by Mike Farrell
After people have cleared out, Rick, his fiancée Robin, Janet, her husband Steve (who works with the SEIU) and their beautiful daughter Olivia, fresh off the soccer field, and I stay on at Busboys and Poets for a fine dinner.
A long day and a good one.
DAY SIXTEEN
Sunday, May 25, 2008
CITY OF ORIGIN: WASHINGTON, DC
CITY OF DESTINATION: BALTIMORE, MD
MILES TRAVELED: 40
VENUE: ENOCH PRATT FREE LIBRARY
EVENT COSPONSORS
American Friends Service Committee, ACLU of Maryland
A bit of confusion this morning. I was supposed to get a call for a phone interview, but it didn’t come through. Fortunately, I went online just before leaving for Baltimore and got an e-mail from Johanna saying there is a problem with the hotel’s phones. The reporter had tried to call but hadn’t been able to get through. I have to leave, but give her my cell number and we connect as Mule and I are trying to find our way out of DC.
Have you ever tried driving in DC? I have a good sense of direction and I’ve driven in some pretty tough places, but DC is nuts. (Yes, for driving too.) Grids and spokes and one-way streets.
(A digression: I went online to get the name of the man who laid out the city—Pierre L’Enfante, if you care—so I could identify and cast aspersions on him as the madman who designed the layout of this nutty place. But I would have been doing it to have fun. And … well … the first entry on Google is all about how L’Enfante was a Freemason and, according to the whiz kid who wrote up this site, “The street design in Washington, DC, has been laid out in such a manner that certain Luciferic symbols are depicted by the streets, cul-de-sacs and rotaries.”
Really! All I was going to do was make fun of the crazy quilt pattern of these streets and assert that no rational driver can be expected to find his or her way through this city without a guide dog, and suddenly I’m treated to an essay by someone who says, “You are about to learn that the U.S. Government is linked to Satanism.” He (or she) says L’Enfante “hid certain occult magical symbols in the layout of U.S. Governmental Center. When these symbols are united they become one large Luciferic, or occultic, symbol.”
The writer actually goes on at great length with this stuff, pointing out more symbols and making connections with Freemasonry and devil worship that are so bizarre it makes me want to laugh. I mean, sure, I think Dick Cheney is a scary, out-of-control, power-worshipping, warmongering bastard, but I really don’t buy that he’s Satan.
Anyway, sorry for the digression, but the whacko stuff that people spend their time thinking up or buying into sometimes makes me wanna holler … No offense intended to any of you who share this view that “the American flag is the symbol of the Brotherhood and the Brotherhood is linked to Satanism.”)
So where was I? Oh yeah. Mule and I are trying to read the damned directions to get out of this Luciferic city at the same time as I’m doing an interview with a young woman writing for something called Critical Moment. I guess I should have realized that someone writing for something with that name probably wasn’t going to be asking me about my favorite M*A*S*H episode.
And she didn’t. It was, in fact, a long and very serious interview about my views on political activism, social justice, whether there is a realistic possibility to change a system that doesn’t respond to the needs of the people, whether it would be fair to label ours a system of “white supremacy,” and other thought-provoking questions. It was an interesting and challenging interview that I would have loved to have done while sitting in a quiet place with time to think—and perhaps a drink. Instead, I was trying to pilot Mule through the Satanic rotaries and around the occultic corners of Washington, DC on a holiday weekend in order to get to a book gig in Baltimore. And again, the directions I was required to periodically take my eye off the road, at the risk of my life, to read and follow were, at a “critical moment,” WRONG!!!
I don’t want to make excuses here, of course, but if anyone ever reads an interview with me in something called Critical Moment and finds it to be disjointed, erratic, long-winded, semicoherent, periodically interrupted by bursts of cursing, hysterical laughter or, quite possibly, a fit of sobbing, be kind.
The interview concludes and finally, having found the right way to get on 295 North to Baltimore, it is as if a new day has dawned. Mule and I move along swimmingly, even though there are only three little squares on the gas meter. By the time we get to Baltimore there are just two, but I get so involved in figuring out which way we are supposed to turn that I space on filling the tank.
