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HOMELESS IN AN ALL-AMERICA CITY

Pietrodangelo Production Group's documentary, "Homeless in an All-America City" has won three major national awards in the Houston Film Festival, the New York Film Festival and the Telly Awards. The program was recognized in the Documentary Under 30 Minutes Category.  In addition, the documentary was selected for screening at the Sarasota Film Festival.

 Click here for a preview of "Homeless In An All-America City"

 Opinions

     Tallahassee Democrat, February 2, 2006

Dogs

By Danny Pietrodangelo

It’s pretty clear they own him – and it stinks like a week old litter box. I’m talking about Democrat feature writer Mark Hinson and the feline lobby. He shamelessly promotes cats in his weekly column, slyly trying to endear us to these creepy creatures. I’m calling you out Mark. What’s the deal? Those lobbyists feeding your catnip problem? Giving you free tickets to the Pussy Cat Dolls concert? We’re onto you, you otherwise talented furball.

Every dog has its day my friend and that day’s today. It’s all about fair play.

You see, dogs know all about play.  Cats? Not likely. Ever hear someone say “I’m going outside to play with the cat?”

Unlike cats, dogs are really versatile: You’ve got your house dogs and your yard dogs; huntin’ dogs and sock-gatherer dogs; Lap dogs and bed-hoggers; little dogs that ride in Paris and Brittany’s purses (probably cats in disguise) and real dogs like the soldier dogs serving in Iraq or K-9 dogs protecting us here at home and the beagles who work in the Miami airport bravely sniffing out contraband fruit and vegetables for our safety.  

For me, dogs are an adult acquired habit; my wife, a former psychiatric nurse, says I suffer from dog deprived childhood syndrome. Like so many other victims, it’s not my fault. You see, as a child  my father was a mailman  – back when they drove those slow, one-gear, one ton bikes. Pure dog bait.  I had to settle for Lassie and Rin-Tin-Tin.  For the longest time I thought dogs only came in black and white.

Let’s go back to the matter of play. Now living with three labs, I’ve learned, to a dog, everything’s a toy and, when they’re home alone – its playtime. Imagine the fun of unstuffing the couch; the challenge of gnawing the leg off a dining room or turning that tiny, upturned corner of wall paper into a naked kitchen wall. Dogs  enjoy equal opportunity fun:  the new Cole-Haans are just as engaging as your old Nikes.  And you know she’s been having a heck of a good time when she greets you at the door -  dripping with syrup and covered in flower - after a fun filled afternoon pantry raid. Get that kind of entertainment Felis catus? No way. Dogs really know how to have fun.

Now talk about self assurance. What says social graces be damned more than a creature lying spread eagle on his back, a drooling tongue hanging out of his mouth, paws peddling the air, chasing a cat – or maybe my father – in doggy dreamland.

You’ve got to admire a dog’s agility and determination. Just the other day I was playing catch with our yellow lab Zoey. Tennis ball in mouth, happily scampering back, she deftly scoops up another ball – barely breaking her stride – than skids to a dead stop. Intensely, she turns her head from side to side, studying yet a third tennis ball hidden under a bush. Every lab owner (and I use the term “owner” loosely) knows what she’s thinking: “Sure my mouth is bulging with balls. But I can do this. It’s just one more. No big deal. No problem.” 

But not all dogs are destructive – or exceptionally agile. Take Buddy, the dog formerly known as Prince (his name until we liberated him from big dog rescue.) At two, Buddy’s a sweet, loveable 80 lb black lab who’s well, not exactly a candidate for Mensa. He must have missed ball-catching day at lab school, “Buddy, it’s not supposed to bounce off your head. You’re supposed to catch the ball.” But offer him a treat and he’ll recite multiplication tables.   And, puppy that he is, when it thunders, this big palooka slinks up to the top of the bed so he can wrap his lanky body around the safety of your head.

