Another Year in My Life - 2024

This New Years Day, Anne reports that

Four years ago today, Ian was released from the hospital. Newly diagnosed with stage 4 cancer that had metastasized to his brain - with a side of diabetes for good measure - I honestly thought they were sending him home to die.

    He was scary thin, confused, unsteady on his feet, with poor motor skills. We had no idea what the future had in store for us. We had no idea if we had a future at all. But it looked unlikely.

    Now here we are, four years later, and Ian is still here. He is here because he has fought hard, worked hard, and kept the best attitude of anyone I've ever seen, especially in the face of such adversity. How long he will be here is still anyone's guess, but we are going to keep fighting for every minute we can get, and my money is on Ian.

This is the year I finally realized that I had become an old man, liver spots and all. It's gotten to where I need oxygen tanks whenever I leave my apartment and even then, I stop in the middle of the block to catch my breathe. Some day I'll be unable to live independently but so far I'm fortunate that my infirmities have held off until the internet age. Now I've switched to work-from-home. Instacart brings me my groceries. My pharmacy mails my prescriptions. I call Uber when I'm going out on a date - luckily if I'm just sitting, watching a show, I can go without my oxygen tanks for several hours. I can't travel though; the airports and hotels are just too much for me. This year I was supposed to go to New York but I had to send my granddaughter Marielle as my proxy. As you can see, she did a great job!

 

Grands Ballets Canadiens at Northrop Auditorium

Marielle also took me to my favorite show of the year, for my birthday . A magnificent ballet troop and a couple of my favorite Symphonies, the Fifth and the Seventh.

Bach's B Minor Mass at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church

The acoustics were perfect for this small ensemble. I'm sure churches  could do more business if the seats were softer and they served more than just red wine.

Harp Twins with the Volfgang Twins at the Uptown VFW
Plenty of eye candy for me and Sarah at this Halloween show. Some great music too.

 

My oncologist, Dr. Fujioka, laments the fact that she doesn't have time for the arts anymore. It's true that saving lives can keep you busy however I assured her that, by keeping me alive and active, she was helping support the arts in the Twin Cities.

 

Ayanna Muata sent out a call for extras for a video her son Tariq was making for her and her husband's band, The Muatas. The movie was called Battle Weary. They showed it at the Pangea World Theater's Lake Street Arts! celebration in February and later Ayanna sent this grab of me looking wary; which I used as a Facebook portrait.

 

Patrick Scully's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Gay Man was opened to the public twice during production, seeking audience feedback. I honestly don't believe I had anything useful to add but I did get to see 3 versions of it starting with a bare bones production in a warehouse in St. Paul to the full spectacle at Illusion Theater, complete with sound and lights, music and dance and a handout pamphlet with a history of 70s and 80's. It brought back a memories of those days to everyone, gay or straight, living in the Twin Cities during that period.

 

 

David Devaux sent out a request for funding for a book he was working on, inspired by cartoons which are considered a serious art form in France. It was titled Accroche-toi au pinceau (Hold on to the Paint Brush). I had bought one of his paintings when I was staying with him and Mina Agossi in Paris so I was happy to help. The contribution bought you a copy of his book with a printed dedication. So Dr Fujioka is also helping support the arts in France!

Erin Carere and I have known each other since she was reading and playing music in my production of Millennium City 20 years ago. I'm not usually into reading rom/com novels in pink covers but Erin Carere is an excellent writer and I thoroughly enjoyed Bad Sugar Baby. Also she listed my name in her Acknowledgements for inspiring her career.

In movies, a couple recommendations:                           

The Fall. It's got everything: tragedy and fairy tales, innocence and corruption, nostalgia and nightmares, and more lush scenery than you've experienced in any other movie ever made. (MUBI)

                                          

Ripley is a cinematographic masterpiece too, in black and white, perfect for this amoral tale that unrolls itself in the noirish claustrophobic alleys of post-War Europe. I should know - I was there then. (Netflix)

In sports, it's been a bitter-sweet year for my teams with the thrill of unexpected victories followed by the agony of crushing defeats.  The Mets pretty much hit bottom early on, when their relief pitcher threw his glove into the stands and called the Mets "the worst team in the MLB"  in his subsequent interview. Surprisingly they ended up in the playoffs though, and swept through the first two series winning games in exciting ways, like this ninth inning home run. They ended up losing in the playoffs to the Dodgers who promptly went on to beat the Yankees in the World Series and honestly, as a old New Yorker, I'm always happy to see the Dodgers beat the Yankees!

In Minnesota things started to heat up with the NBA playoffs. The Timberwolves last appearance had been in 2004. This year they ground out come-from-behind wins in the first two series thanks to Anthony Edwards who dazzled Minnesotans not only with as his scoring but also his personality. They lost in the Conference Finals but it was fun getting there.

