenerTX, and TexanAtHeart all responded to me, Women from the South and Latin America also have the fine grace to pen a polite reply. Some decline further contact, pointing to the distance between us, and I can understand their concerns. Others, however, have become dear and enduring friends. Whatever the future holds—as friends, lovers, or strangers whose yearnings touched for an instant—I can say to all of them zol zein mit mazel,Yiddish for “you should be with luck.”
Their behavior supports Wallach’s Global Theory of Online Dating: the probability of a reply to an initial email or instant-message invitation increases in direct proportion to the distance from Times Square. In sharp contrast to Texettes, women in New York City and even my home territory of Fairfield County, Connecticut almost never write back, even to tell me to go jump in a lake. Granted, they may be overwhelmed by male suitors, with me being just one more irritant living too far from Manhattan, but couldn’t a gal at least take 15 seconds to write a “thanks but no thanks” letter? Shoot me if you’d like, but don’t leave me to limp around neying piteously waiting for a response. A good Yiddish retort for this silent sisterhood might be, "May the only thing anyone ever writes you be a prescription."
The Texas and East Coast sides merge when I meet Texettes in New York. I can always sniff them out using “texdar,” my variation on the concept of “gaydar.” Like their counterparts back home, these urban cowgirls almost always reply to me and we sometimes meet. We’ve had great conversations about hometowns, educations, and bloodlines. One woman even had family members named Michelson, as I do, so we are probably related from way back in the 1860s, when the first Michelsons vamoosed out of Germany to settle in Marshall, Gonzales, and other places.
The Texas identity does carry risks. One on one, women are curious about the place and keep any prejudices in check, but in public somebody always feels compelled to spout off. I once attended a Friday night singles event where an Orthodox rabbi (!) said, “Oh, you’re the guy from that hick town!” Going to a Westport (Conn.) Singles Hiking event, I was trapped in a car with people who assured me that Republicans would never go on a hike because they hate the environment. Later, a man said, “You’re from Texas, so you must really hate Bush.”
I thought, What a pinche pendejo cabron, as we used to say in Hidalgo County. To this perfect specimen of BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome), I replied, “I like what President Bush says and does, and I definitely approve of the War on Terror.” That shut him up pronto.
I am ready to talk when women ask about Texas. My whole brand positioning depends on delivering the goods about that unique upbringing. Without some colorful anecdotes and family stories, I’d get an “all hat, no cattle” reputation. Fortunately, I remember everything, as the readers of Back Word will discover. Some of my favorite informational crunchies:
• “My family has been in Texas for a long, long time. There are little kids down there that are seventh-generation Texans. My great-great-grandfather, Chayim Schwarz, was the first ordained rabbi in Texas. He moved to Hempstead in 1873, from Prussia. He’s the guy on the cover of the book Jewish Stars in Texas, which you can see at www.jewishstarsintexas.com.”
• “I graduated from the same high school that my mother did, exactly 40 years later. Talk about continuity.”
• “When I was a kid, the family story I heard was that relatives passed through San Antonio in the 1870s and they could still see blood on the walls of the Alamo. The spookiest Texas stories always involve the Alamo.”
• “Texas always breeds wacky politics. I had a high school typing teacher who argued that motorcycle-helmet laws were a form of communism. At my 10th reunion in 1986, a classmate was certain that the Sandinistas were going to march up from Nicaragua and invade Harlingen. The wife of another friend used to talk earnestly about the black helicopters.”
• “Growing up in Texas and then moving to the Northeast scrambled my politics. People down there think I’m a commie-hippie-pinko-treehugger. Folks in the Northeast think I’m a crypto-fascist Texas gun nut. The truth is actually in the middle. I’m a free thinker, and that drives people crazy.”
• “Heard of Kinky Friedman? Heck, I interviewed Ol’ Kinky once for a magazine article I wrote about the Lone Star Roadhouse in New York. We had a real nice visit, too.”
• “A college roommate thought my mother sounded exactly like Lady Bird Johnson.”
After two years, what does it all mean? I’m still unattached, and still flogging TexasHoldEm© brand boyfriend in the marketplace of romance. I now know that a thin and erasable line separates amor from amoral. I have gained some great friends, slurped enough Starbucks coffee on first dates to float the Battleship Texas at San Jacinto, collected passport stamps on jaunts to Canada and Brazil, endured a few sleepless nights staring at my bedroom ceiling, and was given a kabbalistic key chain from Israel, a gift wrapped in bittersweet memories (don’t ask why). I’ve learned the gut meaning of B.B. King’s song “There Must Be a Better World Somewhere” with the lyric, “Every woman's got a license to break my heart, every love affair is over before it gets a chance to start.” What would I do differently? Almost nothing.
However, like a good salesman, I do fine-tune my message based on market feedback and experience. Sometimes I’ll even micro-market to a target demographic of one. Musing on my “perfect first date,” I wrote in a profile, “If we're really clicking, then we can share glasses of Agavot, my favorite kosher tequila, and that can give the encounter a special glow and, well, momentum.” Tequila Agavot is, in fact, a product that mi amiga in Mexico, Ana Gilda, has developed. As her unofficial jefe de communicacions, I’ve helped Ana Gilda revise her marketing and media plans, and that includes talking up Agavot on websites . . .
