Whatever Happened to Class?

"Whatever happened to fair dealing?
And pure ethics
And nice manners?
Why is it everyone now is a pain in the ass?
Whatever happened to class?....

Whatever happened to, "Please, may I?"
And, "Yes, thank you?"
And, "How charming?"
Now, every son of a bitch is a snake in the grass
Whatever happened to class?"

-From the musical "Chicago" by Fred Kander & John Ebb


Don't be misled by the title of this post or the above-quoted lyric. I'm all for vulgarity. I have a passion for fart gags, Helen Keller jokes, and movies like the classic 80s flick "Moving Violations" (in which a senile old lady accidentally uses the men's room and afterward wonders aloud, "Why is my back all wet?"). Yup. Tasteless farce holds a special place in the cockles of my heart.

However -- and of course there is a However....

There is a proper setting for the distasteful. What I'm talking about here is a different animal entirely. In our everyday lives, in our common interactions with other people, whenever we encounter the authentic, it is a call to respond with civility. Or, at the very least, with a little bit of class.

Today on the train home from work, a middle-aged woman boarded the packed car. Noticing that she was having a hard time finding something to hold onto for support, I stood and offered her my seat. "Would you like to sit, ma'am?" I asked -- and I'm not trying to sound like Polly-effin'-anna here: this is how I really talk to other people in real life.

By way of reply, she looked me in the eye, caustic, and said flatly, "NO."

What cut me so deeply is not necessarily that she declined my offer. What struck me was that there was no "thank you" trailing that acid NO. It is, admittedly, a tad sensitive (and more naive than I care to ponder) that I would actually be offended -- or even surprised -- that this person didn't say "no, thank you" to me. But this is just one example in a little game I play with myself, called, for lack of a better term:

"Classed or Sassed".

The rules of "Classed or Sassed" are simple, in case you too would like to play this version of human solitaire. Throughout the course of a single day, go about your business as you normally would, and just take note of how many times people respond with even a modicum of class, or, barring that, a hiss of sass. The instructions are very black and white: every reaction you get will fall into one of the two categories of the game. There are no gray areas.

For example, another episode from my own life. I always hold the door for people. If someone acknowledges this gesture and says "thank you", that means I've been Classed. On the other hand, if someone completely ignores me, as if expecting that the door should of course be opened for them, well, that would qualify as being Sassed. At the end of the day, the sad, sometimes devastating, outcome of the game is that there's typically a lot more sass on your tally sheet than class.

So this begs the question, Whatever happened to class? I was raised that if someone did something nice for you, you thanked them. Not a tough concept, really. Yet apparently for a lot of people it is. Regardless of the act, be it a transaction at the grocery store, a stranger letting you exit the elevator first, or a server bringing your food out as ordered and without a globber of spit, a thank-you is compulsory.

If you would've asked me just a few short months ago, I would've been adamant that this behavior was Boston-centric. Only Bostonians, I'd say, act this way. But this was simply hardened denial on my part, a protective layer if you will. It is not just Boston that forgets to say please and thank you. It's the entire world. While I agree that geography does play an inexplicable, important role in how nice someone is, the fact remains that jackasses don't have their own zipcode. And I fear the classless are taking over the world.

With that being said, I will tell you the places I've encountered where people are the classiest:

• Whole Foods. The sexy punk boys and girls working the checkout always, without fail, say "Thank you".
• My local mom-and-pop convenience store. The dwarf with the cigarette hanging out of his mouth always lisps his grateful thanks.
• My dentist's office. These people are the best. They make me believe in the goodness of humanity, which is, you must admit, a strange thing to encounter at a dentist's office.

