TheBanyanTree: Life Stories 223

Wed May 23 07:36:59 PDT 2007

May 22, 2000000000007

Dear Courageous Explorers,

	Feyna is doing her paper which is the 
equivalent of a final exam for her English class. 
It's supposed to be seven to eight pages long, 
but the teacher won't kill you if it's longer. 
Last time she handed in a paper for him, the 
assignment specified five pages, and more if you 
were inspired.  She turned in a paper that was 
twelve pages long, and he gave her a B because it 
was too long.  It's a weird class with a weird 
instructor.  It's supposed to be an English 
class, and that's how it's described in the 
school catalogue.  English is a required subject, 
so she signed up.  When she got to the first 
class, she looked around her and found she was 
almost the only Caucasian in a room full of 
Asians.  The teacher is Asian, too.  All the 
books they have read and all the subjects they 
have covered have been about the Asian American 
experience.  This paper she is working on right 
up to the deadline, is an analysis and comparison 
of two books by two Asian American authors on the 
Asian American experience.  One of them is active 
in the political movements to achieve equality 
and respect for Asian Americans.  The other wants 
to deny his Asian heritage and be, "white," like 
everyone else.  Well, I guess that leaves out the 
African Americans, the Native Americans, Jewish 
and Arabic Americans, Aboriginal Americans, 
Pacific Islander Americans, Maori Americans. 
There are all sorts of  assumptions in being 
white like "everyone else".  Who, me?  I'm a two 
toned Semite.

	I have no objection to teaching a class 
on Asian studies.  But that's what it should be 
called.  It's not an English class, really.  The 
emphasis has not been on literature, composition, 
a broad base of writings in the English language, 
an understanding of the structure of English, the 
study of works of fiction, non-fiction.  It has 
been on the philosophy and issues of Asian 
American identity, history and culture.  Major 
misnomer.  Plus the teacher is very hard on 
grades.  I can't help but wonder if he dislikes 
the students who are not Asian.  But how can you 
prove that?  It would feel funny to me to write a 
paper about Asian American identity when I'm not 
Asian.  "Paraphrase the differing views of Zia 
and Liu.  How do they differ in their perceptions 
of being Asian American?  Compare them.  Give 
examples.  Explain which you prefer and why." 
It's a little presumptuous to proffer a Jewish 
opinion about Asian American identity.  But this 
is the final.  It will be over, and she can go on 
to a more advanced English class, maybe something 
more balanced.  Yes, yes: how does it feel to be 
outside the mainstream for non Asians?  Every 
class is a Caucasian studies class.  Try being 
the minority on for size.  But it doesn't justify 
the approach to the class.  It should have been 
billed as ethnic studies.

	Her paper is very good.

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Panacea on a Stick

	The San Francisco Bay Area has always 
been culturally active.  All sorts of movements 
and trends got their start here before spreading 
out to the rest of the country, sometimes the 
world.  It was that way when my mother was 
growing up, and absolutely scandalous when my 
Great Aunt Anne went to UC Berkeley in the second 
decade of the twentieth century.  Before that, 
there was the reputation that San Francisco was a 
morally loose town, run by crazies, fanatics, 
eccentrics and misfits.  Berkeley was even worse. 
Did people who were rejected by even San 
Francisco's whacked standards wind up across the 
bay in Berkeley?

	Before the turn of the twentieth century, 
the reputation for wildness, avant-gardeism went 
back all the way to the gold rush, and even 
before.  The people in bay area history are 
characters and forward thinkers, very forward. 
And there were the cultural trends that shocked 
every corner of the country except my home town. 
It's a place to be, a place to thrive, a place to 
thrive out loud.  The men wear feathers and the 
women climb trees.  The children eat raw garlic. 
Dogs and cats walk upright on their hind legs. 
Horses got the vote back in 1878.

