Evening at the Karamu Theater

Seated Nude by Beni E Kosh

“One of the lost cities.” That’s how many people talk about Cleveland and they may not be far off when they say “lost.’ I like it better than calling it dying although it might be irrelevant because when something is lost it often dies for lack of nurturing. But sometimes hidden under the smoking rubbles you find a live spark warming a lonely Cleveland night.

I discovered such a spark last night at a small theater on East 89th Street in one of the city’s lost neighborhoods.

The Karamu theater company is currently presenting “Waiting2 end Hell” it starts out as a feel good comedy with a nod at gender stereotyping which quickly explodes into full blown relationship drama.

The play by William a. Parker is based on Terry McMillan’s book “Waiting to Exhale.” The director, Terence Spivey, has staged the play to give the cast plenty of space to wheel you into the lives of Diane and Dante and their close and not so close friends. Someone said to me, “it’s a women bashing play.”

I did not think it was bashing women but the play described how easy it is for women to become complacent in a domestic setting. The play is sure to stir echoes of past struggles and maybe offer some belated wisdom to appreciate what you have before you loose it.

The impressive cast gave a great ensemble performance capturing the nature of each of their respective character and bringing the audience to that often elusive suspension of disbelief stage. No doubt the close proximity of the audience to the actors was the magic glue that held it all together.

“Waiting 2 End Hell” is playing at the Karamu Theater till November 23rd.

Life at a plant in Cleveland Ohio

Men at work

Monday to Friday, I work in a Cleveland manufacturing plant, it is a dirty place located in an ugly neighborhood with little amenities. We don’t have fancy restaurants within walking distances or any kind of boutiques. We can walk to the Speedway for a gas station special, a hot dog and a soda and maybe a ding dong if you feel like it.

Once you park your car in the secured parking lot and use your badge to get through the clinking steel turn stall, they own you for the day. As you wave at the guard shack and arrive at the front door, you are greeted by all the forbidden, you can’t carry a weapon, but that is a good thing considering the way that I feel some mornings. You can’t go past the yellow line without personal protective equipment; that one always makes me smile, they mean hard hats and work boots that protect your head and feet from all kinds of nasty accidents, I think prophylactics. The biggest poster is that no one is allow to smoke within 30 feet from the doors and absolutely no smoking inside presumably to protect all the non- smokers from harmful smoke, a thoughtful if ironic management position if one considers what kind of toxins the average worker breathes per hour in the plant.

In spite of a dreadful setting the men and women working in the plant are gracious to me, always greeting me and opening doors and lifting gates on my behalf. They show the kind of thoughtful behavior that makes living in society harmonious.

They are smart and but they shine the brightest when they attend the mandatory state of business meeting with our plant manager. They scheduled these informotials about twice a year. Normally, salaried employees attend during business hours. The plant employees attend according to their shifts.

Last year, I missed my time slot so I went to a second shift session. The new plant manager was excellent at pointing the improvements that were in the works for the employees. She was on a roll untill the question period, when a guy in the back raised his hand.

“I just want to point out Mam, that we used to have seventeen custodians taking care of this plant.”

“Yes?” She said with intense interest.

“We appreciate all the new flowers and fresh paint in the Human Resources area but if I go to the bathroom and there is no toilet paper in the stall and no paper towels in the dispensers, I am left in a difficult position.”

Everybody cracked up with this very polite and clever way to tell her that she was full of crap. Never underestimate the insight that comes with sitting on the toilet with time to think about what is essential.

Gay and not so gay marriages

Think about it!


I switch my opinion about people almost daily, are they cruel or thoughtless. I was listening to a news show this week-end which mentioned that California had done a 360 on allowing gays to marry.

Why is marriage called a holy union? Most couples that I know are not in a state of grace except for a few unions often not sanctified by Church or Government, where partners treat each other with affection and respect.

Don’t get me wrong, I have seen exploitation in gay relationships as well but in heterosexual relationships it seems that money is the third silent partner which drives the relationship. Traditionally marriages were sealed by a contract executed by a religious organization, more a business proposition than romantic alliance. Not much has changed and even though people now will marry for love in the back of their minds they assess each other’s assets. This is not to say that it is wrong. But it is really important to value the same qualities and understand that life is fluid and the common journey littered with bumps and pot holes.

To marry for procreation may sound antiquated but most women and men want a partner who will be a good parent. You don’t hear too many people say, I want a husband who will be a scumbag and beat me and my children or I want a wife who will be more concerned with material stuff than with me and our family or goals.

