Happy birthday big sis

Well fun but true story. Back in the late 80s when our hometown was still a beaten down wreck and wasn't considered " quaint" by the morons there was this kid who was an asshole. Now I had heard he had turned into a somewhat decent adult who is a good father. But when my sister and I were kids he was a motherfucker. Now back then it was just my sister and I . She's four years older then me and we hung around each other all the time. We were pretty damn close and if you fucked with one of us, you were going to get fucked up. So one afternoon their was this outdoor concert hippie thing going on. I can't remember the details but Iam sure there was a merengue band and possibly a lute. My sister and I were there with our dad running around and being kids. Well that asshole kid was there and he was being what he was known for being ,an asshole. I was three or four so that would of made my sister six or seven. That asshole kid was eight. Well the jackass started shit with my sister and she kicked him because of something. She let out a howl and I immdietly  attacked the bastard because I thought " hey man you hurt my sister"! My older sister being the tough lady she is and me being the scrapper Iam proceeded to beat up  the kid until our dad pulled us off. I believe we didn't get in trouble. So my sister gained the reputation of being a badass that YOU DID NOT MESS WITH!  Now as an adult you still don't mess with her. But besides kicking ass still she has become a pretty Awsome mom and an amazing cook. So on this your birthday remember if an asshole fucks with you I will not only kill the asshole but I will kill his family. Happy birthday

On my little sisters birthday

Many years ago on this day in that last year of that overrated decade known as the 80s a women was born. There was no killer storm that day, but she was early and her mother begged the doctor that she wasn't ready to give birth, she had shit to do like play every single religious service in town and make killer lefsa for her kids. But that baby needed to get yanked out now. So on that day a young boy of five who lived in tighty whities and watched ghostbusters every single day came down stairs to find that his best friends mom was there and that a baby was a coming . He was excited. He wanted a baby sibling and he wanted a boy. He knew his older sister had wanted a girl. But the little boy wanted a brother and wanted to name it Winston after Winston Zedmore from Ghostbusters. The little boys dad called finally. Was it a boy? Was it a girl? Was it a mango? It was....a baby girl. The little boy angry and pissed ran to his room and hid in his closet. He knew he was screwed, he was outnumbered now. His big sister had an Allie and he was alone. His friends mom tried to comfort him. Finally his moms friends picked him and his sister up and they headed to the next county over to see his mom and his new baby sister. They stopped at a store. The little boy who loved ghostbusters was disappointed but loved babies. I mean he wasn't hitler. So he said the baby should get a present and picked out a sheep or was it a horse? It was a sheep. They went to the hospital and he saw his new sister. He wasnt mad anymore. If anything he was actually happy. I mean who hates babies? After seeing his mom, the little boy went home and watched that night the premiere of a new cartoon called the Simpsons. It was funny and silly and he knew his mom wouldn't allow him to watch it but that was okay. The next day the little boy went back to the hospital with his sister and dad. The baby hadn't opened her eyes and the little boy wondered if she even had eyes. The little boys mom tried to get the baby  to open her eyes. The baby opened her eyes and standing right in front if her was the little boy. The little baby saw the little boy and immdietly closed her eyes. The question was who was scarred more , the little baby or the boy? But the pair grew up and the little boy got older and tried to look out for his little sister the best way he could, by either punching bullies or threatening potential boyfriends by promising to murder their family if anything happened to her. It was unsaid that armaggadon would be unleashed by the little boy who had become a man and his brother.But luckily that never happened yet. But the little baby became a women who was rather cool and quite bright. And any young gentlemen caller would be lucky to have her and any person would be happier to have her as a friend. So on this day I wish the little baby who has become a kickass chick happy birthday

Are the Mariners back? Probably not

Baseball sucked when I was a kid. Not the game, though I can see why people are bored with it. No specifically the Mariners. They sucked and they sucked bad. Back in the late 80s and early 90s the Seattle Mariners where the saddest team in baseball. They played in a death trap of a stadium known as the kingdom, and they where as good as a AA ball club. Few kids I knew around my age if they followed baseball liked the mariners. Yeah people wore M's caps but it was few and far between. You saw plenty of A's hats and the occasional asshole with a Yankee cap. Their colors were pretty awful. I mean who the hell wears light blue and gold? And they had guys no one had heard of. If I went over to my grandparents house they would have the Mariners on and they usually where losing. Once we had on the Mariners-Yankees game.I was a self proclaimed White Sox fan cause my dad had got me a white sox hat, but of course it felt kind of weird. I asked my mom about liking the Yankees. We where of course working class, Maynard G Muskie vote loving democrats. She explained that if you where a republican you liked the Yankees and if you where a democrat you liked the Dodgers, but since the Dodgers where in LA you where supposed to like the Mets but the Mets where full of drug addicted thugs and the Mariners  sucked so my best bet was to stay out of it all. Godbless my mom.

So I would follow the Mariners casually. Still trying to understand the game. My dad had been a pretty decent ball player in high school but because of his own issues he never reached his full potential. We never played catch but would talk about baseball. I on the other hand played little league and except for my first year, I enjoyed it tremendously . I of course wasn't the best hitter or fielder, but I had speed and a psychotic passion that would of scared the shit out of Bobby Knight. I was the little leaguer that would scream and yell and throw my helmet when I got out. And the player I looked up to was Ken Griffey jr. 

If you don't respect or know who Ken Griffey jr. Is , you...well it's better then that we don't talk. Ken Griffey Jr was for one moment on his way to becoming as big as Michael Jordan. The man could do it all. He could hit like Ruth, field like Willie Mays and run like Ricky Henderson. He was strictly speaking the greatest baseball player of the 1990's and probably one of the five greatest of the past 50 years( yeah I fucking  said it). Not only was he great but he was a Mariner and he was a Mariner that we developed. He was ours and in a city that gets no respect over our sports teams, he was a man that made people respect us.we weren't good but we had the best player in baseball. 

We were truly awful but something started  to happen, year after year we got a little bit better. We weren't Oakland with those roided out bash brothers or Atlanta which thanks to Ted Turner was Americas team. No the Mariners were becoming something else. They where becoming a motley crew of homegrown talent like a young less dbag esque  AROD, Dan Wilson and Tino Martinez, journeymen like Edgar Martinez ,Joey Cora and Luis Sojo and guys that people didn't think had any potential such as Jay Buehner and Randy Johnson.  And leading them was Sweet Lou Pinella, a prodigy of Billy Martin. A man who when he would lose his shit was the most entertaining thing in baseball. And at the for front was Griffey.

