2022- The Year I Got Old

 Technically, I've been old for a long time. I retired from LA Unified School District on my birthday in 2004; I applied for Social Security at sixty-two and got my first check eleven years ago. Still, I ran (slowly and short distances), rode a bicycle, hiked and belonged to a gym. 

I stopped the gym at the start of the pandemic and haven't tried to get back and I can't run at this point. Some days I can walk. I had an accident on my bicycle in May, like Joe Biden, Two friends, older than I, had more serious accidents on their bikes. In my case, I was getting off the bike to take a picture, and somehow a piece of metal that controls the height of the seat on the bike, went a half-inch into my leg. Of course it got infected, and at one point, while Joe and I were on vacation in Baltimore, my whole leg swelled up and was so painful I had to stop and sit down. I haven't been back on the bike since.

In August, just when we thought it was safe to go out again, Joe and I both came down with COVID. Our cases weren't as serious as most; we did not need to be hospitalized, and were up and about in a few days.

The big news this year was my run for United States Congress. I drove all over the District, twenty-seven counties in the Northern half of West Virginia, as much as 170 miles from home. I met a lot of good people, almost all of them Democrats. 

A friend 's son works for the Center for Disease Control. They sent him to Pakistan for a time. I asked him how people reacted to a gay Jew in Pakistan. He said "They never got past American." I didn't get hassled about being Jewish or gay. The people never got past "Democrat." 

I was hurt that my opponent's strategy was to say as little as possible, to not go anywhere in the District, to not acknowledge my existence. His whole primary pitch was "Donald Trump endorsed me." I guess that was enough. I represented Democrats in the state. Maybe there aren't enough of them to win a Congressional seat.  I had a committee of women who were dedicated to the campaign and worked hard to help me get elected. I will be grateful forever to them.

I've been sick with my trademark sinus and bronchial infection since late October. This happens when I'm stressed or not resting enough. Nowadays I can sleep nine hours at night and maybe two one hour naps during the day. If I do my usual walk I'm sometimes out of breath walking uphill.  The doctors at WVU told me I may have COPD, and they just called me from WVU Medicine yesterday to give me an appointment for emphysema. I was checked three times for COVID, flu, and RSV. Those tests are always negative.

I'm finding it difficult to be involved with anything. I met many good candidates across the northern part of the state; almost all of them lost to MAGA-affiliated Republicans. It's heartbreaking, and maybe my broken heart is as much a problem for me as the congestion in my airwaves and my fatigue.

I have to work on being healthier, whatever that takes, both physically and mentally. A politically involved friend called today to ask if the Democratic Party had asked me for help with future campaigns based on my experience as a Congressional candidate. I need to deal with my resentment that they have not, that the Democratic Party was uninterested in supporting my campaign and would be just as happy if I disappeared. 

Running for office was the thrill of a lifetime, and I don't regret it. I knew going in that the physical and emotional stress could kill me. It didn't. I just feel like I aged ten years this year. 

I hope 2023 will be better for everyone than 2022.

The Post-Election Rant

 Maybe it's too soon to write this. I need to heal both physically and emotionally from what transpired. I've had an ongoing sinus and bronchial infection since before Election Day. They swabbed me twice at Urgent Care and said "It's not COVID, not RSV, not flu." I had a flu shot in October. They couldn't tell me what was wrong, just to rest and hydrate. I'm not terribly good at either of those things. I try to walk in my neighborhood every day, about a mile and a half, and I do sit-ups, push-ups, stretches and a yoga pose involving balance most mornings. I'm always afraid that if I don't exercise, my heart will stop or I'll get fat. Emotionally, I don't know what's wrong. I went back to my former therapist, but I didn't have much to tell him, only to show him my paper calendar, scribbled all over every day in October, and totally blank in December. 

Three things made me ill. One was riding in the WVU Homecoming parade in a vintage Mustang convertible, which I loved, except it was cool out, and we were stopped for a long time, while the unfiltered exhaust from the car wafted back over me. I love old cars, but this 1964 1/2 Mustang had a 3-speed on the floor, no pollution controls, and an AM-only radio. It's a pretty car, a classic, but I'd rather drive my 2012 Suzuki. Another thing that didn't help was coming back one night from West Virginia's Northern Panhandle, about 70 miles away, driving uphill out of Wheeling on I-70, under reconstruction for what seems like years, going 50 in a 45 mph zone, in the left lane, where the right lane is about to disappear in a few feet, and there's a car there, and a giant truck getting up within two feet of my car, blasting his horn and flashing his lights at me. The trucking company was VSP. I regret that I didn't contact them as soon as I got home. The last thing to send me into a spiral, was when a friend in Morgan County said I should look at Nate Silver's "Five Thirty-Eight." I did and it said that I had a less than one percent chance of winning and that I might get thirty-three percent of the vote. 

My committee thought all along that I would win. I knew that this was an overwhelmingly Republican district. I went to as many events as I could in as many places as I could. I met some wonderful people, almost all Democrats, putting up a fight for their values. In Morgan and Hampshire Counties, I was fussed over by the Democrats. Morgan County found me an old Humvee to ride in for their Apple Butter Festival Parade. Neither Morgan nor Hampshire Counties had any other Democrats on their ballot. 

Alex Mooney, my opponent, never showed up anywhere in the District, even though he was unknown in north central West Virginia and the northern panhandle. His claim to fame was an endorsement from Donald Trump. His primary opponent, David McKinley, the long-time Congressman in out area and the Northern Panhandle, was endorsed in the Republican primary by our Democratic Senator, Joe Manchin. McKinley used to be a climate-change denier, but the last few years suggested we should study the problem for twenty years or so before taking any action. He is a totally-owned subsidiary of the coal industry. That didn't help him in the primary. I had no endorsements from anyone. The national Working Families Party endorsed me, but the local chapter head wouldn't return phone calls from my campaign manager. West Virginia Can't Wait interviewed me, and then said they couldn't endorse me. The Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, which endorses LGBT candidates, had me fill out a complicated form, then told me it would be sixty days before they could make a decision. I emailed them after sixty days, and they responded that they would not endorse me. The national Democratic Party, the DCCC, ignored me. All of these groups asked me almost every day to send them money for other candidates. The week of the election, I blocked all of them. 

Mooney and I were together on an interview with the Morgantown Dominion-Post. We took turns answering the same questions. I was nervous about going up against a five-term congressman, but I spoke more clearly and forcefully than he did, and in my opinion, I gave much better answers, even given that we are on opposite ends of the political spectrum. The article about the interviews, written by David Beard, who I think is a Republican-leaning reporter, made Mooney sound better than he was.

