Can an essay save lives? If so, I hope this one does just that. In a previous essay entitled Fire Walk with Me, I wrote about the late, great Norman Lloyd, who died at 106 during the pandemic. It was at his memorial where I first met and spoke with longtime TCM host Ben Mankiewicz. A couple months back, Ben was the speaker at a Wednesday meeting of The Los Angeles Breakfast Club. At one point during the morning, he and I compared notes on our takeaways from that memorial of almost fours years ago, as well as from the pandemic itself. We agreed on the importance of not allowing the wind to go out of our sails, or out of the sails of those close to us. As I wrote in that earlier essay, at 105 Norman had the most active social life of anyone you could hope to know. He was truly an embodiment of the adage “age is just a number”. Yet, when social distancing became necessary and we were all isolating to keep each other healthy, the wind left his sails. Deprived of his regular social interactions, it was impossible for Norman to maintain his usual enthusiasm for life, and not long thereafter, he died.
I have attended more than my fair share of memorials these past several years and have been asked to speak at many of them. In fact, much of what I get called upon to write these days are either eulogies or monologues. Increasingly, my messaging behind each is the same, namely the importance of celebrating that which matters, and the importance of helping each other keep the wind in our sails. A few weeks back, I shared memories of my high school debate partner, Sayuri (Si) Oyama, during an international gathering, via Zoom, of those who wanted to celebrate her life, as well as express the profound loss we all feel so deeply more than two years after her death.
Thoughts of Si have been my near-constant companions for the past several years, and have been increasingly nearby whenever I need them. Never was this truer than in the days leading up to her memorial when I experienced something I had not felt since a critical Oxford Debate round Si and I had at the National Qualifying tournament our senior years of high school. In the spring of 1986, in order to make it to the qualifying round of that tournament, we had to beat the top team in the league, a team I had never beaten throughout my high school career and who had not lost a round to ANYONE in the league in two years! Now, I truly believe nervousness is good. It lets you know you care about something. It’s often the fuel for creative energy. But I was SO nervous that I felt out of body. In fact, before the round, I got into a fender bender and didn’t even NOTICE!
Still, Si and I were a very formidable team. We trusted each other. We complemented each other. And we were prepared. We were ready. At least, this is what I told myself over and over in my mind during a meditation out in the hall (a frequent practice I engaged in to focus myself before rounds). So, I felt confident when I entered the room and started to set up.
And then the hammer dropped.
The other team had written a brand new debate case specifically to use if they were matched up against us. No one had used the case before. No one had heard it before. Not only were we utterly unprepared for it, we had zero evidence to use in arguing against it. The case was literally tailored to keep us – Si and myself – on our heels at every turn.
I was hollowed out. Completely empty. Devoid of anything but two desires: 1) To immediately leave, and 2) To not care about anything ever again.
And I know this is what I was feeling because, as I alluded to, I experienced those precise feelings a few days before Si’s memorial, during a truly horrible meeting that blew all the enthusiasm out of me, replacing it with a deep, despairing desire to never care ever again. About anything. Just like in that debate round of almost forty years ago.
Fortunately, back then I had Si by side. I am pretty sure I did not let on visibly what was going on inside me. And when I turned to her I saw someone so composed, confident and focused that instead of wailing to her that what was happening wasn’t fair, I merely whispered, “I’ve got nothing.”
It was my job to go first in rebutting their case. Si calmly told me, “Take all the time you need.” Indeed, I damn near used up all of the, I think, five or six minutes we were allotted for prep during the hour-long debate. Perhaps by the time I got up, I had some real idea of what I was going to say, but HOW I said it was greatly affected by what Si told me as I was getting out of my seat. She told me to remember that our opponents were “frightened” of us.
I couldn’t believe what I heard! How DARE she?! I was the frightened one … Nevertheless, she quite rightly pointed out that having not lost in two years our opponents had changed everything that had been working for them simply because they were going against us. Psychologically, we had an advantage. We had to press that advantage.
She was right. We won that round handily. We went on to qualify for nationals. True partnership, it turns out, really matters. Having experienced it with Si, I’ve been able to recognize it and value it throughout my life.
