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naked fracas* ESSAYS AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY JERRY SCHARF |
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ESSAYS AN ELEGANT BURGUNDY WITH JUST A HINT OF RANCOR I am banned from working on my home. I may mow the lawn, take out the trash, even tighten a minimally leaking faucet. But for all else, I must hire help. It’s not that I’m a mechanical idiot. No, wait, it is precisely that I am a mechanical idiot that has prompted my ban from home repair projects. In my heart, I know the ban is unfair. But even the best arguments in my defense make me sound like Larry Flynt defending pornography’s right to exist. Yes, yes, it’s all logically sound but no one wants to hear it anyway. I could detail (and defend) a hundred home improvement catastrophes, but the only one that is or ever will be needed to prosecute me was launched a few years ago as my wife, Cathy, and I were preparing to host a party to celebrate our daughter’s graduation from high school. Actually, Cathy was doing all the preparing. A week before the event, over morning coffee, I was marveling at her plans. It looked like it was going to be a sensation. I was inspired to get more involved and asked how I could help. Cathy thought a moment (mentally eliminating potentially explosive projects). “The thing I would really like for you to do is to paint the front door.” I rejoiced. Indeed! That door was a mess! This was a project of great promise and prominence. I had a flash vision of myself welcoming our guests into the elegant portal of our home, “My word,” they would whisper to one another, “10 Downing Street has nothing on this place. Just look at the ...” “What color?” I asked. “Black?” Cathy thought a moment, “I’d love a nice, rich burgundy,” she replied. “… rich, lustrous burgundy lacquer and polished brass kickplates. What a showplace!” Two days before the party, I arose before dawn to look over the highly polished brass pieces I had slaved over, and then to run off to the closest big-box home-a-torium store to buy the paint. And there, as in so many of my home projects, is where things began to sour. | |||||
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Four months after Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie jetted into Ethiopia’s capital city of Addis Ababa to pick up their adopted child, Zahara, a group of less celebrated Americans were circling the city in a Boeing 737, their noses pressed to the windows, marveling at the unexpected patchwork of lush, green fields. For us, Addis was just the beginning of our journey. We would travel by road more than seven hours south of the city, to a place not marked by any map. |
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THE ROCK STARS ARE RIGHT, WE CAN END POVERTY NOW “Giving a feckless person money," goes the Chinese proverb, "is like pelting a stray dog with dumplings.” Nonetheless, I give money to panhandlers. I know, it’s hardly sound philanthropy, but I have personal motivations for saying “yes,” when a stranger approaches me with a plea and an outstretched hand. On a large scale, though, such charity courts catastrophe. |
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MICHAEL'S PASSING He was one of those friends with whom you passed ungainly (and often unseemly) formative years. He's heard all of your hare-brained schemes and you, his. He's seen you at your best and your worst. He's seen you full-of-yourself and he's seen you utterly depleted. He's seen you in love and lovesick. You shared long hours at crappy, part-time jobs with him and brilliant days at favorite fishing spots. Your senses of humor and taste in most things melded--especially beer and music. Eventually, your lives gained enough traction to move you in different directions. You didn't stay in touch, yet you still know him to his core. His strengths. His weaknesses. Everything that's beautiful about him. Everything that's maddening about him. The thought of him makes you smile and you know that, 20 years from now, it still will. His creativity seemed effortless. Playing with a camera, or paint or a piece of wood he could suddenly produce something that had simple genius in it. "Cool, huh?" he'd say. The discovery was all he seemed to need. There was no urge to turn it into something epic or even saleable. He found joy simply and easily. You shared a love of nature, but while you needed to know it, he needed only to be in it. As the two of you entered your 20s, these differences began to feed a vaguely hostile competition. It made it easier for us to leave one another behind. On a day when your life is crowded with drama--at work and at home--you get the news that he is dying. It is like an unexpected thunderclap that stiffens your back and leaves you unable to think beyond the moment. You want to get to him to share your memories... Working together... Fishing together... Summer days in Brigantine... Racing the MGB... His thrifty dad's wildly indignant horror at finding us drinking "Dollar a bottle beer!" But it's too late. He's too sick and begs the visit off. Just a few weeks later you learn he's gone. As you reflect on losing one of your oldest friends, you hope that he knew how much you admired his artistic spirit, his deep sense of fairness, his honesty and his intolerance of pretentiousness. And you realize how rare such a friend is, and how big a part they play in who you are. |
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| BOLDLY GOING WHERE I'VE NOT GONE BEFORE | |||||
I'm ashamed and embarrassed to tell you this, but I was terrified once by a group of retarded adults. I think of them everytime Howard Stern or Glenn Beck or some other media buffoon employs the word 'retards.' |
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© 2007 Gerald J. Scharf | All Rights Reserved |