No, we are looking for partnership and if we are careful about the choices that we make we can find it. Many gay couples have an advantage over “regular unions” and that is that being of the same gender, they can read their partner better. You can be married for years with a partner of the opposite sex and still be unable to understand what makes them tick.

The element of surprise can be a wonderful element in a relationship but unpredictability can make you crazy when it is practiced over years of companionship hence the importance of marrying someone who is truly compatible. Just as engineers do better when they talk among themselves, artists do better with other artists.

When two adults want to engage in a permanent legal union after much soul searching or very little, who are we to say that matrimony is only to be recognized if it is between a man and a woman? We can all be given the right to choose the method of our own destruction or elation.

The Second Coming

It was a rush to finally get out of my office last night in time to get home to watch Obama’s prime time commercial. I got home in time to warm up the tube by answering the last question on “Jeopardy” and then 30 minutes of uninterrupted bliss while I watched an infinitely well crafted dream, the dream that maybe Martin Luther King was talking about so long ago…

I am cynical by nature, culturally and historically Quebecois have the highest disregards for anything that smells of political manipulation. Although supportive of Obama, I did not know if I could stand sitting for 30 minutes listening to what I thought would be more of the same.

After all I did watch all the debates and have read as much as I could find about this unusual candidate. I did not expect to be sharing a moving television experience with millions of Americans but it was.

When the clip ended, I am not ashamed to say that I had a renewed hope for my adoptive land that maybe we could saved the world as we did with our allies in WWII by saving ourselves and re-creating a great society. I know that life has been getting harder in America in the last 8 years for the middle-class and the under class. The dark days of America have stained the lives of many other countries and we can not ignore the impact that our debacle has had on other nations, we are not standing alone. On 9/11 the World stood with us and we let that opportunity to establish a new world order slip through our fingers. Instead we became obsessed with revenge and with poor leadership invaded Iraq.

We now stand at the proverbial cross-road, we can let our fears and prejudices guide us to retreat to elect another Republican President or we can give our vote and support to a man who has a vision of what we can do to improve not only American lives but the lives of so many other people.

Voting for Obama gives me hope, it makes me feel engage in the rebuilding of our inner structures, maybe we can be part of the dream team which will get our country back on track.

Mechanically Impaired

Why did you choose to fall in love with this woman who is so temperamental and not that one who adored you?

Sex is at first plentiful and over the top, she makes you feel as if you are swinging from a crystal chandelier, floating high above the ground. You are falling in love and it is so easy to explain her bad behavior as being “insecure.”

She does not like your relatives, particularly your mother; your old friends suddenly seemed to disappear to be replaced by her carefully edited entourage. She wants you to share all her interests so you become a vegan even though you love meat. She wants you to get a better job; she tells you it is so that you both can enjoy the good life…

She will insists on having a joint account where you dutifully deposit your pay check but she reserves herself the bank given right to keep all her money in a private account, “just in case”, she says. She is of course in charge of the budget because she is so much better at it but she may complain that if you brought your lunch, you could have a much healthier diet and save money.

You may end up putting her through graduate school, college or tech training so she can have a meaningful job. Your life has become perfectly predictable and you ease into a domestic routine which is harmonious and productive. Week-ends are well planned with home repairs, scheduled activities and Sunday dinners with relatives or friends of her choosing. If you want to visit your mother, she will at first make excuses why she can not come but insists that you should go without her. But when it becomes obvious that you are going, she comes along to keep you company. You may think that you are so lucky to have found the perfect mate who is always there for you…but not really.

As long as you do everything she wants, you can be in her favor zone but mild dissent escalates quickly into hysterical scenes complete with nervous twitches, tears and sometimes peaks into hyperventilation.

You sometimes feel as if you can not do anything right unless she tells you. Is this what love is all about?


If love is based on a chemical reaction between two people, why does it often end up feeling as if you are mechanically impaired? Is it that a healthy relationship should be based on kindness and mutual generosity fueled by chemistry rather than chemistry based?

Hungarian Rhapsody

I went back to Budapest last month for a business trip. My previous visit dated back to a time where I was married with young children and the Soviet Empire was beginning to crumble. At that time Budapest was a neutral zone where East Germans and West Germans gathered to share a week-end and perhaps make escape plans.