The biggest refinement? I’m moving away from TexasHoldEm. Even the best marketing can benefit from a fresh approach, so I tested a new name on MSN chat. As with TexasHoldEm, it emerged full blown from my churning synapses: El Van Van. It intrigued chat buddies, so the name has potential as a conversation starter. I like El Van Van because it puts a bright spin on my prosaic first name. On a less obvious level, it reflects my evolving interests in languages and music. Now, who can decipher some of its other meanings?
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
My Life as a Reformed Gringo
This kicked off my series of essays on The Back Word, a website of writing about Texas. The folk who ran it lost interest and took down all the pages. Fortunately, I have all the Word files, and this is the first of four published there:
For most parents, a child's exposure to a foreign language is mildly interesting. But for me, the news that my son Sam started studying Spanish this fall in the fifth grade stirs strong emotions. Growing up in the 1960s and 1970s as part of the gringo minority in the town of Mission, in deep South Texas-- pop. 13,000, Spanish wasn't just a language. It marked the fault line that divided two cultures, Anglo and Hispanic.
Young gringos learned early that we could treat the Spanish language--and Hispanic culture--with indifference, if not outright hostility. When I was in the third grade, the teacher asked a new student, Frank, to read in the front of the class. A migrant or perhaps a new arrival from Mexico, Frank didn't speak English. He stood there utterly baffled, and began to cry. Almost 40 years later, I still remember Frank's humiliation as a perfect symbol of gringo arrogance.
Many gringo (that is, Anglo) adults along the border would shrug at the Franks of the world and declare, "Hey, this is the United States, suck it up and learn English." Compassion for or even curiosity about the majority of our neighbors ranked low among gringos' virtues. Instead, I grew up in an atmosphere of condescension toward Hispanics and Mexico. Those who thought otherwise seemed subversive in the suspicious culture of Texas at that time.
I thought and acted like a typical gringo. Although the Rio Grande Valley incubated Tex-Mex, one of the great styles of regional music, I plugged my ears to the sounds around me in favor of Grand Funk Railroad, Yes, and Deep Purple. Despite the permanent opportunity for immersion learning, I had no interest in Spanish, and neither did my late mother, a native Texan of German-Jewish stock who glowered when store clerks misread her dark looks and spoke to her in Spanish.
In high school, gringos joked that Spanish ALM (audio-lingual method) really stood for "Anglos Learning Mexican." Yearbook photos for Mission High School's Pan American Club showed a dwindling number of gringo members between 1972 and 1976. We derided nearby Pan American College as "Tamale Tech."
What did we think about Mexico itself, visible across the Rio Grande after a short drive down South Conway Avenue? The country was terra incognita, a mysterious and terrifying place that our parents warned us about (singer Kinky Friedman captured the paranoia in his song "Asshole from El Paso," with the lyric, "We keep our kids away from Mexico."). Drugs, violence, federales, poverty, disorder, people not like us dominated the skyline of our ignorance. We learned absolutely nothing about Mexico that didn't involve the Alamo and the Texas Revolution. Likewise, teachers spared our young minds any inkling of the bloody early history of the Valley, replete with land grabs and summary executions of Mexicans by the Texas Rangers. However, kids did enjoy piñatas at birthday parties.
Until I vacationed in Mexico City and Morelia in my mid-30s, I never ventured more than 200 yards into Mexico. As a senior in high school, an English teacher and his wife took a date and me across the river to Reynosa. As I wrote in my journal on May 16, 1976: "Hot, nervous, but different. We ate at Sam's and later had drinks (Coke for me thank you) in the Imperial and buzzed through several curio shops."
Did any aspect of Mexico capture gringos' interest and appreciation? Well, yes: the red-light districts. One conversation with two local luminaries on the attractions of Reynosa seemed so compelling that I recorded the sordid details in my journal soon after I graduated from high school. From June 19, 1976 (names and expletives deleted):
"How's Boystown these days?" Willie asked.
Waylon said the action was OK. Willie took something of a dim view of the area, but Waylon sounded quite enthusiastic.
"Wow! One of the places really has nice a atmosphere with columns, plants, chandeliers," he informed us.
"Sounds more like a bank," I said.
"Well, if you want a piece of ass you can get it cheaper (and cleaner) here, but I go for the atmosphere," Waylon said.
"Once," he added, "I found one who knew my older brother real well."
"When I first moved down here," Willie said, "I'd go down there and stay for hours just talking to the girls and looking at the places."
The topic of Nuevo Laredo whorehouses rose in the conversation.
"Well some guys tell me, 'Them Laredo whores is the best around,' " Willie joked in a mock thick Texas accent. "And I tell them, 'Well, hell, I'm going there this afternoon, so I'll be sure to check 'em out.' "
"You'd be surprised at what goes on in this town," Waylon told me. I can imagine.
And yet in an awkward, unconscious way I edged away from gringoisimo. Call it my mild form of teenage rebellion. Whatever her antipathy to Spanish, my mother's life philosophy--"Be friends with everybody"--fostered an accepting attitude. Fragments of the Hispanic world lodged in my memory, from a young age. I remember thumbing through comic-book novelas¸ or graphic soap operas, when my mother visited her hairdresser in South Mission, on the other side of the railroad tracks. I read Richard Vasquez's powerful novel Chicano when I was 13. Before long, I started listening to music groups that I still enjoy, such as Malo (led by Jorge Santana, Carlos's brother) and El Chicano, an L.A. band that performed dreamily romantic songs. To aggravate my younger brother after we started driving, I tuned the AM radio in our family's Chevy Impala to a Mexican music station, prompting a yelp of disdain whenever he turned on the car.
