Christmas Lethargy

Full disclosure—at this time of year, I completely don’t want to do anything.

It could be a leftover all of those years in school—why don’t adults get the breaks that kids do? Aren’t we supposed to be in charge? What kind of saps are we to be out working when our kids are vegging at home with their video games? Shouldn’t we reinvent child labor?

Right—so now you know my state of mind. What you may not know is that I’ve spent four hopeless hours looking for anything to write about. And what have I found?

Problems, dear Readers, with the Olympic torch, which according to The New York Times has gone out four dozen times and once had to relighted with a plastic disposable lighter, instead of the “official backup flame.” The story went on to say…

But perhaps the low point in what has seemed less like an Olympic torch relay than an exercise in ineptitude and misfortune came earlier this week when one of the runners carrying the torch to the Sochi Games had a fatal heart attack while attempting to walk his allotted distance, about 218 yards.

Right—that would be unfortunate, but given that fourteen thousand people are participating as torch bearers, little problems are bound to crop up.  Oh, and the torches…well, here more of The Times:

Russia’s torches were manufactured in Siberia at a reported cost of $6.4 million by KrasMash, which usually makes submarine-launched ballistic missiles. It is not everyone’s favorite just now, but it cannot be sent to Siberia, because it is already in Siberia.

“Any normal person will have at least a few questions,” Mikhail Starshinov, a member of Russia’s parliament, was quoted saying in October by The Moscow Times, in an article titled “Veteran Bobsledder Set Alight by Faulty Olympic Torch.” “Why were 16,000 produced? How much does each torch cost, and is this price appropriate? And finally, why don’t they work?”

Reasonable questions that anyone might have—but can I make a post of it? Combine it with some other story about the Olympics? I drift over to the New Day, which has an interesting story coming—as they so often do—right out of a Walmart Supercenter. Because it turns out that somewhere in Broward County, Florida, a Walmart employee shot up a coworker’s car. Why? Because she got awarded Associate of the Month, and not he. Here’s the info:

"Definitivamente parece inusual que alguien pueda estar furioso hasta el punto que puede dispararle al vehículo de alguien solo porque esa persona recibió un premio", dijo Keyla Concepción vocera del alguacil. "Obviamente sintió que era injusto que ella recibiera este premio", agregó.

(“Definitely it appears unusual that somebody could be furious to the point that he could fire at the vehicle of that person just because she had received an award,” said Keyla Concepción, spokesperson of the marshal. “Obviously he felt that it was unjust that she received the award,” she added.)

Well, something to know. News flash—the guy, Willie Mitchell, is available to any of you employers out there!

(One wants to know—does he still have his gun? And was he packing in the store?)

Right—and from there I read that Ricky Martin has no plans to marry, but if he did, he’d do it in Spain. Well, that seemed like something I should know about and who, by the way, gets to be Ricky’s boyfriend? Is there an interview, a competency exam, a competition? If so, I’m screwed because beyond being married myself (and famously faithful to Mr. Fernández), here’s Rick and Carlos together:

Wow! And what this proves, Dear Reader, is that seriously rich and beautiful people very easily hang out with…

Not worth finishing that sentence!

Right, so what about Yahoo? Anything there?

Well, I can tell you that the archbishop of Minneapolis, John Nienstedt, announced that he won’t be ministering publically until he’s cleared of charges of putting his hand on a boy’s bottom during a photo shoot after a confirmation four years ago. But Nienstedt  says he always puts his hands in specific places. So who knows?

Right, then it was time to take the religion quiz, since I had to prove that I, an atheist, was more knowledgeable about religion. And guess what? I got a 92—which I’m calling an A—and the average is 85.

OK—it’s clear. It’s now 2 PM, I’ve wasted four hours and produced nothing, which is not good because what am I gonna tell my shrink tomorrow, when he asks—as he always does—how much time I’ve spent vegetating? It’s one of the signs of depression.

Right—fallback. Check out the stuff I’ve sent myself during my middle of the night munchies run. And there I came upon Noah, who I remembered dimly from 3:52 AM (when I sent it to myself).

OK—829 words! I’m outta here!

White Light (reposted)

This post was originally published on October 31, 2012. I leave you with it, in anticipation to a post coming soon....

It was only after I saw my shrink, today, that I fully understood what I had done.

Resolved the defining challenge of my life.

