Just Once, We Got the Truth

Jimmy Breslin
Newsday
August 29, 2001

"Bad caps," she said, pointing at Mark Green on television.

"What does it matter?" I said. "The guy is liable to win."

"Everybody knows cosmetics now."

"Yeah, look," another of them said.

"Oh, he can't win with that hair," one of them said. They were pointing out Peter Vallone.

"Who is he? He looks like he's one of those guys on television making his own commercials."

I tried to change the conversation because for sure they were going to start looking at me and I didn't want to hear what they saw. Oh, don't worry, they tried to start up. "You don't have so much hair left yourself," one of them said.

This was last night and I was at a friend's house to watch the mayoral debate on television. I wanted to hear people talk about it. The trouble was, the three young women I sat with, the neighbor's daughters, represented the huge number of city people at this time. They didn't have the slightest idea about the election and when presented with it, made fun out of it immediately.

"Where's Mike?" one of them said.

"Yeah, Mike Bloomberg. I thought you said this was the election. There's no election without Mike."

"He's the only one anybody knows."

"I know one or two of them here," one of the young women said, staring at the four candidates in the Democratic primary for mayor.

"If you'd ask me a week ago, I wouldn't have known."

"How could you not know them?" I asked.

"Where would you find out about them?" she asked.

"In the newspapers."

"I don't know anybody who would know that way."

Suddenly out of these dusty men seated at a table and ready to bore a vibrant city, here came George Spitz. Old, bald, fighting to get words out of his mouth, sometimes looking completely cuckoo. He is in his late 70s and he is a fabulous citizen of his city. It was his idea to have a marathon in the city. He has been running for offices for a half century in this city. He used to carry a sign and he didn't give out literature because he said it littered. Last night he charged wide-eyed into the brightest light.

"Oh, I love him!" one of the young women said.

The questions began with the announcer on Channel 11 asking about the problem that is first on the minds of everybody in the city of New York: just where do the candidates stand on the dreaded squeegee men? They are coming back! the announcer said in alarm.

We haven't heard about them for years but the candidates all straightened and attacked the squeegee men and said what they do to keep them away.

Now it came to George Spitz. "Squeegee men need help," Spitz said. He said there was a program in Sweden that helped such people become legitimate citizens who worked in politics.

"I love him!" one of the young women said.

Now a few minutes later they were on police and Spitz said that he had gone to the Wiz, where he buys electrical things, and he spoke to the sales people, who were of color, and they all said that they had been stopped by the police. "I don't know of a single white person who has been stopped," he said.

The answer and the thought behind it was so far ahead of anything that had been said so far that all hands in the room clapped.

Then George said they should decriminalize hard drugs and legalize pot.

In the room, there was shock that anybody would say such a thing, say a truth of his times, and in an election setting, such a thought from even the most distant outsider could lead to total public scorn and cries for an arrest.

"Nobody will dare talk to him," somebody said,

"I think he's all right on that count," I assured them. "He calls the house all the time. I understand that he finally wants to get married. He says he has a woman he is thinking of marrying. She probably was thrilled to see him on television tonight."

So were others. For out of the boredom and hesitancy and carping last night came George Spitz telling the truth about monstrous thievery on city contracts and the ludicrousness of spending a fortune on a program to tell welfare people how to get a job. The debate lasted an hour. It was the last chance to see him and I'm sorry if you missed it.

The Progressive, Pro-Peace choice in the New York City Democratic Primary for City Council 5th District on Manhattan’s Upper East Side and Roosevelt Island.