CUL-DE-SAC

The Academy Awards are coming up and I cannot resist the urge to gossip about the nominees. So here’s something you may not know about Brian Selznick, author of the book The Invention of Hugo Cabret, on which the Oscar-nominated movie Hugo is based.

He’s gay and I outed him. Here’s the story.

About 5 years ago, Selznick was talking about his Hugo Cabret book, which had just been published, and he appeared on my old radio talk show called These Days.

Selznick was and I’m sure he remains a nice, soft-spoken guy who lives half the year in San Diego. And at one point he made some reference to his boyfriend during the live show. Afterward he told Angela, who produced the program, that it was the first time he had spoken about being gay in front of the media.

I suppose I didn’t really out him, he outed himself. I later heard, in fact, that everyone who worked in a La Jolla bookstore, that he frequented, knew he was gay so the man wasn’t exactly closeted.

Still, it makes me feel good to think I played some role in the rumor mill that feeds the hype around the Academy Awards.

I was living in Iowa City with my family when I was age 8 and my parents took my brother and me to a flea market. There was a sketch artist, earning a few bucks drawing portraits of people. My parents sat their boys down and the artist drew.

I don’t know where that drawing is today. But I remember my brother smiled for the sketch while I insisted on keeping a straight face. My father told us I looked like a fullback from Notre Dame and my brother looked like an end from Syracuse.

During my recent trips to the San Diego Zoo, I’d noticed an artist who was drawing caricatures of Zoo patrons. I carried that childhood memory with me and decided I would have my children drawn. We finally did it yesterday.

It started with an argument between me and my wife. The argument wasn’t too strident, but it was enough for her to accuse me have having a “tone” in my voice. I didn’t have a tone!

The subject related to one I blogged about following Super Bowl Sunday: My sentimentality for Normal Heights, our old neighborhood. In particular, I miss the main street called Adams Avenue, which manages to be a small-town main street while also being a hip destination.

My comments became a source of controversy when I said I didn’t believe our new main street, El Cajon Blvd, had the same feel or vitality. It’s a long jumble of low-rent establishments whose useful businesses are too far away.

“El Cajon is vital,” said my wife, “it just doesn’t appeal to people like us.”

So who are we? I’m not sure just what my wife was getting at, but it occurred to me that we are white.

Southern California is the kind of place where race can seem to disappear. There is a lot of interracial intercourse (in every sense of the word) and there are so many mixed marriages that a lot of people are, well, just brown.

But we still think about race. And when I think about Normal Heights and nearby Kensington, I also think about Hillcrest, University Heights, North Park and South Park. Most people will agree these San Diego neighborhoods are quite fashionable and trendy. That means they are the kinds of places where white people like to hang out.

These places are not exclusively white, of course. But the preponderance of white people you find in their bars, restaurants and other gathering spots is remarkable in the racially mixed inner city.

White culture has been the subject of some serious and not-so-serious discussions in the press and on-line. The former is seen in this article, written in the New Yorker by Kalefa Sannah. The latter is seen in the website “Stuff White People Like,” created by Canadian comic Christian Lander.

According to Lander, white people like coffee, bike shops, Barack Obama, The New Yorker Magazine and recycling. OK… I know he’s talking about white people who are members of the liberal/secular crowd, but San Diego is coastal California, which is full of ’em.

And do they have bike shops in Normal Heights? At least two on Adams Avenue. Coffee shops? You betcha!

My new main street, El Cajon Boulevard, does have at least one trendy beachhead called the Living Room Cafe. I often have to explain to white acquaintances where I live, and when I tell them I’m not far from the Living Room, their eyes light up and they say, “Oh sure. I love that place!”

Modern Americans claim to love racial and cultural diversity. But in reality, the cultures don’t mix as well as we would like to believe. Humans are tribal. Our tribal identities don’t rely on race as much as they used to, but we will always find some way to define ourselves as different from (a.k.a. better than) others. Sadly, race is still a vehicle for that, even when we don’t quite realize it.

We urban dwellers are still a long way from being racially integrated. And next time you go out to a trendy, fashionable new bar or restaurant, take a look around. My guess is you’ll see a lot of white people.

Training. It’s something you have to endure sometimes if you’re a member of the professional classes and your employer has a training budget. I’ve worked in my business for more than 20 years, yet I had to be trained last week.

I work in public radio and I have taken over a job that involves reading the news in the morning. Sounds like a simple thing, and it is. But I’ve never been very good at it. I fumble words and I talk too slow and “quirky”

Quirky?? That’s what I’ve been told by the person, Marilyn Pittman, who was hired to provide training to me at the NPR affiliate station in San Diego, where I work. She thought my delivery was quirky and conversational.

So she said to me,

“It’s the NEWS… bitch!”

That might make Marilyn sound like a bitch, herself. But she’s not. She’s profane, but good-hearted. Still, she meant it.

It’s the news. It’s not a conversation. It’s not a singing telegram. It’s not a warm greeting. IT’S THE FUCKING NEWS!! So just give it to me!

That means you’re supposed to sound authoritative, energetic and up-to-date. I used to host a call-in talk show, and I tried to be warm and funny and conversational. Maybe that was a bad influence.