Still, the Dominion-Post endorsed me, which was a surprise. Not that I wasn't the better candidate, but that they tend to ignore me as much as possible. I also spoke to Leah Willingham, an AP reporter based in Charleston. We talked for a long time, but the article she wrote was mostly about Mooney's plan to challenge Joe Manchin for Senate in 2024. I ran into Senator Manchin at a West Virginia Federation of Democratic Women luncheon in Charleston, and I introduced myself. He said "Good luck to you" and walked away. His communication manager handed me his business card. I spoke with him, and requested an endorsement from Senator Manchin. He said he would talk to Manchin's campaign manager, who would get back to me. He didn't.

So Mooney won in 26 of the 27 counties. I won in Monongalia County, my home county and the second largest in population in the district. I beat Nate Silver's prediction of 33% of the vote by getting over 34%. Mooney announced a week after the election that he would challenge Joe Manchin for U. S. Senate in 2024. Manchin says he hasn't decided if he will run again. He's older than I am, so I can see his issue.

I met good candidates from all over the district, running for State Senate and House of Delegates. That "red wave" that didn't happen nationally, did happen in West Virginia. All of the seats in the House of Delegates were on the ballot; only twelve of one hundred seats were won by Democrats. In the Senate, Barbara Evans Fleischauer, a long-time House of Delegates member, lost a Senate race to Michael Oliverio, who had been in the Legislature as a Democrat at one time, but is now a Republican, and  the state representative of ALEC, the corporate lobbying group. The people who lost wanted to put coal miners' health above coal company profits, wanted to bring infrastructure money into West Virginia, reduce medical costs and expand Medicaid,  and bring back the Extended Child Care Tax Credit, that had lifted 40,000 children out of poverty in our state.

We're all depressed. I'm sure people had their reasons for voting for Republicans, who are anti-abortion, openly hostile to LGBT people and immigrants, and consistently put corporations over people. They support pollution, and are anti-public schools. Many people have talked about giving up, and if they can, moving away. I understand that, but now that I'm well-known, at least among active Democrats in the northern part of the state, I feel an obligation to stay and fight for my people.

Today, Saturday, November 19, I rested much of the day, although I got out to walk once the temperature went above freezing, and my physical symptoms are starting to subside. I'm out of politics for now. A friend, a retired union organizer, suggested I run again in two years. It's doubtful.

For now, I'm grateful to the group of women who managed the campaign, worked the website, created the graphics, put ads on Facebook and Google, and took care of the lawn signs. Democratic Party members in overwhelmingly Republican counties welcomed me with open arms; candidates for local offices became my friends. I had about two hundred donors, all friends, family members, people I met in the district and out, and people I don't know from out-of-state who must have heard about my campaign somewhere. I had no corporate money and ran an entire campaign on $25,000. I'm deeply grateful to everyone who worked or donated to the campaign, and I'm proud of what we accomplished.

The Heart

 I've learned how to be intuitive and read the signs. I had two instances of chest pain, one at the West Virginia Capitol in Charleston, in late July when I had 45 seconds to talk about why a ban on abortions is bad. This was after leaving home at 5:45 A.M. to get there by 8. The other time, I was walking my usual 1.5 mile route around my neighborhood, when I ran into my friend Eleanor, out with her dog. She asked how I was felling and I said "Great" then realized I didn't feel great. Then my campaign manager's husband, eighteen days younger than I am, died of a heart attack, and there was an article in the paper about how having COVID could mess up your heart. I had COVID in August. Also, my ankles were swollen, not a good sign. 

 I left a phone message for my cardiologist. The nurse called me back. She said "So you turned around and went home when you were walking?" Technically, no. I continued my route, uphill, only slowly. I'm like that. The doctor called me later and asked if I wanted a heart catheterization. I begged off, citing my campaign schedule (I'm running for U.S. Congress for the northern half of West Virginia). I agreed to a stress test for last Thursday morning, the day after Yom Kippur. I did great on the treadmill, going fast and steep, up to a heat rate of 146 bpm without chest pain. That afternoon, feeling good about the test, I walked a half mile to the PRT, West Virginia University's little trains that cover the sprawling campuses and downtown, and rode to a pro-choice rally on campus. I saw friends there and had the opportunity to speak. I thought about asking for a ride home from someone I knew who lives a few blocks from me, but decided to go back as I came. Yes, I was tired. I was walking the last few blocks, when my cell phone rang.

"Hi, Doc. How are you?" I asked. 

"How are you?" 

"You tell me." He said there was a problem in my heart, apparently where I had my original heart attack in 2003. So a catheterization was scheduled for today, October 10.

It took some time. I was there with my husband from 6:45 until 11:30. I  joked with the nurses beforehand, and told them about my campaign. They were impressed that I was married to a man for nearly fourteen years. I was impressed that my husband got up early and texted back and forth with my sister the whole time we were there, without telling me until we were home. There were other perks: a handsome young man shaved my arms and my groin. I asked him about his life and how he got this job. He's an undergrad at WVU, there is a short training period, and he wanted to work while he was in school. I admired his determination and work ethic. I would never have touched an old man, even in that extremely non-sexual way, when I was that young.

I was semi-out for the procedure. I sensed they were doing something, but I didn't know what. They were putting a camera through my arm to look at my heart. When it was over, the two doctors woke me and said everything was fine, they didn't need to do anything. I guess something was irregular, but not bad. The staff at WVU Heart and Vascular were all great, every one of them. The young man who assisted the nurses, the nurse who told me she gets up at 3:30 A.M. to go to work and has a 7-year old son, my cardiologist, who has worked with me for ten years, and the people who check you in and out. I respect and admire all of them.

My father died of heart failure at 69, and my mother at 75 of pancreatic cancer. I'll be 73 this month. I get that one can't expect to live forever. WVU Medicine still wants to operate on my left eye and look down my gullet to see what's cooking there. The skin people want me to put some crap on my bald head because they think I could develop cancer there. I'm a mess. And I see why people just give up and say "I'm not taking any more medical treatments." I'm still trying to work it all and stay healthy, and I understand how important it is that I have insurance (Medicare, basically) and don't pay for most treatments. I hope that this wealthy country can make sure someday soon that everyone is covered for medical treatments. I want to make that happen.

When I talk to college students about my campaign, I tell them this is my "capstone," the last thing I do before I graduate. If I win, I'll try for a second term. If I don't win, I won't run for office again (b'li neder, look it up) .

