Steve Jobs leaves us. I wish the protestors down in FiDi would leave as well.

I felt much more emotional about the passing of Steve Jobs this evening than I expected to feel.  I am an avid Apple product user, and I seem to be one of the few people genuinely excited by the new iPhone 4S.  I have to wait until November 27 to qualify for the lower upgrade price, but I’m already chomping at the bit to start my relationship with Siri.  However, I’d never really contemplated Steve Jobs or his legacy.  Yes, I like his products, but his scope of influence only really hit me this evening as I watched the tribute to him on the 11 o’clock news.  I found myself tearing up a bit as the newscaster spoke about him.  I’m not sure that I ever fully realized that Jobs was the brainchild behind the products.  I knew that he started Apple in his parents’ garage, but I had never identified him as being the one to come up with all of these newerproducts.  Until tonight.

As I think about the depth of this loss, I’m left wondering, like many people, what the technological future will hold for us.  I know that another Jobs will come along, but we may have to wait quite awhile for that person to show up.

On the flip side of this post, we’ve got the boiling hot mess down in FiDi with these wacko protestors.  That story followed the Jobs story on the news this evening, and as I watched the footage of these protestors storming police barricades, I felt pretty embarrassed by it all.  Once again, people make asses of themselves in an attempt to right the wrongs of corporate America.

Well, guess what.

It’s more complicated than that in a democratic society.  Corporate America can’t solely be blamed for the economic mess we’re all in.  These protestors are very quick to forget that American citizens elected officials who empower these corporate businesses to make these messes.  I know that’s an oversimplification of the mechanisms at work, but I’m tired of the liberal picket and protest mentality.  The liberals behaved the same way when the Republican National Convention set up shop in NYC a few years back.  They made jackasses of themselves then, getting arrested and hauled away, and they’re doing the same thing now. Do something useful for Pete’s sake.  Getting yourselves arrested is not useful.

As the protest got dicey, the newscaster on the scene interviewed this guy who spouted out stupidity while puffing away on a cigarette.  Preppy, late 20s, white, and possibly privileged, sucking down a cancer stick (Um hello, corporate America?  Was that product placement?)  as he was about to plunge into the mass of people pushing.  It reminded of the South Park movie.  All it needed was the Les Miserable score playing underneath of it to complete the picture.

“Do you hear the friggin’ people sing?”

Two and a half weeks of finger pointing downtown.  Someone told me today that there are all of these hand signals being used to monitor (and control) the conversation down there.  If too many people of a certain type begin to dominate the dialogue, some fancy person with a special name shifts the focus away from that dominant voice.  Or people are basically doing limp wrist sparkle fingers when they agree with something.  Is this what we’re coming too?  Sounds like a gigantic pot of kumbayah hogwash leading nowhere fast.

Why isn’t someone like Steve Jobs leading this country?  Why aren’t intelligent and innovative people like Steve Jobs valued as leaders in the 21st century?  Maybe if we voted for someone like Steve, America could find its way out of this mess.

Steve, if you have any celestial or spiritual pull now, can you send us a sign?

I miss you more now than when I started this post…

Thanks for leading the way while you could.

Some thoughts on MCC’s The Submission

I attended a preview performance of The Submission by Jeff Talbott on Saturday, September 24.  Produced by MCC Theater at the Lucille Lortel, the production was directed by Walter Bobbie and starred Jonathan Groff, Will Rogers, Eddie Kaye Thomas, and Rutina Wesley.

Danny (Jonathan Groff), a young, Yale-trained playwright, has written a play and submitted it to the Humana Festival under a pseudonym.  When Humana accepts the play for full production, we learn that Danny has created the name of a woman of color for the pseudonym.  He recruits and hires an African American actress named Emilie (Rutina Wesley) to represent him at the festival, and the storyfollows the resulting challenges that emerge.

