Out of Pocket

Yeesh.

I'd like to say it's been one of those days, but it's been one of those weeks and months already.

I haven't blogged much since before Mardi Gras, and wanted to just let y'all know that I am still here. This week has been especially rough - I have not one, but two funerals to attend tomorrow.

One is for the mother of The Beau's best friend of 20 years...the second, which I have to sing at, is for the wife of a fellow church choir member.

Both victims of cancer.

And yesterday, my 23 year old Admin Assistant had 4 biopsy samples taken - hoping against hope that she doesn't have cervical cancer.

I am trying desparately not to lose my crap - The Beau is out of town at a corporate training is in even worse shape for not being able to be there for his friend. Thankfully, he comes in on the red-eye tonight...

Send spare hugs. We need them.

Moving

I love movies. I love music. And I especially love it when a director (and all the other parties involved) get it right in a movie, by combining the right music with the right scene and - wow!

Reaching into the Way-Back File, in 1990 (when I stilled had hair on the top of my head), I was asked out to the movies by this hot German au pair. Of course I said yes...did I mention he was hot?

So, he asked if I'd like to see Henry V starring Kenneth Branagh. I am certain I probably said something smooth and classy like, "uh-huh" as I starred into his dreamy blue eyes. So, off we went.

During the time we spent chatting before the movie started, I learned that he had aspirations to be a model, or model-actor...and had no other outside interests, abilities or talents. He had cultivated nothing but his looks. And, what he liked best about me was how handsome I thought he was...blech.

Thankfully, about that time the movie started - distracting me from how suddenly un-smitten I now was. Derek Jacobi took over and for the next 137 minutes, I was transported. I had my first introduction to Emma Thompson in this movie - sigh.

Then. Then came the Battle at Agincourt...

I remember sensing that something was coming. Something special. I just didn't know what.

Then. Then he spoke those words and one lone man starts singing the "Non nobis".

Within seconds, I was in tears - each chorus, each increasingly wider camera shot, each step across the battlefield. After walking across the field, carrying one of his fallen breatheren, Henry bends down to kiss him.

Years later, I cannot watch this scene without bawling - I don't see how anyone can me unmoved by this. (And yet the au pair was. Never saw him again after that.)

So, here is that scene. What movie/music combinations move you?

Hypothetical Parenting

The following is just a random bunch of stuff with the merest of similarities: parenting.

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As a teen, I spent a great deal of my free time babysitting, and many parents (and friends of our family) commented with sometimes annoying regularity what a great dad I would be some day.

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When I first started coming out to my friends in my late teens and early 20's, I was on the short end of comment like, "Oh, what a waste..." and "Gee, won't you miss having kids?" and so on...

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Over the last 10 years or so, during any of my more "substantive" relationships, people have been very forward in asking if we plan to adopt (or opt for any of the less passive modes of obtaining a child - no, not kidnapping...). The subject even came up on my first date with The Beau (it'll be 4 years this May, but who's counting?). We are both firm in our conviction: we love and adore the kids in our lives - nephews, neices, children of friends and neighbors - and enjoy their company...in relatively short doses. We know our limits.

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We have developed a shorthand to signal when one of us (usually the Beau) is reaching a point where they can take little more. It started one day in the presence of a very tired child, acting like a very tired child who was not have the best day with a parent who was similarly not having the best day. It was not pretty, for anyone. The kind of day where we'd all like to request a do-over.

The Beau turned to me and said, "Tell that story again about how you don't want to have children..."

It has since been reduced to just, "Tell me that story..."

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Last Saturday, on the flight to Orlando for a company meeting, I met quite a number of parents and kids - some on their way to the Mouse, and others on the first leg of a trip to Washington, DC for the Inauguration. Quite a combination of similar, yet still disparate types of energy.

Most of the kids were wonderful during the flight - it could have been much worse. I overheard one dad talking to a mom he was sitting across the aisle from, extolling the rewards and virtues of being a parent. "There's nothing better in the whole world." He kept saying this, over and over.

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For him. Nothing better for him. I'd be willing to bet that some of the parents that might happen to read what I've posted so far have been mildly offended or put off at least by my tone and phraseology.

I am OK with that. Please understand that I love kids, I loved teaching and think it's great that the world is making more Gays without me ever having to lift a finger.

But.

There are other things in the world. Other things that are better for Other people in the world. People who don't have any interest or drive or desire to be parents.

Sometimes, we come up on an odd, reverse side of that. Certain groups tell us that we can't be parents because it's wrong/immoral/illegal/inappropriate/fill in the blank. Other people tell us that we just don't know what we are missing, not being parents, and that we'll never really be fulfilled as humans without that knowledge and experience.