Parked, checked into the hotel and all is lovely. Once in the room I get a call from my friend Rick Schaeffer, a lawyer whom I had met as part of a delegation to the Middle East almost thirty years ago and who subsequently helped us in a campaign to save an innocent man—Joe Giarratano—from Virginia’s electric chair. Rick is looking forward to the event at the Enoch Pratt Free Library and seeing me for dinner afterward, but had called the library to be told that it is closed today.
Hmmm. It is Sunday. And on top of that it is the Memorial Day weekend, or so I’m told. Maybe I’d better check. I call the woman in charge and leave a message asking if the event is still on and quickly get a call back assuring me that it is. However, she says, the library is normally closed on Sundays and, with the holiday, she isn’t quite sure what to expect in terms of turnout. She has, she assures me, done a lot of promotion, but …
Ah well, I’m here. What the hell.
At the appointed time, Mule and I make our way to the library. Seeing again the two squares on the fuel gauge, I make a mental note to find a gas station but see none.
Outside the library, in one of the windows, there’s a huge picture of little old me, with a big sign announcing the event today. Big damned picture! I wonder how they do that.
Inside, the event is to be held in the Edgar Allan Poe room. Evidently Ed was from Baltimore. When I get to the room—no visible ravens— there’s a pretty nice crowd already inside, which is reassuring after the disclaimer, and as the appointed starting time approaches, more people continue to trickle in.
The woman who had organized it brings me in to meet the book dealer who is handling sales and the woman from the ACLU of Maryland who will introduce me, as they are cosponsoring the event.
A man sitting in the back row turns and says hello to me and I am stunned. It is Danny Porfirio. This guy had contacted me on the M*A*S*H set many years ago asking if I’d read something he had written. He passionately wanted to be a writer and had had no luck in getting anyone to look at his work. He reached out to me because we were both ex-Marines and the story he had written was about his time in the service, so he hoped, he said, that I’d at least take a look.
What are you gonna do? I wrote back and said I couldn’t promise to get to it soon, but if he’d be patient I’d look at it and give him my opinion. He was so grateful it was embarrassing. I’m sure it was months before I got to this tome he had sent me, but I finally read it and wrote back to him, saying that I really didn’t think it was a movie, but that he clearly had talent and I encouraged him to continue writing.
A few months later he sent me a short story about orphaned twin brothers, one of whom was a brilliant medical intern and the other was a slow boy who worked on a garbage truck. Though it took nine years to get it made, it became Dominick and Eugene, the first feature film my partner Marvin Minoff and I produced, starring Tom Hulce, Ray Liotta, and Jamie Lee Curtis.
Hell of a movie, if I do say so myself. Other than M*A*S*H, the project I’m most proud of. Do see it if you haven’t.
By the time I’m introduced, the room is full, with standing room only. Must be close to a hundred people. Pretty nice, these Baltimoreans. And the afternoon turns into another great, warm, funny experience with us exchanging thoughts and views on all the issues I bring up and more. I’m knocked out by the hope and the excitement people express about what this country is capable of
if we can only elect the proper leadership. One woman asked me what I thought were the three most critically important things we had to do to get this country back on track. I said, “Elect Barack Obama, elect Barack Obama, elect Barack Obama.”
It got a great reaction.
After signing books and posing for pictures I get another chance to give Danny a hug—and promise to read some more things he’s written. Then Rick and I go out to dinner to catch up. He takes me to an Afghan restaurant owned by Hamid Karzai’s brother. Unfortunately, he isn’t there. I would have loved to ask him some questions.
Starting up Mule I hear a grunt. Uh oh.
“Yeah, I see we’re down to one square.”
Grunt.
“Yes, I know I said I’d never let it happen again.”
“Liar!”
“Hey, easy. People make mistakes, you know?”
“Huh! People who get all stuck up about having their picture in the window.”
