Old "friends" -- a rant

So I find myself with a dilemma.

I've really enjoyed re-connecting with high school friends on Facebook. Some of us even used Facebook to set up an actual PHYSICAL meet up when I was back in California in May.  Fantastic!

Every one of them so far has been someone who I just lost track of, as I went to college and changed who I was.  (Actually, my therapist says I left high school and that little town and actually became who I was meant to be... but I digress.)  It's been really cool to see how everyone turned out.  And I"m so glad that everyone is happy.

I admit there have been a few people who I have ignored because we weren't friends or even know each other in high school.  (I mean REALLY, why start now? I'm not here so you can increase your friend count on FB.)

Now here's the rub... recently I was approached by someone who I had been friends with... really good friends, back in the day.  But we had a huge falling out second year of college. Since that night, I haven't heard a word from this person -- no call, no email, no letter, NOTHING. (This despite the fact that all information is readily available AND that my mom does business with her dad.)

A few months ago I received a friend request on FB.  Figuring to avoid an uncomfortable situation I hit "Ignore."  Today, I received a message in my FB Inbox asking why I haven't accepted.

Do I:

1) Not reply and hit Ignore to the friend request?
2) Reply with an explanation of why I'm not accepting the request?

All of this is pretty far in the past, so I don't want it to seem like I've been thinking about this all these years.  Maybe I should let by-gones be by-gones.  On the other hand, I do remember the falling out and I just figure we aren't friends.

Hmmm, with that last sentence, I think I just solved my issue.

What do you think?

Civil-ization

Here's the story about a left leaning former Republican and an ultra-conservative blogger...

(I PROMISE THIS WON'T BE A POLITICAL RANT)

I started Twittering many moons ago, mostly on political topics.  In the process I followed (and was followed) by a number of other political junkies.  One of these folks was @ToBeRight.  His views are diametrically opposed to mine on almost every subject, except when I'm grousing about Obama as the used car salesman of hope.

We throw a lot of data at each other and we also aren't above throwing rhetorical bombs into the Twitter-verse. We're both totally opinionated and smart. It's fascinating that we can take the same situation and facts (except if provided by Faux News --couldn't resist @ToBeRight) and arrive at completely different conclusions and proposed solutions.

The civility of our 1-to-1 interaction should be a model for our democratic process.  Yes, we've done some tongue-in-cheek bashing of each other--for Thanksgiving I DM'd him with "Happy Thanksgiving to my favorite right-wing nutjob"  and he keeps taunting me for having once been a conservative and losing my way. 

But it really goes to prove that sensible, intelligent people can have honest disagreements about how to approach problems.  That doesn't mean we agree on anything.  If you're in doubt about that, visit his blog:  www.toberight.com 

It also doesn't mean he's changed my mind on issues or vice-versa.

Not sure where I was going with this, but I can't help but believe that we might be better served as a nation if all our elected officials had grown-up discussions... then vote and let the chips fall where they may.

(FYI, I got the OK from @ToBeRight to mention him in this blog.)

Euromania!

Why American Idol and other ilk can't be like this I"ll never know...  Eurovision - that song competition that has countries from all over Europe competing is FANTASTIC!

You get 39 countries competing.  Many of them sing in their own languages (why is that  everyone feels they have to sing in English -- ok, not the French but still!)  ABBA won this many years back which launched them worldwide.

The rules are properly byzantine, with each  nation choosing it's representative in successive rounds of voting.  Then the international voting starts.  What's crazy (and probably a deal breaker for Americans) is that you can't vote for your own country's song.

I think what fascinates me is how you can see something else besides the music in these songs --

• France's entry is a great song Allez, Olla, Ole!  With a great African rhythm and this guy singing in unbelievably beautiful French with a hint of West African accent. This from a country that broke out in riots a few years ago because of race relations (well, actually the economic inequality and barriers to the economic ladder inherent in French society).

• Read the comments on YouTube for songs from Armenia, Turkey, Greece, Macedonia.  There's so much vitriol it makes the rantings of Ann Coulter seem like a hymn in church.  The crazy thing is they are yelling at each other about things that happened up to 1,000 years ago.  Yes, yes, I know these things are important, but come on!  This is a song contest! Do we really need to yell at each other for the Turkish led genocide in Armenia, whether Macedonia is part of Greece, or whether the Turks should be ashamed because the Ottoman Empire invaded Europe?!? (That last one is not a typo -- Ottoman Empire?!? Really!?!)

