Evolving at the Speed of Life

1967 Redux

Last night I saw Hair.  No, you are not having a flashback.  September 23, 2007.  Hair.  Performed live in New York at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park.  First time since the original Broadway run closed on July 1, 1972 after 1,742 performances.  It's been 40 years.  A bit of triva...

In the original cast...Melba Moore, Shelley Plimpton, Paul Jabara and Diane Keaton!

My mother took my sister, Barbara, and I to see Hair during the original run.  We were in our early teens at the time and had front row seats.  The fact that there was full frontal nudity had been widely publicized.  No surprises (although it did scare my sister a little).  But seeing the show again as an adult was a transformational experience.

On a personal note, my mother was apparently far more hip than I gave her credit for.  I'm not sure I would have taken kids to see it.  Not because of the nudity.  Because at a point in time when adults were trying desperately to "protect" their kids from the evils of war and recreational sex, this theatrical event was a rallying cry. 

From a cultural perspective, you would expect it to be nostalgic, and it was.  It brought me right back to the 60s.  I could almost smell the pot in the school parking lot.  It's also relevant...No more war!  And philosophical...Check out the lyrics to "Air" and consider how we allowed the environment to deteriorate this far.

Welcome! sulphur dioxide
Hello! carbon monoxide
The air, the air
Is everywhere
Breath deep, while you sleep
Breath deep
Bless you, alcohol bloodstream
Save me, nicotine lung steam
Incense, incense
Is in the air
Breath deep, while you sleep
Breath deep
Cataclysmic ectoplasm
Fallout atomic orgasm
Vapor and fume
At the stone of my tomb
Breathing like a sullen perfume
Eating at the stone of my tomb
Welcome! sulphur dioxide
Hello! carbon monoxide
The air, the air
Is everywhere
Breath deep, while you sleep
Breath deep

It was mind bending.  I hope the Public Theater brings it back to play to a whole new generation.  Maybe they can learn from our mistakes.

Six Years Ago Today

I'm sitting on my terrace with open views of Manhattan looking south.  No matter how many times I see the skyline the absence of the World Trade Center Towers is unreal.  Tonight, as every year since 2001, there are two beams of light rising up from Ground Zero to honor those lost and those who tried to help.

Six years ago today I work up at 5 AM and boarded a 7 AM flight for San Diego, via Salt Lake City, to attend a wireless conference.  At 9 AM I dialed in to a conference call from my seat on the plane.  The system said the call had ended.  Strange, but stuff happens.  Within minutes the announcement came that we were landing.  There was, we were told, an air traffic situation and all planes in the area were being asked to set down. 

"Stay on the plane."  "Get off the plane."  "Stay in the boarding area."  "We'll make announcements soon."

I got a call through to home and was getting the blow by blow on what was really happening.  At the same time the gate personnel were making an announcement.  The girl next to me was on the phone sobbing.  Then she collapsed into the arms of a fellow passenger.  Confusion.  Madness.  We finally convinced them to open the bar.  It was 9 AM in Omaha. 

The bar was silent.  Not a sound.  Five hours of total strangers transfixed by television.   I sat at the bar between a young girl en route home to Phoenix and a Pentagon employee.   I can't remember their faces.  All I can remember was what everyone else remembers.  The dust from the collapse of the first tower.  The second tower crumbling.  The smoke pouring out of the Pentagon building. 

Eventually I made my way to a Red Lion Inn.  At that point I think we all believed the planes would be flying within a day or so.  The magnitude of what had happened still hadn't sunk in.  When I woke up Wednesday morning, desperate to go home, I was determined to make my way east one way or the other.  Nine hours alone in a rental car to Chicago talking to friends and co-workers stranded all across the country.  On the outskirts of the city I met up with my boss and two colleagues for the drive to New York.  I was never so happy to see people in my life.  I'd been holding it in since the day before and when I saw them my knees went weak.  Another 22 hours driving to New York.  These were the longest couple of  days of my life.  But they attacked my city and I needed to be with my people.  My neighbors.  In my city.  I felt like I needed to wrap my arms around all of the people who had been there and tell them we would be all right.  Different, but we would get through it together.

As long as I live I will never forget the moment we got a look at the city that had been forever changed.  Coming across the George Washington Bridge and seeing a plume of smoke where the towers stood was like being punched in the stomach.  At the same time home was the only place I wanted to be.

I think I speak for many when I say that New Yorkers still stand together in grief and solidarity six years later.  We are more fragile than before.  We are stronger than before.  We are united in our love for this city.  It's going to take a hell of a lot more than some crackpot in a turban and the sheep-people who hang on his every word to beat us down!

Astounding!

There's a war going on, in case you hadn't heard.  32 college students, several NASA employees and some people shopping at a mall were shot over the past couple of weeks and nobody is talking about gun control.  And the guys running this country are employing the services of prostitutes in Washington at the same time they're starting a movement to overturn Roe v. Wade.  So will someone please tell me why the lead story on my news feed today is Jada Pinkett-Smith's opinion of the Cruise-Holmes marriage???

Who is Accountable?

In September of 1972 I left home to go to Syracuse University.  I moved into my room at Shaw Hall and waved goodbye to my parents.  As they drove away down Comstock Avenue I was happy, scared, excited, depressed, thrilled.  All of it.  This was, other than summer camp, my first real experience living away from home. 

