'Chain of Fools'

As a child growing up in the Washington, D.C. area, trips to the Smithsonian were frequent and illuminating; if it was Sunday and it was raining, my mom and I were in a museum on the Mall or in the National Portrait Gallery.

It was a world class refuge and it was free - and that meant a lot to my single mom and me, and the millions of others who visited the apex of our cultural institutions.

If my dad was in D.C. for a visit (after my parents split up when I was four) it would be a trip to the Mall to climb on the Triceratops statue and stare in awe at the Foucault pendulum at National Science Museum or the rockets of the Air and Space Museum.

I went to elementary school in the Maryland suburbs; trips to the Smithsonian were so frequent it seemed like a second classroom.

My childhood was filled with dinosaurs, Native American pottery and awe-inspiring paintings that told a majestic and complicated story of a nation imbued with abundant natural wonder and fierce beauty but also a roiling undercurrent of a dark past, hidden amongst its aggrandizement and glorification.

There is no way to deny that if you understand what you are looking at when history is presented to you in a truthful and representative fashion. That’s why museums matter.

The triumph of America, at least looking backwards from this sad precipice we now find ourselves on, is in the eventual spark of equanimity and hope that springs forth from its founding ideals.

Examples of which are far too few in our tardy march toward progress. That is why they are so important and must be protected.

Especially places like the National Museum of African American History and Culture - the fact that it only opened in 2016 tells you how slow we are to fully paint the picture of who we are and where we came from as a country - and how far we still have to go. That is why it is so vitally important that it remain open and accessible.

Without these cultural institutions serving the purposes they were designed for, what story will they be telling in the rebranding that Trump has charged JD Vance with enacting?

They are literally whitewashing history in attempting to erase a record of the contributions of the people who struggled and strived to make this nation a better place and bring us into some sort of moral rectitude; an American administration obscuring the truthful story of this bountiful and often cursed country.

African Americans also blessed us with a vibrant cornucopia of artistic and academic excellence of which we can find a beacon of hope within the graceful elegies of who we have once been but better yet who we can be moving forward.

When you pull out the multicolored threads in a tapestry, you destroy the beauty and artfulness of a masterful design beyond your current awareness - and are left holding a rag.

Trump was always the kind of guy who likes to stomp on flowers. Truth offends him as does beauty. He is not a man who understands art and culture, nor are his children. For such wealthy people, the thing that stuck me most when I worked around them was how uncultured they were.

I lived right off Museum Mile in New York City for decades - there was never any danger of running into the Trump clan in any of those world class institutions, or at Lincoln Center or a Broadway show.

They are simply too dumb to appreciate the culture their wealth affords them access to and never showed any interest in being patrons of the arts.

Trump is a philistine and so are his children. He once scammed a charity in his name for a self-portrait of himself which now hangs in Mar-a-Lago. He will most likely destroy the Kennedy Center and remake it into a MAGA-themed spectacle that will make Branson, Missouri look like La Scala.

His desire to insert himself into every aspect of our cultural, economic and political life is larger than any threat this nation faced in the Cold War.

In many ways, Trump is an extension of that war and his systematic dismantling of our federal government is the only proof you need of his intentions - and those of his awful compatriots like Elon Musk and Vladimir Putin.

The world’s tyrants are cheering our demise while the people who will be hurt the most are still oblivious to the threats we face. It’s maddening - and its gonna be hard to get them to care about anything other than Trump ever again. His power has always been the cultural hold and visceral bond he has with his supporters.

The guys I knew as kids who grew up to be MAGA supporters were the ones who never had any books in their homes. Their parents had guns and flags but never any books. They loved the ‘Good ol’ USA’ but they didn’t fully know what it was; the ‘love it or leave it’ tribe who has never actually been anywhere else. They certainly weren’t visiting museums much unless it was the kind that had baseballs in ‘em.

The theater was a joke to them; a sign of something they didn’t understand and felt inclined not to tolerate. There’s a shorthand that comes with cultural unsophistication that Trump shares with his followers and it magnetizes them.

This isn’t so much about socioeconomics either; most of these kids had nice houses and more money than I did growing up. Someone failed to make a connection for them and they happened to come up at a time where Reagan actively attacked arts education in public schools.

I was lucky to find a thirst for creative expression early and more importantly I understood the NEED for it. I didn’t have an easy childhood by most measures but I had great art and music all around me - and opportunities to see that struggle and uncertainty are no match for the human spirit. My earliest memories were seeing beauty bloomed everywhere in spite of the darkness.

That we could still dance in times of sorrow and sing of a world we wanted to see -even if our own circumstances were still so far from it. I loved witnessing on those fields trips - seeing my classmates of all colors find heroes in our collective story that looked just like them.

They deserved that and so do you because we are all richer for it. This anti-DEI narrative is abhorrent in all areas of public and civic life but perhaps nowhere more egregious than when it comes to the arts.