“Whoa! Cheap shot.”
Grunt.
“Look, Mule, I’m sorry. We’ll find a station, I promise.”
Grunt.
“Hang in there, pal.”
Grunt.
By now I understand that “grunt” probably means “asshole.” And I know if we get down to battery again, I’m toast.
You ever prowl the streets of Baltimore looking for a gas station? Don’t. Finally, through the kindness of strangers, we stagger into a station in south Baltimore—and, thank God, they are open.
“See, pal? I wouldn’t put you through that again.”
Grunt.
That, and the Lakers lost to the Spurs tonight. You don’t think Mule … ?
Nah.
DAY SEVENTEEN
Monday, May 26, 2008
CITY OF ORIGIN: BALTIMORE, MD
CITY OF DESTINATION: NEW YORK, NY
MILES TRAVELED: 192
VENUE: MADIBA RESTAURANT
EVENT COSPONSOR
Brooklyn for Peace
Got out of Baltimore with no problem. Mule is behaving nicely, thank you, so I may have been forgiven for the gas gaff—for being a fuel fool.
Speaking of Baltimore, did you know there is a Washington Monument here that predates the one in Satan’s town? (I know, I know, but the detail in all that raving about DC was really weird … and who knows?) Anyway, yes, there is a very tall, cylindrical, and quite imposing structure in a square at Charles and Monument streets in the Mount Vernon Cultural District of Baltimore that was built twenty years before the monument we all know about in DC. And, I learned, Annapolis was the capital of our country for a short time, from late 1783 to mid 1784. Marylanders are very proud of their history. Well, except, maybe, for Spiro Agnew …
And one wonders at the statue of Chief Justice Roger Taney only a few steps away from the tribute to Washington. Expected to go down in history as one of the great chief justices of the Supreme Court, his place in the record books was forever tainted by his opinion in the 1857 Dred Scott case, in which he wrote of “that unfortunate race” which had “been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far unfit that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.”
There is some irony in the fact that Taney died on the very day Maryland abolished slavery.
It’s a rich history we share, though not all of it inspires pride.
Driving north on the complex of roadways leading to New York takes us onto the New Jersey Turnpike. Speaking of abolition, I smile as we enter the state, thinking with satisfaction of New Jersey’s courageous decision to abolish the death penalty in December of ’07, an historic act that may move other states to do the same. I explain to Mule that Death Penalty Focus, the organization I chair, gave an award this past April to Governor Corzine and New Jerseyans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (NJADP) for their courage.
Mule is unmoved.
“Hey, pal,” I say, “the first state to abolish the death penalty in the modern era; it’s a big step!”
“For people.”
“Well, yeah. Yeah, I guess that’s right. Hybrids don’t kill their own, do they?”
Grunt.
“Right. Okay, people are odd. Present company excepted, of course?”
Silence.
“Huh. Well, we’re working on it. Maybe Maryland will take the hint and be next.”
Time for a bite. Don’t tell anyone, especially the cops, but I’m getting pretty good at steering with my knees. I mean, you know, you don’t want to pull over every time you have to peel a banana or take your vitamins. You’d never get anywhere. I’ve got this huge bag where I stash all my snacks and pills and herbs, and some things have to be unscrewed or ripped open or counted, and a guy needs two hands, you know?
Rush Limbaugh is at it today—I guess, like Sean, he’s at it every day. What a windbag. He’s terribly proud of this Operation Chaos nonsense. But I wonder, you know? I mean, except for a few true idiots, don’t you think it’s all bullshit? Here he is taking credit for wreaking all kinds of havoc in the “Democrat” race, causing Hillary to stay in and cut up Obama, and oh lordy, how he’s looking forward to rioting in Denver during the “Democrat” convention.
Give it a rest, Rush.
Okay, we’ve suffered through the lines at the tollbooths (it’s expensive to use these roads!), the incredible array of confusing signs, off-ramps, exits and construction, and now, finally into and through the Holland Tunnel, we’re wending our way past more confusing signs, turns, exits and construction in Manhattan to get to the hotel.