Growing up dogless has its benefits. I was spared the terrible sadness of knowing I’d outlive my friend. Sally, our third lab and the sweetest dog ever born is 14.  She can no longer jump on the bed, which she accepts with dignity – while it tears at my heart.

I absolutely hate the expression “putting a dog down.” You put down a coffee cup or a newspaper, not a friend who’s given so much. “Putting your dog to sleep” might be a naïve expression, but it slightly lessens the awful pain of leaving the vet's office, after you stood there, rubbing her head, as I did for our yellow lab Abby, as she sweetly drifted away.  Yes, being there at the end breaks your heart, but at the very least she deserves it and together you find closure, knowing  you’re a better person for having had her in your life.

Besides, all dogs go to heaven and before long, when you’re ready, another little ball of fur will come scampering into your life.

Because as a dog lover knows: there’s nothing softer than a dog’s ear, colder than a canine nose, toastier than a fur bearing foot warmer or wetter than a, “I’m up, you need get up so we can play,” lick . A cat?  I don’t think so.

 You Can’t Rebuild 58 Years

By Danny Pietrodangelo

You can’t really grasp the scope of loss until you get up-close and personal. Looking at what was left, I couldn’t help thinking it might have been better if the Colonel came back and his home was simply gone. That it had been washed into the Bayou and then Gulf, leaving nothing but a slab of mud and lost memories. Seeing it in ruins had to be worse.

 “Fifty eight years are gone,” he whispered through teary eyes, shortly after we met. A veteran of World War II, Korea and Vietnam, the 83 year old soldier surrendered to the fact that, “you can’t rebuild 58 years.”  During his 30 years in the Army, he was awarded the Bronze star. The certificate was on the floor wet, in frame with broken glass. The medal, if in the shambles, wasn’t found.

 I can’t fathom what he felt when he first came back to his Gulfport home after the storm.  From the front lawn, the traditional brick house looks untouched. But inside, his whole life was on the floor – broken, swollen and moldy. 

 The images of the storms’ continuing aftermath – the fetid conditions, shattered trusses, neighborhoods turned to swamp and obliterated small towns – can’t possibly convey what it’s like when you walk through the door of just one of these thousands of flooded homes. You’re stunned at destruction, saddened by the immense loses and retching from the putrid stink of spoiled food, rotting carpet and mold covered walls. Nor can the very best news footage bring you the surreal chaos of the destruction caused by nothing more than rushing water – upturned and shattered furniture, swollen doors and drawers, broken glass and family photos, favorite books, and the grandkid’s artwork dissolving into puddles of dank sludge.   

 That’s what he came back to. On TV, survivors proudly talk about how they’ll rebuild. The Colonel and his now ill wife have been married for 58 years and have lived in this house – their first – for 36 of those years.  At 83, rebuilding isn’t likely.

A team of volunteers from Tallahassee’s Trinity United Methodist had come to help. Though not a member of the church I asked to go. We carried out furniture, collected their souvenirs and trinkets, sorted crystal and china, cut out carpet, cracked open the back of a

beautiful, ebony cabinet, with doors too swollen to open, salvaged prescriptions from the sewage in the bathroom and gagged when someone moved a refrigerator full of rotting meat and milk.

Heartbreaking for me, a photographer, were the photos. People, places and memories – some going back a hundred years – disappeared into a milky paste as they were separated. Tintype images, created in the 1800s, dissolved into powdery flakes when exposed to light.

But for me, there was a dark side to helping. Sorting through the ruins, I couldn’t help but feel like a scavenger, a character from the movie Road Warrior or maybe a philanthropic looter asked to invade this man’s home and privacy.

 More specifically, it would have been too overwhelming for the Colonel and too overwhelming for his daughter to decide what should be saved or trashed. So we did. So if you pulled wet clothes from a drawer so you could move the dresser. You had to decide. Save or toss? I found a broken leg next to an antique chair. Will someone glue it back on or does the chair go to the growing pile out front? Does he want those lighters from his unit in Korea? Are the wet dresses in a box under the bed important? What about that water-soaked print he got in Thailand or the carving from Japan?

