When I was in Israel in December, I visited the Aish center in Jerusalem to meet with Jamie Geller for this extensive conversation. They have the most enviable view over the Western Wall, and it’s ordinarily the location in which they film their interviews - on the rooftop overlooking the holiest Jewish site in the world. However, when I arrived, it had been heavily raining so we filmed indoors. Jamie asked me more intimate and personal questions than I’m accustomed to delving into, and since this interview was published I’ve been thinking more about some of the prompts she kept coming back to, including questions about whether or not I ever ask “why me?” about the blacklisting, and my journey into activism. I never ever wonder “why me?”. I just think about what I have to do about the issues I’m presented with. She asked a few times what breaks me. Again, I am not easily broken.
These last few weeks, life has presented me with some complicated, unpredictable tests. Yesterday, to try and regain some perspective I went to a Holocaust exhibit; a beautiful gallery of portraits of remaining survivors and celebrities offering their “Borrowed Spotlight” to the death-defying stories of these individuals. It soothed me. If that sounds strange, I’ll take it. I find comfort in survival stories. In the will to tell them. I’ve always wanted to help people use their voice. I’ve always tried to turn up the volume instead of encouraging silence.
Today, I’m trying to escape into things I love to feel something other than the war that has been driving me to fight for so long. The period of my memory that always feels like a solid bet is Manchester, which Jamie didn’t ask me about during our interview. I studied and lived there between the ages of 17 and 20. I studied law but I really excelled in becoming an expert on New Order, the Buzzcocks, Stone Roses, Durutti Column etc. The way I can’t place the year or the location on “People’s Pleasure Park” but I would live inside it forever. That’s what I’m trying to find. The inside of the joke you share with the only other person who gets it. And that rhythm section. Sublime.
Anyway, enjoy the episode. And as ever if you would like to support Blacklisted, please subscribe for $10/month, or $100/year.
