An Amusing High School Story

My brother Nick stopped by recently for a visit. Talk turned to fainting (as it always does on occasions such as these). No no, not really. But we were talking about fainting at ooey, gooey blood and guts type things. Nick was telling me about how when he was young he came close to passing out one time when he was in the hospital. And then he said, “but there WAS that one time when I passed out…but not because of anything medical”.

Okay. That was enough to pique my curiosity. And the story Nick told me gave me the biggest laugh of the month.

It seems that one night during “play practice” Nick and Gene-Gene were in 501 goofing off. (You remember Ian, that was the room for quiet talk.) Gene told Nick he had tried this new method of making oneself pass out. He described deep breathing on one’s haunches, followed by a hard grunting push (which sounded like a valsalva maneuver) and then quickly standing. Gene said he tried it at home on his bed and it worked. Naturally Nick didn’t believe him. There was much adolescent bantering over the effectiveness of the procedure. The only way to find out was to try it. And so, my brother did. And he did. Pass out. Apparently it scared the living crap out of Gene. When Nick came to, he couldn’t remember anything and asked what had happened. Gene, who was visibly shaken, responded, “You were out cold. We didn’t know what to do!”

When I asked Nick if they told anyone (like DRT), Nick said, “Oh my gosh, NO! We would have gotten killed!”

I howled. I can just imagine Gene telling Nick about this. (Doesn't it make you wonder what book or magazine Gene found this in?) I can imagine them arguing over this. I can imagine my brother actually doing it. I can even imagine Gene's very real fear that not only did it work (on someone else) but that it happened at school. During play practice.

Gee Gene

I’ve put off writing about Gene for awhile. I think I would like to say a few things about Gene now.

Gene Haldeman was the first person I ever met in my entire life who I could connect to. Before that, I had friends and I enjoyed their company, but Gene- I could connect to. At the time I just felt like a freak (I was 16)- like the absolute outsider. In later years, I suppose I imagined that Gene and I connected because we were simpatico- that we shared so much in common. Nah. That wasn’t it. We connected because Gene connected with anyone who would let him.

I never meant anyone that was worth anything that didn’t like Gene. Sure, he was off-putting because he didn’t care much about how he was dressed and he had this funny little mustache that he wore even when he was 15- that remained the same for as long as I knew him – roughly a decade. So, the shallow people may have thought he was weird or whatever. The thing is, Gene wasn’t weird at all. He wasn’t. He was just a generally nice, relatively normal guy.

Gene was pretty well read for a teenager. He had read the books on his own that I was supposed to read in school, but didn’t. But, he wasn’t a know-it-all. Not at all. He was a nice guy. I don’t recall ever hearing anything that Gene did that wasn’t nice and considerate- even in the days when we often slipped into inconsiderate. We, and another friend, sang “We’re the boys of the chorus” from a bugs bunny cartoon in three part harmony. Then, we changed the word “boys” to “whales.” I don’t know why. We called his mustache a “pubic hair mustache.”

We were in a lot of plays together in High School- that’s where I met him. We were friends off-stage, but on-stage, we never really clicked.

We went to college together. We did a lot of play together in college. My two biggest events in college theater included Gene. The first was when, for some ridiculous reason, the University faculty allowed me to direct a play as a part of the mainstage season. I think soon afterwards, they decided that having students direct mainstage shows wasn’t a good idea. But before the figured that out, I got to direct Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker. It remains one of my proudest works in my entire life. Truly. It was only any good at all because Gene Haldeman, 20 at the time, played the complex role of Davies- a middle-aged wayfarer. I can’t imagine playing the part now- in my 40’s, but Gene managed to make it work. I don’t know how. I don’t know how good it was- but it was good for a bunch of college kids trying to do The Caretaker.

Also, he was part of the cast of Nathanial, a play I wrote and directed for Edward Albee’s visit to campus. Albee was very kind- and I’m sure the only reason we pulled it off was that we had this kid actor- 22 – who could play middle-aged bitterness. I don’t know- maybe there is such thing as an old heart. Maybe he had one and we all thought that was a joke.

