Writing Boots

Every July Fourth we have a party on our back deck. We call it the "Defend the Roof Party." Armed with large glasses of gin, we are ready to put put any fire that might erupt as a result of the fireworks bombardment by our Mexican neighbors.

It’s an endless siege, the Alamo in Chicago. Firecrackers in dumpsters, bottle rockets going everywhere, M-80s in the back alley, astonishingly noisy and colorful things blowing up over the garage, sparks raining down on everything.

And you should see the kinds of fireworks their parents shoot off! (Was that a gun?)

But here’s the deal about the Defend the Roof Party. We don’t really think the Mexicans are going to burn our house down.

Of course, we can’t be sure about their intentions.

We don’t know many of the Mexicans around us; they keep to themselves, encouraging our instinct to do the same. (Most days, life seems complicated enough without diving into an intercultural dialogue, does it not?)

But in more than 10 years of living in this neighborhood, I’ve never been threatened by a Mexican, never once been panhandled by a Mexican, never had any reason to feel the slightest bit of antipathy toward any of my Mexican neighbors. It’s a ridiculous generalization based mostly on a thousand shallow interactions at tacquerias, but my observation is that Mexicans—I can’t tell the legals from the illegals—are a hard-working, unassuming, cheerful lot.

At least that’s how I’d describe Jose, the cook at the corner Irish bar, whose greatest crime is his regular attempt to sneak a slice of cake to Scout for dessert.

I can understand the fear and rancor in people who live near the Mexican border and have their houses ransacked by hungry, thirsty immigrants. And I’m sure I’d feel differently if I believed it was my job that illegal immigrants were taking (like everybody else, I turn into the Hulk when I perceive that someone is threatening my livelihood). And maybe I’m willfully ignorant about the terrible strain illegal immigrants are putting on the health care system.   

But Dear Lou Dobbs: Why should I care if Jose doesn’t want to learn English? His young daughter will learn it by accident. If illegal immigration is the widespread, soul-sucking problem you say it is, why would you have to prove it, over and over, night after night? Is it possible that the reason we can’t seem to pass sensible immigration reform is that there is no solution to the problem of a rich country jammed up against a poor country with a long border between them?

I was seven in the summer of the Bicentennial in 1976. During the school "units" surrounding that, I remember honestly scratching my head when my teachers talked about freedom. What, exactly, were kids in other countries not "free" to do? Could they not eat ice cream? Could they not play cowboys and Indians? Did they have to set the table and clear the dishes?

I still think about what it is we’re supposed to be free to do here in America, and I still sometimes wonder. People are afraid to blog for fear of losing their jobs; corporate nondisclosure agreements trump freedom of speech; more and more, our lives seem to be organized by Microsoft Office and run by mutual fund investors who don’t even know they own CNN as part of their Moderate Risk portfolio.

So this mad, spontaneous, lawless neighborhood fireworks festival expresses freedom for me, as my friends drink and laugh and the Mexicans light fuses and run. Yes, we’re a nation of laws. Yes, a country probably needs some amount of cultural cohesion. Yes, it would be more convenient if we all spoke the same language.

But tomorrow isn’t a day to celebrate laws or social theory or convenience. Tomorrow the main thing is freedom, right? It’s Independence Day, is it not? So tomorrow, the main idea is:

You do your thing, and I’ll do mine.

Babe Ruth-like, I recently left one publisher’s freelance employ and took up with a rival. Before bringing me into their freelance fold, the new organization put me through a couple of psychological tests, which revealed, among other things, that I am not graceful in receiving criticism.

Which enraged me, of course.

For two reasons, actually:

The first being my agreement with my pal Bill Sweetland who once refused to submit to a performance review because, he told his supervisor, "I know my faults in infinitely more detail than you ever will!"

More importantly: I’m a writer—a real writer. Most of the time, when I give you a work product, it means I’ve considered a number of approaches, painfully settled on one, sweated and reconsidered most lines at least twice, stood and applauded at a few of my own phrases and eventually gazed, exhausted, at the whole thing and thought: Yes. This works.

So if I seem a little uptight, or "defensive" or "sensitive" during our "feedback" session, it’s not because I think it’s impossible that my piece could be improved. It’s because I’m waiting for you to prove that you’ve thought about the product as hard as I have; it’s because I need you to prove that there really is something wrong with my creation, or something that could be more right. (And yes, I take it "personally"; I made it, didn’t I?)

When you prove your thoughtfulness, coherently explain the reasons behind your criticism, I’ll be fine. Indeed, if you help me improve my work, I will be grateful. And if you do this frequently enough over time, I’ll come to trust your judgment and look forward to hearing what you have to say. But until you do so, I’m going to sound a little uptight on the phone, okay? (Don’t you be so sensitive!) *

To all corporate types who think the highest of all human values is professionalism and the graceful acceptance of "constructive criticism," I reply in the words of a construction crew foreman I know who once told a client who was badgering him, "You think I’m unprofessional? You think I’m unprofessional? Well, fuck you!"

* Has anyone discovered a way to somehow defer the defensiveness until you’ve had a chance to consider the feedback fully? I would be grateful for that.

An odd and spontaneous call from Vibe magazine had me covering an event at Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH headquarters on the South Side Saturday.

It was a pleasure to hear the Reverend preach (he’s funnier and more charismatic in church than when debating Pat Buchannan on MSNBC), and an equal pleasure to hear his followers respond.

In response to Jackson’s imploring of young people to vote, a woman seated behind me shouted an amen:

"Get off your booty and do your duty!"