Walking (where we shouldn't have) in Memphis

If there is a supreme being in charge of bestowing humans with good road trip juju, raise up a prayer for yourself that you may be given a travel buddy like my friend Jessica.  Good fortune, luck, grace, miraculous coincidence and plain ol' joy stick to her like dog hair sticks to dress pants.  Traveling with Jess is like walking through Oz with Dorothy if the witch wasn't trying to kill her and if Dorothy wasn't homesick.  A few weeks ago, she called me to ask if I wanted to tag along on a trip to Memphis.  I learned a long time ago to always, ALWAYS say yes when Jessica proposes an adventure.  Saying "no" to something like that is just an invitation to lifelong regret.

Our trip started off the way our last roadtrip together did:  I got us lost and drove the wrong way down a one-way street.  To be clear: I GOT LOST IN MY OWN CITY.  Jessica handled our unplanned detour into no-man's land with aplomb.  She didn't get flustered or upset.  She just said "If we don't get killed, I will never let you live this down."  A fair bargain.

Suffice it to say, we made it to Memphis in one piece.  We checked into a motel next to a race track with a meth chef mascot and got down to the serious business of touristing.  On our first day in Memphis, Jess brought out her binder of itineraries and we chose to drive into town to visit the National Civil Rights museum.  In 1995, Jess met a woman who was protesting against the museum and spent the afternoon she had earmarked for the museum talking to the woman and hearing her grievances.  In short, this woman (homeless by choice to protest the gentrification of her former neighborhood) dissuaded Jessica from visiting the museum and bought her a popsicle. 18 years later, the woman was still there, still protesting and still just as vocal as Jessica remembered.  Jessica introduced herself again and said that she had a debt to repay.  She reminded the woman (whose name was Jaclyn Smith, no word of a lie) of the popsicle and asked what she wanted.  Jess bought her a muffin and brought a cup of ice.  Note to self:  Repay every debt. 

We went to the National Civil Rights museum, despite the protestations of Ms. Smith who asserted that the museum was just a very expensive memorial to James Earl Ray.  Respectfully, Jessica said that she needed to see the museum for herself to make up her mind and, equally respectfully, Ms. Smith concurred.  I have known, since a cut-throat game of Apples to Apples, just how much Jessica respects Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  What I wasn't expecting was to find myself equally affected by Dr. King's legacy.  I didn't expect to be standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, where Dr. King was shot, in tears.  It turns out that Ms. Smith was right... The vast majority of the exhibits in the museum were dedicated to James Earl Ray, the assassin.  They even had the bullet that killed Dr. King in a hermetically sealed case which was, quite frankly, nauseating.  Ray's boardinghouse bedroom was on display as was the filthy bathroom from which he shot Dr. King.  It was suffocating.  It was...wrong.  We went across the street to the Lorraine Motel and walked up to the balcony where Dr. King fell. I wish I could adequately describe what I felt, standing there, but I can't.  I stood there for a long time, on the edge of tears that I didn't feel that I deserved.  I stood there so long that I lost Jessica in the crowd.  I found her again, speaking with Ms. Smith: debating, sharing, laughing.  That's one of the things I love about Jessica.  Nothing in the world gets in the way of her ability to connect with other people.  

Next on our itinerary was the Mason Temple, where Dr. King gave his last speech before his assassination.  Scratch that...  Next on our itinerary was lunch, but the Temple was a close second.  I was determined to drive to the Temple, but Jessica said "Why don't we walk?"  Internally, I balked, because it was more than a mile from where we were and I had a demonstrated track record of getting us hopelessly lost.  We wound up walking, though, and we walked through places where, if I was a resourceful serial killer, I would have thought to stash a body or two.  Industrial parks with razor wire and desolation...  Neighborhoods of boarded up windows and graffiti.  Long stretches of nothingness and blight...  We waded through mud and we walked through scary railroad underpasses.  We stopped in convenience stores with more bullet-proof glass than things for sale.  But Jessica was committed to walking to this church and I trusted her commitment.  I got us a little lost on the way but, in for a penny, in for a pound...

Long story short, we got there.  The church, on the exterior, looked unremarkable and I remember thinking that it looked like the Armory on the University of Evansville campus.  Slightly industrial and not unique.  We walked up to the door with masses of anticipation born of our perilous journey there and...it was locked.  I rattled every door, hoping that one would be open.  Standing there in frustration, I saw Jess standing still, serene. "It's locked.  We're skunked.  Might as well just go back."  Jessica looked at me and that one look said "Wait." So, I waited.

