Bounce Castles and Bratwurst

The July event our family looks forward to ever year is a party held in Connecticut by Evil Jesus, the guitar player for PrematureStrangulation. Premature Strangulation hasn’t played since their record breaking* world tour in 2015, but this annual gathering predates the concert series that served as a featured element.

After making a modest batch of Double Satanic Deviled Eggs and packing our children and other necessary accoutrements, we set out to make the journey from Queens to Killingworth. Despite typical heavy I-95 traffic, one children’s bathroom emergency and monsoon-like rains on I-91, we made pretty good time.

The Double Satanic Deviled Eggs were a hit, and others inspired by their long-standing success brought their own delicious but less Satanic versions.

It was a family-friendly event where children were so well occupied that attempts to check on them were met with a mix of perturbation and disgust. Older girls were magnets for young children and were incredibly gracious in minding toddlers. There was even a piñata that yielded great treats for the gathered children, and it was miraculous that no one was rendered unconscious with multiple youths swinging aggressively to break open the treat.

There was plentiful food and drink, but the real attraction is catching up with old friends. Our host, Evil Jesus, has known some of us since high school and others from college. Like his mother’s house was when we were in high school, his home is a center of an expansive social scene, a community. The guests at the party included includes Republicans, Democrats, Christians, atheists, lawyers, housewives, and other derivations of the human condition.

I met a young man who did extensive work in North Korea working to help reunite people with families in South Korea and has a grandmother north of the DMZ who has not seen family for decades. I learned another good high school friend is pursuing his dream of being a radio DJ, and heard about our host family’s recent trip to Paris.  

The members of Premature Strangulation were not all there. The band has as many as nine members at any one time, like a more intoxicated and less-well-rehearsed Allman Brothers. Those members who were present discussed the possibility of getting together to play songs again. Maybe next year will be the reunion world tour that their adoring public is waiting for**.

The drive back was along less-crowded highways and under a clouded sky. Buzzing as best one can on diet Pepsi and Five Hour Energy, I was the only one awake for part of the drive. A slender golden moon haunted the night sky with a sense of beauty and adventure yet to come. Fireworks silently illuminated the sky from the far side of the highway.

Evil Jesus did it again. Another great gathering is in the books, and it produced good memories and good times, and a true sense of community. The human race needs more of this.  

Thank you.

*largest concert attendance by a cover band in Killingworth Connecticut in the first-half of July on a non-leap year, according to the Evil Jesus Research Institute for Beer and Cynicism

**adoring public may be limited to sympathetic spouses, children, and pets

Demanding a better 2020

As the presidential race of 2020 is already underway, before the office-holders elected in the mid-terms have even taken their oaths of office, it would be a great time for Americans to demand that the level of conversation be switched permanently to ‘grown up.’ The stakes are very high with the looming possibility of a recession, a bitterly divided Congress and an executive branch in a constant churn. It would be a real treat for a few brave candidates to insist on taking the high road and talking about how their policies will benefit the citizenry.

This will run afoul of the zeitgeist of contemporary politics. Rampant partisanship has created a knee-jerk politics where not only is everyone expected to wear their allegiances on their sleeves, but to be at the most ideologically pure part of the spectrum with blind obedience. Facts that may run counter to one’s argument are “FakeNews” or “HateFacts.” Serious adults don’t use terms like that except to mock those that do.

We’re seeing the worst in tantrum politics and mental gymnastics among both major political parties as the current budget impasse over a border wall continues. Trump’s insistence on a border wall is a clear sign he doesn’t understand the issues, and Democrats are hard-pressed to demonstrate any serious commitment to increased border security or give lie to the notion they want open borders.

Both parties once were able to function and understand nuances of policy. Sovereignty and human dignity are not mutually exclusive. It is inexcusable for Americans to support a porous border and deny our right to a sovereign nation. It is also inexcusable that children would die preventable deaths in the wealthiest country in the world, no matter their circumstances. We are a better country than to let people die of common disease or dehydration in detention centers; we also won’t be a country without strong, enforceable borders—there is no contradiction in those statements.