The people at the hospital all said I was lucky, lucky to meet my husband, lucky my heart is okay, lucky to be walking around nearly twenty years after a heart attack. If I were a Christian, I would say I was "blessed." As a Jew, I just say thanks to God for all the good things in my life so far, even knowing it won't go on forever. 

In "Interview With The Vampire," someone asks why there aren't more of them, since they can't be killed. And the answer is that they walk out in the sun, which kills them, after a hundred or two hundred years, because the world has changed so much and all the people they knew are gone. I understand that now. "My" era seems long ago, and I don't understand much of what goes on today. In "Lord of the Rings," Frodo sails away at the end, because he was bitten by the spider. He looks to have recovered, but he says he only stayed alive to write the story.

Maybe my next project will be to write the story.

5783, The Morgantown High Walk Out and "Bros."

 The Jewish year 5783 started September 25 with Rosh Hashana, and continues tomorrow night with Yom Kippur, a fast day, when God supposedly decides "who shall live and who shall die." The day after Yom Kippur, I will be at WVU Heart and Vascular Institute having a stress test to see if my heart is still working. It's inconvenient because I'm in the middle of a campaign for United States Congress. I am happy to be doing this, but not sleeping or relaxing enough and, yes, I'm stressed out. I never expected to work this hard at this age.

One thing I did, partly for the campaign, and partly just to show support, was go to Morgantown High School when there was a student walk-out last week. The issue was that the superintendent of Monongalia County School District said that, based on an opinion from an unnamed attorney, teachers could not put up gay pride flags in their classroom. I think only a few teachers had them, but those teachers and the students were angry that the flags disappeared, and the students staged a walkout after lunch.

Public schools have been attacked in the Legislature, by the Governor and right-wing pundits for teaching kids anything about racism or sex or anything that would make parents uncomfortable. I'm guessing this was a fear reaction on the part of the superintendent.

When I was in high school, more than fifty-five years ago, no one was gay. Many of us turned out to be gay years later, but not in school. Gay Pride flags didn't exist.I went to the demonstration without intending to speak, but a young woman got up and said "I'm tired of old, privileged, white cisgender men telling us how to live." When I had the chance, I grabbed the megaphone (which didn't work) and I said "I'm an old, privileged, cisgender white male... and I'm queer." I expressed my support for the students, and said that I had lost jobs because I was gay and that many of my close friends had died from AIDS in the 1980s and 1990s. I then pointed out that I was the first openly gay City Councilor in Morgantown and that I'm now a candidate for United States Congress. I knew two of the high school students in the crowd, and a young woman working at a restaurant told me this week that she had seen me at the demonstration. 

But what I really want to say to the students is this: In my school, the daring people were couples where one was Jewish and one Christian. Our neighborhoods, and therefore our schools, were segregated and the most shocking person you could date was someone from another religion. Two couples like that in my class were told "it can't possibly work out." One of the couples was pregnant before we graduated. Both came to our 50th reunion in 2018 (a year late), and the pregnant one recently gloated on Facebook about a 56th anniversary, and how people told them they wouldn't stay together. So here's my message to the students at the demo: "Look around your school and see who you like and could live with. You are not too young to do this. I was attracted to a fellow student in high school and I think he was attracted to me also. We could never act on that and because he was Christian and I was Jewish and we lived in different neighborhoods, we couldn't really be close friends. I wish I could have gone to the 50th reunion with him, and said 'See, it did work out.' I didn't do that, but in more than 50 years, you could go to the reunion with your same-gender, trans or non-binary high school pal. I hope you would say 'That Barry Wendell told us we could do this, and he was right.' Don't be afraid to love."

My husband Joe is the rabbi at our local synagogue in Morgantown and he's stressed about the holidays, and a hundred other things he has to do. My stress is mostly about my Congressional campaign and my health. I've seen reviews of the movie "Bros," called a "gay rom-com," unusual because the gay characters are played by openly gay actors. Joe was washing dishes after dinner when I announced I was going to the 7 P.M. show at a local theater. I was surprised that it was playing in Morgantown, since edgy movies don't often get here. Joe dropped the sponge in the sink and ran to get a jacket and off we went. It was definitely entertaining and sexy. The lead actors weren't young, but certainly cute enough, and there were supporting actors who were different shades of gay and trans and different races. That was the P.C. part. 

Billy Eichner, who plays the lead and cowrote the script has a great speech about how he was always told to "tone it down" and appear "normal" and how it took him years to understand who he really was and be able to be that person. Joe started rabbinical school at 47. I started taking acting, singing and dance lessons at 36, started studying cantorial music at 43 and entered politics at 66. We both were held back in careers we didn't really like because we were gay and clearly not "normal" people. Now, late in life, we both understand who we really are, and while as clergy and politician we still have to hold back a bit, at least we are fully aware of our strengths and weaknesses. 

I've read that the box office for this movie was dismal, but we loved it. It's well acted, charming, sexy, good to look at and there were some laugh-out-loud bits, some of which might only be understood by gay audiences. Joe and I were the only ones in the theater at 7 P.M. on a Monday. If it's only a movie for certain gay people (I think it has universal appeal) it was still worthwhile, and I applaud everyone involved in it. I was moved and my thoughts were provoked.

It's well after 11 now, and I have to work on my campaign tomorrow and go to services in the evening tomorrow night and most of the day Wednesday. If I pass the stress test Thursday morning, I have three local events the rest of the day, and I'm to be in a parade out of town Saturday morning. Joe is teaching a class tomorrow afternoon at Life-Long Learning before services. I'm glad we took time out to go to a movie where we saw better-looking (and a generation younger) versions of ourselves. We needed to laugh and cry and be out of our regular life for a few hours. 

I hope everyone is sealed in the Book of Life for a healthy and fulfilling 5783.

West Virginia Democratic Women August 8, 2022

I was invited to speak to this group on 8/8/22 Here's what I said:

I am Barry Lee Wendell,  the Democratic Party candidate in West Virginia’s Second Congressional District. The District is rated R +30, so a hard race to win. As a 72-year old Jew in a same-gender marriage, I may not be the best person to run for this office. Two of us stepped up, and I won the primary. 

I had a scare Friday. A friend, a recently retired high school science teacher in Long Beach, California,  a friend of at least thirty years, was in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he was born and raised. His father had just died at 90 and they conducted a shiva minyan, a Jewish prayer service held every day for a week after a death, from the assisted living facility where his father had lived. Jonathan is married to a Mexican-American man who has a PhD. In early childhood education for children who lack language skills in both English and Spanish. George teaches elementary school in Long Beach. Jonathan and George have an adopted son who just graduated from high school this year. Jonathan’s father was born to a Jewish family in Warsaw, Poland, in 1931. A Polish family hid him and his parents during World War II. They all survived, but were not permitted to stay in Poland. They settled in Canada. 