Makes me bristle.

What happened to Live and Let Live? I love your kids. I think your commitment to raising your kids is stunning and wonderful and breathtaking and I know it's something I could not and would not do in my lifetime. Why can't that be OK too?

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Last weekend, a waitress who lived and worked in the French Quarter was murdered outside her apartment as she was coming home from work. There were a few witnesses who were able to supply the police with descriptions and assist in creating sketches that were distributed throughout the city.

By noon yesterday, all three of the suspects involved in this robbery-gone-bad were in custody after turning themselves in to the authorities.

Two 15 year olds and one 14 year old. Who prompted them to turn themselves in?

Their mothers.

These mothers saw the sketches, recognized them immediately and urged their kids, their children to surrender to the police, peacefully. And they did.

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Could you do that? Could you go to your child and ask them, plead with them to hand their lives over to the police, knowing that what comes next is the unknowable?

It's only hypothetical for me, who will never have kids of my own - so it's easy for me to say, "Hell, yes."

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What about you, moms and dads? What about you? Could you do that?

A Belated Singular Saturday: Please - I cannot put up with 4 or 8 more years of

NU - KYA -LER

Come Hell or High Water...

In 1971, Follies opened on Broadway - a hugely ambitious show, revolving around the reunion of a follies cast (akin to Ziegfeld) for one last concert before their old theatre is leveled and turned into a parking lot.

One of the best numbers in the whole show - the big showstopper, if ever - is "I'm Still Here." Over the years, this song has been sung by the likes of Yvonne DeCarlo, Nancy Walker, Carol Burnett, Shirley MacLaine and Ann Miller - it's like winning the theatre fag lottery!

The song is replete with historical and cultural references and has been adapted time and again...and now I've stuck my hand into it to muddy the waters further. I hope I haven't done too much damage to one of my favorites.

So, with all apologies to Stephen Sondheim (along with my utmost admiration):

Good times and bum times,

We've seen them all, and by gosh...

We're Still Here.

Mardi Gras, one day...

Next day it's FEMA and Bush.

And we're here...

We made it through Katrina & Rita too,

Gustav and Ike both really blew.

We got through all of last year,

And we're here.

We've gotten through, "Hey, buddy! Why don'tchya just move away?"

Gee, that sure helps a heap.

Or better yet, "Why are you rebuilding anyway?"

Oh, Senator, go take a leap!

Fresh paint on one home,

One home stands vacant and bare.

But we're here.

One day, it's State Farm,

Next day, we dance without care...

And we're here.

We've had the best, and seen the worst,

Stayed through Katrina - the levees burst.

Come Hell or high water, and we're here...

Lord knows, at least we've been there...

And we're here.

We're still here...

Yes, we're here...

A Few Hours, A Couple Years Ago

August 29, 2005. We were awake early, watching the news.

Until the power went out. That was 6:32AM.

We would live our lives from sunrise to sunset for the next 8 days.

Monday was spent restlessly trying to nap or
read or in attempts at banal conversation.

The winds blew ceaselessly
- imagine the wax-paper-on-a-comb noise,
extrapolated to door-size shutters.

We dubbed the cacaphony "Satan's Harmonica."

After the worst of the storm had passed us,
we ventured outside to survey the devastation.

What we saw was bad - tree carnage,
mostly,and bits of the copper roof of
the Old US Mint strewn over ten blocks.

All the beautiful Magnolias in the St. Louis Cathedral
garden had succumbed to the force of the wind
- but in the midst of the wreckage,
the Mardi Gras Jesus still stood, unharmed.

(Forgive the sacrilege, please. The statue is of Jesus
with his arms raised up in the classic
"Throw Me Somthin', Mister!" pose.)

This was still hours before the levees gave way.

We had only sporadic radio reception,
but were inundated with rumors of the ugliest stripe.

We did not yet know the worst of it all.

And it was three days later before we finally left New Orleans.

It's been a tough year, even by New Orleans standards.

One of the things that I've always admired (and I must admit it's part of the city's appeal to me) about New Orleans is how it deals with tragedy. Some folks found their way to Louisiana through hardships in their homelands, others suffered upon arrival. So many different groups, with just about as many different kinds of suffering. Yellow Fever. Hurricanes. AIDS.

So much of what makes this region what it is today comes indirectly from the struggles it has endured. That will be what makes us stronger as we move through this ongoing recovery.

However.

It's been a really tough year.