Let’s all admit that our political opponents are not monsters and that seeing the logic in the other side’s argument is not a betrayal of our own ideals. No, people advocating for stopping family separation at the border are not doing so to create some kind of socialist global utopia just as people advocating for tougher border controls are not trying to reproduce the Third Reich on American soil. These are not staggering revelations to the worlds of adults, but these are gut-punching concepts to hyper-partisan audiences that tend to dominate the public conversation these days.

Future generations will look upon these times as days of decay and decline, when a vacuum in leadership and long-standing myopic public policy exacerbated a fractured society. The values that make our society great can endure even if our institutions crumble, but it means a conscious effort to build new communities for those of us with clear vision and willingness to see beyond the outdated prism of our fraying standards.

We can rebuild communities if we leave the echo chambers of media and engage with the world around us. If we can take anything constructive from the Trump candidacy and record in office, it’s that people respond to frank dialogue and people who stick to their guns. Trump trampled several political sacred cows in his road to the White House—I thought his candidacy was dead when he insulted John McCain before the first primary was held. Have no doubt: Trump’s success in winning office came from his being rooted firmly outside the political establishment. You don’t have to be a fraudulent, vulgar ignoramus to break out of the mold and effectively challenge that status quo. Let the barriers Trump broke down let in a better slate of candidates and activists. There are decent people who hold all kinds of political opinions. Hear them out and be one of them.

Let this be the year you speak your mind and demand honesty and understanding from candidates within your own party. The first step of breaking out of our political rut is to embrace the politics of honesty and change on our own terms.

Demand more from the election of 2020 than we got in 2016. We (hopefully) can only go up from here.

What Would Theodore Roosevelt Do?

In 1895 anti-Semitic German politician Hermann Ahlwardt came to speak in New York City. Local Jews were very upset and there was political pressure on the police department not to provide Ahlwardt any protection. The police commissioner at the time, Theodore Roosevelt, made sure to provide the visiting speaker with an adequate police escort; he also made sure that every officer in that security detail wasJewish. There was no better response than what Roosevelt did, and his gesture symbolized New York’s and America’s commitment to freedom of speech and freedom of religion. 

This President’s Day, it is worth our time to look at who we consider our favorite president. For me there is no question: Theodore Roosevelt was one of the greatest Americans who ever lived and was one of our greatest presidents.

There’s something for people of all political persuasions to like in Teddy Roosevelt. He believed in a just and fair America that respected the environment and he believed in a united country not beset by the kinds of divisions lesser leaders have allowed to fester. He supported women’s suffrage and also wanted America to be a forceful leader in the world with a very strong military He fought against monopolies, passed important laws keeping our food and medicines safe, and created national parks that protect millions of acres of land to this day.

Theodore Roosevelt came back from great tragedy that stalled his political career—his wife and mother died on the same day—and was the youngest person ever to become president. While most former presidents today cash in on their notoriety with lucrative book deals and speaking engagements, Theodore Roosevelt went on a South American safari that nearly killedhim after losing the election of 1912. He was a war hero who braved Spanish cannon fire on San Juan Hill. He also once delivered a lengthy speech after being shot!

Few people in public office today could pass the character test and compare favorably to Roosevelt. He held to a code of honor that is unknown among most people we know in public life. Though he was born in to wealth and privilege that could have shielded him from hardship, he purposely strove to make himself strong and do things that were difficult. He lived his life for constant adventure and self-improvement. He was an avid reader and martial arts practitioner.

Truth, character, loyalty to the country above your immediate or self-serving interests: these are concepts that may seem quaint or get a lot of lip service, but Theodore Roosevelt lived them and expected America’s leadership to. Have our leaders lived up to the ideals Roosevelt set? How many of us can claim the levels of character and boldness that Roosevelt had? In my dreams I’m half as bold.

Though he is more closely associated with Oyster Bay on Long Island, Teddy Roosevelt was born in New York City. A few blocks from where I work in Manhattan is Theodore Roosevelt’s birthplace. Sometime soon I will take time to visit and contemplate on American greatness and how we might improve upon it. In this and all matters of life, it pays to ask: What would Theodore Roosevelt do?