I must admit that for years I mooned over Hispanic girls, with names like Dalia, Delia, Hilda, Olalla, and Maria Luisa. Especially Luisa, with whom I shared a love of writing. With a beautiful choir-trained voice, straight black hair tumbling to her waist and a calm face that fit my image of an Aztec princess, Luisa won this gringo's heart during my senior year in high school. We even stole moments to hold hands in the guidance counselor's office. I asked her to the favorites dance, but her father did not want a gringo to take her. So I never did slow-dance to Chicago's "Color My World" with Luisa, my enchanting Aztec princess.
As an adult, I've tried to fill in the blank spaces of my knowledge, what I refused to learn or notice as a youth. I've studied Spanish enough that I can almost speak it as well as Ernest Borgnine's character in The Wild Bunch. Mi amiga querida buena (myvery dear friend) in Mexico, Ana Gilda, encourages me to chat with her online in Spanish, and I'm improving. I follow the ups and downs of Vicente Fox's administration and other Latin news, to the extent I can in U.S. newspapers. I became a big fan of telenovelas, with their easy-to-follow dialogue such as "Idiota!" and "Mi hermano es muerto! (my brother is dead)." I smiled while watching the movie Traffic when I realized characters spoke Spanish with Mexican accents, which I could distinguish from the Puerto Rican and Dominican accents I hear in New York.
I like the accordion-driven norteño music of groups like Los Tigres del Norte, which takes me straight back to Hidalgo County. (In an example of what goes around comes around, a Los Tigres song, "El Gringo y El Mexicano," refers to McAllen, Texas, the city next to Mission. I've teased Ana Gilda that I want to write a story about us called "El Gringo y La Mexicana").
Why does any of this matter? A middle-aged man reconsiders his roots and starts digging in the loam. He likes what he finds. Call it a story about one man's continuing engagement with a part of the world he once considered alien and irrelevant, even threatening. Now, I can appreciate another society and language that, by reason of where I lived, remains part of who I am.
News from Latin America no longer comes from the dark side of the moon (that is, beyond the south bank of the Rio Grande) but from distinct places that matter to me. In other words, I have enlarged my world. When I see Mexican and Central American men waiting on street corners in the Northeast looking for day work, they are no longer a faceless "them," but men with a language, a history, a place.
In these days, a big world view matters. America's efforts to remake the Middle East may suffer from the gringo attitude I know so well: "We know what's best for you, just watch and do things our way, and learn our language." Is that an effective way to treat a neighbor, or to reform a wounded country? Certainly I thought so at one time. Just ask my friend Velma, she knows.
Back at Mission High School, I once told her that the U.S. should just "take over" Mexico and that would fix the problems there in a jiffy. Rightly incensed, she recalled this exchange many years later. I forgot about it (a microcosm of U.S.-Latin relations?) and could only reply, "Oh, I said that?" Back then, ignorance supported blissful assurance. These days, I think differently. Velma and I even call each other primo and prima--cousins.
At the same time, I am who I am. Reformed, but not neutered. I emotionally connect with other gringos on the same wavelength. Robert Earl Keen's sweetly melancholy song "Gringo Honeymoon" speaks to me with its sense of wandering between two worlds; the stanzas include,
We took a rowboat 'cross the Rio Grande
Captain Pablo was our guide
For two dollars in a weathered hand
He rowed us to the other side.
We were standin' on a mountain top
Where the cactus flowers grow
I was wishin' that the world would stop
When you said we'd better go
ZZ Top's "Mescalero" album includes two wonderful songs primarily in Spanish, with what I now term an ASS sound: "Anglos Speaking Spanish." I know, because that's what I sound like (again, think of Ernest Borgnine).
To my delight, even my Borgninesque Spanish makes sense. Not long ago, while I waited at JFK airport to board a flight to El Salvador, I noticed a man who desperately needed to make a phone call. However, the security guards would not let him leave the area to find a pay phone. Speaking only Spanish, the man's anxiety became more obvious by the minute. As I watched, a famous Jewish teaching kicked in: "If I am for myself only, what am I? And if not now, when?" Rabbi Hillel was right: I thought, the time to act is now. I told the guards the Salvadoreño could call on my cell phone. They looked surprised, but agreed to my idea.
"Excusame, señor," I said, catching his attention, "Usted necesita usar telephone? Llame en los Estados Unidos?" I held out my cell phone. He gratefully took it, and I showed him how to dial. He made the call, then returned the phone to me as the line crept ahead. No longer strangers, the man and I shared a moment.
I'll tell Sam this story. He will learn at a young age, as I did not, that language skills and an open attitude can make the world a friendlier place. Sam will be a reformed gringo from the beginning.
For most parents, a child's exposure to a foreign language is mildly interesting. But for me, the news that my son Sam started studying Spanish this fall in the fifth grade stirs strong emotions. Growing up in the 1960s and 1970s as part of the gringo minority in the town of Mission, in deep South Texas-- pop. 13,000, Spanish wasn't just a language. It marked the fault line that divided two cultures, Anglo and Hispanic.
