Tag: Election

Taking Care

It can be said with great certainty that 2016 is likely going down in history as one of the shittiest years on record, and there are still 4 1/2 more months to go before it’s officially over.

Full disclosure: I’m making this declaration while laying on one of the softest beds, donning a terry-cloth robe etched with the majestic “lion head” logo of the Ritz-Carlton, following a nice hot bath taken upon returning to a sexy room – with its stunning view of Philadelphia’s City Hall – after an amazing scallop dinner at one of the most charming and kitschy restaurants I’ve seen in some time. Bottom line is: I’m not exactly suffering at this moment.

And yet here I am bitching about this shitty year.

Why is it so shitty, you ask? Where do I come off making such statements when I’m in a position not many folks will have an opportunity to experience? What’s made me take such a strong stance so prematurely?

To put it “Blountly,” this year has seen more death, more injustice, more ignorance and more animosity among the human race, and that has shaken my comfort level to its core and threatens the peace I’ve strived to maintain in my later years. Prior to holing myself up in this luxurious abode for a self-care timeout, I was angry with everyone; white people, black people, police, pundits, politicians and Pokémon players.

I’m sure there are many of you, who share similar frustrations with some – or all – of the above, and have reeled from the passings of notable, iconic and influential people such as Prince, David Bowie, Elie Wiesel and Muhammad Ali amongst so many others. Each were heroes in their own right, who weren’t afraid to stick up for themselves and for those who didn’t have the privilege of their platforms. They took care of us – even though we couldn’t take care of them.

But one loss that has affected me the most is one in which the care was mutual and reciprocal. Two months ago today…I lost my father.

While this loss wasn’t unexpected…it still fucking hurts.

Sure, I can say that he’s not suffering anymore. That Alzheimer’s took him long before the day his body lost its desire to fight. That I no longer have to suppress the urge to burst into tears in front of him when he couldn’t remember who I was. It’s what I’m supposed to say, right?

But for every vacant gaze, there’s a moment of recollection that brought an unbreakable smile and a glimmer of hope. And that’s why it hurts. Because that hope is now gone…along with my very first love.

And, in spite of everything, I’m just here trying to get that hope back within the realm of reason. That lust for life and “joie de vie” that’ll get me through the rest of what’s turning out to be an absolute shit-show of a year. Because, with everything that’s happening – and I do mean everything – it is now more important than ever that we all find our joy and our strength to get through the rough waters of violence, racial and global tensions and divisive banter across all party lines. Because, hopefully, at some point, the love and care we have for ourselves and others will drown out the hate.

Sooo…whatever your method: Vacation…staycation…meditation…medication (kidding) – remember that self-care is essential for the duration. Roads can be bumpy, and trips can take longer than we expect. But if we’re trying to navigate in a broken-down vessel, our destinations become damn-near impossible to reach.

Take care.

 

Beggars and Choosers

A tale of 3 beggars:
Beggar #1 holds the door outside the local Chinese restaurant’s take-out extension; greeting and holding out their hand for tips from exiting patrons who have just bought a meal or accessed their money from the ATM. After securing a satisfactory amount of money for themselves, they then stroll over to the restaurant’s dine-in portion, where they order take-out…and then jump into a cab with a friend. At first it seems outrageous, but then you realize they’ve just redistributed the handouts from others hard-earned cash to the restaurant and the cab driver. (But they still didn’t work for anything – they just subsist on a principle akin to “the circle of life.”)

This person has created an opportunity for themselves and others by seeking handouts for their survival.

Beggar #2 is holding a cardboard sign that says “Need money for weed.”

This person isn’t pretending their situation is bleak, but their addiction is dire (to them), and they feel entitled to your assistance. They’re telling you up front that you’re financially supporting their end goal. They don’t want to harm anyone, they just want everyone to be happy, and they’re giving you the power of choice at all times – as good salespeople do. Emboldened by this empowerment, you approve their self-serving and occasionally counterintuitive desires, with the understanding that they’ll be nice to you…but will ultimately do what’s in their best interests.

