My grandfather is a man from another era.

An ex-communist who went to hundreds of Yankee games in the Ruth-Gehrig era (including a good handful in the 1927 “Murderer’s Row” season), he was married to my grandmother for more than 50 years and spent most of his adult life as a purveyor of kosher chickens, selling Southern Fried rotissieres to the Jewish people of Queens and Astoria. He put three sons through medical school on chickens, sent me and my sister to camp on chickens.

I don’t suppose he especially wanted to be a chicken man when he was growing up. Or maybe he did want to be - I never asked him, really.

South America’s been an adventure, but I guess this one’s over. My grandfather’s sick, and I’m going to try to go see him before he dies. He’s paralyzed, has cancer, is 94 years old…it doesn’t look great.

The only question is when. As always, it’s hard to know when people are going to die. Part of me is saying go back right away. Part of me says wait till the beginning of August when I can stay in New York for a couple of solid weeks. If his condition remains stable, I think I’m going to wait.

Anyway, the long and short of it is that I’m going back. And since I don’t have any money anyway, I figure I might as well stay in the United States for a while - kick it in North Carolina, maybe get a job. Make some cash and stack my chips. Feel real old and kinda weird, living with my folks. A man at home with his folks. A scary sight at age 32. It sure is.

But who the hell cares? I mean at this point… really? You still give a fuck about how people see you … really? I don’t know when I started being self-conscious, but it’s a habit I’m pretty keen to kick. I mean, I’m not proud, exactly, of being a major-league fuck up, but the fact is, everybody and his brother is out of work, changing their careers, “re-tooling” … I’m not the only one struggling, am I? If California can’t pay its bills, why should I be able to?

My grandfather was more than a chicken man. He was an electrician for a while, worked in the shipyards. He was well-read, a funny public speaker, and a fervent spokesman for his political ideals (which he remains, to this day). Nonetheless, he did chickens. To a certain extent, I don’t think it much mattered to him how he made his money. I gather he never thought of using his profession to fulfill some noble desire; rather, the goal was to be able to survive, and provide well for your family. Your family bestowed meaning upon your life. Not your job.

When my grandfather was my age, the year was 1946. My father was four and my uncle had just been born. The family was living in Brooklyn, he’d been married for more than five years, owned a house, had been through the Great Depression, was surrounded by a family of Orthodox Jews who were more observant than him. When he drove around on the Sabbath to deliver chickens, in the early days of his business, he used to crouch low in the seat to avoid being spotted …

And me? The only job I’ve ever held down for longer than six months is shooting large groups of black dudes overpowering a tiny little sex object, film it wrap it up and send it off. I’ve got nothing to show for my work but thousands of dollars of debt, a haphazard map of short-sighted international travels, complemented by a handful of broken-spoken languages, a massive supply of off-color stories, a small cluster of old girlfriends who must automatically shake their heads ruefully whenever they hear my name, barrels of thrift store clothing, ten million journals, 250 hours of carefully labeled Grateful Dead bootlegs, an unfinished documentary film, an unfinished comic book, an unfinished novel.

They bestowed upon me freedom and opportunity.