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"