In that ill-fated meeting the week of Si’s memorial, I was fortunate to have my creative partner, Debra Matlock, with me. It became apparent during the meeting that the show we thought we would be putting on was not going to happen. More than that, though, some of the behavior we witnessed in that meeting was so appalling that I left feeling hollowed out, all enthusiasm drained from my being. We still had a show to put on, however, and “the show”, you may have heard, “must go on”. Deb was able to keep the wind in my sails enough that I could keep going, the same way Si did all those years ago. And like Si, Deb also is a graduate of Monta Vista High School in Cupertino …
There were quite a few years when we were kids where it seemed at best a 50/50 proposition that Sayuri Oyama and I would ever become friends. It was totally my fault, by the way, that the odds were so low. When we did, at long last, become lifelong friends during our sophomore year of high school, it was because Si demonstrated the rare ability to put aside ego and hurt feelings when doing so is required in order to help someone else. She deemed that I was the right person to go to with concerns about a mutual friend of ours, and so she set aside her animosity and reached out to me. We spoke to each other as if we always had been speaking and always would.
Another favorite debate memory of Si came at the University of Pacific Invitational near the start of our senior years. It was our first tournament together as partners. I had brought with me two good luck tokens. One was a postcard from Mike Stewart (“The Stew”). The other was a “good luck at your debate tournament” card handmade by the very young sister of my girlfriend at the time. I kept these in my briefcase. As the weekend wore on, and our debate rounds increased in significance, I remember coming into the room (after my usual meditation sessions) to find that Si had set up my good luck tokens so that they would always be in my view to delight me and inspire me in the midst of high-stress competition. Si never said anything about it. She just knew they helped me.
I wouldn’t want it to seem like all, or even most, of my memories of Si come from our one year of debating together in high school. I have countless memories of times she helped me stay tethered to the earth when I felt I was spinning out of control, or prevented me from taking myself too seriously when to do so would have kept me from the work I was meant to be doing. It’s just that partnership has been foremost in my thoughts of late and it was with Si that I first enjoyed true partnership, and through that partnership that I learned the importance of patience, respect and intimacy.
All our lives, in one form or another, Si would always joke that she did not know who I was. Only it was just a partial joke. She really didn’t understand me a lot of the time, but she always accepted me, and usually took joy in both me and in the parts of me she didn’t understand. That’s the best type of intimacy. It’s our birthright, and it’s critical to our health and well-being.
Si did take getting to know me as much as possible quite seriously, however, as she did with all her friends. Towards this end, she would frequently host “Ungame” parties at her house. The Ungame is a conversation board game where players answer questions about themselves that appear on playing cards. It’s supposed to be non-competitive, but we usually played to win! There would be the following types of questions in these categories …
*Personal Feelings: “When do you feel nervous?”
*Past Experiences: “Tell about a time when you felt successful.”
*Future Aspirations: “What would you like to achieve with your life?”
*Values and Beliefs: “What is your favorite month in the year?”
*Self-Perception: “How do you think your mother would describe you?”
Again, these are actual questions from the game (er, Ungame) from actual categories. In researching them, I was struck by the question for “Values and Beliefs”, not quite understanding how my “favorite month” would be either a value or a belief. However, the question that really sent shockwaves through me was “How do you think your mother would describe you?” I can’t help wondering about the two remarkable sons Si left behind. To Marcus and Brian I would point out that no one can help them answer the question. That’s just the rules of The Ungame. You have to answer the questions for yourselves. I would tell them, though, that there is a huge, far-flung community of people, many of whom they have never met, who would gladly, gratefully be their friends, who would help them know their mother, and in so doing, perhaps, help them know themselves.
I learned about Si’s memorial in an email from her husband, Kenji. That I received it while I was driving was highly appropriate. When you are debate partners, you spend a lot of hours in a car together, driving to and from tournaments, practice rounds, and research sessions. There have been a handful of occasions since her death, where I could feel Si in the empty passenger seat next to me, and knew she was smiling at me. It’s a smile I have spent much of my adult life missing. In fact, I keep a photo of her at my work desk. She smiles at me when I am stressed, and I am reminded not to take myself too seriously.