I remember living upstairs from Gene one summer. We would all stay up late and play cards and listen to records and smoke cigarettes and, sometimes, if we could gather a few bucks together, drink very cheap beer.

We gave Gene a lot of shit. We gave him a lot of shit. He acted like he had an old heart and we mocked him because he acted like he had an old heart. That was mean of us. That was just plain mean. Because, I think Gene did have an old heart. But, maybe we've all forgiven each other for that stuff that happens in ones youth.

Gene befriended a friendly loner in Indiana- I think this friend suffered from a serious mental illness. He didn’t seem to do anyone any harm and he wasn’t frightening, but, you know, there was something off. But this friend of Gene’s was a super friendly guy- seriously nice. He has a pet rabbit, collected 16 mm prints of Three Stooges Movies and had a fully stocked bar in his room/parent’s basement. Gene didn’t care that he was crazy, because he was a good soul. The rest of us liked Gene’s friend, but didn’t have the courage to ignore his mental illness. Gene had that courage.

My very good friend Joe told me when Gene died. I remember that as a terrible, terrible day. The very next day, I got fired from my job- the first and only time I’ve ever been fired from a job. I didn’t care. The sadness of Gene’s death took over. It was with me for a long time (even though I hadn’t actually talked to Gene in years). I think it’s still with me.

But I know that I’m a better person for knowing him. So, I’ll cling to that.

Musicians of Bremen

1982 - IUP Drama Mime Troupe, THE MUSICIANS OF BREMEN.
L to R: Ginger, Dale, Chip, Anne, Gary, Joe, Gene

Gene as actor

Hey All - You know, Gene and I started our theatre careers together in Junior high school -we both surprisingly ended up with the leads in "All American" in ninth Grade. He was then, and continued to be through out high school and college, a very generous acting partner. With Gene, there was no worry about being upstaged by him, or getting tense over who was doing what, or arguing over how to do a scene. He always focused on the show as a whole
and making his acting partner happy - a talent I didn't appreciate until
college.

In "The Man Who Came to Dinner" Gene was such the professional. He knew the whole show rested on him, and it made him nervous sometimes, but you'd never know. I only knew because I wasn't actually in that show (I'd been in France with the French Class) and I talked with him about it. Gene was always so comfortable onstage that it never occurred to me that he could be
nervous, but there you go. So, the show starts, and you hear this huge voice offstage yelling and complaining, and finally the door to the living room opens and here comes Gene rolling that wheelchair around and wearing a red velvet smoking jacket and he had the audience completely in his hands. In the surprise scene of the play when the character Whiteside reveals that
he can still walk, the audience actually gasped when he got out of the chair and started sneaking around the stage. I was glad then, and I'm glad now, that Mr. Tabish did that show for Gene - because of his size, he usually got the supporting fun roles, but rarely the lead.

One of my clearest memories of being onstage with Gene was our final show in high school - The Pajama Game. We were doing this scene when the phone was supposed to ring and my character got some important information about the upcoming strike that I was supposed to share with the rest of the people on stage - only the phone didn't ring. I turned to Gene expecting to have him help me cover, when I saw something I'd never seen from him before onstage - absolute panic. He didn't know what to say. It freaked me out a little because Gene was such the professional for years! I got through the scene with the help of Jane Weiner, and afterward, Gene spent about five minutes thanking me. He really felt that he had let me and the show down. I don't think I really realized at the time how much theatre meant to him - how much being a part of Sendracs was vital to him. He loved what he did, and he loved all of us for being his friends in an environment that wasn't always kind to short, funny-looking guys with mustaches.

And you know - he lived way out in the country, and his mother was deathly ill with cancer much of that time, and yet he never missed a rehearsal. And as far as the class of 1980 goes, Gene was the only one with a perfect record - he did all 12 shows.

- submitted by Anne K-M

Rembrance by Barbara Bretton

I found out last week that a dear friend was gone. Gene Haldeman was a kind and gentle man. He loved William Butler Yeats, Samuel Beckett, and all the earth's creatures great and small. Life should have treated him better. He had no business being taken in his early 40s, at least no business I can understand. But those of us who had the pleasure of knowing him are the better for it.

