The Lies They Tell

by Tuvia Tenenbom

  Later this evening the 5th Avenue Theatre will present the Broadway musical Matilda, I read on a poster I happen to pass.

  I have no clue what this show is about, but I like the name Matilda, and I make up my mind to watch it tonight. Yes, true, I’m totally disappointed with American theater, but I still want to give it a chance.

  For food I go to a restaurant called Palace Kitchen. In the State of the Loonies, you never know, they might have good chefs.

  I sit down and get a menu. Every word on the menu is lowercase except for “Palace Kitchen.” Either these people are very cool, or they are totally drugged.

  Whatever the case, I order a dish called “fried washington sweet corn” from the appetizer list. The description of this dish is: “crispy shallots, parmesan, spicy lemon mayo.” Price: 14.5. Why the fifty cents? Because it looks more “exact” this way.

  In about twenty minutes my appetizer arrives. It is worth every penny, including the fifty cents.

  Feeling good, I move on to the main dish. I order “grilled rare albacore tuna,” which comes with “yellow new tomatoes, rattlesnake beans, soft boiled egg, toasted garlic vinaigrette.” Price: 32. No fifty cents here.

  It takes about thirty minutes for this portion to arrive. And it is Delicious, with a capital D. Each and every bite is full of divine flavor, prepared by a heavenly chef. Really. The “yellow new tomatoes,” which are actually red, are the best tomatoes I’ve ever tasted. Never, ever did I think that tomatoes could taste better than ice cream, but they do. In Seattle.

  For dessert I order “kentucky bourbon cake.” Don’t ask me to explain this one; just come over and try. Cost? 9.5.

  Though this place does not define itself and its kitchen, the word French is hiding in every bite. This is French at its best. Finding good food in America is not an easy task. This is my lucky day.

  • • •

  I walk over to the theater and get to my seat the moment the curtain rises. The title role is played by a Filipina actress, and there are more blacks on the stage than in the audience. From the get-go, Matilda works wonders, transforming the stage into a world of magic. The show, about a little girl in love with books who is belittled by her parents, is superb, inspiring and magnificent. The choreography, the music, the writing, the lights, the set design, the directing, the dancing – all top class.

  I’m having a really good day today: great food, great show. And both in America!

  During intermission I check out who is behind this show. Oh Lordy Lord, it’s a British import. Why can’t Americans come up with such delightful shows? Perhaps if Americans had less fear they would write better plays.

  • • •

  Recreational marijuana is legal, and marijuana smokers are seen as “cool,” but cigarette smokers are classified as lepers or worse. Walk the streets of Seattle and you will find No Smoking signs all over, even on benches on the sidewalk.

  So I smoke while standing. Between puffs I am approached by drugged young people who, one after the other, recite the same line: “Excuse me: Can you spare fifty cents?”

  Seattle has many rich people, many outstanding corporations, and parades of luxury cars roaming its streets, but those who have fallen through its golden cracks have no hope. People who call themselves “liberal” almost always pride themselves as people who care for the poor and the weak. But here it’s different; liberalism here is limited to those who can afford it.

  Earlier this month, activists of a group called Black Lives Matter (BLM) interrupted a speech by Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, running for the Democratic presidential candidacy against Hillary Clinton. Bernie’s supporters, who, like him, are the most liberal and progressive in American politics, booed the black activists. Later on, one of the BLM activists said: “I was going to tell Bernie how racist this city is, filled with its [so-called] progressives, but you did it for me,” and accused the audience of practicing “white supremacist liberalism,” according to the Seattle Times.

  This accusation, sad to say, rings true when walking Seattle streets and watching its poor in this stylish city. “Progressive”? No way!

  The only problem with BLM is this: They get involved only when whites are in the middle. If blacks kill blacks, which is a leading cause of black deaths in America, black lives don’t matter. Why? Because.