Beggar #3 is offensive and aggressive; loudly rattling a cup of change they already had in pursuit of more from others to build their wealth. They slam subway doors, pushing or frightening people as they make their way through the car, make snide and/or threatening comments if you haven’t given them anything, and shamelessly impose on your commute, peace of mind and loose coins. 

Although you fear this person a little, you give them what they want in hopes they’ll make good, leave you and your loved ones in peace and you can say you supported a winner. It’s also simultaneously off-putting and mesmerizing how brazen this person is in their quest to get what they want. You’d have some respect for them…if they weren’t stinking up the place and giving your hometown a bad reputation with the rest of the world.

In the end, they all just want to win at life – and run your life – on your dime. Either way…your gonna lose something in the process of giving them what they want.

Question is, what are you gaining in the process?

Ladies and gentlemen…

The current state of our election year.

Huzzah.

In The Dark

Night has fallen here in New York.

Normally, it would be a welcome sight. I’d look out the window at the Jersey skyline reflecting on the Hudson River, and find a comfort in the simple beauty of it.

Tonight, it brings me pause and even haunts me.

Seven nights ago, the lights went out in the midst of what would end up being the most devastating natural disaster to hit the city that I can recall as a native New Yorker. Even as it was happening, I was still somewhat sheltered from its impact; the initial terror of moving around in pitch blackness was replaced with sitting in a hotel bar dripping in candlelight, drinking a “dark and stormy”. The serenade of the wind against the windows was briefly usurped by one of the servers crooning “Hey Jude” on the piano as a respite from our guests reality.

By the next afternoon when my journey back home to Harlem began, it was still unknown to me the severity of the damage the city had sustained. We listened to the radio, but couldn’t fathom anything beyond closed airports. Sure, I’d seen a building with no facade just a block from my workplace… and a hanging crane as I made my way midtown. But it wasn’t until the pictures and video footage started surfacing on news channels and websites that Sandy had truly been recognized as a monster.

Despite the images and personal stories inundating the media, it still never hit home to me. Upon returning, my neighborhood was bustling and filled with people going on their way and blissfully resuming their local routines. My relatives in Staten Island were untouched. A friend sent me a video of the damage his friend’s house sustained. On Facebook, friends posted about losing power and finding refuge with other friends and family. Others lost their cars. One former colleague actually did suffer major damage to her home of only two weeks. While bothered by their misfortune, I was mostly distracted by sickness and the unexpected restlessness that overcame me in place of sleep. Donating money to the Red Cross was a quick and easy way to alleviate the guilt I felt for spending my days in the comfort of my own home medicating my troubles away and having the audacity to be stressed.

It wasn’t until I finally left my neighborhood this weekend that it hit me. Strolling the Upper West Side, I came across children having bake sales to raise money for Sandy relief and countless food and supply drives around restaurants and churches.

Today, I spent the day in Chelsea at the Fulton Houses going door-to-door asking residents if they needed blankets and supplies, making sure the elderly and disabled had their medical needs in order, and informing everyone about the warming center being provided by the New York State Housing Authority.

And this is when it truly became real…

When you encounter something akin to a post-apocalyptic scenario — where people are lined up for basic necessities such as food and water — it wakes you up. That it is happening mere doors away from high-end real estate and eateries is all the more sobering.

I take for granted that I grew up in a house in the suburbs of Queens and had my own room. That I’ve had my own apartments and lived for the most part in buildings that have had very little problems with heat and hot water. During the brief time that I lived with several family members, I was a toddler in Georgia and too young to understand any other way. While life has dealt me its share of hardscrabble situations, for the most part it has been charmed in comparison to what I encountered today.

Steps away from some of the poshest addresses in Manhattan, there are people who live about eight to ten deep in buildings with staircases that smell of urine. They reluctantly open doors and look at you skeptically because they don’t want you to know how many people live there. It’s only because you have a kind face and look somewhat like them that they eventually trust that you are genuinely there to help them, but still give you a ballpark figure of how many blankets they need. They refuse the offer for a warming center, but one particularly desperate looking man with two sick children and family uptown starts to reconsider his options after you and your fellow volunteers insist that he does what’s best for the kids. Those that speak very little English need younger relatives to translate that the power they’ve only had for two days is going to be cut off at night to preserve energy, and they should expect it to be fully restored in a week.

