Ghetto Movie Theater

Back in the day, when America's air often buzzed with a thousand flying bullets in broad daylight—like that was the sane thing to do with twin concepts like "new" and "people"—we had an attitude of social looseness that constantly imposed upon the needs of others with an impunity that was artificially called "freedom", when, really, it was often a smokescreen for insanity committed in public spaces without fear of censure. Take, for instance, the ghetto movie theater (see also, Times Square in the 70s: http://gothamist.com/2013/03/27/photos_of_times_square_in_the_1970s.php#photo-2). 

Kids dared one another to run into a peepshow theater and back as if we were risking our young lives like western gunslingers of yore, and we were. Yeah, we had the buses of the Port Authority to take us back home, but if you missed the last sane commuter bus leaving the station, it was just you and your friends with hours of time in an almost empty bus depot, trapped with bums who got much scarier, louder, and active with each passing sip from their cheap bottle of wine. 

We were terrified of getting caught in the city's rain, because we knew a trickle of water could rouse a bum if it reached him before the rains stopped, like the time me and my boyfriend watched water fall down in torrents, stuck underneath a Central Park overpass. We only had so much time left before the water woke him up, and then it finally did. He was pissed off until he suddenly noticed us, which sent him flying towards us in a greatly renewed psychotic rage.

Which meant that we were constantly searching for safe places and happy diversions to combat the hellish scenes popping off around us. It was, uh, a little stressful, to put it mildly. People chain-smoked and drank like "The Final Days of Judgment" were being visited upon them any second, and if you believed the signs of the ranting religious zealots who frequented the midtown tourist areas, the end was always near. Ditto with the bald white "Hari Krishnas" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hare_Krishna_(mantra), who were usually ex-hippie burn-outs from the 60s looking to wind down (or amp up) from their tense neurosis "the natural way", which meant spinning around like a "Whirling Dervish" for hours (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mevlevi_Order), banging tambourines and asking for money from onlookers.

There were also door-knocking, tie-wearing, short-haired Jehovah's Witnesses, robotic over-groomed Mormons who looked like extras from a 1950s-era movie, or "Moonies" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonie_%28nickname%29) who would turn aggressive on you in a New York minute, which made the average New Yorker play this weird game of pretending not to notice that bleeding guy sitting next to you on the train, because he might stab you if you tried to help him out. Eye contact was also a serious no-no that kept us from helping out one another, because my dad repeated the same line about it over and over again with "no good deed goes unpunished", as an illustration of that very principle we used to live by. 

And so, our public lives were rife with strangely surreal scenes from horror movies or prescient sci-fi movies like "Escape from New York", that warned of The Second Coming as an apocalypse for the damned. Behavior was at an all-time low, and public life reflected the lesser of two evils that presented itself to us at any time. Sure, smoking a big stinky cigar in a movie was rude, oppressive, and unhealthy for everyone around you, but heck, it was better than rape, right? Right?! People sneaked booze and pot into theaters all the time under their jackets, and gay men used the movie's bathrooms as frequent hook-up spots that became so notorious for city people, we avoided public restrooms like The Plague. Anything could happen to you in there.

Like the worst of the human experience that becomes repetitive over time, we got used to extremely fucked-up people. Not comfortable or complacent, but accustomed to seriously violent offenders who'd snap at the slightest excuse to do so. People shouted back at the movie screen, or hissed their questions loudly to each other, in bad stage whispers that were clearly audible to everyone around them. My mom is so bad with watching movies, that I got used to prepping my friends about her odd behavior, because she loses the thread of the narrative quicker than anyone I've ever met. 

At home it was better, because we could stop the movie for food and drinks, or bathroom runs, or funky relatives with serious impairments, which my parents are not nice about. They're New Yorkers from the Bronx and Bed-Stuy, ya feel me? They aren't "nice" about anything, including their own ignorance that they self-defend like embarrassed kids at the rough local playground for tough kids in leather jackets, with switchblades and greased-back hair, smoking unfiltered cigarettes while snapping their chewing gum loudly. In other words, "assholes" presenting themselves in quick visual shorthand. 

