Red, White and Blue

The 2016 Presidential Election was traumatic for many Americans.  The infighting between the candidates was nasty and difficult for many people to watch, regardless of their political ideology. There was a prevailing sentiment neither candidate was ideal or even qualified for the position of President.  The constant bombardment and bickering kept many people anxious and awake at night.  Not me, though. I slept like a baby. In fact, I watched the debates with the same sense of nostalgia I bring to watching re-runs of SEINFELD, and not just because both candidates were self-centered New Yorkers who yelled most of the time and never seemed to learn anything. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were the harbingers of America's downfall, making specious points about their qualifications and track record while trading demeaning insults, none of which felt foreign or alarming to me because it just felt like I was watching my Mom and Dad run for President.  

 

Obviously neither of my parents expected to have a child with albinism.  My Mom was a 30-year-old wanderer whose life before my existence I know little about because I haven’t bothered to ask and she hasn’t bothered to tell me.  My Dad was a 22-year-old jock, just back from the Army and with a divorce already under his belt.  Supposedly, he married a woman before my Mom so she could use his military health insurance to get an operation, but reports of this instance of altruism are unconfirmed.  My parents met at a country and western bar, boned down and made me.  It was July of 1979 and they were God-fearing idiots, so upon learning my Mother was pregnant my parents got married.  They're both religious in dangerous ways, my Mom using religion as a means of denying herself joy because God Sees Everything and my Father using religion as a means of excusing his own cruelty because no matter what he does, God Forgives Everything.  Nathan’s not as gracious. Because of my albinism, they moved from New Hall, California just outside Los Angeles to Kent Washington, just outside Seattle. Rain or shine, their marriage was marked by fights and infidelity. I remember the cops being called a few times because he hit her, which is unforgivable and unfortunately makes complete sense. My Grandpa beat the shit out of my Dad every single day of his childhood and my Mom has absolutely no ability to read a room or to gauge how hard she's pushing another person's buttons.  She has the worst timing in terms of when to 'draw the line' of any human being on the face of the planet. That said, my Dad was an abusive baby and my Mom was right to leave him. Their divorce was final on April 1, 1985, which makes sense given the foolishness of their marriage. They have been campaigning against each other ever since.  

My Mother was valedictorian of her high school and, though she was accepted to MIT, she followed a boy to UCSB. As you may have suspected, he dumped her shortly after college began.  Much like Hillary Clinton, Mom has a lengthy record of receiving mistreatment from men.  She worked for a Department of Defense contractor, where she used her intelligence and work ethic to shatter as many glass ceilings as possible while raising two kids on her own. In the process, she cultivated a genuine and often justified sense of misandry. She shuttled my sister and me to and from soccer, ballet and Super Summer Camp while taking every opportunity to badmouth men from work, my Dad and his lack of real contributions as a parent.  Like Hillary Clinton, she worked incredibly hard every single day and her track record boasts many successful examples of this good work.  When I’d put off doing my math homework and needed graph paper at 9pm on a Sunday, Mom drove me to the store.  When I was interested in stand-up comedy, Mom took me to a show (See The Wrong Man for the Job).  When we went to sporting events or concerts, Mom would tell the event staff my sister and I were legally blind so they’d give us unclaimed tickets from Will Call, often moving us from our nosebleed seats to right in front of the action.  When I wanted to go to school in Boston, my Mom supported me even though it was expensive. When I failed in New York, she was there to bring me home and make me go to therapy. When I went to grad school, she was elated and read every piece of shit script I ever sent her.  She was as attentive and committed as she was able and we did not long for necessities. She was an exemplary Mother, and if I’m half the parent she was, I’ll be twice the Dad my daughter needs. 

