I Can’t Live If Living Is Without You

Posted on 12/28/2008 by Jane Devin

Years ago, I was sitting in a dark bar at some casino, watching purple lights dance off of a blue waterfall and an orange fire pit. A lone musician sat in the corner with an electric keyboard and synthesizer, and two lonely dollar bills in a beer mug. Me and Cynthia, my co-worker, were winding down from a day of advertising hell. She was born to sales, but didn’t like the radio station we were working for. I was good at promotions, but hated dealing with people. We were lamenting together when all of the sudden the musician started singing I Can’t Live if Living is Without You at the top of his lungs. He even closed his eyes, as if the emotions of the song were just overwhelming for him. So of course we had to laugh. We laughed so hard, and so long, that we were both holding our sides, and falling out of our chairs. Tears were pouring down Cynthia’s face, which made us laugh even harder. And okay, yes, we felt kind of like bitches for laughing at the musician, but we added $10 to his tip jar because even though the comedy was unintentional, we were at least happy, laughing bitches when we left the bar.

Looking back on 2008, I feel like somebody needs to sing that song again while I’m sitting in some gaudy, artificial place. I need to laugh until I’m heady, exhausted, and out of tears. I need to stumble outside to the sidewalk and hail a cab, where I’ll laugh all the way home even though I’m not drunk. I need that week afterwards, where friends and I can’t even look at each other without bursting into song and cracking each other up.

Outside of a a new President being elected, 2008 was just a horrible year. Or maybe I just read too much news, and it’s dawned on me that much of the world is stupid, insane, and willing to degrade life at every opportunity. From raped babies to brainless religions to corrupt politics, 2008 offered up a particularly shameful and unevolved picture of the human race.

I’ll usher out the year with all the dignity it deserves — in a red vinyl booth, underneath strobe lights, while sipping some fruity concoction topped by a paper umbrella. My friends have talked me into going to a seedy karaoke bar in Minneapolis, where melodramatic songs and off-key singers are sure to bring a few laughs –- if people can refrain from killing each other.

Do you have a song to help usher in the new year? Share it in the comments section and win your choice of two books from my library, or a fancy-schmancy “Rise Up and Create” t-shirt from my friends at Visual Chronicles. Winner chosen by random drawing Saturday, January 3rd.

UPDATE: And the winner is….LJB! LJB, please check your email. Thank you everyone for all the great songs! – JD

Anthony Protesters Are A Disgrace

Posted on 12/16/2008 by Jane Devin

Like many others, I have followed the story of two year old Caylee Anthony, who was reported missing last July. I have read the various twists and turns of this case, and felt the same frustration, sorrow, and anger that others have no doubt felt.

Certainly, in a case like Caylee’s, the need to find the child and learn the truth of her absence is of paramount importance. I wish every missing child could have the benefit of national media exposure that Caylee has had. We might find more children alive, or learn certain truths sooner. There can be a huge benefit to widespread media coverage or, as we’ve seen in Caylee Anthony’s case, an ugly drawback.

When shows like Nancy Grace exploit a tragic story for the sake of ratings, and fill the stage with speculative analysts and various conspiracy theories, they do so in order to intrigue and incite the audience. Their interest in finding “justice” for children like Caylee Anthony (or Trenton Duckett, or Elizabeth Smart), extends only as far as the number of living rooms they reach. The more intrigue, the larger the Arbitron ratings are likely to be. For provocateurs like Grace, a case as twisted and complex as Caylee Anthony’s provides a golden landslide of ratings, and an audience that’s ready to be provoked and impassioned.

Caylee Anthony’s big, beautiful eyes and sweet smile could rouse even the most news-hardened heart. To suspect that Caylee had been murdered was heart-wrenching enough, but the speculations put forth by Grace and others — that Caylee’s grandparents and Uncle were purposely misleading investigators and subverting justice — fanned the flames of public outrage.

Angry mobs of vigilante-style protesters swarmed George and Cindy Anthony’s house, ready to take their pound of flesh from Caylee’s grandparents. Screaming, cussing, and ready to fight, their goal appeared to be less about finding justice for Caylee than about terrorizing the Anthony’s into accepting their version of events: that Casey Anthony murdered Caylee, and that the Anthony family was complicit in covering up the truth and impeding the investigation.

Under the tainted umbrella of news commentary came a host of incendiary accusations, including unsubstantiated reports of incest which cast a dark, suspicious shadow on both Casey’s father and brother. However, it was Cindy Anthony who bore the brunt of public disdain after appearing on several news programs to plead Caylee’s case and defend her daughter against accusations of murder.

I’m not going to analyze the stated beliefs of the Cindy Anthony or her family. They have been published and broadcast, and it’s clear that investigators, as well as the vast majority of the public, disagrees with the family’s belief in Casey Anthony’s innocence.

