It Doesn't Take ESP To Figure Out the Espys

Some people might think it’s brave for me to post this blog.  Me, I think my wife, headed down to the Ann Arbor Art Fair, armed only with a water bottle and a Visa card, is downright heroic.  It’s a judgment call.

That’s why I’m so amused by those who felt the need to vent their spleen about Caitlyn Jenner’s acceptance of the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the Espy Awards last night.  To begin with, they watched it live last night or clicked on a link to see on-line highlights today KNOWING that Jenner was to be honored.

How do you quantify bravery?  Combat soldiers are being held up as the gold standard, as they should be, but is that the only example we can use?  We see bravery every day, in every race and social class.  Consider a young mother who stands up to a snarling dog to protect her children.  Is that brave?  It would seem to be.  You could also say what she did was instinct and that fear never entered her mind until the conflict was over.  I’m not in that mother’s head. Additionally, I’ve never served in the armed forces, so how am I to know what is bravery and what is efficient military training?

I’ve worked with hundreds of actors over the years, all of whom were willing to do what is most Americans greatest fear…speaking in front of an audience.  Knowing what awaits them, they walk out on a stage knowing that the result could be an astounding success or a humiliating defeat.  Most actors have experienced both and keep doing it.  It is not a life-and-death experience, but it is brave.  I know most people would not slot acting as one of the most daring things you could do, but I’ve had police officers (people who go into uncertain situations against unseen and possibly armed opponents) say to me after a show, “I could never do that.”

To me, it’s all bravery.  The woman that is wheeled into a delivery room is brave.  Who didn’t feel brave applying for their first home loan?  Did it take guts to ask your boss for a raise?  If you didn’t get the bump in pay, did you make the brave move and start your own business?  Another brave act.  Speaking up to our parents for the first time requires guts.  Asking a girl out on a date takes a certain amount of bravado.  Depending on who you are and what you are after, millions of Americans have had a moment worthy of Arthur Ashe’s Courage Award.

Which brings us back to Caitlyn Jenner, who was a gold-medal-winning American hero as a decathlete in the Olympics when she lived as Bruce, a man.  Even forty years after that triumph, she had to know that the blowback would be brutal.  A person once known as the World’s Greatest (male) Athlete was saying that she wanted the freedom to live out her life in a manner that was in keeping with the image she had always had of herself.  Folks, that took guts.

This brings us to my final point, which is…this was an award show.  No different than the Emmys, the Oscars, the Grammys, the Tonys and any number of others…a subjective decision on the behalf of a small voting body.  Marisa Tomei won a performing Oscar and Peter O’Toole never did.  Daniel Day-Lewis had to contort his body and speak in a halting brogue to win the Best Actor award for “My Left Foot” while Jack Nicholson won two for basically playing a caricature of himself (“Terms of Endearment” and “As Good As It Gets”).  I will grant you, the criteria wasn’t about bravest, it was about the best, which is also impossible to quantify.

ESPN has lost 3.2 million viewers since Americans began purging their connection to cable television in favor of antenna, Hulu or Netflix.  I am one of those who jettisoned subscription television in favor of the alternatives.  Yet, by giving the Arthur Ashe award to Caitlyn Jenner, the entire country is talking about ESPN today.  I didn’t watch the award ceremony (obviously) and I didn’t click on the highlight clips.  I will say that the person who green-lighted giving the Ashe award to Jenner exhibited bravery.  It paid off, though.  People watched and people are talking. (Late update: This year’s ESPY ratings were up 253% from their previous highest mark).

I’ve never seen the Kardashian reality shows and I don’t have any plans to watch the coming Caitlyn Jenner offering.  I know a bit about acting awards, having received a few over the years.  While I know that you can’t compare performances, I never turned down an honor.  I never missed a chance to say what I wanted to say and I didn’t put the trophy in a closet.  It was proof of what I had gone through to reach another point.  None of them rank with a Silver Star Medal, of course.  An ESPY doesn’t either.  

One of the bravest things I’ve ever seen is my father facing down a group of punks who were harassing a street-corner preacher.  They don’t give awards for that as far as I know, and if they do, they aren’t on TV.  All I know is that stepping into a situation where the outcome is uncertain takes bravery.  I have it and you do, too.  Let’s all be brave enough to tip our hats to anyone willing to take that chance.

Standing O...Oh, No!

I finished a run of performances a couple of weeks ago as part of an ensemble cast, gifted with three standing ovations over three nights.  It’s an actor’s dream, the audience making that commitment, when so many (usually) want to reach for their car keys and start heading home.

It’s not as common as you might think, if all you see are Hollywood award shows or a State of the Union address.   I’ve done dozens of shows, hundreds of performances over four decades.  A charitable assessment might produce thirty or so times that the crowd rose to their feet in enthusiastic acclaim.  Each one is special, but there was a time when I got one I didn’t want.

