Doc- Our Favorite Rambling Man

In 1990 or early ‘91 I decided to try out for the Dance department in four public high schools- three of them were to the east of me (Cardozo, Hillcrest, and John Bowne) in Queens, the borough I grew up in. To the west of me was LaGuardia high school of Music, Art, & Performing Arts in Manhattan, the borough I was born in and so technically, really from. For that school, I auditioned for the Dance and Drama department so that I could increase my chances of getting in. Stuyvesant is also in Manhattan, allows outer borough students to try out as well, but that place wasn’t my style in any way, shape, or form- LaGuardia, the “Fame” school, was. In a way. In some ways it wasn’t, and that’s not necessarily a compliment nor an insult to either myself or the school, it's just a hindsight observation.

I got into the other schools but didn't get into LaGuardia's Dance program. I did however, get a call back for another Drama audition. My Titi Janis coached me on my two monologues and advised me to look the same way I did on my first audition; same ponytail, same kind of clothes.

I got in. My down-on-my-knees prayer was answered. I got to regularly go to Manhattan again, back in my city. I was 14, taking the trains by myself for the first time, sporting a new haircut for my new life. These felt more like my “college years” than my actual college years later on.

Doctor Gregory Schneider was my freshman drama teacher as well as my first teacher there since acting was our first class. There were drama, dance and voice diction classes all morning, and the academic ones after lunch. The room was huge, white, sparse, and ready for us. We came from all the five boroughs, and were gathered around that first day to hear him introduce himself and state his expectations.

In his deep, serious voice, I thought he told us that it was his job, “to teach this crap”. “Oh no” I groaned to myself. “How jaded and world-weary is this guy?” Somehow years later it finally hit me that what he actually said was that it was his job to teach this craft, which of course changes everything and is way more fitting and aligned with the kind of person he was.

I don't fully remember the conversations he and I had walking down (and often lingering in!) the halls, but I do remember his enthusiasm. Once he shared with us that he didn't like wearing headphones in the train. Being engrossed in a walkman while outside was not something he liked because he wanted to absorb the world around him; the sights, the sounds, the rumbling of the train, the conversation bytes. He wasn't saying that's what we ought to do, he was just confiding in us in a friendly, sincere, and inspiring way. Yes I thought, I want to be like that too, even though majority of the time who am I kidding; those ear buds are playing music for me throughout the ride, my nose buried in a book, and goodbye to the world around me until I reach my stop. But anytime I'm on the train without them, I remember what he said. I felt very validated around him before I knew that was even a word. He wanted the best from us, and he wanted our truth.

There was a kid in my drama/dance/vocal classes who was also in one of my academic classes. I sat diagonally in front of him. From where he sat for about a week or so, he kept asking me to give him a blow job. No jokes, nothing clever or creative about his approach, it was just a straightforward plea over and over again.

“Yo, Tennille! Give me a blow job! Psst! Tennille! Come on! Gimme a blow job!”

Now I had never flirted with, talked to or shown any interest in this boy.  I was very annoyed with his stupid, empty harassment, but didn’t tell anyone.  I kept ignoring him and eventually he stopped. In acting class, he turned every freeze/improv game he jumped into to a gangsta holdup situation. “Yo, say your prayers, punk!” he’d shout with his imaginary gun. Doctor Schneider got so angry at this at one point that he stopped the game and yelled to him something like, “Every time you come and give me the same shit! You can do so much more, you don't have to regress to the same thing!”  He hated the thought of us wasting our talent, or getting in our own way.  I've never seen a teacher so angry for us. I was used to teachers yelling at us for something we were supposed to obey or follow, not because they felt we were cheating ourselves. He also allowed us to discuss the Rodney King incident the following day in class as he could see many of us were perturbed by the incident, something else I never saw a teacher let us do.

He didn't have a “Bah, Humbug! Get off my lawn!” old man kind of anger. His anger seemed to derive from the stuff of Passionate Youth. Yet he didn't awkwardly try to be down and relate to the kids like Mr. Rosso, the well-meaning Freaks and Geeks counselor, or like the outrageous and ridiculous Theodore Barron, Dave Foley’s English teacher character.

He once said that if you're playing a part on stage and become so riled up as that character that you uncontrollably lash out on someone, that's not acting. He once had us stand on stage doing nothing having us note how self-conscious we were about it. Then, he had us mentally count the boxes in the room on stage, giving us something to do. Many students said they now felt less self-conscious. I still felt self-conscious however, but carried that tip with me in life overall.

In his retirement video, one of his former students recalled him once advising, “the quickest way to avoid a bar fight with a Viet Nam vet is to ask him what regiment he was in- you know, because having to remember something calms the temper.”

