Family Spirit

One summer in Cape Cod, on a family vacation, my parents were walking with my brother and me along a lovely stretch of beach when we topped a dune and discovered an abandoned hotel. It was a most unusual sight as it stood alone with no other structure withing 100 yards and no visible roads leading up to it. The roads had apparently been long since been lost to the drifting sands and the building was left to the gulls who sat perched near its roof or flew through its boarded up windows. We walked around the outside of the building, which looked like it had once been painted a sandy shade of pink, but had since faded from too much sun, sand-blasting and bird poop. We found one window which, unlike its mates had not been boarded up, and we all decided to take a look inside. I had brought my camera with me, but had not bought bulbs for the flash unit so It hung on a long leather strap around my neck, useless in the interior gloom.

The old hotel was both creepy and cool, with junk on the floor that suggested a hasty departure long, long ago, and hinted at a sudden disaster, like a hurricane. I started spinning a yarn about the night of the storm, the crashing waves of the wind whipped seas, smashing of windows, and the frightened screams of the trapped residents. Soon it was a full blown ghost story with the souls of doomed residents condemned to walk the halls forever searching for their lost loved ones, and beseeching any living persons they meet to come with them to rescue their well rotted remains from where they were swept by the rising flood waters.

All three said that I should stop saying such silly things, as no one was frightened of ghost stories told in the middle of the day. What they actually meant was that I was frightening them with my spooky talk and would I please shut the hell up! Suddenly we all heard the sound of loud footsteps coming from upstairs. As one we turned toward the open window and set off at a sprint.

I arrived at the window first and as I stepped up onto the sill I felt a jerk as my brother grabbed the camera strap around my throat, and yanked me out of the way. As I hit the ground I could see him scramble out above me, while all the while the ghostly foot steps grew louder. I leapt back onto my feet and again attempted to scramble through the window frame when there was another sudden jerk on my camera strap, and soon I am back on the floor watching my mother diving out.

The footsteps are now coming down the stairs and again I hop to my feet and try for the window, only to be snared again by my father who has missed the strap and has me by the back of my t-shirt and is tossing me aside without even breaking stride. I jump up one more time knowing that the next hand that grabs me will belong the ghost. I dove head first through the open window and into the hot, bright, protection of the afternoon sun. After a few yards I caught up with my family, who’s adrenaline pumped panic had already started to devolve into hysterical laughter. Still on my own adrenal high I gave them all a piece of my mind for the way they had each thrown me under the bus to save themselves, before I cracked up and started laughing too.

I’m still not too sure about ghosts and haunted hotels, but I have never forgotten what I learned about my closest family members that day on the dunes of the Cape.

Tales for the Fondue Pot: Tap Dancing at the Edge of an Abyss

by Philip Jackson on Sunday, January 11, 2009 at 9:48pm

[The following is just the reader’s digest version of the stories that explain my departure from New York City and subsequent difficulties in Long Beach, Ca. These chapters will eventually be presented in there completed form as I get around to them. ]

Chapter Nine: Leslie Uggams’ Tits

Leslie Uggams in "Blues in the Night"

The year was 1982. I was seeing Leslie Uggams' that night, as I had the past four nights in a row. She was walking slowly towards me wearing only a diaphanous lavender nightgown, and she was about to show me her petite, naked, cone shaped breasts. All week long I had sat in the same front row seats of her Broadway show, “Blues In The Night” from which vantage point I would be flashed by the starlet four times during her curtain call and encore. I remember thinking to myself, “This is as good as it gets. I hope it never changes."

Fresh out of college I was back in New York City and had landed a job as computer programmer for small company that serviced the theater industry. I had an office that overlooked 34th street and access to tickets to just about every show in town. Every evening after work I would choose a show, take a leisurely walk up town, enjoy a meal at my favorite Greek restaurant, and end up in Times Square in plenty of time for an 8:00 curtain. Sometimes I would get a group of tickets and treat my friends to a night on the town (see “The Hypnotist and The Superman Incident”). And now for five nights in a row I’d had front row seats to the Broadway production of Blues in the Night and was enjoying an up close and unobstructed view of Leslie Uggams’ tits. I thought I was in Heaven.