Defining because, yes, it had ruled me since I can remember. I couldn’t get the sounds in my head out of the cello. I raged, I bit myself—never puncturing the skin, but leaving the indentations of teeth marks for hours. I once broke a bow, slamming it on the strings of the instrument.

I knew it was in there; I couldn’t get it out. And with the rage came the depression. Black days, awful days when the minutes dragged, when no amount of will could banish the demon that lurked in the corner, always crouched, always ready to pounce.

Things I didn’t care about I did well. Teaching, never a problem.

The cello?

An agony that I couldn’t do, and couldn’t not do. I couldn’t breath at the cello, I held my breath until I had to gasp. My shoulders cramped, so tight was I.

I was practicing for hours at a time. There were days it went well. I floated down the street, beaming at strangers.

Most days it didn’t.

Late at night, in Chicago. Raf asleep, Marc alone in an empty apartment. I would be meditating, and almost get through.

I called it the breakthrough. The music would get out, I would get out, the struggle would be over.

I’d win.

Or be free.

I’d masturbate, hoping to use the energy of orgasm to push me through that door. And use Rush, amyl nitrite. I’d see a white light, I’d move closer, the orgasm would stun me. But I never got through.

Last March, I relived the moment I lost my mind, back in December. Had two weeks of struggle, of fierce concentration and mindfulness. It took five minutes to save a document. I washed dishes as if the process were a koan. I retrained myself to do everything.

At the end of the day, I would be exhausted. I’d sit and read what someone else had written.

I’d laugh out loud.

“He’s so funny,” I’d say.

“He makes the most amazing leaps,” I’d say.

I was reading that day’s post in a blog called Life, Death and Iguanas.

“I’m taking the writer to get his teeth fixed,” I told Taí. She was in a storm of worry ten islands down the Caribbean. I made sure he ate. I obsessed about his having water at all times. I needed to take care of him, this gifted guy whom I have nothing to do with.

And everything….

“He didn’t go away, I could have lost him,” I’m telling the shrink. And then, “hey, aren’t you guys supposedly to have Kleenex?”

He gestured to the side table.

Well, they are our confessors, these shrinks. And at one moment, retelling the story, I jumped back, back to a dark apartment, back to a man in agony, back to a man with his brain flooded with chemicals, and a light, a light, a light I could not get to. A light that would recede and leave me so stabbed with alone.

I’m gasping, now, as I was gasping in that red velvet chair, as I was gasping at the cello.

I have just had an orgasm I have never had. Nothing physical, no hands to wash, or floor to wipe. And no, I saw no white light.

I see that white light when I sit in my chair, at five in the afternoon and read the absurd, the tortured, most—the gifted—words he’s written.

He’s filled with that light, and I tell him, “fuck, you’re amazing.”

Who Are the People in Your Neighborhood? (reposted)

Talking about the Catholic Church, I leave you with this post originally published on May 22, 2013....

Well, a new statistic—there are some 315 million people in the USA, and 750,000 sex offenders. So that means that one person in 420 in the United States is a sex offender. And there’s a little problem—where do you put these guys?

I know about this because the New York Times had a video this morning about a sex offender village in Florida. And I can also tell you—nothing reveals the deep prudery of the United States better than this video. One man, living with his mother, had sex at the age of 18 with a girlfriend, age 16. Another guy was in “gay rehab”—wow, didn’t know we could do that, have to check it out—and mentioned to his counselor that he had touched a boy inappropriately. Still another “computer solicited a minor”—whom he never met.

Granted, no criminal comes right out and says, “yeah, I sadistically assaulted and tortured a little girl, and hey, I’d do it again, in a flash!” But the Times video does make several points. It shows the church member who says that the church got involved because there is almost nowhere to live that isn’t within whatever state limit has been established from a place where kids congregate. So they found a community that had been built to house sugar cane workers; the workers are mostly gone, but the sugar cane fields remain.

Then there is the public defender of Palm Beach, 35 miles away, who makes the point: there’s a big difference between an 18-year old kid screwing his 16-year old girlfriend and a rapist. But they are both “sex offenders” and they both have a label for life.

There’s also the point that not one complaint of a sex offense has occurred in the sex offenders village.

So there are over 100 sex offenders living in the village of Pahokee, Florida—isolated from the rest of Florida by sugar cane. Right, so who are the people in my neighborhood?  Are kids safe?

Don’t have the answer, but according to the NSOPW website, there are eight sex offenders in my zip code.

OK—anything I need to worry about?