Young gringos learned early that we could treat the Spanish language--and Hispanic culture--with indifference, if not outright hostility. When I was in the third grade, the teacher asked a new student, Frank, to read in the front of the class. A migrant or perhaps a new arrival from Mexico, Frank didn't speak English. He stood there utterly baffled, and began to cry. Almost 40 years later, I still remember Frank's humiliation as a perfect symbol of gringo arrogance.
Many gringo (that is, Anglo) adults along the border would shrug at the Franks of the world and declare, "Hey, this is the United States, suck it up and learn English." Compassion for or even curiosity about the majority of our neighbors ranked low among gringos' virtues. Instead, I grew up in an atmosphere of condescension toward Hispanics and Mexico. Those who thought otherwise seemed subversive in the suspicious culture of Texas at that time.
I thought and acted like a typical gringo. Although the Rio Grande Valley incubated Tex-Mex, one of the great styles of regional music, I plugged my ears to the sounds around me in favor of Grand Funk Railroad, Yes, and Deep Purple. Despite the permanent opportunity for immersion learning, I had no interest in Spanish, and neither did my late mother, a native Texan of German-Jewish stock who glowered when store clerks misread her dark looks and spoke to her in Spanish.
In high school, gringos joked that Spanish ALM (audio-lingual method) really stood for "Anglos Learning Mexican." Yearbook photos for Mission High School's Pan American Club showed a dwindling number of gringo members between 1972 and 1976. We derided nearby Pan American College as "Tamale Tech."
What did we think about Mexico itself, visible across the Rio Grande after a short drive down South Conway Avenue? The country was terra incognita, a mysterious and terrifying place that our parents warned us about (singer Kinky Friedman captured the paranoia in his song "Asshole from El Paso," with the lyric, "We keep our kids away from Mexico."). Drugs, violence, federales, poverty, disorder, people not like us dominated the skyline of our ignorance. We learned absolutely nothing about Mexico that didn't involve the Alamo and the Texas Revolution. Likewise, teachers spared our young minds any inkling of the bloody early history of the Valley, replete with land grabs and summary executions of Mexicans by the Texas Rangers. However, kids did enjoy piñatas at birthday parties.
Until I vacationed in Mexico City and Morelia in my mid-30s, I never ventured more than 200 yards into Mexico. As a senior in high school, an English teacher and his wife took a date and me across the river to Reynosa. As I wrote in my journal on May 16, 1976: "Hot, nervous, but different. We ate at Sam's and later had drinks (Coke for me thank you) in the Imperial and buzzed through several curio shops."
Did any aspect of Mexico capture gringos' interest and appreciation? Well, yes: the red-light districts. One conversation with two local luminaries on the attractions of Reynosa seemed so compelling that I recorded the sordid details in my journal soon after I graduated from high school. From June 19, 1976 (names and expletives deleted):
"How's Boystown these days?" Willie asked.
Waylon said the action was OK. Willie took something of a dim view of the area, but Waylon sounded quite enthusiastic.
"Wow! One of the places really has nice a atmosphere with columns, plants, chandeliers," he informed us.
"Sounds more like a bank," I said.
"Well, if you want a piece of ass you can get it cheaper (and cleaner) here, but I go for the atmosphere," Waylon said.
"Once," he added, "I found one who knew my older brother real well."
"When I first moved down here," Willie said, "I'd go down there and stay for hours just talking to the girls and looking at the places."
The topic of Nuevo Laredo whorehouses rose in the conversation.
"Well some guys tell me, 'Them Laredo whores is the best around,' " Willie joked in a mock thick Texas accent. "And I tell them, 'Well, hell, I'm going there this afternoon, so I'll be sure to check 'em out.' "
"You'd be surprised at what goes on in this town," Waylon told me. I can imagine.
And yet in an awkward, unconscious way I edged away from gringoisimo. Call it my mild form of teenage rebellion. Whatever her antipathy to Spanish, my mother's life philosophy--"Be friends with everybody"--fostered an accepting attitude. Fragments of the Hispanic world lodged in my memory, from a young age. I remember thumbing through comic-book novelas¸ or graphic soap operas, when my mother visited her hairdresser in South Mission, on the other side of the railroad tracks. I read Richard Vasquez's powerful novel Chicano when I was 13. Before long, I started listening to music groups that I still enjoy, such as Malo (led by Jorge Santana, Carlos's brother) and El Chicano, an L.A. band that performed dreamily romantic songs. To aggravate my younger brother after we started driving, I tuned the AM radio in our family's Chevy Impala to a Mexican music station, prompting a yelp of disdain whenever he turned on the car.
I must admit that for years I mooned over Hispanic girls, with names like Dalia, Delia, Hilda, Olalla, and Maria Luisa. Especially Luisa, with whom I shared a love of writing. With a beautiful choir-trained voice, straight black hair tumbling to her waist and a calm face that fit my image of an Aztec princess, Luisa won this gringo's heart during my senior year in high school. We even stole moments to hold hands in the guidance counselor's office. I asked her to the favorites dance, but her father did not want a gringo to take her. So I never did slow-dance to Chicago's "Color My World" with Luisa, my enchanting Aztec princess.