In 94 we where on our way to going to the playoffs and Griffey was on his way to breaking Roger Maris's home run record without steroids. That was until the strike happened and screwed baseball up for a period. The next year became something truly amazing.

If you where a kid in western Washington in the 1995, you probably have the same memories as I do. Griffey breaking his wrist and missing all those games, the M's fighting their way into the playoffs, the 20 game wining and  the banner during that 20 game winning streak and our playoff run "Refuse to Lose!",the one game playoff with the Angels where we won and fans stormed the field in joy, and us coming back from being down three games to beat the invincible Yankees and then our eventual defeat by the Indians in the AlCS. It was a magical season.

95 was the first year I ever attended a Major League Baseball game. I went with my dad and I remember almost everything about it but I also remember it as a haze of home runs by Griffey,Jay Buehner and Edgar, 100 mile per hour fastballs by Randy Johnson and the deadening screams of the kingdom as fans cheered the Mariners to the playoffs and glory. I know it sounds cliched for a guy to say this about baseball ,but it was one of the best experience of my childhood. Screaming my lungs out, my dad yelling taunts to the pitching coach of Oakland. Yeah it was a religious experience. 

Even though the Mariners  lost,the 95 season saved baseball in Seattle. Griffey and the Mariners kept the team from going to Florida and gave us  Safco Field. It installed a love for baseball for a whole generation of Washingtonians.

But of course this story went south pretty soon. We traded away Tino Martinez a beloved developed talent to the Yankees who used him to win four World  Series titles. And even though we beat the Yankees in 95 we couldn't get over the hump. We traded away talent, destroyed our farm system and still couldn't get into the World Series. Finally Griffey left in 00 and after a record 116 win season in 01, Lou Pinella sick of all the bullshit from the owners left for Tampa Bay. Of course by then the only guys left from that 95 season where Jay Buehner, Edgar Martinez and Dan Wilson . And so the Mariners descended into hell. 

By then I had moved to New York and took a casual likening for the Mets. But I would dream about the Mariners one day being good. It was painful to watch losing season after losing season. I didn't even know the names of most of these guys. And yes I was given shit for liking the Mariners by all of my friends. But even in the darkness there was a ray of hope. Griffey returned to Seattle and even though they didn't make the playoffs the Mariners  were in the hunt and that alone was something to cheer about. But then of course it collapsed again and we had losing seasons and the owners haven't done squat to rectify it. . They've raised ticket prices on fans and haven't put the money into going after free agents. That's why last week blew everyone away when Robinson Cano signed with the Mariners .

 People need to understand this doesn't happen for Mariners fans ,it really doesn't . Hell us keeping Felix Hernandez was huge,but going out and winning the top free agent on the market? THIS DOESNT HAPPEN! The fact that we took one of the top Yankees to boot, all I can say is fuck yeah.It's as if maybe the ownership maybe wants to win. I know all of you Yankees fans are like fine you can have him, he screwed up his career, you guys aren't going to win a World Series . And maybe your right, we did get a 31 year old second basemen and well we've seen how the Pujols and Josh Hamilton deals turned out. We may not win this season but it's a shift in the right direction and maybe it will be fun to be a Mariners fan again.

Oh drama

School plays saved me. I know we hear that all the time and it makes a person roll their eyes. Hey it makes me roll my eyes too. Even though Iam an actor, I get annoyed by the Dbags who treat acting and the such like its curing cancer. But in all honesty it gave me direction.

When I got to high school I went searching for my place. I tried band and was truly awful. I tried wrestling and well just imagine me on the wrestling team. Yeah I know. I did learn what I was capable of taking. Then I went and tried out for a school play. It was the spring show which was Arsenic and old lace a play which I had seen the movie version . Now being me and akward as only a 15 year old could be I auditioned. I just remember, god I hate to say it, but I felt drawn to the theater. It was funny my mom who is an actress had been the musical director for all the high school musicals when I was little. Since we didn't have money for a babysitter my older sister and I got dragged to rehearsals at the high school. So plays like 42nd Street, Fiddler and the such where part of my childhood. That and teens getting drunk at my moms house( but that's a story for a different time). So in a sense going to the auditorium was like going back in time to bad 80s hairdos and sweaters. 

I auditioned and didn't get cast. I was given the job of being everybody's understudy. So I went to every single rehearsal called or not. Now what's funny is that the director who shall remain nameless kept on having actors dropout and instead of saying " hey kid you get the part" would just cast other people who hadn't even auditioned. I remember being annoyed and just thinking " what the fuck? Had I been that awful?". Finally a week before the show opened, a senior was kicked out for being a flake and I was given the role of Lt. Rooney, a part where I chewed more scenery then Rod Steiger. I hadn't discovered the subtleties of the acting world yet.

The next year was my sophomore year and things on a personal level had gotten tough. Let's just say I could of out angry young manned John Osborne( ten points if you know who he is, yes Iam asking you Todd Peters). Stuff was happening at home and I just remember being angry and pissed but I masked it with humor and silliness. I hadn't even bothered to audition for the fall play instead deciding to do Cross Country a sport which, well is a little crazy if you think about it( my ass did look terrific). But word came out that they where going to do a musical for the first time in almost five years. Not just any musical but West Side Story. 

Now I know they're those of you who scoff at the musical and I understand why. I'll just say that fucking Glee has ruined musicals and high school drama for a number of us( yeah I fucking said it! Fuck glee!). But when a musical is done right like Company or Pippin or South Park Bigger Longer and Uncut it's truly amazing and takes your breath away. I luckily had been raised in an environment where the musical was looked at in a positive light. Though maybe we where a little snobbish, but Sondheim was considered god alongside young Stephen Schwartz and yes Rodgers and Hammerstein( if you have a problem I will cut you!). All of the works of Andrew loyd Webber where looked on as crap. Thank you mom.

West Side Story held a special place in my heart. When I was 7 I had run home after mass so I could watch the ending of Star Trek: The Next Generation. I was a couple minutes late and had missed it. Instead of STNG I saw a group of Spanish looking guys led by a badass in a bright red shirt dancing through the streets of early 60s NYC. I was completely enamored. They danced and fought with a group of dirty looking white guys led by a guy I had seen in Seven Brides For Seven Brothers( as I said my mom liked musicals). They danced and sang but man they where fucking badass's. I wanted to be the that chief badass Bernardo. My parents came home and I swear my moms heart started fluttering when she saw Bernardo. Hey he was a badass.

