Michael Edward Anthony Pistone

Mike Pistone with Drama Club friend Dayna Clark

It’s always the social catalysts, the witty ones, the dedicated, confident, whip-smart ones that are the hardest to accept as being gone when they’re gone, especially ridiculously soon, when they’ve hardly even had a chance to get started. So it is with me when I think of my old high school classmate Mike Pistone, who died some time in the 1980s of AIDS, along with so many others of his generation.

If there was ever an ideal time and place for Michael Edward Anthony Pistone to come of age, it was probably not Nassau County, Long Island during the Ford administration.  At Herricks High School in New Hyde Park, we were both in the drama club and shared stage space on more than one occasion.  I wasn’t under any illusion that I was in Mike’s league when it came to drama and comedy and musicals; few at Herricks were. Being a good actor takes an odd combination of self-confidence and willingness to show vulnerability, and being able to project both to an audience – the business of show, after all – which he had in abundance. Mike’s need to perform, to show off what he could do, was obvious. He was in love with stage life, and in truth, who wouldn’t prefer it to the real world, with its mundane qualities, bullying and misplaced priorities? Mike always did have great taste. There were other actors in our class, but Mike was, without doubt, the Class Actor.

Across the river the City beckoned in all its forbidden glory during one of its most fertile periods of underground artistic ferment, just beginning to poke through into the mainstream. New York, still dangerous and dirty, was busy spawning punk rock, among other things, but for Mike Pistone it was the age of “A Chorus Line” – also new back then – which showcased a life he couldn’t wait to leap into. High school was an inconvenience, something to get through as quickly as possible, learn a few things, then graduate from and get down to real life. A slightly built, slender, olive-skinned live wire with straight black hair, piercing eyes, a bright grin and ready laugh, Mike was a triple threat at singing, dancing and acting, and he sang, danced and emoted his way through Guys and Dolls, Sweet Charity, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum, and oh, yes, a two-character one-act play called What Day Is It When It Begins, in which I “co-starred” with him. This masterpiece was written by a teacher at Herricks whose name mercifully escapes my memory. To this day I can’t tell you what the hell that play was about; it was a collection of non sequiturs aiming at artiness. (I still remember one line of it and one line only, “Describe the taste of a hard-boiled egg.”) Mike, at least, was as good in the role as one could expect, as he was in any of the roles he tackled. He was dedicated to his craft; in rehearsals nobody worked harder than he did, determined to showcase his best self. Though he sometimes referred to himself by his full four initials – MEAP – and knew how talented he was, he retained a good sense of humor about himself and a good grasp of reality when it came to the outside world.

Mike often regaled his fellow student actors with tales of his weekend sojourns into Manhattan, taking in this musical or that play or even dancing at Studio 54, where he met Liza Minnelli (how ’70s could you get?). Mike said he wanted to tell her how much he loved her, to which she replied, “You’ll have to get in line.” If that bothered him, he didn’t let it show. With his acerbic wit, smarts and self-confidence – and with his acting chops, who could tell if it was just bravado? – he’d honed his survival skills and street smarts in Long Island’s macho culture at an early age; homophobia was unavoidable and not really spoken about, but he’d figured out his identity early on and never looked back. Mike knew the long odds against him, no fool he, but he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to give it his best shot, since lack of talent wasn’t one of his problems. In the high school yearbook he quoted “Don’t Rain On My Parade” – does it really matter which lyrics in particular? – and among his drama club pals he’d have long conversations and toss off quips like “This school has reached a new high in lows.”

Mike wanted nothing more than to practice his craft and find himself in a crowd that accepted him for who he was. I’m sorry I never had a chance to connect with him at least once after high school. If he had survived AIDS he might have become a chorus gypsy for a time, or ended up as a dance director, choreographer, set designer, the female lead’s best gay friend, or a drag queen (which he did for a time) or even the host of a public-access cable talk show. He might have been just another journeyman actor with a tight circle of friends, or perhaps had the career of somebody like, say, Mario Cantone (who reminded me very much of Michael Pistone when I interviewed him for a newspaper a couple of years ago). Of course, we won’t know now.

On a personal level, I owe Mike Pistone something in particular. I was fond of satire and parody in those days (still am) and amused myself by writing parodies of the plays and musicals in which I was appearing, while they were in rehearsal, and showing them around to the director and my fellow actors. I’m sure they were probably more amused by the fact that I was writing them at all than at the actual content of the parodies, but Mike Pistone was the first person to suggest to me that I should be concentrating my energies more on writing than on acting. He was very right, and I turned to writing and journalism as soon as I got to college.

Mike Pistone was not only the epitome of the class actor, but also a class act. He was an avatar of life and epitomized one of its essential functions, self-expression. He remains missed by those lucky enough to have known him.

RIP, MEAP.

I Want Magic In My Real World

What is the real world? The world of your home, family and friends? The world of news and politics, the injustice du jour and who said what stupid or reprehensible thing in the past 24 hours (in which case you have my sincere pity, because you will never, ever be happy or satisfied)? The world of arts and entertainment, food and other happy diversions? Or the world of your work?

Perhaps the question should be: Which world is realest to you? Which world is most important? Which world do you love the most?

I’m just here to ask such questions. I guess that’s just what I was born to do. Although I wouldn’t say that it’s my world.

 

I want magic in my real world

Some modern voodoo to make it work

– The Waitresses, “Jimmy Tomorrow”

Jealous by Starlight (revisited)

[Originally posted on my previous blog. Pogoer.org -- I still like it, so I'm putting it out there yet again.]

If I were asked to name something I’ve written that I’m proud of, the following column, originally published in Boston Rock magazine in March 1986, is among the items that would most readily spring to mind. My modus operandi – or at least the ideal to which I aspire – as a writer has long been to say out loud the things that everyone knows, but no one ever really talks about. You can judge for yourself as to whether or not I succeeded with this column. Aside from correcting the odd typo or punctuation mark, it’s exactly as originally published. I was 26 years old when I wrote this, and I don’t write like this anymore,  and many things have changed for me, but I still believe in the point I was trying to make way back then.

For those not there the first time around, explanatory footnotes to obscure/insider references are supplied below.

Cave 76

Jealous by Starlight

In case you haven’t been keeping track, this issue marks the first anniversary of “Cave 76.” One whole year typing in this musty old cave; wow. Although the growing pains continue, the novelty’s worn off; certain things are taken for granted. Number 76 is in middle life. No more congratulations are offered to its author by his nine faithful readers upon each brilliant new installment; certainly no “Wes, you are the Doug Flutie of freelance writing.” (Just as well – they could be saying I’d get slaughtered in the pros.) We’ve long since settled into the grind. Naught remains but APATHY. Inertia city. Yeah, tell me about it.

Beginnings and endings are the easy parts. They’re ceremonial, with guidelines to get you through. It’s the middles that screw us up. Excuse me if I sound like Ellen Goodman, but there aren’t any ceremonies for Just Getting By. As a concept, middles aren’t that exciting, but they’re life’s lunchmeat; devils and angels left alone on the ground to slug it out. Which, if you look at it in a Zen context, is both the problem and the solution. That is, the thrill is in the challenge. And so be it.

We come, finally, then, to the long-awaited results of my Insanely Jealous Poll. I received exactly one letter – from Karen Martakos, age 15, of Wakefield,Massachusetts – but it was a lovely one:

I’m insanely jealous of Wes Eichenwald.
I’m insanely jealous of Wes Eichenwald because he can probably go to good clubs and see good bands. I can’t.
…because he probably has the opportunity to meet a sum of nice people and then go out drinking with them. I don’t.
…because he can probably look however he wants to without the authorities giving him a load of bullshit for it.
…because he can probably pick up whatever college radio stations he wants to on his stereo system.
…because he has a job…
I’m insanely jealous of Wes Eichenwald because he’s Wes Eichenwald. And I’m not.

Thanks for writing, Karen. I’m insanely jealous of this guy myself. Have fun annoying your parents with that copy of Mr. Beautiful Presents All Hard, and call me in six years and I’ll buy you a drink at the Rat.

The response shouldn’t have surprised me. Discussing one’s private jealousies in the pages of Boston Rock is rather like dropping one’s pants in the Ritz dining room. A free record won’t cut it as a bribe. No wonder nobody wrote in except a teenage girl holding up a mirror to my face. Jealousy, a major plank in the base of human relations, is something you don’t talk about. It’s one of the last taboos.