As an adult, I've tried to fill in the blank spaces of my knowledge, what I refused to learn or notice as a youth. I've studied Spanish enough that I can almost speak it as well as Ernest Borgnine's character in The Wild Bunch. Mi amiga querida buena (myvery dear friend) in Mexico, Ana Gilda, encourages me to chat with her online in Spanish, and I'm improving. I follow the ups and downs of Vicente Fox's administration and other Latin news, to the extent I can in U.S. newspapers. I became a big fan of telenovelas, with their easy-to-follow dialogue such as "Idiota!" and "Mi hermano es muerto! (my brother is dead)." I smiled while watching the movie Traffic when I realized characters spoke Spanish with Mexican accents, which I could distinguish from the Puerto Rican and Dominican accents I hear in New York.
I like the accordion-driven norteño music of groups like Los Tigres del Norte, which takes me straight back to Hidalgo County. (In an example of what goes around comes around, a Los Tigres song, "El Gringo y El Mexicano," refers to McAllen, Texas, the city next to Mission. I've teased Ana Gilda that I want to write a story about us called "El Gringo y La Mexicana").
Why does any of this matter? A middle-aged man reconsiders his roots and starts digging in the loam. He likes what he finds. Call it a story about one man's continuing engagement with a part of the world he once considered alien and irrelevant, even threatening. Now, I can appreciate another society and language that, by reason of where I lived, remains part of who I am.
News from Latin America no longer comes from the dark side of the moon (that is, beyond the south bank of the Rio Grande) but from distinct places that matter to me. In other words, I have enlarged my world. When I see Mexican and Central American men waiting on street corners in the Northeast looking for day work, they are no longer a faceless "them," but men with a language, a history, a place.
In these days, a big world view matters. America's efforts to remake the Middle East may suffer from the gringo attitude I know so well: "We know what's best for you, just watch and do things our way, and learn our language." Is that an effective way to treat a neighbor, or to reform a wounded country? Certainly I thought so at one time. Just ask my friend Velma, she knows.
Back at Mission High School, I once told her that the U.S. should just "take over" Mexico and that would fix the problems there in a jiffy. Rightly incensed, she recalled this exchange many years later. I forgot about it (a microcosm of U.S.-Latin relations?) and could only reply, "Oh, I said that?" Back then, ignorance supported blissful assurance. These days, I think differently. Velma and I even call each other primo and prima--cousins.
At the same time, I am who I am. Reformed, but not neutered. I emotionally connect with other gringos on the same wavelength. Robert Earl Keen's sweetly melancholy song "Gringo Honeymoon" speaks to me with its sense of wandering between two worlds; the stanzas include,
We took a rowboat 'cross the Rio Grande
Captain Pablo was our guide
For two dollars in a weathered hand
He rowed us to the other side.
We were standin' on a mountain top
Where the cactus flowers grow
I was wishin' that the world would stop
When you said we'd better go
ZZ Top's "Mescalero" album includes two wonderful songs primarily in Spanish, with what I now term an ASS sound: "Anglos Speaking Spanish." I know, because that's what I sound like (again, think of Ernest Borgnine).
To my delight, even my Borgninesque Spanish makes sense. Not long ago, while I waited at JFK airport to board a flight to El Salvador, I noticed a man who desperately needed to make a phone call. However, the security guards would not let him leave the area to find a pay phone. Speaking only Spanish, the man's anxiety became more obvious by the minute. As I watched, a famous Jewish teaching kicked in: "If I am for myself only, what am I? And if not now, when?" Rabbi Hillel was right: I thought, the time to act is now. I told the guards the Salvadoreño could call on my cell phone. They looked surprised, but agreed to my idea.
"Excusame, señor," I said, catching his attention, "Usted necesita usar telephone? Llame en los Estados Unidos?" I held out my cell phone. He gratefully took it, and I showed him how to dial. He made the call, then returned the phone to me as the line crept ahead. No longer strangers, the man and I shared a moment.
I'll tell Sam this story. He will learn at a young age, as I did not, that language skills and an open attitude can make the world a friendlier place. Sam will be a reformed gringo from the beginning.
Wednesday, September 01, 2004
In the Belly of the Anti-War Beast: NYC 8-29-2004
(unpublished essay)
On August 29, hundreds of thousands of people gathered to denounce the war in Iraq, shriek about Bushitler and exercise their cherished First Amendment right to free speech. On August 29, I also went to New York to express my right to free speech, as a member of the New York chapter of the group Protest Warrior (http://www.protestwarrior.com/). I learned, however, that among some members of the Left, free speech only applies to their speech.
Some background: since early 2003, Protest Warrior has confronted leftists with witty subversions of their own slogans and truisms. The group’s very first sign set the tone: “Except for ending slavery, fascism, nazism and communism, war has never solved anything.” Through counter-demonstrations and peaceful infiltrations of anti-war marches, PW drives leftists batty with its brand of daring tactics and intellectually challenging posters (another favorite shows a woman in a head-to-toe “burkha” with a male fist holding a chain tight around her neck. The poster says, “Protect Islamic property rights against western imperialism! Say no to war!” With 7,000 members in chapters nationwide, the group is getting traction as an alternative voice in the marketplace of protest on matters of war and peace. And some people despise that kind of intellectual diversity.
Politically, I’ve always been a maverick. Childhood friends in Texas think I’m a commie hippie pinko tree-hugger. East Coast friends suspect I’m a crypto-fascist Texas gun nut. The reality lies somewhere in the middle. PW tracked my foreign-policy views, and so August 29’s “Operation Liberty Rising” marked a great chance to express a real maverick position in the belly of the anti-war beast. I had read reports on the unhinged reactions of leftists to PW, but now I could see for myself.