"Who is that?!" my mother would yell out loud, and if you ignored her, she'd just abuse you until you had to give her the answer, which she argued about through her constant sense of befuddlement and misunderstanding, especially if she objected to the highbrow intellectualism that surpassed her grasp of the subject matter, like an offended two year-old after their lollipop is ripped out of their hands. It was histrionic bullshit, but look where they came from. Horror shows.

Years later, after we escaped our own individually tragic fates that working class people like us were often fated to, we could sit back and relax over something as simple as watching a t.v. show or a movie without being molested with uncommon violence for our presence or preferences. And, lo and behold, along came a show that addressed our humble city roots with a fun twist: we were safe now, and we also had homemade hand puppets to help spread the fun around to our friends. We'd say to each other in asides: "Yeah, check out that guy's hat and hairdo! Historically accurate, n'est ce-pas?" Or: "Yo, did you see that karate move?", quickly followed by "Hey, I wonder what he'll do next?" "Oh, I don't know! Let's pretend to be surprised by hammy bad acting and a cliched script!" Ahhh! Look out!! He's right behind you! Nooo!!! Don't go into that scary dark basement! 

Thousand Yard Stare

Being the sole sane member of the many social groups I've encountered throughout my life is fraught with difficulties, especially if any one person (or group of people) is used to gaming the system through secrecy, and I, unfortunately, know very quickly about their true state of mind, which is uncomfortable for both of us—as the authority figure assessing it correctly (yet again), and the liar perpetrating the fraud right in my face. Not the the "New Gen" has done much better with it, as an issue. Now, it's considered "hip" to have as many complex issues as possible (great for reality t.v.), especially with the single children of so many modernly unhealthy couples who're used to almost constant enabling, and who also bear the weight of their broken dreams, in addition to carrying around their poor genetics. 

Before we began a voluntary militia, anyone could be drafted into military service and made to fight a brutally violent war, with the size and scope of your collective psychosis allowing for heinous acts of violence—sometimes including child murder—that would almost certainly get you sentenced to death back home. The warrior mindset is traditionally for those who seek out that particular type of service because we know we can come back from it; not unscathed from battle without recovery time built in for healing from our war wounds, but enough to know that we will endure and survive it, because we've already done so through similar life conditions as civilians. Every social group full of mentally ill people is a potential battlefield, and conversation is typically marred by a defensive passive-aggressiveness that makes it really hard work for me.

Suffice to say, those who seek to "escape" the dreaded horrors of medication and healthcare, pretend to shrink from their falsely overblown fears about exposure and revelation like a mythical vampire shirks the light of day. Really? With fucking Oprah being a American gazillionaire?! She's famous for saying lines on television like "My 'va-jay-jay is a-painin'!", so how do you reconcile this sudden coyness with your reality? It's a complete fucking sham, as I am forced to endure yet another game of pretending that I don't know you suffer from insanity, you know, because people like me who work under the conditions I do, on the budget I have, consistently delivering at an extremely high level on almost nothing, cave in the face of your healthcare. Really? You really expect me to believe that?

And it's everywhere I go, every single day; family, friends, co-workers, bosses, acquaintances—no one is immune from living life and the human condition. Of course, we know you're nuts, but that's rude to say over a company dinner that you're paying for, isn't it? But, that doesn't stop 'em from trying it with me anyway, because compulsive addictive disorders kinda come with some obvious behavioral markers that you can't exactly shave off like beard. Nice try, though, really. Yes, we know, and we have tons of tests to prove it anytime we want to, in a variety of ways, but if you're selfishly demanding a class in avoiding detection like you're Meryl Streep at the Oscars, then class is now in session, and here's your first clue: see the picture above. 