Candidates in the United States have flirted with Nazi ideas, most closely, Doug Mastriano, the Republican candidate for Governor in Pennsylvania, who has a Jewish opponent, Josh Shapiro. In our own state, Delegate Danielle Walker has faced threats, including from a man wearing Nazi paraphernalia when she was at a Black Lives Matter rally in Preston County. 

The attacks on women’s rights, starting with the Supreme Court’s majority vote overturning  Roe vs.Wade, is a prelude to worse things. I attended the so-called hearing on HB 302 in Charleston two weeks ago. While Justice Alito said this doesn’t mean they will try to overturn same-gender marriage, Justice Thomas said it very well might. Ruth Rowan, a delegate from Hampshire County who introduced an anti-abortion amendment last year in the Legislature  said “West Virginia is a Christian state” as her reason for introducing the bill. I wrote to her and told her there is no established religion in this country. I worry about people like Jonathan and George and their apparently happy and well-adjusted son, Jimmy.

I make it clear in my campaign that “Mountaineers are always free” and that we are all entitled to “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” I always say I am pro-choice, a religious Jew, and married to a man, Morgantown’s Rabbi Joe. People often tell me I’m brave. The truth is that my father died at 69 and my mother at 75. I’ll be 73 by Election Day and I don’t see a long future ahead of me, nor do I have a career that will be upended by a defeat in this election. 

I have a dedicated group of volunteers. I love traveling around the state, I think I write and speak well. In Los Angeles, I studied both writing and acting. I don’t have the technological skills of today’s third graders, and I prefer that someone else raise money. I’m grateful that I have people who have volunteered to help or take charge of those things. 

We have about eighty donors to the campaign, all friends and family across the country, and people in West Virginia who have heard me speak or seen me online. I can’t match Alex Mooney for money, and I tell people not to fret that they don’t have enough money to send me. I tell them I’m grateful for every dollar, and I am, and that they should tell their friends and neighbors about the campaign. 

Alex Mooney has done nothing for West Virginia. He voted against the various Infrastructure and Build Back Better Acts, he voted against getting our veterans who are ill from burn pits the benefits they deserve, against lowering the cost of life-saving drugs like insulin. He has said “ Life begins at conception” and “Marriage is only between a man and a woman.” That gets personal for me. 

Liberal institutions have not given my campaign their support, and my sister called me to say that she saw in The Washington Post that the national Democratic Party wouldn’t contest the incumbents in West Virginia. Danielle Walker, the new vice-chair of the West Virginia Democratic Party, has spoken at my events and touted my candidacy online, but that’s the extent of state support. My campaign has reached out to County chairs in the counties in my district. I’ve gotten support and encouragement from Berkeley, Hampshire, Marshall and Tucker Counties. Individuals in Mineral and Wood Counties have reached out to me.

Joe Statler, the lone Republican delegate in Monongalia County, saw me in Charleston. He laughed when I asked him to vote against banning abortion, and asked how my campaign is going. I said “It’s going great. I’ll be a shoo-in once Mooney and Trump go to jail.” It was my turn to laugh.

This is the choice: Do we just want to let it go that we have a corporate extremist ideologue in Congress, or are we willing to fight to bring real democracy by backing a non-corporate, open-hearted and open-minded candidate who wants people in West Virginia to have better lives. I ask for your support and encouragement in this campaign. Thanks you for inviting me and allowing me to speak.

Recent Writings

People want to know what I've been saying, so here it is. 

This was in response to a column by Hoppy Kercheval, who writes for both the Charleston Gazette-Mail  and the Morgantown Dominion-Post. The Charleston paper published this as a letter two weeks after I sent it. I sent it to Hoppy and  he gave me ten minutes on his radio program.

"Hoppy's not entirely wrong about the Democratic Party. He says 'The party needs strong top-of-the-ticket candidates to energize voters...'  Whether or not the three of us who stepped up to run as Democrats for Congress are 'strong' is a matter of opinion, but three of us did step up. That would be me and Angela J. Dwyer in the northern Second District and Lacy Eugene Watson in the southern First District.

"All of us are interested in slowing or stopping climate change, creating gender and racial equity, helping West Virginia by fixing the roads via the Infrastructure Bill, helping the poor in our state by reinstituting the Extended Childcare Tax Credit, and capping the price of insulin so that people afflicted with diabetes don't have to choose between food and medication. We are all pro-choice, pro-LGBT, pro-union and worker.

"Since the primary, it's left to Mr. Watson and me to be the Democrats in the race. If by 'strong' Hoppy means 'raised a lot of money' we are not. But we don't have the benefit of the corporate and dark fund money that our opponents have. I personally am grateful to the sixty-five or so donors to my campaign, friends and family across the country and people who have heard my message in West Virginia. 

"Our opponents refused to certify the results of the last election, encouraging the false claims of fraud by the former President. 

"The Democrats in the race, with or without support from the National Democratic Party, are in it for the people of West Virginia. We could be strong with support from the good people of our state."

On Monday, July 25th, our Governor added  to the Legislature's "one-day" special session, a call to "clarify" the state's abortion law, in light of the Supreme Court majority overturning Roe vs. Wade. I drove to Charleston on Wednesday, leaving home at 5:30 A.M., to sign up to speak at the one public hearing on the bill scheduled for 9 A.M., with sign-ups at 8. We were close to 100 of us who signed up to speak, about two-thirds against the bill they had passed, which banned all abortions, with no exceptions. The special session adjourned Friday, having taken no action on the original tax cut proposal, and with the two houses of the Legislature not agreeing on locking up doctors who perform abortions or what, if any, exceptions could be made to the abortion ban for rape or incest. Each speaker was allotted 45 seconds (really!) to speak, so I paraphrased the first and third paragraphs. Martha Shamberger from my committee sent this out as a press release on Wednesday; no one published it.

Press release

From: Barry Lee Wendell, Democratic candidate for Congress in West Virginia-2.

Re: HB-302

"This bill takes a private decision about terminating a pregnancy away from the two people involved and their medical team and gives it to the state. This is unnecessary and intrusive.

