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

Buddies Tribute

WARNING: RAMBLING POST WITH MOMENTS OF TOUCHING GENIUS
:-)

The past few months have been a whirlwind of great news. Not on the economic front of course, but Philip's new baby boy, Jimmy's adoption of a beautiful little girl, Matt and his wife expecting their first child, not to mention the beautiful children Bolivar, Jimmy and Phil (not the same as Philip) already have!

All this got me thinking about friendships between men and particularly friendships between gay and straight men. (I was actually going to call this post "In Praise of the Straight Guy" but thought that was too provocative.)

Jimmy, Matt, Bolivar and Phil have been friends with me since freshman year in college. We met, if memory serves, at an ice cream social that first week in the dorms. I was still acting straight (** Cue cries of disbelief from the gays that anyone could have fallen for that act***)

As you do in college, we bonded over all-nighters, girlfriends (mostly theirs not mine), parents, careers and the like. This is not a coming out post, so suffice it to say that the "gay thing" was no big deal to any of them. If I remember correctly the exchange went something like this:

ME: I'm assuming you don't have any probem with me being gay right?
THEM: No. Where are we going to dinner?

And though I love them for making coming out so easy, that scene is not even in the top 10 of great moments that bonded us (FYI, after all these years I'm probably a little fuzzy on the details but the gist is there):

#10) At some point in college, my buddies and I all spent a couple weeks in "the Dungeon" -- a small 1-bedroom apartment in Berkeley. It had 2 windows, both of which looked out onto an embankment that went higher than the first story of the building, thowing the entire apartment into eternal twilight 24 hours a day. Due to a scheduling issue, Jimmy, Matt, Bolivar and I lived there together for 2 weeks before school started. The 1-bedroom had 3 twin beds that reached from one wall to the other, leaving only enough room to open the door -- IF the space wasn't occupied by dirty clothes and towels. Say what you will about fastidious gay men -- I am not one of them. Thank God the other guys had girlfriends so someone was always "tricking out."

#9) Sitting with Phil in the Dungeon talking about relationships (we had both ended relationships that week) and wanting to get a drink. (As we were only 19 at the time, executing that particular idea was more challenging then it is now.) We scoured the apartment and found an old bottle of tequila, which we mixed with Country Time lemonade--the kind that has no actual lemon juice in it. Two words -- Vomit Fest. It was the next day that we found out just how old the tequila was -- the tenants prior to the previous tenants had left it there and the bottle had never been thrown out. Ugh.

#8) First month at Cal, visiting San Francisco just across the Bay. We decided we want to get dinner, 9 of us want to go to Chinatown, one of us (me) wants to go to Fisherman's Wharf... we go to Fisherman's Wharf.

#7) Coming up with the word "SMAG" to describe a particular type of Asian guy at Cal. I still chuckle when I find a typo that spells that out. If memory serves, and if you must know -- Stud Master Asian Guy.

#6) Going with Phil, Steph and Janet to the city then Mill Valley in a borrowed car which broke down, stranding us in Mill Valley, leading to a night in a Travelodge (of which nothing more needs to be said) the calling Phil's roommate who was home in Mill Valley for the weekend to help us out.

#5) The unfortunate decision to stay out all night in SF freshman year which was the classic example of an idea that works better in theory than in fact.

#4) Making a list of everyone's phone numbers and parent's phone numbers after freshman year and having that piece of paper for the next 6 years taking it to DC, Paris, back to LA then to NY.

#3) Having everyone down to my parents place in LA the summer after freshman year. My parents were travelling in Japan and I had the whole house to myself.

#2) Watching a Twilight Zone marathon with Jimmy, then driving up Tightwad Hill, freaking out, then going for Korean food in SF. All between 2 AM and 6AM on morning. Best episodes - the one where the guy has the Devil locked in a closet and the one where there are little people living in a dollhouse.

