At what point should we decide to care about someone we don’t know?
Glover’s new short film, Second Line, suggests that we should care as soon as we see them. I get that. I really do. But I have to admit that it’s hard, sometimes, to stop for a person you don’t know, to give them something of yourself, only to face rejection.
Just the other day, in my typical mad dash to get to the gym on time, I accidentally dropped three music CDs. They rolled into the middle of a busy intersection. For a second, I thought about rushing back to retrieve them, but I kept moving, certain that the drivers would honk or worse, hit me if I dared to stand in their way between work and home.
A man with gentle eyes and a graying afro stopped his car. He yelled from his window, “You dropped your CDs.” I told him that I knew, but then he pointed to the passenger in his car and said: “He’ll go get them for you.”
Yumi
Glover speaks in Oakland about his new film.
This random act of kindness reminded me of what Glover said the release of a movie he directed. We are all part of a larger community, he said, and can learn a lot more by working together.
The “it takes a village” message was echoed by writer Nicole Middleton.
“My hope in making Second Line was to twofold: One to show people that it’s not just important to be aware of others you encounter on a daily basis, but that positive things can happen to you when you engage yourself with those around you,” Middleton said via e-mail.
Bill Pegg
Nicole Middleton at Oakland party.
“Humanity is one of the most important things about being human,” she added. “The other was to creatively show how a community shapes a person as a human being.”
Still, it might be tough for me, for any of us, to look a stranger in the eye, to give a dollar, to take a risk and face rejection.
And that’s where second line, the tradition from New Orleans, comes in.
Second line originally referred to the mourners that followed the band at funerals. On the way to the funeral, the music was quite somber, but on the way back, the music quickened and became quite lively.
Nowadays, second line is loosely defined as a “jaunty, syncopated rhythm in 2/4 time, often used in the rhythm and blues and jazz of New Orleans.”
Dan Baum, a former New Yorker writer who covered Hurricane Katrina, wrote a book that explains why second line and second-line clubs are among the things that makes the people of New Orleans an example to the folks right here in the San Francisco Bay Area.
“They’ve got the essential American equation exactly reversed,” Baum told Smiley in a 2009 interview. “Most of us, even those of us who don’t have much money, most of us have more money than time, whereas in New Orleans, people have more money than time. And that’s how they organize their lives. So, they see their friends all the time. They’ve got time to sit on the porch They’ve got time to have a drink with their friends. Boil crawfish. Life is built around the stuff that has meaning, the time with your friends and your family, not around your job and getting things done.”
In his short film, Glover plays a San Francisco businessman who definitely is among the people more focused on money than time. His car won’t start. He’s late for work. This man is not happy. And he let’s everybody knows it, by ignoring them.
As the businessman walks, a young man playing the drums says hello, but the man walks right by him. A moment later, the businessman tries to get the attention of a cab, but the driver ignores him.
A few seconds later, a young woman struggles to get a stroller down the stairs looks up at the businessman, but he walks right on by.
At the intersection, a pizza boy almost loses his delivery when the man brushes by him. The delivery boy expect an apology or even a nod, but the man keeps going.
Beneath a tree, a young girl waits for someone to help her with her kite, but the man seems oblivious.
All of a sudden, the man stops. He seems to think that every person he has encountered is following him. He also believes that each person has been dancing and marching to music, inspired by the drummer. But when he looks behind, he sees nothing.
By the time he reaches his destination, the businessman runs into a sharply dressed businesswoman (my friend and TKB buddy Diana Weng). She has no time to say hello. The businessman smiles anyway, and looks back at a homeless man he just met. A nod is exchanged, the homeless man gets up. And the second line begins again.
Yumi
Diana Weng with cast and crew at party in Oakland.
That’s why this movie, despite being viewed by some as too idealistic, too commercial (it’s funded by an insurance firm) or too soft on panhandlers, has lessons for us all: Get to know your neighbor, even if they don’t want to know you. Say hello, even if they don’t say hi back. Offer to help, even if they say they don’t want it.
If nothing else, let the rhythm move you. Who knows? You might like what you see. And hear.
