Spike Lee, a gay German Artist and the failure of a president

One autumn afternoon in the mid 90s, I ran into Spike Lee on the Lower East Side of New York. He's not very tall, not very intimidating. He looks exactly like what he is; a contemplative artist who cares deeply about issues affecting his world.

I was with a friend of a friend's boyfriend at the time — the German artist, HN Semjon — hanging out while my friend was buying make-up or shoes or something that didn't interest me. At least not interested enough to stop my conversation with Semjon. We were discussing the different meanings of the word "art" in reference to his work and mine. As a writer I've always felt like my work was art of a lesser sort than that of visual artists. Semjon, a sculptor at the time, was very attentive and very kind in encouraging me. He insisted the debate between art genres was meaningless.

It was just about then that I literally bumped into Lee. If it weren't for the fact that the night before I'd seen "Do the Right Thing" (for the second time), I probably wouldn't have recognized him. He was wearing his signature black framed glasses, fuzzy beard and a giant coat to protect him from the wind that was already beginning to bight.

So shocked to see him, all I did was say 'excuse me' and move around him. Semjon didn't recognize him until the filmmaker had moved down the street. It was as if Semjon had conjured up the diminutive filmmaker to illustrate his point that art can't be defined by genres let alone ordered by rank.

Years later, I'm not so sure that Semjon was right. I just don't see myself as an artist. Lee certainly is.

Given my relief at the arrival of the Katrina anniversary, I tuned into Lee's documentary about New Orleans on HBO last night. I was hoping the story would exorcise my dreams or at least ease the pain of them — as if viewing the film were a passage to healing.

But the dreams were worse than ever last night, filled with water, helplessness and drowning. At one point I dreamt that I was trapped in a flooded house trying to hack my way through the ceiling to the floor above me even as the rising water filled the room. Fighting to hold my breath, I swam through the front window of the house and was picked up by a boat seconds later. As I was lifted over the gunwale, I saw Spike Lee — dressed just as he had been that day in New York — at the tiller. There was another refugee in the boat, bundled in a wool blanket. I remember thinking how hot it was and wondered at the figure in the blanket. Somehow, in that infinitesimal time between the dream bubble popping and me waking, I realized George W. Bush was the man in the blanket.

I sat up on the edge of the bed for quite a while wondering if my dream was a result of too much curry or too much curiosity.

I finally settled on the idea that GWB is a refugee from the truth of his failure to assist victims of the storm. Spike Lee was steering him into understanding the truth. And I was a witness to the capricious whims of weather and survival.

It was only a dream for me, but for millions of Americans — mostly poor, generally unemployed — it is an ongoing nightmare. No movie, no artist, no debate, no denial can change that truth.