You can’t help but feeling like an officer on the Titanic – you get in the lifeboat but you don’t. Worse yet, you feel like an invasive intruder, a stranger violating the Colonel’s privacy. How should I presume to judge which of his memories are worth keeping?

 The only thing he specifically asked me to save was his daughter’s baby book that had been meticulously kept by his wife. Some of the ink had dissolved into light blue stains, but most of the pages were readable. I smiled as I read about what she liked to eat when she was two and how she played nice with others when four. Later, pretty horrified, I found I was privy to things she didn’t know about herself. She’d never seen the book until that day.

People comfort survivors by saying, “They’re only things. Thank God no one was hurt.” But it’s not that simple. You can scoff at the idea that we’re defined by our things. But in a tragedy like this, you recognize the inverse: things help define who we are, where we’ve been and what we find important. Why did he save that newspaper clipping, that book of matches, or those postcards? Because they are – were – a part of his life, times and experiences. And, while it was sometimes uncomfortable; I’m pleased and honored to have shared them. 

The wonder of the human condition is sometimes unfathomably. We, humans, embody the very best and the very worst of all known life. Incomparable beauty sharing the same living universe as unimaginable darkness. The capacity for immense love and compassion, alongside unspeakable cruelty and hatred. The marvels of imagination and technical ingenuity, shattered by the politics of destruction. Great expectations and quiet despair. Elegant haves and desperate have nots.

The wonder of the human condition is most of all hope – a uniquely human quality – for a better tomorrow.

The work included in this exhibition reflects insights, observations, celebration and critical comment about the Wonder of the Human Condition.

Channel 6 and the Victoria Secret Special

My View - Danny Pietrodangelo

First, let me make something absolutely clear: this is not about being deprived of Heidi Klum. It's about television programming, hypocrisy and choice.

 That having been said, let me get this straight. Am I to believe that a city revered as the birthplace of streaking and the Golden Girls, a place with weekly parties organized around Sunday night's favorite misogynistic murderer — a county that overwhelmingly passed the pig amendment  — needs to be protected by Channel 6, WCTV,  from the moral assault of women in underwear?

 Ah, come on WCTV, we can handle it.  Tallahassee’s got cable; it makes us worldly, with its edgy and insightful offerings — like the Man Show's skillful girls on trampolines, the clever repartee of that lovely Osbourne family, the investigative prowess of Pay-Per-View’s Naked News, not to forget the graceful elegance of the Bada Bing dancers.

 Maybe shifting the show to 1:30 a.m. was on the principle of redeeming social value. I mean, you can learn a lot from other WCTV programming, like: the angst of being a vigilante from Hack, the Bold and Beautiful’s lessons on the importance of traditional family values, And, gosh, who doesn’t feel all warm and fuzzy after an hour of lying and backstabbing with Survivor? And, in the life imitates art category, you gotta love Thursday’s Martha Stewart Living (living on the inside track, we hear) featuring the Sopranos’ Dr. Melfi  (Lorraine Bracco) — another character no stranger to the torment of insider information. And who called TV a wasteland?

Get real — and honest — WCTV.

 Between 1998 and 2001 CBS — which means Channel 6 — earned the highest rating for the number of violent scenes per hour — even higher than cable —according to The Center for Media and Public Affairs.  And, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, an average 18 year old in the U.S. has witnessed 16,000 simulated murders, and more than 200,000 other acts of violence courtesy of television. According to the research, seven out of 10 television

shows — including highly rated and acclaimed CBS shows like CSI, Without A Trace and The District — keep us watching nightly, with every primetime hour serving up 3 –5 incidents of violence — ranging from threats of physical harm to graphic sexual assault. 

As a producer, I appreciate the craft of a good action story. But, ask the average guy-parent if he feels more uncomfortable watching, with his son (or daughter), Heidi Klum in lingerie or the more popular-than-ever crime story scene of blood seeping onto the sidewalk from an open head wound. (Perhaps neither, but by choice.)