• Not sure why a lot of the acts sing in English.  There are some beautiful songs (Armenia for instance) that I think would have been so much more beautiful if sung in the native language.  Otherwise, you kinda feel the lyrics are a little off.  Like someone wrote the song in the native language, then translated it into English and tried to shoehorn the beats back into the music. 

I'm hoping and praying that some enterprising DJ will bring these over here and remix them with a proper Euro dance beat.  Americans can't vote but here's some of my favorites and some doozies (click on country name to go to the video).  By the way -- hey Europe, what is up with thigh-high black boots for men?:

COOL DANCE SONGS THAT NEED TO MAKE THEIR WAY OVER HERE

• France The lyrics in French are pretty simplistic - "Come on, come on, come on... it's the song of the year." But MAN is this a catchy tune!)
• Armenia (This is great.  I do wish it was in Armenian.  Note the crazy old composer bouncing around in some of the scenes. Oh, and yeah, this IS about an apricot stone (seed).)
• Greece (notice the really hot backup male dancers... too bad the choreography sucks)
• Romania (this is one of those songs where the English seems a little stilted); the video has them trying to be a little Gaga... not very successfully.)
• Azerbaijan (sounds a a little Gaga influenced; also we see the reappearance of hot male backup dancers with some throw-up-in-your-mouth choreography.)

BALLADS (MEH, NOT MY FAVORITES)

• Israel (It's a ballad, so not as uplifting as the others.)
• Spain (No way is this going to win.  Too old-fashioned.  Notice the boots though.)

HA HA HA HA HA

• Netherlands (OK, this is one country that should sing in English! Sounds like a cross between a 60s retread group and an oompah band.)
• Finland (WTF?!?)

Touching me, touching you

(Apologies to Neil Diamond)
A week or so ago I came across an old friend from high school on Facebook.  I hadn't thought of her in years, but seeing her picture brought back a rush of memories.

It was the 1984-1985 school year.  Frankly, I was many years from becoming the outspoken, outgoing person I am today. But this person was one of the major catalysts that got me started down that road.  If you can imagine it, I was pretty much your stereotypical Asian guy that year in high school; just focused on my academics and just enough extra curricular activities to ensure I'd get into a good school.

But internally there was a lot going on.  Lots of loneliness and overall alienation from high school in general.  But also there was a very real fight between the person I was and the person I wanted to be. Fortunately I was befriended by this wonderful person and started hanging out.  She was a senior (!) which made it all that much better.  And I slowly began to recognize that not only did I deserve to have what I wanted, but it was up to me to go out and grab it.

I've been so lucky to have met people at critical junctures in my life that have propelled me onward and upward.

- My mom and dad of course, who taught me the value of working hard.
- This person I mentioned above.
- Friends from Chamber Singers/show choir who gave me a sense of belonging -- which is so critical in high school.  (As a side note, I'd like to thank the choreographer of show choir who kept dragging me from the second row to be front and center.  He kept doing that so much that eventually I cam to crave being in the spot light.)
- My buddies from college - lifelong friends who taught me that friendship is about support but also about calling you on your sh*t.
- My best friend Jason, who gave me the final push and self-confidence to grab the life I wanted.

And finally Geoff who is the culmination of all this.  Who I love so much.  I don't think I would have had the nerve to go after the relationship if it wasn't for all those people who gave me a much needed push in my past.

Last year when I turned 40, I was going to do a series of thank you notes to people who have touched my life in some way.  This list is me revving up to do that.

But all this led me to think about whether I've played a similar role for anyone.  I'm not sure I have, but I'd like to think I did.

Have you?

(D-NY) or (R-NY) or (I-NY)

I've tried to keep my political rantings and ravings out of my posts on this blog.  Firstly because, there are so many other issues I'd like to explore.  Secondly, because I know i would be completely consumed by the back and forth sniping that passes for political discourse these days.

However, last weekend, a few friends suggested in all seriousness that I run for office, because of the passion I have for the issues.  And I mean all the issues - not just health care and cap&trade, but the the day to day legislation.  Finger Lakes designation as national park?  I got an opinion. Selling wine in grocery stores in NY?  I got an opinion.  Managing the flood of tourists in the West Village turning my neighborhood into a mall?  You BET I got an opinion, probably two of 'em.

That got me to thinking about what a Jonathan Saw candidacy and platform would look like.  I came to the conclusion it would be something that not even my closest friends would be entirely comfortable with.  Why?  Because despite what you may think from my demographics (Asian-American, college-educated; graduate school, urban resident, gay, 40) I'm don't really fit the mold of the urban liberal elites.  I'm pretty much your quintessential Rockefeller Republican - fiscally conservative, socially liberal (to a point).  