Yeah—a guy who tried to commit rape and sodomy in 1974. Another who intentionally committed child abuse. A couple of men who committed lewd acts, and one who attempted to commit a lewd act. (Sorry, but I can’t quite get my head around that. Was he just about to pull down his pants? Was he intercepted in a grope?) Several have moved in from other jurisdictions, and no details are given.

Mind you, there is a school three blocks away from where I live, as well as a school across the street from where two of the offenders live (if the database is accurate).   

All right—another statistic: one in six women will be raped in the course of her lifetime.

That’s serious—that’s something I’d like to know about. What I’m not interested in knowing is what an 18-year-old kid did with his 16-year-old girlfriend. Assuming it was done consensually, assuming no one got hurt, I couldn’t care less. And the video makes a good point—there’s not a lot of work out there for registered sex offenders. Once you’re on the list, that’s it—you can kiss that promising career in food preparation at Burger King goodbye.

We’ve all gone a little crazy, I think. We have the courts giving sentences to kids having sex with kids two years younger than them. At the same time, we have the Catholic Church, which is reportedly still harboring real sex offenders. And, as well, we have a Catholic bishop who has been convicted of not reporting the case of a predator priest.

Yes, I bring you the sorry case of Robert W. Finn, the bishop of Kansas City, who was convicted last year on one account of failure to report Shawn Ratigan, a priest who had hundred of pictures of the private parts of little girls. The pictures were apparently so shocking that the computer technician who discovered them on the laptop Ratigan had brought in for repair later stated: “my hands were shaking so much, I could barely turn off the machine.”

So what did the bishop do? Transferred Ratigan to another place, and told Ratigan to stay away from kids. And what did Ratigan do? Got right back involved with a youth group. Oh, and went to dinner at a parishioner’s house, and got caught by Poppa, photographing with his cellphone the daughter under the table.

For all of this, the bishop has received a suspended sentence, and has agreed to meet monthly with court officials. But the gay guy—or did the rehab work?—down there in the sex offender village, how much time did he get?

A year in the county jail.

Clothes make the man, it’s said, and it’s evidently true. Who knew that a Roman Collar was a pass to touch any child anywhere at any time?  

Business as Usual in the Catholic Church

Yeah?

Can somebody out there fill me in on why the Roman Catholic Church always gets a free pass?

They don’t think so, of course. To them, everybody is out to get them, liberals and atheists (raise your hand, Marc) are spreading lies and filth, and the only thing these alleged victims are looking for is…you got it.

And there is a case to be made for Time magazine making Francis Person of the Year. He is, apparently, taking on the Curia—which makes him a stronger man than I. He may be reforming the Vatican Bank, which needs it. And yes, refusing to live in the palace and driving your old, beat-up car is endearing.

But let’s be very clear—theologically, he’s not budging. And if you’re standing on one leg waiting for any movement on the ordination of women, priestly celibacy, ordination of openly gay priests—well, you’d better have a great sense of balance.

Because it’s clear—it’s business as usual in the Vatican.

Think I’m wrong? Consider the case of Jozef Wesolowski, the papal nuncio to the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. Ooops, that’s former papal nuncio, since Wesolowski skipped town—err, was recalled by the Vatican—shortly before the allegations of child molesting were aired on Dominican television. Nor was he alone—his pal Alberto Gil was also screwing around, and shot back to his native Poland when the water got a little hot.

How can this be, you are saying in horror. Aren’t these guys supposed to stay put, face the charges? Isn’t the church supposed to be cooperating with the local authorities?

Well, that’s what I thought….

Nor was all of this confined to the Dominican Republic, since Wesolowski was also spending quite a bit of time here in Puerto Rico, investigating our archbishop for allegedly injecting politics into the church (the archbishop favors independence, and doesn’t care who knows it). So Wesolowski spent a good deal of time in the next diocese over—Arecibo—where he reportedly slept with a group of boys. Oh, and one local priest was suspended. Readers, take note. Arecibo is—in some way or another—American soil. If Wesolowski did indeed engage in criminal behavior in Arecibo, he’s subject to Puerto Rico and—by extension—US law.

Or is he? Because he is also part of the Vatican “diplomatic” corps. The Vatican, you see, is a nation as well as a church, and so gets to have diplomats. And they diplomatic immunity, which Wikipedia defines thus:

Diplomatic immunity is a form of legal immunity and a policy held between governments that ensures that diplomats are given safe passage and are considered not susceptible to lawsuit or prosecution under the host country's laws, although they can still be extradited.