The myriad forms of jealousy available to the careful shopper are too numerous to really get into here – read Nancy Friday’s book, or something, if you’re interested (I’m waiting for the paperback). However, a few of the more incandescent include:

Consuming Jealousy: You’re so sick of congratulating your stupid friends on their stupid accomplishments, whether deserved or undeserved. Every day you swallow your pride, force a smile and say, “Congratulations, I’m so happy for you!” when what you really want to say is, “Fuck off and die, scumbag, I hate you, I hate you! It should have been me instead of you!” You want to boast, to do things none of your pathetic friends (that you hate) have done and say SO THERE. But you’re locked out and seethe about it. Lately you feel like you can’t even breathe anymore.

Jealousy as a Flip Side of Insecurity About Your Own Accomplishments: What do you do after you get what you want? Want more, of course. Ever greater accomplishments, though delivering ever greater kicks. So what else is new? You may have gotten 85 per cent of everything you ever wanted, but the 15 percent you didn’t keeps you from enjoying it. If that wasn’t bad enough, every time you reach a goal you disqualify it in your mind – it doesn’t count because, to yourself, you stay exactly the same, and that’s no good…

Selective Denial: An advanced stage. One way to handle others’ intolerable successes is to pretend they haven’t happened. After a while, you go numb.

Short Takes: Jealousy of people one step up the ladder from you as opposed to three or four (safely out of your view). People younger than you who got it together sooner. Close relatives, for any reason. Former peers who suddenly ascend beyond your reach (truly unforgivable; that’s where all the mocking covers of “Voices Carry” come from).

Enough of this. You get the point. There’s a lot of jealousy around, most of it sheer head-fucking nonsense. As long as some people are one maddening step ahead of others there is going to be jealousy, in the most ridiculous places.

For example, I suppose it’s possible that someone out there in Real Life Land might actually be jealous of me (yes, me) just for having this column. Yo, man, what’s your problem? Why aren’t you jealous of that writer of “Cellars By Starlight” in the Phoenix, like everybody else? But if you still envy my long-term lease on this fairly small-potatoes space, well, tough. Find your own mag to columnize in. This one’s taken for the foreseeable future. (Really, now…) And I got where I am on sheer luck, a winning smile, and heck, I’m too modest to continue.

At least I’m not jealous of Aimee Mann. Not now, not last year, not even when she was in the Young Snakes. I hope she has a nice life. It’s fine with me, really. I don’t care. But some people do. They could care less about Phoenix writers, but thinking about Aimee Mann rots their guts out. Ooh, that Aimee, I could just kill her for being so successful! She did it, she got out, and here I am still trapped in the bog, paddling like anything just to stay in the same place.

Jealousy is a toxic waste product of selfishness and ambition. Like cigarette smoking, it’s a seductive pleasure, if a hollow and cancerous one. It’s a hindrance to maturity. Jealous people are ultimately lonely, bitter people, dependent on others for their own identity, which is, I am what I want but can’t have.

Let’s talk turkey. I used to be jealous of almost everyone I knew. Then I realized – satori! – that their accomplishments had nothing to do with me; we were on parallel paths, not identical ones. By trying to appreciate everyone for who they are, it helps me to appreciate myself more, and incidentally, to feel more connected to my friends.

Sometimes I fail at this. I’m as imperfect as anyone. I have very few answers to anything. But I keep trying, because I have no choice. It’s all right. There comes a point where you have to say fuck it, let go, and live your life. After all, whoreally wants their friends to be jealous of them? The failure of people to accept things as they are, to instead wallow in delusions, is the greatest, self-inflicted obstacle to personal happiness there is. You have one life; don’t live it as an adjunct to anything, including other people. Now a resolution like that could be worth more than a cellarful – or a caveful – of columns.

************************************

Here are some explanatory footnotes for those readers not familiar with the (somewhat too) cozy littleBoston scene back then:

Cave 76 - the name of my column in Boston Rock (I think the above installment was actually the last one to run before the editors pulled it; mid-life turned out to be The End, but at least I didn’t end up too long at the fair). I named it after one of the jokes in Mel Brooks’s 2000 Year Old Man routine: the national anthem of his cave was, “Let ‘em all go to hell, except Cave sev-en-ty-six!” Hey, I still think it’s kind of cute…

Jealous by Starlight - the column’s title is a takeoff on “Cellars by Starlight,” the local-music column in the Boston Phoenix, the city’s leading weekly alternative paper; that column’s title, of course, itself being a takeoff on the song title “Stella by Starlight.” (Years later I actually ended up writing one “Cellars” column myself, and got to be friends with the regular “Cellars” writer I referred to in the above text; just goes to show ya that everything comes around.)

Doug Flutie - local football-quarterback hero atBostonCollege, later in the pros (sort of)

Ellen Goodman - well-known boring syndicated columnist based at the Boston Globe newspaper

Insanely Jealous Poll - a poll of sorts, named in honor of the Soft Boys song “Insanely Jealous,” in which, a couple of issues back, I’d asked my readers to tell me which person they were most insanely jealous of. Most were, for some reason, reluctant to reply.

Karen Martakos - yes, I did make sure Boston Rock sent the album to her; she never called for that drink, but in January 2002, Karen (who is no longer extremely jealous) signed my guestbook and gave a delightful update on her life. In her words, “I think it’s good for everyone in their 30′s to get in touch with their inner surly teen every now and then.” I still have the original letter, framed…

Wakefield - suburb ofBoston

Mr. Beautiful Presents All Hard - local-band compilation album (Modern Method, 1985) put together by producer Steve “Mr. Beautiful” Barry.

The Rat - what everyone except Tiny Tim (who played there one memorable night) called the Rathskeller, a legendaryKenmore Square rock club, sadly demolished in autumn 2000 (there was no joy in Mudville).

Ritz dining room - Brahmin retreat in ritzyBack Bay hotel

Nancy Friday - author of the book Jealousy (yes, I eventually read the paperback)

“Voices Carry” - a hit for ’til tuesday on MTV and elsewhere; the worst thing to happen to lead singer Aimee Mann (who has since redeemed herself many times over).

Aimee Mann - American singer-songwriter formerly based in Boston, now in LA; see “Voices Carry.” I still wish her a nice life.

The Young Snakes - Aimee Mann’s first band (by all reports, an unremarkable art-pop combo; no, I never actually saw them perform. Hey, truth in journalism!)

It’s My Birthday, So Worship Me For The Day, Part 1

I don’t know about you, but I’m getting sick of pretending to be excited every time it’s somebody’s birthday, you know what I mean? What is the big deal? How many times do we have to celebrate that someone was born?

Every year, over and over… All you did was not die for twelve months.

That’s all you’ve done, as far as I can tell. Now those astrology things where they tell you all the people that have the same birthday as you? It’s always an odd group of people too, isn’t it? It’s like Ed Asner, Elijah Muhammad and Secretariat.

– Jerry’s opening monologue on Seinfeld, “The Outing,” originally aired Feb. 11, 1993 (which just happened to be my sister’s birthday, but never mind)

Yes, we must obey...

Yo...bestrew THIS. Click on it, you know you want to.

Birthdays are like genitals: Everybody’s got one, but not everybody knows what to do with it, or even wants to deal with the whole business at all. Nevertheless, there inevitably  comes the day that you must deal, and guess which day that is. You, dear reader, know what that’s like, for you, too, have that one day out of the year that’s Your Special Day. Yes, it is, it’s special.

Worship me, for I am Birthday Man, deity for a day. I am expected to spend the entire 24 hours in a constant state of unnatural Happy Happiness Squared, with a frozen rictus smile on my face. I’m having a HAPPY BIRTHDAY, dammit. So leave me alone while I do that.

Yes, that’s my favorite Seinfeld routine (the one about baseball fans being loyal to laundry coming in a close second). Yes, I didn’t die for 12 months, so let’s have some cake!Ah, the tyranny of the birthday ritual. It will envelop you, whether you like it or not, and demand your fealty to the foolishness. Let’s have the courage to call birthdays what they really are: The biggest gratuitous ego trip this side of a wedding, at a tiny fraction of the cost and hassle. Plus, unlike a wedding (unless you’re a completely off-the-rails celebrity), you get to have one every year!