I knew I wanted to be in it and I knew I wanted one of the leads. I felt only I could bring any of the three roles justice.  

So when it was announced that there's would be auditions I put everything I could into the audition. I wanted to play Tony but was cast as Bernardo. I was disappointed , but as my mom and sister pointed out take all the shit you've been feeling and put it into this role. And that's what I did. All the anger I felt about my dad, all the feelings of being an outcast, of not belonging to the right family, all the anger I had at being so poor my freshmen year that I was stuck with high water pants I put into that role. Every bully I had dealt with all of it went into Bernardo. It gave me an outlet that I needed to express how I felt. And in the process I made friends with people who became my friends for the rest of high school. It helped me learn to not give a fuck. 

The show sold out every single performance and gave me the greatest outlet in the world for what I was feeling and gave me a sense of direction that I hadn't felt before. I knew that I wanted to do this. When my grandfather, a child of the depression heard that maybe I wanted to be an actor, instead of saying no that's stupid, he said maybe that's what he should do.

Teenagers need some form of self expressive outlet. For some it's athletics, for others it's writing, for some it's things like shop. For a number of others it's choir, drama , jazz band, and yes fucking Glee. When you take away these activities from young teenagers you hinder their development as people. Keeping the arts and other programs in schools helps a teenager find the direction they need to become healthy members of society. They probably won't become the next Rhianna or Brando or Beethoven. But  I will say this,for me if I didn't have school plays and the opportunities I  was able to have because of the arts programs at my high school, I would of ended up maybe becoming one of those dark angry kids you see on the news. 

http://www.change.org/petitions/citizens-of-jefferson-county-washington-encourage-the-ptsd-school-board-to-reinstate-drama-at-pths-as-an-elective-class

JFK

So 50 years ago last week JFK was shot. When I was born he had only been dead for 20 years and his brother Bobby had been dead for 15. But of course after all the shit that happened between 63 and 84 it seemed like a lifetime for many people of my parents generation. It was funny growing up you heard two things about JFK either he was a saint who was on his way to being the greatest president ever and could of saved humanity from an earthquake or that he was an evil fuck who murdered maralyn Monroe with his bare hands after fucking her and half the women in the country while the mob was winning him elections and feeding him drugs. Also he was killed by the Mob cause he dissed Sinatra, the Russians killed him cause he had really good hair, the Cubans killed him cause Castro was still pissed off about the Dodgers moving to LA, the Miami Cubans killed him cause they're all crazy, a fascist gay  army led by Tommy Lee Jones and Joe Pesci in silly wigs killed him cause he was selling out the country to Canada and the most hated enemy known as the Dutch, evil jerks. 

The man has become since his death one of the most mythologized and villianized politicians in the last 80 years besides Ronald Reagan who can burn in hell.  The "what if" he had lived question and " the who shot him" have become more American then Apple pie and baseball. I think for many people of my parents generation JFK getting shot was the  beginning of all hell breaking loose in the land. But as a NYTimes article pointed out all hell had already been breaking loose for a while.

By 1963 a cold civil war had been escalating throughout the country. In the south you had violent confrontations between the civil rights movement and the violent racist powers that ran life in the South and yes they were Democrats such as Strom " I have jungle fever" Thurmond. You also had the ultra right wing john birch society with the support of men like former Gen Curtis LeMay and many others of the  military establishment  openly talking about overthrowing the government because that catholic in the White House was selling us out to the reds. Not counting the mob which pretty much had its hand in every major industry in America and the corrupt ultra right wing businessmen who supported these groups and the foreign affairs issues, things where not right in Camelot. But of course we like to idealize what life was like. That if one thing hadn't happened maybe just maybe things would of turned out the way everyone had hoped they would have.

Of course this is always the lost dreams of youth. Even now people of my generation are starting to romanticize the 90s. And I do admit looking back things weren't as fucked up as they became after the 2000 election and 9/11. But we forget how messed up the 90s where at times. There was the crack wars that were destroying cities, you had Rodney King, you had the rise of the original gridlock master Newt Gingrich, in the early 90s people were dying of AIDS left and right and well if you were gay young and living in someplace like Wyoming you had a good chance of getting killed. So things weren't that great. But I do admit I look back at that period of my life between 1998-2001 as an almost happy dead period. Maybe it was because I was a teenager and hadn't dealt with the fucked up realties of adulthood . Yes things were tough in my life dealing with issues with my dad, but it was still happy. 

My mom always joked that heaven was probably the summer of 1962. I guess for me it would be the summer of 2000. For my grandparents it was probably 1945. For the people who lived through World War I it was 1913-1914. In a survey from the early 70s, they found that people became obsessed with Nostalgia. The idea of an idealized time before things became fucked up became a national obsession. I guess when you go through a traumatic period you search for what went wrong and try to fix it. That is why JFK's presidency and Assasination still captivate the nation to this day.

Now I grew up in a liberal catholic family. So JFK was looked at fondly but we also looked at him realistically ( I am personally a Bobby Kennedy guy myself). We knew he wasn't the saint that they made him out to be, but he wasn't this evil gangster. He didn't kill Marilyn Monroe. Joe Kennedy would of tried to do something like that but he was a vegetable by then so he couldn't do squat. Maybe mobsters helped swing the election in Chicago but the real power lay with Boss Daley who was the one who got the voter turn out. Also people forget that southern Illinois which was a republican stronghold, was just as corrupt and rumors circulated for a long time that Nixon didn't contest the election cause he knew stuff would come out about what the republicans had done there. Yes the man was on drugs but so was a lot of people in the establishment, hell just watch Mad Men. He was such a product of his time and place it's a little unbelievable. I mean the man ran right of Nixon!But the man grew and moved in a total different direction. 

People of my generation don't realize how close we came to the world ending during the Cuban Missile Crisis. We where unbelievably close to a total nuclear war that would of left the world full of mutants and bands of mohawked gangs roaming the wasteland searching for petrol. But JFK and his brother Bobby kept their heads and didn't give into the pressure of the pentagon who was all gung-Ho to bomb Cuba. They knew they could strike a deal and avert the end of humanity as we know it. Now imagine Nixon in that situation or Reagan or Carter, what do you think would happen? Yeah don't. For that alone that makes JFK pretty cool. 