Thankful in 2015

Thanksgiving is coming up and there are a lot of things to be thankful for. It is easy to look at the state of the world and feel that our generation got the short end of the stick and that things were better years ago. The human species has a habit of romanticizing the past to a fault. The present always looks lacking to Americans in general and New Yorkers in particular because we are an ambitious people who always see better possibilities.

But if we are living safely with food in our stomachs and a roof over our head, we should be thankful; there are a few billion people who would gladly trade places with us.

Here are some things I am particularly thankful for:

Family. I am lucky to not only have a wife and kids who love me but numerous other relatives and step-relatives who love me also. I can tap into the wisdom of several aunts and uncles, cousins, and my amazing grandmother, the indomitable matriarch who is our rock. My family has demonstrated time and again how to persevere through hardship and loss with grace and strength. I am lucky to be of such strong blood.

Health. No doubt my steady diet of weekend egg sandwiches has left me the worse for wear and my back is a scramble of slipped disks and strained muscles, but compared to many people, I am in very good health. I know too many family and friends who have suffered bad setbacks to take my health for granted.

Employment. While I have known great unemployment and underemployment in my time, I am currently gainfully employed at a stable company. Having worked as a journalist for nearly 15 years, I crossed over “to the dark side” of public relations last year. I landed in a good place with smart, friendly co-workers; a lot of people can’t say that.

Creative Ambition. One of the reasons I am lucky to have the family I do is that I’ve inherited my family’s desire to create. My family is full of writers, musicians, actors and more and I am honored to be among them. Being creative gives you a constant reason to live even when all else looks dismal.

America. While the American Empire is deep into its twilight, the America I grew up with and love is very much alive though casting a cautious eye towards the future. America is the greatest nation on Earth because it is my country. We have a lot of problems, but we have a lot of freedom that many people never see.

New York City. No city inspires as much simultaneous love and hatred from its inhabitants as New York. There is no other place on Earth that is constantly rewriting its own mythology and acts such a magnet for creativity and ambition. New York will outlive us all. As much as we hate to see New York change, we know it will never die as long as the Earth remains intact. 

Remembering on Memorial Day

As someone who was rejected by all four major branches of the military in one form or another, I don’t have much authority to preach on about the sacrifices made by our armed services.

I have family and friends who have and continue to serve in the military, and I am very grateful for the sacrifices that they’ve made and for the fact that all I’ve known personally have come back alive and in one piece. I still know people who get deployed and they and their families go through a lot that most of us aren’t willing to go through.

Most citizens don’t serve in the military and are far removed from the everyday toils and struggle of the people who wear the uniform, and that’s a mistake. It’s a mistake to remove the burden of national security from the common person.

This country was forged by common citizens, and the first people who gave their lives to create this country were outlaws using illegalweapons. Nothing could be less American than becoming a slobbering hag enthralled with anyone in a uniform. Memorial Day honors brave men and women who died in service to our country, in or out of uniform.

“Supporting the troops” has becoming such a meaningless phrase that it includes anyone who sticks and American flag on their lawn and stands for the national anthem. I’ve been to baseball games with friends who are commies and refuse to stand for the national anthem and I have family and friends who want to punch those people in the face.

But this is America, and the people who stand for the national anthem do so because they want to, not because they have to. If we force people to stand for our national anthem, we won’t survive as a country and don’t deserve to. I refuse to live in a land where we force our own citizens to salute our flag. Millions of Americans died for our freedom, including the freedom to be a snotty ingrate.  

The few people who would desecrate Memorial Day or step on or burn an American flag do so to be offensive, and they are. Do you know what I find more offensive? That military families have had to raisemoney on their own to pay for their loved ones’ body armor and other supplies. That we insist on wars halfway across the globe while our own borders are porous and that we have generals who think increasing the racial diversity of our military is more important than not having our troops murdered by their own doctors. I don’t like burning the American flag, but people who do offend me a lot less than whoever thought it would be a good idea to pay private contractors twice what our service members make.

None of the actions of our government, nor of the military itself, shrouds or negates the sacrifices made by men and women who fought and died for our country.

It’s unfortunate that such a solemn holiday is the unofficial start of the summer season. I wish I could say I’ll be spending Monday at a veteran’s cemetery putting flags on graves or quietly reflecting on the sacrifices made by our war dead. But I’ll be at a friend’s house eating hot dogs and playing music among a haze of cigar smoke. And I don’teven like summer.

