Some people don’t like compliments. Not me. You’ll never hear me cry, “Don’t say something nice about me!” By the same token, when someone is particularly effusive, my gut instinct is to be equally gushing in my gratitude. That can get kind of icky for everyone, despite my good intentions.
Case in point: My great friend (and even greater writer/editor) Jim McFarlin wrote an unexpected and lovely tribute to me on his Just Kidneying blog. I’ll share it here, partly out of appreciation but also to urge you to follow and read this amazing chronicle of his journey with kidney disease. He always has a sense of humor and possesses one of the most infectious laughs on the planet. Kidney disease won’t get this man down and everything he writes is worth a read.
But beyond my gobsmacked reply to his post, I realized I could do more. I could return the favor of surprising someone with praise they might not expect. So I’m going to compliment my dearest friend, who everyone knows as Pitzi. Except in Italy, where she lives, because it just confuses them.
I’ve known Pitzi since junior year of high school, where we quickly became partners in crime. I encouraged her to expand her musical horizons beyond James Taylor and soon we were singing “Young Parisians” by Adam & The Ants together at the bus stop.
Whatever I may have taught her, however, is nothing in comparison to what she’s taught me. First, she is the smartest person I’ve ever met. And I’m pretty darned smart and know a lot of really smart people. But she’s brilliant. She moved to Italy more than 20 years ago to be with and marry her true love. But I think Italy appeals to her because living anywhere else just wouldn’t be enough of a challenge for her genius. It’s a really complicated country to live in.
That’s only the beginning. She’s raising three children (two still young enough to be at home) who are bilingual thanks to her. She works crazy hours as a freelance translator. Pitzi also runs the household because, well, no offense to anyone but that’s just the way things are in much of Italy. Her husband is a really good guy who adores her, but she still has to do the cooking and the laundry and myriad other tasks. I was very proud the day she announced she’d hired a cleaning lady.
Even though she has an extended family in Italy and the United States, along with other friends to look after, she always has time to take my phone calls. Even when there’s a screaming child in the background, she’s there for me. (Okay, sometimes she asks me to call back in a few minutes after the “I want!” crisis has passed, but still….)
When my parents were both gravely ill and died within a year of each other, she was among the friends who got me through. After the ordeal was over, she invited me to Italy where she would not let me lift a finger, buy a grocery or do anything but relax, play, eat and drink with her. “You’ve been taking care of everyone else,” Pitzi said. “Now it’s time to let someone take care of you.”
She’s the one person who knows absolutely everything about me. I attribute her uncanny advice-giving skills to this knowledge. Pitzi can also make me laugh harder than anyone in the world, which is sometimes better than any advice. She has never failed to encourage me or celebrate my triumphs large and small. When she says to me, “You rock!” I know she means it. And I believe it about myself, too, because how could you question someone so smart?
Pitzi knows how much I love her. But I don’t always get to say how much I admire her loyalty, her determination, her patience, her diligence, her strength. I don’t always get to tell her how grateful I am for her humor, her friendship and her enormous heart.
Well, now I’ve gone and gotten all sentimental. Pitzi can take a compliment, but I’ve reached the sappiness saturation point so I’ll stop. Except to say that if you have a best friend like Pitzi, I hope you’ll take a moment to tell her or him, “You rock.”
Tolerance. Justice. Diversity. Equality. These are principles I’ve been thinking about a lot lately.
And they’ve become indelibly stuck in my head, it seems, by the musical Parade. The show tells a tale of intolerance and injustice in the Deep South of the early 20th century, a story that’s still being played out around the country.
I saw Parade more than a month ago, at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. The production was superb, and the show (book by Alfred Uhry; music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown) is powerful both in music and message. Parade is based on the true story of Leo Frank, a Northern Jew living in Atlanta, who in 1913 was unjustly accused of murdering a young girl. You can read more about Frank and Parade, but if you have the chance to see the play I urge you to do so with no prior knowledge, as I did. I was deeply moved and stunned by the story.
I will share that Parade explores issues of the intense pride of the Deep South, particularly after the Civil War, and how that loyalty sometimes becomes bigotry. It looks at the ways justice can be derailed for political gain or hatred of someone who doesn’t fit in, whether that person is African American, Jewish or simply different. It also eloquently expresses that everyone has a point of view, and rarely is that view either all good or all bad. And that despite the inclination of some to go along with a group mentality, there will always be those who follow their own conscience. That there are people who will do the right thing, no matter what it costs them.
The performance was followed by a talk with members of the production team and the audience. Parade was part of an ongoing endeavor at Ford’s Theatre called the Lincoln Legacy Project, “a five-year effort to create a dialogue in our nation’s capital around the issues of tolerance, equality and acceptance.”
Audience members shared their thoughts on how the story paralleled current events like the Troy Davis execution, which had happened that week. Others mentioned Alabama and its immigration laws, or attendees at a GOP debate booing a soldier for being gay. Still others talked about how the media can shape the public’s thought powerfully enough to influence a legal verdict.
