America

For the past couple of years I've done quite a bit of travelling for the children's show I perform in. Yes, it ended with a preposition. Blah blah, people don't talk the way that the grammatical rules demand. In each city we spend a week in, I am noticing more and more that there are three Americas. One includes the filthy rich. It is easy to cast aspersions on the rich. Surely they couldn't have earned all of the money that they have. They must have stolen it, right? I mean, your average American works hard. Why can't everyone be rich? We have intoxicated ourselves with the notion that everyone is created equal and has the same opportunity. Therefore, those who have climbed to the top must be guilty of some type of grand conspiratorial larceny. Those who are at the bottom must be the victims of the conspiracy. Sometimes the rich get lucky, but most of them work very hard. Often so hard that their relationships suffer. But I'm not a therapist and am not particularly interested in the health of their relationships. The rich are generally very intelligent, highly ambitious, and confident. Yes, there are rich jerks who take advantage of everyone for personal gain. But trust fund babies and robber barons are in the minority. Most rich people earned everything they have, and they work hard every day to keep it. Then there is middle America. Where I fit in. Where most of us fit in. We work hard at jobs that we may or may not enjoy. We live just a little bit beyond our means. We're in debt. We envy the rich. But ultimately, we know that if we just keep doing what we're doing, good things will come. Maybe we won't have a mansion in Aruba, but we can have a place to call home and a family that loves us. You don't get to keep the mansion in Aruba when you're buried in the ground, so shooting for companionship and relative comfort isn't exactly an ignoble goal. We may not get to drive a Ferrari in Monte Carlo, or detusk elephants in West Africa, but we have what we need. Fabulous wealth requires a lot of luck and a great deal of talent. Then there is the third America. The poor America. The America that most of us don't see on a day to day basis. For many years I thought that the poor were just unlucky. That they lived in geographical areas that are not conducive to economic gain. There are those unfortunates. Rural towns whose resources have dried up. A factory closing. A drought. A flood. Most people in this category would be a part of middle America if it weren't for bouts of bad luck. But I have encountered in my travels a very ugly side of America. One that we all know about, but few discuss. It is the urban poor America. A segment of America that is surrounded by prosperity, yet languishes in poverty. I am not a social worker, and don't necessarily have a solution for these people. I am an observer. You decide what the solution is. In our PC society of cultural relativism we try very hard to validate the urban poor. Yes, it is true that a history of racism and prejudice has laid a foundation of struggle for this class of America. Yes, it is true that our educational system is far from egalitarian. Some people have to overcome more than others. Some have to overcome a great deal indeed. But I have encountered some of the most terrible and embarrassing things in my travels. Single mothers and gang-bangers sipping on 40s in front of their kids 50 feet from an elementary school at 3:00 in the afternoon. Children who are afraid to come to school because they are not just afraid of getting bullied, they are afraid of being killed. My good friend Jason said something very profound. "In America, everyone is given an opportunity. Some people just blow it." I guess I'm just frustrated because I have so much interaction with children. They are blank slates and will listen to anyone that they either respect or fear. Unfortunately, in most of the neighborhoods I encounter, the children are listening to people they fear. Because they don't have a choice. I spoke with a guidance counselor here in Phoenix about the neighborhood surrounding the school. Apparently a homeless prostitute was arrested for throwing rocks at the children while they had recess. These schools employ officers with guns. AT ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS! I stopped at a gas station with the guy I travel with in the neighborhood we're working in and a stray pit bull came up to our car and sat there. He wasn't threatening us. He acted as if he wanted us to save him. I went into the store and asked if anyone had called the pound. The guy said that the police were on the way, and that someone had ridden by on a bike and just abandoned him. He was a sweet dog. Scared. Lost. Unloved. Like so many of the children in these downtown areas. A girl was by the dog with us trying to figure out what do do with him. Her gangster boyfriend came out of the store. She asked him if they could take him home. He sneered with a criminal's eyes. "I don't give a f*** about that motherf***ing dog. Get in the f***ing car." He was probably 20 or 21. This is the role model for the child in urban America. Covered in prison tattoos. Driving an Escalade with fly rims that were probably earned by killing someone for drug money. Maybe I shouldn't let things like this impact me so much. But I am disgusted and angry. The girl was pregnant. And that guy is probably the dad. And he will be the guiding light for the child that has to grow up on the same streets that ruined his life.