The night before, I carefully selected my fashion statement for the day. I considered, then rejected, my “Jdate” t-shirt, figuring it looked a bit too picnicky for the political occasion. I settled on the delightfully confrontational “These colors don’t run” t-shirt from my brother in Houston (I got it when took me to a Texas shooting range so I could, as I joke, “get in touch with my inner NRA”). The black shirt bears an American flag and also says “Jim Pruett’s Guns & Ammo: Your anti-terrorist headquarters.”
About 150 of us met Sunday morning for orientation, which stressed team formation and safety tactics. The leaders knew from past actions that leftists can become violent, so we had to prepare ourselves for a fast response. The group itself was, to use an overloaded term, “diverse,” with men, women, gays, straights, Jews, Christians, veterans, students, mild-mannered graybeards like me, and some ponytailed bad-asses who would be formidable in a tough situation. The zesty new group Communists for Kerry (http://www.communistsforkerry.com/) prepared for its march with us.
Before we stepped off, a half-dozen of us dashed down 8th Avenue for an impromptu mini-demo in front of the storefront office of the New York Civil Liberties Union. The group had made lots of noise about protecting the right to protest, so we decided to see how the NYCLU might respond to a protest outside its own hive. Own sign collection include “The ACLU: We don’t hate religion, we just hate Christianity!” PWs lined up in front of the office while I snapped photos. The response was mild rather than screechy, as one man came out to ask if we knew our rights as protestors, and to hand us brochures on the topic. Another volunteer posed with the group for a picture. So, bravo for the NYCLU members for not screaming we were fascist Zionist racist Halliburton pigs who did not support the Kyoto protocols.
With a police escort, PW began walking to 24th Street, where we would slip into the main march in groups of 15, to get maximum visibility for our signs. As we passed the MSNBC tent in Herald Square, we chanted, "Chris Matthews sucks!" While waiting to filter into the march, we gave demonstrators an aural jolt, disrupting their utopia with chants of "WE GAVE PEACE A CHANCE, WE GOT 9-11!” and "JOHN EFFIN’ KERRY, NO EFFIN’ WAY!" And as always, the PW signs often stopped them cold.
Finally we entered the parade route, swallowed by the great snaking line. For a while we marched in relative peace. A reporter from the Village Voice interviewed me, and I probably confused him by saying I had voted for Nader in 2000 and that I had attended pro-choice rallies. Asked if I was concerned about violence, I naively said that I hoped the demonstrators would show respect for PW’s First Amendment rights, which we were asserting in a flamboyant but non-hostile way.
Before long, the catcalls and screeching against us began. I had no problem with obscene chants, name calling, finger pointing, Jews screaming at the Orthodox members of my group—that's fair game. It wasn’t pretty, but it was free speech (heck, if the Jews for Jesus did that at a Salute to Israel parade, I’d act the same way). Yes, PW was provocative, even annoying, but we act strictly to stimulate debate and we did absolutely nothing to interfere with anybody’s right to protest. And we were outnumbered 1000-to-1, a batch of harmless fuzzballs, as Rush Limbaugh might say.
But many of the marchers found us so threatening, so disruptive, so unconventional that they had only one option: TO SILENCE US. Even though most of us did not respond to their taunts and simply shouldered along, the venomous protestors quickly escalated to breaking our signs' cardboard poles, and trying to tear the signs (which were laminated to prevent damage), and physical assault. Other than a single call of "Leftists, be cool," I heard nothing but screaming and threats. A bullhorn was smashed, people were spit on. For a video the captures the menace of the moment, go to http://jasonn.com/~blindpig/ While some PWs got into shoving matches, I only had my sign’s pole bent, with some minor rips in the sign itself. But the narcissistic violence that festers in the heart of many leftists became screamingly obvious, as it does at most PW events. They can’t handle opposition.
Our security plan kicked into gear. We moved to the east side of 7th Avenue and walked on the sidewalk, signs down, until we stood behind police protection on W. 28th Street. Groups called each other to check out how they were doing, and we waited, per police orders, until the march neared its end.
We patched our signs and cooled off at our protected pod, with several police officers between us and the marchers. Even away from the river of bodies, we still had impact. As the parade thinned, more people walked down W. 28th Street and saw our signs. Now we had the advantage of numbers, with the police nearby, so nobody got physical, but we still got the message across and had some heated, but civil, discussions, the First Amendment in action. We did more chants, and several PWs stood at attention as the marchers carried caskets representing U.S. servicemen killed.
Three black filmmakers came over to do interviews, saying they had talked to people on the other side and wanted to hear what we had to say. I said, “Hey, I’m a registered Democrat,” and that got their attention. I spoke about my politics, that I never vote a straight-party line, and that I even voted for Al Sharpton in the Connecticut Democratic primary. The delighted interviewer shook my hand.
After the coffins passed, the parade dribbled to an end. We could start moving again. Rather than follow at the tail end of the parade, we headed east and found a very visible position behind metal barricades in Herald Square, on W. 34th St. east of Macy's. This provided an ideal location for showing our signs at protestors who could only walk past us in the street and snarl, with no chance of attacking us across the barrier and the police along the way.
