Entries from June 2004 ↓

I love my father. I think my love for him grows a little bit more every time I get a chance to go home and take care of him. He requires so much attention now that he just takes all the energy out of me. For the life of me, I don�t know how my mother does it every day, especially now that she is ailing physically herself.

Going home for the weekend I was able to give Mom two and a half days of relief so she could do some of the things she needed to do, but it also gave me quality time with Dad. He fought me whenever I tried to bathe him, but its always an amusing fight. The desire to resist doing anything he can�t comprehend is hardwired into his personality and it�s just interesting to watch him put up a fight for reasons he doesn�t even understand. But he always lets you dress him, and Saturday even let me give him a haircut and a shave. We sat on the porch and later listened to a CD he likes. That night he was even cooperative getting ready for bed.

This reversal of roles, while not an easy one, helps me to appreciate and understand the basic cycle of life.

A little lightbulb went off in my head today. A co-worker of mine who happens to be another artist trapped in a 9-5 (she’s a dancer/choreographer mascarading as our IT director) handed me a postcard announcing an upcoming performance. I told her I’d talk it up, meaning promote it here. Then the light flickered.

You see that side blog over to the right and down. The one marked Datebook. I’ve never quite known what to put there. In the past it has been a catchall for notable comings and goings, celebrity deaths, commemorations, etc. But it doesn’t get updated nearly enough because I can’t quite think of what to put there. But now I have an idea.

It seems there are always people trying to promote their events. Sooo, why not create a space for them to do it here?

Got an event you want folks to know about? Send an email to Bernie@bernardjtarver.com. Include the name of the event, sponsoring organization, date and time, location, admission fees if any, as well as any links to websites. Get it to me at least two weeks prior to the event.

Now it would help if the event were in the NYC area, but I will consider listings from other geographical regions. And I do mean consider. Just because you send something doesn’t automatically mean it will get in (this is still my blog after all). But if it seems interesting enough, I’ll post it. All submissions will be subject to editing.

You know I am partial to the arts, social causes of a progressive nature (I do not support anything right wing), health, education, or anything and everything that might seem fun or interesting to a wide range of folks.

Send ‘em if you got ‘em. I’ll hope to update the space in coming days.

Another one of my co-workers was notified today that through no fault of his own he�d be terminated end of July. Federal fucking funding cuts again. Most of us thought his job was secure because he just started in December, but grant money expected to support the program didn�t come through–again–so he�ll be let go.

In case you haven�t followed the news, all federal agencies have been told to submit lower budget requests. Guess why? The stupid, Goddamn, fuckin� bullshit unnecessary war that fucking asshole in the White House started! Zero dollars for social programs, everything for �national security.� Real people are suffering at home because all of our money is going to a war in Iraq that NEVER HAD TO HAPPEN!

We were also notified that the week the GOP will be having their convention, we�ll be shut down. Our office is just blocks from Madison Square Garden. These annoying shit-eating, polyester-suit-wearing, Middle American, election-stealing cock suckers want the city to stop while they conspire to screw the country even further. The fuckin� nerve!

I am soooo ready to welcome these muthafuckuhs to the Big Apple.

Playwright Lynn Nottage is presently enjoying an abundance of riches.

Last spring her period drama Intimate Apparel made its New York debut to considerable acclaim and quite a few awards, including best play from the New York Drama Critics Circle and the Outer Critics Circle.

Now, just as that show is ending its run, her new play, Fabulation, Or the Re-Education of Undine is making its world premiere at Playwright�s Horizons.

While both plays center around the lives of Black women facing adverse circumstances in New York City, and drew their inspiration from Nottage�s family background or personal observations, there are few other similarities. Intimate Apparel was a dark, brooding portrayal of one woman�s loneliness and yearning at the turn of the 20th Century, but Fabulation soars as a fast-paced comedic jab at contemporary African American �buppie� culture and the pitfalls of forgetting ones roots.

Nottage displays deft skills in capturing both realistic characters and authentic dialogue, and under Kate Whoriskey�s direction and the splendid work of a mostly ensemble cast, they are displayed to their satiric best.

Charlayne Woodard stars as Undine Barnes Calles (with a spanish pronunciation on the last name), a high-powered public relations exec who specializes in splashy social events with A-list guests. As the play opens, she is married to Herve, a swarthy Argentinean who swept her off her feet at a party one night, giving her access to a higher class of people at a time when she was dating a gangsta rapper.