Compton

We performed some children's shows in Compton, CA this past week. Yes, the Compton that made NWA famous. The Compton that served as the setting for Boyz N tha Hood and Menace 2 Society. The Compton that made Reginald Denny and Rodney King household names. We have travelled all over most of the country dressed as nerds, playing goofy songs for children in schools living on classified missle bases, in the heart of the Big Easy, NYC, and rural Nowheresville. But now we have street cred. I didn't know what to expect in Compton. Both of us are as Whitey McWhite as they come, and our costumes make us look hopeless and clueless. Basically, we are targets for riff-raff and ner-do-wells. If anything about the aforementioned films is accurate, Compton is the birthplace of riff-raff. The school wasn't far from the freeway, which was a relief in case we had to make a break for it. I know that I can occasionally blow things out of proportion, but there is a fine line between realism and pessimism. If I think that there is even a remote chance someone might try to set me on fire or steal my pantaloons at gunpoint, I like to be prepared with an escape route. As we exited the freeway in route to the school, we were both surprised to find that the neighborhood is largely hispanic. I had always thought that Compton was mostly black. Apparently things have changed over the last few years. I am curious to know where the black population in the area has relocated. My guess is that they sold their homes for 9 times the original value and moved into mansions in Arizona considering the going rates in the LA area. We checked into the school and set up on the basketball courts. Normally we perform in auditoriums, but our setup is portable, so we can essentially play anywhere. Communication between us and the faculty was a little disorganized, but the show went off with flying colors. Both of us noticed an enormous fire raging somewhere in the city that served as the backdrop for the show. No one but us seemed to notice at all, which led me to believe that out of control fires are a regular occurence in Compton. We finished the show and were carrying our gear to the truck, when a teacher ran up to us, followed by her class of students. "I forgot we were having an assembly today, can you come talk to us in the classroom for a few minutes?" Normally we would have to leave for another school, but since we didn't have another show until 1:30 I said "yes" and we followed the teacher back to her classroom. We performed a couple of "say no to drugs" role plays and "how to stand up to a bully" skits. Then the teacher opened up the floor for questions. Normally we don't field questions. We perform based on a script. But it is highly unlikely that we would be duped by a classroom full of 3rd graders, so I told them we had about 5 minutes to answer questions. We got the usual, "How come you wear a funny hat?" " How come we can see your underwear?" "Are you guys really brothers?" for a couple of minutes. And then one child raised his hand and said, "What do we do if someone shows up here with a gun and kills the principal, and the police try to catch him, but he gets away and tries to hide in the school?" Both of us were completely dumbfounded. "Umm...er...umm..." The teacher interjected to say, "They don't have time for any more questions, let's give them a round of applause." I was as relieved as I was brokenhearted. Relieved because I didn't have the slightest clue how to answer that question. Brokenhearted because what the hell is going on in our schools? That kid wasn't a crackpot. He was asking a legitimate question because he is genuinely afraid that someone will someday show up at his school and kill the principal, escape from the police, and hold the students hostage. There is something terribly wrong with America's inner city. Terribly, terribly wrong. Before signing on to perform for schools in poor neighborhoods all across America, I had only been under the impression that the inner city is in shambles based on media accounts. I tended to believe that the media sensationalizes for ratings. But this is real. We performed in San Jose and as we exited the school to drive to Bakersfield, we saw a 20-something mother chugging a 40-ounce of malt liquor on her porch while her 2 year old kept grabbing for it. Next door, 4 gang-bangers passed a joint around on lawn chairs. This all took place within 50 feet of an elementary school at 2:00 in the afternoon. This country is sick and on the verge of ruin. If we rape elementary school children of their innocence before they're old enough to drive a car, then we're finished. And that is exactly what is happening. By the way, if you have children who are getting bullied, force them to learn Muay Thai or Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu or both. Because the bullshit that we feed them when we "teach" them how to stand up to a bully is just that, bullshit. Kids are getting jumped and beaten into a coma before they even reach puberty. Our stage show is garbage. But no one would hire us if we told them the truth. Telling a bully that you don't like what he is doing will get you beaten up much quicker than placing them in a toe-hold or knocking him out with a swift roundhouse to the mouth. I was bullied until my Dad showed me how to throw a punch in the 3rd grade. They say that violence only begets violence. Try telling that to a child in the inner city. No one messes with a child that can knock your teeth out with a good right cross. A bad child isn't one who knows how to fight. A bad child is one doesn't know how to control himself. We seem to have this notion in America that all children are innocent. Maybe that was true some time ago. It isn't true anymore. At a school in Stockton, kids between the age of 11 and 13 were already flashing gang signs and asking us if we knew how to do the crip walk. But I guess since their art, music, and textbook funds have been cut over time, they don't have much else to do but get into trouble. It's a good thing we have reality television to keep us stupid.