The American Way of Birthdays has long served me as one of the innumerable subjects I know which are deserving of crankiness. It’s not, of course, just the anniversary of your birth. It’s Acknowledge My Existence Day — for most of us, barring a time of spectacular public acclaim, the greatest burst of recognition we’ll get until the eulogy, or at least the retirement party. Great accomplishment? Sure, wink wink. Celebrating one’s birthday is, like organized religion or televised singing contests, a social convention we generally don’t question, even though it’s of very questionable validity.

For all my cynicism, mind you, I don’t want to deny little kids their birthday fun. I’ve got two six-year-olds of my own, after all, and I recognize that when you’re dealing with developing little bodies and minds birthdays are a useful marker, appropriate, and fun. But after one’s 12th birthday — or at the outside, the confirmation/bar or bat mitzvah/sweet 16/quinceañera — it becomes another story. Like continuing to hang out your stocking for Santa, or keeping up the traditions of the tooth fairy, milk and cookies, and bedwetting well into your 20s, 30s, 40s and beyond, the birthday-candle, balloons, and the singing of a certain stupid, ubiquitous song  should raise some eyebrows, at the least. But somehow, that doesn’t happen, and the foolishness is given a free pass. (And don’t get me started on Halloween costumes.)

Face it: nobody really cares that it’s somebody’s birthday, we just pretend to care because we want them to pretend to care when it’s ours. It’s like Santa Claus, or your salary, or how many times a year you have sex: Once you’re over a certain age, it becomes a conspiracy of silence, about which the less said, the better.

“So you’ve been an abject failure in every area of your life? Cheer up, at least you still get to have a birthday. Have some freakin’ cake and balloons! You’re a year older!”

Acknowledge my existence, world. Please? (This also explains the existence of blogs and karaoke. We must have our say, even if we don’t know what we’re saying and nobody else wants to hear it.)

The acknowledging takes the form of…oh, you know, cards and candles and conical hats and (for those in technical adulthood) visits to a bar and multiple toasts all ’round. The corporate world, of course, takes notice of Your Day in its own bastardized, sanitized-to-the-point-of-screaming-boredom way with balloons and crepe paper ’round the cubicle and the occasional potluck to take the edge off the daily desperation and the drudgery of which no end ever comes.

Then, of course, there’s the big birthday game-changer of recent years: Facebook, which notifies you every time one of your friends has a birthday, which for some of us means two, three, or even four obligatory greetings in an average day.  Every day is somebody else’s birthday: There is no escape, and the cycle will keep repeating itself day after day, year after year, ad infinitum. Last month, David Plotz explored the phenomenon on slate.com to good effect in “My Fake Facebook Birthdays,” which explored what happened when he set his birthday to three successive dates in July: predictably, most of his friends, or “friends,” didn’t notice at all, just relieved that they didn’t have to send out an actual card, with a stamp on it and everything, and even put it in a mailbox. Hey, this is 2011!

In any case, it’s not my birthday anymore. It’s not even my birthday month. Not until next year, anyway. The balloons are deflated, the candles blown out, the cake long passed through various digestive tracts until…well, one need not go into details. Suffice it to say, the party has moved on to another table.

Not fair. Sob.

I want every day to be my birthday.

I want to be God.

Or something.

To be continued…

London’s burning. Again.

Hackney in August

In England, the veneer of civilization is peeling away like cheap linoleum. Apparently, 2011 now = 1977 only without all the good music; in fact, some have taken to burning record warehouses full of indie private stock, likely without realizing what they do. And what I’d like to ask is:

Where are all the new protest songs?

Where is the new Dylan, the new Clash, the new Phil Ochs?

Instead, all we seem to have are Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga and an obsession with celebrity gossip. The Society of the Spectacle has returned with a vengeance. We watch reality shows to escape our own reality, but somehow it always seems to find us.

We busy ourselves with televised singing and dancing and cooking contests, while the world around us crumbles a little more each day.

When are we going to wake up and protest against the real enemies of the state? And when the United States finally wakes from its great Decline and Fall torpor, will it be too late to do any good?

Stay safe, all my friends in the UK. I’m missing Kirsty’s voice now more than ever.

The Collected Tweets, 2009-2010

It took me awhile to appreciate Twitter. People use it for all sorts of reasons – marketing, blowing their horn, making pronouncements to the fan base from on high – but I appreciate it the most as both a writing exercise and a steam valve. Since I believe my greatest sin as a writer is sometimes not knowing when to cut things short, I appreciate Twitter for forcing me to do so — though I still wish it permitted a few more words in a single post than it does. I’ve edited out perhaps 10 percent of my actual Twitter posts, most of which dealt with links to articles I’d written,  notations on of the death of a minor celebrity, or simply ephemera (assuming that all of Twitter isn’t just that).  Some of the posts served double duty as Facebook statuses, though I came to think of Twitter as an outlet for saying what I really thought and didn’t censor myself nearly as much. It is what it is; if you read through it all, I hope you don’t consider it time wasted. Tweet away.

@Pogoer

Wes Eichenwald

Austin, Texas

Just another pixel-stained technopeasant staring out the window.

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Happy ’11 to all. Does this mean we get yet another chance to get it right this time?

31 Dec 2010

Pogoer Wes Eichenwald

He said his name was Piso Mojado, and that we had to be careful around him.

31 Dec

It’s never too early to have a happy childhood.

25 Dec

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The People may have the Power, but they sure don’t use it effectively.

28 Nov

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If we have a Thanksgiving, how about a Bitch About How Much Life Sucks Day to balance things out? Of course, for most that’s every day.

23 Nov

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This note isn’t really from me, it’s from my Desk. So there.

23 Nov

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So what makes these…Americans…think they’re so special, anyway?

22 Nov

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Every time someone on the internet implores me to ‘please read this’ it immediately makes me want to run in the other direction, and fast.

22 Nov

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I’m sure that in the end the things we thought were of the utmost importance will be shown to be nothing much, and vice versa.

21 Nov

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Everyone eventually becomes what they were meant to be, if they live long enough.

20 Nov

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In order to improve the quality of a nation’s elected officials, you must first improve the quality of the general population.

18 Nov

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If only all those people overly concerned with proper English usage would apply a bit of their efforts to LEARNING A SECOND LANGUAGE.

12 Nov

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Sorry, but comparing myself to the worst-off, unluckiest people on the earth doesn’t really make me feel like I shouldn’t complain.

10 Nov

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Wondering if it’s inevitable that self-aware hipsters grow up and end up hating the person they were 20 years previously.

7 Nov

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Nobody ever talks about how much of a short, bland trip it’s been.

4 Nov

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When exactly was it when people stopped having skills and started having ‘skill sets’?

24 Oct

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Bring me the head of fettucine alfredo, is that how that goes?

14 Oct

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Since when is it a disaster if the S on your cape is a little frayed? — C. Butler

14 Oct

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“Writing’s kind of like exhibitionism in private.” — D.F. Wallace

5 Oct

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“Most of the writers I know are weird hybrids. There’s a strong streak of egomania coupled with extreme shyness.” — David Foster Wallace

5 Oct

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Where I come from, Talk Like a Pirate Day is considered the conclusion of the High Holidays.

8 Sep

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Very few people with actual children have much patience for listening to others go on at length about their cats and dogs. There’s a reason.

17 Aug

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It’s not really your birthday, it’s Acknowledge My Existence Day.

12 Aug

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Is there anything more bittersweet than doing the shoulda-woulda game of rewriting your own history from age 17 on?

10 Aug

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I can’t imagine anything more insulting than being eulogized by some religious figure you never even met in life.

30 Jul

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People consider their birthdays important because for many, it’s the greatest burst of recognition they’ll ever get until the eulogy.

30 Jul

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Suppurating succotash!

6 Jul

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Enough with the vampire stuff, already.

3 Jul

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If Donald Duck was just created this year, his nephews would be named Aiden, Caden and Jaden.

30 Jun

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Anyone who goes around saying “Second place just means you’re the first loser” needs to be shot immediately.

25 Jun

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If you appreciate being informed, thank a journalist. If you appreciate being misinformed, thank Fox News.

1 Jun

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I’d be very happy never to hear anyone sing “House of the Rising Sun” again for the rest of my natural days.

27 May

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Alive is the new dead.

19 May

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I believe marriage should be between a horse and a cow and no other species.

6 May

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Dear Marketing Dept.: My mom’s been dead 20 years and I’m not going to be buying her a special anything this Mother’s Day, pls stop emails.