I cannot share in the glory of any military victory, but I experience the benefit of our fallen fighters every day.

And evidence of this sacrifice is all around us. We take the security of our country for granted and laugh at the idea of being invaded by the military of another country. That comfort comes at a very high price. Please remember that. 

The Wounded Warrior Project Should Not Exist

Memorial Day is a day when millions of Americans pay lip service to people who gave their life in service to our country. It’s happening at a time when the government’s treatment of our veterans has never been worse.

Laying a wreath for the dead is not a substitute for respecting the living. And our veterans have been mistreated in ways that ought to shame a nation that claims to be a serious military power. The current state of neglect of our veterans is about as respectful as taking a piss on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Why are there celebrities making commercials for private charities that care for veterans? Why should any private charity exist to support wounded veterans? Our government accepted full responsibility for the health of our veterans when the veteran signed on the dotted line to join. There should be no issue with veterans getting the things they need.

Yet our TV broadcasts are teeming with entertainers taking to the airwaves to beg couch potatoes for money on Memorial Day weekend to help wounded American veterans.

Ours is supposed to be the most powerful military in the world. Our armed forces operate drones that can send a missile up a camel’s ass two thousand miles away but can’t afford a few shekels to build a wheelchair ramp for a crippled soldier? Am I the only person in TV land who thinks this is horrifying horse shit?

Health care for your soldiers is a basic, like ammunition for rifles, boots and helmets. You wouldn’t send a soldier or Marine into battle without ammunition, you don’t bring them home without the ability to provide health care.

What better way to tell our enemies that the U.S.A. is a paper tiger than to let them see that private charities have to help care for wounded U.S. service members?

And it’s gotten worse. The Bureau of Veterans Affairs was shown to keep secret waiting lists at some of its hospitals to cover up the terrible waiting times for medical care. So upper management knew how bad things were and tried to cover it up rather than fix it.

So while the efforts of the Wounded Warrior Project are noble, such charities shouldn’t exist because they shouldn’t have to. Veterans with serious injuries should have all of their health needs tended to. They shouldn’t have to raise money for wheelchairs or artificial limbs. Those benefits should be a given and not subject to debate.

We have an all-volunteer military and haven’t had a draft since the Vietnam War (although the “stop-loss” programs and activation of inactive reservists during the George W. Bush administration served as a kind of draft, with the lottery restricted to veterans who had already served). So it behooves the government to make good on its promises to veterans. Among the outraged public are potential new recruits. If the military is willing to break its promises to the aged and the infirm, why should a patriotic American want to join. (N.B. – Years ago a family member who was then enlisted in the armed forces described recruiters as “hired liars.”).

So while I hope everyone at least takes a moment to reflect on the brave men and women who have sacrificed their lives for our country, we should determine that there won’t have to be private charities tending to the needs of our veterans. 

Labor’s Love Lost

This past Easter Sunday, my family ate heartily and discussed some of the current political and economic issues of the day. There may be better ways to wash down a tasty Easter ham than a lamentation on the state of the republic, but we haven’t found it yet. Our conversation settled on how many pension holders have been screwed by their municipal or corporate overlords.

The unofficial conclusion we reached over our Easter meal was that the United States is long overdue for a resurrected organized labor movement.

Labor unions represent only about 11% of the American workforce, and a majority of union members today are government workers who can’t strike. The upside to this is that a lot of government workers have very good, stable jobs that are safer and more lucrative than their non-government worker counterparts. But most workers are continually getting screwed.

The labor movement was spurred on by the large impact of industrialization and it was designed to protect industrial laborers and tradesmen. It has not adapted to the changing economy. The majority of American workers today are not industrial tradesmen.

If there was a viable labor movement in the U.S., I would have a real union to join. I work as a financial journalist. The company I work for actually cut our salaries years ago during the financial crisis. They technically restored the salary cuts years later, but haven’t given raises since and continued to cut our pay in other ways, such as stopping all matching 401k contributions, gutting healthcare benefits, and the like. They’ve also done a lot of outsourcing. Employees with many years of service to the company under their belts were shown the door, their jobs shipped off to India.

