Regeneration: a Reading Series for Power

8/13

Ted and Mim drop by. it’s been  a long time. And it’s time to catch them up. The stress of this year, the pressure of just survival, has made any discussion of moving forward difficult to say the least. Without stability on the church side, it’s impossible to find the right role for the Center. But with stability in sight (hope, again...), we can look towards beginning that discussion again.  We talk about the ten years of struggle. They brought hope with them when they arrived three years ago. It’s been hard on them,too. But they hear a new confidence in my voice. And I allow myself to hear it. 

While we’re talking, Gregory comes in. Danielle goes out to talk with him. Something about his smile always feels like a hustle. 

Marc brings in a friend of his looking for a place to do a lecture. Something about space travel. I turn him over to Danielle.

Bella has a hard day of work ahead. Vacuuming and cleaning the sanctuary. Getting ready for tonight’s performance. Doing the bathrooms. Going to the post office and doing other errands for Danielle. Today is her last day of work. Her brother Max leaves  for college tomorrow. His last day too. She leaves next week. It’s been good having them around. 

And a long day for Glen. One of his crew up inside the Tiffany window replacing bulbs. Up between the ceiling and the roof replacing overheads from the cat walks over the glass ceiling. Jobs that would give me vertigo. Replacing electricity switches in the breaker box. Needs to go to Aquarius for parts.

He comes back from Aquarius upset. Let me tell you, he says, they hate fags. Kept laughing. Saying maricon. Finally I said, listen, maricon is a mean word. And some of us speak more Spanish than you think.

He and Marc work together on the box and then he’s got to run out to deal with the programs.

RL has a full crew today but the college guys are heading back to school. He needs a new crew. And listening to Stephen talk about the term sheet we’re working on adds some new wrinkles. 

A Japanese real estate guy arrives an hour early for his appointment with Jamie. We urge him to wait, not go exploring around on his own. Soon his own Asian clients will be going through the whole building. 

Jamie leaves Toto for awhile. The has to take him to the vet’s. Glen’s Tony is here today too. Again I marvel at the way dogs look at their master. Looks pretty reassuring. Stephen waiting for her to come back. 

A Spanish speaking woman in a Florida shirt comes in talking about what the water is doing to her apartment. Can’t use the oven. Necesito comida, she says, and I try and direct her to SPSA and the West Side Campaign. Pero no, she says, No puedo cocinar. Necesito comprar un sandwich, una cena. So I go into my mostly empty pocket, offer her a five. She looks at me with disdain. Pero no. No es suficinete. No es suficiente para mi a comer. 

Por favor, I think. And she goes.

Time to race to a Presbytery meeting. 

When I get back, the house is lighter and brighter than it’s been in awhile. 

                                         Black Prairie plays music from the Storm in the Barn

Glen has put together a good evening. Begins with a violin and guitar playing America, America...while a group of dancers evoke the Statue of Liberty. And then move into Glen’s play Sweet Providence, about Betsy Ross and the flag, then as that scene ends, the dancers pull out and shake long rolls of cloth evoking a dust storm. It’s an intro to Eric Coble’s the Storm in the Barn, based on Matt Phelan’s graphic novel. Some small part of Portland based Black Prairie’s score for the play is heard. Send then we segue into Dana Leslie’s Liberty about the story of Lady Liberty with classic Broadway pop and a new setting for Emma Lazarus’ Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free...(.http://www.libertystatepark.com/emma.htm ) And then I speak and finally the night closes with one more song by the plucky Broadway kids again.They are very well trained and know their chops. I make sure that Glen and Marie are thanked...

Glen’s evening was well thought out programmatically and stylistically with good dramatic transitions. And kids with talent always connect The effort to  help pay the con-ed bill much appreciated. Thus the full title:

Regeneration: A reading series for power. 

Every bit helps.

The Broadway Youth Ensemble

Some day she'll get back to the East Side

9/4

Today there’s smoke pouring  out of the manhole at 888th and Amsterdam. OK, so what’s going on here?

Jeremy G’s crew has arrived and is starting to check things out to start work on their production. 

Glen and I go to the backyard to talk about his new ideas. He has a new script to look at, Mrs. Murphy’s Porch, by Wystie Edwards, whose Disappeared reading I went to with Glen. Porch has already been produced and reviewed and would be a good project. Glen also has ideas for Mc Alpin Hall as a production space. It’s only about an hour long so Glen shows me a Youtube of another play, Storm in the Barn, adapted by Eric Coble from the Graphic novel by Matt Phelan. The video grabs me, especially with its dust bowl era feel and music by Black Prairie (yup,Portland.)The play was a great success at the Oregon Children’s Theatre. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkfBsSvoRsg ) This would be a major undertaking. So we begin to reframe, talking about a series of talk backs that could focus on issues raised by the play. We could have different guests, chaplains, grieving parents, talk about finding life in the midst of tragic loss...The ideas are all there. It’s all good. Making it real, making it work, that’s the challenge. 

As I’m walking out with Glen, Sarah from NMASS has arrived. We’ve been looking fo ra time to have a conversation, get to know one another better. I listen to her story from Korean immigrant roots. Her father in the  tradition of Korean small businessmen in Queens’ little Korea. Sarah tells me her journey from an anti-imperialist group rooted in Korean identity to a broadening understanding of the world, the struggle we’re all in. I share with her some of my stories, of Central America, Israel-Palestine, farmworkers, my blue collar Pittsburgh heritage. She laughs when I talk about a day when people could go from high school to the mills and have a good middle class life with medical benefits, vacations, education for your children. We actually had that once, back in the day. 

She’s been working to organize a workers’ center in  Queens. Initially with Korean workers but reaching out to others. We talk about organizing. My experience has been the importance of recognizing the difference between the role of organizer and the role of  leader. I speak of my appreciation for the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) and its  respect for the profession of organizing. As opposed to other organizing groups who just burn their people out. She agrees with me on the burnout part .But she pushes me pretty hard on the organizing principle. Is professionalization of organizing a good thing? Don’t leaders have to be organizers too? I like being pushed. 

And as always, the conversation comes round to the importance of relationships. Solidarity work can be abusive. Part of the beauty of the original naivete of OWS was its insistence on the necessity of finding a better way to live and be. When the value of people is lost, we have already lost. And also that I always want the value of my relationships, and West-Park’s  relationships, that I bring to any given cause honored and  respected.

It’s been good sitting in the yard, talking. Getting late. It’s been a quiet day on the steps. As I walk Sarah out, Rachelle is waiting for me. She is effervescent, complimentary,all that. We chat and then I tell her that  her stuff’s got to go. Can’t keep her cart and growing accumulation in the sanctuary.

You’re beginning to sound like Teddy, she says.

No, I’m beginning to sound like me. The sanctuary can’t be a storage facility....

But I had it all neat and someone...

Its not about neat, it’s about no.

And so she begins to tell me her story. A doctor. A professor. The onset of a disease that seems to strike people from Germany. Given less than three years to live. Gave all her things away to hose who would  need them. And that was 30 years ago. Sooner or later, someday she’ll get back to the East Side....

I tell her again, the stuff has to go.

Do you know why I dress like this, she says, like a bag lady? I learned that from Patty Hearst’s grandmother.  And I hear the whole story of Rachelle and Patty Hearst’s grandmother. It’ s how a lady like myself stays safe i the city....

I repeat again that her stuff has to go. We’ll find her someone to help her. Yes =, but not that Teddy....he’s a ...a...Jekyll and Hyde...I know he tries so to help but.....She will never get over that night on the steps when Teddy punched the heroin addict. 

I’m done for the day....