A lot of people said the man changed after the Cuban Missile Crisis. That he realized the way we as a country had been going was wrong . That maybe we could find peace with the Russians through other means. That maybe we shouldn't be scared of these people. I  think the idea of his own children dying scared the hell out of him. Kids do that to a person. They help a person realize that maybe you shouldn't fuck around, that you have a responsibility to leave things better then you found it ( yes I don't have kids but this is what I hear). If you go and listen to the audio tapes during the coup of Diem in South Vietnam you find him and his brother wondering if doing that will come back and bite them in the butt and saying maybe this is a bad idea( Henry Cabot Lodge JFK's senate opponent in 52 who was the ambassador to South Vietnam gave the coups go ahead without the White House final say).

Now I am not going to be one who's going to say that if JFK hadn't died we wouldn't of had Vietnam or the chaos that became the 60s. But I will say that maybe things might of been different. We'll never really know. But for the short time period he was in power and especially the last year he was alive he started becoming the president that he was meant to be. He didn't accomplish as much as he could of , but what he was able to do did inspire people to believe that maybe we had a responsibility to help one another and leave the world a better place then the one we found.

Happy Birthday Uncle Joe

Yesterday was a great  Americans birthday. No not Mel Brooks but Joe Biden.A man who in these shitty times of doubt and fear has been the one we have looked too for stability in a world gone mad. Maybe it was his on air flubs, saying things that we don't expect from a politician. Maybe it was the wacky pictures of him strutting around in his shades giving the look of a badass or flirting with a biker chick or offering rides to teens in his limos to rallies. Maybe it was the stories of a man who's life was filled with tragedy and used it to fine joy in life. Who knows? 

Joe Biden is the first VP that didn't scare the shit out of the world like Dick Cheney or for you older folks Spiro Agnew ,wasn't the butt of akward boring jokes like a prebadass Al Gore, he wasn't a semi- inbred like Dan Quayle and wasn't trying to blame others like George HW Bush( it's funny as hell that Pappy Bush is missed). No Joe Biden was something else. He was that fun uncle who got you a little too drunk at Christmas, he was that buddy who talked you into streaking through the church parking lot, but he was like that friend who was the first person you'd call after your girl broke up with you, he was like the friend who'd help you get home after a hard night if drinking, he was like that dad who'd help you feel better after your first pet died. 

Joe Biden has been willing to say the hard truths that we all don't want to hear. He's been willing to tell it like it is. When healthcare was passed he  was caught on a mic saying " It's a big fucking deal", the media freaked out but at the end of the day all he said was what we all where thinking. He came out on his own and said " Hey Iam cool with the gays, why aren't you?". He did that in an election year. After Obama got his ass kicked in that first debate Uncle Joe went in there and smacked the shit out of Paul Ryan by saying what we wanted to hear for a long time. He called him out in front of the nation. After Uncle Joe called out Rommney for the 47% comment, Ryan responded with a comment about Biden sticking his foot in his mouth.Uncle Joe turned to the camera and simply said " At least I believe what Iam saying". And that is   The brilliance of Uncle Joe and why he is so popular. In a time of BS from politicians and lies, Joe Biden is the last man around that you can actually trust. You know he's honest. You know he actually gives a shit and isn't just lying to get ahead. I mean this is a guy who when he as a senator was named the 99th richest senator, meaning he wasn't pulling in the big bucks like the others. All of his money was in his house. Who the fuck hears that from a politician ? 

Now we all know the systems been rigged to help out certain people. Let's be honest folks it is, and we all know a good majority of the people in power don't give a damn, but every once in a while a person shows up that makes you believe that hey just maybe it isn't all bullshit, just maybe the whole damn thing is worth fighting and dying for. They help you believe again. That's Joe Biden, he'll never be President which is too bad.He'll never be on Mount Rushmore which is a travesty. But knowing he's there in the White House serving as the true voice of reason, that makes me believe that my grandfathers didn't fight in vain. So thank you Uncle Joe and happy birthday.

Vets day

My grandpa Tom Rowen, my older sister gen and myself

My grandpa Tony on the left with his brother Angelo on his way to my cousin Suzanne's baptism 

In my family every male that was old enough to fight fought in World War II. I had a great uncle who was killed at 17 on Okinawa and who's now buried at the punch bowl in Hawaii. Other relatives fought in the pacific and Europe. I even had a great uncle who liberated a concentration camp.  WW2 is part of my families mythology. Now we can debate for days about the causes of the war that yes Germany royally got screwed by the treaty of Versailles. That we pushed the Japanese in a corner with our embargo. That American corporations did business with the Nazis.That yes the US sent jewish refugees back to Germany to face the slaughter of the gas chambers. That FDR my favorite president knew the Japanese where going to attack Pear Harbor. We could go on for days. But at the end of the day we had to fight this war and we had to win it.

Both my grandfathers fought in the Pacific campaign. My moms dad Tommy "Rosie" Rosenberg( an Irish catholic with a Jewish name, long story) joined at 17. He joined in 1940 after hearing the Stars and Stripes being played at a parade( we go in for the dramatic in my family). He served aboard the USS Huston and was taken off two days before it was sunk in the Battle of the Java Sea, he saw combat all over the Pacific from Tarawa where he witnessed marines get slaughtered over an island the size of the Meadowlands to Leyte Gulf where he saw the Japanese fleet get destroyed. He survived three typhoons and almost was kept in the Navy until 1947 when through some careful manipulation he was finally able to be discharged and start a family with the love of his life. Because he was the smallest he was sent inside the ships boilers to clean and because of that came away with asbestos poisoning that damaged his lungs for the rest of his life. The other physical scare he came away with was the loss of all of his teeth. During an air attack an explosion threw him face first against a metal door knocking out his teeth and leaving him a 22 year old able to do an excellent Popeye impression. Like many vets he came home angry and a chain smoker, but due to the practicality of my grandmother was able not to let the horrors of the war dominate his life. As kids my brother and I would have him tell us stories of his war experiences which at the time came off as funny but in retrospect where horrifying such as the time he went to pull a guy out of the water after a battle and found the   Mans lower half missing or how while pulling survivors out of the water he got his pants stuck and nearly lost his life but instead only lost his pants. 