But Herve absconds with all of her money, leaving her penniless and pregnant. With her business in free fall and her bourgie friends abandoning her right and left, what�s a woman to do? Go crawling back across the river to the Brooklyn projects where she grew up and a family she hasn�t seen in 14 years. Home may not be an easy place for her to live, but it sure does lead to funny moments.

The re-education of Undine is precipitated by the fact that Undine has completely re-created herself. Nottage says she was inspired by a magazine profile of National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice, where she was left with the impression Rice was willing to give up anything to get what she wanted in life.

The reality of Undine�s new life smacks her upside the head at every turn: family members with unfulfilled dreams; old neighborhood friends in the same place they were when she left; drug pushers in the hood; the welfare beauracracy, and the various personalities she meets in a substance abuse counseling session.

Woodard has a history of playing highly emotional characters whose boundless energy is barely contained below the surface and she�s just delightful to watch. She rides the humor and the pain Undine experiences.

But she is also surrounded by a bunch of gifted performers who handle the enormous task of playing several characters, and they all play them superbly. Melle Powers, Stephen Kunken, Daniel Breaker, Robert Montano, Myra Lucretia Taylor, Saidah Arrika Ekulona, and Keith Randolph Smith are the collective co-stars of this show.

Scenic designer Walt Spangler makes optimal use of the intimate 96 seat Peter Jay Sharp Theater space. Located on the fourth floor of Playwrights Horizons� one year old home on W. 42d Street, it is a beautiful place to see a play.

Fabulation runs until July 2.

The news media and conservative supporters of late former president Ronald Reagan are engaging in near delusional acts of revisionist history. They would have you believe he was actually compassionate. Nothing could be farther from the truth. He was a tool of an affluent, right-wing elite hell bent on maintaining and consolidating power and using the governmental apparatus to line their own pockets via lucrative defense contracts and corporate giveaways.

The fact of the matter is, during his eight years in office, there were more homeless people than at any previous time in history; he created the largest federal budget deficit ever (eclipsed only by those of both Presidents Bush); he fired striking air traffic controllers, giving corporate America license to ignore worker rights; he dismantled the civil rights unit of the Justice Department and helped foster the conservative view that poor people of color were the cause of most of the nation’s problems. I won’t even mention the corruption involved in Iran-Contra and the savings and loan scandals.

No, Ronald Wilson Reagan was no swell fellow indeed. He was an empty suit who could read a teleprompter well and deliver convincing lines written by handlers who were unelected and therefore unaccountable to the American people.

But one of the most significant derelictions of duty Reagan was responsible for was ignoring the growing AIDS epidemic. AIDS appeared around the start of his term in office, but it was only towards the end of his administration that he even uttered the word publicly. Had he acted immediately and decisively, putting federal funds into research and education, tens of thousands of lives might have been spared or at least prolonged.

As some people attempt to white wash his record, AIDS activists are telling the true story.

From The Body: The Internet’s Most Comprehensive HIV/AIDS Resource here are links to three commentaries on how Reagan’s missteps made the problem worse.

AIDS Advocates Remember Ronald Reagan

Largely lost in the memorialization of former U.S. President Ronald Reagan, who passed away last Saturday, are the views of many in the AIDS community who remember a different aspect of Reagan’s presidency. Although AIDS advocates generally sympathize with the Reagan family’s loss, they have little sympathy for the manner in which the former president acted — or failed to act — during the pivotal first years of the AIDS epidemic, when thousands died while the federal government did little to intervene. Meanwhile, a Washington Times opinion piece defends President Reagan’s policies, suggesting that without his leadership, the first HIV meds may never have been produced.

For President, AIDS Was a Blind Spot

Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, wrote this letter yesterday to his friend Steven Powsner, the former president of the New York City Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center. It begins: “I so much wish you were here with me to tell me what to do. You would know if I should comment on President Reagan’s death or just let the accolades pass. But you’re not here. You died in November 1995, at age 40, of complications of AIDS. The policies of the Reagan administration saw to that.”

Rewriting the Script on Reagan: Why the President Ignored AIDS

Dartmouth College instructor Michael Bronski offers a thoughtful analysis, written last year, about the reasons Ronald Reagan paid so little attention to the growing AIDS epidemic during his tenure as president.