Visions of peaceful coexistence: The Rainbow connection

In the movie "Sleep with me", there is a scene in which Quentin Tarantino discusses his opinion on the true meaning of the movie "Top Gun".

Subversion on a massive scale. Now, as you may know, Quentin Tarantino improvised that scene  and I doubt that the true message of "Top Gun" is one man's struggle with his own homosexuality. An example to help refute this interpretation is  the scene that Tarantino's chracter discusses in which Kelly McGillis is wearing an aviator's suit. It was shot in post production because the studio wanted a little more development in their relationship and she had already had her hair dyed for another movie which forced her to wear a hat. Tarantino uses Top Gun as an example of how people can interpret things from a wide range of vantage points regardless of the intended message. It doesn't have to be subversive, but messages can take on a life of their own, especially in the different mediums of art.

In 1979 I was 6 years old and going to the movie theater was a very special event. I loved watching The Muppet Show and was very excited when I heard that a  Muppet movie was being released.
A 6 year old boy is not normally into sweet ballads, so when Kermit appeared in the bog strumming a banjo and singing, I was quite unhappy until the "chase" part of the movie began. "The Rainbow Connection" was, at that time, nothing more than a sweet song of hope. How disgusting. Over 30 years later, it has taken on a completely new meaning for me. It still has the same basic message of hope and positivity, but in light of recent events, it has become more of an anthem for civil rights than plain hope. Just take a listen and read the lyrics with an open of a mind, as if you were hearing the song for the first time.

Why are there so many songs about rainbows
and what's on the other side?
Rainbows are visions, but only illusions,
and rainbows have nothing to hide.
So we've been told and some choose to believe it.
I know they're wrong, wait and see.
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection.
The lovers, the dreamers and me.


Who said that every wish would be heard
and answered when wished on the morning star?
Somebody thought of that and someone believed it.
Look what it's done so far.
What's so amazing that keeps us star gazing
and what do we think we might see?
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection.
The lovers, the dreamers and me.


All of us under its spell. We know that it's probably magic.


Have you been half asleep and have you heard voices?
I've heard them calling my name.
Is this the sweet sound that called the young sailors.
The voice might be one and the same.
I've heard it too many times to ignore it.
It's something that I'm supposed to be.
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection.
The lovers, the dreamers and me.


To begin with from the most simple aspect, "The Rainbow Connection" can be interpreted as a song about the challenges that gay men and women face in the world. Obviously a rainbow is a widely used symbol in gay culture whether it be at Pride parades,  decals in the window of bars or on church placards to denote that an establishment welcomes gay men and women.
It is visual harmony in a world filled with unlimited differences. A spectrum of variance that illumninates the dark when combined which is a hopeful and positive idea found in a natural phenomenon.
Now with this interpretation we can go through the lyrics and take a somewhat vague or generalised message and see an all too real situation for many young people without hope over being ostracized because of their sexual orientation. Millions of children wondering if they will ever feel apart of a community, be looked at as equals, or feeling secure in who they were born to be.

Why are there so many songs about rainbows
and what's on the other side?
Rainbows are visions, but only illusions,
and rainbows have nothing to hide.

I can't imagine having been given the incredibly difficult task to be told that the way I was born is wrong and against everything that is right in the world and then maintain a sense of hope for the future. The constant barrage of messages telling gay boys and girls, men and women that they are making a choice and that they should just be like everyone else.

So we've been told and some choose to believe it.
I know they're wrong, wait and see.

It takes a great deal of courage, strength, and perseverance to wade through all of that negativity and discrimination from family, friends, and countless others who claim to have your best interests in mind and still have a clear sense of what you truly want out of life.

Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection.
The lovers, the dreamers and me.

In a way, the vague questioning of the lyrics illustrates the relentless spirit of a people who are in one way or another forced to hide who they are, whether that be indentured servitude or having to put up a facade.
 Gay men and women are still forced into exile  and although the gay community has made great strides in the areas of social, cultural, political, and religious acceptance, they still are not quite viewed as 5/5ths of a citizen in the United States, not to mention the barbaric treatment in 3rd world countries which are actively restricting rights of the gay community up to and including death. They're still fighting their way out of the closet.

What's so amazing that keeps us star gazing
and what do we think we might see?
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection.
The lovers, the dreamers and me.