My sophomore Drama teacher was Mr. Yusim. He was from Russia, (Moscow?), more authoritative, not as eloquent, and didn't give off that same life-loving, “I wanna take in the fascinating world around me” vibe. I don’t remember who my junior drama teacher was, it might have been Yusim again. By then I was cutting school more, my introversion, anxiety and depression were getting the better of me. I tried to adjust. I switched to more behind-the-scenes work like the Audio/Visual department, thumbed through a stage manager guide book one of the teachers lent me, delved into writing and literature, wondering if that might be more my thing. I eventually finished up in a different high school altogether though.  Mr. Yusim once advised me to push myself, that one has to go through life. I seemed to have taken his advice later on, showing up for life more, even if I don't always feel like it.

There’s going to be a memorial for Doctor Schneider, who had a brain tumor and passed away in December. They were waiting for warmer weather to arrange an outdoor get together and remembrance.

Needless to say, I was crushed when I found out. I really loved ‘Doc’. I wasn’t in love with him, never saw him in that way; he never crossed the line with me either- but he did mean a lot to me. And I come to find that he meant a lot to practically every one of his former students.

I feel like this memorial is going to be something like my 20 year high school reunion but with more of his friends and family. It might be heavier, or maybe like my Uncle Jeff's memorial in '08- festive, and with the bittersweet joy of remembering someone so fun to remember, and who so many of us were truly fond of.

Here's what his stepdaughter Jess posted on facebook about him in December:

Friends! … Countrymen! (Comrades)

I have terribly sad news,. Our Good Doctor has been called home. He chose the correct time to fuck right off the planet with the best of the aliens. He got the last seat on the Spaceship 2016 — turns out he always had one reserved. Which is why, if we’re being honest, we have always loved him.

Doc was an island for the misfits, a beacon for lost ships, a teacher for us all. And on his behalf, I would like to thank you for being part of his tribe (that’s the word he used when family was too pedestrian). To those of you who I don’t know, know that i am fully aware there are decades of students he reached whose names he cherished and who I never met. You/re as integral to his story as I am, as my mother is. I’m Jess. (Class of 99. SDF: Marat/Sade.) More importantly, I got Doc to marry my mom. Which means I got to share a life with him for the last 19 years, and that included over 15 years living with the effects of a brain tumor. He lasted so much longer than we were told he had a right to.

He picked a hell of a time to check out. And as much as we wish we could ask his advice on how to proceed in the new world order, we can know he didn’t deserve the sentence of living through it, having marched more than any of us in more revolutions than I can count. When I need to shorthand Doc, I tell people he once taught drama at Rikers to kids stupidly incarcerated as adults. That seems to sum it up pretty well.

We passed the point a few months ago, when he would have chosen to exit. If that choice were available to him. So that makes it ok, maybe. He died as you’d hope, surrounded by people who loved him. And soon we’ll celebrate this truly exceptional human, and thank the Gods he’d never believed in, that we were lucky enough to have him. I’ll send details when they exist — it’ll be when the weather is warm and we can congregate in Central Park like the hippies he wanted us to be, and remember, and laugh.

Love, to all of you. My mother sends a quote from just a bit ago, one of the last full Doc-isms we got:

“My philosophy of life is finding the joy in what you are randomly dealt.”

And truly, when the rest was lost, the last thing he had, his go-to move, was laughter.

May we all be so wise, and so lucky.

[Please feel free to share, and more importantly, leave your memories and photos below. Love to all of you.]

Getting ready to go out and celebrate the Doc with everyone

First stop, Central Park. Strawberry Fields Forever- Imagine all the people...

Next, a nearby Irish pub he liked, Malachy's Donegal Inn. These came out too dark but it's better than nothing xo

Parodies, Memories, and Illnesses

My dad's been sick with anemia and diabetes these past couple months and the one thing he’s truly adamant about is having his vegetable juice every morning along with his meds. He doesn't want Access-a-Ride, he doesn't want a home attendant helping him out for when he’s alone for most of the day, nor does he want a cane for when his gout acts up and can’t walk well; he just wants me to make his beets, carrots, cucumbers, and spinach juicified. According to my dad’s Tao book, these have the best nutrients for combating his illnesses.

The song “Thanks For the Memory” popped in my head the other day as I was preparing his drink, particularly the lines, “the park, the swings, those little things/you gave us from the heart”, lines I've always loved. These aren’t original songwriter Leo Robin’s lyrics though. This is part of my father’s parody that he wrote and sang in Co-Op City for his parent’s surprise 35th wedding anniversary party in 1985. I was 8 that year and thought that Uncle Bob’s big home video camera was from a real national network and that we were gonna be on TV.

