The Nickel Boys (book)

Pengo's 2020 Summer Book Club

On Monday, the New York Times published an editorial in which Lucian K. Truscott IV, a journalist and (white) direct descendant of Thomas Jefferson proposed the third president’s memorial in Washington D.C. be demolished and replaced with one to Harriet Tubman.

My first reaction was, oh. But I like that one. My next was, who cares what I think? As Truscott points out, Monticello is monument enough. Even Jefferson himself did not think serving as President warranted mention on his own tombstone, who are we to argue?

Statues are coming down across America, and about time, too. We are supposed to be a nation established on ideals, and not individuals. Laws survive, and serve the people. Writing survives, the history remains. It's the hero worship that is being swept away.

It is at this moment, during a period of pandemic and social upheaval, that I read The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead. I’ve read two novels in this one vacation week, both released in 2019. The first grappled with the ripples of American Imperialism, the second with our nation’s as-yet unresolved sins of systemic racism. This one got the Pulitzer.

Inspired by the 2012 discovery of a secret cemetery on the grounds of the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Florida, Whitehead has done what he does so amazingly well, created a fictional story grounded solidly in undeniable (and accurate) truth.

It is a breathtaking tale, and by that I mean, I lost my breath. Halfway through the book I cried with something like, but not exactly like relief, and had to set the book down. And then, as with the Eggers book I read on Monday, I was whipsawed near the end and had to stop and regain my senses, to rethink everything that had come before.

"Nickel Boys" (2024)
Directed by RaMell Ross

“If everyone looked the other way, then everybody was in on it.” So believes the protagonist Elwood Curtis, and it is a belief he tries to hang onto. Taking a stand for justice even in the face of overwhelming and absolute injustice, a young African-American in the early 60s caught the wrong ride and ended up in a reform school where silence and complicity were necessary for survival.

Much like the nation we are living in. Exactly like the nation we are living in, in fact. It’s not for me to defend the hagiography of the Founding Fathers, those who owned human souls and those who didn’t but looked the other way. We have all always known where the bodies are buried, and now they are being revealed.

Summer's not over. What should I read next?

Sources:
I’m a Direct Descendant of Thomas Jefferson. Take Down His Memorial by Lucian K. Truscott IV, The New York Times (7/6/2020)
Florida's Dozier School For Boys: A True Horror Story, National Public Radio, "All Things Considered" (10/15/2012)

Update: CH-UH district considers renaming Monticello Middle School, cleveland.com, 12/10/2024

Play a Day: Am I White

Adrienne Dawes

For Friday I read Am I White by Adrienne Dawes and available at New Play Exchange.

"Resisting a thing brings up the opposite of what we want. Force brings about counter-force."

We listen to a lot of ska in our house, or at least it comes up a lot. The wife loves it, two-tone music. A celebration of diversity, an opposition to fascism, authoritarianism.

The original skinheads were an outgrowth of this, in Great Britain in the 1960s. SHARP, "skinheads against racial prejudice." Few Americans are aware of this history, and would be surprised to learn how many trappings of the white supremacist skinhead were simply hijacked from this entirely antithetical movement.

Appropriation comes in many forms.

Dawes play questions the very nature of race, and the madness that inflicts our nation as a result of our original sin -- not just slavery, but the self-hypnosis under which we put ourselves to create an artificial concept called "race" by which others are held apart.

Set in the months before 9/11, it was a startling reminder of a time before the general public was aware of just how vast and angry the white supremacist movement was, a time when it was unthinkable that a white supremacist could ever become President again.

Inspired by true events, a young person of color passes as white and through his time in prison, strong dream imagery and news accounts, learn how he came to develop the self-loathing which would lead him to reach for a place of prominence in a new family, a family fueled entirely by the hatred of people like himself.

Racial purity is a lie. Hitler's "fatherland" was for the crossroads for marauders and conquest, there is no one, pure race. So as long as one lies and is beholden to lies and believes in lies, why not crawl into absolute denial and pretend to be what doesn't exist in the first place?

Who should I read tomorrow?

Play a Day: A Maiden of Venice

Aleks Merilo

For Wednesday I read A Maiden of Venice by Aleks Merilo and available at New Play Exchange.

Perhaps more appropriate for the date of Shakespeare's death, which was yesterday. Alas.

There are those who will tell you that The Taming of the Shrew is a play about sexism, that Othello is a play about racism, and that The Merchant of Venice is a play about Antisemitism.

They are wrong. The Taming of the Shrew is a sexist play, Othello is a racist play, and The Merchant of Venice is an Antisemitic play.

There are those who would then tell you you need to look at these plays from an historical perspective, that words like sexism, racism and Antisemitism did not exist at that time. Neither did the words radioactivity, or bacterium, but they still existed even without names, and could harm you.

We still perform these plays, when we perform them, because they are Shakespeare. The words are so good, but so too are the characters. Katharina, Othello, Shylock, they are more interesting and nuanced and even sympathetic than the more stereotypical versions of type created by lesser playwrights of the era. But they are each of them brought low as a result of being who they are, and make no mistake, Shakespeare's audience thought their downfalls were hilarious.

Merilo has written an elegant take on The Merchant of Venice, told from the Jewish characters' point of view, with special emphasis on Jessica, the daughter to the money-lender Shylock. In this version his true name is Shalah, which means tranquil, secure, even prosperous. It is the Christians who use the other name, and insist upon calling him that.

We see and understand in Shakespeare's play the poor treatment Shylock receives, but as he represents and exhibits the worst traits stereotypically ascribed to his "race" the audience is left to understand that the Jewish people are in the situation they currently suffer (confined to their ghetto, limited to practice usury, verbally and physically abused on the street) because of these unpleasant, suspicious behaviors.

