EYE, HEART and HAND

A MATE OF OCEANS

2008-12-07T08:01:00.001-08:00

We share the same name.

We shared the same deep love of books and reading; of enjoying the early morning hours before others are up, to watch the day, to listen and think. I have little left to me of my father's life except digitized photographs of him and my mother before they were married, an old Kodak camera, and his Merchant Marine registration book -- a wonderful, cracked-leather wallet book, with a brass clip lock. When I open it, I actually feel time in my hands. This is the single image that I believe represents him most: his eyes are somewhere we cannot really determine; it is a pose, and as well - a document of his concentration: his muscular arm seems caught in the instant of action. Or, is he impressing for the camera? I don't know who took the photograph. I look at it and think: how handsome, young, blond, and serious this man is. At this moment in time, I was not even a thought in his life; and I wonder what was.

I know that he loved being a seaman; most of what he ever spoke of were his memories of his merchant marine buddies, and the experiences at sea, traveling around the world. This photograph also shows its time: his arms are bare. Yet I only remembered my father's arms as completely covered in faded blue tattoos -- some of my first reading and seeing -- the names of countries, images of mermaids, anchors...and two astounding swallows in wing, one on each side of the expanse of his chest! A pig and a rooster -- two nautical goodluck charms which if tattooed on a sailor would prevent them from drowning -- the rooster meaning that you would live to see the dawn of a new day, and the pig for bounty and sustenance. On the tops of his fingers he had the words "HOLD" and "FAST"; a motto also for seamen, which reminded them to keep their grip as the ship was being bombed, lashed by winds and seas, or hailed with ice. Those very words were what I spoke of in my eulogy to my father at his wake, in 1981. Remarkably, many years later as I was watching the great, frightening "Night of the Hunter", there is a scene where the camera focuses on Robert Mitchum's clenched hands in the courtroom. On them were the very same words.

I know by family reminiscences that his own father was hell to live with. An angry Irishman. To everyone. My father never spoke of him, but everyone else who did never voiced a good word about this Irish grandfather of mine, who died by being crushed under the wheels of a horse-drawn cement truck one day on Second Avenue in New York City. He was screaming curses to the end I believe. But as with all family reminiscences, this has gone through a few revisions.

Scene and Herd

2008-11-07T17:26:00.000-08:00

Hope is audacious after all. Overnight the world changed. Obama won. Now, crowds will own him. And right they should. From now on, I believe we finally have a president of the people. All the people. When we heard, in his speech in Chicago on the night of becoming president-elect, his inclusion of the words "gay and straight," it was immediately evident to me that Barack Obama was unafraid at the outset to be a leader of inclusion. And although on the same election night gays and lesbians lost a crucial fight in California in their freedom to marry, Obama will never be a president to stop mentioning them in his political life. This is a president who understands the words, "pursuit of happiness."

I spent the night of the election with friends in Riverdale, two gay men who are fathers of a son, and some of their close friends -- including a mixed-race couple and their son; and an enthusiastic group of Hispanic men and women who kept shouting out "Pela!" Pela!" every time Obama won an important state and its electoral votes. I may be completely wrong, as my Spanish is "nulla", but I think the word meant something close to fantabulous! I didn't need a translation; their enthusiastic shouts lent a welcome sense of play to an evening that was at turns nail-bitingly suspenseful (we are so much the nervous result of the last eight years), smile-widening, and ecstatic. As nights go, it was a page-turner. (Cell phone calls and texting were probably at an all time high and I bet the phone companies will learn from this.) We ate well. We had a feast of chili and delicious wines, and an exhorbitant dessert of brownies and ice cream. We laughed as we switched the HDTV from MSNBC to CNN to FOX (for some low-brow fun) to see how each network was tallying results. At each close of voting districts every hour or so, more cheers would go up as we saw the ever-increasing roster of states for our candidate. But no one was looking into any crystal balls as yet.