Looking back now, I suspect that Odysseus probably felt the same way just before leaving on his little adventure.

Chapter 10: Unexpected Change

The next day when I went to work I was called into the boss’s office. He told me that he was delighted with my performance and offered me the opportunity to go to California to open a branch office in Hollywood. I was flattered and very proud as it was my automating of the company’s office systems (back in the early days of personal computing) that had made this expansion possible. But I was not eager to leave my very comfortable position as “king of New York”, and I declined the promotion.

“Please, don’t say no just yet,” my boss implored, “sleep on it tonight and give me your answer tomorrow.”

“I’ll sleep on it,” I promised, “but I really don’t think I’ll change my mind.”

[At this point in the movie there should be a crack of thunder, the cackling of witches, booming laughter rolling down from Mount Olympus, or some other portent of doom.]

At 11:00 that evening I had a gun placed to my head for the first time in my life. They caught me 10 yards from my front door. The first ran past me, spun around, and that the barrel of a pistol right between my eyes. His partner came up behind me, knocked me to the ground, and began going through my pockets and briefcase. When he was done he said to his partner, “This is taking too long. Let’s just kill him and get out of here.”

The view from the business end of a gun.

“or…” I quickly suggested, “you could let me live, I’ll go back to work, make some more money, and you can look me again later. We could make this our regular ‘thing’.”

The gunman smiled and cocked the gun.

At that instant a car turned the corner on to the block and lit up the scene with its headlights. The gun disappeared into a pocket, and the pair walked away as if nothing had happened.

I sat there on the sidewalk for a long time and utter disbelief. What I tried to stand I found that I was shaking too badly and had to crawl to the door on my hands and knees. My hands could not get my key into the lock. That was my first encounter with The Reaper, and my first real taste of fear.

After a good night’s sleep, a hot shower, and a hearty breakfast I felt much better and was able to put the incident into better perspective I decided that life in New York City involves a certain degree of risk and is well worth it. Everyone, I reasoned, must pay their dues, and I had just paid mine. I called to tell the office I would be coming in late, spent the morning doing the necessary damage control, and prepared to go to work and deliver my final refusal to my boss.

10:00 am, exactly 11 HRS after the mugging I walked out of my front door and headed to the bus stop. Normally I would’ve taken the train but I suspected that my attackers had followed be from the train station the night before and might still be hanging around there. The bus, I reasoned, would be safer.

The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and unheard in the distance, the witch’s were cackling again.

As I stood waiting at the bus stop a man walked up to me and asked me for a match. I told him that I did not smoke. He said, “My friend over there wants to talk to you,” and gestured toward an apartment building behind us. When I turned around I saw a man pointing a gun it me from the doorway. I looked up and down the normally bustling streets, but saw that, despite it being mid-morning, there was not another soul in sight. They led me into the entryway and closed the door.

[At this point I can see you all raising your hands. You want to know if they were the same two guys. I do not believe that they were, but I cannot be sure. Their voices seemed different, they looked a little bit older, and we’re much more violent than the other two, though I must admit my attention had been mostly focused on the business end of their gun.]

They took my money and administered reasonably savage beating at the end of which the one with the gun place that against my head and cocked it.

“Y’all betta git on outta here!” a woman’s voice rang down the stairwell from one of the floors above. “I know what ya doin’ down there and I already called the police.”

At the same moment, the bus pulled up outside.

“If you want to live,” said the gunman,” you walk out of here right now, don’t turn around, and get on that bus.”

