My Friend Khris...

It was 21 years ago I walked into Gentry.   A small dingy little piano bar in Chicago, on Halsted Street.   I hadn't planned on going in.  But as I walked by I heard this amazing voice singing "How Lucky can you get?" from the musical Funny Lady., 

As I stepped inside,  the singer at the piano looked up,  saw me, and suddenly stopped playing.  For a moment I thought I had inadvertently crashed some sort of private party or event.   The guy at the piano looked me up and down  said " You! Sit down here!!" and pointed to a seat at the piano.

It would be the first of many many nights,  I would sit at that piano  while Kris Francis played, sang, and cracked jokes.    It was the start of a friendship that would forever change my life.    Khris became a dear friend, and more than that a very real and powerful LGBT role model for a young man in his 20's who was terrified of coming out.  

Over the weeks, and months that followed  that first night sitting at the piano, Kris would make me laugh, always make me sing, and more than anything else, he made me brave.    When I finally did come out to my family the first person I told afterwards was Khris. His reaction was true to form;  "About f*ckin time kid...".  Then he gave me one of his enormous hugs.

People often refer to Khris's act as "tease comedy".  I always felt that was a misnomer.  As a member of the audience at one of his shows,  you were part of the show.    People who knew him soon realised to be singled out and "teased" by Khris was in fact,  a tremendous compliment.   You were not so much the butt of the joke as you were IN on the joke.   His barbs and zingers always came with a wink and smile.     His musical repertoire was pretty standard.  He'd start in the 50's move through the 60's and 70's then touch briefly on the 80's.  His progression would stop there because has he so aptly put it; "I have taste."

We would keep in touch after I moved away from Chicago,  When I first lived in  San Francisco,  we would make time to see each other whenever he was back home in Hollister.   When I moved to London, I tried in vain many times to get him to come visit. But his work schedule in Maine and on Cape Cod along with caring for his Dad back in CA made it impossible to find the time,

He always make it a point to reach out and check in  and ask  how I was doing, and always to  swap gossip about our mutual friends and share his latest jokes.    But more than anything,   he was always there for me as a friend and a sounding board.    A few weeks ago he suffered a bad fall and injured his spine. leaving him half -paralyzed, developing  sepsis and pneumonia. Yet even then,  he still wanted to make us all  laugh, and remind us to look after each other.

His condition sadly got worse,  When I visited him in the hospital last Saturday he seemed like he was trying to say goodbye,  and I wouldn't hear of it... I still don't want to believe it.   Yet the truth is my friend Khris is gone.   Passing away yesterday morning..

I will miss  him  every day. The world is a darker, sadder place without him.

Measuring Donald Trump Against the Scout Law...

Recently I found myself in a back and forth on Facebook with a dear friend and Scouting colleague who expressed dismay at my criticisms of President Trump accusing  me of  hating  the President, and cited the Scout Oath and Law as partial reasons for his support of Donald Trump.

He went on to say that  President Trump has given most of his  salary as President to charity, and  insisted that that Trump  just wants to protect our freedom, jobs, safety and borders  ,My friend closed his comment with the assertion that he was an "independent" politically,   and while he didn't like everything about Trump,  he was mostly tired of what he saw as the moral failings of the Democrats.

Recently I made a visit back the  BSA Summer Camp I attended when I was a boy.  Lining the road into camp were 12 carved wooden signs. Each with a point of the Scout Law on them.   Years later I staffed a summer camp in Western Massachusetts  where the steps leading up  to the camp's dining hall each had one of the points of the Scout Law engraved on them.

The use of the Scout Oath and Law as a political metric  or compass  is something that deeply resonates with many of us for whom Scouting has been an integral and formantive part of our lives.   I certainly have gone back to those twelve points many times in my life, for guidance. And always when I step into the Voting booth. So, in response to my friend I decided to assess the 45th President of the United States against  those familiar twelve points.

• TRUSTWORTHY. - Donald Trump is a pathological liar. He has no concept of the truth. He will say ANY thing if it supports his position or will make him look/ feel good.

• LOYAL– Donald Trump is loyal only to himself, certainly not to any of his 3 wives, not to his employees and not to the United States. Ask Jeff Sessions, or even better, ask Rex Tillerson how loyal Trump is.

• HELPFUL - Trump has gutted education programs like head start, Pre-k , Pell Grants all designed to help Americans learn , grow and achieve. He has made the LEGAL immigration process as difficult as possible as a political tool to stoke a racist voter base. Creating obstacles to both Americans and would-be Americans for no other reason than it plays well with less than 30% of the electorate.

• FRIENDLY- Trump is a vulgar clown who trades in obscenities and insults. Juvenile nicknames, crude and even bigoted insults that would get most any Scout kicked out of camp is daily fare on the Presidential Twitter feed.

• COURTEOUS - Trump literally shoved other world leaders out of the way so he could be in front at a photo call.

• KIND – Trump has ripped children from their families (Lied about it being an Obama policy) then housed them in cages and sought to deliberately punish asylum seekers. He has made cruelty official US Government policy

• OBEDIENT – The Hatch Act, the US Government records Act, Federal Election campaign finance laws, The Freedom of Information Act all routinely violated. In addition to multiple cases of alleged obstruction of justice.

• CHEERFUL - Cheer is something Trump engages in at the expense of others, be it a disabled reporter, or women of color serving in congress or disaster victims in Puerto Rico. For Trump ridicule of others is a staple.

• THRIFTY - He has exploded the national debt and the US budget deficit. With unpaid for tax cuts, and reckless spending on his own vanity. (The 4th of july "event" and his "Wall" to name just two.) He has spent more taxpayer money on GOLF trips in 2 years than the Obama Administration spent on ALL Presidential travel in 8 years.

• BRAVE – Cadet Bone Spurs lied to avoid service in Vietnam then mocked men who did serve. He is a coward.

• CLEAN – Trump may be a germaphobe but apparently that is not a deterrent against grabbing women by the pussy. He has been credibly accused by 19 women of sexual assault.

• REVERENT - Trump’s God is himself, He is a serial adulterer, who has multiple credible accusations of having paid for women to get abortions. He has stolen, he covets, he lies, so if the ten commandments are one of your political metrics? Then supporting Trump suggests either hypocrisy on a biblical scale, or total ignorance of what the scriptures actually say. 

It is not hatred of Donald Trump, Rather, it is horror at what he is doing and how he is doing it. You cannot still support Trump and use “I am an independent and I hate both parties” as an excuse. It’s like people in Kentucky who cheer the gutting of environmental laws because they have bought into the idea that letting an Aluminum factory ( a Russian financed Aluminum factory , but that is a whole other issue…) dump lead into their drinking water, is somehow “owning the Libs” When in reality it is just poisoning their kids     

If we use the Scout Law as our metric, the case is only too clear.    To support this President,is to be a willing participant in enabling  the worst in all of us,  The ungodly, the treasonous and the horrific, all because the imperfect annoys you. 

That isn't being an independent, It is being an enabler of all that stands in direct conflict with the values Scouting represents.