Bus Rider (w/ apologies to the Guess Who)

I like the bus, I really do. I wish more people would take it, making issues of downtown parking in Albany (and undoubtedly elsewhere) less of a problem . I wish that urban sprawl would not make it so difficult to facilitate usable bus routes, because all of those single-passenger cars are helping to create a lot more air pollution.

And I’ve had some very good bus experiences. There’s a guy from my choir, Bruce, who I chat with about the world. There’s Shirley, the Red Cross cookie lady, who always asks about my family. Just last week, I ran into a woman with a daughter Lydia’s age — and another child who is 25! And there are other interesting folks.

Having said that, I had a couple bus experiences this year that weren’t so great. But these are exceptions, the EXCEPTIONS. I like the bus.

One day, I took the #10 Western Avenue bus so I could get to an event. We’d gone about three blocks when a woman in a wheelchair got on the bus. I think it’s great how the bus creates a ramp to let in those physically challenged. The bus driver pushes up a couple seats which expose the base from which the wheelchair can be secured. Well, the driver thought it was secured, but the woman in the wheelchair did NOT. The driver fussed with it for five minutes, but the rider was not satisfied. The bus driver was obviously getting very frustrated. Finally, the passenger said it was OK to go.
We go four more blocks when another woman getting on the bus fell. This would involve calling the dispatcher and making a report, so I got off that bus, walked a block, then caught the next bus. Fortunately, the event was later than I thought and all ended well.

Another day, I took the #63 bus. It’s a bus that starts downtown Albany, makes a couple turns in the city, and ends up fairly close to the #10 bus route for a while, eventually ending up in Schenectady. It started about 5 minutes late. It is the last bus on this route for the night.
A woman was chatting away about some TV show (I believe it was “Desperate Housewives”) in a quite loud voice with a level of detail that suggested that she thought they were real people. And apparently, she didn’t find it necessary to breathe, but was seemingly enamored of her own voice. Right before the bus makes the right turn from Lark Street onto Madison Avenue, she announces that she’s going to look left on Madison to see if a particular person was coming. We make the turn, and she yells to the bus driver, “STOP THE BUS! SHE’S COMING!” The bus driver, who was black (not so incidentally), was somewhat confused/startled, but complied, then the woman got out to get the would-be passenger (WBP). “Don’t leave without me! I’ve got my things in there!” she proclaimed. He yells to the woman as she, none-too-quickly, goes back to WBP, “Hurry up, lady! I’ve got a route to complete!”
Passenger gets back to the bus WITHOUT WBP; because WBP figured the bus had already passed (remember it had started late), WBP had called her boyfriend for a ride. Now, the passenger is arguing about this with the driver WHILE SHE IS STANDING OUTSIDE OF THE BUS. “Get in!” the other passengers, including me, scream. She does, but orates that she would want someone to do the same for her. She then opines that “you blacks live in the city, you can take another bus, but it was her [WBP’s]last opportunity.” She went on in this vein for a couple minutes. Now, it was true that I could have taken the #10 20 minutes later and gotten to nearly the same place. It was also true that WBP’s options were limited. But her (unnecessary) racial characterization was bizarre; there were as many white people as black people on the bus, and there were undoubtedly some black people on that bus for which that vehicle was their last option as well. As I got off the bus, I told her that I didn’t appreciate her “racist crap.” The incident put me in a bit of a sour mood until I got home and saw Lydia.

But I really like the bus. REALLY. It’s a good thing, the bus. Ride the bus. Mass transit rules.

ROG

Antoinette

I watch the Oscars because, B.L. (Before Lydia), I would have seen at least 70% of the award nominees in the major categories (movie, director, 2 actor, 2 actress, and 2 screenplay categories.) I root for my favorite shows on the Emmys. I like to watch the Grammys to hear the artists I’ve read about in magazines but never actually heard, usually in the minor categories.

(“I like to watch.” I sound like Chauncey Gardiner (Peter Sellers) in Being There, a 1979 movie that is one of my favorites.)

But I watch the Tony Awards because it is generally all I know of the shows on Broadway. I mean, there is usually ONE show I’ve heard of (this year’s winning musical Spamalot, The Producers from a couple of seasons ago), but that’s it, except for the revivals.