The day I heard from Kenji, while I was driving around, I needed that smile. For that was the day I learned my wife has cancer. I received the email and suddenly I was no longer driving around alone. My old debate partner was in the passenger seat, reminding me of the critical importance of keeping the wind in my sails and giving me the opportunity to do that the best way I know how, by celebrating what matters to me.
Partnership matters.
Intimacy matters.
Sayuri Oyama matters.
I was reminded of something Si once wrote me:
Don’t give up your dreams – and dream big ones if you dream at all.
With her, in a national qualifying debate round in 1986, I learned that the times when it is most important not give up on your dreams are those times when you feel hollowed out and when the realization of those dreams seem no longer within reach.
I have been fortunate enough to enjoy almost eighteen years of exploring love and partnership with Lily Holleman. My soul yearns for many decades more. The news of her cancer shook me to my core. Yet, almost immediately, here was my old debate partner, even in death, helping to keep the wind in my sails.
Following our ill-fated meeting, Debra Matlock and I had to recalibrate what we wanted our show, “Viva Los Feliz: A More Perfect Union”, to be. We knew we wanted the “town hall” component, a conversation with California’s 30th Congressional District Representative Laura Friedman, to prove worthwhile, nourishing even, both for those attending and for the Congress member herself. We wanted the students who would be receiving scholarships during the event, and those who would be performing as part of the Marshall High School Jazz Band, to feel truly celebrated. As host, it is my responsibility to create and nurture the proper tone, one that will allow the show’s aims to be achieved.
Yet, how was I going to do this? I found writing my monologue particularly challenging – more challenging than any monologue I had ever written. In late October, I hosted “Viva Los Feliz: Haunted” at the Autry. That night, while preparing to go on, I learned that my sister, who had only days earlier undergone what was hoped to be life-prolonging surgery, was, in fact, heading into hospice. She was my last living relative and she shaped my life in profound ways. Despite all that was going on within me, I won’t lie – I absolutely crushed my performance that night!
The show must go on, and that night, getting to work with Deb, and getting to celebrate the community I love so dearly helped to keep the wind in my sails during the silences of my personal despair. In preparing for our show of two weeks ago, however, I knew that the evening required something different from me than my usual “dog and pony” act. Indeed, standing in front of the stage at Friendship Auditorium, it struck me that many in the audience had been experiencing both personal and collective despair (not to mention feelings of anger and powerlessness and fear). A city that endured the hardship of fire at the start of the year, was now enduring ICE raids, protests and the armed militarization of our downtown streets.
I was sharing that space, in front of the stage, with a group of talented, young musicians who have dedicated themselves to the exploration of jazz that most wonderfully American of art forms, so often rooted in the pain of being alive, and a form that reminds of the importance of improvisation. The jazz concept of “the blue note” teaches us that there is no “wrong” note, there is only the unexpected, and when the unexpected comes forward, you can try to make something beautiful out of it, even if that beauty is rooted in pain. And pain is what I was feeling standing there, on a spot where I had entertained audiences on numerous occasions and had celebrated the lives of more than a few wondrous souls who had shuffled off the mortal coil. For the most indelible memory I had of standing there was from 2019 when on that very spot, in front of hundreds of people, I began my first dance with Lily as husband and wife.
Lily is known by many as the longest-tenured president in the history of The Los Angeles Breakfast Club. She is a woman who entertains thru improv and sketch comedy at night, and who puts her performing skills to use training doctors and nurses and medical students during the day. She is a woman who gets up every morning to let the city know why she is here. Yet, she wasn’t there, because she has cancer. So, again, the night demanded something different from me.
As I stood there, sensing the collective pain in the audience, feeling sharply the absence of my wife, touched by the young musicians nearby and inspired by the teachings of jazz, I asked myself how I might best serve my community in that moment. What occurred to me is that the occasion called for raw vulnerability on my part. So, I told them everything I have shared above. I told them about how for a week Lily had been playing a character with breast cancer, in so doing helping to train doctors to become more empathetic in delivering cancer diagnoses and the information that must accompany such news. Lily studied thoroughly to play the role. At the end of the week, she came home and told me she knew she had breast cancer. I spoke of how this got her to her doctors and how, after many, many tests, we were only now at the start of this new journey.