I walked out of the door with my hands in the air and stepped on to the bus, but when I reached into my pocket I found it was, of course, empty. I looked directly into the driver’s eyes and said, in a voice that I hoped would convey might deadly seriousness, “DO NOT LEAVE! WAIT RIGHT HERE!” (As you all well know, telling in New York City bus driver to wait is like discussing politics with the dog. This instance however it worked, though it may have helped that I was bleeding profusely.)

I stepped off the bus, held up my hands, and walked backward to the door. (I know how to follow instructions.) I knocked.

“Knock, knock, knock.”

“What you doin’ back here, fool?”

“I can’t get on the bus. I haven’t got the fare.”

He laughed. He told his partner what I had said, and they both laughed. They laughed for a long time. Suddenly, the door opened and one of them handed me fifty cents. I return to the bus, dropped the coins in the box as the bus driver gaped, and took my seat.

At the next stop I got off and made my way quickly and carefully back to my house. I knew then that three miracles had happened; I had received a message from God that I was to go west; I had changed my mind about leaving the city I loved, possibly forever; and I had gotten change back from a mugging.

[Chapter 11 has been omitted, as it is a relatively uninteresting story of business, bargaining, and betrayal that culminates in my boss’ flying in one night in late December, stealing my programs and firing me in a very beautiful and apologetic Christmas card that stated, in part, that he was sorry that he could not possibly pay me what I was worth (nor any of the back pay that he owed me) but that he was releasing me confident that I would soon find a much better position. Merry Christmas!]

Chapter 12: Beaten by the Beat

At this point I had no apartment, no car, no job, and almost no money. I was also on the wrong side of the continent with no way home. I could, of course, have called my parents for a plane ticket, but at the time I was certain that returning to New York would mean facing again the gruesome fate I had so recently escaped. I had no desire to face The Reaper of third time.

Fortunately, I had an aunt and cousin lived in nearby Long Beach. I went to them and they agreed to take me in. Unfortunately, my cousin was a drummer and the constant rat-a-tat-tat, rat-a-tat-tat, boom, clash, boom, tata-tata-boom that filled the house, day and night, was more than my nerves could take.

One evening, about 4 hours into a particularly allowed drum solo, I packed my bag, send a very bad word, and stormed out of the house. It was only after I had slammed the door shut behind me that I realized that I had absolutely no where to go. I was now officially homeless.

It was already dark so my first priority was finding shelter for the night. After wandering around for a while I noticed an abandoned car parked in an apartment complex lot. It appeared to have been there a long time, the tires were gone and some of the windows were broken. It was out of the line of sight of any apartment windows and fairly close to a laundry room. I stashed my suitcase in the back seat and curled up beside it to sleep. The mosquitoes were so annoying I got very little sleep, but I was determined to find a solution to my predicament in the morning. It was not to be.

[Hands up again? What’s the question this time? Hmm. Good point. How can I claim to have been homeless when the only thing separating me from a warm bed and food was my unwillingness to call my parents for help or to apologize to my aunt and return to the percussion section? Well, I believe that each of us has our own strengths and weaknesses and that we are intended to use our strengths and learn to improve our areas of weakness. For some people it’s addiction to substances or situations (drugs, food, sex, power over others) that they need to learn to learn to control. Others need to learn to deal with limiting ideas and attitudes (race and genderisms, shyness, inability to trust, the need for revenge, dishonesty, inferiority or inferiority.) In my case, fear and foolish pride were as formidable as addiction to alcohol would be for another. ]

Chapter 13: Amazing Grace

Three weeks into my ordeal and I was no closer to finding work than I was the first night. Actually I had lost ground. News papers and transportation to interviews had used up what little money I had by the third day and I was now canvassing local businesses within walking distance. I had not eaten since the first day and had only water from the laundry room to drink. The hunger had passed after about a week, but I could see that I was starting to look a bit gaunt and I worried that I might become ill at some point.

My clothes were another problem as I had only a few sets of work clothes, and one suit which I was holding in reserve for important interviews. As my work clothes got dirty I would spot clean them as best I could, but I had no way to clean them properly and I feared becoming unemployable due to my shabby attire.