And here are places you'll find those enemies of class: the sassers:

• The MBTA. These people are paid quite handsomely, and they despise themselves, each other, and the human race in general. Be content if they don't close the door on your prosthetic leg or push you down a flight of concrete steps once you've passed through the turnstyle. And, by some freak miracle, you may one day encounter a trainee who has not yet read their manual, and you might get a thank-you. Should this happen, contact the MBTA immediately and tell them. They never hear this. Ever. They will be baffled with this new feeling of pleasure. But don't expect a response...because that would be classy.
• Roadways, subway cars, and buslines. The vast majority of commuters would rather eat your liver than let you in their lane, or move their bag so you can sit down. They hate you and want to fillet your children. Trust.
• Airport security checkpoints. TSA employees make about as much money as the neighborhood homeless man that rifles through the trash on garbage day looking for cans to take to the redemption center. Add to this the fact that TSAers are under contract to the government, giving them a "superiority" over us common folk. And when you combine low wages + bloated sense of power, you get Sass in the extreme. Don't expect a please, thank-you, or have-a-nice-day from these people. Consider yourself blessed if they don't haul you off to Guantanamo. I even once had a TSA "official" warn me about traveling with my husband because John forgot to take his keys out of his pocket before passing through the metal detector.
  

Now it's your turn. Play the home game of "Classed or Sassed" and see how well you fare.

I wish you luck.

Love (Seven Haikus)

Happy Anniversary, John.


i
It’s a bad morning
I sink into red despair
Johnny starts to sing

ii
I’m always frantic
On my desk a plum tulip
He has left for me

iii
Stuck in office hell
A box delivered to me
He’s sent me chocolates

iv
Money worries me
Sour green necessity
His smile sets me free

v
Showering we dance
It’s our wet tango of souls
He is my bright rain

vi
On Valentine’s Day
It’s franks and beans and Buffy
Curled up tight in bed

vii
We are beyond word
Venetian canals and song
Spilling from above

His Celluloid Footprint: Remembering Heath Ledger's Ennis Del Mar

Heath Ledger was a complex guy. When he found mainstream success, he could've gone in so many less noble directions. Instead, he stayed true to his craft and seemed to only tackle roles that challenged him (and us). When I heard of Ledger's death, I was, like the rest of the world, shocked. I was immediately drawn into the drama and mystery surrounding his final hours, yet at the end of the day, I found myself drawn not to the scandalous, but to the eternal. What is eternal is Ledger's body of work. All of his performances are commendable, but he will more than likely be remembered for one performance in particular. A performance so singular and exceptional, it is indicative of an impressive talent and fearless bravado. And what a legacy he has left us in the character of Ennis Del Mar.

When I first saw "Brokeback Mountain", I was blown away. In fact, I didn't speak for about 24 hours after seeing it. It was a lot to process and wrap my mind around. Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal were simply superb. Yet to label their performances "superb" is not really doing either of them justice. It would be more appropriate to say that they were utterly, brilliantly, tragically real. While Gyllenhaal's Jack Twist was terrific, it was Ledger's Ennis that made this film for me. It is a performance you really must decipher, not just watch. It is a challenging, and I daresay flawless, examination of repression, devotion, and manhood. A character that at first may come across as a grumbling, grouchy cowboy is really something so much more. But Ennis's secrets won't be handed to you: you have to look for them. Which is precisely what makes this portrayal so blissfully challenging.

I instantly saw in Ennis so many men I've known in my life. I come from a place as desolate and remote as Wyoming, a place where strict lines are drawn between right and wrong, good and bad, moral and immoral. Living under such restrictions, people tend to fall into themselves, expressing their humanity in a slump of the shoulders or a knot of the brow. Ennis Del Mar is one of these men. He has wholly collapsed into his own body. He avoids eye contact, his forehead is permanently creased, his spine perpetually curved. So elaborate and successful has his self-forgetting been that his voice is a mere croak and his gait is one of defiance and purpose. Purpose to what, we don't know -- and neither does Ennis. That's why his connection to Jack is so intense: we see a glimpse of purpose, of humanity, behind those heavily-veiled eyes and that firm-set mouth. And at the end of "Brokeback Mountain", when Ennis finally allows himself to not only feel, but to express something, it is as if our own floodgates have been, at long last, burst wonderfully open.