Now just which one of our two parties do you think someone with those viewpoints would feel most at home in?  If you said neither - you'd be right.

Let's take a look at the big social issues:

1) Abortion: I believe in choice.  The anti-choice zealots wrapping themselves in the language of "life" are bankrupt.  Money should be spent to inform our kids (and adults) of contraception.  However, I also believe that abstinence should be a part of the equation.  In addition, sex education should take into account both the overall community as well as the parents wishes.  How does this work in practice?  Let's take our great urban metropolises.  Parents should be able to opt out of sex education classes if there religion or beliefs does not permit a frank discussion of sexuality.  However these parents do not have the right to veto the ability of everyone else's children to receive that information.  Conversely, in the rural South,  Parents should have the right to have contraception (scientifically based education, not the crap that spews from anti-choice idiots) taught to their kids in the classroom, as an opt-in, even if the larger community wants abstinence only.

2) Gay marriage:  Clearly I'm all for this.  But I believe that getting the rights and responsibilities first is the critical first step.  We can argue semantics later.  Case in point, as we were losing the Prop 1 vote in Maine, Washington State voters were approving the "everything but marriage" legislation for gay couples.  Essentially, Washington voters were showing that people are willing to provide us the rights, but the word has too much baggage.  I realize this isn't a cure-all nor a substitution for full-marriage equality.  But I can't help but think that our daily lives would be better off if we had incremental rights all over the country.  We can start off with the biggies like medical decision making, inheritance, taxes and survivor benefits.  (Something, by the way, which could be passed in almost every state.)  Then we could have those states that are ready for "everything but marriage" laws as in California, Washington and New Jersey.  Following on that would be marriage itself, the rights, the responsibilities and the word.

3) Guns: We have enough laws.  But they need to be enforced.  Also, is it not possible to make a distinction between criminal use and non-criminal use?  Do we need to have bans? Closing the loopholes on current registration laws would nicely do the trick.  Then we can focus resources on getting gins out of the hands of criminals, as opposed to wasting time adding more and more restrictions on law-abiding gun owners.

4) Affirmative action:  Our efforts here are misplaced.  We need to spend more early on in the educational life of our kids, so that when they reach their final year of high school, the top performers also represent the percentage of their race in the population (give or take a few percentage points). AA is a necessary evil until this becomes a reality.  High school is too late to rectify over a decade of inequality and resources in education. Where would we find the money?  I say take it away from prisons.

Despite all of this, can you imagine if more people like me actually were in politics?  The kind of person who is interested in solutions and not just political points; the kind with the courage to point out and shout down the BS from both sides of the aisle; the kind who is more beholden to his constituents than his party!!!

Well, keep your eyes and ears open.  When you hear these slogans shouted from the streets, in emails, in mass mailings...  when people start asking you to become a fan or donate money, you'll know I've decided to take that plunge.

The big question is whether I'll have a D or R after my name.

Where Did All the Crazies Go? (I'm not talking about the GOP here)

When I first arrived in New York City 15 years ago there used to be so many crazies on the subways and elsewhere who really added a lot to the ambience of the city.  Quite a shock for someone who just spent the previous few months happily ensconced in upper middle class Southern California.

(Now I'm not talking about those smelly homeless guys who pee on the seats or pass out on the floor and pee themselves or any of the pee-associated or pee-adjacent crazies. I'm also not talking about the mutterers or the yellers or the bat-shit crazy Christians or the Jews for Jesus or the Watchtower flyer people or... or... or...)

But whatever happened to...

-- that Jamaican woman with the Erykuh Badhu turban that used to since sing on 1,2,3,9 trains? (Yes, there used to be a 9 train)  She really sang well with that haunting lilt in her voice.  I couldn't really understand her but I loved it when she would show p as I was riding back to Columbia after a night in the Village.

-- those guys who did the puppet show with the magpies.  There were four puppets, all of whom were like Hekyll and Jekyll and they would sing in great 4-part harmony. They used to perform in Central Park sometimes too.

-- the old guy who would ride around Central Park with a boombox attached to the back of his bike blasting out opera music (or was it salsa?)

-- the guys who rode up and down the trains in the Upper West Side whose schpiel was "I haven't eaten in 5 days..." and he would say that EVERY day, never adding a day or subtracting a day to the total.  Once I even saw him eating a sandwich while he was saying that!