For the residents of my town: see that crazy old guy who hoards on his property that's right next to the Methodist church (Amen!) with a misbuttoned shirt on almost everyday, walking around "shell-shocked" like he just survived the bombing at D-Day, but he didn't. He doesn't actually do anything, besides walk around town like a zombie. It also includes: the closeted country lesbo at the local grocery store who licks her lips when she looks at you, just to be a complete fucking bitch to a gorgeous heterosexual woman (you hateful piece of shit), and when that doesn't work, pretends not to see you standing prominently in the middle of the aisle so she can "accidentally" bump into you like the psychotic stalker she really is. Or, the way someone lingers near you at the library, pretending to be absorbed by a book on the shelf for ten minutes like a fucking retard, or a hoarder in a bargain store lingering over plastic junk like she's fondling a ten year-old girl. It's obviously repulsive, and you can't hide it or control it.

And yes, to answer your question again: it is now mandatory to take a healthcare screening —that includes tests for psychological readiness—before leaving the hospital with your newborn, so you don't abuse your baby at home behind closed doors, where you feel safe to do so. Isn't technology great? Oh, that's right. You "hate" that, too. I must have forgot! My memory, you know....it isn't what it used to be. Sigh. Anyway, I don't get the Internet reliably like you do, with 24/7 access to answers at my fingertips whenever I want them, so I also have that excuse in my back pocket, with a dozen others that I've cleverly rehearsed ahead of time just to "stump" you, when, really, it isn't possible to do so, but don't ever say that to me in person or write in down. I might "know" it then, like the aliens can do without your tinfoil hat in hand. Yeah. That sounds good. That makes sense. 

 

http://www.postpartum.net/professionals/legislation/

 

Homeless for the Holidays

Through no fault of my own, I was homeless a few years ago because my family turned their backs on me for being economically dispensable to the unsavory family business that I had worked hard for, a business that was struggling to stay afloat from all of their excesses and not mine. I developed a publishing program for bargain books sold at B&N stores worldwide that's made me infamous throughout the industry. They wasted tens of thousands every year on decorating expenses, stupid parties, pricey real estate, and fancy white gardeners for their office balcony (that I never really had time to use), before they gave us a real 401K plan that we had to ask repeatedly for. My dad had once asked me to sell books only for a dollar or for free, as some sort of test of my "worth" as a publishing executive, and it was one that I easily accomplished. When the economy tanked yet again, they cut the staff who weren't family (or married to family/friends) and jettisoned the rest of us, which surprised me not at all, because I know how people who are bad at business react to stress: they don't. You do. 

So began yet another typically old family pattern of dysfunction spurred on by the upsets present in my life, which goes something like this: if "Mama Marie" ain't earning, then she ain't eatin', and that was certainly true for me. I almost fainted from hunger on some of the worst days (during which my father had the gall to ask me if I'd ever gone hungry, after I'd exhausted all my funds, credit, and extraneous belongings, like any normal person would do to avoid being a burden to others), in between the outrageous emails I sent to my family that gave them full advance warning (because I can succeed at business without even trying, despite the lack of their expensively bought M.B.A.'s, thus adding more fuel to their envious fire) of my upcoming eviction due to lack of payment (with no legal advice offered from my lawyer uncle or the corporate lawyer my father has on retainer for his needs), even while my father congratulated me publicly for my success at earning a spot at a prestigious writer's colony (because he wanted me to teach him writing so he could pen his memoirs and brag about it), because I worked that hard to be good for them by compensating for their deficits during my homelessness, like any real mother would. 

In return, I got bizarre offers for a limo ride to some mental institution in Westchester for all my troubles, when I really just needed an expense check sent to me, like any other businesswoman in publishing who itemizes correctly and transparently. There's no secrets here, anymore. How else was I thanked? Well, every time they made the wrong decision about me, I told them the truth about their sicknesses, illnesses, deficiencies, disorders, impairments, addictions, and crimes against humanity that they owe me "big-time" for, because the only times I get pulled into badness of any kind is at someone else's say-so, and isn't that way it always is for people of good faith? We are tried and tested to see through all the badness around us by fighting our way through it, alone. It is in this way that you've come to be my adoring audience in the year 2015: because you asked me to undergo rigorous feats of strength that you can't do, like any true hero does, and I survived to tell you the tales about my amazing, death-defying acts of life, like an ever-ongoing Homeric odyssey of epic modern proportions delivered freshly and freely almost every day.