Merilo's story begins with Leah's death bearing Jessica, and patiently describes Shalah's trials in raising a child on his own, and enduring the privilege exhibited by the young Antonio, who, though he himself begins as a penniless ne'er-do-well, still believes himself higher than anyone who is Jewish.

This is also a very timely play. The sense of danger, fear, dread, that those who are defined as others must live with, every day. Just last week This American Life reported on one American town that was devastated when ICE agents rounded up hundreds of undocumented workers. So many today who wonder, "When will it happen? When will they come for me?"

Who should I read tomorrow?

Play a Day: Shruti Gupta Can Totally Deal

J. Stephen Brantley

For Friday I read Shruti Gupta Can Totally Deal by J. Stephen Brantley and available at New Play Exchange.

Okay, so I live in Ohio where the governor just passed a bill that makes abortion illegal if a fetal heartbeat can be detected. Ohio is also the home of Stage Right Theatrics who produce the Conservative Theatre Festival which seeks to present “hard to find” conservative views on stage.

Now, I’m not going to argue whether or not there is inherent liberal bias in the theater community. What I am going to argue is that the stage is a forum for new ideas and (as twere) to “hold the mirror up to nature.” And as long as I see conservative politicians limiting or eliminating the rights of marginalized people, I have no use for hearing their point of view argued in the form of a play. Their rights are not threatened. Their views dominate. They are not being censored, good people do not want to hear them whine about being censored.

Which brings me to this morning’s play, which was delightful even while it was upsetting. Brantley has crafted a witty, romantic fairy tale of the America that I love so much, the one in which people from varied and diverse backgrounds come together, learn from each other, and love one another.

I mean, Shruti Gupta (the play) is conservative, because it’s about family and commitment. About Indian immigrants who created a new life together in the United States, and their children who are each seeking strong, permanent relationships. They also happen to be hard-working professionals whose desire to contribute to the community by excelling in their chosen fields.

But this play could never be accepted into the Conservative Theatre Festival because the son is marrying the man he loves, and the daughter, Shruti, is a “Dreamer,” an undocumented immigrant who was brought here when she was two.

This is a very timely piece, and accessible. I actually gasped while reading when the actress ex-girlfriend of Shruti’s new boyfriend ignorantly suggests she audition for the role of Jasmine in the new Aladdin musical … because earlier this week the exact same thing happened to someone I know with subcontinental ancestry. Same show, only the guy’s part.

There are microaggressions, and worse, emboldened white men seeking to undo all the progress of the 20th century with their mouths and their bare hands. And yet, the play concludes with love and family and hope, and lots of dad jokes.

Or as I like to call them, "jokes."

Who should I read tomorrow?

Play a Day: Neighborhood Watch

Rehana Lew Mirza

For Tuesday I read Neighborhood Watch by Rehana Lew Mirza, and available at New Play Exchange.

The other day, the news went around that the Parkland shooter wants to donate his $800,000 inheritance to the survivors.

And I thought, huh. A white trust fund baby murdered seventeen people, and he was taken into custody alive. That would never have happened to a person of color.

Mirza's play is hilarious, she is an extremely talented writer who has tremendous skill with knowing, witty dialogue. The piece plays like a sit-com, featuring a put-upon young woman who has a walking Dad Joke for a father and a hapless, conspiracy nut for a neighbor. But when a Muslim moves in next door, look out -- hilarity ensues!

Until it doesn't. When a gun is introduced in the second act, I was praying that, contrary to theatrical convention, it would not go off. But that's not to world we currently live in, and just hoping for a happy ending will never bridge this divide.

This is what makes Mirza's work meaningful and relevant, highlighting daily microaggressions and compassionate lip-service with humor, and also exposing underlying fear and mistrust with cunning and clarity. She makes us uncomfortable and complicit, and it's brilliant.

Grand Rounds @ Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage

Margi Herwald Zitelli & Luke Brett

Strange, I am opening a show tonight -- performing in the Cleveland Public Theatre production of The Santaland Diaries in Playhouse Square -- which means I will not be present for the premiere of my new ten-minute play, No Cure For Cancer.

Last summer, Jeffery Allen, Director of Education at the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage, and Faye Sholiton, director of Interplay Jewish Theatre, contacted me about participating in an evening of brief plays (called collectively Grand Rounds) to be performed as part of a new exhibit at the Maltz, Beyond Chicken Soup: Jews In Medicine.

The four playwrights include Faye and myself, and Christine Howey and Anne McEvoy. We met with Jeff a few months ago to discuss the project. We would each write a short script for two actors, to be performed in the exhibit itself. We drew for each of the four spaces -- the medical library, a consultation room, the rear of an ambulance, and a pharmacy.

I drew the medical library. We also drew for character types, which we could use or not. I got the coveted “racist” card. A racist and a “suit.” A racist and a suit walk into a medical library …

Anyway, I did research on medical hoaxes (which are always racist in nature) and was led down a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories and madness and found myself not one step closer to a character nor an idea. That’s when my wife suggested I investigate the works of Maimonides, the 12th century philosopher, Torah scholar and physician.

Then I fell into a warren of horrible websites that malinterpret the teachings of Maimonides.

Long story short, I created a brief sketch in which two people meet, a concerned parent with an ill child (originally my “suit,” and really she still could be) and a callow, young man on a quest for knowledge.

The actors in No Cure For Cancer are Margi Herwald Zitelli and Luke Brett. Luke’s character (neither have names) is really the focus of the piece, one of your modern young white nationalists who fancy themselves intellectuals. The kind of guy who defines himself by what he’s not; he’s not a Nazi, he’s not some neckbeard, dwelling in his mother’s basement. He can talk to a woman, and often has sex with them.