A labor union would have fought all of those things, but there is no labor union representing us. We are considered too “professional” to join a union, though not professional enough to be tossed aside like yesterday’s garbage if someone outsourcing shyster can save the company a few dollars. But we don’t have much recourse since there is no collective bargaining going on. People vote with their feet and while people are leaving the company in droves, the rest of us are there are spending our energies looking for other work rather than fighting a good fight (and since I need my job and have four mouths to feed, I’ll kindly not mention the name of the company I work for here).

I dream of the day when the outsourcing C.E.O. gets a brick through his living room window and four flat tires on his way to work. There should be real unions to contend with when companies want to cut pay, cut benefits or cut jobs. This isn’t because I think the answer is some kind of socialist worker’s paradise. To paraphrase what Winston Churchill said about democracy: Capitalism is the worst economic system there is except for all of the others.

There seems to be a great illness of myopathy among our current class of capitalists. They think only in the short term and only in terms of the bottom line. I have no problem with businesses making hard decisions and scoring a healthy profit, but a lot of executives are not thinking ahead much farther than the next quarterly report. Sure, the slash-and-burn fiscal ass-fucking they’ve been giving American workers has increased profits now, but what kind of company are they going to have in five years?

But our companies have pursued these policies and the results are predictable. American capitalism no longer means industriousness and hard work, but rather goldenparachutes and amorality.

Just as democracy doesn’t work without real political opposition, real capitalism doesn’t work without American workers having some kind of say over their working lives. Labor unions were once the source of that power. They can be again. 

The Great Immigration Scam

The same kind of myopic subservience to special interests that brought us the credit crisis and other gems now brings us a host of proposals to grant amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants.

The media have refused to look at the situation critically and have helped push the amnesty plan on everyone. To oppose it is to be branded a racist troglodyte of the lowest order. But the truth will set you free, and the truth is an amnesty plan will be bad for everyone but the wealthiest among us. 

When I moved back to New York after several years away, I had a job as an immigration inspector at JFK airport. It was the job that enabled me to move back, and I worked at JFK for about two years. We were trained at a federal law enforcement training center like law enforcement officers. We were given badges and guns, even bullet-proof vests. But many of us, particularly those of us who were sent to work at airports as opposed to land borders, were more like glorified clerks than real law enforcement officers.

Here's an illustration of our immigration system at work: A passenger from India stood before me with a regular tourist visa. "How long do you plan to visit the United States?" I asked. 

"Well maybe two weeks, but you will give me six months," was her reply. Now, unless you are very, very wealthy, you cannot afford to go on vacation halfway around the world for six months. Most well-off Americans can't afford that, and this woman was a middle-class Indian at best. If she was going to stay for six months, there was little doubt she'd be working here illegally. 

We were under strict orders to give every regular tourist or business visa six months no matter what, because that was the maximum allowed under law. Back when more inspectors were giving people two weeks in the country when the person said they were only staying for two weeks, federal offices would be flooded with people working here illegally asking for their time extended for some bullshit excuse or another. To avoid this bureaucratic flood, the answer simply became to give everyone more time here. They could go home to visit every six months to keep up appearances and not technically overstay their visas, and they could go on living and working here illegally so long as they didn't get caught. 

The government knew exactly what was going on, but instead of doing something to solve the problem, they just set policies in place so that no one had to. It is pretty disheartening to see people day after day skirt and break the laws you are supposed to uphold.

Not every part of my experience working for the immigration service was a frustrating disappointment. I saw many people coming into the U.S. who exemplified the best parts of our immigration tradition. I met hard-working people who were proud to be coming to America. I met people who had endured great human rights abuses. I met people who would rather be fry cooks in the U.S. than engineers in their native countries.

But every American with eyes knows that our current immigration system is failing at its function of bringing in people who will be productive citizens and keeping out those that won't. There is not a well-funded lobbying effort among disaffected Americans seeking any real reforms. The U.S. government is allowing unprecedented amount of people into the country, and long ago gave up on the policies that made past generations of immigrants a success. 