3 May

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It’s hard to continue playing the brat provocateur when one is eligible to join AARP. One must eventually move on to other pursuits.

27 Apr

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One reason I’m glad I have kids is nobody ever tells me I’m overcompensating for not being able to own a dog or cat.

26 Apr

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Actually, socialism IS working out rather well for me, thank you. I think we should have rather more of it.

26 Apr

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Make mine a double.

19 Apr

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Nobody really cares if it’s someone else’s birthday. We just pretend to care because we want them to pretend to care when it’s ours.

19 Apr

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Why are we supposed to care if it’s the anniversary of anything?

19 Apr

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The best thing I ever did in my life was move away from Massachusetts.

19 Apr

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Really happy to receive my copy of the “T.A.M.I Show Collectors Edition” DVD in the mail. Long time coming (about 45 years).

11 Apr

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Sorry, I won’t go to a rally to protest the appearance of someone with whose opinions I disagree. Giant waste of time. Just ignore ‘em!

11 Apr

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What’s all this “Philip Seymour Hoffman” crap? Dude, just call yourself Phil Hoffman, no need to be a pretentious twit.

7 Apr

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The perfect response when a stranger inquires how you are is, “As well as can be expected under the Circumstances.” Let them wonder.

7 Apr

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Idea for tombstone epitaph: “I’m keeping my options open.” Not my grave, someone else’s.

6 Apr

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Most holidays in the US seem to revolve around purchasing and eating candy. Little chocolate twin towers on the 9/11 anniversary, anyone?

3 Apr

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Never underestimate the political power of selfishness and stupidity.

3 Apr

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Sorry, but I’d be quite happy not hearing anybody’s new version of ‘Over the Rainbow’ for the rest of my life.

26 Mar

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I don’t get this ’80s nostalgia thing. I was there. On the whole, it didn’t seem all that great to me.

26 Mar

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Sunshine, lollipops and rainbows.

22 Mar

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Nocoj so dovoljene sanje. Jutri je nov dan. (Tonight dreams are allowed. Tomorrow is a new day.) — Milan Kucan

21 Mar

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The middle of nowhere? Why, as near as I can figure that’s most places.

19 Mar

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Ave atque vale, Alex Chilton. Why do so many of the weird good people die younger than they should?

18 Mar

»

What’s so funny ’bout the Great Society?

17 Mar

»

The longer I live, the more I become convinced that nobody really knows anything about anyone. Perhaps I’m in the wrong profession.

16 Mar

»

Sorry, but there are better causes to get involved in than getting the Academy to recognize your fave dead star in their Oscar memorial reel

15 Mar

»

I think old people who need hip replacements should get to leave the old hip under their pillow for the Hip Fairy to reimburse them.

9 Mar

»

It’s hard to look really cool while you’re waiting at a bus stop.

4 Mar

»

I wouldn’t join a Facebook group that would have me as a member.

1 Mar

»

The Summer Olympics end with a marathon; the Winter Olympics, with a hockey game. Now if there were only a way to combine the two…

28 Feb

»

Summer already?

28 Feb

»

Helping your five-year-old son make his first snowman in your backyard in Austin, Texas is such a really great thing.

23 Feb

»

Can you have senioritis if you’re not in high school?

21 Feb

»

When even politicians don’t want to be in politics anymore, what does that say?

20 Feb

»

Does anyone outside of Austin and Salon.com and the Maddow show care that there was a terrorist attack here yesterday? Yes, it was.

19 Feb

Plane crashes into office building in north Austin, Texas today. Too close for comfort.

18 Feb

»

“I’m nostalgic for some sour milk I drank in 1989. It tasted pretty bad, but I was so much younger when I drank it, so I miss it.”

18 Feb

»

Populism wouldn’t be so bad in practice if it attracted a better sort of people.

18 Feb

»

Nostalgia is OK in small doses, but one must guard against the tendency to romanticize things that weren’t that great in the first place.

17 Feb

»

Wishing everyone a happy Valentine’s Day/President’s Day/Mardi Gras-Carnaval-Fasching/Chinese New Year/Purim/Winter Olympics festival.

14 Feb

»

Who is this John Mayer person and why do people think what he says is important?

14 Feb

»

Nostalgia for the ’90s? Whaaaa? When did they go away?

14 Feb

»

When people pay $600 to sit in the cheap seats, they’re probably expecting a big hoo-ha of a show no matter what.

13 Feb

»

Constantly talking about the weather is code for “My life is boring, and there is nothing else.” Discuss.

10 Feb

»

Hard to believe that I used to routinely stay up ’til 1 a.m. Fuhgeddaboudit now.

8 Feb

»

It’s Groundhog Day. Again.

2 Feb

This chauffeur I hired to take me to the wine fair is driving me to drink.

22 Jan

»

Condolences to my Dem friends in Mass., but you’re officially enjoined from looking down on Texas politics ever again…

19 Jan

»

Tired of being expected to vote for a candidate whose main qualification is that he/she is only half as horrible as the other candidate.

17 Jan

»

You do know that nobody cares what you had for lunch.

14 Jan

»

Wrote a song in 15 minutes today, “Success Is Just As Bad As Failure.” Look for it on YouTube in the near future, maybe. Yee-ha.

11 Jan

»

News flash: Everything you know is wrong. Shouldn’t really be a surprise at this point…

11 Jan

»

“If life gives you lemons, get a gun and start shooting people at random.” — Unofficial motto of the USA

7 Jan

»

I’d be able to take Bono a tad more seriously if he’d take off those stupid sunglasses already.

5 Jan

»

Although it’s a new decade, there seems to be no alteration in the stupidity quotient, at least at this early point.

3 Jan

»

Well, back to reality we go…

2 Jan

»

Everybody’s working for the week. End.

1 Jan

»

Won’t be eating Hopping John today, won’t miss it.

1 Jan

»

Wishing all twittering folk sanity and good judgment (for themselves AND from others) in the Tens and Teens.

31 Dec 09

»

Tired of year-end lists, decade-end lists, books of lists, lists of lists, lists of anything

30 Dec 09

»

Can we all agree to call the new year “twenty ten” and not “two thousand and ten” in the English language?

29 Dec 09

»

I expect the phrase “bomb-laden underpants” to become part of the culture for awhile, at least until, say, Elvis’s birthday.

29 Dec 09

»

Just once in my life I’d like to hear Leonard Cohen sing “Do the Hucklebuck.”

26 Dec 09

»

Would rather write my own program than get with whatever program I’m expected to get with. Just the kind of guy I am.

26 Dec 09

»

Truly can’t stand Garrison Keillor, wish he would just go away already.

26 Dec 09

»

So glad I live in a town where you don’t have to ‘reserve’ parking spaces after a snowstorm. Just makes me hate the world that much more.

21 Dec 09

»

Face it: Most people’s wedding albums look like stills from corny Hollywood movies reshot with ugly people.

20 Dec 09

»

I’m done defending Obama.

17 Dec 09

»

Together, Bernie Madoff and Lieberman have done more to set back the Jews than anyone since Hitler.

16 Dec 09

»

How come you can be disappointed in someone, but not appointed with them? Unless you actually do have an appointment with them.

16 Dec 09

»

A lot of writers only look good on paper. And some of them should only be so lucky.

10 Dec 09

»

There’s a kind of hush all over the world tonight. It really creeps me out.

10 Dec 09

»

Who are these people who think professional golfers should be role models, anyway?

9 Dec 09

»

I have accepted Stan “The Man” Musial as my personal savior.

9 Dec 09

»

Hacking the spew in the modality paradigm, for synergy and grins.

7 Dec 09

»

Which decade is this year the end of, again?

5 Dec 09

»

Enjoying snow falling on Austin today, however briefly.

4 Dec 09

»

“Everything happens for a reason,” some people say — maybe true, but they don’t mention that it’s often a BAD reason…

29 Nov 09

»

Ah, life.

27 Nov 09

»

I would rather have root canal surgery again than read another comment on the Common Dreams website.

25 Nov 09

»

Wondering if there will be any Black Friday fatalities from customer stampedes this year.

25 Nov 09

»

Waiting for my call to be a judge on “Iron Chef.” It’ll probably be a while.

22 Nov 09

Just saw someone else’s life flash before my eyes

17 Nov 09

»

Once again, it’s all about you.

15 Nov 09

»

How come nobody ever stews in someone else’s juices?