Last Saturday we had the chance to rehearse in the space, and to see each other’s plays. They are all delightful, a powerful artistic endeavor and I wish I could be there to share in it. Each play will be performed simultaneously for a subset of the attendees, who will then circulate to see the other works, each play to be performed four times.

Word is the event is sold out, but you can call the museum (216-593-0575) for more information.

Grand Rounds at the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage will be performed this evening, Wednesday, December 6, 2017 at 7:00 PM

On Race (three)

Alia Shawkat as Alexander Hamilton (Drunk History)

Here is the billion dollar question about Hamilton, moving forward. What happens when this “wonderful American story,” (to quote the message from the company to the Vice President-elect made two weeks ago) which was created to be performed told by “a diverse group of men [and] women of different colors, creeds, and orientations” (again from last Friday’s speech) is licensed to be produced at colleges and high schools across the nation?

My high school alma mater is part of a community which is not terribly diverse. Largely Caucasian, almost entirely Christian This did not prevent Bay High from producing Fiddler on the Roof a few years ago. No idea how it was received, that’s a good play, great song, I am sure it was fine. No doubt an educational, experience, too. Let’s face it, the cast photo of those teenagers wearing fake beards looks no more or less ridiculous than if it were of a company of teenagers from Beachwood High wearing fake beards.

What happens, however, should my hometown high school chose to produce In The Heights? That’s an important story about an American community, and if the community that tells it does not have significant Latino representation, then that, too, is an educational opportunity, correct? Or is it something else? What is the difference between performing as a person who is Jewish and a person who is Hispanic?

I mean, we're talking about representing a diverse number of Latino characters, it's not like producing Bye Bye Birdie.

Good Lord, I hate Bye, Bye Birdie.

My own personal memories of racist moments in theater are painful to recollect. We presented Anything Goes my senior year and in the final scene my character disguises himself as one of the several Chinese converts who had been shuffling around after a Western missionary, replete with straw hat and uttering brief statements in “pidgin” English.

When my brother was a child actor, I saw him perform once in yellowface and once in blackface. That was wrong. Last week, however, we saw An Octaroon at Dobama Theatre where we saw a black man in whiteface, a white man in redface, and a brown man in blackface. That was satire.

So. where are we in our cross-cultural American experiment? Can a white actor can play a role created for a Latino or Black actor inspired by an historical white person? Can a woman?

As part of the school residency program, our actor-teachers perform scenes from classic literature. They also cast students to perform roles in these scenes with them. We provide scripts and costumes, and we have a few ground rules.

For example, students are asked to use their own voice, and not to put on a false voice. Part of this is honesty. If you are acting fake, you can't come close to the true emotions and decisions. Part of this is to avoid uncomfortable circumstances.

Yes, we present scenes from Lorraine Hansberry's Raisin In The Sun in rural Ohio. Once I was asked if a white student playing Lena Younger could use a Southern accent.  I said, "No, because this is Chicago." That seemed to him to be a satisfactory answer.

Our actors also have what we call our non-specific gender policy, to wit; “Boys can play the girls roles, girls can play the boys roles.”

Recently, however, our people have reported to me the increasing number of self-identified trans and non-binary students they have been encountering, from elementary school on up. The old instruction seems no longer appropriate. It is arcane, even.

After all, this is theater. Theater is play. And anyone can play anything.

8 (play)

I was raised a bigot. Pretty much everyone I knew was. It was the 1970s, I lived in suburbia, and hatred and ridicule of homosexuality was the social norm.

There were a few moments of education, like Billy Crystal’s Jodie in Soap -- which we watched religiously (I was nine years-old) and Good Lord, I saw the pilot episode of the TV sitcom Hot L Baltimore. But these were outliers -- as I have described in the past, I experienced A Chorus Line at the age of eight and saw a bunch of freaks.

As an insecure and weak adolescent, I was often tagged with homosexual insults. They were common. I remember when I was a sophomore, and I decided, for a change, to actually take care of my appearance, get a haircut, buy some stylish clothes. The specific reason was two-fold, I had a crush on a cute freshman, and I had just seen Footloose.

There was this complete douchebag who sat behind me in Spanish. That day he appraised my sartorial choices by calling me a “flamer” in front of his friends. You will notice I still remember that.

But that just means I didn’t want to be called that. I have called others worse, and much worse. When it comes to gay epithets, we are all Paula Deen.

Marriage means “one man-one woman” to you if you have only known that since birth. Homosexuality was not necessarily something you were against, but something of which you were ignorant. As with most of my kind, acceptance and understanding has come through familiarity, of association. It helps when you have an earnest desire to learn.

This is why I bristle when folks suggest the President is pandering to special interests or flip-flopped when he says his opinions have “evolved” regarding gay marriage. Any straight, young male born as late as the 1960s and raised in a Judeo-Christian household would have found the idea of two guys marrying incomprehensible, and if any of them grew up to be tolerant, loving, and welcoming to homosexuality, it would have required a significant “evolution”.

This is not a defense. This is an explanation, and it is an apology. People are raised this way, what is important is that people can, in fact, change. However, I will not ape those who espouse, for example, that back in the day people didn’t know any better -- for example, that slavery was a necessary evil. Ask yourself if you want to be enslaved, any human being can figure that one out. It was wrong. Hate is wrong. It is not be excused, but we can move forward.