Channel 6 might take the high ground, arguing the objectification of women and reinforcing unhealthy body images. But, I don’t recall them preempting Miss USA or Miss Universe Pageants, you know, the scholarship competitions, nor the Victoria’s Secret’s advertisements?

 Last week’s Newsweek argued the pros and cons of children watching television. Both sides basically came to the same, not too stunning conclusion: make sure your kids are watching a regulated amount of appropriate shows, view questionable material with them and/or, simply turn the thing off — exercising as a parent your right (and responsibility) to choose.

 Because that’s what this is about: choice. When a local network affiliate chooses — on our behalf — to selectively block a network show because it deems the content not within its definition of community standards, it is demeaning and insulting — especially in a market with Tallahassee’s demographics: educated, media-wise professionals. We need a TV station in the nation’s 109th media market acting in loco parentis as much as we need another CBS show like Baby Bob.  When a local network affiliate like WCTV decides to selectively limit our exposure to skin — but not murder and mayhem — it is appalling hypocrisy. 

 We have ratings and warnings, network censors and what’s left of the FCC (which found the special lame, but acceptable) and choice. Oh, and an agile index finger offended Tallahassean’s can use to turn the thing off — without WCTV’s guidance or help.

Give shelter, without judgment, no questions asked

My View - Danny Pietrodangelo

 The first time I worked at the Shelter I was uncomfortable, uneasy. I was there to conduct interviews for a documentary, which meant getting up close and personal – not the usual, cursory homeless contact of a dollar through the car window.

 You look out across the dining room, to the people being served dinner, and for the new comer, what started as uncomfortable becomes more and more curious: a street-weary, leathery faced man, sitting next to a clean-cut middle management type; an old boy/young man, with broken front teeth, next to someone’s grandfather; someone frightened, mumbling to the invisible voices, next to a big, stern-faced, muscular black man.

 What’s the story? That’s what I wanted to know professionally, but soon it started to become personal: why are they here – why am I there?

 I asked questions and listened: vets who couldn’t adjust, not always from combat, but from losing the structure of military life. Ex cons, between past and future lock-ups, they said. Downsized professionals with no families to fall back on. Young guys on the road,  finding an easy place to crash. Middle-aged guys with no exceptional stories. A loud, drunk that thought he was hilarious. More than a few barely coherent men, crushed by the weight of depression or trapped in their schizophrenic hallucinations.

 I heard heart-wrenching stories, outright hustles, and desperate hopelessness. A lot, but not all, wanted a permanent home. Some wanted meaningful jobs, others wanted non-specific help, others claimed to be happy as is, and a few just wanted another drink.
But that night, they all got what they needed most: a hot meal and a warm place to stay. No questions asked. Nothing expected in return.

That, they told me was the beauty of the Shelter.

Over the next six months, working on the documentary, I learned a fair amount about homelessness and homeless people. Few have permanent jobs, though a number work day labor. About 30 – 40 percent are veterans. Anywhere

between 40 – 70 percent have addictions and/or have active mental illness. Chronic health problems like hypertension, and pulmonary and heart disease are common.

During the filming process, I was struck with something: faced with a tough time – due to money or a troubled mind – most of us have family, friends, a church and others to say, “Don’t worry, I’ve got your back.”  

Not so if you’re homeless. Their isolation is both cause and effect.

During production, I also learned about programs serving the homeless, including the future Comprehensive Human Services Center. Now, I was struck with something else: some people don’t want or aren’t ready to be healed, cured, saved, treated, rescued or redeemed.

Not to be a cynic but, if you build it, they won’t necessarily come, because our best liberal, do-gooder intentions can’t make someone enroll in job training, stop drinking, go to therapy, get off the street, go to work, or take their psychotropic medications. They have to be ready and want to.