Presumably this means the Wesolowski can screw all the kids in Christendom and get away with it. So for a time—in September of this year—there was a great to-do in the media. And then what happened?

The church is very wise, and moves on its own time. And if you had to bet between the church and a glacier in some imagined race? Put your money on the glacier.

The church is conducting an investigation. Now you can say “whew” and wipe the sweat off your brow. But that also means—quite reasonably—that they cannot comment on the affair. They did, however, get around to appointing a new papal nuncio to—guess where? And he was sworn in or inaugurated or whatever-it-is last month. Oh, and here’s what he the article said:

Santo Domingo - El arzobispo nigeriano Jude Thaddeus Okolo reconoció hoy, tras recibir oficialmente la bienvenida como el nuevo embajador del Vaticano en República Dominicana, que tendrá que hacer un "gran esfuerzo" para enfrentar los "desafíos" que entraña su misión en esta nación.

(Santo Domingo - The Nigerian archbishop Jude Thaddeus Okolo acknowledged today, after receiving officially the welcome as new ambassador from the Vatican to the Dominican Republic, that he will have to make a “great effort” to take on the “challenges” which are attached to his mission in the nation.)

Guys? Hope you were listening well, because guess what? That’s all you’re gonna get.

My complaint isn’t with the Vatican, which is doing what every organization would do. If the manager of a Walmart in Blowyournose, Idaho, kills stray dogs in the parking lot, The New York Times will write about it, and Bentonville will express its official horror, state that an investigation is being conducted, state that their administrative policy specifically forbids the poisoning of strays, and release a photo of Sam with his hunting dog, Ol’ Roy.

What bugs me is the lack of follow-up. Google “pederastia Arecibo” and you’ll find the most recent news to be from last month, and oh…it’ll be a great chance to bone up on your Polish.

But wait—the story gets more interesting. It now appears that Gil—who had been hiding not very originally in his parents’ house—will be tried in Poland for abusing seven minors. Oh, and the same report has this to say:

Entretanto, denunció que el exrepresentante del Vaticano fue sacado del país con documentación ilegal y habló de una presunta red internacional de pederastia detrás de los acusados Wesolowski y Gil, la cual lleva niños desde la República Dominicana a Polonia.

(Among other things, he [ex-priest Alberto Athié] decried that the ex-representative of the Vatican was removed from the country with illegal documentation and spoke of a presumed international web of pedastry behind the accused Wesolowski and Gil, who took children from the Dominican Republic to Poland.) 

And all of this happened on Francis’s watch, since a Dominican prelate had tipped the pope off in August of this year. So Time? Francis is not the Person of the Year….

…just the Image of the Year.

Just Gale (reposted)

I wrote the post below exactly one year ago today, and since I don't feel like writing a new one at the moment, I'm happy to repost it, instead. It's good to revisit ourselves!
 

It’s December 12, the old year is ending, and comparisons are inevitable. Where am I now, versus where was I a year ago?

Answer—much better off.

Financially, no. But in every other way, yes. A year ago I was still reeling from the loss of a job. Today, nothing would compel me to go back to where I misspent seven long years.

Because for those seven years, I was on autopilot. I had no time to think, much less to write. One small thing—a need to visit a store, a phone call—could upset the rigid and delicate structure of the day. A pebble was a colossus.

And if the day got upended, then everything fell apart and it was scramble scramble scramble to put it back and then go on and watch out because maybe there’s another pebble and if there is wait I think there IS a pebble oh SHIT I can’t go through another disruption to my day.

Feel the tension in your shoulder?

That’s where it got me, in those days of waiting for the end. I would go down to Amilda, in Sam’s, and she would sigh and open her desk and give me the patch that smelled of Ben-Gay and I would stick it on and struggle through the rest of the day.

Relaxation was something that was structured, as well. Or at least scheduled. There was no “hey, let’s go to the beach.” That had to be planned, and every day had something in it—something to do. Something, usually, I HAD to do.

When all that goes away, it’s like experiencing the world after the big bang. There’s a lot of time, a lot of space, a lot of nothing. What to put into the nothing?

A structure.

Another structure.

So I learned—every day begins with a trot. But I learned as well—sometimes the interruption is as valid as the trot.

Which is why I was talking to Gale, yesterday. She’s one step up from homeless—living in a housing project that she describes as “crack hell.” And she’s a bit worried—three people have died recently on her floor. Is it the huge puddle of water that accumulates after every rain, a perfect breeding pond for mosquitoes and then dengue fever? Nobody, of course, bothers to unclog the drains….