It’s the public’s right to form an opinion, and I have no issue with the opinion that Casey Anthony likely murdered her daughter. She is in jail on that charge, a body that is presumably Caylee’s has been found, and a trial will be held. What I take issue with is that some members of the public felt it was necessary to terrorize Caylee’s extended family for not sharing their opinion of Casey Anthony’s guilt.

The families of murder victims are not specially privileged, nor does grief form a halo that leaves them above reproach. However, in five short months Casey Anthony’s parents and brother have not only had to face the disappearance and possible death of their beloved granddaughter and niece, but they’ve also had to struggle with an overwhelming number of stories, false leads, and dashed hopes. They’ve had to weigh their own personally known facts, including the daughter and sister they have known since birth, against a version of Casey that is altogether foreign to them. Casey, despite many other flaws, had no history of physical violence or child abuse.

Tipsters were calling into hotlines with Caylee sightings in North Carolina, California, and Florida. It doesn’t take much of a stretch of imagination to understand why the family maintained hope against all odds and believed she may have been kidnapped.

A portion of the public, however, decided that the Anthony family needed to suspend their hopes and help convict their daughter in the press. They decided it was their right to goad Casey’s family into despising her as much as they did. To that end, they surrounded the Anthony home, demanding justice from those in the least position to give it — a family left reeling by tragedy. A family for whom Caylee and Casey were not just pictures on a screen, but people they had nurtured, loved, and cared for since their births.

It was a disgrace to the cause of justice to watch protesters harass a family that was already distraught and plagued with anxiety and fears. That protesters seemed more prone to name-calling and threatening stances when the media was present speaks to something even more insidious — such as using a victimized child and her pained family in order to create their own Jerry Springer moments of fame.

I don’t blame Lee Anthony for dismantling the “memorial” left on the Anthony lawn by protesters after the discovery of what may be Caylee’s body. After being terrorized, it’s not unlikely that the Anthony’s saw less sympathy and love in the flowers, notes, and teddy bears than a mean-spirited and accusatory “we told you so, and we hope you suffer” directed at the family. And unfortunately they will suffer. Long after the protesters and public have moved on, and Caylee’s image fades from the collective conscience of the public.

This Is an A.D.D. Coup

Posted on 12/08/2008 by Jane Devin

There’s a piece of lavender stretched across the sky, a rough patch of color in-between gray and white clouds. If it were warmer, I’d stand outside and take a moment to appreciate its difference, but it’s freezing outside, and I seem to have misplaced my only warm coat. It’s likely in one of the boxes or bags I’ve never unpacked, or maybe it’s in the I’ll-get-to-it-one-day pile of stuff in the utility closet. I have no idea, and so far it just hasn’t been that important to me to solve the mystery.

There’s another mystery that’s nagging at me, though, not for any greater reason than curiosity. I’ve never liked unnamed things, and I believe that everything should have a name. A good name, too, a name that means something. It always bothers me at grave sites to see infants buried as Baby Boy or Baby Girl. I want to name those lost children. And no, there wouldn’t be an Olive, Rusty, Bronx or Buster in the mix. I think parents who purposely give their kids dreadful names ought to be forced to wear their own bad moniker. A mom wants to name her baby daughter Hank? Okay, but in the spirit of fairness, she should change her name to Arnold. Dad thinks it’s cute to name his son after a cartoon character? Fine, let Dad go by Eeyore for eighteen years and enjoy all the benefits of that cuteness for himself.

Yesterday, as I was getting the lump in my neck biopsied via a needle, I wasn’t worried or nervous about the results. There’s an 80% possibility the lump is benign. Even if it were cancerous, there’s an 80% survival rate for the kind of cancer indicated. I’m not fretting the results in either case. Even the remote possibility of death doesn’t cause me much stress. I’ve never been afraid of death – only of the pain that might lead up to the final exit.

No, the thing that’s really been stressing me out is not knowing the name of whatever I’ve got, and not knowing exactly why my body is trying on symptom after symptom as if looking for the perfect dysfunction to wear to a Merck costume party. First it was meningitis, then a maddening itch, face pain, sciatica, migraine, eye strain, weakness in the arms and legs, a feeling of dizziness, numbness, tingling, a few dots that look like mosquito bites, an overwhelming fatigue – I mean, come on, enough already. I have things to DO, not just things to FEEL.

In times of stress, my A.D.D. stages a coup and upends anything resembling a linear thought. So while my neck was getting prodded, I wasn’t thinking about me, or the names of illnesses, but about organic coconut cake, and how much I loved the smell of the original Herbal Essence shampoo. I wondered about the power of the FDA, and how they let infant formula laced with melamine into the market. I pondered my disappointment with Pelosi and Congress for failing to impeach Bush and his entire administration before he could exact more damage.