But worst of all was the mosquitoes. Swarms of the horrid things came every night, buzzing and biting, and making it impossible to sleep. Most nights I would stare at the sky until the sun rose again, occasionally passing out for a few moments, only to be awakened by the relentless insect horde. This was the most serious of my troubles as I soon realized that lack of sleep was eating away at my sanity and I was terrified that one day I would find myself pushing a shopping cart full of precious trash down the middle of the street while holding a wildly animated conversation with 6’ tall, invisible mosquitoes.

Finally I decided that I needed to get some help, so I knelt in the back seat of the abandoned wreck and began to pray. “God,” I said, ”I know you haven’t heard from me in a while, and I’m sorry about that. I got your message though and now I’m here in California like you wanted. I know you have everything planned out already and I am trying to be patient, but I think that if it takes much longer I’m going to lose my mind forever. All I really need is a good night’s sleep to help me refocus and pull my mind together. If you do that for me I promise I will do the rest myself. Thank you, Lord, in advance. Amen.

No sooner had I finished speaking than a light went on in my head, and I realized that in all the time I had been living in the car I had never searched it for anything I could use. I stuck my hand under the driver’s seat and instantly found a pile of coins. I started digging money out from under the seat by the handful and in just a few minutes I had over seven dollars in change. I took another minute to send God a heartfelt thank you for the speedy and efficient work, and then ran off to the supermarket.

The money was enough to buy a can of Deep Woods Off insect repellant, some fresh fruit and a newspaper. Returning to the car I sprayed it from one end to the other, inside and out, then ate half of my fruit and went to sleep.

Many restful hours later I awoke feeling refreshed, renewed, and ready to take on the world. I opened the newspaper and soon spotted an ad for a lot sweeper at a U-Haul center about five miles away. There was no money left for bus fare and the application was in person only, but I decided to walk over and see if I could use my education to talk someone into hiring me to push a broom.

My clothes were looking bad so I decided to wear my good suit, even though it meant risking getting it sweaty on the ten mile trip there and back. It was a bright sunshiny morning and I was feeling blessed and sang most of the way there. (If this is starting to sound like a religious experience I can assure you I limit my church attendance to weddings and funerals. God and I have a good direct relationship and “organized religion is not a part of it.)

When I arrived I introduced myself to the station manager and told him that I was there, “about the ad in the newspaper.” We sat down outside near the gas pumps and he proceeded to grill me for a solid hour on every aspect of myself. I was actually a bit put off. If this was how he interrogated his prospective lot sweepers I could only imagine how tough it would be to move up to counter clerk. At last he seemed satisfied, said that he would hire me, and asked for my driver’s license.

Holy Crap! A driver’s license? I looked around and for the first time noticed all of the rental trucks, and realized that, of course I would have to drive working here. But I had just come from New York City. Who needs a driver’s license in New York City. I not only had no license, I had never really driven more than about a mile or so during Driver’s Ed class at summer camp. And that trip ended with six people in the infirmary and the termination of the camp's Driver’s Ed program forever.

With trembling hand I handed him my California State Identification Card and prayed a silent prayer requesting just a bit more help. To my dismay he looked long and hard at the card, then looked up at me with a frown. He looked back at the card and said, “That’s a pretty good picture of you, my friend. Come on inside and let me introduce you to the crew.”

We walked into the center and he called his employees together. “This gentleman,” he began, “Is Philip Jackson. He is going to be the new assistant manager, now that Ken is leaving us.” He went on for some time but I didn’t hear anything after assistant manager. Obviously there had been more than one ad in the paper and seeing my suit and tie… I chalk it up to God’s good grace, especially since I was also being introduced to my future wife, who was working at the counter that day.