Rehearsal on the stage of the Allen
(Photo: Kory)

On Sunday, I was privileged to be in the ensemble for a performance of Dustin Lance Black’s docudrama 8, a dramatization of the un-broadcast court proceeds of Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the case which struck down Proposition 8, California’s anti-marriage equality amendment. The Perry v. Schwarzenegger case was upheld by the Supreme Court last Wednesday, paving the way for a continuation of gay marriage in that state, and so this staged reading of 8 was considerably auspicious.

I played the role of David Blankenhorn, founder and president of the Institute for American Values, and a sadly deluded man. He had the great misfortune to evolve his positions on marriage equality while on the stand in a court of law while presumably the star witness … well, the only witness, really, defending Proposition 8.

In brief, he has spent his life arguing single parenting as one of the great ills of modern society, and championing two-parent marriage. When asked, under oath, if two gay parents were better for children than one parent, he had to say yes. He knew it to be true that adoptive parents can often -- due to the fact that while anyone can fuck, not everyone qualifies to adopt -- be not merely as good as, but better than biological parents. (He didn't use those exact words.)

Following the performance I was praised for being a right clown in last night’s show, a complete airhead. One man called me a dumb blonde. My walk of shame from the witness stand was called by one a “Charlie Brown” walk. Such compliments were the capstone to a tremendous, if brief experience working with a large number of Cleveland artists I truly admire.

Someone else who made the evening powerful was Dan Moulthrop, CEO of the City Club. God, he does his job well, namely to facilitate civil, open discussion. He is not afraid to ask the challenging questions, but he’s just so good at keeping everyone on track, and respectful.

I do not like post-show discussions, as a rule. Following the public reading of a new work, they can be entirely counter-productive. Following an issue-oriented play, they generally sound like a roomful of people saying “I agree” and patting each other on the back for over twenty-minutes.

So I was intrigued to hear that The Reverend Jimmy Hicks would be a member of the panel. In 2003, as a member of Cleveland Heights City Council, he sat in opposition to our creating a domestic partner registry (and doesn’t that term sound arcane.) Four days after the Supreme Court ruled on DOMA and Prop 8 and we were going to have an actual voice of opposition in the house!

To everyone’s credit, especially the Reverend’s, opinions were aired without rancor. There was one point where Rev. Hicks suggested recent school massacres were the direct result of prayer no longer being permitted in schools, a moment of great tension which was diffused with ease and humor by Mr. Moulthrop who, as I said, is really good at his job.

The night ended with Rev. Hicks standing his ground -- he cannot interpret the Bible his way and sanction gay marriage. That evening’s production included video of actual Vote Yes on 8 television advertisements from 2008. That term, “Religious Liberty” was used, one which became more familiar during the 2012 as it pertained to birth control of all things during the Presidential race.

Religious Freedom, as I see it, is the codification of religious doctrine into secular law. Love of God can be a powerfully positive thing, I see it in the people closest to me who believe. But the laws of God bind us to ancient hierarchies, which put certain classes of people in their place, including women and homosexuals. For years the Bible was used to justify and in fact enshrine slavery.

As the American experiment continues, the people work to undo the binds of ancient hierarchy, that is what freedom truly means. If establishing new, expanded freedoms threatens religious teachings, perhaps it is because the Bible isn’t about freedom.

I mean, really ... who ever said the Bible was about freedom?

The comparisons between Loving v. Virgina and Perry v. Schwarzenegger were on full display last night, though there are those who are unhappy with the comparison. I remember a Doonesbury cartoon from the mid-1970s where it is discovered that Andy is gay. Clyde says, “I hear you’re gay,” and Andy responds, “That's right, and I hear you’re black.”

Clyde explodes, “Yeah, but that’s normal!”

Andy says, “Didn’t used to be.”

Click on to enlarge.

The gay rights revolution has not been without horrible violence -- nothing filmed or put on video like schoolgirls denied access by National Guardsmen or crowds being hit with water cannons, but more often secret murders and lonely suicides and assaults too numerous to be known. But sitting onstage, the Allen Theater nearly full, knowing the audience had gathered to see and support a play not just about gay rights but about gay marriage, I truly felt we were reaching the climax of -- though by no means the conclusion to -- America’s Lavender Civil War.

The day after Election Day 2004, I overheard a colleague on the phone to a friend. He was truly unhappy -- not just because Bush defeated Kerry, this was much more personal. An anti-gay marriage amendment (Ohio Issue 1) had passed in the state of Ohio, one which stands today. It passed by 62% of the vote.

“It’s like they hate us,” he said. He sounded like he was about to cry. That’s what it feels like to be in the minority. I am trying to imagine what it might have been like back in 2004, if last night’s roles were reversed and it was Dustin Lance Black in a theater full of Ohio Issue 1 supporters, as the lone voice of marriage equality among a few hundred proponents of “religious freedom”. You will excuse me for finding it difficult to believe he would have been treated with the deference and respect Rev. Hicks received in the Allen last night.

One Step Beyond (1997)

One Step Beyond

Photo: Tony Gray

April fools’ day. Back in the day, urban legends were all the rage. The TV program The X-Files wove them through their storylines, and that was great fun. The 90s was cottage industry for the telling and retelling of classic tales of fiancees sold into white slavery, bugs found in food products, and celebrities helping (or snubbing) helpless motorists.

The vast majority of these tales are patently false. As Thomas Edison once said, “if something sounds unbelievable, it probably is.” Actually, Edison didn’t say that, but saying that he did makes the quote sound better. When we told these stories at camp, or hiking in the dump behind the train tracks, or spelunking under the elementary school, they added a sense of rich history of weirdness to our care-free, suburban lives.

Around the time the internet went mainstream, Barbara and David Mikkelson started their urban legends database, snopes.com. I found it in 1996 and for reasons I cannot remember, but they involved searching for horrible events which have occured in Disney theme parks. What made Snopes.com unique, and endearing it to me, was not that it perpetuated urban legends, but that they researched them and stove to determine their veracity.