Nerd

I haven't updated this blog in several months. Maybe it's because I feel compelled to wait until something important-on-a-grand-scale has transpired. Something profound. Something that changed my life. Something that will change your life. Like a journalist in Sudan covering the atrocities. The only atrocities I'm qualified to cover include the atrocities committed by whomever decided to stage a coup in my bedroom. I don't know who the subversives were trying to dethrone, but they left wreckage everywhere. I can't reach the alarm clock without knocking something onto the floor, which then gets stepped on after losing my balance because of the other thing I stepped on. Books, magazines, the empty trash can surrounded by the trash that didn't earn a three-pointer. From 2 and a half feet away. Basketball was never really my thing. I worked on Yen Tan's film called Ciao over the last month, but I don't believe I could accurately cover the experience in an anecdotal blog. I think the film will speak for itself. I was very lucky to have been a part of it. I am listening to some piano music. I don't know who it is. I hated the piano when I was a teenager. It just wasn't metal enough. Not tough enough. To this day, when I think of the piano, the first thought that comes to mind is an old guy with a combover playing yesterday's favorites for tips. Maybe that's the beauty of the instrument. There are 88 keys (I think -- I don't play the piano). But it can be interpreted in a million different ways. The music that is playing right now is haunting. It makes me want to mourn for something. Anything. I can look at the almost empty vitamin bottle on my desk while this music plays and mourn for it. "Oh, you used to be so full. With thy protective barrier insuring that no one tainted thy life-giving nutrients with malicious poisons. Only to be touched by me. And now you are almost gone. Gone forever."

Excuse me sir...

