Billie Holiday Died Fifty Years Ago Today

I have been meeting with clients, trying to finish my workout and writing a blog in reaction to President Obama's speech to the NAACP but just realized that today is the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Billie Holiday. I am putting it all on hold to take note of this important day.



How does this fit into my mission of explaining side effects? Simple. Holiday's artistry continues to have a side effect on so many people who feel misunderstood or in pain. She was a one-of-a-kind artist and even though her personal life was a disaster, she consistently created art that stands the test of time and speaks to those who feel outside or misunderstood.



In addition, someone of her stature has an enduring side effect on the creation of so many others. Her appeal is so broad--she was recently ranked number six in VH1's list of the Greatest Women in Rock and Roll and is in the Rock and Roll hall of fame. I think an interesting experiment would be to name five of your favorite singers and pair their name in a Google search with "Billie Holiday." Chances are you will find a reference to her as an influence. She spoke, and speaks to anyone who has struggled with creation.

R.I.P. dear Billie from a fan you never knew.

Who Should Really Be Angry About BRUNO?

Leaving Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest film, Bruno, I was a little puzzled. Quite frankly, I was unclear on why America’s sexual minorities have their underwearzn in a klafumtik. From frame one the filmmakers make it painfully clear THIS IS A FARCE (and not a very good one as far as that goes). If anyone leaves the theater thinking Bruno is in any way a reflection of actual gay life, they are so homophobicly deluded that no film, regardless of how sensitively or realistically wrought it may be, would change their point of view.

That said, I think another demographic ought to be very upset with Cohen--people from the South. In this film, as well as almost everything he has created, Sacha Baron Cohen goes to Alabama or thereabouts to film scenes where low IQs are a high priority. In his TV show, Da Ali G Show, (first produced for the BBC then HBO in the States), of which I am a huge fan, he frequently shot south of the Mason-Dixon. In the guise of Borat, he would try to get old men to admit that slavery was not so bad or as Bruno he attempted to seduce a preacher who converts queers. Funny? Absolutely. Pointed? You bet. Prejudicial? Of course. The bottom line communicated in almost every episode of his TV show and two of his three feature films is, need bumpkins? Head South.



Cohen, who uses other’s biases to his advantage, is himself clearly prejudiced against anyone from the South Eastern United States. He is a victim of the media, which has spent most of a century trying to convince the rest of the world how backwards the South is as compared to points north, west and east. The South has, at least since the 1850s, been the go-to region as a sort of short hand for being bigoted or stupid. I challenge that idea.

Bigots exist everywhere, not just in Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi. In ten years of being a New York City resident I have met some of the most enlightened people one could ever hope to encounter. I have also seen and experienced hate and bigotry across race, sexual and class boundaries. Hey Sacha, if you want limousine liberals who say one thing and do another then let me take you on a tour of Long Island. Need a place where a scantily clad man prancing and sashaying will be attacked just for what he wears and how he wears it? A large percentage of New Jersey will suffice. Casting for an unabashed bigot who will attack anyone not like themselves? I got a lady on the fifth floor of my Brooklyn apartment building I need to introduce you to.

It’s easy to laugh at the South. In 2009, it is still one of the last of the mildly acceptable prejudices, right along with teasing sissies and making fat jokes. But for those of you who think the South has got some sort of exclusive with regard to bigotry and provincial small minds, I think you need to get out more.

© David Ezell 2009
All Rights Reserved

Our Michael Jackson Problem

Michael Jackson has passed as humans do. When I first heard it, from a client last Thursday evening, I had the feeling I always have when someone who was a marker in my life slips away. I felt sad thinking about hearing his songs and what they represented in my life—where I was, who I was with, perhaps even what I was thinking or feeling while one of his tunes played in the background.

I, and most other people, clearly have conflicted feelings about Mr. Jackson. He was African-American but distanced himself far from his people. He made enormous sums of money but was so in debt that he lost his home. Millions loved him but he appeared to be, for most of his life, isolated. He clearly struggled with his identity, converting himself physically and changing not only how he talked but his voice as well. And of course there were the allegations of sex with minors and his admission that sleeping with children was an expression of love. That said, he was an enormous talent. He was incredibly gifted, a one of a kind performer who brought so much joy to so many as long as his music was playing.

Many mourn around the world today and speak in platitudes about his being “the king of pop,” a title he was never granted in his lifetime. The Russians have built a monument to him. The Rev. Al Sharpton demanded a national day of mourning in his honor and tickets to today’s service were being scalped for $1,500 a piece. All for a man who had become, at least in this country, fodder for stand up comedians and a synonym for eccentricity or perversion.

Seeing this behavior makes me very sad. Not because he did not deserve praise but sad because it’s all too late. Many of the people who praise him now were, in a majority of cases, those that mocked him less than ten days ago. What is it in humans that allow this sort duality of thinking? Alive he was a despot and dead he has been granted the title he craved but was not given.

I wish we all could treat each other better.

© David Ezell 2009
All Rights Reserved

The Clarity of Distance

(difficult relations) + (long distances)  = better relations

In speaking with a friend about my relationship with a relative I don’t like, my words prompted her to breathe a sigh of relief. “That makes me feel so much better about how I feel about Cindy,” she replied. Cindy, a relative of hers, is not her favorite person. But because of cultural conventions, she felt the need to pretend her feelings are bad and tell herself that she should be ashamed for feeling how she does about blood kin.

That is not too surprising--most cultures, if not all, tell their people they have to love their parents, brothers, sisters and any other blood relations, at all costs. That is not true. It would be nice if was and many times it happily is. But many times it 's not. And that falsehood, that we have to love someone because of DNA, leads to thoughts of "should" and "ought," which in turn ferment into guilt and a sense of failure.

I don’t believe this myth of familial love is natural—and there does not seem to be any evidence to indicate it is. I think the concept arose out of necessity. Like many taboos, this one has a function, not unlike the rules against incest. We have, for hundreds of thousands of years, lived in small clans and within those groups clear understandings of family insured cohesiveness. In that situation everyone you live with is a relation—figuratively your brother or sister. Having a level of investment in each member is more likely to insure you will have the other's back when a saber toothed tiger shows up for a meal. In that system disharmony equaled death.

One of the side effects of modern society is that the need to give undying support to your family is, in many cases, less important than it was at any other time. In the modern world people can, and often do, leave the place they were born, something that has never occurred outside of a few glaring exceptions (think The Crusades or marching with Alexander the Great). One of my best friends lives over 3,000 miles from our place of birth and according to Google maps, I am over 900 miles away as well. I have a client who is in the exact opposite place on the globe from where he was born—how much farther can one get?

The ability to leave has the potential to do many things One of them is to give us clarity about relationships, by blood or otherwise, that need to be better understood. When everyone is clumped together, there is a high incentive to play nice and get along, or at least pretend you do. Distance allows us to see, not unlike the far-sighted person reading a book at arms length. In being removed from circumstances we are allowed to see our loved ones, and not so loved ones, for who they are. Consequently we may be able to recognize heroes we never noticed and sometimes recognize bullies who seemed to be dear friends.

This scary concept flies in the face of conventional logic. But many times ideas that are challenging seem that way because they have, at least to some degree, an element of truth. If you get along with all your family members, count thyself lucky. If you don’t, you are not alone.