Our tradition of immigration worked because it was well managed. Immigrants who came to this country were able to assimilate because we had a system in place that demanded they do so, and selected who was more likely to succeed in the U.S. We are now bringing in large numbers of people less likely to assimilate, and making no demand that they do so. This is a recipe for failure, and both major political parties have embraced this policy of failure. 

Allowing in millions of uneducated people who don't speak English is not good for the country, and it's not racist to say so. We already have too many immigrants, legal and illegal, to assimilate reasonably well. Enacting any kind of amnesty plan will only make this problem worse in the future. A reasonable immigration policy means many good people wouldn't be able to come to the United States, but being a responsible adult means sometimes saying "no" to good people.

But large numbers of unskilled, uneducated workers help create a glut of labor that keeps wages artificially low, and that pleases the moneyed interests that control our political leaders. That is one of the reasons why the current amnesty push has so much bipartisan support. It also puts on a path to citizenship millions of nonwhites, who will presumably all vote Democratic, creating a permanent demographic majority. This scares Republicans enough to try to jump on the bandwagon so as not to be branded as racists—even Rand Paul has sold out.

In fact—and even Paul Krugman agrees— lower wages for blue collar work will have a disproportionate effect on blacks and Hispanics. Where is your disparate impact theory now, Democrats? 

This is the country's last chance to put a stop to short-sighted policies that have screwed over the working and middle classes for decades, and try to turn things around. If immigration amnesty goes through, generations from now our descendants will ask us why we let it happen.

Following the Footsteps

This past Sunday I participated in the 10^th annual Tunnel to Towers Run held in New York to commemorate the heroic service of Firefighter Stephen Siller on September 11, 2001, as well as everyone else who gave their lives that day. The run traces the route Siller took from Brooklyn to the World Trade Center.

A water taxi from Wall Street took us to the Ikea parking lot in Red Hook, Brooklyn and a staging area for the race. It’s several blocks away from the starting line, and we spent at least an hour or more standing on a crowded street waiting for the race to start.

Once it gets under way, there are a lot of ceremonial things happening before the race starts, with plenty of breaks in between to allow for television coverage and its commercials.

It’s a warm and crowded race, and you can’t help but elbow and be elbowed in the course of it. But it is the friendliest big city crowd you will ever be in. There’s a great feeling of camaraderie and patriotism. Chants of “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” broke out along the route, and the run is a tribute to the resilience of New York and America itself, but there were plenty of non-Americans there, including firefighters from Germany and the U.K. running in their full gear.

The Brooklyn Battery Tunnel gets pretty hot when thirty thousand people are running through it, but once you’re through the tunnel, it’s very pleasant. And when the Finish Line is in view, it motivates you to sprint to it.

On the Brooklyn side before you go into the tunnel, firefighters lined along the route shout encouragement from their trucks. On the Manhattan side, firefighters in dress uniforms line the route, holding banners representing each of the 343 firefighters lost in the September 11^th attacks. Another long line of firefighters hold 343 American flags. It’s a moving sight.

I did not personally know anyone who perished in the September 11 attacks. But I do know the punk rock band The Bullys and love their music. One of their founding members was Firefighter John Heffernan, a member of Ladder Company 11 and died in the South Tower of the Trade Center. I wore my Bully t-shirt as a tribute and when I came upon the Firefighter holding his memorial banner on the Manhattan side of the Tunnel, I high-fived him. Before the race, I was heartened to see a young woman with a Dead Kennedys tattoo getting ready to run. I hope to be back next year with a small army of Bullys fans, maybe some will have big Mohawks.

There are marching bands, cheerleaders from around the country, rock bands, tourists, yachtsman at the Battery Park Marina tooting their boats’ horns for you, and throngs of well wishers along the route applauding your efforts. It’s a great cross-section of New Yorkers, Americans, and people from all over the world.

The run encompasses all that is great about New York and drives home the point that no matter what horrors strike our city, New York will bounce back and we can’t be shaken.

I finished the run in 43 minutes and 52 seconds and came in 8,877^th place. Volunteers were handing out water and bananas after the finish line. I took some water and ate a banana; it was the most delicious banana I have ever eaten.

See you there next year.