I like to discover that a number of actors better known from other venues are on the boards. In the “featured actor (play)” category, Alan Alda (West Wing), Gordon Clapp (N.Y.P.D. Blue), and winner in his Broadway debut Liev Schrieber (the remake of the movie The Manchurian Candidate) all were in a revival of Glengarry Glen Ross. The “actress (play)” category was filled with women best known for the film (Laura Linney, Mary-Louise Parker, Kathleen Turner) and television (Phylicia Rashad), though most (or all) have been on Broadway before. Rashad won last year for A Raisin in the Sun; Cherry Jones (winner a decade ago for The Heiress) won this year for Doubt.

And I don’t watch ANY of these shows to find out who won. In fact, I’ve seen only the first hour of the show Sunday night, but I already know the results. I like to see HOW they won, how the people react, so I’ll watch the tape at my leisure.

I STOPPED watching the Tonys on Sunday because it was Lydia’s bedtime, and the quietness of the house seems to maximize the possibility that she’ll actually go to sleep and stay that way. By the time she was in bed, I flicked through the channels and ended up watching the Mets beat the Giants. (Incidentally, the musical The Light in the Piazza apparently has nothing to do with Mets catcher Mike Piazza.)

My buddy Fred Hembeck has been extolling the wonderfulness of one Mark Evanier for some time, and Mark has a lot to say about the Tonys that I found interesting on June 5 and 6, and even on June 4, when he predicted most of the winners correctly. He also writes about medical marijuana (6/6) and Deep Throat (6/3), topics covered recently on this page, and how the rich get richer, and the myth of the “death tax” (6/6), which I would have written about had I had something cogent to say.

While I’m plugging other pages, let me mention the upcoming reintroduction of the NEW Comic Book Galaxy by a long-time FantaCo customer (and a big booster of this page) Alan David Doane, starting Monday, June 13. I’ll be honest: I don’t know WHAT to expect, but ADD has a lot of heart, so if you’re into the comic medium, it should be good. (And now the pressure is on, Alan.)

Going from pot

I’ve purchased marijuana exactly one time in my life. It was some years ago (note to law enforcement officials: the statute of limitations applies) that a friend of mine, who I knew to be fairly staunchly opposed to ever smoking pot himself, asked me if I knew where to buy some. His uncle had glaucoma, and the scientific research of the time suggested that marijuana could relieve the uncle’s extreme discomfort. He also had some other ailments, and the nephew had hoped that the pot would stir his meager appetite.
So I asked the one person I knew would likely know where to find some marijuana. He sold it to me, I passed it on to my friend (at the same price), and I heard later that the uncle did seem to respond well to the “treatment.”

The interesting thing about Supreme Court rulings (well, interesting to a political science major, which I was) is that their rulings are not phrased as about the issue that gets played in the press (“Court Knocks Pot”) but about more arcane matters. So, in the case decided by the Court on Monday, it’s not so much about medical marijuana, it’s a states’ rights issue, whether Congress had exceeded its authority vis a vis the states regarding medical marijuana.

SCOTUS

The old poli sci major finds the federal government’s argument to be strong: state law is generally subservient to federal law, “even as applied to the troubling facts of this case,” as Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the majority, put it. But I find the position stated in Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s dissenting opinion that a state has a right to take care of its citizens even more compelling. If you’ve seen the videos of Angel McClary Raich before treatment when she could barely move, and after treatment, when she appeared as a normally functioning person, you’d find her, at bare minimum, a sympathetic respondent. And I do believe there is sufficient science to suggest that there are real medical benefits of marijuana.

Which begs the question: if I had it to do over again, would I purchase marijuana for someone in medical need? Let’s put it this way: Montel Williams indicated that he’ll still be using marijuana for his multiple sclerosis, but knows that by saying so, he makes himself a target for prosecution. I wouldn’t SAY that I’d buy it, but…

End hunger

One of the other things I do (besides family, library, church, and blog), is to serve as the web person for the FOCUS Churches of the Capital District. The FOCUS community minister, Deb Jameson, sent me an electronic package of material this week about legislation designed to END HUNGER BY 2015. I’m a bit too much of a cynic to necessarily believe that will succeed, but I DO believe that NOT taking action will have its own (negative) consequences. So, if you want, check out the “End Hunger Legislation-June 2005” button at the left column of the FOCUS page. Some of the information is specific to the Albany area, but unless there’s no hunger in YOUR neighborhood, some of it could be modified to meet your community’s needs.