I had my first commercial audition in several months the other day. Occasionally I forget that I moved to Los Angeles to find work as an actor. I've become a pretty good waiter, though. Sometimes I even wash my uniform. I was instructed to show up at an address dressed as an upscale clothing salesman for a commercial that will air in Korea. That was all of the information I received. Sounded easy enough. The location was in an industrial area of downtown often referred to as skid row. It's an interesting melting pot that brings together a wide array of cultures. In many ways it resembles a U.N. retreat for tourists looking to experience immersion into a foreign society without actually leaving home: Little Tokyo, Little Bootleg Knockoff, Little Crackpipe Ho, Little Are You Looking At Me Hard? I made two professional mistakes before arriving at the casting location: 1. I hadn't stapled my headshot to my resume', 2. I hadn't left early enough to make sure parking would be available. My roommate assured me that a stapler would be available at the casting office, because "they have to staple the Polaroids to the headshots." She's an actual working actor, so I relied on her expertise to solve the first dilemma. To resolve the parking issue, I squeezed into a spot that allowed for my bent license plate to slightly caress the soft underbelly of the bumper of the car in front of me. I walked through an alleyway covered with gang-tags that indicated who owned the bricks on the lower quarter of the wall. I guess the business owners who pay taxes on the property own the top 3 quarters. But don't mess with the Eastside 50s. They own the bottom quarter. It says so in spray paint, so it's official. I entered the casting office and approached a Korean man serving as the gatekeeper. "Can I borrow your stapler for my headshot?" "I'm sorry, we don't have a stapler." Great. I have managed to fail at the most rudimentary level of any audition. I looked around at all of the other actors waiting to audition. Their headshots were all stapled to their resumes. One actor had a black bag that was large enough to contain a wide assortment of office supplies. "Can I borrow your stapler?" "Sorry, I don't have one." He had a stapler in that bag. I know he did. But he knew that I would have an advantage if he let me borrow it. I had to find a stapler somewhere before I went into the audition. I saw a man at a copy machine. Surely he had access to the coveted but elusive stapler. "Is there a stapler around here that I can use?" "Sorry, we don't keep staplers down here." "Hmm. Okay." Are you kidding me? What kind of an office building doesn't have a stapler? There is a copy machine the size of a Yugo, an artificial river running through the bottom floor of the building with decorative bridges allowing pedestrians to cross the river, and wall architecture that looks like an M.C. Escher illusion, but no stapler? It was as if the TSA had made a clean sweep through the building in case someone might eventually leave the casting office and hijack an airplane with a stapler. I needed a plan. I approached the Korean gatekeeper, whistling a happy tune in my head to make myself appear real innocent-like. He didn't know I was whistling a happy tune in my head. I just thought that if I was whistling a happy tune in my head he would surely know that my intentions were nothing but noble. "Do you have a bathroom here?" "Just across the bridge at the back of the building." The happy-whistle-tune in my head became the theme-song for Mission Impossible. Or maybe it was Spy Hunter. Or Peter Gunn. In any case, it was something covert. I casually sauntered across the bridge over the mysterious ancient indoor River of Lies and Stapler-Hiding on my way to the "bathroom." Surely there was an unoccupied office with a stapler sitting on a desk somewhere in this building. I would hold my breath, walk as if walking on air, tense my muscles as perspiration beaded upon my brow, and staple my headshot with ninja-quickness, escaping long before the absent office worker could smell my fingerprints. In the distance, I heard the familiar sound of fingers typing on a computer keyboard. Cautiously, I followed the direction of the sound, looking out of the corner of my eye to ensure that the Korean man at the front desk wasn't monitoring my relative distance to the bathroom. I observed a man diligently working at his computer. Near his computer screen sat the mother of all staplers: an Aceliner. "Excuse me sir, can I borrow your stapler?" "Are you talking to me?" Her voice confused me a little, as I was sure that the person I was talking to was a man. "Oh, sorry, I mean, ma'am." Think of something to cover yourself idiot! "I'm so sorry...I'm half blind...so from a distance you looked like a man." I could barely detect the scowl from behind her thick, coke-bottle glasses. As she handed me her stapler, she calmly and unemotionally said, "Boy, you're batting 1000 today aren't you." "I just...I..." "Just save yourself and don't say anything else." "Yes, ma'am." I stapled my headshot and resume as if I was doing it with my pants down in front of this lady who looked like a man. "Sorry." As I exited her office, she said "Good luck." She didn't mean "good luck." She wanted me to die. Die right there in her office. From something ugly. Like a mace or hammer. I walked back across the indoor man-made River of Shame and Disgrace and took my seat in front of the Korean man who looked at me like he knew I never went to the bathroom, even though I had asked where the bathroom was. "Mr. Adam, you're next." He pointed at me. Not in an indicating way, but in an accusing way. Like I had told people that Kim Jong Il had a funny haircut and I was going to pay handsomely. I sighed, and slowly walked up the long spiral staircase. (As I took each step, I remembered the first audition I ever had, 6 years ago. It was in Dallas. I was so nervous that my hands wouldn't stop shaking. I went into the bathroom to calm myself. I decided to pee with my headshot in my hand, managed to drop my headshot into the toilet while I was peeing, and peed all over my own face. All over my own ridiculous face, smiling up at me from inside the toilet bowl). As I reached the top of the staircase, I wished I had taken some business classes in college, so that I could do some business with the Power Point and the neckties and the meetings instead of this. The staircase led to a room resembling a doctor's office. There wasn't a bed or any medical supplies, but it was all very clinical. Behind a table sat 3 Koreans who didn't acknowledge me. I stood there patiently, weirdly. One of the men looked up. "Oh, sorry. Go over there and get the blouses." I walked over to the wall and picked up two women's blouses. "Stand in front of the camera. When I turn the music on, start dancing." I can't dance. No matter how hard I try. I can tackle pretty well. I can't dance. He pressed play on a boom box and a techno song came on. "Action." I started dancing, I guess. "More subtle, like you're having fun." I wasn't having fun. I felt naked, beaten. I danced some more, I think. "Okay, that's enough." The 3 men sat back down and looked at some paperwork as I stood there holding the blouses. "Okay, you can go." I hung the blouses back on the wall and made my way down the staircase. As I exited the building, I encountered a stray dog pooping on the grass in front of the casting office. He growled at me as he pooped.