For the 1997-98 season of Dobama's Night Kitchen (my third) we decided to revisit the long-form improvisation scenario developed our first season. Our first attempt was The Realistic World, which was more like an onstage soap opera than "reality TV". The company developed stock Gen-X characters who bounced off of each other in a common setting, with the result more often insult humor than say romance or drama, and no real plot to speak of.

 Unexplained Phenomenon

This new endeavor, One Step Beyond, would be inspired by (ta-da) urban legends, part X-Files, part Twilight Zone. Each hour long scenario was based on (and around) one urban legend or bizarre historical news event -- the molepeople, suicide cults -- with a few recurring characters which gave anyone paying attention (was anyone paying attention?) the idea that everything was interconnected like some Illuminati/Gray Alien conspiracy. There was more plot, but also more opportunities for humor, than  in The Realistic World. We scoured the internet for source material, much of it from snopes.

I have been visiting snopes.com for so many years now, that I trust it, and like many, use it to put the lie to certain vicious internet rumors which circulate from time to time. Because with the internet, urban legends have gone from tales of collective spoken myth, into outright lies told simply through infographics posted on Facebook. In this way, “a lie gets halfway round the world before the truth can check its inbox,” as Mary Todd Lincoln once told William Seward. At a party. A friend of my brother heard her say it.

The other day I saw (again) a graphic explaining how wearing pants that sag halfway down your ass so that your boxers show is an old prison trick, to show how available and interested you are to engage in sodomy in exchange for safety. There’s another term for this, but you know what that is.

This “urban legend” has rubbed me the wrong way for some time. People from certain walks of life hate the sagging pants thing. They aren’t racist or anything, but why can’t those boys pull up their pants, it’s ridiculous. The fact that a cultural thing that so irritates certain people would have what is obviously supposed to be a humiliating origin story seemed far too convenient.

Checking snopes I found that this fashion does in fact originate from prison life. Prison togs are often the wrong size, so ex-cons began wearing pants that were too big, and that need to be hiked up every couple of steps. And so became a fashion trend. End of story.

But why perpetuate the man-on-man sex myth?

Or more to the point, what are you saying when you “SHARE” this particular item on Facebook?
 
That if you wear pants that sag, what you are really saying is that you are gay?

That if you wear pants that sag, you are really saying is that you want a man to fuck you up the ass?

Is that what you are saying? Is it? That you're gay? You're gay right now? Are you?

In the case of this particular legend, the "f-word" lurks next to the “n-word” in the expression of disgust or contempt generated by the person who shares/tells it. Because you can’t attempt to shame someone out of a certain behavior without making judgement about that behavior.

In a week that my Facebook page has been covered from top to bottom with messages of support for Marriage Equality, and pictures of happy, gay couples, receiving this other kind of message, one which expresses open contempt for and fear of sexual activity between men (mocking, inarguably, one certain race of men - infographic of a Caucasian notwithstanding) was jarring and disappointing.

"Gone Bad"

Near the end of our first, tumultuous year producing and performing You Have The Right To Remain Silent, one of the new guys wrote a piece which I assumed was true, because he had heard it somewhere, and we performed it. It was a very funny piece, where I played a down-and-out member of the Little Rascals trying to mug a young couple, but the crime falls apart because they recognize me and feel sorry for me. Seems Bill Cosby had bought the rights to all the old Little Rascals shorts and wouldn't let anyone see them anymore because of its negative depiction of African-Americans.

It's a trope that comes around every now and again, how some member of some minority group who has attained a certain amount of wealth or power has made things sad for everyone else due to some politically correct action on their part.

These stories are rarely true, subtly or in some cases obviously racist or sexist, though what they convey is not obvious. But they are based in fear, or hate, or certainly disrespect. I have always hated the fact that I participated in that sketch and helped perpetuate this kind of lie.

(Click here to purchase The Little Rascals: The Complete Collection, because it is a shame Bill Cosby owns the rights and won't let anyone see them anymore.)

Double Heart: The Kendal

Kendal at Oberlin is one of my favorite stops on the tour. For one, I get to see old family friends. Joanne and Don took us "out" for dinner ... as it happened, all four of us arrived, without even discussing it, an full hour before call. So we had time to set up, and then relax, prior to the performance. As I was saying, Joanne was right there waiting for us when we arrived, she and my mother grew up together as little girls in Lakewood and it is a treat having family to receive you after a long drive.

One other thing I like about touring there is that this is Oberlin. There's a certain tribe that congregates in that community, and the residents at the Kendal are well-educated, many of them big fans of Shakespeare ... and they are opinionated. People can comment on the script all they want, and I am ordinarily prepared, I have confidence in the work. Here I am often caught off-guard.

The feedback in general, was not just high, but extraordinarily so. Men who profess to adore Shakespeare were very happy with the words and the meter, and told us so. There was a general appreciation for all of the fun, the action, the passion present in the play ... the mentioned passion on Sunday at Clague, too. Not sure I can take credit for that, the most of the really intense bits have few words, it's up to Emily and James to sell it.

But hey, there was that one kid who came up to us after the performance while we were packing the van at ECHS who had to ask if that kiss was for real. Because it looked real. Like they really meant it. I had to excuse myself and leave James on his own to sheepishly mutter it out.

One woman last night, asked why I chose to provide all the "low" characters with working class English accents, and wasn't I making some negative comment about class. She called Pene a "dirty old man" and I hate myself now for not protesting that "he's very clean." I also regret not mentioning Spartacus. I regret a lot of things. I did say, "Some of my best friends are English," but immediately regretted it.