Another thing you might do is check out the article and website below:

Hunger Basics from Bread for the World

More than 800 million people in the world go hungry.
In developing countries, 6 million children die each year, mostly from hunger-related causes.
In the United States, 13 million children live in households where people have to skip meals or eat less to make ends meet. That means one in ten households in the U.S. are living with hunger or are at risk of hunger.
But we CAN end hunger.
We have the means. The financial costs to end hunger are relatively slight. The United Nations Development Program estimates that the basic health and nutrition needs of the world’s poorest people could be met for an additional $13 billion a year. Animal lovers in the United States and Europe spend more than that on pet food each year.
What makes the difference between millions of hungry people and a world where all are fed?
Only a change in priorities. Only the will to end hunger.
Want to learn more? Bread for the World Institute collects facts on domestic and global hunger. It also generates answers to frequently asked questions about hunger. Or you can learn about what issues Bread for the World members are working on right now to bring an end to hunger in the U.S. and around the world. You can also get involved or write a letter to your member of Congress.

Boys in the Band

I had dropped out of the State University College at New Paltz and was working as a janitor in Binghamton City Hall in the spring of 1975 while my sister Leslie was performing in “A Funny Thing Happened On The Way to the Forum” for the Binghamton Civic Theater. After the short run ended, Charlie, who was the lead in “Forum”, decided to direct a play called Boys in the Band, which had played on Broadway in 1968, and was made into a movie in 1970. If you’ve looked at either hyperlink, you’d know that this was a play featuring seven (or eight?) gay men at a dinner party.
Charlie had a casting call, and given my need for greater mental stimulation, I decided to try out. As it turns out there was a specifically black character in the play, and that I was the only black person to try out. (Though Charlie said that I would have been cast regardless.)
We started rehearsals. Some of the cast (at least five) were in fact gay, but at least two of us (a guy named Bill, who played the lead, and myself) were not. So Charlie thought that we all ought to go to a gay bar, as some sort of bonding experience. I did not know there WAS a gay bar in Binghamton, but there it be, a couple blocks from my old high school. It was an interesting experience having a guy (or two) hit on me.
We also went to at least one party at either Charlie’s or cast member Jeffrey’s house, and it was a fascinating mix of the banal (pretty normal conversations about weather and whatnot) with the stereotypical (music by Barbra and Judy).
Bill used to give me a ride home after rehearsals and we’d talk about the experience of working on the play, what surprised us, what preconceived notions we might have had and how they had been challenged.
One of the things that the script required was for me to kiss my “lover” – it was a peck on the lips- played by a guy named Mickey. It was difficult for about 3/4s of the rehearsal time, but finally, I decided, “I am an actor, I can do this.” (Though, in fact, I hadn’t been in a play since 1970, when I was in high school.) In any case, in the last week of rehearsal, I finally managed to do the kiss.
Near the end of the play, Bill had a lengthy monologue which he was having a hard time learning. Charlie got impatient with him during the later rehearsals. My character is “passed out” on the floor for about 10 minutes during this time, and I found that I was learning Bill’s lines. So during the rehearsals (but not during the actual performance), I’d whisper lines to him, which I believe helped.
The play was performed for a couple weekends. Another of the things the script called for was for Jeffrey’s character to take a shower. So, he took off his clothes and feigned taking a shower. I never saw the scene until the play opened (my character had not yet arrived at the party), but it garnered audible gasps each time. (I thought it was a bit gratuitous.)
The review in the newspaper never even reviewed the performances, but instead noted the play as a “statement” of some sort.
My high school friend Carol (not to be confused with my-now wife Carol) later tells me about this dialogue with our mutual HS friend.
Lois: It’s too bad about Roger.
Carol: What ABOUT Roger?
Lois: That he’s gay.
Carol: He’s not gay!
And apparently, the pastor at a church I used to attend thought so, too, as he gave me definite vibes.

That was the first time that I was aware that some people thought I was gay. It was definitely a learning experience in being “the other” from a different perspective.

I remember there were some (presumably) straight actors in that same period who were stereotyped for their orientation in a movie or play. So other performers were wary of taking on such roles. Someone from Martin Sheen’s high school recently told me that Sheen came back some years later, and the faculty adviser said that Sheen could be asked about almost anything…except about that highly rated mid-1970s TV movie called, “That Certain Summer,” in which he played a gay man. I often wonder just how much progress we’ve made since then.
…
And, coincidentally: For all you baseball fans, watch Carson, Jai, Kyan, Ted, and Thom kick off the start of a fabulous new season of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, when the Fab Five visit the World Champion Boston Red Sox. Tuesday (tomorrow) at 10 p.m. on Bravo.

ROG
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