I just wish I'd had time to say goodbye.

This one hurts to read

[another post from the Kate Bush Tape Tree]
From: Gene Haldeman
Date: 3 Jul 93 05:55:43

I don't know whether this is just me, but:

I've seen very little here written about the song "All The Love", from The Dreaming, but this piece of music has hit me hard, emotionally, from the first time I heard it. I have rarely been able to not cry. It sems to me the epitome of the end of a relationship, from the selfish fear of only being remembered vaguely to that thought that one's answering machine message may be the only thing that remains once something is over, and then, over on the other side, the fear that calling back after a good-bye might be equally disturbing, and the fear that continuing what is happening might be equally damning. It'd be interesting, I think, to hear opposing viewpoints on this particular song.

So...does it make you cry/feel uncomfortable/hurt/wish you could live a few years again?

Lemme know.

A Gene Post To The Kate Bush Tape Tree

From: Gene Haldeman
Date: 13 Jul 93 03:30:28 GMT
Subject: Re: Tape Tree: Humble Apologies...

(Mike Mendelson) writes:
>Well, to be honest I regret having ever gotten sucked into
>this mess, since I'm not even on the Tape Tree list. Jorn asked
>me to act as an intermediary between himself and Chris W who
>are no longer on speaking terms.

Sigh. This is so silly. It's amazing to me that people who have at least one very emotional, and very important thing in common (Kate Bush's music) are willing to spend so much of their time and energy at each other's throats, and then sullenly retreat to a position of "not on speaking terms." Look at the destruction of life in Eastern Europe, the starvation and firearms of Somalia, atrocities of equal import happening in so many other places, and ask yourself if this is not childish. Maybe
you should both re-listen to "The Dreaming" and wonder whether your arguments with your mortal enemies can even touch the cry of a poor vietnamese woman holding a grenade and wondering whether or not she should pull out the pin.

I'd be willing to allow both Jorn and Chris to send me their ten biggest complaints against each other to my email address below. I may regret this, but I think you're both being childish and stubborn, and it don't make sense. Neither of you are childish; you're just acting that way. You both know better. And you both know it ain't worth the stress.

On the other hand, you can email me and tell me to mind my own fucking business.

>Peace.
>-mjm

It's a real good idea.

Gene

Gene as Social Activist

Username: GeneHaldeman
Date/Time: Wed, October 18, 2000 at 2:38 AM GMT
Subject: .union is universally appropriate

Message:
It is in the best interest of all to make a .union domain. Dot-coms permeate the web as if commerce were the only valid purpose to communicate internationally. Those who create the goods with their bare hands, those who transport the goods, those who shelve the goods, those hands at the cash registers; they are underrepresented, and this is an opportunity to start balancing the scales in a small way.
This is a necessary step and should be taken.

Gene N Haldeman, Director At Large
Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility

Another Gene Post

From: Gene Haldeman
Subject: Re: Biting Batteries to make them last longer
Date: 17 Sep 93 01:01:21 GMT

In article <16sep199311422042@csa5.lbl.gov> SCOTT I CHASE writes:

>>But I suspect that the biting business is incidental to the fact that your sister >took them out and reinserted them in a slightly different position.

Doesn't this belong in another newsgroup?

Gene "Society *IS* going to the toilet" Haldeman

A Gene Article

Volume 18, Number 4, The CPSR Newsletter Fall 2000
Is 1984 Really History?
by Gene N. Haldeman

Panel Three, entitled, "Is 1984 Really History?", included Paul Schwartz from the Brooklyn Law School, Andrew Shen of EPIC, and Simson Garfinkel, author of Database Nation.

Paul Schwartz began by suggesting that we, Computer Professionals, are the single most important group in preserving electronic privacy. He quoted Lawrence Lessig: "Code is law", and in essence, we are the ones who are in charge of the code. We are the ones who make the decisions for technical configurations, and system setups. We have a great deal of influence in what software is used. He used this analogy towards the concept of privacy violations: It is easy to steal a bicycle, but very difficult to steal a skyscraper, and we have the choice to make our own systems like bicycles or like skyscrapers.