While I appreciated Talbott’s attempt at a dialogue on race, homosexuality, and oppression, I found that the play covered ground that’s been plowed under before.  The charged nature of the “n-word” and the “f-word” could not sustain the central problem of the play very long, particularly for anyone who has thought about the benefits and deficits of social justice agendas and/or politically correct language.  I could see the conflict between Danny and Emilie coming about ten minutes into the performance, and spent the remaining 80 minutes waiting for the unsurprising resolution.  For me, the play became pedestrian and two-dimensional fairly quickly.

I did appreciate some of Talbott’s writing.  He’s given Danny a very nice monologue about the writing process that Groff handles with great care.  And there’s a strong piece for Emilie about why the “n-word” appearing 37 times in one scene of Danny’s play is not appropriate.  Wesley delivers the monologue with a proper pitch and tone that allows the audience into the personal conflict at work within this individual, even if only for a moment.  Wesley proves herself quite capable in this production, and I’d like to see her in a better play.  In other places, Talbott underwrites the characters, essentially leaving them as two-dimensional stereotypes.  This is most noticeable in the character of Pete, Danny’s boyfriend.  Eddie Kaye Thomas tries to make something of this role, but between the dowdy personality and several misplaced jokes at crisis moments, he’s fighting an uphill battle.  Will Rogers, who plays Danny’s best friend Pete and the eventual boyfriend of Emilie, develops a quirkiness in his portrayal that makes him the most watchable and the most curious of the four actors.  I saw Rogers in this summer’s Unnatural Acts, and after seeing him here, I’m impressed by his versatility.

Overall, I left this production feeling angry.  The content made me angry, mostly because it pressed my buttons.  That’s probably a good thing, as here I am four days later still thinking about it.  However, I also left wondering how a play in this condition could actually receive a full production.  The major conflict scene, where things completely unravel, ran on and on and on.  Whether or not this will tighten through the acting or through cuts and edits remains to be seen.  The repetition of the argument between Danny and Emilie became tedious and boring.  I’m surprised that Walter Bobbie, given his excellent directing record, had less control over this particular moment of the play.

The Submission explores some important territory, but not in a terribly innovative way.  I’m grateful for the thoughts that have come up as a result of seeing the work, but I wish that it had pushed a little harder with more sophistication and complexity.

Remembering Craig with a thank you 10/9/66 - 9/24/06

Five years ago today, my then partner, Craig Hamrick, passed away after a long battle with colon cancer.  He passed early in the morning, around 7:30am, following ten days in hospice.

Craig fought his cancer valiantly for almost four years after his diagnosis.  He survived a colon resection, a liver resection, the removal of a brain tumor, and rounds and rounds of chemotherapy.  He had an incredible will to live, and I learned after he passed that his doctors hadn’t really expected him to survive much beyond a year.  He was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer in October 2002, with cancer in his large intestine, liver and his lungs.  Somehow, Craig fought his way through all of that disease, managed to beat it back multiple times,  self-published three books, took countless photos, traveled, and raised our two cats, Buster and Dusty.  All while maintaining his dry sense of humor, which for those who knew him, you know that his delivery was priceless.

I learned a lot from Craig and our relationship during this difficult time.  A lot about positivity and productivity, and a lot about really being with someone.  Craig and I were together for about 15 months before he was diagnosed, so most of our relationship included his illness.  It was my first long-term relationship and my first time living with someone, and then add a chronic illness on top of it, and our ride together was not always the smoothest.  I often think back to moments of strife that we had together and wish that I knew then what I know now.  Such a cliche to say, but it’s the truth.  I can only hope that Craig knew how much he and our experiences together meant to me, including his passing.   It’s a privilege that he allowed me to be there with him as he transitioned, and it’s one that I will never forget.

Thinking about loss, and this loss in particular, always brings up questions about whether I do enough.  Whether I love enough.  Whether I pay attention enough.  As I reflect on that question and sit with it, I usually come to the conclusion that I did as much as I could.  I do as much as I can.  People like to say that love is unconditional, and I think there are moments when it is, when it needs to be.  However, love can also be exhausting, caring can be exhausting, and those feelings of frustration that sometimes accompany love are natural and part of being human.  We have to feel and experience those difficult feelings along with thejoy, happiness, and contentment that come with love.  This complexity shows us our humanity, and the more we pay attention to the complexity, the better off we become.