Lisa has been beginning the discussions by asking whether or not Double Heart works as a believable prequel to Much Ado, which is all well can good when the answer is a resounding "yes."  But I could see one attendee shaking her head quite resolutely. When asked why she did not believe so, she said that the Beatrice in my play is certainly not the Beatrice from Shakespeare, however, she refused to elaborate.

I can guess why. Emily is not sure she agrees with me. My wife is absolutely sure I am correct. You will have to come see a performance and decide for yourself.

Tonight we travel to Lakewood Public Library, performance at 7:00 PM. Please join us.

Flash Gordon (1936 serial)

Warhol, Ming ... and R2-D2.

A couple weeks back, Talespinner Children's Theatre held its 2012 Glam Rock Benefit. Recently the kids and I took in Queen's Flash Gordon Theme music video, and I made a connections between Freddie Mercury's high-pitched "ah-ahs!" and the sheer unadulterated magnificent awesomeness of Max Von Sydow to cobble together some kind of Ming the Merciless get-up, replete with skullcap, dyed beard and eyebrows and green eyeshadow.

DEATH TO MING

Tim reminded me afterwards that the character is another grotesque Asian stereotype, so I feel a little bad about that. But I did win for best male costume. So I got that going for me.

Buck Rogers, a World War I veteran exposed to radioactive gas and hidden in a collapsed mine shaft only to be reanimated five hundred years later, was created in 1928. The success of this popular comic strip character inspired the creation of Flash Gordon in 1934. A dashing young polo player (*snigger*) Flash and his girl Dale Arden are kidnapped by Dr. Hans Zarkov, who is obsessed with finding the origin of great firey meteors that are striking the Earth. They arrive at the planet Mongo, ruled by aforementioned grotesque racial stereotype Ming the Merciless.

The strip more or less follows the adventures of Dale being continually rescued from capture by Ming, and trips to all manner of surrounding planets, defined as all planets are in science fiction by a single weather pattern or dominant animal-inspired lifeform with one, primary emotion (see: Star Trek, Star Wars, and so on.) Sharkman, Hawkman, Lionman, Treeman. You get it.


The first film serial of Flash Gordon debuted in that most-amazing year of 1936. Olympic athlete Buster Crabbe assumed the role of Flash for 13 episodes, and another two serialized series in 1938 and 1940. The video above includes the arrival of Flash, Dale and Dr. Zarkov on planet Mongo, and the introduction of Ming the Merciless. Ming looks pretty stylish for 1936 ... and then he opens his mouth.

Anyone familiar with the 1980 film -- starring not only film legend Von Sydow but also Broadway star Topol, and classically trained British actors Timothy Dalton and BRIAN BLESSED -- might reconsider the "cheesiness" of the costumes and special effects, and appreciate instead the extent to which they created a faithful, cheery modern adaptation of the original short films.

FLASH GORDON:JOURNEY TO GREATNESS BY FLASH GORDON (DVD)

The Adventures of Tintin

Belgian graphic designer Georges Prosper "Hergé" Remi (22 May 1907 – 3 March 1983) created the young, intrepid reporter Tintin (pronounced tan-tan, thank you) and the series of adventures which bear his name.

You know, there was a period during my childhood when my mother thought it would be a good idea to make family vacations out of my father's occasional international working excursions (he was in foreign exchange for Cleveland Trust) which brought me to England, Paris and Norway in the years 1977, 1978 and 1979. This comfy culture shock exposed me to Tintin, Rupert, Asterix and even the Smurfs years before my American contemporaries.

This explains my cosmopolitan world view, bizarre sense of humor, and my general sense of arrogance.

Did you know Inspector Thompson and Inspector Thomson are not brothers, let alone twins?

Tintin adventures stretched from 1929 to the mid-1960s though for me they always had a pre-war vibe. It makes perfect sense that Spielberg would choose to create a movie based out of this material, because the end-product is like Indiana Jones, only with a lot more reasonably acceptable slapstick. The CGI-effected performances make some of the more extreme physical violence a lot more funny and a lot less "Oh my GOD!"
What was most enjoyable for me was that the film plays like a Tintin novel, beginning with Tintin landing in the middle of a mystery, and progressing with great speed to a ship, to the middle of the ocean, to a desert to a non-specific Middle Eastern emirate ... it just goes and goes, no backstory, no Hollywood time wasted explaining who Tintin is, where he came from, even what paper he even works for. Just go-go-go.

And with the exception of an entire absence of tobacco products of any kind, its pretty damn faithful. Guns, whisky, blood ... and only one female character at all, the venerable Madame Castafiore. Tintin is a "boy's own" story, you want more girl characters, adapt something else.


For Christmas I got some of the new editions of Tintin, which are easier to hold but not to read (they are small) but include introductions to key characters which made leaping into what feels like an extended narrative much easier. Just reading half of Red Rackham's Treasure made my six year-old's idea of attending the movie much less fraught.

However, I will want to pick and choose which volumes to acquire or share with the kids, and not just because of the smoking or winking attitude towards Captain Haddock's obsession with drink. A number of them are pretty damn racist. Hergé famously had a world-view alteration from a Tchang Tchong-jen, a Chinese-born companion, which drove him to recreate most of his early work, especially the hideous Tintin in the Congo.

1936 Berlin Olympics Boycott

"The Black Eagles"
The Pittsburgh Courier, July 11, 1936
by Holloway

Jesse Owens: “If there is discrimination against minorities in Germany, then we must withdraw from the Olympics.”

Jeremiah T. Mahony, President of the Amateur Athletic Union: "There is no room for discrimination on grounds of race, color, or creed in the Olympics."