“Hello everybody!” I joyfully greeted everyone, arms outstretched and welcoming. Then, feeling the need to go to the bathroom, I decided to let everyone know this. But since I thought the word “bathroom” was bad or at least too dirty to say on the air I spelled it out instead, and I think I spelled “b-a-t-h-r-o-o-m” with 3 o’s.  

Then it was time for Dad to take the stage and sing his song for everyone. He was so comfortable on the mic. He has an ease about him when he sings but still manages to give the words weight, a lot like his favorite singer Frank Sinatra used to do.

When I told Dad that the song was on my mind, he found the original on YouTube and played it for me. Dad tailored the lyrics specifically for his parents and it goes like this:

“Thanks for the memory

of all you had to teach

the Bronx and Orchard Beach

Although our name is Astor

and the dough was out of reach,

we thank you so much

Thanks for the memory

of Playland and its rides

Seaside with those Tides (which confused me because I thought he said “thighs”)

the zoo we knew so well

and with you our favorite guides

how lucky we were

Now that we're grown up we've shown up

to join in this great celebration

So on this special occasion

We're toasting to
the two of you and…

Thanks for the memory

of breakfasts for a start

hot dogs from the cart,

the park, the swings, those little things

you gave us from the heart

since our first breath

Thanks for the memory

Of mommy's rice and beans (and everyone chuckled)

Daddy's snoring dreams (laughter ensues)

He's not asleep just yet but you can bet beyond your means

he'll snore you to death (at this point I laughed too, especially at the word “snore”)

Now that you've heard what your life's been

you must know it wasn't so easy

Marriage is not for the queasy

we're all aghast

how you could last

We know it's been many years

since both of you were free

But think how it would be

if you hadn't gotten married…

What would that have made of ME?! (wild laughter here and years later I realized the joke was that he would have been a bastard. I just thought he meant that he wouldn’t have been born)

And thank you so much”

I heard Sinatra’s version years later, and frankly compared to Dad’s, didn't think much of it. I never knew it became Bob Hope’s theme song either until Dad told me that day. He points out how the song lends itself to parody by having a laundry list of memories and he found it easy to fill in the blanks with his own twist. To me, his version really shows how sweet, sentimental and funny he can be. I'm not suggesting that we've had nothing but a smooth father-daughter relationship all these years but we definitely share good memories. But there's something I just recently learned about him that makes me reconsider a lot of things. I don’t want to say it “explains a lot” but... it kind of does.

My great Uncle Raymond who died last month, would sexually abuse my father when he was a little boy. I am deliberately choosing the term abuse over molest because in Spanish, molestar just means to bother, to annoy. It doesn't carry the same weight when English speakers refer to someone who has been molested- so for me, someone who thinks a lot about English and Spanish cognates and root words, molest doesn't cut it. My father was more than bothered by his uncle. He was more than annoyed. His cousin Junior posted a picture of him on facebook the day he died which I think was March 18. I was telling Joe that normally I would have seen that and felt sad for another loss in our family. But because of what I now know, I didn't feel that when I saw his picture; I just looked at his face and thought... “a bad guy died”- Joe said, finishing my thought, but with a 'nicer' choice of words than I would have used.

This was the secret Dad kept to himself all these years- no, decades. This was the reason he was not interested in helping his uncle out with the rest of the family as they planned to take turns with driving him to chemo appointments, bringing food, and so forth. This is what he revealed to his sister Janis when she called to find out why he didn't want to help. And shortly after this revelation, my dad fell ill himself. My cousin Vincent and I correlate the two (revelation+illness) because they happened so back-to-back. Titi Janis and I grapple to forgive and understand/acknowledge/assume that someone must have abused Uncle Raymond too as a child, à la vicious cycle. Our minds are well aware of the fact that all evil and abuse did not beget with Uncle Raymond. But our hearts still struggle with the anger and contempt.

I’ve held so many jobs over the years that involve helping children in one way or another- tutoring, babysitting, serving as an after school teacher, sub, volunteering in my daughter's public school cafeteria and schoolyard. I remember learning about Catcher in the Rye’s Holden Caulfield wanting to guard children playing in a rye field (?), to keep them from falling off “the edge”, and realizing many years later that that's how I felt, especially when monitoring the children in the schoolyard, that's what I thought of. I feel like we need to fight abuse and evil somehow. Desperation, exploitation, and violence seem to be part of the human condition, that never seems to go away. But neither does the will and desire to combat it- and to survive the aftermath and heal. And survive again. And heal. Again. And again.