The active passivity and warmth of these lyrics hearken back to a great work of rhetoric in the area of equal rights. It may sound like a bit of a stretch, but Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a dream speech" outlined a time when people would not look on the color one's skin as an indication of quality, much like that of one's sexual orientation.
I would not put the lyrics of this song alongside a seminal work such as King's speech at the steps of the Lincoln monument, but it does act as a reminder that when calling for equal rights, you speak for all or none. You do not just look to represent a minority of the minority. You represent the few amongst the masses.
More importantly the lyrics of "The Rainbow Connection" speak to the individual in a reassuring manner, especially in the third verse.

Have you been half asleep and have you heard voices?
I've heard them calling my name.
Is this the sweet sound that called the young sailors.
The voice might be one and the same.
I've heard it too many times to ignore it.
It's something that I'm supposed to be.
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection.
The lovers, the dreamers and me.

The line, "Is this the sweet sound, that called the young sailors," is a reference to the Greek mythological story, "The Odyssey", by Homer in which Sirens attempt to lure sailors ashore by singing in hopes of causing them to crash on the rocks. The singer isn't quite sure if the voices they're hearing are in their best interests,  but they keep calling to the listener from within. The voices are inexorably tied with their identity. A fact which cannot be ignored.
 Another image that is brought to mind in this verse is the stereotype of the Navy being a semi-gay organisation. This belief is in large part attributed to the longstanding rivalry between the Marines and the Navy. An example of that can be seen the movie, "A few good men", with references to the "Faggoty White uniform", of the Navy. In light of the repeal of D.A.D.T., allowing gay men and women to openly serve in the armed forces, this takes on a very new resonance in the song's lyrics.

I know that most of what I have written is purely my own interpretation and this sort of armchair psychology can be done by almost anyone with respect to works of art in a given medium. Nietszche was labeled an anti-Semitic, misogynistic, anarchist, but those interpretations are highly debated and controversial. Countless religions feel they have the copyright on "The word of God" despite their lack of proof or historical fact. Paul Williams and Kenneth Ascher most likely did not intend "The Rainbow Connection" to be a gay rights anthem, but at times, great art takes on a life and message of it's own. The lyrics speak of an irrepressible desire to be proud of one's self. They wish for the listener to reach a place of rest, much like the path of another gay icon, Dorothy in the "Wizard of Oz".

Something that is undeniable throughout the course of human history is the need for being apart of a community. We inherrently want to be with other people, who hopefully are like us, share a culture, language, history of experience, and most important of all, a connection. We are in the midst of a critical point in the history of mankind where we can not just fall back on culture as an excuse for our behavior, but use it as a spring board to move beyond what we were born into and create new, universally accepted cultures. We cannot shun that which we in the majority are unaware of. The gay community has been around since the beginning of human kind and they have waited far too long to wait a little more. No matter what you label a group of people, they are human and we cannot take away their inalienable rights, otherwise we are no better than those barbaric cultures who enslaved people for their own gain. We, as a people of this nation, will be viewed as the ones who could have realized the dream of our forefathers and failed to do so out of prejudice.

Glory Days...

I just got back from a long weekend in Las Vegas on Sunday and was preparing to write a "Trip Report", but decided against it so that I can get my thoughts together and come up with a theme to my weekend. Instead I want to talk about something that has been going through my poker mind lately and that is my waining interest in playing poker. Without going into too much detail, I only played about 3 hours of poker over the course of my Las Vegas Extravaganza weekend for multiple reasons. One of which was the fact that I didn't feel an urgency or overwhelming desire to play. I wanted to hang out with my friends who joined me on the trip and I wanted to let go of having to concentrate. It's a bit disappointing to me that I may be losing the spark of passion for poker, but it makes a lot of sense given the times.
 Black Friday was truly a terrible day for poker players all around the world as well as the U.S., even though the elephant had been in the room since 2006. Serious online pros and hobbyists alike faced the  nearly insurmountable task of trying to get back home. The causal player wouldn't be bothered jumping through hoops to get money online which in turn only made the games that much more difficult. It was as if the ocean had just lost all of its lowered tiered fish and made the food chain much more competitive similar to the late 2006 when UIGEA passed and many online poker sites left the U.S. market.
Online poker in the United States might as well be dead, in my opinion. Hardly anyone is getting money off of the few networks that are running and the amount of games available are laughable. The entire community seems to be in a bit of a daze. I can only compare the sudden robust to busto shift online to Enron's collapse in early 2001. The big wigs at the top of the organisations (who don't go to jail), will be fine. They'll have other avenues to explore whether it be playing live, getting jobs other high priced jobs or retiring. It's the grinders and semi-serious hobbyists like myself who will ultimately be forced out, so to speak, which brings this back to my poker life today.

