Socrates famously said, “The unexamined life is not worth
living.” I’ve taken this idea to heart, but I tend to focus on examining
others’ observations about me relative to them. When I was born, the nurses
bemoaned the fact that I was “the wrong type of Indian” as I was not birthright-eligible
for Alaskan oil revenues. Which begs the question: if I had been the “right
kind”, would that mean I only got a half-share? When I lived in France, in
between insulting me for being associated with Reagan/Bush and my ridiculous
accent, they’d say that I wasn’t even a real American because I wasn’t fat,
and, vis a vis the American television shows that they couldn’t get enough of,
wasn’t my tan just a little too dark? As you can imagine, these are some of my
best friends today – when I see them now I do the whole kisses-on-the-cheeks thing,
even with the men. But are they really “my people”?
Confusion reigns, as I sometimes seem to have become the
accidental chameleon. After spending five minutes together, a woman at the Audi
dealership asked me if I liked to be called Vinny. After meeting me in the
flesh, Finnish colleagues refused to believe I was who I said I was: “No - with
a name like that, he’s clearly Danish. Who are you?” But one of my favorites in
the name-confusion category is my apparent Hebrew ancestry, which seems to fit like
a yarmulke. Hell, how hard can it be to convince people that I’m from one of
the Lost Tribes - I’ve got teepee-dweller
written all over me. If I start to get too many pointed questions challenging
my identity I simply point out that we disappeared from the Biblical record in
720 BC and let that hang in the air for a second.
It’s great to have this low-hanging fruit at my fingertips –
who doesn’t want other people to believe that they are either smarter or richer
than they actually are? It's like Manischewitz from Heaven. To paint a convincing picture, I’ve worked on my
Yiddish using conversational tools such as books like “Yiddish with George and
Laura” where useful words are used in English sentences. For example, consider
this exchange from the book:
“Mom is mad at you, George, “ says Jeb.
“Hey, Jeb,” says George. “How is your daughter, Noelle? Is
she still taking Ex-Lax and smoking that farshlugginer
crack?”
“You do not mean Ex-Lax,” says Jeb. “You mean Xanax. No, she
is off drugs and in therapy.”
“Therapy schmerapy,”
says George. “If someone has troubles they should talk to God.”
But this is a high stakes game. The Chosen are vigilant and
frown on interlopers and you always run the risk of being outed as a goyim. One of my Jewish co-workers, upon
being presented with the claim by a third party, immediately responded “Oh yes,
that’s a common misperception. But have you ever looked closely at how his last
name is spelled?” and followed it up with an intense look of wide eyes and
raised eyebrows, and a knowing nodding erasing any remaining doubt.
Needless to say, this question of “my people” continues to prey
on my mind. For example, I recently attended a birthday party for a friend of
mine. She is a professional volleyball player – tall, elegant, and highly
competitive, she had rented a volleyball facility for the party. Half of the
attendees were from the volleyball world, and half of them were from the
neighborhood, and my friend effortlessly inhabits these worlds of sport and
community simultaneously. All of these were “her people”.
As the two groups split into different games, my friend
remained with the amateurs and taught and encouraged us, and my
self-consciousness was temporarily suspended. Many pointed out that they hadn’t
played since college and laughed nervously hoping others would let them off the
hook. I remained mum as my play suggested I’d never played at all. It felt like
being a child again, under the watchful eye of a protective parent – the very
definition of “my people”. As we played, we shouted and cheered each other on
as we’d seen real athletes do on television, even exchanging high-fives, albeit
only ones that Barbara Walters would have deemed convincing.
When it came time to eat the cake, our group gathered around
and, after singing “happy birthday”, we began to eat. Our half, that is. I
noticed, as I stuffed my pie-hole with refined carbohydrates and hydrogenated
oil, that the athletes were not partaking. In between mouthfuls, the air was
thick with observations from our half about the definition of the athletes’ abs
– not like professional cheerleaders at a football game, but the sculpted
female physiques that you only find in beer commercials. “Wow – what a six-pack!”
I overheard one woman say to another, and I let out an involuntary “L’chaim!”
These otherworldly objects of physical perfection left me in
a dreamlike state, as if I was watching a movie. But I was snapped out of my
reverie as someone held up a moccasin in front of my eyes and asked if it was
mine, and I agreed that while it made sense because of my ethnicity, I’d worn
tennis shoes made in an Asian sweatshop to the party.
As our half completed our time “swilling at the trough”, I
began helping to clean up. And as I carried the remains of the cake to the car,
I could see the next group who’d rented the facility in the timeslot after ours
just arriving in the parking lot. It was a group of African-Americans. They
drove automobiles equipped with Hydraulics (those cars that bounce up and down
on command) and I felt something that I identified as kinship. As a couple of
children approached the door to the facility, I held it open, but they
hesitated, and then a man from their group shouted out “Stranger danger!” For a
moment, I thought he was kidding – I was still feeling that these were “my
people” – but then he repeated it and I recognized my emotions to be nothing
more than a 50% diluted shower of white guilt, a weaker version of the monsoons
I see at the at parades in my community where everyone claps the hardest (but
out of time) with the African-American drill teams, and that I had been deemed suspicious
by my overcompensating actions (and perhaps by my semi-whiteness). I envisioned
myself singing in the chorus at the end of Act 1 of Massenet’s opera Manon
where the supertitle reads, “It’s a ridiculous situation! How unfortunate!”
