Once Upon a Walk

April 11, 2011: Greetings! I'm glad you could join me again. I have so many things planned to share with you ... and yet I'll probably fail to get to most of them, so adjust your expectations accordingly.

To begin, I enjoyed a marvelous walk last afternoon -- and in fact covered 6.75 miles, which I hope impresses those of you who see me only as a brilliant intellect, and not the strapping physical specimen others of you know me to be. (You know who you are! Don't pretend!) The details I'll spare you, as they mostly involve trees and no one wants to hear about them unless they fall over. However, early on, I had an interesting (well, not really) experience at the bank machine that got me to thinking, as bank machine experiences are wont to do.

You see, as I set out from town, I needed to make a stop to deposit a check I was carrying for $4.96. (I get a lot of these little checks, actually, though most of them aren't for amounts even that large -- usually under a dollar. If you want to know the details, please write me and I'll tell you more, but I'd rather not have to right now, as I'm very busy.)

Anyway, as I walked up to the door, a guy came out and declared, "If you're gonna make a deposit, don't, 'cause it just ate my money." He was distraught, and briefly detailed that he'd just called his wife (although I'm still not clear why), and they were leaving on vacation to Florida in the morning and he'd needed to put the $600 in the account, but the machine (as machines will do, left to their own devices) had simply eaten the money and then denied any involvement, and he was bumming.

I offered my sympathies and suggested it would all work out, as they'd have to see there was an unaccounted $600 in the coiffers the next morning (hopefully, unless the machine had somehow funneled it to the Contras or the Tea Party representatives or something). He was amenable to the thought, and almost good-humoredly declared it a mere annoyance after all. He somehow alluded to his wife again, which was starting to get on my nerves. Then, at the same time, interestingly, we both said that he should best simply "breathe" and it would all work out swimmingly.

The point of this whole story, which really unfolded after I walked away (certainly not willing to chance losing my $4.96 check) is one of Racial Awareness (or R.A., as I've coined it merely for the purposes of this entry, and will subsequently forget coining by the time I get to the next paragraph). Regular Blah-ugh! readers will recall several insightful essays I've shared involving how, despite my far-liberal social leanings, I sometimes can't help being the product of a race-conscious upbringing (or a race-conscious something. Maybe it wasn't my upbringing. Perhaps it was my downfalling. Who really knows?)

The point is, I began to speculate on whether his being black was going to impact his chances at getting his money back. (See, I hadn't mentioned that he was black. And how many of you Whiteys out there thoughtlessly drew a picture of a white man at the ATM, and were -- even for an instant -- surprised by this disappointed customer's blackness? ... Come now. Be honest. (You racist scum! You're even worse than I am!))

Yes, I was thinking his credibility could be called into serious jeopardy by the sight of his skintone at the ATM camera. ("Hmmm," I could hear the corporation heads concurring. "He could be a liar. He is, after all, pretty black.")

This, in turn, got me to wonder whether a white man was necessarily a better risk where such an event was concerned. Certainly not an Italian (like myself, and I'm not even one of your swarthier ones!), although the Irish may not fair any better, especially the ones with red hair ... It seems an Asian might be a good bet, as they're a notoriously hard-working and honest people (although they can be very loud when you're riding on the subway) ... Better still to be Jewish (also like myself), for they're just fat with money (although I'm one of the rare exceptions) and they're reputedly honest (although very loud, in many cases).

This led me to decide that it might be a good idea to start wearing a yarmulke every time I use the ATM, just in case the machine backfires. I can keep one in my car, and while they never seem to fit me right, I don't think the quality of those cameras is that fine.

It's wonderful the range of fulfillment one discovers on a typical late-afternoon walk!

NEXT WEEK: More sophistry and perhaps less punctuation.

Racitry vs. Bigotism: Which Makes Me Look Worse?

February 7, 2011: A lot of people don't know this about me, but I have no use for African art. In these awkward modern times we live in, of course, I hesitate to mention it because one will automatically assume I'm being racist, but here at the Blah-ugh! we strive for honesty, and though there is no bigotry in operation -- for God's sake, some of my best friends are (or at least have been) black -- I hope my intelligent, liberal-minded and breathtakingly virile readers won't misinterpret my artwork opinions for broad hatred.

This, of course, begs the question of what exactly constitutes racism. (And I could even add a question mark there, but I'm choosing not to.) Is racial awareness -- noticing differences that are race-related -- racism? Obviously there's a dictionary definition out there to settle such a question, but I'm not really in the mood to look it up right now (and, frankly, I don't see you getting off your ass to do it!).

In "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" (which I actually read twice to prove I wasn't a racist -- once wearing a Pendleton shirt) the author (and, see, while it's billed as an "autobiography," it's kind of a pretend one, if we're going to be technical; I just don't want to later be accused of bending over backwards to appear non-racist by omitting such a detail, you see!) ... Hmmm. Now where was I? ... Oh yes! The author points out a very interesting second tier of racism, wherein the White Man (if you'll forgive the expression) constantly differentiates between the races, i.e., "My black friend" or "There's this black guy in my reading club," but for no other descriptive purpose. It's an interesting distinction, for really, in a perfect world, shouldn't we not even notice if people are a different color, like on Star Trek?

It goes farther, of course, because many people aren't even aware of doing it. I've long marveled at the politicians and Right-wing liberals (yes, I've just created such an anomalie) who extole the virtues of colored folk with references to their being so "articulate" (as if it's some marvel) and "dignified" (as if it's a surprise), and of course the capper -- forever referring to a black guy as being a "gentleman" (I guess because it's patronizingly safe) ...

But, hell, I'm no better (except in most other ways). I'm can't deny that the differences stand out to me. Sometimes I wish they didn't, but then I wouldn't have as much material to write about.

(Of course there's the opposite side to this coin, wherein if one more black guy calls me "Sir" -- which I always feel is sarcastic -- I'm gonna start smashing my Sam Cooke records ... No, I'd never do that!)

Anyway, I think you get my point. And interestingly, I really have no use for Native American art either, although I like their casinos.