This one contribution to film is worth more than most actors' entire resumes. It is a brave man that can tackle such a role with a spirit of energetic investigation. When I remember Heath Ledger, I will not think about his sad end, but I will instead think of Ennis Del Mar. And how fortunate we are to have had an actor like Heath Ledger among us.

Book Review: "Martha Quest" by Doris Lessing

"I am so tired of it, and also tired of the future before it comes." -Olive Schreiner

This quote, by South African author and activist Schreiner, opens Doris Lessing's 1952 novel "Martha Quest". These words are appropriate in capturing the mind and heart of the book's eponymous heroine, who, in this first installment of Lessing's masterwork series titled "Children of Violence", we see in the early years of her burgeoning womanhood. Sensitive and wise beyond her age, the young Martha is a tangled spirit struggling with her own contradictions, sense of self, and the inhumanity of humanity.

Like much of Lessing's early work, this book takes place in a changing Africa, between the World Wars, populated with British wealth and arrogance and Native displacement. Martha, 15 and tomboyish at the novel's outset, is a passionate force of repression and emotion, which she attempts to identify and put meaning to throughout the story's unfolding.

She observes the world around her with a ferocious intensity. She notes the complete disillusionment of the white settlers -- two of whom are her detached, uninvolved parents, who have no trouble telling their only daughter that she was unwanted and therefore not as wholly lovable as her older brother. She witnesses the brutal victimization of the native population by nearly everyone around her, baffled by both the disgusting prejudice of the whites and the resigned acquiescence of the natives. She sees this discrimination at work in her friendship with the Cohen brothers, Jewish and independent and intellectual, for which she is ostracized by her parents and community in a monstrous subtlety that is ever-so-British. As Martha makes her way to the big city to forge her own autonomous existence, she is confronted again with people at home, work, and play, who are equally adrift in a sea of discord, detachment, and incomprehension.

Is it any wonder, then, that Martha Quest is not only exhausted, but is utterly lost in trying to reconcile her own identity and ideals with a world that is equally lost?

The beauty of "Martha Quest" is in her courageous examination of this world. She makes no apologies for her mass of contradictions, understanding, it seems, that this may well be the one universal element we all share. This is precisely the reason I love Doris Lessing. She takes a character to which I may have no outward similarities and, through fearless investigation of the character's existence, makes her story both timeless and universal.

And of course, there is the language. The dazzling passages are simply beyond anything in modern literature. Lessing's descriptions of the landscapes - both internal and external - are riveting and lush with the tiniest pinpoints of detail and lucidity. Feeling an author's scenery and characters is one thing (and challenging enough). Being right there with them is something much more powerful, beautiful, and, ultimately, rewarding.

A Pastel Life (Or, Ten Reasons Why I Loves Mah Kitties)

"With dogs and people, it's love in big splashy colors. When you're involved with a cat, you're dealing in pastels." - Louis A. Camuti, DVM

All my life, I've been what you would call A Dog Person. It's not that I didn't like cats; in fact, quite the opposite. Several friends' cats held, and continue to hold, a special place in my heart. But I didn't have that connection that comes with cat ownership (a term that is a sort of a paradox because, as all cat owners often ask themselves, who really owns who in this relationship?).

Enter Fergus and Claire. They were two strays that were dropped off at a local shelter: Fergus from the wild streets of Weymouth, and Claire, not even weaned, found abandoned with her siblings and mother behind a plumbing company in South Boston. This was in August of 2005. John and I had decided to get a cat, and I was adamant that I wanted just one, and he/she had to be fully-grown, even geriatric, so as not to disrupt our lives with frantic kitty energy. Well, the moment we walked into Petco Adoption Day, and saw these two feline "siblings" (they had found one another at the shelter and were inseparable, so they were to be adopted as a pair), all my well-ordered plans fell to goo.