My grandfather never took advantage of the GI bill. He had spent almost 8 years of his life in the Navy and wanted to be left alone. He quietly lived his life in the Seattle area as the chief engineer at Virginia Mason Hospital and didn't travel until after the age of 55 when due to a hilarious circumstances he came into an obscene amount of money. Even though he was now well off he was still that tough blue collar guy who had badass tattoos before they where considered cool. 

My dad's father Anthony Demanti was the son of immigrants from Italy. His father had immigrated from Calabria as a small child and after surviving the 1906 San Francisco earthquake had settled in East Oakland and worked various jobs to support his family. His mother had been brought over from Sicily as a baby. My grandfather spent the first couple years of his life living in a converted chicken coop in his grandparents back yard before moving into a real house. He was still a teenager when the war broke out and joined the Navy at 18. He had never seen snow until he attended basic training in Idaho. As the story went he had signed up to be a navy corpsmen which is a medic thinking he would be stationed on a hospital ship. But after impressing his superiors he was transferred into a marine combat unit and was sent on his way to Okinawa. When he arrived he was sent to a unit to replace four men who had been killed. His sergeant said to him " Whatever you do just keep on moving forward and you won't die". My grandpa Tony saw horrors that no one should see or live with. According to my dad his dad would occasionally tell stories of what he did in the war. His where not stories of gallantry or heroics. His where stories of survival and a young man having to do horrific things that would stay with him forever. When the war ended he was part of the occupation force in Japan and later said to both my parents" these guys where ready to surrender we didn't need to bomb Hiroshima". He was vague but the sense was he may of done medical work there.

He didn't get to return through the golden gate. For some reason they sent him through the Panama Canal to Virginia. He then travelled back to East Oakland by train.

  He came back a completely different man from the one who left. Angry, pissed off with a hair trigger temper, his was a life marked by instability and tragedy. He too never took advantage of the GI bill, instead getting a job in a tool and die company and becoming a Jr Sinatra if that makes sense. He ended up marrying three times all ending in divorce. Today he lives a quiet life in Fremont California. He keeps to himself and occasionally goes to Tahoe to gamble or on the occasional road trip with his younger brother who checks on him once a week. Being 87 he doesn't own an air conditioner or a answering machine. I try to call him when I can. When we talk it's usually about sports. How the raiders are crap and Tebows no good. Occasionally he'll talk about  his childhood and will hint about the war. 

Both of my grandfathers lived low key lives. They never ran for political office, cured cancer or won a major court case. Both didn't really travel except when my grandpa Tom fell into that money. They never met the president and the biggest celebrity either one if them met was when my grandpa Tom hitched a ride from the great English actor Charles Laughton  while heading back to base after WW2. Both worked blue collar jobs and simply raised their families.By the time they where both 23 they had already achieved something great. They had fought and survived and won a war that no matter how you look back on it needed to be fought and won. 

In the last five years of his life my grandfather Tom mellowed considerably from the angry war vet he had been. Losing your wife does that to you. When he heard that I had done a terrific job in a school production of West Side Story and that maybe I wanted to be an actor, instead of saying that was dumb he to the shock of everyone said maybe that's what I should do with my life. When my grandpa Tony heard I was an actor in NYC he said " That's terrific to hear".  Both of these men didn't accomplish much in some respects. But the sacrifice they made was huge. I heard a couple years ago that my grandpa Tom had before the war wanted to be a history teacher but after the war said fuck it and got a job. Who knows what my grandpa Tony wanted to be but after what he went through in his mind it was just about getting a job. 

A lot of times people say how thankful they are for our freedom but don't really understand it. It's been bastardized so much that it's become almost meaningless. People will thank a soldier out of guilt and not out of real thanks. When you stop and think about what these guys have had to go through it's pretty amazing.

So on this Veterans Day I say thank you to both my grandfathers. Because of what you guys did Iam able to live the life I want, where I want and how I want without someone telling me what to do. Iam able to pursue the arts as a profession out of my own free will. Iam able to date any one I want and there race or religion or social standing doesn't matter. For that Grandpa Tom and Grandpa Tony Iam forever grateful.

Not long before he died my Grandpa Tom said to my siblings and I about the war " if you paid me a million dollars to fight all over again I would say no but if you offered me a million dollars never to have fought I would say no"

Lou and Me

So funny but true story. I had a friend who worked at LaMamma that legendary NYC avant garde theater in downtown manhattan. Through this friend I was able to see a lot of out there theatre which was pretty cool. I look back on it as my fun acting education where I saw what I liked and didn't like. Well she asked if I wanted to see the new Cheryl Churchill play "A Number". I wasn't that interested until she mentioned that Sam Shepard would be staring in it. I had first discovered Sam Shepard the same way many a boy of my generation had, as an actor playing that ultra badass Chuck Yeager in the Right Stuff. Then when I discovered he was an Awsome playwright I was like this guys a badass. Plus he's doing Jessica Lange ? Hell yes! The fact that he too had crooked teeth like myself made me love him even more cause I was like " if he can do it, so can I". So I was pumped. 

The play was being performed at New York Theater Workshop, which always had out there shows. We got there and grabbed our seats. I am sitting there and I look over to my left and sitting six seats over was Lou Reed with Laurie Anderson. Now my first introduction to Lou Reed was the song "Perfect Day" in the film Trainspoting at age 13, which I loved. But I didn't really listen to him until my final summer I lived at home. During that time my friends started showing me different music which opened me up, bands like early Modust Mouse, Fugazi, Wu-Tang, Iggy Pop, the Stooges, Mum, David Bowie and Lou Reed. Now I wasn't living under a rock, far from it. It's just I had been raised on old school rock n roll by my parents. I had grown up listening to the Beatles,Hendrix, old school Elvis and the like. Though my jam was Sinatra,Soul music and R and B like Sly and the Family Stone, Jackson 5,  Curtis Mayfield and the like. But it was part of my education if that doesn't sound too pretentious. I had already gotten into Johnny Cash who was the voice of that summer where I worked long hours in the local paper mill and drank cheap beer with my friends and contemplated my new life in NYC that was about to begin. 

So when I saw Lou Reed in the haggard flesh I was like fuck yeah! I thought of everyone back in Washington state and how much I had changed in the year and a half since I had left. How wow man, Iam here in NYC, fucking crazy. I turned and told my friend. I said" look it's Lou Reed!"

She responded" Who's that?"