13 Nov 09

»

Most of what I dream about involves being sidetracked on my way from Point A to Point B. Et vous?

9 Nov 09

»

I know, there’s something very wrong about posting on Twitter to complain about how superficial Facebook is…

6 Nov 09

»

All I want for the holidays is a music box that plays “Anarchy in the UK” in a sweet, tinkly, music-boxy way.

5 Nov 09

»

Nothing but yin and yang the whole day. What a drag.

5 Nov 09

»

Tired of turkeys and thinks Thanksgiving would be vastly improved if it was traditional to eat good Thai, Chinese or Indian food instead

30 Oct 09

»

Hope I don’t die in a ridiculous way, like being hit by a light pole. On the other hand, then maybe I’ll finally get noticed for something.

29 Oct 09

»

“The one beer to have when you’re having more than one?” At least that’s honest. You don’t care about the taste, you just wanna get bombed.

29 Oct 09

»

Imagine a world where nobody ever complained about anything. Would you like to live in it?

28 Oct 09

»

It’s going to be a cabaret kind of Halloween. I can feel it.

27 Oct 09

»

Apparently, someone left the cake out in the rain. I told them to bring it inside, but no one ever listens to me…and this is what you get.

26 Oct 09

»

“Life is either the storm or the calm before the storm. And then sometimes you go out for lunch.” — Lao-tzu (OK, me)

25 Oct 09

»

Wondering if there is any country on earth where the inhabitants aren’t constantly obsessed with stupid trivia and gossip.

17 Oct 09

»

What’s sillier, being in preschool or postgraduate school?

16 Oct 09

»

The team wearing the uniform with MY city’s name on it is better than the team wearing the uniform with YOUR city’s name on it! Nyaaaaah!

11 Oct 09

»

Went down the stoney end; though I never wanted to go, it was part of the guided tour.

7 Oct 09

»

Would like to ride at least once in my life in a plane with stairs you could climb to a piano bar and have a cocktail there.

7 Oct 09

»

Why do we never speak ill of the dead, and never say anything good about the living?

6 Oct 09

»

Why are dogfighting and cockfighting considered revolting in the US, but hunting and killing animals with rifles is a great tradition?

6 Oct 09

»

After 7+ years of living in Austin, why do I still feel like just another stupid tourist whenever I walk into the Continental Club?

2 Oct 09

»

“Get me to the world on time”? Really, what’s the rush?

2 Oct 09

»

In the afterlife, will there be restaurants?

2 Oct 09

»

Parting is such Vic Morrow.

29 Sep 09

»

Wondering whether things were better or worse in the days when bands had managers and writers had publishers…

19 Sep 09

»

Dancin’ down the Soul Train line. Or not.

19 Sep 09

»

Number One son prefers reality-based Animals on the Farm stories to fantasy Animals on the Farm stories. Oh-kay.

11 Sep 09

»

I really, really don’t care about football.

11 Sep 09

»

is hacking the spew.

10 Sep 09

»

is off to Holland and Germany to commune with the spirits of the ancestors along with some actual relatives & friends. See ya in Sept.

23 Aug 09

»

has yet to see the point of this whole silly Twitter thing.

15 Aug 09

»

Something we didn’t have when I was a kid: Viral videos about wedding dances.

7 Aug 09

»

If you can market tuna fish as “chicken of the sea,” why isn’t there a brand of chicken called Fish of the Land?

5 Aug 09

»

Watching videos tonight that Donna and I filmed in Slovenia and Italy in 2002. Forgot how much I loved those old buildings, and the rain.

2 Aug 09

»

Me and the wife both enjoying Wii Fit, Wii Music and various other Wii-related endeavors. Nice bday present from the fam and friends.

27 Jul 09

»

is working, Jack.

21 Jul 09

»

Last nite @ restaurant I’ve wanted to go to for 5 yrs; my wife dreaded it, but I was the one who ended up barfing in the bathroom. Ironic.

15 Jul 09

»

Don’t tell me what to think, you columnists.

15 Jul 09

»

My four-year-old son asked his mom, “Do our hearts have friends?”

13 Jul 09

»

Leftover birthday cake makes a fine breakfast treat.

12 Jul 09

»

Holy birthday piñatas, Batman!

10 Jul 09

»

There are just too many reunions and birthdays to contend with these days.

8 Jul 09

»

I wouldn’t go to Michael Jackson’s memorial service unless you paid me $100,000 and let me leave early.

6 Jul 09

»

Has anyone here seen my datebook? I know I left it around here somewhere.

6 Jul 09

»

I have too many usernames.

10 Jun 09

»

Unsolicited, non-street-team testimonial: Starbucks caramel macchiato ice cream with Starbucks coffee liqueur. Yum.

27 May 09

»

GM’s biggest problem? Chevrolet was too cavalier.

27 May 09

»

I walked, and then jogged a bit, with a zombie last night. Then we stopped and got some burgers.

18 May 09

»

Who’ll stop the rain?

29 Apr 09

»

If Jews get swine flu, can they cure it with chicken soup?

26 Apr 09

»

Being cautiously optimistic.

17 Apr 09

»

Occasionally, I’m insufficiently reverent. And you?

7 Apr 09

»

I’m skeptical of the conceit that everyone was apparently a celebrity in a previous life.

7 Apr 09

»

Getting nostalgic for the old paradigm like Grandpa used to shift. Maybe it’s the Opening Day thing.

6 Apr 09

»

You can tell a go-go dancer’s been on the job too long when all she dances is the Perfunctory Chicken.

6 Apr 09

»

Watching golf ball size hail fall on my house and yard.

25 Mar 09

»

Testing out new modalities in the paradigm.

24 Mar 09

»

I’m busy working on a new moisturizing conditioner for professional entertainers, to be called Humectress on the Stage.

13 Mar 09

»

The most annoying thing about cliches? They’re usually true. (Thought of that when I was about 12, was proud of myself.)

3 Mar 09

»

Burrowing away on deadline.

2 Mar 09

»

Burning a CD for my almost four-year-old.

14 Jan 09

These Are People Who Died

It happens: you get older, and they start dropping off. Family members, good friends, the actors in those TV sitcoms you watched as a kid, and others you had but a glancing acquaintance with, though you’d instantly recognize them in a photo posted by a friend on Facebook. I’ve been lately reflecting on the departures of a couple of fixtures of what the participants usually refer to as the “Boston scene,” centered around Boston’s local music world and encompassing, besides the musicians themselves, managers, promoters, club owners, booking agents, writers, photographers, PR pe0ple, hangers-on, and fans, supporters and enthusiasts of all stripes. Specifically, I’ve been thinking of the legacies of two exemplary local characters and holy fools of the Boston scene: Mr. Butch, the street poet/musician and denizen of Kenmore Square and, later, Allston, who died at age 56 in July 2007 after crashing a scooter into a light pole, and Billy Ruane, music promoter and fan of fans, who died just last Tuesday (October 26) from medical causes as yet undetermined, having not quite reached his 53rd birthday. For those of you who have never heard of them, these capsule descriptions don’t begin to describe the kind of people they were, or how they appeared to even the casual observer. I didn’t know either of them well (I knew Billy hardly at all — I remember having one brief conversation outside a club once, though I of course saw him constantly in ’80s clubland — and Mr. Butch even less so), but like anyone who was around in those days, I can call them to mind in an instant — Mr. Butch declaiming free verse at 1 a.m. in Kenmore Square, or strolling down the Harvard Avenue commercial strip in Allston in his long black leather coat and dreads, always maintaining a stoic, impenetrable dignity that comes of knowing oneself intimately; Billy, in jacket and undone tie, losing himself in spastic gyrations on the dancefloor over ten thousand nights on the town.

Both Butch and Billy  (who as one might expect, knew each other — scroll down a little to the relevant bit) were beloved local characters, well-known free men of Boston, and although being a ‘beloved local character’ may earn you a certain degree of immortality, it exacts a high price. Although both individuals lived far more of their often troubled lives in public than most of us, and both exemplified the eternal manchild and untrammeled id (though both lived longer than one might have expected, nobody really expected them to ever die, either), there are also some obvious differences. Billy Ruane, who was afflicted with bipolar disorder and was occasionally institutionalized, came from a wealthy family and was legendary for his generosity to others, giving away scads of mix tapes and, later, CDs to anyone he thought should have them (he was the son of a highly successful mutual fund manager and lived to a large extent off a trust fund to the end of his days). Butch, born Harold Madison Jr., was a homeless man who lived on the streets and off the charity of friends and strangers, although he, like Billy, was known to be without ulterior motives and occasionally gave money and/or beer to people he thought needed it more than he did. In their later years both became emblems and living legends of a kind. Billy Ruane did much to hold together and seed Boston’s local music scene with his enthusiasm, booking skills, and sizable list of connections; Mr. Butch was the subject of documentaries, videos and a still-extant website.

