Not a Hippie, Not Yet a Fascist

Growing up, I went to what I now call "the hippie school." It wasn't obvious to me then, but when I look back on it, open classrooms, sitting "Indian-style" on the floor rather than using chairs and tables, watching films in a carpeted pit they called a "kiva," holding hands and singing "Blowin' In The Wind" during "Brotherhood Week"... yep, it was a hippie school. But it was a great school. I only went there three years (it was K-3, and they skipped me out of kindergarten for the wanton crime of knowing how to read), but it seemed to be a good time (what I can remember). My reading book was A is for Anaconda. On our birthdays, we would lay down on a big sheet of paper -- you know, the kind you roll out -- and the teacher would trace us with a permanent marker. Then all the students would write inside the silohuette of you words that they thought described you or invoked your spirit somehow. I'll never forget that my teacher wrote "charisma" on my 8th birthday, The paper was green. That was also the year I became allergic to both chocolate and peanut butter. If I ate either, I would break out into hives. At one birthday party, I could eat only pretzels, because they were serving Reese's Cups and chocolate milk -- and that's it. It was a dry party, let me tell you.

The point of this: I grew up with these hippie notions of all people being the same. Color, religion, they meant nothing. And that was true. In 1982. In Cincinnati. When I was 8. At age 28, in 2002, in New York City, brother, that's not the case anymore. And it pisses me off. When I hear that little voice in my head, using someone's cultural difference in place of the word "jerk" or "moron" ("I wish these jerks would finish this construction" becomes something else entirely), I can't stand myself. And I know I don't mean every single person sharing the trait, but I do mean all the people who share the trait and all the other negative ones I can't stand. This is vague, I know, and here I go again, trying not to offend anyone. Well, I'll be honest. I live in a neighborhood with a lot of Hasidic Jews. At first, I was fascinated. I read My Name is Asher Lev, and I loved it. I was sad when Chaim Potok died recently. I'm a secular humanist, myself, so the fact of their religion is about as important to me as the fact of anyone's -- not at all. I think the Mormons, the Christians, the Jews, the Hindus, the Muslims are all crazy in that respect. So, it's a level playing field. But there is just something about a group of people who act as if you aren't even there. As if they are the only people on the street or in the subway. And maybe I'm horribly biased because once I saw a Hasidic man at a fetish club and my blood boiled with the hypocracy of it. I don't know. But I do find myself looking at the interminable yeshiva construction on my street corner (the one that makes me have to walk in the street because the sidewalk is all torn up) and hearing my little voice say, "When the hell are they going to be finished building Jewtown already?" And I'm ashamed of myself, and pissed off, and it's all just wrong somehow, but I don't know how to fix it.

That's my confused rant of the day. The whistle just blew, so it's time for me to jump down my stegasaurus and foot-pedal myself home to Wilma. Lucky cavemen. Pre-evolution must have been the bomb.