And something telling happened when my two eyes met their four. I found myself instantly falling into what I only knew previously as my "dogspeak". You know what I mean: it's that voice we all put on when we see a dog, or a cat, or a baby. Mine consists mainly of squeals of laughter peppered with kissy-face noises. I discovered myself on the floor, eye-level with these adorable little kittens, giggling and squeaking and kissing.

Later, we took them home.

The last two and a half years of cat-daddying have been fraught with lessons, and I wanted to put some of these lessons into a coherent structure to better see the world these creatures have opened for me. Respecting my bizarre passion for lists, I compiled just ten, of probably hundreds of reasons, why I adore my feline charges.

10. Cats are neat freaks. And so am I. Speaking in terms of the poo alone, it is so much easier to handle and discard a little tootsie roll than it is a hot steaming chocolate soufflé.

9. Cat kisses, which fall somewhere between the feel of velvet and the feel of sandpaper, are a divine exfoliation treatment. God's skin care line, if you will.

8. Cats make no qualms about the fact that they like some people more than others. While Claire clearly prefers John, Fergus is a little orange man after my own heart. I wish I could be so choosy, and blunt, with the people I come in contact with.

7. Cats forgive, but they do not forget. Cats are quite capable of holding grudges. They will eventually forgive any slight, but the memory of it will remain unerasable.

6. Stroking a cat, like stroking a dog, is a tremendously meditative experience. It has been scientifically proven that petting a cat or dog prolongs the life of the petter. And the animal, ever aware of their Buddha-nature, dwells nowhere but in the moment: the supreme perfection of the interaction with the present.

5. Cats will give you your space. If you don't feel like being lovey-dovey, or they don't feel like being loved on, they are more than happy to retreat to their own places. And without an ounce of ill will. Yet on the other hand, cats are also highly intuitive. I often get in those sullen, silent states where I just don't want to be bothered. It has been more than once that Fergus has curled up on my chest, eyes locked with mine, purring with an almost jarring vibration, and single-handedly (single-pawedly?) lifting me out of my self.

4. Cats are divinely content with their own company. If you must go out of town for the weekend, a cat is fine with full bowls of food and water and a clean place to potty. When you come through the door on Sunday evening, they regard you with a casual look that seems to say, "Meh. Back so soon?" I of course envision all sorts of feline debauchery in our absence: kitty keggars, little catnip doobies, maybe even a neighborhood stray invited in for a lapdance. But in all reality, the weekend was more than likely serenely quiet and filled with hours of sleep and maybe a little swatting around of a kitty toy or two.

3. The hacking-up of a furball can be a wonderful release. Every once in a while, one of the cats will grow a bit agitated and start making "uh-oh-I'm-gonna-puke" noises. Moments later, a gooey wad of hair will plop out of his/her mouth. After that, said cat will stretch languidly, rejuvenated, and scamp around gaily, free of that cumbersome lump in the throat.

2. Cats are amazingly limber creatures. If humans could achieve some of the positions a cat can (my favorite: "Playing the Cello", as John calls it), the need for sex would become obsolete.

1. Cats are discriminating. While dogs are blissfully boundless with their love, affection, and attention, cats prescribe to no such theory. A cat demands your feelings on their terms alone. And if they find it ill-suiting, they will simply walk away. They are complex animals, I would even go so far as to call them self-actualized. We must earn the right to be in their presence. They decide who they let in. There is something quite respectable in that.

Infinite Things: Adventures in Customer Service, Part I

"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe." -Albert Einstein

This is an actual phone call I received at work the other day:

Me: "Good afternoon, customer service, this is Donn."

Caller: "I want to speak to the head of the [magazine name] department."

Me: "I'm sorry, they don't have a separate department, we're all the same office. How can I help you?"

Caller: "You can't. I want to speak to them."

Me: "[Magazine name] is a publication that is written entirely by contributers, no one in-house. We're the publisher. Perhaps if you told me what this is regarding, I can better assist you?"