	In the late 1970s, an eccentric named 
Gary Warne inaugurated an organization in San 
Francisco called, "The Gorilla Grotto".  It was a 
combined  cafe, theater and educational 
institution.  It held meetings in the back of a 
book store in a room lined with pillows.  It was 
like an alternate University extension.  A 
variety of classes and events were available. 
You signed up and paid your fees.  If you didn't 
see the class or event you wanted, you could 
suggest it, or offer to teach it yourself. 
Monthly newsletters went out.  The newsletters, 
themselves, were a lesson in categorized chaos. 
When I first got involved with the Gorilla 
Grotto, it was through a man I knew who worked at 
an underground newspaper in the city.  They were 
always doing profiles of odd characters and 
people with arcane professions.  They did a story 
about me and my handwriting analysis.  The person 
they sent out to interview me was Randy Munyon, a 
man too tall for me, as he broke the six foot 
barrier.  He was dark haired, and balding at an 
early age.  He took a liking to me and asked me 
if I would go out with him.  Well, of course I 
would.  He was a man and he liked me.  That was 
almost reason enough.  He took care of his 
personal hygiene, and that filled all the 
requirements.  It was Randy Munyon who suggested 
I look into the Gorilla Grotto.

	One of the most popular events they 
offered was the night time walking tour of the 
San Francisco sewers.  There was no fecal 
material involved.  Troops of warmly clad and 
sturdily shod adventurers would descend through a 
chosen manhole and set out on an underground 
hike, all clutching their flashlights and 
following the guide who had done this dozens of 
times.  They also organized high class haut 
cuisine picnics on the Golden Gate Bridge.  When 
I hooked up with them, I was interested in a 
course in storytelling and stand up comedy that 
was being taught by a man named Lee Glickstein. 
He himself was a broken down stand up comic who 
exuded enthusiasm, except when he was depressed. 
Then he could barely move.

	"I am sorry, but our stand up comedy and 
story telling class has been cancelled because 
the instructor cannot stand up or tell."

	What did I think was the purpose of my 
taking this course with professor Glickstein? 
There had to be a purpose.  It had to be going 
somewhere.  To take a class in anything for fun 
and enjoyment was alien to the Shapiro ethic.  I 
convinced myself that, if properly trained and 
inspired, I could make an excellent stand up 
comic.  It wasn't just that everyone laughed at 
me.  It was that I intended them to laugh at me. 
What if I were truly professional at it?  I had 
plenty to say and even my father couldn't get in 
the way.  Besides, a great deal of what I would 
intend people to laugh at was going to be my 
father.

	Is there humour in child abuse?   There 
is if you need it to survive.  And I'd learned 
that lesson well.  I survived on my sense of 
humour.  Part of my role in the family was to be 
the class clown.  I liked best of all making my 
mother laugh.  It was most rewarding, because she 
was usually depressed, suppressed, oppressed, 
repressed.  But she knew how to laugh, how to 
laugh until tears came out of her eyes, and the 
laughter was silent gasping for breath.  Yes, 
maybe I was intended to be a stand up comic.

	Lee Glickstein was engaged to a woman who 
was guest teaching the class with him.  A 
laughing couple.  What a great division of 
labour!  We sat in a loose circle on the pillows 
on the floor, and we each told a story to the 
rest of the group.  I haven't the foggiest notion 
what story I told.  I have no recollection. 
After the first class, I got into a discussion 
with Lee about what brought me to comedy. 
Basically, I told him, you must laugh.  It is 
essential for enduring the unfathomable 
childhood.  Sometimes laughing and making other 
people laugh was the only defense against a grim 
and bellicose reality.

	I told him about my Grama Lena and slowed myself down to act her part.

	"Darling,  whatever   you   want   me  to 
do   for   you,   no    matter  how   vile, 
would   be     MY PLEAZ-URE."

	He cracked up.  His fiancee cracked up. 
We went back and forth with stories, jokes, and 
conversation.  He asked me what I did, and I 
recited the list:  I'm an artist, cellist, 
musician, composer, handwriting expert, writer, 
chef and probably something else that had slipped 
my mind.  We talked into the night.  The next 
day, he telephoned me and said he had a great 
idea.  He thought of himself as an impresario. 
He wanted to plan an event with me.  He wanted to 
create a venue for exhibiting all my talents at 
once.  It would be a one human show:  art work on 
the walls, performance of my songs, readings of 
my writings, eating of my food, and even a 
demonstration of handwriting analysis if he could 
figure out how to incorporate it.  He was jazzed. 
He was elated.  He was so enthusiastic I could 
hear him levitating on the other end of the 
phone.  He wanted to make me a star.  He would be 
my agent and manager.