-- how is "Rare"- The guy who would run around Telegraph Avenue (in Berkeley) without a shirt and yell "Rare!" all the time.  It got to be that the frat guys and many others would just yell "Rare!" at him whenever they saw him.  I could have sworn I saw him hanging around Hell's Kitchen a few years ago.

-- what about the old Chinese guy who plays that weird 3-stringed instrument -- GOD HE SUCKED!!

OK, I'm not stupid -- just the fact that these people were "crazies" probably means that the true endings of these life stories were not pleasant, but I gotta tell you that the crazies these days really aren't "up to snuff" anymore.  Time for them to step it up a notch. I need some amusement on my subway rides, other than the iPod.

;-)

Writer's block

So I've been really lax the last few weeks in posting.  Not because I haven't had anything to write about, but I couldn't get anything beyond the first paragraph.  Here's a list of potential topics, all of which I had to trash cuz I couldn't think of much to write once I got my first thoughts down. (FYI, this is an unedited/uncensored look at my initial thoughts as I put them on paper.  They therefore contain language and turns of phrase that are offensive, non-PC etc. etc.  This is my process. I like to get the emotions down first then re-write with a rational head.)

"MINORITIES IN PR:  I think the notion of "chemistry" on teams is a very real impediment to minorities in PR.  Despite protestations to the contrary from the industry the different opinions minorities bring to the table are really NOT valued.  In a culture that values "being a team player" that one voice crying in the wilderness that espouses a different opinion is more often seen as a nuisance.  From my own experience I have been accused of not being on board because I'm not willing to "drink the Kool-Aid" as it were and say yes to the senior-most person's idea. It's not comfortable being out there on your own.  And, even before we are hired, we're subject to that "Well, something didn't really click" assessment from interviewers. "

...

There's where I got stuck.  I was going to make a foray into how the female culture of most firms leads to the tyranny of consensus.... but clearly I need to work on getting the words right.  Also, since I am a PR/communications professional and wish to remain so, I didn't want this to be a wholesale indictment of the industry, but rather an eye-opener.  However, as you can see from that first paragraph, there's a ways to go on that front... alas.

Then I decided to do something more positive:

CELEBRATION

"Why is that as groups of gay friends we are always so bitchy to each other?  My friend Chris said back in May that we need to celebrate our friendships a lot more.  I believe that, and we need to do that in word and deed."

...

So this is one of those things that start off being positive then veers headlong into the pedantic.  My God!  Did I really just use "word and deed" in a blog post? My thought here was to talk about how much I love my friends and swear to be more mindful of the bitchiness when I next see them.  But that sounded weird and pathetic and needy.  Ugh.

KIDS

This time around (now this is about 3 weeks after my initial post idea) I thought, let me right  write about kids, seeing as many of my friends have them are having them, are planning for them.  But then I was at a restaurant where the mother let her kid run around the entire place, I knew i was not going to be in the right frame of mind for a happy post on kids.  So I let that go.

I HATE DOGS

This gets me into the same territory as kids.  Here's what I started with (yikes!):

"People cannot believe it when you say you don't like dogs and get really defensive.  It's like your a bad person.  I just hate badly behaved dogs.  I don't like them jumping up on me, I don't like them snuffling around when I'm trying to eat, I really don't like them peeing or pooping anywhere near me but especially not in my house. It's not cute, it's not funny and it's not cool. Fuck you very much."

Clearly this was going to get me in trouble so I decided to leave that rant for another time. In addition, I was clearly getting defensive and angry so best to cut it out.  Also I noticed the total misuse of "your" versus "you're" in the second sentence and thought it was probably better to just pack it in completely.

The a litany of other possible topics came to my head and were quickly vetoed --

AUTUMN/END OF SUMMER - Wow! That's original!  NOT!

MARRIAGE - Friends are getting married, i'd like to get married, blah blah blah.  

BAD HOUSEKEEPER - Really? You're going to complain about your housekeeper on your blog?

WATCHES - Where the hell did that come from?

FENCES - Who am I, Robert Frost?

FRANCE - I was actually going to post in French! P-R-E-T-E-N-T-I-O-U-S!

PRETENTION - I'm crazy.  I know.

CRAZINESS - OK this is just getting to be a bad association exercise...

WRITER"S BLOCK -  wait a minute... that's it!

Welcome to the craziness that it my mind.  I think it's like deciding to take Pacific Coast Highway instead of I-5 from LA to SF.  It's not as direct, it's prettier but there's a lot of twists and turns and every so often there's the danger of plummetting of the mountainside.  (I don't know where that came from just now.)

Until next time,

JS