  How liberal is Seattle? A look at the Seattle opera offers a hint. Seattle’s opera, in case you didn’t know, is proud as hell of its greatest achievement: Richard Wagner. In its publications, Seattle Opera proudly defines its history thusly: “The company is recognized internationally for the quality of its productions and as the pre-eminent presenter of Wagner’s opera in the United States.”

  Even its mission statement boasts of its love of Wagner. “By continuing our emphasis on the work of Richard Wagner and by achieving national and international recognition for the quality of all our programming, Seattle Opera commits itself to advancing the cultural life of the Pacific Northwest through education and performance.”

  I personally have no problem with Wagner, even though Wagner was Adolf Hitler’s and the Nazis’ most beloved composer. But taking this history into account, I find it strange to see Seattle Opera’s fascination with Wagner, given that it is a public cultural organization, which should exhibit extra sensitivities to some minority groups, such as the Jewish community.

  To many Jews, “Wagner” connotes glorification of the Nazi period, a time when many of their ancestors ended life in crematoriums. Why does Seattle Opera not take such feelings into account? Perhaps its management is composed of people suffering from “white supremacist liberalism” disease.

  Seattle, with its massive homelessness, fails the most important test of real liberalism.

  • • •

  It is time, don’t you think, to get myself a joint or two. Why have I procrastinated up to now? Move, fat boy! I say to yours truly. And move I do.

  I find the stores that sell the stuff and go there. But I’m blocked by a guard, a fat black man, at the entrance. The fat man now asks for my ID card.

  “Entrance is allowed only to people who are twenty-one years old or older.”

  Good lord! That’s a compliment worth a thousand joints! I show him my driver’s license, and he lets me in.

  There are different joints here and I ask the saleslady to give me the most popular one. She does, and I buy it.

  I walk out and light up. I inhale, deeper than deep. Again. Again. Again. Puff after puff, drag after drag. In a short while I’m flying; I feel lighter than I’ve ever been. Like a little bee. Worth the eight bucks that I paid for it, I think.

  But not for long.

  Soon enough, how sad, this bee grows and it turns into a little bird, the bird turns into an eagle, the eagle into a lamb, the lamb into a deer, the deer into a bear and the bear into an elephant. I feel heavy, confused, and I sink into total dizziness. I can’t tell the difference between Wagner and Moses.

  I must go to sleep, but my hotel room is quite far from here. Malibu is not with me, and there are no taxis anywhere, at least not that I can tell. With my last energy I board a public bus, where many a black rides.

  My head spins; I lose the ability to speak. I try, but my tongue doesn’t function anymore. How come I can’t speak? Have I turned into a fish?

  I don’t know.

  Can you spare fifty cents, hey you?

  • • •

  My head clear, I head to Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. Fun place. First off, the major intersections here are decked out in LGBT colors. Could any city be more welcoming than this?

  This Seattle, let me be clear here, is the very definition of liberalism.

  I walk a few blocks and then I see an “LGBT visitors center.” Beautiful. Gorgeous.

  Greg, walking out of the center, tells me that “outsiders say that we are not friendly, that we don’t take the time to talk to people from outside Seattle.”

  Is that true?

  “I tal
k to you, don’t I?”

  Are you liberal?

  “Absolutely.”

  Pro-Israel or pro-Palestine?

  “Palestine. Definitely. I would love to talk more with you but I don’t have time, really. I have to go.”

  He goes.

  And I keep on walking, past aggressive homeless people drugged to their very core. I walk more.

  Here is a young man sleeping on the sidewalk, next to a scrap of cardboard on which he has written the following: “Too ugly to prostitute. Too nice to steal! Anything helps.”

  He is lying next to a No War sign. This is a Seattleite homeless man, after all.

  A few steps ahead is a young girl who will draw your face for a fee, or will sell you her self-portrait for a fee. How much? Whatever you want to pay. She’s homeless, and she needs cash. She’s a lively girl, her name is Latisha, and she is nineteen years of age.

  How did you get to be homeless?