Journalist Heywood Broun: "I think that one of the most useful kinds of protest that can be made against the fascist regime of Hitler lies in our staying away from the Olympic Games in Berlin."

Ernest L. Jahncke, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of the Navy and IOC Member: "Neither Americans nor the representatives of other countries can take part in the Games in Nazi Germany without at least acquiescing in the contempt of the Nazis for fair play and their sordid exploitation of the Games."

Judge Jeremiah T. Mahony: “The Nazi government wants more than American participation in a sporting contest. It wants to bring the American dollar into the very weakened Nazi treasury. And it wants to picture Htler with Uncle Sam standing behind him and saying ‘We are with you, Adolf!’”

The Philadelphia Tribune: “The AAU shouts against the cruelties of the other nations and the brutalities in foreign climates, but conveniently forgets the things that sit on its own doorstep.”

OSU Track Coach Larry Snyder: “Why should we oppose Germany for doing something we do right here at home?”

United States Olympic Committee President Avery Brundage: “The very foundation of the modern Olympic revival will be undermined if individual countries are allowed to restrict participation by reason of class, creed, or race. Certain Jews must understand that they cannot use these games as a weapon in their boycott against the Nazis."

Frederick Rubien, Secretary of the U.S. Olympic Committee: "The Germans are not discriminating against Jews. The Jews were eliminated because they are not good enough athletes."

Coach Larry Snyder: “Jesse Owens is sitting on top of the world today. If he continues to participate in this activity (the boycott) he will be a forgotten man.”

Jesse Owens: “I see no reason to get into a controversy about the Olympics. The games have been awarded to Germany, all preparations have been made, and now some people want to have American withdraw just because some of the German polocies are not approved by them.”

Ernest Jahncke was expelled from the IOC for his comments. He remains the only person ever expelled from the IOC.

Sources:
Triumph (Jeremy Schaap)
Nazi Games (David Clay Large)
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Washington Post

Randall Park Mall

Benjamin bear looks for his girl Missy in Randall Park Mall.
"Cleveland Is A Warm, Fuzzy Place" (1977)

"There's going to be a transfer of power ... from the central city to the southeast part of Cleveland ... I believe that after today the forces that want to keep downtown Cleveland intact had better get on their horse and start riding real fast."
- Randall Park Mall Developer Ed DeBartolo, 1973

Two million square feet of shopping ecstasy, the Randall Park Mall opened to the public on August 11, 1976. At the time it was the largest indoor shopping mall in the world. The city of North Randall had a population of 1,500. Randall Mall Park employed 5,000.

Randall Park didn't have one, but FIVE department stores; Higbee's, The May Company, Sears, JC Penney, and the Joseph Horne Company. The place was so big, some stores had two locations, one on each floor! There were over 200 hundred stores in all. And it was stylish -- marble columns, real tile floors, beautiful ceilings and futuristic ramps and crossovers.

The joy was short-lived however. With two years, the Beachwood Mall opened, siphoning away well-heeled customers, and the place began losing any of its original luster before the end of the 1970s. The place was just so vast, and little thought had gone into long-term maintenance. Attending the movie theater (and using its bathrooms) required trips up and down many staircases, and the theater (and its bathrooms) were filthy and dysfunctional. By the mid-1980s the mall was considered downright dangerous, and suburban residents began to refer to it as Vandal Dark Mall ... "dark" because, you know, the lights were out in all the closed storefronts.

Randall Park Mall closed in 2009.


UPDATE: Found this PD op-ed piece celebrating the opening of Randall Park Mall from August 1976.

Sources:
Wikipedia
Outside Cleveland, Snapshots of Poverty’s Surge in the Suburbs New York Times, 10/25/2011
DeadMalls.com
NewsNet5.com
The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History

1954 World Series

"Mays spears it, spins, and fires it back to the infield.
A spectator slaps himself in the head."
- Mark Winegardner, Crooked River Burning
After a six year absence, the Cleveland Indians returned to the World Series, this time against the New York Giants. During Game 1 which Willie Mays made "The Catch." Cleveland sports are always about "what if" and if Mays hadn't made "The Catch" (or if the wall at the Polo Grounds had been just a bit closer) then the river would never have caught fire, the Hough riots would never have happened, the city would never have gone into Default, LeBron would never have left, and so on.

But we're talking about Willie Mays. Show the man some respect.

In any event, Cleveland has never made a World Series appearance since.

There are those who speculate that Cleveland's major league woes are due to some "curse." Boston had a curse, right? Why not us. Must be a curse. The name "Rocky Colavito" is tossed around, but really, who the hell is that? I know who Babe Ruth is, Rocky Colavito is some made-up name. Classic Cleveland "me-too" action.

In 1946, two years prior to the last World Series victory Cleveland will ever have, the team adopted a charming new logo:


By 1954 they were using this logo, which is either more or less offensive, as if you could measure such things:


You want a curse? There's your curse.

And so in 1954, the New York Giants swept the Indians in the World Series.

Radio Priest (book)

I think I have some kind of stomach virus. I have been up since 4 am with a roiling stomach, which was not alleviated by choosing to take this time to finish reading Donald Warren's biography of Charles Coughlin, Radio Priest: Charles Coughlin, The Father of Hate Radio.

The book refers to Coughlin as a "footnote" in American history, but I am coming to believe he is more of a blind-spot. There are two Jewish members of a certain age in the Playwrights' Unit, and when I brought in a scene making passing reference to this radio priest, one of my peers needed me to explain who he was, while the other was all too aware of his history.