In a matter of moments, a gentleman hailed us from outside the iron fence ringing the church.  "We're closed to tours today, but you came all this way to see our church, we might as well show it off.  Let me make a call..."  Within a few seconds, the security guard came out of the church, waved to our interlocutor and ushered us inside.  He told us about the founder, Charles Harrison Mason, who was once jailed and (allegedly) prayed so hard that lightning struck the jail and caused every cell door to spring open.  He was clearly very proud of the temple and of its history.  And then we entered the sanctuary which was bathed in the amber light of a southern afternoon.  We were drawn to the pulpit which the guard said was original to the building.  I turned and he read my turn for the question that it actually was.  "Yes.  That's the pulpit that Dr. King used during his last speech.  Go ahead.  You can stand behind it if you want." And so we did.  And a splendid afternoon washed us with its golden light.  

Let's just break this down a little... If Jessica hadn't spent a long time talking to Ms. Smith outside the museum, if she hadn't insisted on walking to this church, if I hadn't gotten us lost yet again, we wouldn't have been at the church in time to run into the gentleman who got the security guard to give us a tour. Even though the timing was random and totally unpredictable, I can't help but believe that Jessica was somehow cosmically aware of the timing of everything. She was determined to visit the church.  She wanted to stand where Dr. King stood.  And that's exactly what happened.

Our time in Memphis was full of good things.  I performed with an improv troupe I have long admired, we ate serious barbecue, and we laughed like laughing was going out of style.  But none of this would have been possible without the grace attendant on everything that Jessica attempted.  In my journal on Saturday, I wrote "I lived the HELL out of today."  I pray that everyone I know will have the opportunity to say the exact same thing...  That, when faced with a chance to take a gigantic leap, we all choose to jump.  And that we are all rewarded with grace.  Moreover, I pray that you all have a Jessica in your life, guiding you to ever greater adventures.

Seeing and/or believing

My friend Peter just had some life-changing surgery.  The genetic lottery gifted him with cataracts as an infant that left him with compromised sight for most of his life.  Doctors repeatedly said that there was nothing they could do to correct the problem and he'd just have to accept the fact that he would always live in a world where everything he saw was two-dimensional.  Peter, my strong and brave friend, never took those doctors' words as gospel.  He recently had surgery that is allowing him to see in 3-D for the first time in his life and he's chronicling it in his blog Diving Into Depth.  His journey is fascinating and he tells his story very poetically.  Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go find a bunch of cheesy lenticular postcards to send him.  Any leads would be appreciated!

Boston

Someone with a lot of hate in their heart set off explosions in Boston today.  Boston, which happens to be the epicenter of MY heart.  I have posted a lot in response to tragedy about how the only response is to vow to love one another even harder than before.  Yeah.  That's still true and all, but someone went and fucked with MY GODDAMN HEART and it is NOT OKAY.

I worked in Boston's North End.  I lived in Southie.  I worked next to Fenway.  I visited friends in Somerville. I booked commercials in the South End.  I taught workshops in Dorchester. I wrote a play about the Freedom Trail.  I took groups of children to Copley Square for library field trips.  Name a part of this city and I have touched it.  I love it more than any other place I have ever lived and it's the only place except for my home town that I regularly visit.  My deepest friendships were forged in Boston.  The people that know me best and love me the hardest are from Boston. I cannot stress this enough:  Boston is my motherfucking heart.

And don't even get me started about the fact that this happened at the Boston fucking Marathon.  NO.  Marathoners are the kind of people who do what they do for something larger than themselves.  They are running for charity, they are running to affirm that they are able to accomplish what seems an impossible human endeavor, they are running to prove things to themselves...  Running is so close to being holy.  Fuck this sacrilege.

Yes, I still believe that love is the best course of action in the face of hate and tragedy.  Yes, I will try to love ever harder in the face of THIS tragedy.  But, if Boston has taught me anything, it's that when someone fucks with your people, you FIGHT.  So guess what, Hatred? I am not putting up with this shit anymore.  I'm not going to passively try to love you away.  I'm going to raise my voice and bare my knuckles and beat the everliving SHIT out of you.  YOU. DON'T.  GET. TO. WIN.

The things we make...

