Over on the Places & Spaces blog (the TU’s Real Estate blog – why it’s not just called “Real Estate blog” or something else less vague is high above my pay grade which has plateaued [...]]]>

Stretching the definition of "charity": Colonie home's "Extreme Makeover" (left) and recently usurped MDA Telethon host Jerry Lewis.

Today I read two instances of entertainment in the guise of charity gone awry that deserve our notice.

Over on the Places & Spaces blog (the TU’s Real Estate blog – why it’s not just called “Real Estate blog” or something else less vague is high above my pay grade which has plateaued at $0/hour) , reporter Chris Churchill updated a story about a house that was constructed as part of the ABC feel-good reality television series “Extreme Makeover.” The two-floor home, which occupies 3,700 square feet and includes five bedrooms, has been sold for an undisclosed sum (pending contract approval). The listed asking price was slightly above $400,000. The original blog post is here. As with the vast majority of other Times Union blogs, your best bet is to avoid the comments section entirely unless you’re some kind of intellectual masochist hellbent on ruining your own day.

Mere minutes before I came across the blog post, writer and film critic Roger Ebert tweeted a link to a blog post from Jon Wiener of The Nation about how some Muscular Dystrophy advocates (as well as other areas of the disabled) are breathing a sigh of relief for the departure of Jerry Lewis from his famous MDA Labor Day Telethon. It’s quite a read, chock full of affirmation of Lewis’s mythic condescension: references to children with MDA as “God’s goof,” incredibly rude comments about reporters who ask about the ethics of promising funds going towards a cure that doesn’t exist rather than stating and promoting the true purpose of the telethon (to provide services & care), and the fact that many who have MDA take issue with being referred to as “Jerry’s Kids” since they’re competent adults and don’t care for the portrayal of all with the disease as hopeless miscreants who need to be saved by the aging comedian’s generosity.

The two stories share a commonality: good intentions gone awry.

Well, kind of.

Invariably, a funny thing happens whenever ego or profit gets involved with charity. It distorts what could be a wonderful thing and a boon to others and instead exploits the recipients or does only a temporary good for the whole of the cause. In the first instance, regardless of what frustrated Delmartians will spit from their keyboards, we have a program that takes people in dire financial and emotional circumstances and puts them into a house which, no matter what farcical measures are taken, in the long run simply aren’t sustainable given their finances and personal situations. In the case of Jerry Lewis you have a man who, yes, raised a lot of money for an organization, but did it with such brazen ego and condescension as to potentially do actual damage to the cause and people he was (in his own supremely dysfunctional way) trying to help. Now he’s been uprooted from the program and like Pyotr Petrovitch in Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, has walked off in a huff noting the same black ingratitude Pyotr did for having his relentless commandments, demands, and poor attitude spurned by those who designed himself as saving, while promising to himself and others that either they’ll take him back or be sorry they parted ways.

It got me to thinking about the endeavor that myself and two friends, along with many others, are partaking in to raise money for the Special Olympics of NY. As a side note, our deadline has been extended – so please if you haven’t already, give a little to the cause! I’m fully aware and conscious of using my name, which isn’t “well known” but has an audience of anywhere from 4,000 to 6,000 unique readers a week if not more via this blog, to endorse or promote a charity. Some have leveled accusations of vanity against me for doing so, and though I counter with the idea that it’s all being done to raise funds, the same attitude and offenses could be applied towards me that I and many others have taken with Lewis over his antics during, before, and after the telethon in recent years.

Yet, still, I am conscious that a bit of it does rear its ugly head. It can’t help but seep through when you participate in a program like Over the Edge, which encourages local personalities to use their own notoriety (however small it may be such as in my case) to raise funds in a unique display of bombasticity. Yet, with this and all other charities I lend my name, voice, and words too, I promise you that I am forever conscious of the very real possibility that as human beings we are constantly tempted and swayed by our own inherent narcissism and self-interests. I want you all reading this to know that self-interest is not my intent in this or any other charities that I lend myself to. Not now, and not ever. Never has or will a demand or request be levied in exchange or as a qualification for my participation or support. Nor will there ever be expectations of such.

It needs to be said because, as in the examples cited above and others I’ve had dealings with first-hand, that is unfortunately not always the case despite our best interests and intentions.

Charity is more than just saying or giving support in some manner. It’s doing so without asking or expecting anything in return, ever. Not from the organizations, recipients, donors, fellow attendees, or anyone that would even be tangentially associated with it. It is always good practice, though, to at least ask yourself first what you’re giving to and what the motivations are for those who say they’re giving it or giving their time towards it. Because sometimes charity isn’t charity, but rather entertainment co-opting a cause to the detriment of the latter. Any good that comes of that is almost always, without fail, accidental. And temporary.

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Like almost everybody else this weekend, I felt an obligation to go see the film [...]]]> Thanks to everyone who has donated so far to New York Special Olympics! To get me and my teammates to rappel off the Crown Plaza and have a little fun yourselves while giving to charity, CLICK HERE.

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Like almost everybody else this weekend, I felt an obligation to go see the film adaptation of “Captain America.”

Growing up I was a big fan of the book. What intrigued me about the character wasn’t that he was a man out of time or that he was a symbol of perseverance and American pride. Rather, it was the stories that were written portraying him as a man conflicted, often finding himself at odds with what his government wanted him to do in the name of his country. Most Captain America stories, particularly those written in the 1970s and 1980s, were a far cry from the jingoistic image of Cap slugging Adolf Hitler smack dab in the jaw. In more complicated times with menacing but not unequivocally evil challenges to our nation’s position in the world, the genetically enhanced kid from Brooklyn often put honor before  policy. On more than one occasion when faced with the choice of falling in line or continuing as Captain America he gave up the mantle entirely and “retired.”

The trap for comic writers is that in writing these stories they can potentially isolate part of their audience. More importantly, unless it’s done carefully, what’s intended as a creative statement on what it means to be an American can come across as goofy and contrived. They are, after all, comic books.

Which is why this film focuses on Captain America in simpler times with an evil enemy. And it works. The action scenes are intense, the CGI is very impressive (particularly the seamless trick of creating the illusion of a ninety-pound pre-serum Chris Evans), and as Roger Ebert noted in his review, it includes a love story that you actually want to see and enhances rather than detracts from the narrative. The film also makes an effort to remind us that what makes Steve Rogers as Captain America an effective hero is the former part – Steve Rogers – rather than the latter. That ninety-pound kid has an organically heroic nature even before he meets the man that changes him forever, and while admittedly cheesy at times (a conceit one must make when going into any summer blockbuster let alone a comic book flick), it surprisingly doesn’t come across as melodramatic.

The film does much to set up the story and anticipation for next Summer’s long-awaited “The Avengers,” which will team the revived Captain America with the other franchises established by Marvel: Iron Man, Thor, and the Hulk, among others. What will be missing, though, is what makes this the hands down best superhero film since “The Dark Knight” and arguably the equal of Marvel’s other great offering “Iron Man”: a focus on one man, one protagonist, with one journey. The greatest challenge “The Avengers” will face won’t be Loki or Hydra, it’ll be measuring up to the surprisingly high measuring stick of The First Avenger, as the title calls him, “Captain America.”

BONUS: The trailer for the 1990 “Captain America” film, which featured Cap jumping onto the back of many a van.