Gale looks to me like a bipolar who is currently on a slight manic phase. Pressured speech, restless movement, emotional lability, and some pretty fantastic stories.

How the government ripped her off of 75,000 dollars. Her daughter, who is bedridden in a hospital in New York and whom Gale cannot see because if she does, she’ll freak out, and the daughter can’t handle that.

So I generally give Gale some money, because I respect what she does. She combs the beach every day looking for shells, coral, interesting vegetation or indeed any object. Then she glues them together into an interesting, occasionally beautiful object, and tries to sell it.

‘Another thing to dust,’ I think. So I give Gale the money and refuse the object.

So we were chatting, yesterday, because just giving the money didn’t seem enough. She’s lonely and depressed—went into the Old City a night or two ago, but the bright lights and party spirit made her feel more alone. And since she doesn’t speak Spanish—she’s got an accent that booms Long Island—she’s even more alone.

“Call me,” she says, “I’ll clean your house. It would be an honor to clean your house. I love to work….”

I consider this briefly. At this point on the spiraling curve downward to pure chaos, only a manic could reverse the trend in this house.

This is now my pebble. A near-homeless person scrambling to get by whom I, having more money than she, give money to because…

…well, she needs it.

As much as she needs to tell me that the cops are abusive—they see people robbing people and they KNOW they’re robbing people and she TELLS THEM they’re robbing people and what do they do?

Nothing! Stupid idiots! “No comprendo,” she imitates.

She’s had to pull a knife twice, just to protect herself.

The pebble of Gale would have entirely upended my day in those Wal-Mart years. First of all because I didn’t have five minutes to spend talking to a person.

‘I can’t believe that that woman waits until the bus comes to a complete stop and then she looks around like she’s never seen a bus stop and then of course she has to take 25 years to look around for the door to exit and does she get it—NO!—she goes out the front and not the back which is totally my pet peeve people trying to get on the bus but can’t because stupid idiots, and oh my God now she’s kissing everybody on the bus and showing pictures of her grandchildren to the bus driver and doesn’t she realize SHE HAS WASTED THIRTY MINUTES COLLECTIVELY OF OUR TIME!’

Or how about this.

‘No, you are not gonna put that sauce in a stupid little sauceboat because in the first place it will take 8 million years to find the damn sauceboat, and then you will have to rinse it, and then I will have to dry it, and I don’t have time, and then the ladle will have to be washed as well as the little dish that goes UNDER the stupid little sauceboat and I woke up at 5:30 and I’m tired AND I DON’T HAVE TIME FOR A SAUCEBOAT!’ 

So—if I didn’t have time for a sauceboat, did I have time to listen to a lady down on her luck (also probably down on her Lithium….)? A lady from whom the government stole 75,000$? 

I have time, now, and generally use it well. I spent, for example, an hour looking at Laurie Anderson on YouTube. Well, that would have appalled me, those years ago. But now?

Well, it’s interesting to hear music I don’t like, but in a sense admire. I certainly think she’s an interesting person. And like all people from the “dear” suburbs of Chicago (“Winnetka, dear,” or “Highland Park, dear,” they always responded—the “dear” took some of the sting off) she doesn’t open her mouth.

And it’s interesting to ponder the question.

I think she’s right. I think we may not have a society anymore. Looking at my life as it was, there was no point in which I interacted with people as people. They were units—the cashier who took my money, the driver who guided the bus, the student who had to be taught.

And I, of course, was a unit too.

Until the day when I was bumped off the treadmill, feel rudely on my ass, and picked myself up and looked around me.

There’s a woman worse off than me out collecting flotsam and jetsam and she’s hungry and I’m in her path and I have the five bucks she needs. And should I let her into my house because what if she breaks something? And as well, she may be OK now, but what if she gets REALLY manic? Do I really want her to know where I live? But what can I do for her?

She’s no longer a pebble.

Is she a problem?

Or is she just Gale?

Is the Closet Ever Justified?

SOMETIMES even I get tired of looking at aggregate data, so I asked a psychiatrist in Mississippi who specializes in helping closeted gay men if any of his patients might want to talk to me. One man contacted me. He told me he was a retired professor, in his 60s, married to the same woman for more than 40 years.

About 10 years ago, overwhelmed with stress, he saw the therapist and finally acknowledged his sexuality. He has always known he was attracted to men, he says, but thought that that was normal and something that men hid. Shortly after beginning therapy, he had his first, and only, gay sexual encounter, with a student of his in his late 20s, an experience he describes as “wonderful.”