And so it came to pass that I found myself isolated and alone at some hotel room (during our most holiest of seasons) in the Sunset Park* section of Brooklyn, living by my wits and a tenuous room connection to the hotel's WiFi service, booking rooms at B&B's in the area so as to be ready to go to work on Monday morning, because I worked my way through it, just like I always do. Sure, a few days I had a small powder blue bag with me on the elevator in the morning that was remarked upon by one of my design assistants, but that was it. 

The holiday itself found me with absolutely no contact from anyone whatsoever: no good wishes, no phone calls of forced bonhomie. 
There was no gratitude or charity towards me of on any kind, except the G-dly ones I received by my own hand, because I walked several miles to be with my parish family at St. Francis of Xavier in Park Slope (where I was "shadowing" Sunday school teachers guided by Sister Kathleen, the former principal of the elementary school across the street, by following along with her lovingly designed children's curriculum) for church service on Sunday, because I said I would.  
I said I would be there.

http://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org

 https://www.bowery.org/homelessness/

http://www1.nyc.gov/site/dhs/prevention/homebase.page

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunset_Park,_Brooklyn

Nightswimming

In art school, real fun was hard to come by. Chills were plentiful, along with fear, hope, and crippling doubt. Combined with your average rich kids' inability to sleep at night without a safety net of cushy money and psychiatrist-prescribed pharmaceuticals, it led to some insane freak-outs, as we dared each other to the dizzying heights that are brought on by frustration and rabid competition. They'd show up to classes exhausted, with shaved heads, and really dark, unhealthy circles under their eyes, with the requisite heavy-lidded baggage. I've never met a more dangerously fucked up group of people in my life. 

When Littleton, Colorado erupted into murder and suicide from the particular kind of violence that is a rich kids' ennui, I wasn't all that surprised. I'd be openly talking about the toxic combo of money and madness for years, to anyone who cared enough to listen. That my theories about white men with money congealed in reality, into my very worst fears about life, actually scared me to death.

It was into this mix that someone in our group mentioned an empty rock quarry as a potential swimming hole. I was desperate for cool water, as an East Coaster. Summertime just ain't right without the beach and swimming to me. I jumped at the chance. We snuck onto the grounds underneath a chain link fence, and past the "No Swimming!" signs, giving it the right amount of transgression for rebellious youth. Of course, my crazy Yankee housemate, with his backwoods working-class attitude and lust for rampantly unchecked athleticism, spurred us on to higher and higher jumps. It was thrilling and really fucking scary (Kudos, Riddell). I mastered cliffhanging from across the quarry, my toes gripping onto a narrow rocky ledge, but the other side of the pond was even worse because it was much, much higher than it seemed.

If you've never free-falled into 30-40 feet of cold murky water that hides its' depth, I can't really explain to you. I asked my friend questions about it while in the water, trying to steel my nerves for the jump. We listened to him talk about the sharp edges of rusty metal that lay on the bottom of the small lake, since it'd been a teenage fad to dump your car there and claim it as a total loss from theft on your insurance, back in rural 1970s Rhode Island. Yeah, okay. That's it, huh?