In case you haven’t been able to tell from this aimless soliloquy, today is a sort of day off. After checking in and changing, all we have to do is drive to Brooklyn and appear at a fundraiser for Brooklyn for Peace at a South African restaurant called Madiba.
I’m confused by the directions, of course, and get us lost in Chinatown, but Mule noses her way fearlessly to the Manhattan Bridge, across into Brooklyn, and even finds a parking place across from Madiba, where we connect with Johanna, Johnny, and Ibrahim from Akashic Books—and Cassie, Ibrahim’s friend.
Brooklyn for Peace has made the book a premium for everyone who paid the tariff this evening, which is very nice, so I’m to say a few words. It’s a great crowd, very lively, very enthusiastic, very open about their politics and forthright in their advocacy. It’s a pleasure to hear their enthusiastic response to the guy running the show. He then presents a fellow who does a very funny riff as a CIA agent—à la Gary Trudeau’s Duke—cleverly lampooning all the right-wing craziness. The food, served family style, is plentiful and very good. In the middle of it all I’m asked to say my few words—I clearly don’t have to sell this crowd on anything, so I just cheer them on and take a few questions. Then it’s time to have some dessert while signing a few books. One feisty older woman perfectly captures the night for me by saying, when I ask how she wants me to personalize her book, “Just make it out to Dear Comrade.”
Rush, Sean, stay the hell out of Brooklyn!
DAY EIGHTEEN
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
CITY: NEW YORK, NY
VENUE: STRAND BOOKSTORE
EVENT COSPONSORS
Center for Constitutional Rights, The Nation Magazine
With two radio interviews scheduled today, I rouse Mule and we risk the hand-to-hand combat that constitutes driving in Manhattan. Johanna has found a Firestone dealer that has an arrangement with Hertz. So in order to get MAINTENANCE REQUIRED to stop yelling at me from the dashboard, I simply have to get Mule to this place, go on to my radio stuff and come back afterward and pick her up, all paid for by Hertz.
Or at least that’s the way it’s supposed to go.
The drive, through a lengthy tunnel and up the Westside Highway to Tenth Avenue and up from there to 26th Street, is surprisingly easy. The rest is more complicated.
The place is squeezed into the northwest corner of Tenth and 26
th, surprisingly small and, shall we say, not the image of “the Firestone dealer” Mr. Firestone probably broadcasts on TV. The few feet of lot in front of the service bays is crammed with trucks, cars, trailers, and machinery. Leaving Mule illegally parked on the corner, I walk up to a guy and say I’m here with a Hertz car to get an oil change.
“Next door!” he yells over the sound of a screaming car alarm while jerking his thumb toward the next bay.
At the next bay I tell my story again, this time over the clatter of a pneumatic lug wrench, and again am given the thumb toward yet another bay westward, with the advice, “Ask for Eric!”
In the third bay, a guy with a nasty expression is sitting there, his feet stretched out comfortably, talking to one of the workers.
“Hi, I’m looking for Eric.”
“Yeah?”
Yeah, I thought that was fairly clear. “Are you Eric?”
“Whaddya want?”
I have a flashback to the days when I was serving process. Either somebody’s looking for this guy or he’s just an unpleasant putz. “I have a Hertz car that needs an oil change. They said you folks can do it.”
“Yeah, okay. Where is it?”
“Over there, at the curb.”
“Bring it in.”
“Well, the curb was about as close as I could get, but I guess I can go around the block.” I figure I can make the loop and see if they’ll make room for it if I approach the place from 26th, which is a one-way street heading east, which had prevented me from initially turning onto it.
“Yeah.”
With that encouragement I head back to the car, but as I climb in another guy comes over and tells me to go back, he’ll bring it around. So I walk back over to Mr. Sunshine and he tells me they’ll have it done in twenty minutes to a half-hour and I can wait.
“I thought I’d leave it,” I say, “and pick it up later. I have something to do uptown.”