Event Horizon of 2015

As I write, I have just finished watching an old favorite movie, one I had actually forgotten about, until I saw it in Blue-Ray and picked it up a few months ago.  I was waiting for the proper mood to play it.  "Chances Are" with Robert Downey Jr., Cybill Shepherd and Ryan O'Neill.  It was made in 1989, twenty five years ago. O'Neill and Shepherd were still young. Downey was like 25 years old, if that. No sign of the ravages that would lead to rehab and recovery--leaving him a still handsome, but definitely weathered individual.

Ostensibly, it is about a man who is killed in the prime of life in a car accident as he is going to meet his bride of one year only to be reincarnated in the body of Downey, Jr.  The bride was Cybill Shepherd, now old enough to be the Downey character's mother. Silly stuff? Yeah. And not.

All of this, the making of the movie and the movie itself, is about time moving on and about changes to which we are heir whether we like it or not. Somehow, the fictional story and the fact that these actors are frozen on screen in 1989 ties directly into my reveries tonight.

Obviously, if I am writing at 10:30 on December 31, 2014, I am not out and about for the ten second chant that marks the shift from one year to another. This is the first year in a long time. How it came about is a combination of accident, misunderstanding and choice.  And alas, I forgot to do one thing I absolutely intended, to call a childhood friend in New York when the clock turned to 2015 in her neck of the woods. Well, not forgot exactly. Waited until it was too late.  By the time I remembered it was after 1 a.m. in the Big Apple.

"Chances Are" it was all somehow meant. I have always been one to consider the passing of time, the reality of death and all that. But when you are young and reading poems about the philosophies of life and death, it really isn't built into your psyche fully that it is all so damn quick. And while I have sought and generally found meaning in my faith, something about the press of time begins to test that faith. Or rather makes me wonder how solid it is, when the pedal hits the metal.

I am on the event horizon of another year, so many years after the one in which I made my initial appearance. So many family members and a goodly number of friends if it comes to that are gone. And as I enter this New Year, I have fewer and fewer of them on whose presence I can rely. I think that is something that comes to all of us, this realization of there being no bulwark on this planet against the buffets that remain, and fewer with whom to share those transitory moments of joy.

What will I do with this New Year?  Will I waste so much of it as I have wasted much of the years before, thinking I had an abundance of opportunity?

Funny how things you wouldn't expect make me so aware of need to seize moments I never have, and probably never will because I will fall out of the sense of urgency. This actor died. Edward Hermann. He was the dad on Gilmore Girls which I never watched. And he was a really well received portrayer of FDR, whom he actually resembled. He was also a Catholic convert. I didn't know him to chit chat, but I did see him often at Church. He died of brain cancer today in New York, on this last day of 2014. Less than a year ago, I was one of the lay ministers giving out ashes on Ash Wednesday, and he was one of the people in my line.  Even from the step of the sanctuary I had to reach to his six foot five frame as I made the sign of the cross on his forehead, and said, "Remember Man, that thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return.". Maybe this goes back to the movie. I don't believe in reincarnation but I do believe that we are all connected, in life and in death. He is now one of the dead for whom we will pray, as one day I will be one of the dead for whom others will pray.  (Please God).

The reader may say I am being morbid. But that is part of the point.  I can't explain it exactly, but it isn't morbid.  It's a little scary to know that one of these years you won't be getting to or finishing. No, it's more than a little scary. But aside from any philosophical or religious revelations in its considerations, I think it is supposed to be a wake up call, to get us out of habits and mind sets that get in the way of those really good moments that do come our way.

My particular betel noir is fear, a fear that has made me risk aversive to what others find enjoyable, and not particularly dangerous. I'll fly, but only after skewing up a lot of I won't call it courage, but trying to put aside how I hate being up in the air in a tin can. When I see accidents like the one that happened this week, I am ready to bolt the doors and never take a trip. But my fear extends to far more than that, and I wonder whether, if I haven't dealt with them in two thirds of my life, will I in the remaining third, should I be given one? 

But I think as it now is only fifteen minutes until auld Lang sine (which I will be singing to my cats), I shall hold onto that thing with feathers, hope. Hope that I won't just say "Seize the Day!" but once and maybe more than once, do it!

And I pray that as you pass through the event horizon into the unknown New Year, you will find reason to hope for yourselves and the ones you love.

Sony Caves, North Korea Chortles at American Cowardice and Abandonment of Freedom of Speech

I bet that when the producers of the movie readily banished by Kim Jong-Un came up with the idea to advertise that their movie was "from the western capitalist pigs who brought you Neighbors and this is the End" they were having a good old time. Weed was surely enjoyed by all, though certainly no demon tobacco was allowed.  It never occurred to these great media minds that while in America you still mostly can (unless you are a Republican or an active member of Judaism and Christianity) say what you want, there are other countries (that our Administration insists on trying to befriend as if they have the same sense of right and wrong we do) don't subscribe to liberty of any form. And now these dictators have access to our technological infrastructure and can reach the spoiled brats of our movie industry. People used to laugh when Kim and his late dad launched missiles that fell into the ocean.  Now, that former "Mouse who Roared" has demonstrated what life will be when the American experiment fails--as it will if our citizenry does not wake up.