He and his wife do not have sex. He says that he would feel guilty ever ending his marriage or openly dating a man. He regrets virtually every one of his major life decisions.

The retired professor and his wife will go another night without romantic love, without sex. Despite enormous progress, the persistence of intolerance will cause millions of other Americans to do the same.

So writes Seth Stephens-Davidowitz in The New York Times, in an opinion piece entitled “How Many American Men Are Gay?” (And the answer, culled from Gallup polls, porn sites, Craigslist, and other sources is 5%....)

The article is interesting, but the anecdote above is what fascinates. Start with the guy’s profession—a professor thinks that men are attracted to men but hide it, and that’s normal? A professor? Has this guy ever read any of the research about gender studies in the last 40 years? Has he even turned on a television?

And then his age. A young man in his twenties—OK, I get that. It can be hard to figure it out, hard to come out, though increasingly people are coming out at younger ages. But to get into your sixties and still be so clueless?

So then we come to the fact that he’s had one gay sexual experience, which he calls wonderful. Oh, and he doesn’t have sex with his wife. Surely a professor could put together those two facts and comes to a logical conclusion?

OK—those of us who are out can be logical: we’ve faced our fears, we’ve come out and dealt with the consequences. Even if rejected by friends or family, it’s at least an external rejection, rather than the self-condemnation of the closet.

But those living in the closet are living in a system of fear that requires elaborate scaffolds of denial to support. And as Michelangelo Signorile writes in the Huffington Post, life in the closet leads to two often-disastrous results.

It’s well known in the gay world: the guy waving the biggest anti-gay flag in the parade (as well as heading it) is the most closeted queer. Nor is it just gay people who have noticed this; clinical psychologists will recognize this as reaction formation, defined here by Wikipedia:

In psychoanalytic theory, reaction formation is a defensive process (defense mechanism) in which anxiety-producing or unacceptable emotions and impulses are mastered by exaggeration (hypertrophy) of the directly opposing tendency.[ 

Nor is it just psychoanalysts and gay people—Shakespeare got it, too. Remember “the lady doth protest too much, methinks?”

The second thing that guys in the closet do is to have risky, stupid sex. Part of it, of course, is because they can’t have safe, protected sex. Because if you see me going into a gay bar? Well, you’re not gonna get much horror or moral indignation from my boss, my friends, my family.

So what does Senator X do? He bottles it in until his need for sex is overwhelming, and then he seeks relief in the worst possible ways—hustlers, Craigslist, porn sites. But there’s something worse. He may well turn to those over whom he has some power—a student, an altar boy, an employee. Sound familiar?  

So far, I completely agree with Signorile in his analysis of the dynamics of the closet. But then he writes the following sentence:

While many people are forced to be remain closeted in a society that is still often homophobic, the closet nonetheless should never be seen as a healthy place.

I’ve known few people who didn’t face obstacles—some of them great—to coming out. In fact, in the great majority of cases, gay people create the supportive family and friends from people who were either un-accepting or hostile. Coming out, in fact, is a two-way street—as any devastated parent can tell you. But is it really true that a person is forced to stay in the closet?

Consider the professor cited above—is it really too late for him? Well, men in their 60s do find love and partners; people do change professions late in life; no one has to live in an intolerant state forever.

I generally toe the established line about outing people: I’ll let anyone be in the closet as long as you’re not hurting—by words or actions—other gay people. But I wonder about this belief that the closet might be justified.

“The saddest experience I ever had as a pastor,” said Pablo, “was of a kid of 14 or 15 whose mother went to her Evangelical church and got the message: gay people are possessed by the devil. So she came home and threw her kid out of the house: she didn’t want Satan in her house. And they lived way out in the country, so there he was, miles from town, walking and sobbing down a dark road toward town. Eventually, he ended up with a couple of gay people who tried to take care of him, but the trauma was too great. The kid returned to the streets, and then dropped out of sight.”

We speculated: was he hustling? Was he in a bordello? If so, could he get out, or was he being held? Drugs or drink?

So, should he have stayed in the closet? Certainly looks that way, doesn’t it? But wait—what if he had come out in a different way? What if he had called a gay hotline, or gone to PFLAG, or found a friend he could trust?

I’m trying to think of a situation where being in the closet is the preferred alternative, but sorry—I can’t. And does it matter?

