EDGE on the Net

My waiter friend George likes to tell the story of a busboy at his restaurant who, in George’s words, was the lousiest employee he’d ever met. The guy was always late, always calling in sick, and always letting others take up the slack. George was thrilled when management fired the dude, and didn’t expect to hear about him again. That all changed shortly after the busboy got a new job. One beautiful morning, in typical, lazy fashion, the guy overslept, or just didn’t want to get out of bed on such a gorgeous Fall day, called the restaurant, and made some poor sap cover for him. He never made it into work, although he did eventually get himself dressed and into the subway station headed straight to Windows on the World, the restaurant on the 106th and 107th floors of the World Trade Center’s North Tower.

The Busboy soon became one of the Heroes of 9/11, on the news, in the papers, everywhere telling his amazing story of luck and fate and (somehow) bravery that kept him minutes away from a tragic death, and got him a hefty check from the government! George ends the story by pondering over what true hero died that day doing the work of the creep who lived to tell the tale.

A lot has changed since Tina Turner sang "We Don’t Need Another Hero" for the 1985 movie "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome" (most prophetically, the transformation of rising star Mel Gibson into fallen angel Mad Mel), and George’s seemingly cynical morality tale is poetic justice for today’s wanna-be mythic world. The more we seek out heroes, the more severe the hero worship hangover becomes. US Airways Flight 1549’s "Miracle on the Hudson" made a hero out of pilot Chesley Burnett Sullenberger III, and we all looked up into the New York skies with new hope. Now some of those 155 passengers are a tad upset over the losses the airways’ insurance company, A.I.G. -- yes, that A.I.G. -- doesn’t want to reimburse them for, and the sky is falling like missing luggage.

Air France’s fatal flight over the Atlantic produced enough nightmarish news for the world that it only made sense for the stories of absent passengers to Busbar up the press coverage. Like the Twin Towers’ busboy, we’ve been bombarded with personal, heartwarming tales from people whose sole reason for journalistic coverage is that they didn’t board their scheduled flight. They’re not leading revolutions in Iran, they’re not being held prisoner in North Korea, and they’re no David Letterman. Yet by giving them the spotlight, we’re holding them up to a divine, proxy light.

The gays are fed up with Obama’s silence and broken promises, and rightly so. Godot came quicker. After the Administration’s brief in defense of DOMA -- which, given the comparisons to incest and pedophilia, might just as well have been labeled DO(G)MA -- every gay bar, chat room, and networking site has been filled with so much Obama vitriol that they’re starting to list Dick Cheney’s pro-gay-marriage statements as a reason to re-think the elephant in the bomb shelter room. That’s an un-Godly thought.

The gay writer, blogger, and (former) Democratic donor, William Mann, told me, in regards to the DOMA brief, that "It’s needless, horrific homophobia, and completely baffling. While I might support the President’s agenda in other areas, I no longer have any faith that he will do anything for gay people. I can no longer make excuses for him. It’s up to him to now prove me, and many others, wrong."

If Obama’s still on his Presidential honeymoon, he just gave the gay community an STD. Remember Obamania? Barack’s healing powers? The notion that he transcends politics? The President himself didn’t endorse those faith-based voting initiatives, but he sailed above their waters to victory. His wife, who told us he was the only contender who could fix our souls, served as lead disciple, with Christ himself as spiritual advisor.

Much has been made of Jon Voight’s fundraiser comment, "Let’s give thanks to [Republicans] for not giving up and staying the course to bring to an end this false prophet, Obama," and rightly so. Voight’s apocalyptic speech was reprehensible (the actor also compared him to -- hint, hint -- Julius Caesar), and a blatant endorsement for vigilante action. Like Palin rallies before him, it was accepted without a hint of Party rebuttal. But those who play the Christ card have to know that with mass idolatry comes mob mentality. Just ask the last President, or Jesus.

Politicians should never be put on a pedestal, for they can never maintain their stature. Nor should they be expected to. They are public servants, paid for by us, who work for us, and who are elected and replaced by us. Obama’s heroic "victory" that arrived with more fanfare than a Spielberg/McDonald’s tie-in can’t keep outdoing itself; the sooner we throw out the mythical script the sooner we can get down to making sure he gets the job done.

The film "Up" not only succeeds in telling the story of an elderly man who travels across the world as a promise to his dead wife (how many people would go see the unanimated version of that?), but it profoundly shows us the disillusionment of childhood heroes. The 78-year-old lead (with a voice by Ed Asner) discovers on his journey that his lifelong idol (Christopher Plummer on the microphone) is a fraud. Asner’s character learns late in life what we all need to understand; the only real idols are standing in front of us. Pixar, the company that’s quickly gaining heroic status for its quality of animated films, deserves kudos for pulling this one off, but even happy hopeful families might be a bit disillusioned when they arrive at the theater to find the 3-D feature upped the price of the film (a whopping $16 in New York City). Heroes always come with a catch.

Fallen Catholic hero Alberto Cutie ("Padre Oprah" to his legions of fans) was demonized when caught canoodling on a beach with a woman. Heroic Episcopalian Priest Alberto Cutie received standing ovations when he left his new church, bride at his side. Throw a Middle Eastern country in there, and you could be referring to Sunnis and Shiites.

My hero growing up was Charlton Heston (we all know how that one turned out). I didn’t know anything of his politics and I didn’t care. I knew of his hairy, buffed chest hosed down by primates in "Planet of the Apes," and that was enough to make me his disciple. I would have bitch-slapped anyone over Teri Garr’s honor, until I finally met her and she insulted me in front of a group of friends. My long-ago friend Joe once told me the story of peeing in the urinal next to Paul Newman, and, as difficult as it was, not glancing over out of respect for the icon. It was Joe who stopped being my hero after he admitted to that missed opportunity.

Lest you think I’m absent of idols, I have galaxies full of them. The guy who dared speak to the apes and help end racial barriers made me want to make the world a better place (and beef up a bit too). Whether playing Inga in "Young Frankenstein" or Dustin Hoffman’s neurotic friend Sandy in "Tootsie," Teri Garr’s wonderful characters make me laugh out loud and lift me somewhere above the ordinary. Atticus Finch is my hero, along with a bevy of Dickens’ characters and Jane Austin heroines. Bette Midler’s musical mayhem will always be wind beneath my wings, and I can still turn on the TV, drop in a DVD, and go over the rainbow with Dorothy and her brave, smart, heartwarming friends. We don’t need to keep making up heroes when the truest ones exist where they’re most needed; in the ether of imagination.