One woman was extremely angry. She demanded to know why Ford’s Theatre had put on a play that, as she put it, made her “hate the South.” She couldn’t understand why a theatre would present a play that portrayed the South as so evil, that would add fuel to the fires of hatred already so prevalent.
The director of the theatre came out to answer the woman’s questions. He explained that everything in the play is true, and that the production team felt the play had an important message to convey. Although bigotry may be directed at different groups today than it was 100 years ago, it still exists.
I could see exactly where he was coming from, because the play raises timeless issues of intolerance and injustice. What’s more, I disagreed with the woman’s viewpoint. Partly because some of the negatives Parade portrays about the Deep South were, and are, sometimes true. But even more important, the play’s characters include Southerners who accepted diversity and who did the right thing, in one case risking a potentially important career. The play shows that no matter what side people were on — that of a beloved young girl who was mysteriously murdered or the man who swore he’d never touched her — everyone suffered a loss. Everyone was seeking justice. My heart ached for everyone.
All of this has stuck with me for a month, as I’ve listened to the music and continued following the news about events in the Deep South. Alabama, in particular, troubles me. I realize our country has an immigration problem, but I’m certainly not alone in questioning the severity of the law they’ve passed there. A recent article even compared the immigration fight in Alabama to the civil rights era. Meanwhile, some Alabama state legislators have used racial epithets while others have faced charges in a gambling corruption trial.
All this and more paints an ugly picture. It makes me angry. It makes me wonder how any state could have so much disrespect for its citizens. I realize I don’t know every detail, but it still upsets me. It also worries people I’ve spoken to who live there or were raised there. One man in particular dislikes going back because of what the state has become, but still urged me to read a book that celebrates the good things about Alabama (Alabama Afternoons by Roy Hoffman). It’s on my to-read list. I appreciate his balanced view.
Because while I reflect on the questions that continue to roll around my head, many still unanswered, I can’t stop thinking of the two ladies from Alabama I sat next to at the “Capitol Steps” during that same trip to D.C. Incredibly nice people, who laughed as much at the satirical group’s pot-shots at one political party as they did at those taken against the other. I did the same. And to me, bipartisan humor indicates a bipartisan perspective.
Those ladies were a lovely reminder that not everyone in Alabama, or anywhere else for that matter, thinks the same way. Which brings me back to one of my fundamental beliefs: No group is all good or all bad. No person, with rare exceptions, is all good or all bad. Does some of what’s happening in Alabama and other states — Southern and otherwise — make me worry for the future of tolerance and justice in this country? Absolutely.
But even more important, I believe that in the midst of hatred and bigotry and lies, there are people fighting for positive change. Just as there were in Parade and the tragic true story of Leo Frank, there are people everywhere trying to do the right thing.
I believe in the good in people, and I believe that the good in people will ultimately prevail. Even if every story doesn’t have a happy ending.
The TV show House isn’t very good anymore. But Hugh Laurie just keeps getting better and better.
I’ve always been a big fan of the show, particularly Hugh Laurie. His performance is consistently excellent and, well, I have a crush on him, too. (Full disclosure.)
For the most part, it’s been a quality show. It’s hit some rough spots, like the Survivor-esque competition to fill the empty spots on House’s team a few seasons ago. But it’s always managed to bounce back.
I don’t think it will this time. The new characters are just attempts to re-boot old ones that didn’t work all that well before — again, on House’s team. The smart, sexy, spunky brunette; the awkward yet brilliant neophyte. There’s a reason the earlier incarnations aren’t still around.
There’s some hope in the current House-Wilson storyline (and Robert Sean Leonard is always excellent, too, not incidentally), but I think this is it. The show hasn’t jumped the shark yet and I hope it doesn’t. But I predict this is the last season.
I think even the writers can tell. Perhaps I’m sensing their heavy sighs of disinterest. Sometimes you can almost hear it in the storytelling.
But despite that, or maybe because of it, Hugh Laurie’s performance keeps getting better and better — in sometimes subtle and stunning ways. I’ve always been in awe of his acting (and accent) on the show. Over eight seasons, the way his character has developed and evolved is brilliant and visceral, it seems. Laurie has gotten inside the skin of Gregory House. He’s extremely comfortable there. His exuberant disregard for the rules (and largely, often sadly, other people) is effortless. When House is in pain, what Laurie shows us is heartbreaking. It’s humanizing.
But as the show seems like it’s becoming broader (perhaps unintentionally veering toward self-parody), Laurie is becoming more intimate. I wish I could pinpoint the episode — it was within the last week or two — but there was a moment. Someone said something to him, and in response Laurie/House said more with the twitch of an eye than pages of dialogue ever could.
Hugh Laurie knows Gregory House better than I’d bet many people know their own selves. Some of that is being an actor; some of that is being a genius, which I think Laurie is, particularly in this role.
So no matter how bad the show might get — and I do hope it improves — I will keep watching. Because I can’t wait to see what Hugh Laurie does next.