It is the tenderhearted that become our greatest teachers. The visionaries that forged great suffering into great art. Soulful alchemists who leave treasures in their wake. America is richer for these masters; many of their achievements have come at great personal cost. We owe it to our emissaries to preserve their works for the generations to come.

When I think of the American story my mind always goes to jazz music.

The first time I heard it performed live was on a field trip to the Kennedy Center. I sat in a plush velvet chair in a building that looked like it cost all the money in the world - it opened six months after I was born so I was an early acolyte.

The sound of a trumpet, a trombone, a saxophone and a drum kit beating like a human heart went into my ears and shot out of the bottom of my swinging feet that didn’t quite touch the carpeted floor - I was amazed - and awakened.

When I think of the way this nation has treated the people who responded to centuries of enslavement, racial injustice and systemic segregation with a gift to the world as mighty as jazz, gospel and blues music, I am ashamed and in awe. And forever grateful to them for lighting the path forward.

It is, in my opinion, a high point in artistic achievement; not just the brilliant music alone but what it says about the human spirit. That you can respond to sorrow with song; that you can tell the story of your people right under the nose of your oppressor and not only offer hope to your brethren but redemption to your tormentor.

Grace personified and turned into a gift for the ages.

That is love and courage in action, that is the best of us - that is what the arts can communicate - and precisely why Trump & MAGA fear them and institutions like the Smithsonian and the Kennedy Center.

I began my career in live television at the 1993 Kennedy Center Honors. I was twenty-two years old at the time, studying acting in Washington, D.C. and working as a waiter in a barbecue restaurant.

I lived in an old farm house in suburban Maryland with two lesbian women and a pot-bellied pig. One of the women was my mother; I remember her dropping me off on the Kennedy Center’s promenade early one November morning. I went inside not sure what I was doing or if I even belonged but I had been invited by the production coordinator to show up to work as a production assistant.

I had a hunch it might be a good thing.

I stood there in the darkness of the backstage of the Opera House. Excited. Lots of equipment and techs buzzing about. After a minute or two a woman in a headset, dressed in all black, came up to me and gave me a once over and handed me a French horn and told me to follow her.

She said they needed to do camera blocking, led me out to the stage and placed me on a riser with a bunch of other stand-ins. We were under the bright lights; the cameras were arrayed across the stage and attached to jibs. I looked out at the hall and saw some important-looking men in the front row (George Stevens Jr. and Don Mischer).

A voice came over the PA and said, ‘Ok, take it from the top…’

Just then, a second riser appeared from backstage holding the entire Washington Performing Arts Gospel Choir; I felt a surge of exhilaration, as they were a force before the even sang a note. There was an energy amassing on the stage.

Then from stage right, Billy Preston was pushed out, sitting behind a Hammond B3 organ as the music swelled - from stage left came none other than Aretha Franklin.

I could not believe my eyes and ears, the ‘Queen of Soul’ was singing ten feet in front of me.

The song finished and I was suitably blown away but one of the important-looking guys in the front row said, ‘Hey Aretha, can we try it again and maybe with even more commitment…?’

I couldn’t believe he just said this to her - and the way her eyebrow arched it wasn’t what she expected to hear either - but she took the note gracefully and said plainly, ‘Ok, I can do that,’ and walked back into the wings. A nervous tension crackled in the air.

Back to the top we went - but this time, when Aretha came out, it was not only turned up to eleven, it was as if she was reaching into the heavens and pulling down the musical notes like they were lightning bolts, tossing them on the assembled mortals. Melting hearts and touching souls in a fiery tribute to the great African American singer Marion Williams who was being inducted into the Kennedy Center Honors that year.

Spellbinding.

Even Billy Preston, who spent a lifetime bumping into geniuses and making them better, looked impressed. My eyes welled with tears, as did everyone elses’ on the riser. Goosebumps ran across my skin and electricity through my spine.

The choir kicked in and it was the most powerful thing I had ever felt or witnessed - and I knew whatever I had just stumbled into was where I was staying for good. I was hooked.

The arts are capable of helping us reach other dimensions.

I knew this was special - a door had opened for me and I was damn sure gonna walk through it. Or better yet, surrender to it. I looked around and every cameraman and stage hand had tears in their eyes. The two esteemed producers sat open-mouthed and awestruck. Pleased beyond words.

When Aretha finished she simply held out her hands in their direction - as if to say, ‘How’s that gentlemen, happy now?’ - a slight knowing smile crossed her face and she walked off stage right. Badass.

I had the pleasure of working on quite a few shows with Aretha for many years after that day - and told her that story and how I decided in that very moment to work in the performing arts. Whatever that meant or wherever it led, I was down for the ride.

Every time I saw her she would say ‘Hey, you’re the goose pimple kid!’

The arts are our common legacy, our glue as a people and our best hope to shine a light on the path of transcendence and even better, redemption. They are how a nation begins to heal and move forward as a people - and learn from our past.

Like so much else under attack these days, we must fight to save our cultural institutions and preserve the integrity and autonomy of those who seek to illuminate our story.

Art is life. It matters.