Home for a few weeks after a summer traveling with a side show (I was playing Mark Twain, performing “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” before a frog-jumping contest), my mother had an idea for a quick one-and-done on stage in front of an admiring crowd.  I said yes immediately, not giving it another thought.

I should remind you, if you haven’t heard it before, that my mother is a retired minister.  Before she heeded the call to preach, she was already deeply involved in her church, the one I was raised in.  It is a Pentecostal sect, established in the first five years of the last century.  They are, by and large, literalists about the King James Version of the Bible.  They believe in the Immaculate Creation, the Resurrection of the Saints at the Rapture and speaking in tongues.

I spent years watching fire-and-brimstone evangelists prowl the edge of the altar, speaking the truth as they understood it, telling the world stories of sin and salvation.  From my childhood, there were those who prophesied that I would, one day, be a minister of the Gospel.  That was not to be.  Watching some of them was an education in drama, while others offered a primer for hypocrisy.  I chose drama.

The deal my Mom was offering was to portray a Mexican common man, thrilled to travel three thousand miles to collect a bike.   Yeah, I know, it sounds ridiculous.  But her intentions were pure.  She was helping a woman gifted with excellent fundraising ability but with (near) no audience skills.  The two of them wanted to present a dramatization of a Hispanic coming all the way from his remote village to accept a couple of bicycles their fundraisers had paid for.  The fundraising was real…the acceptance was the show.  They presented the idea to me and it wasn’t good enough.  I asked them, “What if I replied to your questions in Spanish?”  Canary feathers fluttered from their mouths, as they enthusiastically put me in touch with a minister from West Detroit who was fluent.

We wrote out my answers to the questions and offered them to our “translator”, who responded into a tape recorder.  From there, I wrote and memorized what he had said phonetically.  It wound up being a lot more work than I had assumed it would be, but I hoped the end product would be worth it.  It was a quick five-minute piece.  I was planning on being in and out quickly, so I brought my girlfriend with me.  She was used to me being in and out quickly.

She waited backstage while I prepared to go out and be the faux recipient.  I was dressed like a fruit picker, possibly a fruit picker’s foreman, in khaki slacks and shirt, straw hat and black work boots.  When I was introduced, I walked out working the brim of the hat in my hands, as if I’d never seen so many people before, or certainly, not that many staring right at me. 

The director of the fundraiser insisted on asking the questions, though she was uncomfortable in front of a microphone.  Her queries were choppy, forced, uneven.  All I had to do was look at my translator and wait for him to re-pose the question in Spanish.  Though I understood nothing he said, I knew which question was coming and I would answer in Spanish.  He would then relay my response to the microphone, telling the congregation how much the bicycles would mean to the community and detailing the things it would allow the villagers to accomplish.  There weren’t more than four or five questions, but we handled them well.  We all stayed “in character” and the segment wound down without incident.

The next part was my fault.  After they were so excited about me doing my part in Spanish, I forwarded the idea that maybe my character should give a short speech…in broken English.  When my translator left the stage, I told the director, “I…have words,” waving a sheet of paper in front of me.  I was now going to impersonate a Mexican reading a couple of paragraphs written phonetically in English.  The podium was cleared and I stepped toward it.  I think I may have bumped the microphone with my nose, pretending complete ignorance of how such things were done.  The blue-eyed Mexican took a deep breath and began.

“Good morning, Shursh of Goad…of Prop-a-see…” I said, butchering the pronunciation of ‘Church of God of Prophecy’.  That may have been what did it.  For the next minute and a half, while this man they saw as a humble laborer attempted to thank them for their largesse, you could have heard a pin drop in an auditorium that would hold fifteen hundred people and was nearly full.  By the time I had thanked them, from the ‘bootom of my heert’, the hook was set.

I stepped back from the podium and it began.  They roared their approval, standing in sections, until every person in the auditorium was on their feet.  I cut my eyes to the right to see the director and my mother…freaked out.  They had assumed that everyone knew it was a put-on, a representation of what it might’ve been like if…again…a guy could travel three thousand miles to pick up a couple of bikes.  My mother told me later, “If they had started speaking in tongues, I would’ve died.”

You see, if you are a student of the Bible, the Holy Ghost (or Spirit) is not to be mocked.  If the congregation had begun speaking in that unknown language that originated in the Upper Room on the Day of Pentecost, that would be a product of a false spirit and undoubtedly bogus.  Thankfully, that did not occur.  The applause abated, the audience sat down, and they returned to business as usual.