  “I was kicked out from my house when I was fourteen.”

  Why?

  “Because my mom is crazy, absolutely insane. But I’m fine.”

  She even went to college, University of Kansas.

  How many years did you study there, and what did you study?

  “Political science, for one year.”

  One year only? What happened?

  “The first week I went to this party and this guy, really drunk, he took me to his dorm room, and I slept all day. It affected me all year; I didn’t go to any of my classes; I just slept all day. Yeah. It’s fucked. I was fucked up for a year. Eventually I woke up and I realized I couldn’t do college anymore. The kid who did that to me was in my class, and I couldn’t handle it. It was killing me. I packed up all my stuff in my car. I stopped drinking, stopped doing drugs. I came out to the West Coast and now I’m here! I like it here. I [have been] here for months. It is a really cool place. They offer a lot of help for homeless people and stuff, like there’s the Orion Center. And I get food stamps.”

  How much do you get in food stamps?

  “A hundred dollars.”

  One hundred per week?

  “Month.”

  One hundred dollars for one month?

  “Yeah. This month it’s all gone. I sell pictures all day to make some money.”

  How much money do you make a day?

  “Ten bucks a day.”

  You get free food?

  “Breakfast, lunch and dinner I get for free at the Orion Center.With the ten dollars that I make I can buy more food or gas. Sometimes I buy cigarettes and I walk around the drunk people and I sell them for a dollar each. I get twenty dollars for one pack of cigarettes. Yeah.”

  That’s creative!

  “Yeah!”

  Can’t you sleep at the homeless center?

  “No. I mean, you call before six p.m. and there is a chance you might get one of the twenty beds for the night, but you almost never get in. You know?”

  The homeless shelter has room for only twenty people?

  “Yeah. It’s a shelter for kids, twenty-five years and under. That’s the rule.”

  How many shelters like this exist here?

  “Two youth shelters. The Orion is the good one, fantastic. You can come for three hours a day, you can shower, you can do laundry, you get free food, they give a bunch of clothes, shoes. Great. Really helpful. The other shelter feels like a mental hospital when you go in. There are just crazy people over there. They are rocking back and forth like shit. And violent.”

  With all her problems, Latisha is positive. “I’ll vote for Bernie,” she tells me, speaking of the Vermont senator. “We will get free education and I’ll go to school again.”

  Latisha, who is bisexual, is a liberal. So she tells me. Very liberal. If you were wondering: Latisha is pro-Palestine.

  • • •

  I keep on walking. Right ahead of me, in between one Indian eatery and another, there is a “fashion” store, where you can buy a Palestinian scarf (“Pali,” as some Europeans call it) for five bucks. Seattle’s got them all.

  For example, Qatar. Qatar is a Seattle man born in Somalia who earns his living by driving a cab.

  Qatar, who arrived in the USA as a refugee, speaks: “Seattle is a liberal city. They don’t like me here because I’m black, but they don’t show it. In Dallas, I was there, they are conservatives and they show you that they don’t like you.

  “That’s the difference between conservatives and liberals. Here, where the people are liberals, they show you a friendly face, but it’s not real; they are not real friends. Seattle is a liberal city; they don’t hate anybody, and they don’t like anybody. For them, it’s all about money. I don’t mind about the whites here, because they don’t bother me, but I don’t like the African Americans.”

  Why?

  “I’m from Somalia and African Americans say that I’m not black.”

  But you are! You are very black!

  “I don’t have a big nose like the African Americans and they say that I’m not black because of my small nose. Where are you from, are you from Britain?”

  No, from Germany.

  “Do you like Adolf Hitler?”

  I haven’t made up my mind about him yet. How about you?

  “I like him. I think he did good things.”

  Because he killed the Jews?

  “Yes.”

  Are there Jews in Seattle?

  “Yes.”

  Are they good or bad?

  “Bad.”

  You know them?

  “Yes.”

  And you know that they are bad?