In truth, I put distance between myself and both of them, perhaps because they represented aspects of myself that I was afraid of becoming. I was shy and socially awkward in my youth, plus I was a writer, which automatically makes you an object of distrust (you never know what a writer is going to write! maybe even something unflattering about you!). These days I’m less shy, at least. I liked to dance myself into a frenzy at clubs, too (yes, I usually pogoed), but like most of us I had no desire to turn myself into too much of a public spectacle, lest I be seen as someone who overly enjoyed himself, better stop before it crosses an ill-defined line. Billy and Butch didn’t have that common inner voice cautioning them against what other people might think; and no, a lot of the time they didn’t act with the best judgment in the world and suffered as a result.

Certain ‘serious’ people, both from the medical community and the Scene, were of the opinion that both were talented, intelligent, creative people who wasted their lives in frivolous pursuits (pot and sex in Butch’s case, aesthetic stimulation in Billy’s). Were both, to some degree, mentally ill lost souls who never got the help they needed? Or is it better to think of them as adults with free will who lived the lives they chose to live, and to hell with anyone who disapproved? I’d go with the latter, myself.

You could make a good argument, moreover, that the holy fool is popular because he (and it’s almost always a he) lives the life most people would like to live if they weren’t afraid of what society would say. Invariably, it’s only after they die that we know how much they did do in their time here, how many lives they touched, how many good things wouldn’t exist if they hadn’t taken the time to act on their caring impulses. After they die is when everyone chimes in to say how much they liked them, post online remembrances, and say how much they’ll be missed. Mr. Butch drew some thousand people to a memorial second-line parade in Allston ten days after his death, and Billy Ruane’s memorial service will no doubt be a huge occasion that the attendees will long remember (I’d go if I could).

I’ve long complained about the invariable pattern in our society to hold off on praising anyone until after they croak, and it’s easy to be cynical about such things (“Beloved local character kicks bucket, hundreds of casual acquaintances mourn!”, like an imagined headline from the Onion). In truth, both Billy and Butch could be pains in the ass — and one wishes a few more people could have shown ‘em some of that love while they still walked among us, instead of keeping their distance — and yes, I include myself among this crowd (what’s so special about dying? Does it make you a better person than you were before?).

A lot of the casual acquaintances of the local character are happy playing the enabler role, buying the alcoholic another drink, getting the junkie another hit — people like their local characters to stay in character — but bottom line is, the local characters are adults who make their own choices the same as anyone else, and if “getting the care they need” means locking them away for the rest of their lives, is that really the best thing in the end? It depends on your definition of success — if success means being remembered by large numbers of people in a positive way, both Mr. Butch and Billy Ruane were huge successes in life, although neither man had a ‘career’ in the conventional, tailored, ready-for-LinkedIn sense.

Certainly, not everyone active in the Boston scene, or any city’s comparable scene, has mental problems — hey, we’re just people who like music and art and meeting other fun folks. Certainly, not all the departed ones we miss have had difficulties relating to reality, such as the classy, stylish, smart and eminently sensible radio show host,  publicist and social catalyst Spencer Gates, who died of breast cancer in 2008; I knew Spencer a bit better than I knew Billy and Butch and after reading the obituaries and recollections of the real friends of all three, and marveling at the things they’d done and how much they wanted to draw others into their world, I wish I’d taken the trouble to get to know all of them to a much greater degree, so I’d have some of those stories to tell, too. (What was I afraid of?)

So what does it mean to mourn these deaths, besides knowing that we were young and now we’re old (or at least older), and being glad we’re still here and our stories haven’t been played out, everything hasn’t yet been finalized for us and our memorial books have yet to go online? I suppose here is where I wrap up this post (trying hard not to be self-important here, really) by saying something about appreciating the friends and family you still have, and that if you want to be remembered after you’re gone, you should do something worth remembering while you’re here.

Honestly, that doesn’t sound too bad. Want to honor the memories of the people you miss? Do something to alter the universe tonight, and dedicate your good-hearted efforts to them. And hope that people won’t wait until after you’re dead to say some nice things about you.

Goodbye to All That

You won't find her at the market anymore.

I’m afraid I’m not perfect. Ever since I repatriated to the USA at the end of 2001, I admit I’ve had a bit of a chip on my shoulder when it comes to putting up with the tastes and opinions of Americans who’ve never been farther away than an occasional week in the Caribbean or Mexico, as well as all those businesses that make their living catering to those tastes and opinions. (“I decided to go live in Slovenia on a whim, and I did,” I say to myself with chest puffed metaphorically out. “I’m just as good as anyone else out there! Maybe better!”) Whenever I go into a home-furnishings shop and browse through the photos and posters in the Exotic Destinations section, I know exactly what I’ll find: Paris, Venice, New York, maybe Tuscany, precious little else. What a bore.

Which is why I so enjoy talking to those folk I consider to be ‘my people’: those who either are, or have been, expats, well-traveled world citizens, or at least People Who Know Europe. Not that I should talk so loudly — I’ve never been east of Romania, never been to Africa (except for Tunisia), never been to Asia. I’ve always wondered about what’s around the bend, what’s beyond the farthest outpost in my experience.

I recently enjoyed writing an article on expat creatives in Slovenia — musicians, filmmakers, writers. It wasn’t part of my plan, but all those I ended up interviewing were Americans. It seems to me that the American expat is a breed apart from, say, the German, Australian or British expat. Because the USA is so isolated, American expats tend to think they have a lot more to prove when they move overseas — not to be seen as the typical insular, monolingual American, for example, they tend to throw themselves into their host cultures full-throttle. They need to Make A Statement, carve out their territory. They don’t want to be back home, they sense there’s other stuff out there worth exploring, and if they sometimes seem to want to become more Italian than the Italians or more Russian than the Russians, who can blame them?

Some expats are, of course, more, well, naturally out there (in more than one sense) than others. Take the notorious writings and escapades of Mark Ames and Matt Taibbi, who started the eXile newspaper in Moscow (and wrote a book about it, which I haven’t read). Ames and Taibbi, who haven’t spoken to each other in years, have relocated (not exactly with glee) back to the US and — as a recent Esquire piece makes clear — haven’t exactly mellowed with age. Nutcases, once-and-future addicts and world-class haters they may well be, but Ames and Taibbi are probably the expats all other expats should be measured against, the ones who actually lived the lives other, more timid sojourners only daydreamed about. (That most of these daydreams remained daydreams is probably a good thing.)

Nearly equaling those guys for gumption is New York writer/musician/cult figure Mykel Board, who decided to relocate to Mongolia for a year in 1995-96, for the heck of it, and had the adventure of his life — or at least one of them — and wrote about it to hilarious effect in his book Even a Daughter is Better Than Nothing (I’ve read it, you should too; it can be bought for cheap on Amazon.com).

I haven’t read any of those books about Americans relocating to Tuscany or Provence — too mainstream, couldn’t care less about these people’s plumbing and wiring problems in renovating that oh-so-picture-perfect farmhouse, reminds me too much of the silly posters in the picture-framing section of the store anyway.

I experienced a far different sensation recently, reading a memoir of a place I know well, by a woman who came to Slovenia before I did and remains there now. I’m speaking of  Erica Johnson Debeljak, whose memoir of her early years in Slovenia, Forbidden Bread, was published last year by North Atlantic Books. It is a passing strange thing to read a book written by someone I know, with whom I shared a city for a time. We didn’t see each other every week, but I knew Erica and her husband, the noted poet, essayist and educator Aleš Debeljak (for whom I edited a manuscript or two while I was living in Ljubljana and working as an English language editor), on a casual basis. I used to think of Erica as the Official American Female Expat in Slovenia, since she was obviously a smart and capable person who had done very well for herself in terms of switching careers along with countries, combining this with raising a beautiful family and maintaining a rather high profile in the SI (one wintry day on the street near my flat in Bežigrad, I remember seeing a large photo of Aleš, Erica and their young children on a billboard, in a winter scene, possibly riding on a sled, in what I’m almost sure was an ad for the ubiquitous Slovenian cellphone company Mobitel). As her memoir makes clear, though, the first years were anything but a smooth ride as she adjusted to and sometimes clashed with the customs of her new home, represented in all forms from the infamous bureaucracy of the new state to the rural lifestyles of her husband’s family.