Bay City

We flew to Houston to perform another children's show this week. Our first hotel reminded me of The Shining. It had probably been built in the 1940's. Long hallways that smelled of smoke from a time when people smoked everywhere, including church and airplanes, which are now the absolute most forbidden of zones. I wonder if obstetricians ever smoked while delivering babies. That smell never really goes away. It lingers as a damp cancer odor. I always find myself eavesdropping on the hotel clerks' conversations while eating the standard continental breakfast at 6am: Cereal that is dispensed by turning a crank. Styrofoam bowls that require a second cranking if one is to be fully satisfied. So many cereal options. Fruit Loops mixed with a dash of Raisin Bran. Frosted Flakes married with one quarter Corn Flakes. Not too sweet and mighty delightful. Sometimes fresh fruit. Sometimes fruit that was probably fresh in Panama, but suffered many hardships crossing the canal. As I watched CNN, with clips bouncing from the Challenger explosion to Oprah Winfrey crucifying James Frey, I couldn't help taking note of the hotel clerks' banter. Two women in their early 40's gossiping about this and that. It began as fairly standard fare for a small Texas suburb. "You know, jus' been doin' the laundry. Got the kids this weekend. They get bigger every time I see 'em." Somewhere the conversation took a bizarre turn. One of the clerks casually asked the other, in appropriate Texan drawl, "You ever seen a snuff film?" "A what?" "A snuff film." "A what?" "A snuff film. Yeah, at one time they was all the rage. You know, mutilation and what not." She spoke of it as if referring to that wacky time when all those kids went to Woodstock and smoked pot while listening to Santana. The good ole' days, when films included an unsuspecting "actor" being murdered. I wasn't aware that snuff films had once been en vogue. My muffins lost their luster during the conversation. I admit, I tried to mix the muffins with the corn flakes and turn it into a cereal extravaganza, which was a mistake in its own right, but a background conversation about the salad days of snuff films really made all food generally unappealling. The live shows went fairly smoothly, at least after the first show. I'm always trying little new things to keep it interesting. After 100 performances, things can get stale. There is a section of the show in which I'm supposed to be fiddling with my microphone stand, causing me to hit myself in the head with the microphone. It's an obvious sight gag, but the kids get a kick out of it. This particular school didn't have a microphone stand, so I decided to twirl the microphone like a lasso, as if being entertained by my own A.D.D. I intended to twirl it by my head, just enough to graze it and make a noise. I hadn't practiced this maneuver before the show. It was a spurt of the moment thing. So, in front of 300 children ages 5 to 10, I completely missed my head with the microphone and whipped it directly into my crotch. They thought that was pretty funny. I tried to draw attention away from what had just happened by grabbing my head and talking about how much my head hurt, but I couldn't stand up straight or breathe properly for a few seconds. Besides, they had all seen it, so my attempts to distract them from what they had just seen and found infinitely hilarious were futile. I could tell that the teachers didn't find it funny. I considered announcing that I hadn't intended to rack myself in front of the children, but I didn't want to dig the hole any deeper. The show moved forward, and at one point Mark mentioned that in small Texas towns people don't give directions by street names. "Just go down to the Pizza hut and turn left. Take a right at the Blockbuster." I chose to extend the bit with my own addition: "When you see the Feed Store be sure to wave at Claudelle. She'll be on the tractor in the parkin' lot." I said it with a thick Texas accent. Since I'm from Texas I didn't see any harm in it. Again, the teachers were not amused. It was then that I remembered our "characters" are from Hollywood. From their perspective, this cityboy actor from Hollywood with a fancy microphone in his hand was making fun of the ignorant hillbillies in Bay City, Texas. In a matter of 30 minutes I had managed to perform genitalia slapstick for children and publicly announce how dumb Texans sound to an out of towner from Hollywood. That's the thing with live shows. You don't get to start over.