I thought about the recent actions of a woman I know, who continually insists that there are no accidents. I am convinced, after the last opportunity she blew, that she says this to justify her who-cares, shoulder-shrugging failures. It seems to me that she is afraid of the drains on her time and energy more success might bring, so she fails – half on-purpose (and because she can afford to) – while at the same time seeming to have made an effort. When the predictable outcome occurs, she brushes it off with a cosmic “there are no accidents”. An easy out in a world of make-believe, but so cowardly, and so untrue.

When the biopsy is done, I get into an elevator with a man who gives me the creeps. I square my shoulders, plant my feet, and then almost laugh out loud. My head is foggy, my balance is off, my muscles feel like limp spaghetti and worse, I’m not even wearing real boots or shoes, but slippers that pass as clogs. Not only would have a defensive kick to his patella done no damage, I likely would have fallen over backwards trying to land one.

That, of course, gets me thinking about getaways, which leads me to thinking about a Ford F-150, which stirs the memory of an 84 m.p.g. car Mercedes developed but never brought to market, which makes me wonder about the chemical feminisation of fish , which brings me around to thinking about fairy tales and how we, as a species, often fail to learn even the simplest didactic lessons.

When the Empress is naked, tell her damn it. And hell yes, there are accidents, even if many of them are caused by being half-aware or negligent.

On the drive home, I realize why this woman’s casual failure is rankling me, and it’s not just about her barely-there effort, or the excuses that followed. It’s because it’s cold outside, I feel like hell, I’m uninsured, and fuck –- one way or another, I’m going to die. Probably not this time, but eventually, and when it happens all my thoughts and stories are likely to die with me.

I think, despite my rational protests, my interior self has held onto one of those cliches I detest so much. I think my heart must have held onto the belief that certain things (not all things) must happen for a reason, even though every bit of evidence I’ve personally amassed over the years indicates a much more chaotic and less logical design. I think I held onto a shred of that cliched belief in the hopes that it would lend some higher meaning to my experiences – put them into some logical, organized package, where they might have value, and not just be the seedy stories from a lower-class life.

I wanted there to be a reason for the hundreds of broken people I’ve met, but more than that, I wanted a reason my mind couldn’t stop etching them into unforgettable memories. The Jesus freak waitress with the violent temper who wouldn’t serve customers who had tattoos because she thought they were the sign of the devil. The 16 year old anorexic who married the perverted 42 year old restaurant owner. The spoiled daughter who couldn’t stop stealing from her mother’s business. The two partners in a business who decided to humiliate an employee into quitting because they didn’t want to pay unemployment. The young mother who filled her infant’s bottle with Kool-Aid and fed him M&M’s, and who said she would rather have another baby than get a birth control shot or have to remember to take a pill everyday. The 400 pound heiress who couldn’t stop buying herself an ego.

That was just in one year, in one tiny town near the Canadian border.

The America I have known is seedy, punishing, backwards, and filled with animus – while at the same time being bright, inventive, rational, and compassionate. If America were a man, he’d be a philosophical gigolo. A world-class bastard with a heart, and a weakness for pretty and/or profitable things. He’d be a gold-chained slum lord, an ivory-towered philanthropist, an inventive profiteer, an Ivy League pirate with an affinity for mazes and loopholes.

That’s the America I’ve known, and while I don’t regret never having been invited into its marble-floored manses or towering institutions, I do regret that there was never much of a market for the disfigured guitarist who could play anything by ear, or the woman with the iron mark on her back who kept giving away everything she owned in the hopes of finding love, or the ragtag runaway nobody believed when he talked about the bodies he once saw being buried under construction sites. There’s really never been much of a market for the people I remember, especially when so few of them ever met a happy ending.

There was a market for the Empress, a huge one, and she shrugged. There’s so much waste in this world.

I am convinced that the most merciful thing one person can do for another is tell them the truth. Even when they don’t want to hear it – even when it’s messy, or inconvenient, or might get a person fired . Bad plus worse never equals good, and a lie is not an accident of the truth.

And there are so many preventable accidents, one might want to believe that there are deep, cosmic reasons for each of them, but it’s just not that mystical. We are flawed, we are human, we are often less than aware, and careless.

I’ve been told to call the doctor’s office Tuesday afternoon for the results of the biopsy, which likely means they’ll be available sometime Thursday or Friday. I fully expect that the results will show the mass to be benign. In the meantime, I’ll find my coat, appreciate the sky, name the possibilities, and when my mind emerges from the fog, I’ll reinvent the shrugging Empress in a story that’s less about her than about those who spared her the truth until she was left to flail alone and naked in front of a tougher crowd.