"The Governor introduced this bill Monday afternoon and scheduled a hearing for the public at 9 A.M. Wednesday. For anyone with a day job or child-care issues, or anyone living in my constituency in the northern half of West Virginia, it was nearly impossible to attend this hearing. This is disrespectful to the people of our state.

"The Governor and the Legislature have repeatedly talked about increasing the population of West Virginia by encouraging young people to stay and people from outside the area to move here. Open minds and hearts and a willingness to accept diversity of thought and religion would do infinitely more to get young people to stay here than tax breaks for the rich and giveaways to large out-of-state corporations. 

"Rabbi Victor Urecki  of Charleston, said on Twitter yesterday, and I agree with him, '… any difficult decision of what to do is made by the woman and the guidance of her family and clergy if she chooses.That is the Jewish position and one accepted by many.That may not be the Christian view for some.' " This law violates the separation of church and state guaranteed by the United States Constitution. 

I will be available before the hearing on the front steps of the Capitol after signing in around 8 A.M. and after the hearing. "

After the hearing, there was a loud demonstration in the rotunda of the state capitol by pro-choice activists. I felt ill suddenly and left the building.

A friend in Fairmont is a member of Physicians For a National Health Program. She arranged for me to speak to the West Virginia chapter of the group on Zoom on Sunday, July 31. Here are my remarks to them:

 PNHP 7/31/22

"I am Barry Lee Wendell, the Democratic candidate for United States Congress in West Virginia’s Second District, which covers all twenty-seven counties in the northern half of the state.  I’m a native of Baltimore, Maryland. I spent the first half of my life in Baltimore, New Orleans and Miami and the second half in Los Angeles, Crescent City, California and for the last ten years, Morgantown, where I served two two-year terms on the city council. 

"I looked at your website, and I am interested in your three parts of 'Medicare For All,' Chronic Care, Prevention and Job Freedom. I have stories relating to each of these. 

"I worked as an SSI claims representative in Miami from 1978 to 1984, when I was promoted to Los Angeles as a supervisor. I was in the southernmost office in Dade County. Many of our clients were poor farmworkers, Black from Georgia or Spanish-speaking from Mexico. We also had refugees from Cuba and Haiti, and people from Puerto Rico who were only eligible for SSI if they lived in the fifty states. One day, a well-dressed professional-looking woman came to my desk. She wanted to file a claim on behalf of her son, who was turning eighteen. He had cystic fibrosis. His parents had enough income that as a child, he was not eligible for SSI or Medicaid. The medical bills for her son were exorbitant, and they could get no help. They had taken out second and third mortgages on their house. At eighteen, their son was an adult. I filled out the papers for her to have her son sign. She said he was unable to come into the office, and was not planning to enroll in college. She looked surprised that I would ask that, but as a college student, he would not have been eligible. The case was quickly approved by the medical people in another office, and her son received a small SSI check and, more importantly, Medicaid to pay his enormous hospital bills. He died three months later. That there was no help for these parents and others like them, I still find baffling. Poor families could get Medicaid from the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program or would have to go to the emergency room where the state would have to pick up the tab.

"I’ve heard politicians say that undocumented people in our country should not be able to receive medical treatment. But if there is a pandemic, COVID-19 for instance, and people are turned away because of their immigration status, then they are likely to further spread disease through the general population. If there is a contagious disease in our community, then everyone must be treated, whatever legal status they have, regardless of their ability to pay for care. It’s not rocket science. Everyone must be protected and treated, or else everyone in the community is vulnerable. Yes to prevention.

"Many of us have been in jobs where we stayed for the benefits. I worked for more than eighteen years in Los Angeles Unified School District as a substitute. If I worked one hundred days in a school year, I was eligible for good health insurance through the district. 

"Though this benefit is no longer available, I was able to keep my health insurance in retirement if I had one hundred days in fifteen consecutive years and was at least fifty-five years old. In February 2003, seventeen years after I started with the District, when I was fifty-three, I suffered a heart attack while visiting my mother in Baltimore. It was her seventy-fifth birthday, and she was dealing with pancreatic cancer. I was supposed to miss three days of work, but I missed two weeks. Three weeks after my return to Los Angeles, my sister called and asked me to come back. Mom was in hospice and it looked like she was near the end. I saw her the last two days before she died. I missed another two weeks of work, and as of late March, I didn’t have one hundred days in. I was working three days a week and going to cardiac rehab two days, instead of the three days they wanted me to do at rehab.

"I came home from school one day to find a letter from the Substitute Unit saying they were firing me for 'not working enough.' They knew about my heart attack and my mother’s death. I threatened to go to the newspapers with this story, and they backed down. I retired on my fifty-fifth birthday, kept my health insurance even to today, although I have Medicare now. 

"I should have been able to leave that job after my heart attack, instead of risking my health, indeed, my life, by going to work when I could barely walk up a flight of steps.

"My experiences in life teach me that we should have a national free health insurance plan, to protect all of us from epidemics, to get the chronic care people need, and to not leave it to employers who are always trying to cut costs, to provide health care for our people. I will publicly support national healthcare, and I pledge to work for it if I’m elected to Congress this year. Thank you for having me on your call today. "

If you've read all of this, and have questions, while you can post here, it might be more efficient to send a question to me at barrywendellforcongress2022@gmail.com. if you are so moved, you can mail a check  made out to "Barry Wendell for Congress" to Barry Wendell for Congress, P.O. Box 831, Morgantown, WV 26507. If you go to ActBlue.com, you can put my name in the box at the top of the page and make a donation there. Thanks for reading.

The Campaign So Far

 I haven't written on this blog about my campaign for Congress since I signed up to run, more than four months ago. I had a challenger in the primary, Angela J. Dwyer, a Black woman from Martinsburg, in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia. We met once in person, at the opening of the Democratic Party office in Shepherdstown, at the far end of the Eastern Panhandle. Rather than drive back from there, over 150 miles, I drove to my sister's house in Maryland and spent two nights with her. 

I attended events in Brooke, Hardy, Jefferson, Marion, Marshall, Ohio, Randolph, Taylor and Wetzel Counties before the primary. I met online with people in Berkeley County, and recorded a video for Tucker County. I understand better how beautiful West Virginia is, driving home through the hills and mountains, watching the change of seasons from winter to spring, sometimes on one trip across the mountains. 

I heard from people about problems I didn't understand, like the long wait to get an appointment at the VA Hospitals in Clarksburg and Martinsburg. I learned from reading about students at WVU lobbying in Charleston,  about the mental health crisis on college campuses nationally and in our state. 