Erica moved to Slovenia only a couple of years after it had declared its independence from the fast-fragmenting Yugoslavia, and battles were still going on just to the south between Croats and Serbs (at her otherwise idyllic wedding reception, she could hear machine-gun fire a few miles away over the border in Karlovac, Croatia).  You’d expect capsule descriptions of the history of the region and Slovenia in particular, and Erica provides them clearly and concisely, but the heart of the book is a personal story of her struggles with the new land. There’s the odd language, of course, but language is a fixed and codified thing; you can take classes in it, and it can be mastered with sufficient amounts of concentration and practice (lots of it).

You can’t, however, take a class in social attitudes (at least not, as far as I know, in Slovenia). Certain things can only be learned by direct experience, such as the Slovenes’ aversion to drafts of any kind (riding in a hot car on a hot day with no air conditioning, nobody opens a window — which I can vouch for), and triple-diapering a baby (which I’d never heard of before reading this book — something about worrying about setting the baby’s hips out of joint). Although the Slovenes tend to be competent and honest, they’re also not as direct as Americans, which can be both a blessing and a curse, but is ultimately just another detail for an expat to adjust to.

The book’s final chapter jumps ahead from 1995 — just after the birth of the Debeljaks’ first child — to 2008, when they have a teenage girl and two growing boys and Slovenia is a member of the EU and NATO, the tolar is history, and modernization has, as Erica writes, rendered obsolete much of what she covered in her memoir. It’s meant to be jolting, and it certainly was for me. Expats understandably tend to romanticize their chosen foreign destination, even when, as one hip Slovene woman once told me, “your paradise is someone else’s prison.” Over the five years I spent in Slovenia I could see the old ways fading out as certainly as the cafes with Tito-era decor gave way with a vengeance to postmodern facades and shops that wouldn’t be out of place in Copenhagen, Rome or London. I accept that time can’t be reversed, but at this point I wonder how I’ll feel when I set foot in Slovenia again. You can’t go home away from home again. I know that at the least, I’ll miss the tolars.

14 Topics for Heavy Discussions over Light Dinners

Something I wrote a long time ago, maybe 1994…

 

1.  Okay, so if you were president, how would you balance the budget?

2.  Should capital punishment be administered by the state under any circumstances?

3.  Should the actions of all government leaders be subject to approval by the World Court or the United Nations?

4.  If you had a choice, where would you like to have been born and raised?  Male or female?  City or farm?  Any preferred ethnic origin?  Oppressor or victim?  None of the above?

5.  Who makes the best kind of friend:  someone a lot like yourself, or someone very different?

6.  And what do you want your friends for, other than a lift home?

7.  If songs were people, which one would you marry?

8.  Is retirement overrated?  If maybe, this depends on what?  And whose?

9.  If people say they want the world to be better for their children, and the next generation says the same thing about their children, how come things are still so bad?

10.   Is fate just a concept people invented to rationalize the random chaos of the universe?  If so, how can you tell?

11.  Is it about peace, justice and the Cambridge Way, or is it about feeding your ego the way you stuff your face with bagels every morning?

12.   Let’s suppose that when you die, you meet everyone you’ve ever known in your life (who died before you, that is), and then you all go to a cast party.  That this is, in fact, the primary entertainment in the afterlife.

13.  If reincarnation is the rule, why shouldn’t more people remember their past lives, besides Shirley MacLaine and the populations of India and Tibet?  It might help them to avoid making the same mistake twice, or 33 times for that matter, thus bettering their karma.  Or, it might not.  Is it in the higher plane’s interest to help those on lower planes?  Does First Class care about Coach?  And where does Business Class fit in?

14.   After you die, will you miss having yourself around?  Will you think sadly, “Oh, that used to be my hat?”  Will you keep expecting yourself to walk through that door?

If none of these topics appeal to you, you could just have coffee.

“There will come a time when the past reaches out and grabs you”: My speech in Benrath, Germany

Outside Hauptstraße 46

During the last week of August, I was the guest of the town of Hilden, Germany for ceremonies centered around the installation of three Stolpersteine on the sidewalk outside the building that once housed my father’s family’s drygoods business on a main street in nearby Benrath (now a southern suburb of Düsseldorf but formerly an independent town). For those of you unfamiliar with Stolpersteine, the word means “stumbling stones” or “stumbling blocks” — they are, basically, small stones set in the sidewalk outside a house, bearing brass plates giving the names of victims of the Holocaust who once lived there (not necessarily limited to Jews, and not necessarily killed during the wartime period; Stolpersteine are occasionally placed for persons forced to emigrate, for example, who may still be alive today). The project was originated in 1994 by the Cologne artist Gunter Demnig, who has placed over 20,000 of them to date.

The history of my father’s family during the Nazi period in Germany, and afterward, is a long and complicated one, and the story of my father’s return to Germany after 66 years (in 2006) and his subsequent coming to terms with what the Nazis did in those terrible years, and the efforts at reconciliation by contemporary younger Germans,  is worthy of a book (and will actually be one, written by Karin Marquardt and published by the Verlag Stadtarchiv Hilden later this month; the following speech will make up its final pages). This was my father’s third Stolpersteine-related visit to Germany in three years, and my first; this was also likely the last for both of us. The three stones placed on August 27 were in honor of my grandfather Walter Eichenwald (1900-1943), his sister-in-law Helene Heumann Blumenfeld (1904-1944) and her husband Paul Blumenfeld (1902-1943). Walter and Paul were murdered at the Sobibor concentration camp on the same day in July 1943; Helene, in hiding in Holland, was a diabetic and died in October 1944 because of the unavailability of insulin. Besides my father and me, the ceremony was attended by the Blumenfelds’ daughter, my dad’s cousin Gay, who was herself making her first trip to Deutschland in 55 years.

As I note below, I was last in Benrath in 1994 on a private pilgrimage. Reading the following speech in German on the doorstep of my dad’s boyhood home, in front of a crowd of over 100 people, including video cameras, journalists and officials, ranks among the supreme moments of surreality in my entire life. But was it worth it? You bet. Am I glad I had the chance to participate in this unique opportunity, along with my father and cousin? Of course.

Here’s the speech, first in the original English and then in German.

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Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen:

No matter how modern and forward-looking you may consider yourself, if you live long enough there will come a time when the past reaches out and grabs you, saying, ‘Pay attention!’ And so it was with me.

I was first here fifteen years ago as a tourist. I had heard the stories from my father and grandmother; I had seen the old photos and postcards that my grandmother kept in boxes in her apartment. The tobacconist; the church; the hotel; the pharmacy; and the beautiful pink Schloss on the lake. A tidy little town with everything in its place.

And my family had their place here, too. The dry goods store with its bolts of cloth, furniture, pairs of socks, where the owners lived right above, in the handsome, sturdy house my great-grandfather had built in the early years of the last century. And finally I myself walked into the picture, but for obvious reasons, I felt it was no longer my picture. My experience was, in an odd way, like a dream of a time I had never known.

I returned to New York to tell my grandmother, Thea, about my visit to her home town. She was then 94 years old. It was the last time I saw her, as a few short weeks afterward she died peacefully.

My grandmother maintained an optimistic outlook on life for as long as I knew her; smiles and laughter came easily to her. Of course, I knew she had lost her husband Walter, and her brothers-in-law Paul and Henry, and her youngest sister Lene. And her other sister, my great-aunt Maddi, had lost both her husband and her young son Rolf, and she tried to put a brave face on things, traveling and visiting and corresponding with friends. But the darkness was close at hand; Maddi kept all the photos of her son hidden away in an old trunk in a closet, too painful to look at.

Who knows what their lives would have been, if they had been permitted to live them out here, alongside their neighbors and friends in Benrath. We cannot know. What we have come here for is to simply acknowledge their existence.

I think my grandmother and others of her generation would be astounded by the ceremony taking place today. But not displeased. To me, as the son and grandson of survivors, the work of remembrance and reconciliation that is going on now in this country is extraordinary. I believe that openness and honesty are good things, and sometimes not that easy to come by. But worth the effort.