New Orleans is still way below it's pre-Katrina population of 450, 000+. Recent estimates put us at less than half that, depending on which survey and what agency is in whose pocket to set the numbers high or low. That makes us now officially a small city. Smaller than Plano, TX. Tinier than Anchorage, AK. Embarrassingly diminutive next to the likes of Jersey City, Lexington, and Buffalo.

(Not that we're obsessed with size.)

However, if you haven't caught any of our news recently, it seems that people are just dying to get into New Orleans. Or maybe that's not quite right. Dying to stay, perhaps?

This past weekend brought our fair city its 90th and 91st murders. A handful of arrests have been made. No convictions this year. This is not the post to dwell on why. I don't have that kind of time just now. Most of those are gang/drug related retaliation killings. I once thought that you could fairly easily avoid the parts of the city where all this is happening.

I was wrong.

And now it's personal.

Last week, Robin was found beaten to death in his Marigny home. The Faubourg Marigny is the wonderful sprawling neighborhood adjacent to the French Quarter, and my home for many years now. Robin's house is a mere 7 blocks from my apartment.

It's all too close now.

There haven't been any arrests in his murder, although the authorities have questioned a "person of interest". Robin's car was taken at the time and found burned out some blocks away, either in an attempt to make it look like a robbery or some such act gone bad. Truth is we just don't know the truth and might never know.

But like I said, it's personal now. Robin rode the school bus with my friends Mark and Chrissie. He managed a bar that I frequented throughout my most formative years in the city. He was a champion of many causes, using his more recent success at the salon he owned with his sister to raise money for AIDS and breast cancer research. And as recently as October 2006, Robin had been interviewed by WDSU NewsChannel 6 regarding crime in New Orleans:

"Drive-by muggings -- I mean, there's guys riding around in vehicles just mugging people, jumping in their vehicles, going around the corner, mugging somebody else," Malta said. "I'd like to see the mayor actually walk Marigny Street, from Charters to Rampart Street, by himself at 3 o'clock in the morning. I guarantee you he'd get mugged."

No irony there, eh?

In 1997, Robin reigned as Southern Decadence Grand Marshall, and single-handedly scared the crap out of a whole hell of a lot of military guys when the parade he was leading intersected with the Labor Day Parade in the Quarter. In full "I Dream of Jeanie" costume, he mounted the running board of the nearest Humvee as it slowly cruised down the street. Holding onto the driver's side mirror and waving his free arm wildly, singing at the top of his lungs as the parade crawled along Decatur Street - I can still hear him belting out the theme song now.

It's up to us to remember in our own ways each person who's gone now. But it's more than murders. It's all kinds of death now.

It appeared to start with older friends - struggling with myriad afflictions, and exacerbated by the effort of recovery - started to succumb more rapidly. A shocker for me was Sandra. Sandra (whom I always pictured as 40ish) passed away at the tender age of 67 after struggling through the horror of Alzheimer's. I first met Sandra in 1991, weeks after I arrived in NOLA at a P-FLAG meeting - she was president of this chapter for 15 years and spearheaded the national meeting here in 1993. I had not seen her since the storm.

I sang with our church choir at a truly moving memorial service last week for a former choir member at my church. Chris was described during the service as a magnificently kind and elegant woman - and she was. But, oh...she could be salty when she wanted to be. It was her kindness and elegance that made her saltiness shocking and yet acceptable.

Arly, the owner of a local pub and grub, suffered a devastating 45 minute seizure that left her in a vegetative state for 2 weeks before she mercifully slipped away one day. My dear friend Venette's wife Cate worked for Arly for years - and I had the great honor of attending the wedding rehearsal dinner Arly and her partner Louis through for Cate and Venette. Lord, did they throw down some food that night!

An officer in a nearby parish died in an on-duty accident 10 days ago. During the car procession to his funeral, a violent summer storm blew up - winds so fierce they knocked a huge tree over onto the car of two officers on their way to the service...killing one officer and critically injuring the other.

A New Orleans officer took his own life just days before standing trial for brutally beating an unarmed 65 year old retired teacher in the early repopulation after Katrina.

So much death following so many months of struggle to bring this city back to life...

Before the week is over, New Orleans will have its 100th murder. Like other bloodier milestones, this is not one to celebrate.

Somehow, we...We will come through. We will grieve. We will deal with tragedy. We may employ some clearly inappropriate humor and drink a bit too much to do it, but we'll deal.

We - together - will get through this.

There are only two things certain right now in New Orleans. The first is daunting, but the second is much more powerful.

1. More death will come to our city.


2. We will rise.
   

(For those of you wondering where I've been and why I haven't been posting to the blog, it's been a really tough couple of weeks. And this post was trying to get out.)