I won the primary, although Angela Dwyer won a few counties and did not embarrass herself in any way. It was a good, clean campaign. The Republican candidates, who had much more money, endorsements and name recognition, ran ads on television. Alex Mooney, endorsed by Donald Trump, ran ads accusing his opponent, David McKinley, endorsed by Governor Jim Justice and Democratic Senator Joe Manchin,  of being a supporter of Nancy Pelosi and giving Biden "a victory" by voting for the infrastructure bill, which will bring billions of dollars to West Virginia to repair our crumbling roads and bridges. McKinley bragged that he "Voted with Trump 92% of the time."

Alex Mooney won the Republican primary to the chagrin of many. He faces an ethics investigation over his use of campaign funds for personal use and lying about it. The Dominion-Post, our local paper in Morgantown, ran an editorial against Mooney, suggesting that McKinley could get back in the race somehow. My name was not mentioned.

I've recently met online with Lacy Watson, the sole Democratic candidate in District 1, our state's other Congressional District. He's bright and articulate, and he was wearing a "Doors" tank top. We aim to be the Raphael Warnock and John Ossoff of West Virginia.

Lacy and I noted that the Charleston Gazette-Mail has not mentioned either of us since the election. The Morgantown Dominion Post hasn't mentioned me either, although they have trashed Alex Mooney. Today (6/5) they printed a letter I wrote about the need to ban assault weapons. Originally it was an op-ed piece, but they insisted I shorten it to a letter, and cut out the political part, naming names of people who have failed America, notably Ronald Reagan, Mitch McConnell and West Virginia's Senator Shelley Moore Capito. I did a twenty-minute interview with Channel 10 and WRNR in Martinsburg, and there was a front-page interview with me in the Parkersburg  News and Sentinel, so there is some coverage of the campaign in the district. 

I haven't raised a lot of money, and half of that has been from friends and family in Maryland, Florida, New York and California. The other half is from people I know here in West Virginia, and people who want an alternative to Alex Mooney. I'm disappointed about not having more support from the state and national Democratic Party, from the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, and West Virginia Can't Wait. I've gotten advice, but no official endorsement, from Working Families Party. 

Still, I have an organization that's meeting weekly and I'm hoping to get things done soon. Yesterday (June 4) I drove to Martinsburg to spend time at the Eastern Panhandle Pride event. The event was different from what I'm used to, but I lived in West Hollywood. Times have changed, too. There are a lot more variations on "gay" "lesbian" and "queer" than there used to be. I met lots of people and gave out flyers for my campaign. I feel like I've aged out of the active LGBT community, but it was great to be with my spiritual grandchildren for an afternoon.

I'm optimistic about the campaign, partly because Alex Mooney is in deep trouble over ethics violations, and because the last President's influence is waning. I have something to say to people: I will be present, I will support women's rights, trade unions, people over corporations. I want to ban assault weapons, strengthen the background checks for gun purchases and have a national permitting plan. That resonates with my constituency. I'm also proud that so many people have offered to help, from my junior high classmates (Sudbrook 1964, Pikesville Maryland) to people I've met on the way and others who've heard about my campaign. I have to also thank my husband, Joe Hample for encouraging and supporting me, even if it means being away from him more than either of us want.

Even if I don't win, I've had something important to say. I've come to know the northern half of the state much better, to appreciate its natural beauty and the diversity of the population. It's a thrilling ride, by far the coolest thing I've ever attempted.

Tappuz Katom

 My husband, Joe Hample was ordained a rabbi at Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles in May of 2009. There was a recession, he was already fifty-two and gay with what some would say was a leftist husband. Finding a job was not going to be easy.

He finally landed a full-time chaplaincy at Pelican Bay State Prison, a maximum security facility on the far north coast of California, in Del Norte County, outside of Crescent City. We went up to look for housing, and found a development of semi-detached modern townhouses, and rented the largest model, a split level with two large bedrooms and one smaller, and a two-car garage at half the price of our West Hollywood apartment. At that point, I suggested we get a pet. 

We lived near the coast, which I thought was great, only I found out there is no real summer there. It's always cool and rains most days, although it almost never freezes. Inland, in the redwoods is sunnier and warmer in summer.

The county dog pound was down the street, and I went one day to see what dogs were available. There was a black and white dog that looked like one of the dogs in the "Mutts" comic strip. I still think about him, and how our life would have been different if we had adopted him. 

But after talking it over with Joe, we decided a cat might be better. We visited the county shelter at the south end of the city. They had three kittens and a female orange tabby one of the workers called "April" and one of the other workers called "Mamie." She was full-grown, maybe two years old. We didn't get the full story of why she was there. When we seemed to show an interest in her, she walked away and tried to hide. We were charmed, 

That's how we came to own a cat. We thought of calling her "Gluekel of Hamelin," "Glekel" being the maiden name of one of my grandmothers, and "Hamelin" sounding a little like "Hample." Gluekel was a prophetess of sorts in the Middle Ages. My sister demanded we find something much simpler. We called her Tappuz Katom in Hebrew, the first name meaning orange, the fruit, and the last name meaning orange the color.

She always had a mind of her own, always wanted to be outside, always used her litter box when indoors. She liked to sleep with us.

When Joe was offered the rabbi job at Tree of Life in Morgantown, of course we brought her with us. That meant over five days in the car, unhappy unless I let her out of her carrier, although then she wanted to be in my lap or on the floor by my feet, both impossible while I was driving. The rest stops on the Interstates had signs saying "No pets in the rest rooms," and since it was summer, I took her outside in her carrier up to the rest room entrance. Kindly women would coo at her and show her all their teeth, which she took as a threat and howled.

Our first home in Morgantown had two outdoor balconies, and she liked to hang there. They were not covered, so she stayed in when it rained, although she seemed intrigued by snow. Outside was more complicated because the living area was on the second and third floor while most of the first floor was a garage. One time, when we left the front door open, the next door dog got loose and followed her up the stairs, scaring her.

She didn't immediately figure out our second house, although it also had stairs leading outside, but this time the porch was covered so she could sit outside and watch the rain and snow.We are on a dead end street that one can walk through, and many people do, especially when they are out with their dogs. Tappuz loved to watch the dogs go by. She wasn't afraid of them.