There would be three more weeks without food before my first check came. I would walk to work early enough to be the first one there, and stayed until everyone else had left, to disguise the fact that I was too broke to ride the bus. I never took a lunch break either which won me a reputation as a very hard worker indeed. All the while I lived on the dream of pay day and what I would do with the money. Eating, riding to work, and sleeping in a bed, albeit in a flea bag motel, were high on the list. But there was one last detail to attend to. God was not going to allow me to enter this new stage of my life with anything from my old life. I had to make a clean break, and so, on the day my check arrived, after six weeks of living on the street, I went to the bank, got my money, rode a bus back to the car to get my suitcase… and it was gone. Towed away with everything I owned inside, save for the clothes on my back.

That’s enough for one pot of Fondue I think.

Legalize Them

I just got off the telephone with a robot polling machine and one of the questions it asked was if I thought that Illegal aliens should be fined and given some sort of temporary work visa, or if they should be returned to their home country and made to apply for legal immigration. I had to think about that one for a minute because I don't like either option very much. Heavy fines would probably be very difficult for these low wage workers to pay, and I'm afraid that failure to pay would result in deportation, and I am completely against forced deportation. I think though that there is a better way.

In the discussion about undocumented workers it is always mentioned that these people contribute to the Social Security system though they themselves will never be able to collect from the fund. But even though the money is badly needed in these hard economic times of high unemployment there is no getting around the simple truth that taking that money is stealing. Well, I don't know about you, but I feel uncomfortable funding my retirement with money stolen from the weakest workers among us. Even though they have broken the law by coming here, or staying longer than they were authorized to, they . That's not the American way, and the three principles that I hold dearest are truth, justice and the American way.

Suppose though that instead of it being illegal to hire illegal aliens employers could hire them just like any other worker, but the money that would be withheld for social security would instead be deposited into a citizenship account to be put toward paying the fines and fees required to bring the worker up to full citizenship. The person would have to be registered as a guest worker so that they could be credited with their contributions, They would not be eligible for citizenship until the required amount was paid, the money would be forfeited if the person were ever convicted of a felony, and could be used to defray the cost of their deportation proceedings.

One huge advantage of a separate account is that it will allow everyone to see exactly how much of a financial contribution these good people are making , a figure which today is in dispute because it is so difficult to calculate.

War Stories

I'll leave well enough alone. Ben Vereen doesn't need my help

Wi-Phi Jack

“The Naming of cats is a difficult matter,
It isn't just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I'm as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.”

T. S. Eliot, - Published in 1939 in "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats

All my life I have been content to wear the name my parents gave me. Philip was my grandfather’s name and his grandfather’s name also. I never was much for nick names, though I have had a few over the years, On the block where I grew up I was sometimes called Professor, because I always read a book while I walked and had the unsettling habit of not looking up from it while crossing the street. At summer camps I was Uncle Phil, one summer it was Spill (Don’t ask, and if you know, don’t tell) And some family members still call me Butchy or Butch from the name embroidered on a shirt my grandmother gave me when I was a baby. Philip, though, is the only name I have ever called myself until now. The same however is not true for most of my family.

My brother Eric one day became Jovan, a transformation which I am still struggling to get used to. As an actor though I suppose it is to be expected. My daughter however surprised me when she announced that she had chosen to go by the name Jenna. I started calling her Jennifer while she was in her mother’s womb and we would play pinch and kick (a game which we enjoyed more than her mother did) and to me she will forever be Jennifer (thanks mostly to her mother who absolutely refused to even consider my first choice, Peripegilium. One hundred points to anyone who can identify the source of that one.)

The big surprise was my mother, Eileen, or so I believed for most of my life until just a few years ago when her birth certificate turned up and revealed a stunning secret: her birth name was Doris. Trust me, it is a shock when at forty-something you discover that you never knew your own mother’s real name. When I asked her about it I figured she would tell me something cool like that she was in witness protection or something, but no such luck. It seems that when she was a young girl it was fashionable to use your middle name as your first name, and your first as your middle, so Doris Eileen became Eileen Doris. Seems all her sisters did the same thing too, so I have no idea what names my aunts all started out with either. But that is where Wi-Phi Jack came from.