Get there lives together? Some do, and some don’t, according to the Shelter’s director. And, he sees that as the beauty of the Shelter.  It provides a safety net for people on the streets, providing them with a Spartan – but safe – haven, getting them off the streets. And, if they want more, referring them to programs offering more help, which in the future will include the Human Services Center. But, if they don’t want to get it together, that’s okay too.

The people I spoke with said, if the Shelter wasn’t there, in town and easy to get to, or if it made demands, they’d go back to the park benches, street corners, doorways and forest encampments – like the one that springs up in the woods behind my house, when the whether gets nice.

When the project finished I moved from observer to participant, from digital filmmaker to volunteer, because I was struck with one final thing: the Shelter needs to stay were it is and keep doing what it does – a job that no one else can, will, nor wants to do: providing shelter, without judgment, no questions asked.

 Danny Pietrodangelo, a 2001 finalist for the Tallahassee Democrat’s Volunteer of the Year award, produced the award winning documentary, Homeless In An All-America City, and recently became a member of the Shelter board of directors.

The 60s

My View - Danny Pietrodangelo

Wow, that was really heavy, a real bummer. No, that vernacular of the day is just too peaceful for responding to Herbert London’s venomous assault on the 60s(July 16, The 60s: portrait of a counterfeit era). So, I guess I’d have to go with: the worst form of pseudo socio-analytical drivel I’ve read since the 60s. The frustrated whining of a wannabe, whose Young Republican meetings conflicted with all those weekly love-ins? As if he would have been invited.

First, let me make one thing perfectly clear: having been there, I do not wane nostalgic for the 60s. That was then and this is, well, something else. The 60s were both significant and silly. 
But to characterize – no vilify – an entire decade as one big, meaningless drug-stupefied orgy is about as moronic as saying the 50s were just about sockhops in Pleasantville and the 70s no more than coke-frenzied disco.
Too frequently – and too easily – those who partook of the 60s and early 70s are homogenized, by those who didn’t, into one big glassy-eyed, bushy-haired, tie-dyed, bell-bottomed, shirtless, debaucherous flower child. Yes, some of those were there. Or, if that character doesn’t raise enough ire, the antiwar building-bombing, red book-waving, Uncle Ho-loving, soldier-spitting, mega horn shouting radical is equally popular. Yes, some of those too. (Rarely, if ever, one and the same person.)
No Professor London, you clearly missed the decade and the point if “All You Need Is Love” is the best you can do for a thematic synopsis of the decade that brought us Martin Luther King and the Kennedys; Birmingham, Watts and Chicago; My Lai and the Hanoi Hilton; Richard Speck and Richard Nixon.  How about “The Whole World Is Watching?”  

Analysts like London give the decade far too much – and too little – credit. Sex, drugs and rock and roll weren’t invented in the 60s. They were just a response.
Call it a cliché, but mostly for the better, and occasionally for the worse, the decade had far-reaching effects on once-sacred norms. As a result, what were then disquieting ideas and attitudes, furthered and fostered by 60s activism  – on human equality, social responsibility and self-expression – are considered no more than blandly, routine now. 
Women, minorities and the disenfranchised were, and have since been, beneficiaries of the perspectives, policies and social consciousness that evolved in the 60s. I have four sisters, two older, two younger, who grew up on both sides of the decade. The opportunities and attitudes each set of sisters experienced were very, very different. 
And, I never saw nor heard of anyone spitting on a soldier. Rather, the worse I saw was disquieting avoidance between those who served and those, who by chance or chicanery, didn’t. Perhaps antiwar protests did not directly end the war in Southeast Asia. But the echoes of Vietnam have no doubt tempered US military involvement since, in Central America, Bosnia, Somalia, the Caribbean, and most recently in South American.
The student activists, soldiers, hippies, intellectuals, Krishnas and, yes, Young Republicans have moved on – some still true believers – to be middle-aged community activists, environmentalists, corporate raiders, NYU professors and unindicted co-conspirators. Oh, and let’s not forget, president.

Did we change the world? Of course. What generation hasn’t?