	The whole thing sounded so impossibly 
good that I could hardly bear it.  Here was an 
answer to my primary question:  what the heck to 
do with me.  Lee Glickstein and his fiance would 
devote all their time to this project.  He had 
ideas for where, how, what, when, even publicity. 
He believed in high standards with publicity. 
Get the right people there to see me, and I would 
bowl them over.  I'd be famous over night.  Oh, 
good!  I didn't want it to take too long.  It 
should all happen at once.  From the dregs to the 
pinnacle in one simple leap.  I thought about 
this and my history caught in my throat.  I 
decided to give him an admonishing speech.

	"Lee.  This sounds wonderful, and I'd 
more than love to do it.  But before we embark on 
this venture, let me beg you not to start 
anything you aren't going to finish.  Do not let 
me down.  I've been let down before, and I can't 
take another disappointment.  Only do this if you 
can promise me you will follow through."

	I may have reworded it and said it 
several times in different ways.  He listened 
attentively.  He understood and empathized.  He'd 
been there, too.  He vowed he was in this project 
one hundred percent.  He would not let me down. 
The question was, could I keep up with him?  I 
said I vowed to try.

	We started out with several meetings a 
week so that he could be exposed to my work.  The 
first thing he wanted was for me to read my 
writings to him.  Come to his studio.  I arrived 
with a stack of paper with intense scrawl on it. 
What did he want to hear?  Funny or serious? 
Maybe the combination special.

	He told me just to sit on the kitchen 
stool and read whatever I'd brought.  He would 
take notes, get an idea of the scope of my 
writing.  Go ahead, read.  I sat there on the 
stool that he'd set up in the cavernous room that 
housed his studio.  I read, kept asking him to 
tell me when to stop.  He wound his hand in a 
tight circle, indicating for me to keep going. 
He listened to hours of my work.  He laughed.  He 
cried.  He was outraged.  He was reflective.  We 
did this for several nights.

	"I had no idea how intense this was going 
to be.  You're a genius of course."

	The words slinked in through my ear hole 
and inflated my head briefly.  Lucky for me that 
I could balance this all with great blasts of 
self loathing or my head may have exploded.  Then 
he wanted to hear my music.  Bring him tapes. 
Bring in my guitar.  Allow him to study my music 
until he understood it.  Once again, he expressed 
delight and a degree of awe.  He pronounced me a 
genius on this, too.  Next on the agenda was for 
him to see my artwork.  Bring it in Friday. 
Thursday night, he called having to reschedule. 
We shot for Monday.  Monday I brought over some 
of my strange stamp art works, the assemblages. 
He examined them quietly.  The evening was over 
early.  He didn't say much.  He apologized for 
his state of mind.  It was nothing I had done. 
Come back Wednesday.  We'll pick up where we left 
off.

	He called Wednesday afternoon, giving an 
excuse.  From then on, it was a series of 
cancellations and flat telephone conversations. 
I could see where this was going.  So I called 
him.  I told him I was going to save him the 
trouble of telling me he had to back out, by 
letting him off the hook.  I could tell that his 
heart wasn't in it any more.  Just go.

	He thanked me effusively, bowing and 
scraping, so grateful was he for my great, my 
amazing magnanimity in letting him off the hook. 
He said,  "I just lost interest.  It happens to 
me.  But thank you.  Thank you.  Oh, thank you 
for your presence of mind, your generosity, your 
understanding, your . . . "

	I interrupted.  "Wait a minute, Lee. 
Before you praise me so highly for letting you 
off the hook and being such an understanding 
person, let me tell you how I feel about this.  I 
begged you before we started not even to begin if 
you weren't going to follow through.  I begged 
you.  Do you remember that?  I told you I'd been 
let down before and couldn't take another 
disappointment.  There was when you should have 
bowed out, since you knew that you might lose 
interest.  It happens to you, you said.  You have 
disappointed me and hurt me.  You've lost my 
respect, damaged my self respect, and lost my 
friendship.  This was inexcusable.  Feel guilty. 
It might do you some good."

	He uttered a single syllable.  "Oh," and 
very shortly after that, we hung up.  I never 
heard from him again, which is good, I think. 
That is how we parted, my disparate talents still 
very much discrete, my will broken, that loss of 
faith in one more friendly, well intentioned 
human being.  Lee had been sliding into a deep 
depression.  I went into one also.

	No one stepped in or flew in, or suddenly 
appeared to save me.  Every once in a great 
while, I'd hear his name mentioned in the context 
of some comedy show.  I didn't find him funny.

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-- 

Tobie Helene Shapiro
Berkeley, California   USA

tobie at shpilchas.net