Oye I thought. 

Then the show began. 

To put it mildly the show sucked. That was I think the first time I realized the difference between film acting and theater acting. Sam Shepard who is brilliant on film was kind of lackluster on stage while Dallas Roberts who everyone was touting as this hot upcoming actor was so bad I wanted to gag. Too much symbolism, it just sucked. I was more interested in the fact that the seating in the theater looked like the Senate in Star Wars. 

Of course the whole audience seemed enraptured by the show. I was wondering am I missing something? Am I dumb? Do I have bad taste? I mean I do love Stallone films, but this was bad. I turned and looked over towards Lou Reed . Would he be liking this? Lou Reed was asleep. 

Don James you stoic bastard

In the the late 80s early 90s the biggest sport show in Washington state was the UW Huskies football team. Sure we had the Seahawks who where crap half the time and we had the Sonics( godbless them) but that was in the winter. We didn't talk about the mariners cause they where so bad that my mom said I was better off rooting for someone else. But we had the Huskies and the Huskies always won. It was all about the purple and gold beating the crap out of everyone. We owned the PAC10. We were in the same sentence as Miami,Notre Dame,Michigan, Nebraska and Penn State. We were a powerhouse and the star of that powerhouse was Don James.

Even as five year old I knew who Don James was, hell name someone who didn't in Washington State back in the 80s and early 90s? You didn't always know the players but you knew him. He was the tough looking old guy with the killer squint wearing a purple huskies hat and wearing your grandpas glass's. His was an iconic image that we all knew. 

Both my parents didn't go to UW, but it didn't matter because everyone was a Huskie. Of course you would have the occasional Coug fan, but they where looked at back then as our slacker loser younger brother who lived in our basement and stole our food. But that was of course if you lived west of the cascades, if you lived in Eastern Washington, well you would of been shot for wearing Huskie gear. But Don James could of murderd six people in broad daylight and would of been found not guilty. The man was that beloved.

We knew every year that we where going to the Rose Bowl, hell it was our God given right back then! USC,Oregon,UCLA those guys where impostors when it came to the Rose Bowl. The Rose Bowl was ours and everyone knew it. And Don James would be on the sidelines looking on stoically like Washington crossing the Delaware. We had faith that some how ,someway he would lead us to victory. 

1991 was probably the greatest year for the Huskies under Don James. That year we won the National Championship. This was before the BCS and all of that. When you had to win three different pols. We had been considered the national champions the previous year buy two of the three pols and had unofficialy won the national championship in 84. So the man had won a total of three between 1984-1991( beat that Oregon, though I may root for Oregon in the National Championship game). But in 1991 we were unstoppable. Led by quarterbacks Mark Brunnell and Billy Joe Hobbart the huskies averaged 41 points per game and the defense led by Lincoln Kennedy held opponents on average to less then 10 points per game. We bitch slapped Nebraska 36-21 in a stunning late third quarter comback after being down 21-9,we made USC smell the glove by beating the Trojans at memorial Colosium for the first time since 1980 and we did unspeakable things to Oregon by beating them 58-6. After beating WSU in the Apple Cup( screw you iron bowl) we faced our dreaded rival,those bastards The Michigan Wolverines. 

Even now I have trouble rooting for Michigan.I remember watching the men's basketball national championship game in 93 and rooting for UNC against Michigan because I was still angry at Michigan for beating  the Huskies. When UW would face Michigan it was war. So on January 1st 1992 in Pasadena a war was about to begin. Michigan led by Desmond Howard, Michigan with there stupid gold and blue uniforms,Michigan 10-2 facing the undefeated Huskies at the Rose Bowl. There would be blood.

But only the blood of the wolverines would be spilled that day. In an ass kicking that still lives on in many a Washingtonians memory the Huskies were triumphant 34-14. 

We were National Champs with Miami and if we had played them we would of kicked their ass too. We where on our way to dominance. The National Championship was going to be ours every year. Don James would share the title of greatest coach with Bear Bryant. Hell he was going to be bigger then Bear Bryant! Then it all came crashing down.

A series of investigations showed things where not kosher in Huskieville. Billy Joe Hobart that wonder boy from Puyullup, our Rose Bowl MVP had fucked up big time. He had fucked up to the tune of 50,000 that he had spent on golf, guns and wild party's , all thanks to a loan from an Idaho businessman. Within days young Billy Joe quit school and became the face of a growing scandal that included players and recruits being given benifits, meals, and partying money by boosters( boosters and alumni usually the cause of all bad things in college and high school sports). What the fuck had happened? Don James what the hell? This wasn't SMU or MIAMI we weren't corrupt! Or maybe  the Huskies did what everyone did in college sports and ole Billy Joe was just dumb enough to get caught( remind anyone of Johnny Manzeal ?).

Then shit got even better. 

Going into the 92 season we where ranked #1, but then we lost . First was our loss to Arizona which wasn't bad. I mean back then a team would have a loss then go on to be National Champs. It happens all the time. But then the Apple Cup happened. For those of you who don't know, the Apple Cup is the yearly game between UW and WSU. We may not win a national title but outside winning the Rose Bowl you MUST win the Apple Cup. It hasn't been as violent as Bama-Auburn but it's been close. WSU was ranked #15 and was led by  future NFL QB and badass Drew Bledsoe. The Cougs had been bitch slapped by us for years. They had taken many a bitch slapping. They where mad as hell and weren't going to take it anymore. Mother Nature seemed to agree. In what is remembered as the snow bowl, the Cougs beat the Huskies 42-23 in a freak snowstorm. To say we got bitch slapped is an understatement. It was more like the gang rape scene in American Me. Yeah there's a visual for you. The loss was bad, but somehow we still won our third straight PAC10 title and headed to our Third straight Rose Bowl against Michigan. We thought " hey man at least beat Michigan!"

We didn't beat Michigan. We lost 31-38 in an epic heartbreaker. Fucking Michigan. But then things blew up on us big time. 

The PAC10 decided to hit us with some sanctions. It could of been worse, it could of been really bad. I mean hey a two year bowl ban okay that sucks and a scholarship reduction and wait no money from the tv deals? But we where the biggest draw in the PAC10. You think Oregon could pull in money like we could?