Soon afterwards we were invited to attend Monday Night
Football by friends who had corporate tickets. They had club seats that are
some of the best in the house – the kind that I sit in on someone else’s $300
dime – and I assumed with some separation from the riff raff. But soon after I
arrived I was roughly pushed aside by a stout, bald, angry-faced man on his way
to the spot next to me, and I feared that my spectacular seats were about to
devolve into something like the worst experience of sitting in coach next to an
asshole with a seatbelt extender.
As kickoff neared, my new neighbor turned to me and said in
a serious tone, “Are you a Packers fan?” and said that I was a Seahawks
supporter, and he seemed to stare out into the middle distance but betrayed no
affiliation. And then he said, “Let’s beat these Packers”, and shook my hand.
As the game began, my emotions took over I and held nothing
back with wild shrieks and tomahawk chops with every Seahawks first down. My
neighbor seemed to be enjoying the game in a more reserved fashion when without
warning he cupped his hands in the form of a megaphone and shouted at a
heavyset Rodgers-jersey-wearing Packers fan two rows down who’d stood up cheer,
“Hey Rodgers!” When the fan didn’t turn around, he yelled again, “Hey Rodgers,
sit down you fat fuck!”
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| An Artist's Depiction of the Events |
This was a real fan and so was I – not some pathetic
Lakers/Rams bandwagoner who chose not to talk about the latter during the lean
years and continuously boasted about the former whilst ignoring their
continuous violation of the salary cap. No, we bled blue and green regardless
of taunts like “there is always next year” endured during the dark times. My
three companions that I had come with did not appreciate his comments as much
as I did, as they wrung their hands and a collective tension descended over
them. For my part, having been steeped
in the traditions of PBS and nonviolence, settled on “What a great suggestion –
I couldn’t see that corner of the end zone either”, even though all of the action
was taking place on the other end of the field. My neighbor responded, “You’ve
got to set the tone with these people,” and I thanked Yahweh that I wasn’t a
Packers fan.
With his exertions, my neighbor had started to get a little
hot, and he set his coat down over the back of the seat in front of him, and
when the owner of the ticket to that seat (with thinning hair, round
wire-rimmed glasses, and a conservative suit, I imagined him to be an
accountant just getting off work to enjoy the corporate seats) arrived he
tapped him on the shoulder and with a vicious look said “If you touch my
jacket, you’re dead” and then after an uncomfortable silence he followed up
with “Just kidding!” with a broad grin and everyone nervously laughed.
With the ice broken, we soon became fast friends as I had
identified him as “good people”. Proffering a small open Ziploc bag, he asked, “Would
you like an almond?” and “I eat these for my figure.” My companion on the other side of me sensed a
sympathetic opening and said, “Please, be nice to everyone!” in an attempt to
bring the situation back under control. My new friend looked at her, and then
looked at me with a conspiratorial grin and said “She’s telling me that, but if
you laugh, when you get home she’s going to rip you a new one!” and I pitched
forward helplessly with the instinctive laughter that comes with the knowledge
of a transfer of pure truth. And then, conspiratorially, he leaned in and said
in a low voice “Did you see those big titties on the cheerleaders?” and I
responded with “Shept!” (The
imperative of “to derive satisfaction”) and it appeared that he didn’t hear
what I’d said.
The game progressed and it became increasingly compelling.
And it seemed to send my new friend to new heights. He began throwing almonds
at Alcohol Enforcement and when they’d deduced who’d done it, with a broad grin
he’d point at his eyes, and then theirs, and then back to his, and amazingly,
they’d return the smile. Once the AE folks had moved on he began yelling at a
couple in their fifties who’d made the mistake of wearing Packers jerseys.
“We’re going to kick you and your wife’s asses!” he bellowed.
Suddenly, a new member of their group showed up. He was
agitated and an animated conversation ensued. From my seat, I only got one side
of the conversation: “Where is he?” “You did what?” “Sometimes you’ve got to do
what you’ve got to do.” After a bit of this, my new friend turned to me and
said “He says he just beat up his best friend and now his best friend is in
jail, “ and he chuckled. He grinned and,
mocking his friend, said, “’I love you man, but you crossed the line!’” raising
his fingers in quotes at the end of the sentence.
A little time elapsed and after a shuffle of my neighbors I
found myself next to the new member of their group. He was highly intoxicated
and wearing glasses, which always seems like a dubious choice for violent
drunks. We formed a good rapport – our blue/green blood made us brothers in spirit,
although his intoxication made him almost verbally incomprehensible – via fist
bumps and hand gestures. During a rare moment of clarity, he confided in me
through a slurred tongue, “We’re gon’ beat these motherfuckers” and I heartily
agreed by responding “Farkaktah
Packers” (“Shitty Packers”) and a followed up with an Indian war cry like the
kind you see in John Wayne movies. Reviewing the events today, you may be
impressed with my chutzpah, but I could feel the connection – these were, for
the moment, “my people”.
And then the game looked as if we would lose. I shook hands
with my new friends as they prepared to leave and thanked them for the almonds
and, as they left, they approached each of the Packer fans that they’d
vigorously insulted and offered their congratulations, and everyone breathed a
sigh of relief and pretended that they knew it was all in fun all along.
Oh yeah, and I’m getting closer to the answer.