They didn't have to. In a matter of an hour an extraordinary set of mathematical truths set glorious proof of the electoral win. Even the blue states and the red states that were not counted yet could put Humpty together again. At that point, emotions changed from happiness to tears of happiness. Watching the crowds in Grant Stadium in Chicago was one of the most remarkable sights I've witnessed in many years: every mix of race, creed, orientation, and gender packed arm to arm and heart to heart in the same direction: their eyes ahead, looking up at the man who so proudly and with such complete openness looked directly back into their eyes to thank each one of them.

We had not heard such articulate and honest words in decades. Hearing Obama speak was like remembering what speech could be: a voice, a balm, a prayer, a hand around us, a fire inside us. We were rapt; we were witness. Nothing is the same. It was a night I will always remember.

As I got up to go and hugged each of the people I'd met that night and shared this with, I felt something of peace. To know what it means to find some way to simply be human in the presence of enormous change. I walked home alone, close to midnight, glad for the clean fresh air of the unseasonal warm night, and glad for my friends. Glad for my life. The work ahead for our President will be hard, but hard for us too because we need now to support him in a way we've rarely supported a president. We need to show him what we feel, and want, and how we think, how we live and love. Suddenly a president who will truly see us is giving us the opportunity to show ourselves back, eye to eye. We must do this in faith of who we are.

It is time for every American to know their history; to know the basic documents, the words and ideas that this country was based on; the who, what, when, where, and why of how it is governed. Weeks before the election, a poll was taken of young pre-college students. They were asked simple things such as "How many senators are there in each state", "What is the House of Representatives," "Where does Congress meet," etc. The answers were wrong 99% percent of the time. The faces on the students told the sorry fact that these basic things do not hold as much attention to us as does the latest celebrity bump-sighting or the newest reality show's crushing season-end episode.

I do look in the crystal ball now and I see a new resurgence of book sales about American History; I overhear conversations in gay bars including the words "latest Marist poll said that"; I see more Presidents of the U.S. bookmarks being given out free at Barnes & Noble; I see an inauguration day that will rival the marriage crowds of Charles and Diana. I see a Black Man in the White House. And so does all the rest of the world.

And Home of the Rave

2008-11-04T17:53:00.000-08:00

I want Obama to win. Because he's a man who will truly act like a President -- meaning that he will consider the needs of those who voted for him. Sarah Palin, if your party gets in somehow, know this: You've got to deal with Americans. And not just the view from your window. You'll have to turn around and start at your front door, open it up and look at people who don't look like you at all. John McCain, if you somehow get in tomorrow, know this: As a gay man, I want a President to include me in his thinking, even if he does not include me in his voting. Because if he thinks of me, he will have to think about what I can do as a voter when it comes time to think about him.

A few things just piss me off. As an American, and specifically a native New Yorker, I don't want to worry that after a productive and long life of working, that I am rewarded with a short and insufficient return on my efforts. For me, it's about honesty: No, we cannot all get along for God's sake. Someone has to slap the lollipop out of our mouth.

But I still need to know just when exactly some law is passed that insinuates a new set of "auxiliary" taxes on my phone bill; or the reason I am prevented from getting an answer as to exactly WHY we can't have just one completely correct credit report with a number whose calculation we can determine with simple arithmetic. I want to be able to feel that I can live in an apartment in the native city I grew up in without having to fear incessant "market value" increases which have nothing to do with anything but greed. Everyone needs to be able to have the security of a home that they can stay in for a reasonable length of their lives -- all their lives if they so choose. We cannot become a nation of rental itinerants. If you want a workforce, you need to keep them housed.

Education has got to get back to the basics. I attended the public school system at a time when it really was important to just learn the alphabet, read "Dick and Jane", and recite the multiplication table. Believe me, "Dick and Jane" helped me to get to "Moby Dick" and "Jane Eyre" later in life. We learned. We did not learn the test. We were allowed to go crazy with paint and Crayolas -- and just look at any school's windows in the spring and summer and you'll realize why art programs should NEVER be cut at any level of a child's development.

Before you "rock the vote" today and wave those flags proudly, think of one thing that makes you angry as hell -- one law maybe that prevents you from having or doing something that directly interferes with your "pursuit of happiness". And then think of which of the two candidates might actually enable you to pursue that very happiness in the coming four years.

And then pull the lever.