Caller (long, agonized sigh; the tone turns to one of utter condescension): "Nooooo!"

Me (ever-perky): "Ma'am, I'm just trying to help you. Does this have something to do with your subscription?"

Caller (firmly nailed to the cross now): "No."

Me (forced to wear Sherlock Holmes hat): "Is this regarding something you read in the magazine?"

Caller: "No."

Me: "Is this--?"

Caller: "I will speak to them about that."

Me (frantically trying to figure out a way to rephrase the fact that there is no them to speak to): "I'm only trying--"

Caller: "Look. Put me through to someone. Now."

At a loss, I transferred her to the VP of publishing, who, of course, transferred her back to customer service after giving her a free subscription (quick note: if you ever complain, you will get free stuff, it's the law of the land; contrary to popular belief, it is not the loyal, dependable, trustworthy customers who are rewarded in our society: it is the jackasses). Apparently, this customer had missed an issue of the magazine, which I don't need to tell you, is an issue handled by customer service.

Now I was really perplexed. What made this customer think that the head of a renowned magazine was going to be able to fix a subscription concern? We in customer service would have just as generously and just as quickly offered her a free subscription as penance for our wickedness, so why was it necessary to be so rude to me when the same result would've been achieved? Well obviously, I am not "someone".

Normally in a conversation like you and I are having right now, I would begin on a well-meaning, emotionally-driven tirade about how we need to respect one another, be kind to each other, realize that we're all on the same team, and blah blah blah. I would say something like, "I'm a person, too! Treat me with a little dignity, that's all I ask!" Then I would perhaps drop a picturesque tear that would catch the light just so, and you and I would go ride ponies into the sunset.

To hell with that.

This is what I'm proposing....

The next time you are at Denny's and the scrambled eggs in your Grand Slam breakfast don't meet the degree of fluffiness you require, don't send it back. Don't ask to have it remade. Don't even ask to speak to the manager. I want you to handcuff yourself to the plastic booth you're sitting in and tell them you are not leaving until you speak to the CEO of Denny's. Or until the police haul both you and the plastic booth off to the pokey, whichever comes first.

The next time you are in line at the post office, don't be discouraged about the 700 people in line in front of you and the two clerks working lackadaisically up front. Because once you get to the front of the line, you are going to whip out a length of chain and attach yourself to the counter until you get an audience with U.S. Postmaster General John E. Potter. For if anyone can right the egregious wrong of people having to wait in line, it will be John E. Potter.

You see where I'm going with all this.

It's not a time to rest on our laurels and just silently hope that other people become human. We have to take the bull by the balls and magnify their pomposity and arrogance in order to show them how ridiculous they really are. If we all do this, those people who need to learn the lesson will eventually get it.

If for no other reason than it will be very trying to get into a Denny's, or next to impossible to buy a postage stamp.

Song for a Snow Day

January morning:
Silver world. The city has shut down, a brittle

Metropolis weighted under the gravity
Of winter. The snow cuts fine, pewter-white trails through

The new blue air, and I am reprieved from phone calls
And petty bureaucracies for one blissful day.

There are lessons to learn
In this quiet alabaster declination:

The story of our lives as seen through the shining
White eyes of a snowy revolution. Human

Autobiography falling, languid, to Earth.
The flakes begin as excitedly as a new

Birth, coming to dwell with
their likenesses: it is a surprisingly smooth

Labor. Yet we all know things will not remain so
Easy. Some will vanish beneath rubber-soled (souled?)

Gods; some will grow dirty with the pollution of
The world, scraped aside in such bladed agony;

And still others will thrive
So inexplicably, gathered in neat mounds like

Bolts of Venetian lace. Their commonality
Will only reemerge upon their small deathbeds;

Sinister sun, swallow us with your light quickly,
That is all we ask. Oh fat white flakes: Sing to me

Of little deaths.