The girls on my floor bonded and broke off into little cliques as girls tend to do.  Toward the end of the first week I woke up to find police on the floor.  Someone was missing.  One of the freshman girls, Karen Levy, had put a sign up in the lobby of the dorm...on the "ride board"...looking for a lift to New Jersey to visit her boyfriend.  A guy had called and said he was goig that way.  They agreed on a departure time and arranged to meet at Downstate Medical Center.  Karen took a friend with her for the hook up and the plan was that if he looked suspicious she would say she changed her mind.  He seemed fine, she smiled and said goodbye and they drove off.  She never did get to New Jersey and she was never seen again.  It turned out that the guy Karen went to meet was arrested on another charge in our senior year.  He told the police where her body was buried.

Of course it was horrible.  But it was just so wrong.  Karen Levy's parents cared for her, nurtured her, saw her through the teenage angst and sent her off to a good school for a first rate education.  They trusted she would be safe and found out later, in the most brutal way, that security was not part of the package.

My younger sister, Barbara, went to London for a semester with Syracuse University.  Syracuse only housed the students for a short time until they found more permanent arrangements.  She and another girl rented an apartment.  There was a gas leak.  She died only weeks after she arrived.

And the 100-plus Syracuse University students who spent a semester abroad in 1988?  Their parents sent them to Europe assuming the school would protect them.  Charter travel was not part of the package, so they were left to make their own reservations.  They flew home on Pan Am 103 and their fate was sealed over Lockerbie, Scotland.

More recently...Columbine, and the 150 school shootings that have taken place since then.  Last month two girls from Long Island were killed at the University of Arizona.  And now Virginia Tech will be added to the long list of senseless deaths.

Much as I'd like to get on  my soapbox about gun control, I don't believe reasonable people will ever make progress against the very rich, very powerful gun lobby.  But I do want to know...where is the accountability?   Parents believe that when they hand their children over to a school they are protected.  How is it that these institutions consistently fail to protect these children and there is no public outcry?  Shouldn't we expect the adults in charge to protect the children they are responsible for?  Shouldn't we require that they be proactive in keeping them safe?  It is outrageous.  And I don't know what it will take for someone to stand up and say "No more" and advocate for meaningful change.

Newt and the Hypocritical Oath

Trent Lott.  Ken Starr.  Rudy Giuliani.    A few boldface names who fueled the press and called for President Clinton's impeachment in the late '90s.  All flawed in some way that disqualified them to pass judgment on anyone.  But my favorite by far is Newt Gingrich.

Newt Gingrich, the former House Speaker aggressively led the charge.  And now, as all the contenders line up to run for office in 2008, he admits to having an extramarital affair at the same time he was publicly calling for Clinton's head  How ironic is that?  He was cheating on his second wife with a Congressional aide 20 years younger.  (For the record, Monica was 27 years younger than Clinton.)  This after he asked his first wife, Jackie, for a divorce while she was in the hospital recovering from cancer surgery.  So much for family values.

And yet, he remains popular with the conservative set.  Jerry Falwell has actually praised Gingrich for his candor.   And if you think this won't impact the run for the oval office, guess again.  There is a subtle Newt Movement in the works.  Google, ever the non-partisan resource, serves up search results for Gingrich's site alongside the articles that have appeared over the past few days letting us all know that he has "moral failings."  Interestingly, none of that "moral failings" nonsense is in the "Recent News" section of his site, although there are articles that ran on the same dates where he is quoted on the issues.

Listen, who am I to judge?  We all have our own baggage and none of us are above reproach.  We all have skeletons in our closet.  Having said that, I'm pretty careful not to throw stones that can easily be picked up and thrown back at me.

Elisabeth Hasselbeck Needs A Group Hug

True Confessions: I am addicted to daytime television. My Tivo and my Cable DVR are both on full alert while I'm at work. I like to tell myself it's in case I have a sleepless night and there's nothing to watch on my 700 channels. But the truth is, I like it. Now that I've said it...

I am particularly intrigued by The View. I started watching in 2005 when I found myself without a day job and stayed with it. At first I used to watch just to hear what ridiculous, pro-conservative babel would come out of Elisabeth Hasselbeck. She would regularly try to convince me that George Bush is a good leader and a brilliant man. And I would sit on the couch screaming at the TV.

Then came the very entertaining Star Jones Chronicles. And these days Rosie accuses Joy of making gay remarks every day for months after Rosie joined the show, but commented that Joy must be more comfortable with it now because she only brings it up once every couple of weeks. From Hot Topics to craft segments, and shopping on a budget to serious issues like Autism and Depression...the show has dragged me in, and now I'm a reluctant regular.

As a regular (and I cannot believe I'm going to say this), I feel badly for Elisabeth. She doesn't, as I've already mentioned, subscribe to Rosie and Joy's left wing politics, but lately rather than respect each other's differences the daily sport seems to be Hasselbeck Bashing. Gawker is having a field day tracking the action. Poor Barbara Walters. I'm starting to get the impression that this woman cringes when her phone rings and that she listens to tales from the couch holding her head in her hands.

Listen, Elisabeth Hasselbeck used to strike me as the type who picks her politics based on what her parents think or what her husband thinks. Probably me just being a little bitchy. Anyway, I digress...

The point is that we...meaning Rosie, Joy and I...as left wing liberals believe free speech is what this country was built on. I have Republican friends, and we rarely resort to name calling and body blows. So it pains me to watch this woman be publicly slapped down, insulted and belittled on the air. It seems to me they stop treating her as though she were a child and show a little respect. Whether you agree with her or not, this is a woman who is a role model for her peers. She started out on an island in the middle of the ocean eating bugs on Survivor. She participated in a public audition-fest to get this job. And despite taking it on the chin from her co-hosts she has managed to retain the courage of her convictions.

I am a bleeding heart liberal who doesn't wear fur, drives a Prius and gives money to charity as birthday gifts. As I may have mentioned, I really don't like Elisabeth's politics. But I like her. More importantly, I respect her. The next time I see her on Columbus Avenue I may just let her know.