It occurred to me that there were young people in the audience and many who are parents of young people. I spoke of the hope many parents have for their children that they will find for themselves some kind of stable career. Acting, I assured them, is NOT one such career. And yet, I pointed out, acting quite literally might have saved my wife’s life.
My old debate partner never advised me to seek stability. She urged me not to give up on my dreams, and to dream big ones. I have learned that the more one dreams of meaningful connections to their fellow human beings, the pursuit of such dreams might not lead you to where you think you are going, but you will meet everyone you’re supposed to meet along the way. In order to connect most intimately with my fellow citizens that night at “Viva Los Feliz: A More Perfect Union”, I spoke of what I understood to be the importance of maintaining my own health and of keeping the wind in my sails.
I shared with them my New Year’s Resolution that so much as it is within my power, I am going to enjoy every interaction I have with everyone I encounter, no matter what energy or emotion or attitude is being embodied or expressed by the people I encounter. I let them know that fulfilling this resolution has me feeling better than I ever have. I also let them know that it hasn’t always been easy to fulfill this resolution. I told them how, during one of my wife’s oncology appointments, while she was getting a biopsy and other tests, I was in the waiting room. Nearby was a man who was not only ignoring the “no cell phone” rule posted on the wall, but he was literally channel surfing on his Spectrum mobile app, watching TV and playing the audio at full blast!
Already I was not enjoying this energetic interaction and then the man took a call – on speakerphone! That was the last straw. I had enough and I was about to let him know this in no uncertain terms when I finally looked at him for the first time. Suddenly, I realized that if he was in the same waiting room with me it was because someone he loved was getting tests quite like those my wife was undergoing and I knew he must be terrified, just like me. Instantly, I completely fell in love with this man. And without my ever saying or doing anything, he ended the call then and there, and sat with me in silence.
It was not my point to suggest that this will always happen. I was not advocating magical thinking or the embrace of fantasy. What I was saying was that change is possible (both the type of change that transforms a moment and the type of change that transforms the trajectory of history). We may never know what effect the recent “No Kings” protests might have. However, I did tell those assembled that I was worried for our city’s professional hockey team! Were the L.A. Kings hiding in Crypto.com Arena all weekend, afraid to come out? What about Lebron James, “King James”? I certainly hope he was okay. Oscar winner Regina King is, I believe, a resident of Los Feliz, so I was forced to ask if “No Kings” REALLY meant NO kings! Convinced that the crowd not only understood the joke, but most likely had enough of it, I, of course, continued by asking about the plight of our local middle-schoolers at Thomas Starr King. Were they scared that they wouldn’t have a school to attend in the fall?
On a more heartfelt note, I shared that the images of the peaceful protests reminded me of a story about my own grandfather. I never knew this man to be mean to anyone. He was, in my experience, an incredibly gentle man who always made his frequently frightened grandson feel quite safe. My mother once revealed to me, however, that this man, a son of immigrants and a decorated World War I soldier, had, in fact, been an avowed, active racist, until the day a photograph changed him.
My grandparents lived on an orchard, in a tiny town on Lake Chelan in Washington State. One day, my mother came home for a visit and found my grandfather sitting at a table, reading a newspaper article about the Civil Rights marches in Birmingham. Or rather, he was staring at the front-page photo accompanying the article. It showed the hoses being turned onto the peaceful, young, well dressed, African-American marchers. Much to my mother’s shock, my grandfather was crying. She had never seen him cry before. He was saying to himself, “This isn’t right. They’re not animals.”
That day, my grandfather ended his affiliation with a certain organization dedicated to maintaining the separation of, and a hierarchy to, the races. So, I know from my own life that real change is possible. And I know how lucky I am that my grandfather’s change took place. My dear friend June Aoichi Berk is fond of referencing the song “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught” from the musical South Pacific. June was one of the Americans interned in the camps during World War II because of her Japanese ancestry and so the song’s lyrics about the learned nature of prejudice and racism speak deeply to her. I am incredibly grateful that I was not taught to hate. I consider myself truly lucky that change IS possible. And knowing that it is, in such a deeply personal way, helps keep the wind in my sails during the times when change seems like the most foolish of dreams in which to believe.