When anyone is actively involved in any activity, day in and day out for 18 years, sooner or later, one is going to make a mess of things and my Mom was no exception.  Like Hillary Clinton, my Mother’s track record also holds many incomprehensible, catastrophic failures. She bought a timeshare, which was her own personal Whitewater. Mom could do nothing to protect me from my sister's abusive and violent fits, the small and frequent incidents of domestic terrorism which marked my youth, just as such events marked Hillary Clinton’s term as Secretary of State. Our family Benghazi Attack was when she let an alcoholic drifter move in with us and he got drunk and beat her up. Understandably, she felt overwhelmed and often alone and sought to establish codependent relationships with my sister and me to overcompensate for these feelings of isolation. When the stresses of being a single mother became overwhelming, as they often did, Mom did things her own way, breaking the rules if she had to, particularly while driving. She once rear-ended a car because she was showing me a pimple. Like any compassionate liberal person, my Mom tried to make things easy for my sister and me because it seemed like the right way to treat something she loves with all her heart; in so doing, she left us a little entitled and, in many ways, unprepared for a cruel and indifferent world. My Mom has the kind of narcissism that makes her hyper-vigilant.  She was there, day in and day out, working to make my sister and me better people. Her love was palpable, present and, though often overbearing, it was demonstrated again and again and again. She rarely missed an opportunity to provide for us and she never missed an opportunity to point out what my Dad was not providing, which was ultimately her greatest weakness as a parent. Genetically, whether I like it or not, I’m half my Father. My Mother could never understand that in belittling him, she was belittling part of me.  

My Dad barely graduated high school and never would have graduated college without my Mom doing all his work for him. As a college baseball pitcher, he was more concerned with his “ERA than his GPA,” that’s his line, not mine.  On the day I was born, he elected to go to practice rather than spend time with his newborn son and wife recovering from childbirth. 37 years later, he still tells this story with himself as the hero, taking ownership in having thrown a ball around with some guys he doesn't even talk to anymore in a way he would never take ownership of me. I don’t mean to make it seem like my Dad abandoned us.  He worked whatever jobs he could get to help provide for us, working at the cannery and as a security guard at the Four Seasons while playing baseball and going to school. When my Mom's career took her to Virginia, though their marriage was on the rocks, he moved to stay close to us. After the divorce, we saw him on Tuesdays and two weekends a month. These visitations were often spent shopping for things he needed at the mall, test driving luxury cars he’d never buy because he was too practical a man and too big to fit in most of them, or driving out to the country to look at mansions he couldn’t afford yet, so it’s hard to separate the idea of money from the idea of my Father. Just like Donald Trump.  

I like to think Dad subconsciously understood money was the only positive contribution he was able make in his children’s lives at that time in his.  Regardless of his motives, making money is certainly where my Dad focused his attention and he has succeeded in that endeavor to a degree no one foresaw or imagined.  He began a career in landscape maintenance, running a mowing crew.  He quickly learned the industry, rising through the ranks because he worked harder than everyone else and customers loved his charisma. Just like Donald Trump, my Dad turned a loan from his father and a partnership with a man who would defraud him into a successful business empire but still acts like he’s a completely self-made man who rose from the ether by sheer force of will. Dad has the kind of narcissism that makes him grandiose and infallible. He claims to have started this business so my sister and I would be able to get jobs, which is sweet until you consider we’re academically gifted, legally blind albinos and the work his company does is mostly manual labor outdoors. He’s never understood how smart and capable I am at things which he is not and ultimately this is his biggest weakness as a parent: I’ve known him 37 years and I am a stranger to this man.  He’s never seen me play drums. He didn’t go to my college graduation. We didn’t talk for a couple years and I get the sense it didn’t really bother either of us all that much. Still, like Trump, my Dad is a glamorous figure. When I was growing up, he often referred to himself as a “Disneyland Dad,” though he’d later come to resent this characterization, wishing he were taken more seriously as a parent.  I think my sister and I wished that too. In any event, as he became more and more financially successful, my Dad traded in my Mom for a string of more beautiful, younger women and started new businesses and new families, fathering four more children, none of whom have albinism or a healthy relationship with their Father.  Ultimately, these siblings are the best gifts my Dad ever gave me. And that Maxima was dope as shit before it got totaled. 

My Father's often-stated, not-at-all ironic personal philosophy is “Don't let the facts get in the way of a good story.”  Like Trump, my Father's wealth is ever-shifting.  He's a millionaire dozens of times over when it's time to act like a big shot, but when any of his ex-wives want child support or the government wants taxes, he's a pauper on paper.  He’s the poster-child for “Do as I say, not as I do” and doesn’t understand why his kids don’t listen to his words and instead parrot his behaviors back to him or to each other. He speaks in half-truths and his promises tend to as fantastic as they are empty, he whitewashes the past, gaslights, badmouths people as soon as they leave the room and often engages in what my Mother refers to as “Crazy-Making Shit.”  He seems completely unaware of the fact he's an asshole sometimes, except when he relishes in it and seems earnestly proud of it.  And you know what?  People fucking love him!  They love him.  People suffer his abuse and insults with a smile.  People work like dogs for him and seek his praise. People kiss his ass and want to hang out with him.   People think he's cool, they aspire to be him.  Even though he’s kind of a jerk, people almost always give my Dad what he wants, just like Donald Trump.  