We had noticed her getting weaker this year. She asked us to lift her on the bed because she couldn't jump up. Her paws didn't always seem to hold her up. She lost weight. I took her to the vet in early April. She had lost the use of one paw completely and although she could still climb the stairs, it was hard. I moved her food upstairs to my office in what would normally be the second bedroom. The vet offered to put her out right there, but I strongly objected. She could barely see, her one paw was useless, she had almost no feeling in her three working paws, and she had lost more weight. The vet said "You can take her home, but understand that it will be hospice care." The last week of her life she came downstairs one day and wanted to go out on her own. We let her, and she came back up the stairs by herself. She also came over to me while I was sitting on the couch in my office. She didn't want to sit on my lap, because she couldn't balance, but she cuddled up next to me. 

The night before our cleaning woman came four weeks ago, I was wondering where I could put her so the room could be cleaned. It was cool out, and I didn't think I could leave her outside, as I had done in the past. Joe said "She's done." Of course, I objected, but I called my sister in Maryland, who has had many cats over the years, and told her the situation. She said "Your cat's life is over." Still, I objected.

The next morning, she had gone on the pad we left in the bedroom closet for her (she couldn't climb in the litter box), but it went over the boundaries of the pad and onto the carpet. I cleaned it up, and assured Tappuz it was not a problem. While I was brushing my teeth, I heard a yowl from her. I ran out, picked her up, and placed her in the litter box. She tried to dig a spot in the litter, but couldn't. She went in the box, but it was mostly black liquid. She crawled out and tried to go under our bed, where she always hid when she was embarrassed about something. I followed her, and I caught her vomit in a tissue before she could get to the bed. She went back to her blanket in the office. I came in and petted her, which would usually make her purr. This time it didn't, and she gave me a look that said "I'm done." We took her to the vet that morning, before the cleaning woman came, and we sat with her while she was tranquilized and petted her. They took her away from us because they couldn't find an uncollapsed vein to give her the final drug  and they didn't want us to see her stabbed in the heart. We didn't take any mementos, didn't want any of her hair or her ashes. We only kept our memories and pictures.

I know I gave Tappuz human qualities, but she and I became close during the early time of the pandemic, when neither Joe nor I were going out much. I felt that she and I really understood each other, and most of the time I could tell what she wanted, or at least that she wanted something from me. I know this story isn't different from the stories of many people with pets, but I wanted to share my love for this animal and my grief at her passing. I still look for her under my desk, still wish she were sleeping with me or between me and Joe. I still wonder if I should leave the door open for her to come in or go out. 

We've talked about getting another cat, or maybe a dog this time. We decided to wait until after the election in November.

                                         Our neighbors indoor cat watching Tappuz

                                              Napping with Joe

                                              In our yard at autumn

Autobiography- Early morning 4/12

 The first school year I was in New Orleans, I had a roommate named Jack. We found each other from Tulane's housing office, and rented a shotgun house a block from the Mississippi near Audubon Park.  Jack was a senior undergraduate in engineering; I was a first year grad student in Urban Studies. Jack was from a prominent South Alabama family, and a good student, but tried to be rough. He bathed infrequently, rode a motorcycle and liked to sky dive as a hobby. He had a disturbed girlfriend from a decaying Chattanooga family. Jack was crazy handsome when he cleaned up, not that I noticed. 

We moved in together fifty years ago this coming fall. We only stayed together that one school year. He wanted to keep the house, so I took an apartment alone the next year, and we rarely saw each other after that. I left New Orleans a year later.

I still think about Jack, mostly what he said to me when we split up our household. He said " I think you're gonna make it big one day, Wendell, but I ain't sayin' how old you'll be." I didn't sleep well tonight, maybe because I had my second booster shot against COVID-19 on Friday, maybe because of what I ate ( I cooked tonight), or because I walked in Core Arboretum for nearly ninety minutes this afternoon and overdid it. 

So as I lay awake, I thought about what Jack said to me in May of 1973. Maybe he was right. I've been with the same man for more than sixteen years now. We're married, we own a home and two cars, and we have an old cat, who is on "home hospice" with us. And I'm running for United States Congress. Others are shocked that I could run for Congress, and maybe I'm surprised, too. I know enough now, and while I am not likely to win, it's not because I can't do the job or lack qualifications. It's taken me the fifty years since Tulane to become that person who is stable, confident and capable.

 Maybe some other night when I can't sleep, I'll write more about what I've gone through.

Prejudice

I sent this as an op-ed piece to The Charleston Gazette-Mail.  They said they would run it, but couldn't say when. It's why we need to teach about the history of  racial and religious prejudice.

When people ask where I'm from, I say "The South, Maryland." Usually the response is "That's not The South. They didn't have segregation." I patiently explain that I grew up in the 1950s and 1960s, and everything was segregated. Black people couldn't sit at the lunch counter at Read's drugstore, couldn't watch a movie at The Ambassador, couldn't bowl at Northwest Lanes. In northwestern Baltimore County, where I lived, Gwynn Oak Amusement Park, Milford Mill Swim Club and Price's Dairy (all gone now) were not open to Black people. 

My parents were New Yorkers, and my mother moved to Baltimore when she married my father in 1947. She was nineteen, polite and stylish and got a job selling women's hats at Hutzler's Department Store downtown. She told me she was once chewed out by a manager for allowing a Black woman to try on a hat.

Most of the neighborhood where I grew up was built in the 1950s, by two different builders. The difference was that one sold houses to Jews (and advertised in The Baltimore Jewish Times) and one builder would not sell houses to Jews. Black folk couldn't live anywhere in the neighborhood, except for one street that was there before the suburban boom. And the children from that street (only one girl in my year) went to a separate school until 1959, when I started fifth grade.

The John Waters movie "Hairspray," the stage play that came later and the movie of the stage play, portray realistically how things were. If you were a child or a teen in Baltimore in the late 1950s and early 1960s, as I was, you would immediately recognize "The Corney Collins Show" as a take-off on "The Buddy Deane Show."  When I saw the first movie in 1987 in Los Angeles, friends thought it was a fantasy. I had to correct them. They said there could not possibly have  been separate days for Black teens to be on the show. "That's crazy," they said. Maybe it was, but that's how it was.

We Jews, as well as Blacks, were not permitted to join the neighborhood swim club in Lochearn, the religiously segregated neighborhood immediately adjacent to our development. I was probably ten or eleven when that club opened, and I was disappointed to learn that we would not be able to swim there. The summer I was ten, we stayed with my grandparents in Long Beach, New York. I was surprised, but secretly pleased, to see Black children in the pool. 

I admit that I did go to racially segregated places as a teen. They were what there was for us, and I wanted the best time possible for myself in those years. 

I'm telling this story because politicians want to scare people into erasing history, and at 72, I want to make sure there is a record before my time runs out. The blather about making kids uncomfortable is pointless. High school students aren't children and they already see a lot more than politicians give them credit for. They are old enough to know the truth.