In undergrad, I had a conversation with a set designer friend of mine who was finishing a Shaker table for a period design class.  It was a lovely piece of furniture and, as I admired it, he said to me "I couldn't do what you do.  I have to be able to make something I can touch with my hands."  While I am ridiculously enthralled by the act and craft of performing onstage, there are few tangible things to take away from each show.  Playbills, ticket stubs, pictures, friendships...  Scrapbook fodder and memories aside, sometimes one longs to make something that lasts longer than six or eight weeks, 8 shows a week (2 matinee).

I'm not one to crow about my achievements because they seem kind of small sometimes.  I prefer to trumpet the successes of my friends (who are brilliant, talented, gorgeous, bound to change the world and have good taste in friends), but there is one thing I helped to bring to life that I am infinitely, extraordinarily proud of.  In 2007, a group of folks came together to put together an improv troupe on the University of Georgia campus.  In 2013, they are still going strong.  The group's alumni have gone on to success outside of the relative safety of UGA and some are professional actors and improvisors now, themselves.  They've won awards, they've performed before hundreds of people on and off campus and are a thriving group of dedicated artists.

Improv Athens, ladies and gentlemen.  I helped to make this.  And it's one of the best things I've ever done.  

Kim

For Kim, on the anniversary of parting:

“Here the whole world (stars, water, air,
And field, and forest, as they were
Reflected in a single mind)
Like cast off clothes was left behind
In ashes, yet with hopes that she,
Re-born from holy poverty,
In lenten lands, hereafter may
Resume them on her Easter Day.

Reflections on Easters past

Easter is one of those holidays, like Thanksgiving, that I typically don't get to spend with family.  Consequently, I have enjoyed some incredibly random Easter celebrations.

In college, right before the Easter break, there was a party that was so epic that I doubt anyone who ever attended said party would ever be able to run for elected office because of incriminating photographic evidence.  It was called the Saint to Sinner party.  You came to the party dressed as your favorite saint and left as your favorite sinner.  Without going into too much detail, I will say that there was a ritual chanting of the beginning of Prince's "Let's Go Crazy" and one year I woke up the next morning on an airplane to Minneapolis with no idea how I had gotten there.

Then, there was the year that I visited Boston from New York, staying with a friend of mine.  On Easter morning, as I walked out of her guest bedroom to go brush my teeth, I noticed a trail of jelly beans leading to my very own Easter basket.  In the middle of the night, her husband had made elaborate candy trails for she and I to find when we woke up.

In Boston one year, I had been out til all hours of the morning carrying on with a visiting friend from NYC and my roommate.  My roommate and I got home as the sun was coming up on Easter morning and passed out.  Nevertheless, every hour on the hour, my roommate dragged her hungover self out of bed to check on the pot roast she put in the oven as soon as we stumbled in to the apartment in our club clothes from the night before.  That was either the year before or after the Easter when I saw "Rent" with an ex-Marine who wore American flag boxer shorts.

When I lived in New York, I made my home in Astoria, Queens, which is home to a very large Greek Orthodox population.  One Good Friday, I had to have an emergency root canal and was lying on my couch, delirious with pain medication when a friend stopped by to drop off a package for me.  He handed over the package and said "Um, you might want to come see this." and led me outside.  The streets of my neighborhood were filled with people dressed in black, holding candles and silently walking.  It was my first introduction to the pageantry of the Eastern Orthodox religion and was quickly followed by the second.  At midnight that Saturday, the same people were out in the streets, shooting off illegal fireworks and dancing to a marching band proceeded by a flower-bedecked statue of Jesus. It was beautiful and strange and wonderful...especially when enhanced by Vicodin.

That same year, I tried to find a church nearby that was holding an Easter service at a reasonable hour.  This was before we used the internet for EVERYTHING, guys, and I was pretty much just walking around, looking at the announcement boards outside of various churches for the better part of an hour, increasingly footsore and discouraged.  Finally, I found a service that was about to start and I ran in, grabbing a program from an usher at the door.  Turns out, the service was entirely in Korean.  A very kind young woman pointed that fact out to me and I asked her if it was OK if I stayed.  She seemed bewildered why I would want to, but she said I could.  The highlight of the service was recognizing one of the hymns and singing along in English as the rest of the congregation sang in Korean.

You can keep your Easter parades and spiral sliced hams...  I prefer my Easters random, weird and preceded by debauchery.

Things that don't make me cry

In March, a lot of things make me cry.  Today, my perfume made me cry.  It's just how March is in Chicago.  This, however, did NOT make me cry:

http://storefrontcity.wordpress.com/2013/03/20/the-la-ronde-project/