I did not live the history of the war years, or have to make my grandparents’ hard choices, but yet it is part of who I am. With a few exceptions I did not know them personally, but I have heard so many stories about them and about similar people, with similar destinies, that they have become part of my story as well. And now, regardless of your own history and experiences, because you care enough to want to hear about them yourselves, they have also, in a way, become part of who you are, in 21^st century Germany. And so we, who have never met before today, have this connection through space and time.

We cannot change what happened all those years ago. But what we can do is to hold close the lessons of those times.

For the work of remembrance is never finished. It is up to all of us to keep the names alive, to say: these people lived here, and they mattered. This is set in the sidewalk, but is also finding its place in books, exhibitions, and people’s hearts and minds.

And I might add that just as it is not only the German people who need to remember the wrongs done in their past, it is not only the Jews who need to be saved.

We cannot and must not confine our humanitarian impulses, our empathy, to people who look and sound like us, but with all the peoples of Earth.

And so, on this day, in this place, we must open ourselves to kindness without thought of reward; to tolerance of differences; and to the value of recognizing our common humanity through the work of helping others who might need it. As there were heroic actions performed in those times by brave and selfless men and women, so we must keep our eyes and ears open to the challenges of our own time.

Although I know well the story of my family and their history here, it is not something I dwell on in every waking moment. I owe it to myself, my wife, and my two sons, twin boys not yet five years old, to live a meaningful, productive and, I hope, happy life. Some may think that the concept of the brotherhood of man, and “peace, love and understanding,” is an outdated and irrelevant cliché; I say it’s something still worth striving for – after all, what is the alternative?

My best wishes to you all.

Rede anlässlich der Stolperstein-Verlegung für Walter Eichenwald, Paul Blumenfeld und Helene Blumenfeld, geb. Heumann,

am 27. August 2009 in Benrath

von Wes Eichenwald

Hochverehrte Gäste, meine Damen und Herren,

Ganz egal für wie modern und fortschrittlich man sich hält: Wenn man lange genug lebt kommt für jeden der Moment, in dem die Vergangenheit einen einholt, einen festhält und zu einem sagt: „Pass auf!“. So war es auch bei mir.

Zum ersten Mal war ich vor fünfzehn Jahren als Tourist hier. Ich kannte die Geschichten meines Vaters und meiner Großmutter; ich hatte die alten Fotos und Postkarten gesehen, die meine Großmutter in Kartons in Ihrer Wohnung aufbewahrte. Der Tabakladen, die Kirche, das Hotel, die Apotheke und das hübsche rosa Schloss am Teich: eine ordentliches Städtchen, wo alles an seinem Platz ist.

Meine Familie hatte dort auch ihren Platz. Der Kurzwarenladen mit seinen Stoffballen, Möbeln und Strümpfen, darüber die Wohnung in dem stattlichen Haus, das mein Urgroßvater zu Beginn des letzten Jahrhunderts baute. Zu guter Letzt trat ich nun selbst in dieses Bild ein, aber aus verständlichen Gründen hatte ich nicht mehr das Gefühl, dass es mein Bild sei. Ich erlebte hier etwas, das auf merkwürdige Weise wie der Traum von einer Zeit war, die ich nie gekannt hatte.

Ich kehrte nach New York zurück um meiner Großmutter Thea von meinem Besuch ihrer Heimatstadt zu erzählen. Sie war damals vierundneunzig Jahre alt und es war mein letzter Besuch bei ihr, denn nur ein paar Wochen später starb sie friedlich.

Solange ich sie kannte, hat meine Großmutter immer eine positive Einstellung zum Leben behalten; sie hat oft gelächelt und gelacht. Ich wusste natürlich, dass sie ihren Ehemann Walter, ihre Schwäger Paul und Henry und ihre jüngste Schwester Lene verloren hatte. Und ihre andere Schwester, meine Großtante Maddi, hatte ihren Mann und ihren jüngsten Sohn Rolf verloren, versuchte aber tapfer zu sein, reiste viel, besuchte Freunde und blieb mit ihnen über Briefe in Kontakt. Aber das Dunkel war nicht weit, Maddi hielt all die Fotos von ihrem Sohn versteckt in einem Koffer, der in einem Wandschrank stand, es war zu schmerzvoll sie anzuschauen.

Wer weiss, wie ihr Leben ausgesehen hätte, wäre es ihnen erlaubt gewesen es hier mit ihren Nachbarn und Freunden in Benrath zu verbringen. Wir können es nicht wissen. Wir sind einfach hergekommen, um ihre Existenz anzuerkennen.

Ich glaube, dass diese Feier heute meine Großmutter und andere aus ihrer Generation sprachlos machen würde, aber nicht unzufrieden. Für mich als Sohn und Enkel von Überlebenden ist der Prozess der Erinnerung und der Versöhnung der jetzt in diesem Land vor sich geht außergewöhnlich. Ich glaube, dass Offenheit und Ehrlichkeit gut sind, aber oft schwer zu erreichen. Aber sie sind diese Mühe wert.

Ich habe die Geschichte der Kriegsjahre nicht gelebt und musste nicht die schweren Entscheidungen meiner Großeltern treffen, aber trotzdem ist es ein Teil von dem, der ich bin. Mit wenigen Ausnahmen kannte ich sie nicht persönlich, aber ich habe so viele Geschichten über sie gehört und über ähnliche Menschen mit ähnlichen Schicksalen, dass sie Teil meiner eigenen Geschichte geworden sind.  Und jetzt, dadurch dass Sie sich dafür interessieren und selbst diese Geschichten hören wollen, sind diese Menschen in gewisser Weise  auch ein Teil von Ihnen im Deutschland des einundzwanzigsten Jahrhunderts geworden, unabhängig von Ihren eigenen Erfahrungen und Ihrer Geschichte. Obwohl wir uns vor dem heutigen Tag nie getroffen haben, besteht so eine Verbindung zwischen uns über Zeit und Raum hinweg.

Was vor all diesen Jahren geschehen ist, können wir nicht mehr ändern. Aber wir können uns die Lehre, die wir aus diesen Zeiten ziehen, zu Herzen nehmen.

Denn die Arbeit des Gedenkens ist niemals abgeschlossen. Es liegt an uns, die Namen am Leben zu erhalten and zu sagen: Diese Menschen lebten hier und sie waren wichtig. Das wird in den Bürgersteig eingelassen, aber es findet auch seinen Platz in Büchern, Ausstellungen und den Herzen und Köpfen der Menschen.

Und ich würde gerne hinzufügen, dass es nicht nur die Deutschen sind, die sich an die Fehler in ihrer Vergangenheit erinnern müssen, es sind nicht nur die Juden, die gerettet werden müssen.

Wir können und dürfen unsere humanitären Regungen, unsere Empathie nicht auf Völker beschränken, die aussehen und reden wie wir, sondern auf alle Völker dieser Erde.

Und so müssen wir uns, an diesem Tag und an diesem Ort, der Freundlichkeit gegenüber öffnen, ohne eine Belohnung dafür zu erwarten; der Toleranz gegenüber den Unterschieden; und gegenüber dem Wert unsere gemeinsame Menschlichkeit zu erkennen, indem wir Menschen helfen, die es brauchen. So wie damals heroische Taten von mutigen und selbstlosen Männern und Frauen vollbracht wurden , so müssen wir heute unsere Augen und Ohren für die Herausforderungen unserer eigenen Zeit offen halten.

Obwohl ich die Geschichte meiner Familie und ihrer Zeit hier gut kenne, beschäftige ich mich doch nicht in jedem wachen Moment mit ihr. Ich bin es mir selbst, meiner Frau und meinen zwei Söhnen, die noch keine fünf sind, schuldig ein sinnvolles, produktives und, wie ich hoffe, glückliches Leben zu leben. Es gibt Menschen, die glauben, dass die Idee von der Brüderlichkeit unter den Menschen und von „Frieden, Liebe und Verständnis“ veraltete und irrelevante Klischees sind; Ich finde, dass es immer noch etwas ist, nach dem es sich zu streben lohnt – was ist schließlich die Alternative?

Ich wünsche Ihnen allen alles Gute.

(Aus dem englischen übersetzt von Emilia Ellsiepen/Translated from the English by Emilia Ellsiepen)