Warren's book details the interesting life of this narcissistic and hateful Catholic priest, though I have to admit I was more interested in the earlier, pre-WWII history, after which it gets bogged down in the question of whether or not Coughlin received direct monetary compensation from the Nazis. This is not unimportant information, but there were an awful lot of names and unanswered questions and a great many specious claims as to make the author sound almost as conspiratorily-minded as his subject.

Published in the mid 1990s, Radio Priest attempts at the outset to trace Coughlin's brand of right-wing, bellicose wailing to the then-present day polititainers like Rush Limbaugh. The book is well-overdue for a reprint with a new forward.

Anything clever I might say comparing Father Coughlin to the likes of Glenn Beck was already done in a much more professional manner in the September 13 issue of The Onion in the article Nation Once Again Comes Under Sway Of Pink-Faced Half-Wit:

Dr. David Snider, a media historian and author of the book "Frothing, Shouting Dim-Bulbs: An American Tradition", said that the current porcine loudmouth is the latest in a long line of pink-faced half-wits that began in the 1930s with the incendiary radio broadcasts of Father Charles Coughlin, a pink-faced half-wit Roman Catholic priest.

According to Snider, this original pink-faced half-wit exploited the Great Depression to foment his message of virulent anti-Semitism—a tactic of shamelessly preying upon American misery and misfortune that has since been employed by nearly every pink-faced, intellectually corrupt piece of shit asshole to open his fat, disgusting pig mouth since.

Radio Priest opened my eyes to the finer points of anti-Semitism, and the more recent defense of anti-Semitism practiced by those who hold it dear, namely blaming only bad Jews for all the evil which befalls the rest of us - good Christians and good Jews alike.

The good Father taught us that in the olden days, because of true anti-Semitism, Jews could not own land, nor were they tolerated to stay anywhere for any length of time. As a result, Jews put all of their savings into GOLD, which they carried from place to place. And they learned to create more gold by lending gold for interest - an act, children repeat after me, call usury - something Christians were forbidden to practice because it goes against God's law (see: Shakespeare's: The Merchant of Venice.)

Flash-forward to the 20th Century, or at least to 1936 which concerns us most, and Coughlin has made it clear that what threatens our world the most is the Jew-backed, Communist world conspiracy, made possible by "international financiers" - this being the term Coughlin more commonly used early in his career before coming right out and saying "Jews".

The year 1936 was the high point in Coughlin's political career. And remember, we are talking about a parish priest from Detroit. He supposedly answers to the Catholic Church, and Warren's book is loaded with documented missives and direct quotations from interviews detailing the back and forth between bishops, cardinals, federal agents and the like, describing the thoughts of Church superiors and how they might deal with a person who had gained an historically unprecedented amount of influence and power due strictly to the power of mass media - the radio.

The story ends with a whimper, not a bang. Warren would have us outraged that the Catholic Church did very little to reign in a figure who increasingly (especially after his own party's humbling in the 1936 Presidential election) hateful rhetoric led directly or indirectly to hate crimes and which was arguably "lending aid and comfort to our enemies" during the war with Germany. Since his book has been published, accounts of child abuse by priests too numerous to tally left this reader unsurprised at the Church's inaction.

Now, if I may offer my own opinion: What is distressing to me is no longer that individuals such as Coughlin can miseducate so many people. It is the extent to which so many people actually prefer to think in a paranoid and fearful manner. It is the only explanation. Just recently Glenn Beck dedicated three hours to bête noire of the right, George Soros. Granted, Beck was doing a hatchet job on a single individual, not an entire race, but he did attempt to distance himself from accusations of anti-Semitism by - ta-dah! - accusing the Jew Soros of being anti-Semitic.

Remember what the good Father taught us - Jews are not the enemy, Bad Jews are the enemy. An important distinction. Let us continue. From The New Yorker, November 29, 2010:

Beck pictured Soros as a deeply evil figure, a shadowy manipulator whose marionettes include unions, the Democratic Party, the media, and the President; a rapacious financier who seeks to subvert and destroy the American republic in order to satisfy his own greed for money and advance his plot to establish an all-powerful global, state under his control. As it happens, these tropes correspond uncannily to those of classical anti-Semitism.

I happened to read this article the same morning I finished Warren's book. Hmn.

Unlike Beck, who has the support of his Gentile oligarch Rupert Murdoch, Coughlin relied on independent radio stations which became increasingly unhappy with his rhetoric to carry his message across the country and his radio broadcasts were suppressed by the late 1930s, and with is a major source of his revenue. Around the same time, however, his weekly paper Social Justice gained a higher-quality look, which different color inks to make it pop and higher quality photographs. There is evidence that this funding came straight from Berlin. It is without a doubt that several articles in the paper were direct transcriptions of speeches from the office of Joseph Goebbels. Eventually he was pressured to cease publication as a case was being created against him as a disseminator of seditious materials.

Source:
Radio Priest, Charles Coughlin, the Father of Hate Radio
The Onion
The New Yorker

Social Justice

Social Justice Vol. 2 No. 6
August 31, 1936

The issue featured above includes continuing coverage of the Union Party Convention held in Cleveland in August, 1936.

* * *
My blog posts have slowed a bit in the past week as I have been reading the biography of a man who:

- Was backed by shadowy, right-wing finances.

- Communicated to his audience through mass-media and grand, public, staged events.

- Appealed to base instincts and fear.

- Made educating the people about the impending threat of Communist world-domination the centerpiece of his message.

- Detailed wildly complex and paranoid conspiracy theories.

- Fomented race-hatred in millions of his economically-challenged followers.

- Had an obsession regarding the possession of gold.

... Tomorrow we'll talk about Father Coughlin.

Drum fill. Happy Thanksgiving!