#1) Crying at all of their weddings - except for Bolivar who can't seem to get married in this country. (Hey Bol!) and all of them giving me sh*t about getting married when it was legal in California.

So boys, I hope this little journey was as fun for you to read as it was for me to write. You guys are the best -- 22 years and counting!

For those of you who were with us on many of these adventures, thank you both for being there and also for keeping quiet about the things that should be kept quiet. ;-)

Torched

Today while playing with my iTunes, I mistakenly clicked on one of my favorite songs by Edith Piaf - Hymne a l'Amour" (Hymn to Love).

What is it about a troubled fabulous woman singing about love and loss that gets me? They used to be called torch singers because they sing torch songs -- a sentimental love song, typically one in which the singer laments an unrequited or lost love, where one party is either oblivious to the existence of the other, or where one party has moved on. (Thank you Wikipedia).

That must be it actually... growing up gay in the 70s and 80s you quickly learn that telling people who you really like was probably the fastest way to get teased or beaten up. So these songs and singers gave a way of expressing it.

Add in another language and it also added that little bit of superiority and smugness that I always love.

At the same time, there are those anthems of female power like "I Will Survive" that promise a bright new day. I guess the word "diva" aptly describes all of these singers and songs -- despite the bad name it's been given by models (Naomi I'm looking at you) and other high maintenance women.

So here are some clips of some of my favorites, enjoy (most of these are not in English)

If you can't see the videos, go directly to my blog: postcardsfromthebushrecession.blogspot.com, or click on the titles and they'll take you to YouTube)

HYMNE A L'AMOUR

The song that started this post. Edith Piaf, known as the Little Sparrow of France was the first torch singer I heard. My French teacher brought in a song of hers to teach us the correct pronunciatiion and accents of some words. I've been hooked ever since. My favorite line is "Je me fou du monde entiere." Literally - I don't care about the world; but in this sense it means "Screw the world"

NON JE NE REGRETTE RIEN (I Regret Nothing)

Piaf's signature song. LIke Over the Rainbow to Judy, only the bravest singers attempt this for fear of being compared unfavroably to the great Edith.

Includes possibly the best lyrics ever: Avec mes souvenirs, j'ai allume le feu, mes chagrins mes plaisirs, je nai plus besoin d'eux (I made a fire out of my memories; the sadness and the happiness I no longer need)

UN ANO DE AMOR (Year of Love)

First heard this in Almodovar's High Heels. Didn't know what the words meant until years later.

Best lyric - Si ahora tu te vas pronto descubriras que los dias son eternos and vacios sin mi (If you leave now, you'll soon discover that the days are long and empty with out me) Who hasn't want to say that at the end of a relationship!?!

I WILL SURVIVE

The one and only Gloria Gaynor. This was the first song I remember hearing on the radio. (There was no way I was going to be straight after this.)

DROUOT

When I lived in France a friend turned me on to Barbara (not Streisand). This song is about an old woman who is selling her possessions at an auction. As the pieces of her past go by her, she remembers they all belonged to her when she first fell in love with another woman. She tries to stop the sale but its done. And she's left with a just few hundred bills not even her memories remain.

This clip is the one I found with the best sound. It's subtitled but not English subtitles.

AND I AM TELLING YOU I'M NOT GOING

Both Jennifer Hudson and Jennifer Holliday rocked this out. But Holliday sang it first.

POUR NE PAS VIVRE SEUL

Another of my French divas. Dalida sang in so many languages. This song is about all the things people do so they don't have to be alone. I love how she's so dramatic - almost drag queen-ish in this clip!

MOURIR SUR SCENE (To die on stage)

Dalida again, singing about how she doesn't want to die alone in bed, but rather onstage
surrounded by adoring fans. A little egomaniacal bit I love it.

If I'm not mistaken she committed suicide in the 80s.

Best lyric: "Moi je veux mourir fusillee de lasers devant une salle comble" -- I want to die shot through
with lasers in front of a sold out crowd