Debate

I participated in a national collegiate debate yesterday. Just for kicks. It feels like I've been getting progressively dummer since college. So, I signed up for a policy debate class at the community college, and yesterday was the culmination of the semester's study. On the whole, the day was ridiculous, but a learning experience nonetheless. My partner and I were under the impression that it was a rookie debate. Actually, everyone, including our professor was under the impression that it was a rookie debate. The kids from Utah, however, knew what they were doing...a little too well. They had laptops, stacks of file folders full of research, coaches prepping them for each round. My partner and I had our tattered notebooks from class. On top of it all, our opposing teams had a keen understanding of debate jargon that my partner and I never quite grasped. "You have to be on case in the disad only in the first AC, but you can't introduce anything new in the 2nd NR." I didn't know what it meant then, and I still don't. My partner and I both made the assumption that a debate consisted of two teams hashing out arguments, with the most logical argument achieving victory. Not the case. One team that we debated set forth a plan in which the "evil capitalistic death machine" would be overthrown so that the proletariat could take over the means of production that the bourgeois class had abused. They weren't aware that Karl Marx had originated that idea and were instead reading a verbatim script put together by some wacko post-apocalyptic conspiracy theorist. Our rebuttal included reasoning and historical precendent for why Marx's ideas have never worked in practice. They countered by explaining that they weren't talking about Marx, they were talking about Mao, and that under Mao and Stalin's regimes socialism made great progress. We countered by reminding them that socialism made great progress at the expense of millions of people's lives, and that both systems eventually deteriorated into the class system that their respective revolutions had sought to overcome. All in all, I felt like our team had done a pretty good job of discrediting our opponents' arguments. We lost the debate. They had evidence in front of them, we did not. Apparently we would have been awarded more points if I had brought a copy of The Communist Manifesto from which to cite my information. I had neglected to bring a copy of the book because the debate topic was supposed to be about whether or not we should be imposing sanctions on China because of human rights violations. At one point the judge told my partner that if he was going to introduce the topic that the U.S. and U.S.S.R. never engaged in a nuclear war that he needed to have evidence in front of him that the U.S. and U.S.S.R. had never engaged in a nuclear war. According to debate competition protocol, common knowledge that we never had a nuclear war with the Soviet Union isn't sufficient evidence that we never had that war. By the third round of the debate, my partner were both pretty tired of the whole thing. At one point the opposite team read their affirmative case argument so quickly that neither I, nor my partner could understand a word she was saying. After the debate was concluded the judge chastised us for not taking notes during the affirmative case argument. My partner looked over at me and said, "I took notes," and showed me a picture of a pig that he had drawn with the phrase "China Bad" coming out of its butt. By the fourth round I was simply burned out. A record of 1-2 and no real interest in making any compelling case about anything anymore as I was sure to get lost in the jargon. Before the debate round started I was arranging papers on my desk with my head down, thinking about other things. People were coming in and leaving the room. I wasn't paying much attention. Just looking down at papers, acting like I knew what I was supposed to be doing. Without looking up, I casually asked the judge, "Since we've been outclassed thus far, do you think we can get a handicap?" It wasn't a terribly funny joke, but I didn't expect the dead, tense silence that followed. Puzzled, I looked up and around the room. Sitting 10 feet away from me was my opponent...in a wheelchair.

