Monday, June 22, 2009

Political Rumblings: Iran

Like the rest of the world, I've been following the election fallout in Iran, which is admittedly much more life-or-death than anything I could possibly complain about in my own life (like how to find a man who isn't gay, or crazy, or hocked up on pills, or hiding an explosive secret - which nine times out of ten is the gay thing unless it's the "I didn't realize it would be legal in Vegas" thing) and it occurs to me, as I continue reading these live blogs and watching videos, how very far removed I am from true political revolution.

Truthfully, as a kid, my ideas about life outside the United States were pretty skewed - as in, without the aid of that newfangled interweb, I imagined other countries like movie sets from 1930s, where villagers wandered about the cobbled streets singing and curtseying to one another and then hiding from the Nazis, like an obscene version of The Sound of Music. This I blame on an adolescence spent in the deep south, where "what are you doing Friday night?" was usually answered with"depends on how much pot you have;" life as a result moved like maple syrup, and was generally humid and unchanging and blonde and fake-tanned and much, much preferred to any other style of living - a culture sustained inside a snowglobe. Anything outside of it was therefore wrong, or lesser, or an other. Like on Lost. I sometimes liken it to the way I felt about Amy Jo Young, the varsity cheerleader who sat across from me in English, who in my band-geek brain was so confident and smart and athletic and awesome that I wanted to punch her in the face with her own hairbrush; Southerners, similarly, always worried that they'd have to defend their popular awesomeness against a perpetually jealous, hairbrush-wielding Universe.

I'm now years removed from South Florida - although I still occasionally find myself at war with the me who lived for years in that palm-tree, douchebag filled snowglobe; the me who has since become acutely self-aware of all acts of douchebaggery - such as my inability to quit complaining about the endless construction on the A-C subway line, or why God has apparently set a plague of rain upon New York City (five days in a row? Really? Are we in biblical times?) meanwhile in Iran, citizens everywhere are rising up in revolution, being thrown into jail or being beaten in the streets for problems that are actually REAL. And so I find myself wishing I didn't have as many fake problems (guys who whine, guys who spend too much time with my dog, guys who are teachers and refer to the children as "those annoying little motherfuckers") and could do more for Iran in a way that is real - although thus far have only come up with adjusting the color on my Twitter avatar (please see How To Start a Political Revolution in 140 Characters or Less, Bitches - page 3 of the Twitter FAQ).

But I also keep picturing the 2008 presidential hulaballoo - how passionate we all were; how my friends and I distributed "Yes We Can" buttons to anyone who would listen; how we posted viral videos of Barack Obama on the campaign trail and marched peacefully in protest of Prop 8. I remember the dual lines of voters that stretched from Broadway and 86th to 8th Avenue and beyond, onto West End Avenue; in the midst of cut pay and brutally cold weather, we all ditched our day jobs and stood on line for several agonizing hours to vote and make our voices heard. And later that night, when we realized that we could, in fact, make a difference, we all made our way down to Times Square, where a joyous crowd had gathered, and we clapped and honked and cheered and hugged and behaved in ways that, on any other night, would have gotten us fucked up and sold for cash in Chinatown. But instead, we were part of something much bigger. The freedom of voting, of making a choice both individually and together - gave us hope.

And THAT, my friends, is why fair election is so important - freedom of choice is what sustains a nation, and the desire for it will always be more powerful than the need to terrorize. So welcome to the 21st Century, Ahmadenijad. Wake up and smell the Twitter.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Tales of my Grandfather

Last month I flew to Florida for my grandfather's funeral, and as is typical for any Rodent family function, we all took part in a bit of inappropriate story-telling - interspersed with some bickering, some eating, some out-and-out fighting, and some hot-boxing of the Ford Focus in the parking lot of a TooJays (never let it be said that a Ford is good for nothing.) As a result, I now know way more than I ever needed to about the lives of my grandparents - such as how to correctly be hidden from the Nazis (hint: ceilings are good for storage), how my grandmother was successfully "wooed" by my grandfather (he chased her down a boardwalk until she had nowhere else to run, and then he tricked her into posing for a photograph), how the two of them overcame boredom (by getting kicked out of assisted living facilities for general maliciousness ), and how my grandfather had once instigated a bar-fight, just for fun. ("It was his birthday," according to my grandmother. "And we were broke. It was the 70s. What else was there to do?")