As it turned out later, originally the PAC10 had only given a one year bowl ban and two years of no tv. But the UW administrators being the genius's they are tried to appeal the charges. The PAC10 said ok no tv for one year and a two year ban from bowl games. This angered Don James. He figured one year of no bowl games fine but two? "What the fuck  " all for tv money? He had already dismissed the four players involved in the scandal. So in a dark day remembered by many Don James the face of Husky football quit in protest.

This began the Huskie football programs decent into chaos. Sure the team was still pretty good, but something was missing. They had Jim Lambright an assistant of James running the show but it still wasn't the same. There was a brief hope of a revival in the late 90s early 00s with the hiring of Rick Nuehisal, but he turned out to be the stereotype of the slick corrupt college coach and was fired for betting in a neighborhood betting pool( what is everyone a moron when it comes to their illegal activities?).Even though he led us to a PAC10 title and a Rose Bowl win it came at a price. Under slick Rick star players where routinely in trouble with the law for all sorts of crimes including rape, assault  and spousal abuse amongst others.

College sports is funny in that it's unbelievably hypocritical. Name a program with a "clean record" and ill name the dead hooker the star QB killed. Every program has done something wrong. If you think Notre Dame has not had corruption your a moron. Hell I bet you when Coach K retires at Duke all sorts of shit will come out. If you think he's clean just remember Joe Paterno. Here was a legend who had done it right. He had run a clean program, clean if you don't count the fact that he was protecting a child molester. So what's worse, a coach who's players might of taken gifts to party or a coach who let's players get away with everything but murder? We all know the answer.

After Don James retired he never took another coaching job, he didn't become an analyst or commentator. Instead he lived a quiet existence. He would do the occasional interview or charity appearance. He would show up at certain Huskie games and at the beginning of every season he would give a speech to the players about what it meant to play  football at UW. Yesterday Don James died at age 80. For me a love for college football faded long ago. I'll still watch certain games and follow how the Huskies are doing. Maybe I got annoyed with the BS and just preferred the honest corruption of pro sports( at least they're upfront that it's about money). But I will still hold onto the memories of being 6 years old and watching Don James that intense stoic man on the sidelines leading the Huskies to victory and glory.

13 years later

Thirteen years ago I was thinking about two things: what I was going to do after high school and who I was going to ask for homecoming. I remember being told  by everyone that the next 10 years things were going to be boring  and well the worst thing that would happen is you would sell your house before it was worth anything.

Every generation has that happy period before things got "real". For my parents generation it was the summer of 62 before the Cuban missle crisis and the Kennedy Assasination. For my grandparents it was the summer of 41 before Pearl Harbor and the fall of 46 before the Cold War began. For many Europeans of an older and mostly gone generation it was the spring of 1914 before the slaughter of the Great War. We all wish we could go back , but we all know we can't. 

9/11 was the defining moment of my generation. It was our Pearl Harbor, our Kennedy Assasination, our Assasination of Archduke Ferdinand . It was our Remember the Maine. It will always be with us. Every American who wasn't there in Lower Manhattan saw it on our TVs and whether we realized it or not, it seriously messed us up. 9/11 was the beginning of a truly crappy decade that brought us a bogus war, Hurricane Katrina, a financial collapse, the Kardashians and a lot more things that we would rather forget ever happened.

9/11 left us all with a national case of PTSD .  And we haven't been allowed to heal. 

Politicians have used 

What happened that day for their own gain and have slowed the healing process. Over and over again they used it and ended up usually hurting people as opposed to helping them. How long did it take to get the Zadronga bill passed? How many first responders pay has been cut ? But these guys used 9/11  and instead of bringing us together and ending the divisions that hurt this country, they made it worse and they drove us further apart as people. At the same time people saw this as a way to make a buck and started selling 9/11. It became big business. People sold everything from commerative plates to 9/11 calendars. 

So now 13 years later we are slowly healing and the pain still remains for everyone who was effected  that day. They say we shall never forget, but who remembers the Maine? Who outside of our grandparents knows about Pearl Harbor or how the JFK Assasination effected everyone. History's a funny thing in that if you weren't alive for the given incident you don't really care. I know one day when Iam an old man my grandchildren won't care. And maybe that's okay,cause if we can pass on the lessons of what happened that day and how everyday people gave their lives and put themselves in harms way to help complete strangers not caring what race, creed or nationality they where. Then those people didn't die that day in vain.

Culture of Fear

We live in a culture of fear. Plain and simple. Maybe we always have, but it seems since the 60s it's been more prevalent then in past generations. Gun control was originally brought up as a conservative issue in response to rioting in "urban areas" I.E. black areas of the country. In 1967 members of the Black Panther party marched on the state legislature in Sacramento to protest The Mulford Act which banned the open display of firearms. The law was signed by then Governor Ronald Reagan who went on to become a major supporter of the NRA. In the 1968 presidential election, an election which was more contentious then 2008 and 2012 the main issues for the voters wasn't the Vietnam War but law and order and the rising social unrest in America. In other words fear of people who where different, who where angry about their circumstance, that was the biggest issue facing the average middle class American voter, not a dumb war that would go on to wreck this country for a generation.And Richard Nixon used that to get elected to two terms as president. And ever since then politicians and the media and certain industries has played on these fears. And lets be honest every single one of us has fallen for it at some point in our lives, whether feeling uneasy walking home at night in a big city and seeing someone who looks different then you walking along the street, feeling a little concerned when a group of middle easterners get on your flight, or seeing someone different walk in your neighborhood . We hear everyday from the politicians and the media and ourselves to buy a gun cause the governments going to come after us, move into a gated community cause black people in south central are going to get you, get a private security system cause who knows maybe your neighbor  is going to rob you, buy this it will protect you, the mexicans are going to steal your job watch out. Over and over again we are told to live in fear and we fall for it. All of us. So we buy into the bullshit and we move into a gated community and buy a gun and install a security system all in the hopes of trying to prevent the unpreventable. This culture of fear is so big we don't notice the real threats facing us.

Trayvon martin was shot because of that culture of fear. Yes there had been break-ins in the twin lakes community and a culture of fear had taken hold to the point where the residents had selected a dirty harry wannabe to be the head of the neighborhood watch. An idiot who probably couldn't pass the police psych test who when he saw the ultimate terror in the minds of the local residents decided this guy wasn't going to get away. Until we as a people stop spending 6 billion dollars a year on firearms, billion dollars more on private security systems and 6-9 million of us stop living in gated communities this wont happen.