I climbed up the rocky ridge to the other side, and stood there for a little while, my crazy friend yelling at me encouragingly from the other side of the pond, taking his umpteenth leap into the depths below, from even smaller and more dangerous footholds. Shit. I have to do it. I'm no chickenshit, dude. I did it, and instantly regretted it. I saw sharp rocks quickly rising up to greet me, and thought (really thought) I'd just made the worst mistake of my life. I could hear Riddell yelling that I didn't jump far out enough to totally escape danger ("Oh, no! She didn't jump far enough out!!"), and then I gasped, hitting the water at an odd angle that smacked me in the ribs hard. I could tell he was as scared as I was, and for the first time in my life, I thought I might drown. The fall took all the wind out of my lungs. I screamed underwater, water rushing into my mouth that I had no choice but to gulp down.

I did drown a little bit, but years of swimming lessons really paid off. I bobbed up to the surface, letting out the remaining air in my lungs by yelling out from the pain of my fall. There was silence when I broke through the water. My friends had been bracing for a possible rescue dive. My housemate laughed right after I surfaced. I quickly explained to my friends in the water that I hurt myself by slamming down hard, and that's why I surfaced screaming. "Oh, shit....", as the ones with less experience drifted away from me in the water. I treaded water lightly by myself for awhile, watching other kids take jumps. I was fucking done for the day, man. It was one of those rare brush ups with mortality that I've had over the years that never really leave you.

But back up on the safety of the warm rocks, laying out and drying in the sun, we were happier than we'd been in awhile. So much so, we convinced each other to ride out there on a stifling warm summer night, a night so muggy, it begged for relief. I was a lot safer than my previous trip out there, because sharp rocks don't exactly look nicer under scant parking lot spotlights, but we were buoyed up by our nighttime adventure. Some of us descended into madness and never came back from its' gripping depths, like Greg and his sometime-love Crystal, with the long dark hair. He hugged her briefly on the rocks, in a rare warm embrace of the true boyfriend/girlfriend type, before she wriggled out of his grasp to escape to safer waters like the rippling blackness below.

He was routinely having nightmares, which he tried to capture on film in grainy black and white (and he did get it, as one student duly noted during a crit), the hauntings of madness combined with searing brilliance, hard work, and born-to-it-ness. He looked at me after she left his arms, trying to regroup from the sting of her leaving by shaking out his tight curls, opening his eyes really wide and saying to me shakily, "I've never felt this clean, you know. This water...." he trailed off, shivering in the night, ...."it just makes me feel so clean, you know? I've never felt this clean in my life!" I didn't understand, because quarries aren't exactly filled with pristine spring water, especially those right outside of a major urban area, so I quizzed him further, but to no avail. He repeated it, and I was baffled by it again.

On the ride home, we fell silent as a group, in our caravan of cheap, college-kid cars, watching the moon through open windows, a stark difference to the chatty excitement of our semi-drunk and raucous ride out there, because there ain't nothing' like the feeling of somnolence that comes over your limbs after a long day (or night) of swimming, like those times when your parents drove you back from a beach vacation during summer's off. I remember Greg mentioned the magical way that the moonlight had shimmered on our wet skin like diamonds, and the feeling that anything could happen (which it did, because we summoned it up out of the water for our creation), and that this was the one final, brief respite of summer session before we bore the full, crushing weight of the highest Ivy heights during a real semester, ill-prepared as we were with our small, hard, working class lives.

It was a lot to consider, you know? Take the time out this summer during your vacation to charge your batteries. You don't want the burn-out of an empty and used old battery that's about to be discarded by your respective industries, because when you let someone (or something ) use you like that, you don't ever get it back. And they just throw you away to get another one to feed off of creatively. You are their business; the beating, breathing heart of it. Remember that, through all the games and petty roles being played out in front of you daily, in some generic overly air conditioned office environment. Be unique. Be you. And persevere.

Crack the Whip

Lately I've been finding out how similar my experiences were to other alumni at the world's hardest school, through our magazine RISDXYZ (thanks to Amanda Blum for writing about it, in a piece called "Submission": http://issuu.com/risd/docs/risdxyz_fall-winter_2014-15?e=0/10291099), but at the time, we were deeply in "survival mode". I used to characterize my time there as "Art Boot Camp", because the purpose of our training was to weed out the weak and insane, leaving only the best and strongest among us to excel. And that's the point behind any really difficult process; it's similar to my martial arts training with its' belt ranking system, which is similar in tone to the military, and the same intense vibe as my former ballet studio. We all wanted to win at our chosen trade(s) and profession(s).