Craig left me an eight-page list of instructions when he passed, a gift that let me know that he believed that I did enough.  I still had to spend the time believing that and accepting that loving and caring come with moments of imperfection and anger and weakness.  Wrestling with all of this then and now has helped me in so many ways.  I know that all of my current relationships, including my romantic one, benefit from that time with Craig, and for that I will always be grateful.

Craig, you left us so early, but you left us with so much.  Your legacy of love and humor and passion run deep for those who knew you.  Wherever your spirit may be, I hope you can feel the love that we have for you.  Thanks for sharing your heart.  I love you and miss you.

Take responsibility and pay attention

Fourteen-year-old Jamey Rodemeyer took his own life on Sunday after years of bullying.  Ironically, Jamey recorded a video for the “It Gets Better” campaign back in May of this year.  Anderson Cooper recaps Jamey’s story in the video below, and he reveals several politicians and organization leaders who believe that bullying isn’t a problem.

I’m grateful to Dan Savage and the thousands of people who have posted these “It Gets Better” videos, but further steps need to be taken.  Young people need and deserve more than inspirational videos.

My post on bullying last week received a lot of support, and I appreciate it.  If you’re reading this post and watching the video below, please make a commitment to PAY ATTENTION and don’t let bullying happen when you’re the adult or the person in power in a given situation.   You’d be surprised who’s watching and who you may actually help.  We can’t stop at recording videos, and we need people outside of the LGBTQ community to serve as allies at every step of the way.

Please share this post, forward it to friends and colleagues, and use the words “Pay Attention” when you do.  It sounds simple enough.  Let’s make it simple in action as well.

Someone’s finally attempting to play some hard ball

With the emphasis on “attempting.”

Barack Obama revealed his deficit plan today in a speech in the White House Rose Garden.  The New York Times reports that Obama is seeking $1.5 trillion in tax increases on the wealthy and corporations.  Of course, Republicans screamed “class warfare” which sounds like a white person yelling “reverse racism.”  I love how these people in positions of power appropriate the language of the oppressed to describe their positions.  Makes absolutely no sense at all.

Who knows how any of this will ultimately affect the deficit reduction plan that needs approval from Congress by December 23?  I’m much more interested in the fact that Obama stated that “he would veto any approach that relied solely on spending reductions to address the fiscal shortfall.”  Increased taxes need to be part of the plan.  Essentially, he’s thrown down the gauntlet, playing hardball if you will, a move that I expect the President of the United States to make much sooner than three years into this presidency.  The news article states that Obama’s threat provides a clear position that can help to fuel his run for re-election.  Fine, but I’d rather leave the re-election out of it.

I understand that Obama’s strategy of playing the middle on policy is what he said that he would do during his first campaign.  Break down party lines and work across the aisle.  Lovely sentiment.  Where’s the tambourine?

Very little of his approach has worked so far, so I think it’s time that he opened a can of Ronald Reaganesque Whoop Ass and started to lead.   Make these statements, stand by them, and face the music.  If he keeps letting John Boehner and the House control the discourse, we might as well cash in our chips and go home.

The citizens of the United States are looking for leadership that has immediate, recognizable results.  The vast majority of people do not seem to respect intellectual discourse, rational thinking, or future planning.  They want action, and they want it now.  Personally, I’d prefer a more thoughtful approach to all of this, but not at the expense of having to listen to sheer idiocy all the time from a growing number of politicians who disrupt forward motion with their ineptitude.  If this is a democracy, it’s time to give it to people the democratic way.  Let majority rule.  We’ll see how the majority feels about democracy after they’ve had it good and hard.

Let the games begin.  No Nerf Balls allowed.