First came the hack that revealed Sony's Most Important Files and the true thoughts of those who publicly offer fealty to all things liberal and the level of jealousy that members of the movie industry have toward one another, and then came the threat of real physical attack on anyone who would dare to show or see the movie.  While government sources weakly announced that there was "no credible threat", Sony pulled the movie before its première, and put a prohibition of any DVD release or other digital dissemination.

Still laughing at Kim?  That funny little man just successfully and completely censored what used to be the most powerful nation in the world. But now that the movers and shakers of modern nation have decided that the Founders were all wet and they know better in their humanistic hubris that believes man is the measure of all things and somehow has changed from beast to god, an exceptional America is verboten. Congratulations.  The fiasco with "The Interview" is one result of an unexceptional nation.

It is not about this stupid movie. I would not have had the least desire to see it had this Sturm und drang not occurred.

Are the corporate heads of Sony cowards?  When America was exceptional, when our way of life was defended unto death, up until about 1968 when we lost our moral compass, yes would have been the obvious answer.  But, after all, in today's world, if they had run the movie in theatres, and if someone had gotten hurt, the lawyers (my field I am often ashamed to recall) would have sued Sony for damages for the failure to protect those who freely attended to uphold the principles of their homeland. As they are now being criticized by some, including our president, who said they should have talked to him--for giving in, they would have been criticized by the very same people had they gone ahead and a terrorist attack occurred.  That's what happens when we try to pretend that our values are comparable to those of North Korea, or Russia, or Iran or any such place that considers torture an entertainment activity.

As seems to happen before every world conflagration, World War I, or World War II, Americans become complacent. Now though, we seem to remain complacent when attacked--- as if somehow we can hide in our houses when they come for someone else. Surely it won't be us.  Scary. I don't think we could get prepared for war if we had to as we did after Pearl Harbor.

Frankly, I am just as worried about the assaults on freedom of speech from within. Last night a friend brought up several subjects on the public radar. He told me that he is a socialist. Given the career that this man has had which he would NEVER have in a socialist (which usually becomes Communist) society, and given some comments that I simply could not remain silent over, I pushed back, ever so slightly, and to my shame, not as articulately as I would have liked.  He became enraged. He said "I can't talk to you."  I reminded him that he had raised a subject that I usually avoid so as not to be excoriated (I guess I am a coward too beaten verbally into submission) and that I had a right to my view. "Yes, you do," he said. But he wasn't happy about it.  He apologized later in the conversation.  He had other things on his mind as well.

 If we citizens of the United States don't believe that America is a good place, as compared with all the others as was more poignantly said I think by Winston Churchill regarding democracy itself, then we are doomed to a loss of our freedoms, every single one, squeezed from within and without.

Just so we are clear, this is




the Supreme Leader. He may look like a petulant child, but he holds the people of North Korea hostage and has reached into the lives of the American people tyrannically.

We think we are better than our forbears, not likely to fall into the same traps. But then we do.

Kim Jong-Un just mopped the floor with the "Western capitalist pigs who brought you Neighbors and This is the End."

Maybe it is the end.

Oh, I forgot, the Administration is going to respond "proportionately" to the cyber attack and presumably to the threats of terror if the movie was shown.  There is a word that begs interpretation.

Thoughts On a Saturday Afternoon

It is a shimmering day in Los Angeles, after a mammoth rain.  I got up exceedingly late, so late, I am embarrassed to say. I have a dinner engagement this evening, but up to that time, I had no plan, except to do my laundry and that reluctantly. "I Love Lucy" is playing on the television of the kids downstairs.  I am contradictorily, depressed and content. Don't know how that could be, but I'm going with it. Or: maybe I am moving out of a light depression toward contentment. Maybe praying helped, though I do that very badly, full of distraction and getting up and down.

Anyway, on the way back upstairs from my dungeon of a laundry room, walking past the slightly undulating pool and the plethora of palm trees outside on the street, in full view, I suddenly thought of my dad. But the thought was very specific:  that he had made it possible for me to have this languorous day in comfort and safety. And I realized that if he were still alive, I would likely still not be giving him credit. 

He would say, "I was right to convince you to work for the government, wasn't I?" I had wanted to give up the law entirely and become a television writer.  Or a radio host.  I wasn't an idiot. I knew I would need a job even to do either, but I also knew that once I started a legal career anywhere, I would become immersed and by default give up my dreams. And what I had seen of the "law" as mutilated by its practitioners up to that point had made me anxious and nauseous daily.