T.S. Eliot may have been right about cats, I couldn’t say for sure, but it seems he is right about people having three names, and especially about having a special, secret name that no one else knows. Philip William Jackson, Wi-Phi Jack. On long road trips I used to stare out the window and imagine myself on a motorcycle racing along beside the car. I would watch myself turn up dusty country roads as they split off from the highway, and then miles ahead I would rejoin the main road and tell myself what I had seen. I used to watch myself smack into quite a few walls as we drove through tunnels and underpasses, until I learned to make high-speed right angle turns on my magic motor-bike. On plane trips I could see myself riding across clouds, making impossible jumps between them, sometimes pulling close to park on the wing and rest a while.

Wi-Phi Jack, my imaginary traveling companion and author of my blog, bids you welcome. He also wants you to know that he has provided a link to the poem quoted above, and that if you are a cat person there is a site you might like to visit called Flippy’s Cat Page where you will can look up the name of your favorite cat companion, and if you find that their name is unique you may add it to the list. Enshrining the name on this site is a wonderful way to honor your present purring pet, or fallen feline friend.

Tomorrow I will confess the lie that changed my life.

Let the Dangling Conversation Begin

Yes, we blog of things that matter

With words that must be read

"Can the Internet be worthwhile?"

"Is public radio really dead?"

And how the chat rooms are so jaded

And I only kiss your shadow

I cannot feel your hand

You're a FaceBook friend unto me

Lost in the dangling conversation

And the superficial sighs

In the borders of our lives.
The Dangling Conversation (Paraphrased) by Simon & Garfunkel

Simon and Garfunkel will have to forgive me for paraphrasing their work to open my new blog, but I have been struggling with the whole concept of blogging for a long time now, wondering if I am being prideful and arrogant or merely delusional in thinking that anyone would care to hear anything I might have to say. Isn’t blogging a “dangling conversation” in which one tries to speak of “things that matter, in words that must be said?” Perhaps it is.

Perhaps, if I can keep my blog light and amusing it can be justified on the basis of its entertainment value alone. Ah, but isn’t that the “superficial sighs in the borders of our lives?” And, once again the song fills my head. There has to be a better reason to do this. The work I create here must do more than just make it impossible for me to ever run for public office, get a job in corporate America or date any woman with Internet access. There has to be a greater purpose. And then it hit me!

Love!

This blog must be a labor of love, built to bridge the gap that fear puts between people. We all fear being perceived as different, strange, abnormal. We don’t want to be the subject of ridicule and shame. We want to be accepted by others but are afraid that the person we really are is not who we “should” be. Who decides who we should be? Whoever can hurt us the most with their rejection. This is usually mom and dad so we learn their expectations and pretend to conform. This often works out very well for us and so we continue using the technique when we meet the other people who play a role in our lives.

We create masks that protect us from harm, but also keep us from achieving true intimacy and enjoying true love. We learn how to start every relationship with a lie so that when the time comes that we want to risk true intimacy we must first confess ourselves as being liars. But that involves risking rejection, and we have so little practice showing our naked selves to each other that we are awkward and clumsy. Sometimes we even suffer the rejection we fear most, resulting in a resolve never to remove the mask again, and to settle for conversation at the masked ball in place intimate love.

Of course, it is possible that I may be the only person for whom this is true, in which case I will have just revealed my personal neuroses in a public forum, which would, of course, be my greatest fear. That would indeed be a disaster.

I think though that it is much more likely that I am not at all unusual, and that by sharing myself with you openly, honestly, and yes, fearlessly we will come to see how very alike we really are, and in so doing achieve greater intimacy in all of our relationships. In that spirit I invite you to comment whenever you like, and to invite others if you think that they would enjoy reading what here is writ.

With that said, and “Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M.” echoing in my head, let the dangling conversation begin.