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Phil Kaye, performing at Gray Area in San Francisco, CA.
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Transcript provided by YouTube (unedited)
0:02
– Ojichama is what I call my Japanese grandfather.
0:08
In 1945, his Tokyo home was burned to the ground.
0:13
Grampy is what I call my American grandfather.
0:17
In 1945 he was serving on the USS Shangri-La,
0:21
sending off American planes
0:24
to burn down Japanese houses.
0:28
Our jaws have not yet healed.
0:31
1906, Poland.
0:35
Grampy’s father is hiding in an oven.
0:39
He doesn’t know the irony of that yet.
0:42
He has heard men singing on the streets below.
0:45
Hyenas, my family calls them.
0:48
After celebration drinks and song,
0:50
the outside townspeople come in to the Jewish ghetto
0:53
for a celebration beating,
0:56
molar fireworks and eyelid explosions.
1:00
Even when Grampy’s father grows up,
1:02
the sound of sudden song breaks his body into a sweat.
1:08
Fear of joy is the darkest of captivities.
1:14
1975, Tokyo.
1:17
My father, a long-haired student
1:19
with a penchant for sexual innuendo,
1:21
meets Reiko Hori, a well-dressed banker
1:24
who forgets the choruses to her favorite songs.
1:27
12 years later, they give birth to a lanky light bulb.
1:31
1999. My mother speaks to me in Japanese.
1:36
Most days, I don’t have the strength
1:39
to ask her to translate the big words.
1:43
We burned that house down, Mother.
1:45
Don’t you remember?
1:48
1771, Prague.
1:52
In the heart of the city,
1:53
there’s a Jewish cemetery, the only plot of land
1:57
where Grampy’s ancestors were allowed to be buried.
2:01
When they ran out of room, they had no choice
2:03
but to stack dead bodies, one on top of another.
2:06
Now there are hills
2:08
made from graves piled 12 deep,
2:11
individual tombstones jutting out crooked,
2:14
like valiant teeth emerging from a jaw left to rot.
2:20
1985, my parents’ wedding.
2:24
The two families sit together,
2:26
smiling wider than they need to.
2:28
Montague must be so happy.
2:30
We can Capulet this all go.
2:34
1999, I sit with Grampy’s cousin,
2:39
91 years old and dressed in full military uniform.
2:44
He says, “Hate is a strong word,
2:50
but it is the only strength that I have left.
2:53
How am I to forgive the men
2:55
that severed the trunk of my family tree
2:57
and used its timber to warm the faces
2:59
of their own children?”
3:03
2010, Grampy and I sit together
3:07
watching his favorite: baseball.
3:11
Grampy sits on his wheelchair,
3:15
teeth gasping out of his gums like valiant tombstones
3:20
emerging from a cemetery left to rot.
3:23
The teeth sit staring, and I can read them:
3:27
Louie Bergman, killed at Auschwitz.
3:30
Sarah Liz, killed at Dachau.
3:31
William Kaye, killed at the coast of Okinawa.
3:35
“I will never forget what has happened
3:38
to our family, Grampy.”
3:41
And he looks at me with the surprised innocence
3:43
of a child struck for the first time.
3:47
“Phillip, forgetting is the only gift I wish to give you.
3:53
I have given away my only son,
3:56
trying to bury my hate in a cemetery
3:58
that is already overflowing.
4:01
There are nights I am kept awake
4:02
by the birthday songs of children
4:06
I chose not to let live.
4:09
They all look like you.
4:12
A plague on both your houses.
4:15
They have made worms’ meat of me.”
4:21
(audience applauding)
—
This post was previously published on YouTube.
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