  “Yes.”

  Explain!

  “They live by themselves; they help each other; they own everything. They own Uber; they own Starbucks; they own Facebook; they own Google.”

  Do they also own Apple?

  “Yeah.”

  Do they also own Coca Cola?

  “Yes!”

  What else?

  “They own Microsoft. Bill Gates is Jewish.”

  Is he?

  “Yeah. The Jews also own McDonald’s, Taco Bell. Diamonds. Everything. And they don’t help anybody who is not Jewish. That’s why Hitler killed them. In the United States there’s no Hitler and this is a problem, because nobody will kill them.”

  So, what will happen?

  “God knows. President Obama tried to fight the Jews, take their money by raising taxes on them, but they are smarter than him. They have the money, and they rule. America is not a country, a nation. America is a corporation. Everybody cares for his own interest and that’s it.”

  I bid him farewell and am ready to say goodbye to this city. I learned enough here, more than I wanted to know. Let the people here have their Wagner, their Hitler, their Palestine and their cannabis. I’m ready to get outta here. As far away as possible.

  How far? Far.

  In a few days, Barack Obama is flying to Alaska. Before him, Secretary of State John Kerry is scheduled to arrive there. If Alaska is good enough for them, it should be good for me as well.

  Goodbye, Malibu. I return the car to the rental company and take a flight to Anchorage, Alaska.

  Let me see the leaders of this country up close.

  Gate Thirteen

  Journalists are not allowed to urinate unless accompanied by young escorts

  IN ANCHORAGE, ALASKA, YOU NEED A CAR TO MOVE AROUND, AND I RENT A Ford Fiesta ES. This is the smallest car I’ve driven so far, but it was the only one I found on the lot.

  The president and his secretary of state are coming here to discuss climate change in an international conference organized by the State Department, entitled “Conference on Global Leadership in the Arctic: Cooperation, Innovation, Engagement and Resilience (GLACIER).” In less grandiose wording, this is a conference about combating climate change.

  In an article by Alaska Senator Dan Sullivan published today in the Alaska Dispatch News, the senator writes: “When President Obama visits, I hope he sees Alaska for what it is: both
a symbol of the very best in the American character and spirit, but also a real place, with real people.”

  Maybe so, maybe not. One thing I learn moments after I land in Anchorage is this: not all Alaskans are happy to see Obama coming, or, more precisely, many Alaskans would prefer he fly somewhere else. The reason? When the president is here, private planes will be under severe flying restrictions, and to Alaskans this is undue hardship; they like to move from one place to another in their little planes. Many places in Alaska are accessible only by plane, and when Obama arrives many Alaskans will be stuck.

  Even worse, the president’s scheduled arrival coincides with the start of the moose hunting season, when the good folks of Alaska fly their planes to the best hunting spots, but now they’ve got Obama in their way. As for me, I don’t plan to hunt any moose.

  I eat salmon at a restaurant called Simon & Seafort’s, where I share a table with three Alaskan residents – private plane owners and licensed pilots. I’m interested to know what they think of GLACIER and climate change. After talking with people in the northern continental USA, some of whom I mentioned in previous pages, I found that almost all those who are into the climate change issue are also into Palestine. What’s the relationship between climate change and Palestine? Nothing, is the short answer. I don’t know, is the long one.

  The fish is not bad, by the way. It costs two arms and two legs, but what can I do? I sit with rich people, and they like expensive restaurants. One of the people at the table, Chris, seems to be the richest of them. He is in the finance business, he hunts, he flies and he owns a lot of property. And he is a thinker, to top it all.

  Alaska, he tells me, is the freest of all the US states. In Alaska, he says, and the others agree, people exercise freedom more than any other American. How come? Well, it’s the private planes. Here in Alaska, you can park your plane practically anywhere you want: near a beach, on top of a hill, in the depth of a valley, wherever, excluding residential areas. In short: the state is your private plane parking lot.