He then mentioned a new arrival on the technology scene, P3P, and compared it to a "CyberJeeves", working on our behalves by negotiating our privacy requirements with a website's desire to collect information. This is a good thing, if it really works in the clients favor.

With all kinds of new electronic gadgets on the market, it's hard sometimes to recognize when something will violate one's privacy. Cell phones have been used for tracking purposes for years; it's natural for the police to use them in that way for the technology is built in -- the cell phone won't work unless the satellite can pinpoint the location of the phone. There's a trade-off involved; we give up that bit of privacy in order to have the convenience and utility of the phone. Also, there are times when the tracking capability could be very useful -- after a car accident in the middle of nowhere, for example, it could get an ambulance to you much quicker. We have to ask how that technology should be used and set boundaries.

How do we formalize privacy within companies? CPO's are a start, and Privacy Boards of Advisors, but they can be co-opted. There needs to be an external scrutiny, which means there must be legal rules. We need to constantly reassess technology as it relates to the social context.

He mentioned Neal Stephenson's "Blinking 12" on the hard-to-program VCR's of the 80's. (The solution, of course, was to cover the blinking 12 with black tape, so you couldn't see it.) Schwartz pointed out that with new technology, including VCR's that actually poll TV stations for the correct time, and other better firmware programming, newer VCR's don't do that any more, but the P3P's and other new stuff coming will have their "Blinking 12" syndromes as well, and we would do well to avoid covering them with black tape, and instead, educating ourselves and seeking other resources to solve these problems as they come along.
Our second panelist was Andrew Shen, of EPIC.

He pointed out that privacy has become a mainstream social issue. In Wall Street Journal and ABC polls, it ranks the highest of American's concerns, 25%, above poverty, overpopulation, depression. Harris polls show privacy concerns higher than healthcare, crime and taxes.
Chen spoke of Identity theft, and gave a short description of the problem -- your credit card application is stolen from your mailbox, and the thief uses your name and his own address, receives the credit card, uses the credit card as ID to get other credit, and all this is done within a day -- you don't know about it because the bills never come to you.

The US Postal Service says that this happens to 50,000 people per year, and causes 745 million dollars in losses.

Trans-Union, the credit reporting agency, received 35,000 complaints of identity theft in 1992, and 500,000 in 1997 (and an expected 700,000 this year.)

The number of calls to 1-887-ID-THEFT have doubled since March of this year.

On average, it takes 175 hours for the identity theft victim to clear his or her records, and costs him/her $808.00 out of pocket.

The good news is that the Congressional Privacy Caucus is broad-based in its support; left, right and center politicians are involved. Al Gore has specifically stated that he wishes to "protect Social Security numbers" which have been misused as personal identifiers for years, despite the fact that that was not the original intent of said numbers, and Gov. Bush has said that he will "look very closely at privacy matters."

Shen's bottom line was that our representatives are very aware that we are concerned about privacy issues, so it's important to contact our local politicians, our congressional representatives and senators, find out their stands, and then, most importantly, to vote for those who may act 9on these issues.

The third Panelist was Simson Garfinkel, author of Database Nation. Garfinkel stated that he had thought he was asked to be here to speak about Marc Rotenberg, so he took a few moments to mention how Marc had helped him out. Garfinkel pointed out that privacy was a national concern in the 60's and 70's, bringing about 5 Congressional hearings on the matter. But laws were not passed. The law could be quite simple: Collected personal data could not be used for any purposes other than what it was intended for.

But other issues crept in and stole our attention away from the privacy issues. Cryptography, the Clipper chip, the Exon bill, the CDA took the attention away from the privacy concerns. They're all gone now, but the privacy issue remains.

Garfinkel says that the emphasis on internet privacy is masking the greater problem, which is privacy IN GENERAL. The same problems exist offline as online. Things like Carnivore are natural extensions of the use of technology in wiretapping which we, as a society, have accepted as allowable for law enforcement. His take is that there are more productive things we can be doing about privacy in general.