I think so—because saying that it might be better for some of us to stay in the closet empowers…

…the closet.

Julia Child Steps Onto the Stage

OK—I could tell you that the buzz on the island is that the secretary of justice, a guy by the name of Luis Sánchez Betances, ran over to the police station last Friday night, since a buddy of his, Jaime Sifre Rodríguez, who is also a partner in Sánchez’s law firm, got picked up for drunk driving.

In fact, his blood alcohol was .215%, which is high indeed.

Sour minds on the island are wondering what Sánchez Betances was doing there, and some have even gone so far as to breathe aspersions. But relax, dear Reader, there was no impropriety involved—in fact, Sánchez Betances was there to make absolutely sure that the rules were being followed, and that no special treatment was given. He was just there for a friend! Something anyone would do!

And now, of course, warped and twisted minds are attempting to misconstrue a perfectly normal action—how dare they! Here, for example, is an ex district attorney, Osvaldo Carlo:

El exfiscal Osvaldo Carlo dijo en NotiUno que “la mera presencia del secretario de Justicia allí, sin decir una palabra, crea una presión indebida sobre estos agentes de la Policía. Porque, por qué un secretario de Justicia va a estar en el lugar de los hechos si no es para crear un ambiente negativo de la investigación. No tenía ni que decir una sola palabra. Él tenía otras maneras de trabajar con ese asunto que no fuese presentarse allí, porque al presentarse allí iban a sentir la presión del cargo”.

(The ex attorney Osvaldo Carlo said to NotiUno that “the mere presence of the secretary of justice there, without saying a word, creates undue pressure on those police agents. Why? Because why is a secretary of justice going to be there if not to create a negative environment for the investigation? He doesn’t have to say a word. He has other ways of working this affair without being there, because by being there they were going to feel the pressure.”)

Poppycock!

Turning away from such negativity, what’s the deal with Lee Hoiby?

Why, you may ask, am I worrying about Hoiby? Because over the weekend, I was watching Renée Fleming talk about Leontyne Price, who had championed Hoiby’s work. So what was up with Hoiby?

Well, I knew he had a Wisconsin connection, but I didn’t know that he was actually born in Madison in 1926, had studied with Gunnar Johansen, and had later attended Mills College. His compositions draw the attention of Gian Carlo Menotti, who showed them to Samuel Barber. Menotti also invited Hoiby to Curtis to study with him: no small thing, since Menotti was the leading opera composer of the time.

And Hoiby didn’t follow the fashion of the time—which was to compose highly dissonant music. Instead, his music is tuneful, lyrical, and sophisticated. And his specialty? Here’s what he told Zachary Woolfe:

“It was the singers, not the instrumentalists,” he said. “The instrumentalists didn’t know who the fuck I was. I didn’t have any instrumental music played. Singers, you can’t fool them. When they hear a song, they can tell right away if it’s going to make them sound good. And mine do.”

Here’s what Woolfe has to say about the songs:

Indeed, it seems likely that his songs-whose brilliant and varied texts, chosen by Mr. Shulgasser, range from Bishop to Roethke to Stevens to Rilke-will be what last the longest of his work. Perfectly honed little worlds, they benefit most from his modesty. Small shifts, like the opening into ecstatic brightness of the third stanza of “The Message” (set to a John Donne poem), take on a kind of humble grandeur.

In the interview with Woolfe, Hoiby said the following: “All I did was compose. I never went anywhere, I didn’t know anybody. I never went to any parties. I never met anybody. I’m basically not interested in social life, I guess.”

Well, he must have watched television, because his spoof on Julia Child is bang on. In the words of Joseph Dalton:

All of Child’s lovable foibles and self-deprecating humor come through. She puts egg yolks into a pan and then drops it on the kitchen floor and carries on undaunted. She also sets up a race between an electric mixer and a hand-cranked one. Hoiby wisely doesn’t interfere with the chef’s magic. There’s no additional jokes or layers of irony in the tuneful score, which includes a light and colorful orchestration.

And as light as the piece—and the cake—is, there’s also something tinged with melancholy about Hoiby’s work. Is it because I know that he must have been dealing with being gay in a decade—the fifties—that was perhaps the most homophobic of the century? Is it because he never quite attained the celebrity of Gian Carlo Menotti? I feel about him what I feel about Barber: at the end, he must have felt he had given too much, and gotten too little.

The State Journal Goes Underground

For a considerable time yesterday, I considered the improbable but apparently true idea that I was dealing with a newspaper with an unlisted number.