I understand that people have a right to protect themselves and their loved ones and threats do exist but until we stop letting these fears and threats control our lives we are going to keep on seeing Trayvon Martins .

LA

People gathering , wanting to be seen, trying to advance their own agendas. Not really caring what's being said. It's the empty part of LA the part that the world makes fun of. Kardasians and what's my mantra. The bullshit glamour that doesn't exist but only in the movies. The part that is the darkside of America , the emptiness that's been around forever. People say its getting worse but it's always been here. In the 80s it was the Wall Street yuppie parties, in the 70s it was the coked out people at studio 54 people, in the 20s it was the Gatsby's drunk and hiding, and in the gilded age it was the robber barons with their wealth that made it so that they could buy and sell countries. 

People say its a sign that we've become morally bankrupt as a society. I guess people don't realize that we have maybe always been morally bankrupt as a people.  

Oh that crazy Gatsby and his hippie jazz

Since everyone's talking about the Great  Gatsby at the moment I might as well put in my two cents . Last summer during a weird time in my life I went out of my way to read as many of the books we where all supposed to read in High School but didn't. I admit that between the end of 9th grade till I was 19 except for plays I didn't finish any of the books I was assigned in English class. I just got plain bored and instead opted to watch a movie instead( if you all knew how many times I watched Goodfellas...). So I decided to play catch up. 

I read Robinson Crusoe which annoyed me, Heart of Darkness which if you can get passed the first 6 pages and listen to the Thin Red Line soundtrack while reading it is brilliant, I learned about the stupidity of Nam with Dispatches and I fell in love with Love in the Time of Cholera.  Then came Gatsby.

I had seen the trailer for the movie and had been intrigued( I like spectacle, call me cheap). I figured I should read it before seeing the film. A couple people told me to look into it and my lovely cousin suggested it. As she put it it was a good summer book.  She loaned me her copy and the reading began. 

Now over the years I had heard a lot of things about it. That the movie with Mia Farrow sucked balls, that they originally wanted Nicholson and that they wanted  Robert Towne to write it but he said no Iam going to write a film about water and corruption in 30s LA. I had heard greatest novel ever by some unknown group of people. I had heard from my dear mother that it was kind of blah. I had heard so many things but never read it. I figured time to form my own damn opinion. 

I read it in less then a week which due to the short attention span that most people have is probably one of the reasons it's so popular.  And I read it usually on subway rides home or in a park which is one of the best things about New York. I had already made the decision that I was going to leave New York after nine years months earlier and had kept it quiet from most people. So it got me at a very interesting moment.

My thoughts on the book are simply this. Is it the greatest novel ever written? I don't think so. But is it good? Yeah it is. I think the problem with it is that it's overly hyped. It's like that movie that your supposed to like cause everyone says its great then when you sit down and watch it it's a huge let down. Or the really hot person you want to sleep with and it finally happens and your like well that was fun? I think that's the problem the book has.

At heart it's an interesting story. It's really about a guy who doesn't think he's good enough so he changes who he is, try's to hide where he came from and what he was so a girl will accept him. It's about a codependent relationship. Gatsby figures if he changes his speech, gets new clothes, becomes really rich and throws crazy parties the girl who he loves will run  away with him. I think that's why a lot of people dig it. Because how many of us haven't been there at some point in our life.  We aren't happy with ourselves so we figure if I read these books and dress this way and go to these places and hang with these people maybe that person will like me. I know your thinking that's stupid. But when you've been head over heels in love and have trouble loving yourself( yeah i know i sound like a self help book)you do stupid things.  You end up idealizing that person which Gatsby does and which ultimately is his downfall. 

I remember when I finished the book I found that the only characters I liked where Nick, Gatsby and the gangster. The others well, I had dealt with people like Tom and Daisy. Maybe Iam being all working class hero or something. I  blame that on my years waiting on a lot of people like Tom and Daisy( we'll go into my personal neurosis another time). Tom and Daisy are a certain type of person that exist specifically in New York.  

If you've never lived in New York at some point it's hard to grasp.  Tom and Daisy  are the women on sex and the city, they are Gordon Gekko, they are the shit show in front of Tonic on a Friday night, they are that drunk corporate guy hitting on the waitress at Pershing square waiting for the train back to Connecticut to see his family,they  are the ultimate yuppie couple. They are the prom King and Queen and Gatsby is the nerdy kid who wants to go to the really cool party. God maybe that's what New York high society is : a bad high school movie. Ha I feel witty.

 Because Fitzgerald both despised and desperately wanted to be a part of that world , he was both Nick and Gatsby all at once, he was able to capture a world that could of taken place in not just the 20s in New York but could of taken place in  the 70s, 80s or even the last decade when things got decadent and was able to both criticize and at the same time praise the emptiness of these people. Maybe that's the brilliance they talk about with it.

I don't know , all I know is Gatsby should of just been himself, and if Daisy had come running to him then he probably wouldn't of ended up dead.

Sad Day in Seattle

So today the NBA stabbed a whole region in the heart. They did it once and we thought hey man we know how the rules are played we get it. Then the NBA does it again. I don't know what hurts more losing the sonics or having the faint hope we would get a new team. It hurts man it freaking hurts. Yes I became a Knicks fan and I dig the Knicks, I dig the history, but man the sonics they where my youth, my hopes and dreams.
I remember watching like a religious nut the 96 Finals. Hoping and praying that we could beat Jordan. When the Seattle times would do their NBA preseason coverage I would steal the sports section and try to figure out trades and guys we could draft. I was already trying to figure out how to get Yao Ming back in 99. I was angry when they fired George Karl, pissed when they traded the glove, and disappointed when Shawn Kemp left.
If they had brought back the Sonics I sure as hell would of become a fan. I would of still loved the Knicks but my heart would of been with the sonics. I would of made the effort to take my own kids to sonics games and in a huge dream world bought a sonics jacket.
But alas David Stern has broken that. I try not to wish bad things on people because well that's a dick thing to do. All I can do is quote Sinatra and say "Hey Stern you fuck! Your going to get yours and when you do a whole region of the country is going to laugh like the British did when Margret Thatcher got hers. And Howard Shultz the same to you.
As I get older I try not to get cynical cause that is the biggest turn off in the world. But fuck I should of seen this coming. Who knows if Seattle will ever get a team again. All I hope is that if we do , the owners burn Stern in effigy. I sure as hell will.

Me getting artsy

Decided to try something's