Garfinkel pointed out how there was much uproar about cookies, but very little has been said about web-bugs -- the tiny pixel-sized pictures you never see when browsing that can send information anywhere. This kind of spyware is not as noticeable, so it doesn't promote an outcry; but for that very reason it is much more insidious. It is a superior tracking device in that it generally goes unobserved.

Using a cell-phone to track someone, likewise, is observable, and may cause an outcry, but newer technologies, such as face recognition, will not be noticed, and this technology is just about ready to be used now.

Garfinkel pointed out how recently fraudulent information about companies internal affairs have manipulated the stock market. ID theft is only in its infancy. Some of the worst examples may be to come, including reputation attacks that could cost people more than just money.
Garfinkel's bottom line is that laws must be passed to protect data from being used for any other purpose than that which it was collected for, unless it has the express consent of the person who OWNS that information. Which SHOULD be you and me.

© Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility P.O. Box 717 Palo Alto, CA 94302-0717 Tel. (650) 322-3778 Fax (650) 322-4748 webmaster@cpsr.org

A Gene Email

Dell, Unisys and Microsoft -- DUMvoting 1.0!
Gene N Haldeman
Fri, 12 Jan 2001 17:56:28 -0500 (EST)

[It is never too early for April to roll around. PGN]

"This Message Can Not Be Considered Spam, Even Though It Is. Some Law That Never Was Enacted Says So."

Dell, Unisys and Microsoft have joined together to produce: DUMvoting 1.0!

DUMvoting 1.0 is a simple 375k zipped download which you can install on your machine tonight, and vote for President tomorrow! Worried about hanging chad? Not with DUMvoting 1.0! No, your vote will travel over HEALTHY SAFE Internet connections to our new DUMvoteCenter, located in my next-door neighbor's basement where a 16-year-old computer genius known as SWORDGANDALF will convert it into paper ballots in between Dungeons and Dragons games.

(Note: During installation, a pop-up box may notify you that Back Orifice is being installed. This is normal. For best results, please disable all anti-virus software before installing DUMvoting 1.0)

NEVER AGAIN will you walk to a voting booth in the rain. NEVER AGAIN will you have to associate with the kind of people (and you know what I'm talkingabout, I don't have to spell it out for you, do I?) who hang around the voting area. NO MORE messy contact with neighbors. We have got it ALL WORKED OUT for you.

And with our new SPEEDYEXITPOLL (c), you won't have to wait till midnight or the outcome! We will be sending our projections the day before the elections, and our exit polls by 11:30 am on election day, saving you both time and anxiety.

You must act fast, but DUMvoting 1.0 can be rushed to you for the low, low price of $299.00 from our website at DUMvoting.com. In addition, we will send you OILMAN 3.2, the exciting new game from Microsoft: Alaska's Up For Grabs, And You Have Just Been Appointed To The EPA! Plunder as you will, but watch out for the charging caribou; we're told they have a "thing" for the pipeline!

Order without delay. Please include your Social Security number and any recent medical bills.

*Sent by the Dell/Unisys/Microsoft Consortium: "DUMideas Last Forever."

[Note that DUM spelled backwards is MUD. Must be symbolic. PGN]

NerdNosh 2000 Pics of Gene

Hey Gene! Es su pobrecita aqui. Como estas, mi pointed eyed doormat? I am missing you greatly and so are many other folks.

Everyone is so broken up that no one can talk and tell me what happened to you. But there are tons of stuff on the web about you, and I will ask there. Here, I have found pics of you-- you look very happy.

Picture of Gene from 1982

I'm not ready yet to talk about Gene, but I will share this picture of him (with Chip Salerno) from a production of Harold Pinter's The Caretaker that I directed.

My second friend in 15701

Gene was the second person I met when I moved to Indiana - the first was Anne K. - the three of us had the same 7th grade English class with a teacher whose name escapes me. She smelled like vanilla and years later, when I was working at the record store, she used to come in and buy High Times, which I found strangely reassuring.

I wish I could remember what we talked about that first time but I remember thinking he was really smart and well read. And a little odd but in a good way - his heart showing through the scruffy appearance, even at 13. Whatever we talked about connected us and we remained friends through high school and college.