Barry Wendell for Congress

 Thanks to redistricting, and our state's population loss over the last ten years, West Virginia has gone from three congresspeople to two in this year's election. Our representative, David McKinley, was placed in the same district as another incumbent, Alex Mooney. People have been looking at this as a contest between two Republicans, McKinley as a "moderate" and Mooney as a full-on MAGA devotee. While McKinley did vote for the infrastructure bill, he calls Build Back Better "reckless social spending." He also claims President Biden has done nothing to stop the pandemic. His party has not proposed anything to help. Mooney criticizes McKinley for supporting Nancy Pelosi and the infrastructure bill. He also touts his own endorsement by the previous President.

This race leaves an opening for a Democrat, someone open-hearted, who favors social justice spending by the government, who is  pro-family, pro-choice, pro-science and willing to do whatever is best for the country, not just for a political party. I've asked at the last few monthly county Democratic Party meetings if anyone had signed up to run against McKinley and Mooney, and was met with silence. 

I'm a Maryland native who lived in Miami and Los Angeles for most of my adult life. I'm Jewish and a gay man in a same-gender marriage. I'm also seventy-two years old. I used these as an excuse not to put in my name for this contest. But I'm younger than David McKinley, and I've lived in West Virginia longer than Alex Mooney. I was elected twice to Morgantown's City Council, the second time, in 2019, with seventy-three percent of the vote. 

There is now another candidate for the Democratic nomination in our district, a woman in Martinsburg. I don't know her. Nominations must be postmarked by tonight (Saturday, January 29), so it will be a few days before we all know if there are other candidates.

I've done interviews with news sources already, and I have calls and emails to return tonight. I still need a treasurer and a campaign manager, and I have ethics forms to complete, so everything is canceled while I get to work on my campaign.

I know it's a long shot, but West Virginians need a candidate who stands for civility, working people, unions, the environment and the science of public health. I'm that person.

Contact me at barryforcongress2022@gmail.com

The SAG Awards nominating committee

 There are about 160,000 members of SAG-AFTRA (Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists), and 2,500 are selected every year to nominate films for the upcoming SAG Awards. There are two groups: one for television and one for film. This year, in September, I was selected to be an alternate to the nominating committee. Somewhere along the line, I became a full member.

I paid to join AFTRA in 1986, before the unions merged, and I got an "under-five" part on "General Hospital" in April 1987, through an acting class showcase. That made me eligible to join SAG, which I did. I didn't work a lot or often for them over the years, but I kept up my membership. Now that I'm over seventy, I don't have to pay any more dues. 

I am no longer an active movie-goer. I did see "In The Heights" and "West Side Story" in a theater. Joe and I saw "Summer of Soul" when we were in San Francisco this summer, but because it is a documentary, it's not up for SAG awards. We also watched " tick, tick...BOOM" on cable when we visited my sister over Thanksgiving. I received forty DVDs in the mail of nominated films, and sixty-four digital links to films on my computer. For some, I received both a digital invitation and a DVD. These are not transferable and many of the DVDS will not work after January 10. Don't even ask. 

I didn't get right on this because I was teaching a class at Life-Long Learning for six weeks in October and November. It took some weeks for me to figure out a way to see one movie per day, about all I could do. 

I wasn't going to nominate people in films I didn't like, but after consulting with my sister, a film buff who said I should look at the acting, since that was what I was supposed to do, I did vote for the actors, even if I didn't like the film. 

Here's what I saw, alphabetically:

"Annette," "Being The Ricardos," "Belfast," "C'mon, C'mon," "CODA," "Cyrano," "Dear Evan Hansen," "Don't Look Up," "Drive My Car," "The Humans," "The Electric Life of Louis Wain," "The Eyes of Tammy Faye," "The French Dispatch...," "The Hand Of God," "House of Gucci," "In The Heights,""Language Lessons," "Licorice Pizza," "Lost Daughter,""No Time To Die," "Parallel Mothers," "Nightmare Alley," "The Power of the Dog," "Spencer," "Swan Song" (the one about the older gay man in Sandusky), "Tango Shalom," "tick, tick...BOOM," "West Side Story," and "The Worst Person In The World." 

The votes were for "Lead Actor-Male," "Lead Actor-Female" (no non-binary characters), and the same for supporting actors, then "Cast", and "Stunt Ensemble." I only saw four films with a stunt ensemble, so I voted for four in that category, five in the others.

I prefer small movies to big ones, foreign to domestic, and I like to see Jewish and/or LGBT characters, of which there were precious few this year. There were many performances I like enough to nominate, but I had to pick only five. I had more performances I liked in the co-star category than in the starring role category, and there were more males than females up for nomination, which is typical, unfortunately.

Here are my votes: 

For  Lead Actor: Daniel Craig in "No Time To Die," Benedict Cumberbatch in "The Power of the Dog," Leonardo DiCaprio in "Don't Look Up," Udo Kier in "Swan Song," Hidetoshi Nishijima in "Drive My Car."

For Lead Actress: Penélope Cruz in "Parallel Mothers," Alana Haim in "Licorice Pizza," Rachel Zegler in "West Side Story," Lady Gaga in "House of Gucci," and Kristen Stewart in "Spencer."

For Supporting Actor:  Anders Danielsen Lie in "Worst Person In The World," Robin DeJesús in "tick, tick...BOOM," Tyler Perry in "Don't Look Up," Koli Smit-McPhee in "The Power of the Dog," and Ben Whitshaw in "No Time To Die." 

For Supporting Actress: Nina Arianda in "Being The Ricardos," Kate Blanchett in "Don't Look Up," Vanessa Hudgins in "tick, tick...BOOM," Dakota Johnson in "Lost Daughter," and Amandla Stenberg in "Dear Evan Hansen."

For Cast: "Dear Evan Hansen," "Don't Look Up," "The Hand Of God," "Licorice Pizza," and "Nightmare Alley."

For Stunt Ensemble: "In The Heights," "No Time To Die," tick, tick...BOOM," and "The Power Of The Dog." 

The nominations close Sunday, January 9, and the nominees will be announced Wednesday, January 12. It should be interesting. 

I didn't see everything I was sent, and many of the nominees did not send me DVDs or digital screeners. If you want to argue with me, you can comment on my Facebook page, if we are friends. If we're not friends yet, shoot me an email at doveliezer2001@yahoo.com or send a note to Barry Wendell at P.O. Box 831, Morgantown, WV 26507. If you have my phone number, you can call.