Boxing

I took up boxing a few months ago, hoping to clean out some of the poison from years of smoking. I did it for a little while about a decade ago, but I never took it very seriously. Never bothered to get into shape, drank all the time, chain smoked. My level of dedication is deeper this time around, but the chances of climbing the ranks of the professional light heavyweight division are basically zero. My goals are simpler -- try to box three rounds without vomiting, try not to get knocked out by everyone in the gym, try to look tougher than the women who spar each other like Roman gladiators. The room is full of power. You can hear it in the parking lot walking to the stairs: gloves banging away at heavy bags, the chains of the bags clanking relentlessly, the bell, yelling. The guy who occasionally trains me wears the damage of years of boxing all over his body and mind. A crushed nose, permanently swollen eye sockets, slurred speech. He worked me through a few rounds of mits the other day. I caught him off-guard at one point and accidentally hit him in the ribs with a pretty hard shot. He laughed and told me that it knocked the wind out of him. Laughed? Now...it's been a while since that has happened to me, but if I remember correctly there wasn't much laughing. Mostly gasping, wondering if the ability to breathe will ever come back, choking, struggling. In the middle of the third round of our workout I was finished. I could hardly hold my hands up as he slapped me in the head, admonishing me for not keeping my hands up. The bell rang, I drank as much water as I could, and sat down for about 5 minutes to regain some energy. At one point, the trainer came over to me and asked me if I wanted to "do mits today." He had already forgotten that we had just done them moments before. It was amusing and heartbreaking at the same time. He still has his wits about him. He's a joker and really knows his boxing. But his short term memory is gone. Beaten right out of him. I had paid him $10 for a lesson before we started. Later on I noticed him reach into his pockets and pull the $10 out. He studied it for a moment, and I could see the question flash across his face, "Where did this come from?" There is something about a boxing gym that you can't find anywhere else. It's an unspoken thing that you can't quite put your finger on. Maybe it's the fact that all kinds of people from widely varying backgrounds come together for one reason: to make everyone in that gym a better fighter. By varying backgrounds I don't mean some guy from Kansas and a couple of people from Washington. I mean varying backgrounds in the widest sense of the phrase. Guys on parole who would be your most feared potential cellmate in prison, professional boxers with class and good records, children whose parents want their kids to learn respect the hard way, actors, homeless guys who fought years ago and muster up enough dignity to shadowbox for old time's sake, attractive women looking to get into shape, unattractive women looking to kick my ass, lawyers, Mexicans who don't speak any English but find common ground with the language of boxing, Jewish promoters looking for a sparring partner for their guy from Armenia, homosexuals who are tired of getting pushed around by homophobes, homophobes who want to practice pushing around homosexuals, the occasional mobster, celebrity, and military man. All of the stereotypes disappear when the gloves go on, and everyone supports each other. I guess the most fascinating thing about spending an hour in a boxing gym is that everyone in there leaves political correctness at the door, but it doesn't create social tension in the way that we fear it will in public. It's weird. The things that are said in that boxing gym would be a public outrage. People make fun of each other for being black, being white, being Mexican, being Japanese, being gay, being straight, being fat, being skinny, being too pretty, being too ugly, being anything. If you are at all unique in any way (which we all are) you will be made fun of for it. Racial slurs are thrown around, explicit sexual innuendo pops in here and there -- everything that we're not supposed to say, is said. But the beauty of it is, no one leaves angry; no one feels threatened; no one harbors resentment; and everyone in there feels loved, despite all of the warts and eccentricities. Laughter occurs far more often than in a grocery store where you might find the same mix of people. I think Americans' biggest fear is for people to find out just how insecure we really are. That's the real threat. That's why we live beyond our means, try desperately to cover up our physical flaws, pretend we know things that we don't, and have such a hard time admitting when we're wrong. In a boxing gym, people laugh at themselves, and laugh at other people laughing at themselves. And on top of it all, you get to punch somebody in the face who expects it to happen.