I concluded my monologue opening “A More Perfect Union” by vowing to do whatever I could to keep the wind in the sails of my neighbors and fellow community members. I encouraged them to do what they needed in order to maintain their health through perilous times. Finally, I promised I would do a better job entertaining them at “Viva Los Feliz: Architecture” (taking place on September 3rd at the Barnsdall Gallery Theatre)! As the next portion of the program began, I had no idea of how I did. All I know is that the “town hall” conversation with the Congress member and the celebration of the scholarship recipients were both rewarding experiences for all involved. So, in that sense, I had done my job, and I had achieved my aim of speaking to the moment, of embracing what wanted to come forward, and of embodying raw vulnerability. Still, the performer in me wondered, “Was I any good?”
In the aftermath of the show, a couple of beautiful moments occurred. One involved the aforementioned honorable Representative Laura Friedman, who despite having a “hard out” (i.e. somewhere she needed to be) lingered long enough to approach me and to let me know that she, herself, is a cancer survivor. Beyond offering me words of solace, she vowed to be available to us, should my wife ever need to talk. In an age where politics has become seemingly nothing but tribal blood sport, I find myself fortunate to know and be represented by several individuals who come from a place of deep humanity.
A man who represented our neighborhood for many years on the Los Angeles City Council was Tom LaBonge. His widow, Brigid, and his daughter, Mary Cate, were in attendance to present the scholarship given in his name. After the show was over, Brigid embraced me and let me know that she, too, is a cancer survivor. Both she and Mary Cate, expressed their compassion, their admiration and let me know that they were holding Lily and me in their thoughts. So, I left that night knowing that whatever I had done, it was what needed to be done. Still, I wondered, “Was I any good?”
Fortunately, the next morning, I received a lovely email from my new friend Ben Deeb. He is someone I have been lucky to get to know through volunteering on the local Cultural Affairs Committee. He was kind enough to let me know how much he needed to hear my words and described me as “an all around fantastic orator”. The professional within me breathed a much-needed sigh of relief in reading those words.
Since that time, I have had other wonderful interactions with people who were moved by what I said that night. Ben’s words, though, reminded me of what my beloved speech and debate coach, Sharon Prefontaine, once told me. She stressed to me the power of the communication skills I possess while wondering whether I would use those skills, and that power, for good or for evil. I was overjoyed to see Sharon on the Zoom memorial for Si. There were so many people on that Zoom who had benefitted greatly from the influence Sharon had on them at key points in their lives, though none more than me. I like to think she has her answer about whether I would use my communication skills for good or for evil, but I won’t ask. I’ll just keep chopping wood and carrying water, trying to do the best I can with what I have where I am …
To that end, I would like to share that when Lily first went in for testing, knowing that she had cancer, and fearing what the diagnosis might reveal, much of her fear surrounded having waited “too long” to get tested. It’s a fear to which many of us can relate. I haven’t been to the dentist in more than a decade, and though I am not experiencing any problems, if I am being honest, one of the things that has kept me away is the fear of hearing the dentist say, “You should have come sooner.” I am finally getting a colonoscopy some twenty years after I was supposed to have my next one. I don’t really have any fear of the results, but I do fear feeling stupid because I put it off for so long.
So, please, if you are reading these words, or listening to my voice, and if there is an appointment or a test you have been putting off or avoiding, stop. Get tested. Get checked. Focus right now on doing the loving thing for yourself. Move in the direction of what is best for your health. And if the results you receive are what we reflexively think of as “bad news”, please resist the impulse to blame yourself for those results. As Lily cried, feeling that her delay in getting tested might have led to a worse prognosis, I had an epiphany.
None of the blame, shame, or regret we feel or direct against ourselves in the wake of a diagnosis is healthy, no matter what we did or failed to do leading up to that diagnosis. Of course, in the wake of the powerlessness illness can inspire us to feel, we try to empower ourselves. Only far too often, we do that by making what is happening feel like our fault. For Lily to keep feeling like any of what was happening was her fault would be for her to eat away at herself, when that is precisely what the cancer was doing. That’s its job.
Our job is to keep the wind in our sails.
And to encourage others to do the same.
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