A vivid memory of a bus load of Russian tourists loudly invading the most sacred church in Budapest, St Stephen's Basilica, is forever stamped in my memory. The men walked boldly in front of the altar to take pictures of their group, were smoking cigarettes and were oblivious to the local worshipers stunned by the intrusion. It was a disturbing snapshot but it also predicted that a change would come. The languages that were prevalent were Hungarian, Russian and German. I spoke limited German but it did not matter because Hungarian people are helpful and most patient. It was obvious that trade was slow. Shops that were meticulously maintained had few products to sell. Restaurants which had 20 pages of menu, could only serve goulash soup and chicken paprika. The city of Pest was surrounded by a cloud of smug due to leaded gasoline propelling cars made in the Eastern Bloc. It was a beautiful trip because even tarnished the glory of the city could not be denied.

I had no expectations and maybe it explains my delight in discovering what free enterprise had accomplished in a few years. The immaculate VW Passat taxi which picked me up from the airport was driven by a man wearing an immaculate white shirt and accepting credit card payment, nice when you are exhausted and have not exchange your money into the local currency which is Forint not Euro. My hotel was the same Hilton located in the Castle district but there was a definite service improvement, it was upscale and friendly with an executive lounge serving free food and beverages including wine all day, along with the use of computers with free internet access.

I had to attend meetings outside of Budapest for a few days which also gave me the opportunity to visit a wine cellar which was a new business venture that a young couple had started. We were treated to a wine tasting along with specialty dishes. We stayed in a lovely hotel in the country which was haunted but nothing unpleasant happened, a few whispers, shuffling sounds and cold spots were experienced but no one was possessed.

To get to Pest from the historic Castle district of Buda, we walked across the Danube on the historic Chain Bridge built in 1842 and partly destroyed during WWII by the Germans. It is a great place to take pictures and view both cities. The bus system is extensive and I would have liked to try it but my companion wanted to walk and as it is the best way to see a city, we did, for ten hours! It was a full day of exploration and observation and we found that everything was the same but everything had changed.

English was spoken instead of Russian, businesses and shops displayed their wares with pride. Buildings were renovated, restaurants offered variety of dishes and if you chose to sit outside on their terraces, as we did, all offered warm blankets to cut the September chill. It was cozy to eat lunch overlooking the pedestrian traffic going in and out of St Stephen's Basilica which was again treated with reverence and respect. It was a liberating trip, I found myself succumbing to the charm of Hungary all over again as I did many years ago in a previous life, ghosts can be friendly but they are only a pale reflection of what you can experience if you choose to stay in the present.

Gate to the ARTS Museum

Elections Quebec Style

I received a note from Zannie, one of my sisters that simply said, “for us it is all done.”

I was intrigued and called her immediately. I had to know what did she meant?

In my family we are not to comfortable with transitions, we jump right into the core of the matter. “What is all done?” I asked her.

She said, “Our elections! What else? We have re-elected Harper. It took less than two months, no bombardments of political ads, no robot phone calls and it was relatively painless and inexpensive.”

I said, “I know, I read in the Montreal Gazette that again Quebec distinguished itself by voting for anyone except the major parties.”

“Bien oui, she said. We love to have a minority government, it prevents abuse. Besides we in Quebec do not trust a strong Federal government lead by Anglophones to understand our culture.”

“Well, Mom did vote for Harper in the first election and he is from Alberta, you could not get more Anglophone!”

“True, she conceded, but you must remember that soon after we took her in to see if she was beginning to show signs of Alzheimer?”

“Yes, that is true, we both laughed, and the doctor said that she was sharper than most people.”

“Harper wanted to change many of our rights, and here in Quebec, we are socialists and proud of it. Why else would we vote for the Bloc Québéquois, a party who can not win in the Federal elections since it only represents Québec”

“Let me guess, you voted for them?”

“Yes, I did and so did Denis and Francine, Catherine, Nathalie, François. Pierre and Sylvie probably went with NPD as did Mom and Valerie. Pat and Martine, I am not sure maybe they went Green?”

I said with envy, “so many choices.”

“So is Obama going to win, she finally asked me,”

“No doubt, he will win the popular vote, I said. But not sure about the electoral college.”

“What’s wrong with Americans? Why are they still using this archaic process? I really don’t get it. This is the age of information, it should be based on each vote”

“Maybe this a way to keep the capitalists in power legally?” I replied.


Maybe that is the true reason to keep that process, it worked in 2000. We rolled over like lambs and accepted a legal decision which has now been challenged by hidden facts such as dumping ballots and voter intimidation as well as eliminating perfectly valid ballots.

I do hope that this time, justice will prevail and that the winner will be the deserving.