Off the Field: The Men of the Sandbach Rugby Club

I was recently sent this video about the members of the Sandbach Rugby Club in Cheshire, UK. If you check out the link, be advised the video isn't appropriate for work (unless you're a porn star), but it's not exactly gratuitous either. The cameras follow the young men around on a night of drinking and flirting and carousing after winning a game. Pretty humdrum stuff, you're probably thinking. But what makes this video interesting is that these heterosexual frat boy-types are not drinking and flirting and carousing with the local girls. They're drinking and flirting and carousing with one another.

Despite the open sexuality and incredible good looks of these fellas, I wasn't drawn into this video as a form of low-rent porn. I was drawn into it as a study of human sexuality. I can hear now (as is reflected in the You Tube comments alone) the protestations of gays and straights alike. Gay men are exclaiming, "Come out of the closet already!". Straight men are asserting, "That's disgusting! They went too far!". My response is in neither of these categories.

You see, I felt proud watching these guys. I was more appalled by the bar-diving and 330 pints consumed throughout the night than I was by the unabashed display of sexuality. Young people drink. A lot. This is an unfortunate reality and far be it for me to judge it. My feelings of pride came into the picture when I realized that these guys, all of whom I would venture to say are heterosexual, are grasping a very important and healthy concept: Sexuality is fluid. It is in constant flux. It is never cemented or nailed down if we are open to it. Society demands that we label it; our hearts do not.

And is it really such a stretch to believe that these young men, living and working in such close quarters and undeniably bonded, would be open to the possibility of expressing their feelings in a physical manifestation? I think not. In fact, it makes a lot of sense. I salute these guys for not buying into some butch-jock stereotype and doing their own thing. In spite of the hardcore partying and daredevil antics, I actually think they are pretty mature, having already understood lessons that the rest of us can't even let into our fields of possibility. Society will place its restrictions upon them soon enough. For now, let them have this.

Play on, Sandbach Rugby Club! Play on!

Walking the Line: Admissions of an Anti-Diarist

I've always had trouble with diaries.

Despite the inspiration I draw from people like Anne Frank, Anais Nin, and Samuel Pepys, I will never be a successor to any of them. Keeping a journal requires a commitment and dedication that I sorely lack. I see it as more of a burden than a release: something I would have to force myself to do.

I could probably trace this back to the fifth grade, when we were made to keep a diary every day. The teacher would put a topic on the blackboard, and we would write uninterrupted for fifteen minutes after the first bell had sounded. The exercise in and of itself was something I greatly enjoyed; the fact that we had to do it was something I did not. This carried over into later years, when we were assigned books to read for book reports. Although the books were unarguably classics ("Lord of the Flies", "To Kill A Mockingbird"), and I probably would've loved them, I did not read them. I didn't want to be told what to read. I would rather have failed than not follow my own instinct. Reading and writing have always been deeply personal and important to me, and if I'm going to read or write anything, I want it to be something I can pour my heart into completely.

So it is interesting that I should start a blog. My fear as I write this inaugural entry is that this task of blogging will turn into...well, a task. I want this to be something I want to do, not something I've "assigned" myself to undertake. So I'm setting up some ground rules to keep my mind and my pen focused. I will only tackle certain parts of my history; I will use this forum as a place to make solid my opinions, my criticisms, my praises. This will not, I hope, be a place to air my dirty laundry or to free associate. I have a therapist for those things.

I realize I'm walking a delicate line here, trying to segregate my thoughts (which are so often a bit warped and scandalous) into something both entertaining and useful to you. And that's precisely why I write: to feel less alone. The idea that someone, somewhere, may read something of mine, and say, Yes! I know how you feel! That is a tremendously comforting thought to me. And so, while I may not mention (or dwell) on the unseemly, you have my word that I will be authentic and honest and present to you the truth as I know it. Your truth may differ, and I embrace that. But for the time it takes to read a blog entry, let's try and feel a little less alone - shall we?

Welcome.