 

Really, Minnesotans reserve their passion for the Vikings who've had great players and fielded some exciting teams but embarrassingly post a Super Bowl record of 0 - 4.  Year after year the Vikings had record setting seasons only to collapse in the playoffs. Being a Mets fan was good practice for moving to Minnesota.

This year looked grim at the start. The bright young quarterback, signed right out of college, injured himself in practice and was out for the season. That left Sam Darnold, a journeyman whose journeys generated a mediocre record with 3 previous teams.

 
Fortunately the Vikings have a coach, Kevin O'Connell, who seems to specialize in getting the best out of his players and soon they were leading the league. Minnesotan started thinking "Could this be the year?" "Yes!" they answered as the Vikings swept to a 14 - 3 record. "Yes!" we shouted even after Sam Darnold seemed to revert to type and the Vikings got blown out of their last game of the regular season. "It's the wakeup call we needed!" we cried.

After the Vikings managed only 3 field goals and Darnold got sacked a record 9 times in the playoffs, people didn't know what to say. It took poet Bao Phi to come up with the right words on Facebook.

“It’s one of those seasons you never want to end, and you hate to watch it slip in between your hands, and you can’t do anything to get it back...You’ll think of this forever, because you had a great regular season — but they’ll remember you for this.”
-Cam Bynum, safety, Minnesota Vikings.

Cam is right, of course. A ton of people, including many Vikings fans, are only going to remember last night. Maybe also, last week's disastrous game against the Lions.
Look, I was devastated by both games, too. But I also recognize that my disappointment pales in comparison to the people on that team and how they must feel, who have worked their asses off, for it to end that way. Sure, you can say they all get paid millions. to do this one thing. But I wonder, even if I had the privilege of that position, what it would feel like to fail in front of millions of people, to have the worst day of your life doing the thing you love witnessed on that scale. To feel you've let down an entire city, a (long suffering) fanbase, and perhaps worst of all, let down the people you love by your side on the team. To give more ammunition to people who believe you were always going to fail and that you suck.

Sure, I'll remember last night. And last week's debacle against Detroit. But I'll also remember that, when Darnold was signed last year, how the vast majority of people treated him like a joke, a disaster waiting to happen. How people predicted we'd win 6 games total. I'll remember how I quietly thought our season was cooked when we lost Darrisaw early on. And yet the Vikings had sustained flashes of brilliance to go along with the frustrations. There's one long pass to the end zone, which Nailor actually dropped, that might have been one of the most beautiful, perfect passes I've seen a Vikings quarterback throw. It feels like a privilege to watch Justin Jefferson play, let alone on the team I root for. It's been satisfying to watch the defense have the opposing team's number, and a joy to watch them celebrate together with dance moves. And this team was having a ton of fun while doing it, and seemed to genuinely enjoy playing with one another. They seem to really love and care for one another. It was a joy to root for them.

If you have a subscription to the Athletic, I recommend reading the essay that came out recently about how the Vikings have been supportive of Kyree Jackson's family after his tragic death in a car accident last year. How the organization, coaches, and players have gone above and beyond to support and include his family the entire year.

Many will say none of this matters - that the only thing that matters is winning, and a Superbowl. But to me, it all matters. It matters a lot. Skol.

So it occurs to me that professional athletes have a lot in common with poets and artists. There's the performance aspect, and pressure to meet the audience's expectations. More significantly neither of us really know how it is we do what we do. Athletes of course train and keep fit but that's more like a craft element.  Athletes still have slumps and streaks. When they show up for a game they can never be sure who's going to win. A poet sits down to write and sometimes the great stuff just doesn't come out and often the best stuff seems to just write itself. Of course football players get millions and artists struggle away in garrets. But then athletes have to face other athletes who also get paid millions to keep them from deploying their craft! At least we don't face that!

 

What I can't imagine, is how to react to the current situation. It's worse than anything I ever imagine I ever imagined.  I've found Americans to be some of the friendliest, most open people in the world. They've accepted me after all; they've given me a home. Most of them are good neighbors, good  sons and daughters, brothers and sisters. (True they do like to bomb the shit out of foreigners who wear funny hats but, except for a few remote island nations, every country has been founded on ethnic cleansing.)

Perhaps I should have been more supportive of Capitalist Democracy while we still, have one. I could understand a protest vote against neo liberalism the first time Trump ran It puzzles me why anyone to have someone take away the little political power they do have. It's possible the Democrats might win the House in two years and put a stick in the spokes of Fascism enough to slow it down, It's possible Chief Justice John Roberts doesn't want to go down in history as the man who killed Democracy in the US. I'd say there's a chance we might avoid a coup d'etat in 4 years, a chance but a small one.