I stepped out of the lights and met my redheaded, green-eyed girlfriend standing in the wings.  “Nice going, Senor,” she said, moving in for a kiss that was decidedly un-sisterly.  A stagehand watched us, puzzled.  As we moved to the exit, I thought I was busted.  He stepped in front of us and extended his hand, as if to stop us.

Then he offered his hand in greeting, shaking mine.  He said, in slow, clear English, “I hope you enjoyed your visit to the U.S.  God bless you.”  At that point, he pushed the door open as I murmured thanks behind me.  We were off.  The speed limit was seventy, so she did seventy-eight, one hand on the steering wheel and one hand in my hair, my head in her lap.

There was no blockade at the city limits; my mother let the proverbial cat out of the bag at first opportunity, admitting, yes, it was a put-on.  ‘Dramatization’ would have been my preference, but whatever.  No one held it against her, or me.  I heard later that when they passed the plates, it was one of the best mission offerings they ever had.

It’s strange, but I don’t think I’ve been on a bike since.

With My Compliments

I am sick to death of people parceling out words as if they are currency.  Simple ones like “please” and “thank you” and “I’m sorry” are pried from some people’s mouths as if they were dollars from a miser’s wallet.  Sometimes, because our social contract demands them, these words are muttered without a scintilla of sincerity or eye contact, or implied through a nod.  That’s just not good enough.

There are many of us who are capable of those conversational niceties that become selfish with another type of statement…the compliment.  The “you look nice today” or the “that was a nice thing you did” have become as rare as prose without F-bombs.  I’m always hearing about the world becoming a smaller place.  Shouldn’t that be the reason why we want to be nicer to each other, and share each other’s successes with a few words of praise?  We act as if we are primitives facing a mirror or a camera, afraid that it will steal a piece of our souls.

I was born in 1964, so my world view was shaped in the ‘70’s.  It was the time of “I’m OK, You’re OK”, “Free To Be You and Me” and “Transactional Analysis”.  My folks were into that last one, so my brother Eric and I were schooled in warm fuzzies and blue pricklies (compliments and insults), told it was okay to cry and that you should NEVER put yourself down.   This may sound kind of New Age to you.  Hey, me and my brother were just north of ten years old and it all sounded kind of hippy-dippy to us, too.

I know I spent a lot of time back then rolling my eyes, but if you recall, that’s just what we do at that age.  Some of it fell away.  Of course it’s okay to cry, but not just because they’re out of your favorite snack cake at the grocery store.  As far as putting yourself down, I happen to think self-deprecating humor is a great deal of fun.  Delivered with a wink, the listener will know you’re not contemplating stepping off the ledge of a building.  Who doesn’t love a person who, with one remark, is letting you know they’re aware that they aren’t the center of the universe?

Some things just took some time to sink in.  I learned that insults are fun, too, but only between the closest of friends, and you’d better be ready to apologize if your rapier wit cuts too deep (see first paragraph).

Compliments, for some reason, seem to be the hardest.  As if by acknowledging another person’s good deed or good fortune, that we are somehow lessening ourselves.  Were you aware the simple act of saying, “Thank you for your hard work” changes the brain chemistry in the recipient?  From that moment forward, they are more likely to work hard for you.

What did it cost to tell a little girl that you love her new princess sneakers, even though you’ve seen a hundred pair just like them?  Did it make you somehow smaller to tell a little boy you’re impressed by his little league triple, even when three outfielders ran into each other trying to catch it as the ball rolled away?  I speak of children because I think we are all youngsters in that way…craving the approval of our peers, our parents, our teachers.  I don’t believe we ever outgrow it.

A lady I worked with at the library used to have a quote pinned up behind her desk.  I’ll have to paraphrase, because I don’t remember it exactly and since she retired, she can’t find it in her old boxes of work stuff.  It said, in essence, that complimenting another's success is good, because it makes that success belong to all of us. 

If you don’t think there is an upside for you in learning to give a compliment, let me put it this way.  Say you’ve taken a pebble from an earthen dam.  One pebble alone might not make a huge difference, but a pebble here and a stone there, you’ll soon see a trickle of water coming your way.  Now, there’s something coming from both sides.  You could find yourself knee-deep in appreciation that swirls in an eddy, clearing the obstacles between us.  What started as a mere “I’m glad you’re here” becomes something as effusively loving as a Jimmy Fallon interview.  

You can chalk all of this up as the ravings of a one-off flower child and you’d be right.  I am what I am.  But if you read this far, I’ve got a compliment for you.

You spent a few minutes reading about someone else’s feelings and opinions, which tells me you are capable of great empathy.  I see you as a person who listens before speaking, certain that you don’t already possess all the world’s knowledge.  You must be a great friend and a compassionate sibling.  Your parents are proud of you, even if they don’t say it.

You are awesome.