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.

"Yeller" Gets the Blue Ribbon

I was asked by a social network group that I frequent what book had affected me most in my life.  This is normally the sort of question that I leap at, but something told me to hold back.  Yes, the immediate thought was to answer reflexively, as several titles came to mind in an instant.

I have loved to read for most of my life.  Three or four years back, I challenged myself to read 150 books over twelve months.  I was not exactly disappointed when the count petered out at 132.  Still, just picking the best book I read that year would be next to impossible.  When you add another four-plus decades, it seemed ridiculous to name just one. 

There was the Winnie the Pooh volume without color illustrations (mere line drawings!) that was my introduction to the post-storybook world.  I recall sitting with my legs dangling over the side of an easy chair in the living room, immersed in the doings of the fine folk of Hundred Acre Wood while my brother and cousins played outside, probably wondering where in the hell I had gone.  A.A. Milne booked my ticket. 

One book I read as a school assignment when I was fourteen made a reappearance.  Likely distracted by new curves in an angora sweater, Steinbeck’s “Winter of Our Discontent” passed through my head and was spilled out onto the essay test in ninth-grade English class, but little of it stayed in my gray matter.  Re-reading it at the age of forty made me ask myself how I had missed the ruthless ambition that hid behind the storekeeper’s smile.

A few years ago, I re-read “The Gospel According to Saint Luke” and was blown away by the simple eloquence of the words attributed to Jesus, revolutionary concepts explained to the common man, concepts that are still debated endlessly even as they are the central tenets for many people’s day-to-day lives.  Even Lebowski would agree with me when I say Jesus was a righteous dude.

A more contemporary entry would be “The Alienist” by Caleb Carr, who cemented an attraction to historical fiction I’d first found in Gore Vidal’s Hollywood and Washington novels.  The way in which Carr made turn-of-the-century New York come to life with all of its sights and smells while still fleshing out the humanity of characters as outsized as Theodore Roosevelt stunned me and gave me a whole new perspective on what a mystery could be. 

Any of those choices could have been a good answer.  I loved them and they shaped me.  I was trying to decide which one I would write about when I took out the recycling today at the library.  It’s funny, because today is the day that the fundraising arm of the library goes through the book donations and decides which ones to keep and which ones to toss.  I always take a look at what’s on top, just in case there’s a treasure waiting to be found.  Today, I didn’t do that.  I just tossed the paper and cardboard onto the heap without a look, regretting it instantly.  After I’d emptied my barrel, I moved the papers around a bit to look at the books that had landed on top.  It was not only the book I choose to site as my greatest influence, it was one that took me back to another time.

It was “Old Yeller”, by Fred Gipson.  The discarded paperback I’d found had the same cover as the one my mother read to my brother and I, one chapter a night until the story was through.  We laughed when Little Arliss threw rocks at people and seethed with anger at the laziness of old Bud Searcy, who found no task too great to place on his granddaughter Liz’beth’s yoke.  And of course, we cried when Old Yeller died.  Not just my brother and I, but my mother, too.

Was that the day I saw the power the written word had?  That love and hate and hilarity could arise from the page and cause people to feel something?  I can’t say for sure, but the feeling that went through me at the moment I pulled that book out of the dumpster was akin to finding the Ark of the Covenant.  I kept it.  Its bindery is weak, its pages yellowed, but in that handful of paper is the power to tell another boy about the things that may be demanded of you as a boy struggling to become a man.

It’s been forty years since I heard the story for the first time, but it remains as much a part of me as my social security number and my ATM code.  A simple “boy and his dog” story that came, not just for a visit, but to stay.  I owe Fred Gipson for writing the words, I owe my mother for reading them, hell, I owe Ben Franklin for his innovations to the printing press.  Even now, in the computer age, I owe you for reading this.

It’s possible I’ve spent the last three decades trying to recreate the feeling I got when my mother tearfully shared Old Yeller’s fate.  I don’t just want you to read…I want you to feel.