Nor was that the strangest part of the affair. The real question was why the death of Marvin Rabin had hit me so hard. I knew he was in his nineties, I knew that his hearing was bad, but nothing in the video I had seen looked like a man who could die. Is that silly? Yes, but there’s nothing logical about grief.

And so there I was, sobbing in the café, remembering the Saturday mornings, remembering the temper tantrums followed by impassioned appeals—we were better than that, we could play it better. Then I remembered the toilet bowl brush, and I lost it again.

I had house-sat for the Rabins, and everyone had warned me—Rhoda, Rabin’s wife, was neurotically attached to her house. In fact, Rabin had threatened more than once never to take Rhoda anywhere: she spent the whole vacation worrying about her house.

Más sabe el diablo por viejo que por diablo… runs an expression in Puerto Rico: translated loosely, it means the devil knows more due to old age than for being the devil. If true, I must have an old young man, because I knew what I had to do. And that was?

Well, I went out and bought a notebook, and arrived promptly at the door. And for the next two hours, I terrorized Rhoda. We started in the kitchen, where I instantly confronted her on the sea of medicines next to the stove. And where, I asked her, was her expiration medication log?

Rhoda’s eyes dilated.

I didn’t let up—I quizzed her on everything, we probed ever corner of the house. I took ceaseless notes, sighed frequently, frowned incessantly. I made a British nanny look like Santa Claus.

“I don’t imagine you’ll need to come in here,” said Rhoda, at the entrance to the master bedroom. But I was having none of that.

“I need to inspect every room of the house if I am to be responsible for it in your absence,” I told her, and so we spent ten minutes opening the curtains, making sure the closet doors were hung correctly, noting any stains on the walls and carpet.

And then we came to the bathroom, which of course was spotless. I decided to pounce.

“And where is your toilet bowl brush?” I couldn’t keep the acid out of my voice.

Rhoda blanched.

“I really don’t know,” she stammered, “Joyce—the cleaning lady—does…”

I had to interrupt.

“You don’t know how your staff cleans?”

Two days later, I got the report from Martha, the daughter. Rhoda had gone to bed for three hours after the inspection. And ten minutes after I started the housesitting, I ventured up to the bathroom.

Do I have to tell you?

I will tell you—if you are lucky enough not to know—that this is grief. Because there’s no middle, nothing except the extremes. Which is why I was sobbing, yes, but also laughing hysterically yesterday. Nor was I in any control, especially when I heard Ralph’s voice—sounding completely the same as his father’s. Oddly, he was doing better than I.

Not surprising—that’s another thing about grief. You often find yourself comforting people who are calling to comfort you. So what do you do? Well, it may sound heartless, but we took turns answering the phone, after Franny died.

What else happens? Well, for me, I get jittery, to the extent that I can’t type. So how, yesterday, was I going to do Bach and Beer? Could I play the cello—no, I decided, and then told Lady, the owner of the café, who had been hugging me and crying with me and who, like a good Sanjuanera  had come down the street to call up to me in my apartment to see if I was all right.

Why was I there? Because I wanted to be alone, and the moment I was, it wasn’t right., but I didn’t have the energy, somehow, to get up and go back to the café. But seeing her made me realize—I have to get out of the apartment.

Then I was hungry, and didn’t feel like asking for anything. Eventually I realized—the kids were eating pizza.

“Naïa, do you think some of that pizza wants to be eaten by me?”

“Ask it…”

Then I became obsessed—I had to call the paper. What kind of son of a newspaperman could forget to call the Wisconsin State Journal? I could feel Jack frowning down at me. At least I hope it’s down….

And here I confess—I couldn’t find the number anywhere. And today, when I was thinking better, I finally got it through switchboard.com. And why there? Because in all of Madison.com (the electronic version of the State Journal), I couldn’t locate one number, except for the individual reporters. Those were there, but where was the city desk, dammit?

“People forget you when you get older,” said Franny matter-of-factly. Not quite true—Facebook went wild, and my post on Rabin got 341 hits (a normal day is 100).

Nor is it the lack of a telephone number for the city desk, but doesn’t a city of over a quarter of a million have an arts editor? You know, somebody who goes to concerts and knows everyone artistically in town?

I spoke to somebody today—a nice Wisconsin person who cheerfully took my call and promised to follow through.

That stiff breeze, chilling you from the north? It’s my father—Jack—up there spinning….