Well, some of them, swept up in the moment, just couldn't take a let's-agree-to-disagree approach. One man lunged at a sign, got a police warning, then lunged again. He moved away with the NYPD in pursuit, and somewhere in the scrum he was arrested. PWs appreciatively chanted, "NYPD, NYPD!" Finally we headed back to our secret HQ high over the streets of Gotham, with a closing chant of "NYPD" as we passed a line of police resting on the street.
That didn't end the fun. I took the train home to Stamford, Connecticut, that evening, which involved a short trip on a shuttle train from downtown Stamford to the Springdale neighborhood. I took a seat, and wouldn’t you know a demonstrator sat beside me and noticed my shirt and the “Viva Bush!” bumper sticker plastered on it. “Well, the two of us are on different sides of the issue,” he opined, as if I cared about his views. But, I recognized him from the morning commute, and we had but a short trip to my stop, so I spoke with him, and enjoyed our civil interchange.
Actually, “spoke” too kindly describes the encounter, which was one-sided litany of grievances on: environmental degradation, the war, Israel becoming an apartheid state, Ariel Sharon is a war criminal, President Bush’s inability to speak a foreign language, President Bush’s lack of travel experience, and finally back to environmental degradation. Naturally I said some things that egged him on, but not so much that he tried to strangle me. When I got off at my stop we agreed to disagree (note to self: buy Halliburton stock, keep this fellow updated on the share price).
I took several impressions away from the day. First, I saw how ugly the mob mentality can be, and how coarse political discourse, if it can be called that, has become. I saw the vitality of free speech—and also its suppression by peace-loving thugs who practice the hecklers’ veto over speech that differs from theirs. On the other hand, I gained heightened respect for PW. Call us what you want (and we’ve been called everything), but the frenzied reaction to our ideas and strategies shows the power of Protest Warrior in the marketplace of free speech. PW is becoming home for my maverick political energies. To paraphrase Mr. Karl Marx, we are the specter haunting the left at their demonstrations. Get used to it.
On August 29, hundreds of thousands of people gathered to denounce the war in Iraq, shriek about Bushitler and exercise their cherished First Amendment right to free speech. On August 29, I also went to New York to express my right to free speech, as a member of the New York chapter of the group Protest Warrior (http://www.protestwarrior.com/). I learned, however, that among some members of the Left, free speech only applies to their speech.
Some background: since early 2003, Protest Warrior has confronted leftists with witty subversions of their own slogans and truisms. The group’s very first sign set the tone: “Except for ending slavery, fascism, nazism and communism, war has never solved anything.” Through counter-demonstrations and peaceful infiltrations of anti-war marches, PW drives leftists batty with its brand of daring tactics and intellectually challenging posters (another favorite shows a woman in a head-to-toe “burkha” with a male fist holding a chain tight around her neck. The poster says, “Protect Islamic property rights against western imperialism! Say no to war!” With 7,000 members in chapters nationwide, the group is getting traction as an alternative voice in the marketplace of protest on matters of war and peace. And some people despise that kind of intellectual diversity.
Politically, I’ve always been a maverick. Childhood friends in Texas think I’m a commie hippie pinko tree-hugger. East Coast friends suspect I’m a crypto-fascist Texas gun nut. The reality lies somewhere in the middle. PW tracked my foreign-policy views, and so August 29’s “Operation Liberty Rising” marked a great chance to express a real maverick position in the belly of the anti-war beast. I had read reports on the unhinged reactions of leftists to PW, but now I could see for myself.
The night before, I carefully selected my fashion statement for the day. I considered, then rejected, my “Jdate” t-shirt, figuring it looked a bit too picnicky for the political occasion. I settled on the delightfully confrontational “These colors don’t run” t-shirt from my brother in Houston (I got it when took me to a Texas shooting range so I could, as I joke, “get in touch with my inner NRA”). The black shirt bears an American flag and also says “Jim Pruett’s Guns & Ammo: Your anti-terrorist headquarters.”
About 150 of us met Sunday morning for orientation, which stressed team formation and safety tactics. The leaders knew from past actions that leftists can become violent, so we had to prepare ourselves for a fast response. The group itself was, to use an overloaded term, “diverse,” with men, women, gays, straights, Jews, Christians, veterans, students, mild-mannered graybeards like me, and some ponytailed bad-asses who would be formidable in a tough situation. The zesty new group Communists for Kerry (http://www.communistsforkerry.com/) prepared for its march with us.
Before we stepped off, a half-dozen of us dashed down 8th Avenue for an impromptu mini-demo in front of the storefront office of the New York Civil Liberties Union. The group had made lots of noise about protecting the right to protest, so we decided to see how the NYCLU might respond to a protest outside its own hive. Own sign collection include “The ACLU: We don’t hate religion, we just hate Christianity!” PWs lined up in front of the office while I snapped photos. The response was mild rather than screechy, as one man came out to ask if we knew our rights as protestors, and to hand us brochures on the topic. Another volunteer posed with the group for a picture. So, bravo for the NYCLU members for not screaming we were fascist Zionist racist Halliburton pigs who did not support the Kyoto protocols.