Flashforward to yesterday: my mother and I were talking on the phone about my Grandpa Murray, and as I was winding my way down Broadway, we somehow segued into the fact that I hate walking anywhere near the TKTS booth on 47th, where crowds like to congregate and change directions every thirteen seconds like Pac Man characters - and she responded with this absolutely insane story about my grandfather.

"He was on his way back to the house with your grandmother," she said, "When some guy in a Gremlin made an illegal left-hand turn in front of him. So your grandfather follows the guy until they get to the next red light, and then he gets out of his car, knocks politely on the guy's window, waits for the guy to roll it down, tells him him to fuck off, rips the door clean off the car, and then just drives off with your grandmother."

"Wait," I said. "You're saying he just... ripped the whole fucking door off the hinges and left?"

"Well, he wasn't going to take the door with him," reasoned my mother. "How would he have done that? Ridiculous."

At this point, of course, I needed to ask that all-important question:"Why the hell?" (which is also known as "What the fuck?")

"He was a fighter," said my Mother. "An iron worker. His parents were immigrants. What else do you expect of a man who manages to claw his way to 90?" And then, as if this should further clarify everything for me: "It was the 70s."

"What the fuck does that mean?"

"Shit was crazy back then."

"Are you kidding me?" I said. "How do you just... rip the door off some poor asshole's car?"

"You become a bodybuilder first," said my mother. "Although your grandmother told him she didn't think he could do it. She lost that bet."

This fucked-up conversation (like many) of course segued into talk of how blood is crazier than water, and ended with my mother asking, "Aren't you proud to come from such stock?" which left behind the disturbing image of my grandfather as some crazed Donkey Kong - so contrary to the image I'd had from early childhood, of the big softie who'd let me dance on his feet while improvising songs peppered with Yiddish insults, mainly about how my heft would eventually kill him. (The Chorus: "You're so heavy, Oiye vey - I'm falling off my feet, Oiye vey!")

This, of course, made me wonder whether I should question my own inclinations - such as the urge to punch every pedestrian with an oversized camera and/or child on a leash between sixty-sixth street and the village. Or the urge to say, "What do you think 'out of mediums' means, douchebag? Think hard - there might be a quiz." But even more importantly, if my DNA is destined to always be torn between gentle absurdity and psychotic cartoon gorilla behavior, what does that mean for my chances of being properly matched at eHarmony.com? (Fucking online dating.)

Anyway.

This I will ponder for the remainder of my Monday.

Friday, June 12, 2009

Recession In The City: Every Day is Festivus For The Rest of Us

As I poured over my resume and cover letter (for the eightieth time in a day) I found myself thinking fondly about my old job, and my old desk (where, beneath my monitor, I had set up an entire "nun bowling" figurine scenario, of which I was particularly fond), which got me to thinking about the movie, Office Space, and poor Milton with his red swingline stapler. All that poor dude ever wanted was to staple shit and watch the squirrels mate - And look where he ended up.

This thought segued into further thought about my own situation, and how, one day when I'm accepting an academy award for best original screenplay, I am going to read two acceptance speeches. The first will comprise all the people I wish to thank. The second will comprise all the people who can fuck off.

Admittedly, this fantasy devolved even further (me at my high school reunion with six Oscars, me at the 2019 Oscars challenging Angelina Jolie to a duel, me becoming the next Real Housewife of New York City) until I had to step back from my own brain. For one thing, I'll never beat Jolie in a duel if I don't start training immediately. For another, I can't go back to my old job and burn the building down. I simply don't have enough matches. Finally, I'm worried I sound like a villain from Austin Powers, determined to destroy all who have wronged me, except I don't have any sharks armed with frickin laser beams and am thus left to wonder what else in my home might be more awesome with laser beams (answer: everything), and as I cannot afford laser beams and have no other suitable tools for villainy, I find myself wanting to punch people I don't even know, simply because they can afford to eat.

I suppose my point is that in situations like this, it's better to laugh than to punch people. No - seriously.