Despite his shortcomings as a man and parent, my Dad was a positive influence in my life. He taught me how to throw a punch and not give up in any fight until it’s over or someone’s pulling me off the person I’m fighting.  I've been able to apply this tenacity in areas of my life besides fistfights.  He taught me to drive a stick-shift and talk to girls.  He taught me business savvy, how to shave and that clothes matter. He helped pay for college, he bought me cars, he let me stay at his house in Florida when I wanted a quiet place to write a terrible book I couldn’t sell. His story is the American Dream personified and the zeal he brings to work, the effort and discipline he sustains inspire and motivate me to this day.  He provided amply in the way he thought mattered.  Because he doesn’t think about anyone but himself, my Dad doesn’t really care whether or not I think he was good enough as a parent.  And, who knows, maybe he shouldn’t. But, for the record, he was the perfect compliment to my mother and, though he fucked up royally a few times, there’s nobody else I’d want as my Dad. If I make half as much money as he has it'll be ten times the money I need.  

I don't think either of my parents would object to being compared to the Presidential candidate they voted for and I know neither would be surprised to hear I would probably not choose either of them as my leader. That said, I've tried both their methods of narcissism. When I’m hyper-vigilant like my Mom, I work hard, I'm reliable, I build a reputation as dependable and exemplary... and I feel like a doormat. I'm passed over for promotions because no one on my lower rung of the ladder works this hard. I’m left off projects because I hold everyone around me to too high a standard. I’m too anal to be well liked. When I’m a grandiose narcissist like my Dad, I’m a lot louder, I make people laugh, my social life is active and people think I’m fun. And I feel guilty and ashamed by the shitty ways I speak of or treat people. I’m considered a blowhard. I end up surrounded by like-minded jerks who don’t care about me one way or the other. I’m too much of an asshole to be well liked. My Mom’s mode of being doesn’t work for me because it’s too interested in pleasing other people and my Dad’s mode of being doesn’t work for me because it ignores other people’s feelings completely. I also think my albinism contributes to my inability to be a successful grandiose narcissist just because no one will take an irrationally arrogant person with such an obvious genetic defect seriously. In this regard, I must admit I'm very grateful for my condition. Sometimes I think my poor eyesight and lack of pigmentation are the only things keeping me from being a belligerent bully jack ass just like my Dad, though there are plenty of people who think I'm a belligerent bully jack ass.   

At my wedding rehearsal dinner, my parents sat at opposite ends of the table, my Mom silently resenting my Dad while he got drunk and acted like the party was being held in his honor.  They don’t communicate with each other.  Sometimes I think the universe got my parents together as some epic practical joke on me.  I picture God up in Heaven or wherever the fuck ever and he or she is there with a smirk saying, “Let's have a jock bully and a nerdy woman who hates men conceive an albino son and watch them try to raise him!”  

When I think of myself as good or successful, which is not as often as I should, I tend to think my success occurred despite my parents.  But that’s dead wrong.  While neither of my parents was ideal for the job, they each offered a valuable perspective. But their perspectives are incomplete.  My Mom’s devotion to others needs to be tempered by my Dad’s selfishness, lest it become self-destructive. My Dad’s ambition needs to be filtered through my Mom’s empathy or it becomes dangerous. My Mom’s desire to eliminate anxiety in my life only works when paired with the individualism and bravery my Dad instilled in me. Both perspectives, while diametrically opposed, were necessary to my complete development just as both political viewpoints are necessary to the development of our country. No ideology is perfect. Regardless of how smart a person is, no one human being has all the answers. In the American system of government, spirited debate is meant to yield solutions of reasonable compromise which are better than the solutions any individual could provide on his or her own. Just as I needed both my parents’ points of view to become whole, our country needs both conservative and liberal viewpoints to function at its best. We need to listen more and talk less. We need to find a means of communicating with those whose perspective we abhor instead of screaming into echo chambers. But that isn't what happens. Instead, we become like our leaders: self-centered people who yell all the time and never seem to learn anything.  

Further Reading: The Perils of Eye Sex When You're Legally Blind