In that teeming cocktail of teenage insecurities and intensive learning is a road about a mile wide that goes right into the heart and soul of who you are as an artist/scholar/athlete/scientist/engineer/author/thinker. It's supposed to develop the strength and toughness that's necessary for us to go on. But not all of us make it. Just ask any Navy Seal: their C.O.'s tell them right beforehand that's the day's exercise is called "You Not Breathing" (thanks to Marcus Luttrell with Patrick Robinson for that scene from their movie adaptation's first few minutes, of actual Navy SEAL training footage).

We did exercises called "Drawing with a Blindfold" or "Figure Drawing from Memorization to a 5-Minute Timed Clock With Your Back Turned to the Model"; you know, the kind of stuff that gives most students the "heebee-jeebees". That's the actual phrase one of my former housemates from R.I.S.D used to describe how she felt about her experience, and what her time there brings about nowadays, like a shell-shocked soldier struggling with PTSD. She went to our school for "Fashion Design", so she could be the real-life version of a Bryant Park show during "Fashion Week" in NYC, or a leading contestant on a major show like "Project Runway". Guess what she does now? She surfs, repairs wet-suits, and knits the same wool hat over and over and over again. Yeah, like, that bad.

Another rich suburban kid I knew, whose F.O.B. Armenian parents bought him everything he could ever desire, now works for a big factory studio (run by someone else), where he sits at one desk among many, compulsively animating the exact same robot car and/or booby anime girl with rabbit hybrid ears for his fetish fans and addicted gamers every single day, much like a dysfunctional business manager I worked with who HAD TO eat the exact same turkey sandwich on whole wheat bread every single day, or he would freak out.

My "fashionista" seamstress friend had a nervous breakdown over "my" unwashed dishes in the common kitchen sink during my RISD experience; you know, when I had all studio classes to complete AND three part-time jobs. In truth, they were a combination of all of our dishes in the house, but my cleaning compulsive mother had told her to "teach me how to clean", even though I've done every house chore known for her all my life. I'm talking about a "gnashing-teeth, hysterical tears with hair-pulling" type of tantrum over dishes, kids. My animation friend couldn't handle the all-day wait for "The Cable Guy" while living in his nice, new, and very white Brooklyn Heights apartment (all expenses paid) that his parents gave him back then. They also wouldn't have been able to live or survive in NYC if it wasn't for me, but did they ever tell me that? Uh, no: http://mariedoucette.blogspot.com/2014/12/times-square.html.

And that was part of the challenge: surviving the little "psyche-out" head games and petty insecurities of the kids around you who fell down hard and didn't get back up. It wasn't just the students either. Wildly, obviously inept, mad teachers had open love affairs with their underage students, maybe even in violation of the state's minority sex laws, in clear view of the administration. It was somehow worse than my SUNY school as a violation of trust, because I paid for my education through my blood, sweat, and tears, and a diploma from this prestigious school could seal my fate among the elite for all times.

They knew that, and I got blacklisted with some other working class friends of mine for wanting a basic computer class as a primer for the real world, where I knew I had to work to survive and pay off my debt. Like, right away. There was much more at stake for me, because I had (and have) no safety net in my life but me, and so I risked much more by speaking out than my cowardly classmates.

It's what me and my childhood friends talked about (Hi, Donnel!), on all those night and afternoons when our parents were simply gone from our lives: how to go out into the world to make a difference, permanently. It's what my friends since Felix V. Festa Junior High remembered about me, as did all my friends from elementary school through to high school: leave no man, woman, or child behind. 

And so I give my service in honor of you today, and every day after, because I said I would. Our suffering hasn't been in vain.

http://becauseisaidiwould.com/