I need to write about Ron Wyden. We need to have a health care conversation, he and I, and I presume to include you. But first there's some awkward but relevant baggage I must exhume.
The only time I've talked with Ron Wyden was in 1995 or 6 at a town hall in Klamath Falls, Oregon.
We had a back and forth, and afterwards a few guys crowded around me as Todd Keppel, the reporter from the Herald and News said loudly, "The only eloquent man in the room," and later Wyden's aide gave me a dirty look. It didn't dawn on me how that must have affected Senator Wyden, who I had used as proxy for the government's mishandling of Tibet. Right, Tibet. I innocently said something political about Israel, not having even wondered if Wyden was Jewish. I'm still not sure if he is. But if he is, then I can understand his heat as I argued that Tibet didn't get near the kid glove treatment by the US as did Israel. It must have looked like I was calling his religion out in front of a rural conservative crowd. It would seem to be a dirty trick. I have a big mouth that often just blabs from the unconscious. It's good for an artist but not so much for making and keeping friends.
So that happened. I needed to say it because of two things, and I need to say it here, because I write here, rant here (too much, gotta cut down), am known here. I don't feel confessional, it's just business.
The first thing is that I was called out by another Kossack, because I said "wily Jew" in a diary. It was about the settlements and I was tired and frustrated with the mockery, that juvenile defense mechanism, and was thinking of Israelis when I said it, and what I meant was "wily Zionists", who have cadged every opportunity to gain more territory where they shouldn't.
As I explained one night, I didn't know what "wily" means to others. I thought it meant "clever," which made Wily Coyote's name ironic. At the same time, I was tired and not being alert to the distinction between Jew and Zionist on kos. I mean, I knew the damn rule.
I don't like where I went with I/P talk and am done with it, so I won't respond to comments about it and me. Anyway that episode peaked ironically; wily is as wily does, and about a week later the cold winds of Krakow blew through kos and the cry went up: "enemy!" It's quite a show, and to be the focus of it is like being pummeled and cursed by passers-by who had heard a word, and that was enough.
What bothers me about it the most is the "enemy" label. Me, who grew up in a Jewish neighborhood (in Tennessee!) and did the things with boys and girls that boys and girls did. I learned Long Island jokes too, very racist ones, as all boys tell.
I still speak frankly to my Jewish friends. I had a friend who wanted to meet a well-known rabbi and his wife. The rabbi had been instrumental in setting up transport from Germany to Palestine after the war. His wife and I had become friends when I landscaped their house.
My friend was quite wealthy and came from old money (mostly Cuban rum distilleries during Prohibition). When we went out she liked to dress. What she chose that afternoon were slacks, a cashmere sweater, and a diamond necklace. On the way there, she fretted over whether the diamonds might be too much. I replied, "You don't need em, they already know you're in the tribe." At which she flung the necklace at me in that kind of smiling erotic fury that women can muster toward their lovers. (I recall another incident at a dinner party when she said that the river was too high (New Mexico lifestyle) to drive across unless it was an emergency, and I quipped, Yeah, like if you're out of pate',and she threw a crouton at me).
It's just how I am. When another Jewish friend, a psychologist who studied under Milton Erickson, came to my house with a very young man in tow, I said, "Hi, Jewboy," you know, emphasis on 'boy' for the occasion. This man knows that I'm in awe of his knowledge and have been his obedient supplier of Japanese-style woodcraft (he's also an ordained zen monk.)
So that's how I am in real life. You can't say some things on a blog. I don't like my big mouth when you can't hear or see it. I apologize. Now get to know me.