Performing on the radio isn’t acting. You don’t tell yourself you’re going to be a gay teenager one day and a 80-year-old Chinese guy the next day. You are yourself. But you bring a different tenor to different stories and to the different roles you play on the radio. Now I’ve been assigned the role of authoritative Tom.

Public radio performance style is not typically authoritative. A public radio guy told me, long ago, you should read copy as if you’re talking to a mouse in the corner of the room. But more recent advice seems to suggest I should imagine standing in the bed of a pickup, talking to a crowd of people.

I don’t know if I’m the authoritative type. But I will be.

Because, it’s the news… bitch.

Super Bowl Sunday came and went and I never turned on my TV. I have said that I will watch the Super Bowl only if I have absolutely nothing better to do. Sunday, I had nothing else to do and I still didn’t watch it.

It wasn’t because I didn’t like either of the teams. I just think the Super Bowl is boring. It’s the same old routine every year.

The hype is exhausting. Some people think it’s worth watching it for the commercials, but the commercials aren’t that good. Again, more hype.

Every year, they trot out some well-worn pop star who does an act at half-time and sings songs you’ve already heard more often than you want to. Anthropologists have surely tried to explain why the Super Bowl is a cultural touchstone. But it’s just another football game that comes so late in the season you’ve got to sick of football by then.

Sunday I decided to find something to do by taking a walk in Normal Heights, my old neighborhood. The rows of small bungalows and the main street, Adams Avenue, warm and quiet my heart as I think of the hundreds of fond memories they hold for me. Normal Heights has become my old home town. And as I was driving home I noticed a parking space outside The Ould Sod, an Irish Bar on Adams Ave.

I walked in and they were (of course) watching the Super Bowl. The owner, Mick Ward, bought me a beer and we chatted while bar flies yelled at the TV screens. It was a very Boston crowd, so they favored New England.

Putting the Super Bowl in that place made it different. The event felt right as the TV sound was turned down and I just heard the voices of the people inside the bar. Next year I’ll watch the Super Bowl there again, unless I find something better to do.

There was nothing wrong with the address. The handwriting was perfectly fine. It was a letter sent to Santa Claus at the North Pole. But my son’s thank-you note to Santa was labeled “Return to Sender.”

Since getting the letter back, I’ve wondered what could have gone wrong. Maybe Santa is in the Bahamas by this time of year and he isn’t taking or forwarding any mail. Maybe they have a lot of new, inexperienced staff at the post office.

But I fear the U.S. Postal Service has lost faith in Santa Claus. Any remake of Miracle on 34th Street will need to show the post office returning all letters from children requesting gifts. We’ll clip this letter back on our mailbox with a note that says, Try again. So we’ll see. Maybe next time we’ll have to use UPS.

The

The church pews at St. Didacus were half-filled with parents and with seven and eight-year-olds who waited as three priests sat at the front and took confessions. The church now calls it reconciliation. But it’s first confession.

St. Didacus Church in San Diego

My daughter waited her turn as the little kids spoke softly to the priests who leaned forward to hear them confess. To what they confessed, I don’t know. How many sins can a seven-year-old kid possibly admit to? The church played some background music so we couldn’t hear what was being said. The view of the ritual was powerful.

I had my Catholic confirmation within the past year, and I did confess once. I wasn’t able to make it to the appointment that had been set for RCIA students to do their confessions. I mentioned this to Father Mike, expecting we’d make another appointment, and he said, “Well, can we do it now?”

I said OK but I wasn’t prepared and I didn’t know what to tell him. Was I supposed to scour my life and remember things I’d done to hurt people that I was ashamed of? I wish I had, because my confession was a vague, stumbling admission of not being sufficiently generous to my fellow humans… or something like that.

Being a journalist, I imagined the priest was expecting he would get SOME decent news. Instead, I sent him a boring press release. After more than 50 years on earth, he must have wondered, can’t you come up with a better sin than that?

Shame and admission of guilt are rare things in our public life, and I blame the legal system. Admit you did something to harm someone, and you’ll just get sued. God forbid you should do it when actually accused of a crime.

But I remember once covering the courts as a reporter when I heard a young man at a sentencing hearing admit that he had murdered someone. He earlier confessed to police. At the end of his statement in court, he choked on his words and told the judge he was so sorry. Today, 20 years later, the memory still brings tears to my eyes.

In the Clint Eastwood movie “El Camino” a veteran of the Korean War (played by Eastwood) sees his death coming and, out of respect for his late wife, goes to confession in the church. But what he tells the priest is not much. He saves his real confession for a Laotian neighbor kid he has befriended, telling him of the things he did during the war.

Here’s a joke:

Two kids, one Catholic and one Jewish, are arguing. The Catholic kid says, “Our priest knows a lot more than your rabbi!” The Jewish kid says, “Of course he does. You tell him everything.”

Most real American Catholics don’t go to confession. They may go to church but they think confession is a quaint custom, which they had to do once when being confirmed but they won’t do it again. So maybe the priest doesn’t really know THAT much.

But keeping secret a shame that we are able to admit to ourselves can make a hard life. Confession, and reconciliation, will happen somehow.