 Soon after Black Friday, I made the decision to take up NLHE more seriously than before and move from LHE permanently. Things started off well in the beginning and although I have hit some breakeven times, that is to be expected, especially when learning a new game. The overall problem is that being a stay at home dad of 3 kids 4 years old and under makes it rather difficult for me to concentrate on poker given the tougher conditions with respect to playing online. Combine that with the fact that the closest casinos that offer poker are all at least an hour away and it makes things all the more difficult to keep my poker brain running and well oiled. I've never been the type of person who can leave an activity for long stretches of time and then come back to them in good shape.
If online poker were to somehow go back to how it was pre Black Friday or even more so pre UIGEA, it would take me some serious retooling to get my poker game back to where it was and even then, I would still be improving from there.
As I went from casino to casino this past weekend I felt as if I was revisiting an old apartment or dorm room that I had lived in before. I recognised the tables and the layout. I looked up at the screens that show the wait lists and had a small sense of longing for 2008 through 2010 when I was in the thick excitement over playing poker. I loved discussing strategy on 2+2 and looking at stats on PT3. I loved the feeling when I knew that I had improved and was no longer a complete fish. As I mentioned before, I have been a stay at home dad since 2007, so poker was important to me because it gave me the opportunity to use my mind in a way that I didn't use as a parent. It was also something just for me. My man cave of sorts. There was an energy around poker in those 3 years that made it more than just a TV fad of David & Goliath on ESPN. There was a connection of people around the world. I was discussing poker with people in Los Angeles, Oklahoma, New York, Scandinavia, Australia, and more. I had become apart of a community that my everyday life friends didn't really understand. I guess you could say, poker was my 1960's. What was once considered a degenerate lifestyle, was...well still a degenerate lifestyle, but now more legitimate. Some of the stank had been washed off and febreezed which made online poker all that much more acceptable for the many everyday citizens.

 I walked by the Venetian casino where I had a great run in 2006 and where I met up with a great LHE player from 2+2 last year. It just seemed like a mirage to me. Everyone needs to take a break from things at different times. I hope that this is nothing more than a break. I am looking forward to a time when US players are back in the thick of playing online and not having to find creative ways to get funds into and out of their accounts. I hope that I get the chance to be apart of the second coming of online poker and mania that was born out of the Moneymaker effect. Most of all, I hope I still have that spark to play poker seriously regardless of the stakes. I got into poker with the fantasy of winning that big payday Ala Chris Moneymaker, but I'll settle for being a solid winning player at the grinder stakes.



9/11/01

It will be no surprise that with the 10th anniversary of the 9/11/01 attacks that bloggers will be posting their, "Where were you on 9/11?" entries. It may seem cliche, but in the case of 9/11, I think it's a good idea for people to have a hard copy of their memories on such a historic and tragic event. First hand recollections of historic events can at time be a bit hazy to the reader, especially when those recollections are from times long ago. The audience may not have the cultural context of the times to truly understand the impact on the everyday citizen. Awaiting word of monumental news events could be anguishing for a family with son's on the front lines during the Civil War. Today people lose their cool if their iPhone is not in a hot spot.  Getting your experiences down that have something in common with a global community is not only cathartic and supportive in nature, but may hopefully remind us that through our differences, we are all people with common goals. We need to continue to strive for peaceful coexistence and tolerance as long as no one group is infringing on the inalienable rights of others.