It isn’t until you are right there… in that moment… that you can truly see what a person is going through. All the empathy in the world doesn’t make you an expert on what anyone is experiencing until you really see life through their eyes and hear it from their mouths. Everything else is bullshit that allows you to be self-righteous and judgmental… much like political talking heads. We can watch people stand in rubble that used to be their homes, but unless we’re standing there with them, we can’t possibly say “I know what it’s like”.

Looking out my window, a swath of Jersey has vanished from the picturesque skyline. The sight and sounds of military helicopters has become disturbingly normal. Once again, New Yorkers find themselves adapting to a new reality that is both unpalatable and yet necessary for the greater good — like drinking cod liver oil straight.

In this, our darkest hour, one can only hope and pray that as we embark on what has chillingly become a close election, the people will ultimately choose the best man who will lead us all toward the light…

 

News to Me

There are days when I’m truly concerned for the direction of the American heritage. This morning, when I scoped the covers of the morning papers in my local deli, it became clear that this was going to be one of those days.

During an election year where gun control has just resurfaced as an issue with scores of people succumbing to gun violence over the last few weeks — the most notable being a midnight massacre in a movie theater — the biggest story of the day was that Kristen Stewart cheated on her boyfriend.

Hours from now, the world will convene for the Olympic games in London — sans the Greek athlete who was expelled for her racist comments on Twitter (as if Greece didn’t have enough trouble) — but let’s take a moment to ponder on the indiscretion of a wooden actress who rose to fame for playing in a vampire movie.

In the course of a few days, we lost Sylvia Woods, a trailblazing restaurateur who put Harlem on the map for politicians hoping to get a slice of the African-American vote with their serving of soul food, and Sherman Hemsley, an actor who made every black family believe they could make it like scrappy George Jefferson before the Huxtables showed us the beauty of educated affluence.  

While the rest of the country was focused on the psychotic musings of a man who opened fire on innocent people watching the latest Batman installment, very little focus was put on the fact that Christian Bale, the actor who played Batman, visited the victims and the memorial in honor of the dead. Those victims, many of whom are young and uninsured, have just been given a reprieve by having most — and possibly in some cases all — of their medical expenses taken care of.  

Newspaper publishers muse about the decline of their industry and blame the wealth of access to information available through the internet and virtually any smartphone, tablet or other gadget. While it’s certainly a factor in a society being weened on instant gratification, those of us who still value the touch of paper and the occasional practice of clipping or highlighting things still like the idea of a newspaper giving us real news.

But it doesn’t just stop with the papers. American media overall chooses more sensational and occasionally mindless things to report as so-called news. Before stories of the “Vamp Tramp” broke (I must admit I love the caption writing sometimes), we could not escape the “news” of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes divorcing. It would seem that the only way of getting real news is to tune into a cable channel like CNN (or even The Daily Show), wait for a designated hard news program, or go online.

Meanwhile our counterparts in the rest of the world have BBC, Al Jazeera, et al informing them of international news stories that prepare them for interaction with the global population and markets on a continual basis. They are more versed on the ongoing events that have changed the commercial and financial climate of each nation, and are adapting accordingly.

Perhaps we’ve become so closed off in our own beliefs and subscribers to the “too big to fail” hubris that we find it acceptable to push frivolous pop culture and reality television into the forefront of conversations. That our schools are underperforming, our workforce is shrinking and our GDP is teetering on nonexistent doesn’t concern us as much as whether Kanye and Kim will really get married and who the next American Idol judge will be.

But please, let’s not concern ourselves with the 17-year-old boy who gunned down a 4-year-old because he was retaliating gunfire… let’s pontificate on the future of whether the actors who played Edward and Bella will survive her dalliance with a married father of two.

Yeah, that’s a real news story… no one’s ever heard that one before.