With a police escort, PW began walking to 24th Street, where we would slip into the main march in groups of 15, to get maximum visibility for our signs. As we passed the MSNBC tent in Herald Square, we chanted, "Chris Matthews sucks!" While waiting to filter into the march, we gave demonstrators an aural jolt, disrupting their utopia with chants of "WE GAVE PEACE A CHANCE, WE GOT 9-11!” and "JOHN EFFIN’ KERRY, NO EFFIN’ WAY!" And as always, the PW signs often stopped them cold.
Finally we entered the parade route, swallowed by the great snaking line. For a while we marched in relative peace. A reporter from the Village Voice interviewed me, and I probably confused him by saying I had voted for Nader in 2000 and that I had attended pro-choice rallies. Asked if I was concerned about violence, I naively said that I hoped the demonstrators would show respect for PW’s First Amendment rights, which we were asserting in a flamboyant but non-hostile way.
Before long, the catcalls and screeching against us began. I had no problem with obscene chants, name calling, finger pointing, Jews screaming at the Orthodox members of my group—that's fair game. It wasn’t pretty, but it was free speech (heck, if the Jews for Jesus did that at a Salute to Israel parade, I’d act the same way). Yes, PW was provocative, even annoying, but we act strictly to stimulate debate and we did absolutely nothing to interfere with anybody’s right to protest. And we were outnumbered 1000-to-1, a batch of harmless fuzzballs, as Rush Limbaugh might say.
But many of the marchers found us so threatening, so disruptive, so unconventional that they had only one option: TO SILENCE US. Even though most of us did not respond to their taunts and simply shouldered along, the venomous protestors quickly escalated to breaking our signs' cardboard poles, and trying to tear the signs (which were laminated to prevent damage), and physical assault. Other than a single call of "Leftists, be cool," I heard nothing but screaming and threats. A bullhorn was smashed, people were spit on. For a video the captures the menace of the moment, go to http://jasonn.com/~blindpig/ While some PWs got into shoving matches, I only had my sign’s pole bent, with some minor rips in the sign itself. But the narcissistic violence that festers in the heart of many leftists became screamingly obvious, as it does at most PW events. They can’t handle opposition.
Our security plan kicked into gear. We moved to the east side of 7th Avenue and walked on the sidewalk, signs down, until we stood behind police protection on W. 28th Street. Groups called each other to check out how they were doing, and we waited, per police orders, until the march neared its end.
We patched our signs and cooled off at our protected pod, with several police officers between us and the marchers. Even away from the river of bodies, we still had impact. As the parade thinned, more people walked down W. 28th Street and saw our signs. Now we had the advantage of numbers, with the police nearby, so nobody got physical, but we still got the message across and had some heated, but civil, discussions, the First Amendment in action. We did more chants, and several PWs stood at attention as the marchers carried caskets representing U.S. servicemen killed.
Three black filmmakers came over to do interviews, saying they had talked to people on the other side and wanted to hear what we had to say. I said, “Hey, I’m a registered Democrat,” and that got their attention. I spoke about my politics, that I never vote a straight-party line, and that I even voted for Al Sharpton in the Connecticut Democratic primary. The delighted interviewer shook my hand.
After the coffins passed, the parade dribbled to an end. We could start moving again. Rather than follow at the tail end of the parade, we headed east and found a very visible position behind metal barricades in Herald Square, on W. 34th St. east of Macy's. This provided an ideal location for showing our signs at protestors who could only walk past us in the street and snarl, with no chance of attacking us across the barrier and the police along the way.
Well, some of them, swept up in the moment, just couldn't take a let's-agree-to-disagree approach. One man lunged at a sign, got a police warning, then lunged again. He moved away with the NYPD in pursuit, and somewhere in the scrum he was arrested. PWs appreciatively chanted, "NYPD, NYPD!" Finally we headed back to our secret HQ high over the streets of Gotham, with a closing chant of "NYPD" as we passed a line of police resting on the street.
That didn't end the fun. I took the train home to Stamford, Connecticut, that evening, which involved a short trip on a shuttle train from downtown Stamford to the Springdale neighborhood. I took a seat, and wouldn’t you know a demonstrator sat beside me and noticed my shirt and the “Viva Bush!” bumper sticker plastered on it. “Well, the two of us are on different sides of the issue,” he opined, as if I cared about his views. But, I recognized him from the morning commute, and we had but a short trip to my stop, so I spoke with him, and enjoyed our civil interchange.
Actually, “spoke” too kindly describes the encounter, which was one-sided litany of grievances on: environmental degradation, the war, Israel becoming an apartheid state, Ariel Sharon is a war criminal, President Bush’s inability to speak a foreign language, President Bush’s lack of travel experience, and finally back to environmental degradation. Naturally I said some things that egged him on, but not so much that he tried to strangle me. When I got off at my stop we agreed to disagree (note to self: buy Halliburton stock, keep this fellow updated on the share price).
I took several impressions away from the day. First, I saw how ugly the mob mentality can be, and how coarse political discourse, if it can be called that, has become. I saw the vitality of free speech—and also its suppression by peace-loving thugs who practice the hecklers’ veto over speech that differs from theirs. On the other hand, I gained heightened respect for PW. Call us what you want (and we’ve been called everything), but the frenzied reaction to our ideas and strategies shows the power of Protest Warrior in the marketplace of free speech. PW is becoming home for my maverick political energies. To paraphrase Mr. Karl Marx, we are the specter haunting the left at their demonstrations. Get used to it.
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