2001 was shaping up to be quite a memorable year for me as I had finished one small theater production where I was one of the leads and had been cast in another production which had a good reputation at the lower levels of the Chicago Musical scene. I was working full time at a large video rental chain that rhymes with "Cock Mustard" so I had insurance as well as a steady income to pay the bills while I performed in theater on the weekends. Near the end of the production run I had started a romance with one of my female cast members. We started dating after the production had closed and  I would stay over at her apartment from time to time if I didn't have to work in the morning. We lived nearby one another in Chicago, but I had to ride my bike over to where she lived or she would drive to see me. The night of September 10th, 2001, which was a Monday, I went over to have dinner and watch a movie after a theater rehearsal that was in her neighborhood. We talked about my upcoming birthday and what plans we could make together. We fell asleep watching the movie "High Fidelity" which coincidentally was filmed a few blocks away. She had to work the next day and would give me a ride back to my apartment on her way to work. We woke and had coffee and toast for breakfast without watching any TV. About half way through the drive, she turned on a news radio station which was already talking about a disaster in New York City. This was moments before the 2nd plane hit the South tower of The World Trade Center. They announced that people were falling from the windows and we both lost our breath. I couldn't quite understand what was going on. I was rather ignorant to foreign affairs and was focused on my little theater world and trying to make a name for myself at the lowest levels. The radio announcer said,
"You will never forget where you were at this moment."

 We looked at each other in silence as we weren't entirely sure how this newly realized romance might progress.
I was dropped off at my apartment, still in a bit of confusion as to what was happening in New York City. I raced up the stairs and woke one of my roommates, Geoffrey, to let him know something terrible had happened. One of his artist friends, Matt, was sleeping on the couch and I quickly turned on the TV to the first local channel. Both of the World Trade Center towers were on fire and the three of us let out a collective,
"Holy Shit..."
 The news anchors were confirming that two commercial airliners had struck the Towers and that there was speculation that this was an act of terrorism. They also announced that there had been an explosion of some kind at the Pentagon, but are unsure of it's cause.
My roommate pointed to the TV and said,
"People are jumping, what the fuck is going on?"
The next ten minutes were a blur as we watched  smoke cascade in to the sky.
I was still trying to make sense of not only what was happening in New York, but the whole idea that 2 planes had been hijacked and flown in to skyscrapers. Who could plan this? Why?
"Oh my god, it's going to collapse.", Geoffrey said.
"What? That can't happen..."
The South tower just buckled right above the floors where smoke was flowing out of and collapsed on top of it self, floor by floor.
"Was there anyone in there? Were they evacuated? Are they all dead?", were some of the endless questions going through my mind.
The News anchor somehow kept his composure (I'm not sure which channel we were watching) and stated that if the South Tower collapsed, it wouldn't be long until the 2nd tower fell as well.
"If this was Terrorism we need to fucking find those cock suckers and fucking bomb them back into the god damned stone age", Geoffrey spurted out. He was now pacing around in visible anger. His friend, Matt just sat as I did, on the couch, slack jawed in shock.
We watched as people fled the streets near Ground Zero to get away from the monster like cloud of debris that was rolling through each street corridor.
Are we at war? What is the response to this? How is this happening?

It was also announced that a plane had crashed in Pennsylvania. I, like most people on this day, was petrified to leave my home. Although we were quite far from the Sears Tower in Chicago, we were still in a major city and what if a plane that was intended for a skyscraper nearby, crashed into our neighborhood. I felt a wave of helplessness wash over me that left nothing, but seething anger.
About an hour later my body started to relax  a little and in an effort to cope, I called my manager at work to find out if the store was closing given the events. I was a bit shocked that the corporate headquarters decided to keep all stores open. I arrived a bit before 4 o'clock for my shift and it was basically a ghost town inside. We had the stores TV set to new stations the entire night and didn't do much in the way of work. There was a man standing on the corner the entire night waving an American flag as passing cars honked and cheered. It was a strange yet comforting feeling that night as the few customers who did come into the store spoke to us like we were neighbors. There was no need of introductions or "Hellos". I was inexorably connected to everyone which filled me with a bittersweet feeling of pride, as I knew that in time, it would be paved over with my pessimistic view of the various personalities that frequented the store.
Within a few weeks the girl I was dating decided to go back to her previous boyfriend who had moved back from LA, I would end my aspirations of performing in theater with the end of the calendar year, and to reject the notion of joining the military with the request of going to Afghanistan as I had learned that Iraq was the real target for the current administration. The one thing that has never left me is the feeling of sadness for those who passed away on 9/11/01 and pride for those who fought to save them. I cherish the knowledge that despite our differences, Americans can and will come together in times of need.