By the time he asked me one or another version of his question intended to obtain my concession to the wisdom of his not so gentle push on my psyche for practicality rather than what he perceived to be the fantastic, I had been working at the Bar as a prosecutor for well more than a decade. I would respond, "Well, we'll never know because I never allowed myself to take the chance on writing or radio.. I was afraid and I just gave in".(or some such reply). And we'd end up in an argument because while being a prosecutor at the Bar was possibly the ONLY thing I could comfortably manage, and keep a reasonably clear conscience (I found not possible as I worked for those in private practice before the Bar), it was, ultimately, 25 years of institutional and personal turmoil, the end result of which I found myself despite my consistent excellent reviews out on my ear with several other colleagues, also with consistent excellent reviews. It was a bit of an ignominious conclusion to dedication and loyalty, disposed of by those immortal words, "We're going in a different direction."

By the time that happened, Dad had been dead a bit over three years, and so I couldn't offer any "I told you so's". But here's the thing. By then and today, walking back to my apartment with my laundry, I didn't and don't want to.  By the time of the demise of my managerial state, I had worked my way up the ladder with concomitant benefits in status and pay, albeit not of the nature that one makes in big firms  (nowadays, as private organizations struggle, folks now suddenly envy the public sector with its lower pay but better benefits). I had become a good teacher and spontaneous speaker. I could survive without this job. Dad's remonstrations It about handling finances, also against which I railed, had hit their mark. I didn't want to hang up a shingle now, any more than I had when I was younger, after seeing what corners lawyers cut in order to make a dime (it is a myth that lawyers as a group make a lot of money; only a very small percentage do--the aforementioned big firms).  And the practice had become more debased by the time I was liberated from my job.

I did take some classes for voice over work, and I enjoyed it, and was good at it, but I wasn't up for paying a lot of money to professionals for the one in a million chance of making money. Maybe it is true as one teacher said that you had to have "fire in the belly" and I haven't got fire about such things anymore, having seen and heard things that suggest that even if someone has the fire, there are a lot of human machinations which get in the way, and can torpedo the aspirant. I have written a memoir, but it needs a complete revamping (I got some very good notes) and I just haven't been ready to tackle it.

The good news is that because Dad set me on a road to relative security in my dotage (assuming I don't mess it up which for a variety of reasons I worry I could), and assuming God will allow me a long life, I can still write, or try to be an extra at Central Casting.  Or I can just do my laundry without worrying where my next meal is coming from.

Either way, Dad made that possible. I am sitting on my terrace of the condo that dad bought over a weekend in 2002 and lived in for six years. It has a nice vibe this place. And somehow I credit that to him as well. Lots of pieces of him are here, photos, a diploma, a couple of maracas that he played ore than sixty years ago in the little apartment in the Bronx that looked like a night club.

The item that caught my eye as I brought in my laundry, was his mandolin.

This was the favored one.
The other has long since fallen to pieces and I had to throw it out. But this is the one that he would take up to accompany his favorite Greek, and Italian tapes.

He would be playing it now, in this very apartment, if her were here. His pipe would be in his mouth, ashes dropping to his pants, and somehow he'd manage to interpose the question again,
"Was I right about convincing you to go work for the Bar?".

Two peas in a pod that we were, equally resistant to being wrong, I would probably gripe a bit, and give him grudging credit.

But from this vantage point, today, the answer is, "Yes, you were right., dad".

I know he's heard me. He is very pleased.

An Evening With Norman Lloyd

I'd love to say that I spent the evening having a little dinner and being regaled, just a few of us, by Mr. Lloyd, actor, producer, director, college of Orson Welles and John Horseman, this past Saturday. But, alas, though I was regaled, and charmed, by this entertainment legend who just reached his centenary year, I was one of a substantial crowd in the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica. I could not have him to myself to hear his stories.

In one five foot seven or so package, slightly bent, wearing a natty pair of gray pants and a double breasted blazer, is one powerhouse man of the old Hollywood industry, who for all of his age maintains a twinkle in his eye and a talent for telling tales of the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and even beyond. Whew!

There are two things I love about Los Angeles. The weather is a big one. The other is the existence of what used to be called the "Dream Factory".  Much of the film and television industry has emigrated to locales like Vancouver, but much still remains, and, one thing you have here is the ability to go and hear actors, writers, directors, producers talk about some of the greatest movies ever made. I have heard tales from Jack Lemmon, Shirley McClain, Janet Leigh, Charlton Heston, Elmer Bernstein, Carl Reiner, to name just a few. Every time there is both a pang of joy and a pang of potential loss, because as these folks age and die (as so many in this list already have), we can no longer hear the stories of those who were there in person. We do have archives, video, internet, audio.  That's great, but it isn't the same.

So, how did this all come about. I got an e-mail from Len Speaks and he said that Saboteur, one of Alfred Hitchcock's early American films circa 1942, (he did films in England before that) was running at the Aero, and Mr. Lloyd was going to appear and talk about his small, but seminal, first acting role, in the film. The movie starred Robert Cummings, who for some unknown reason, I never favored, though he was a fine enough actor. So, I had never seen the movie, despite my love of Hitchcock's work. But I knew of Norman Lloyd. For those who love the small screen, he was Dr. Auschlander in the long running TV show "St. Elsewhere" between 1983 and 1988. But he also produced, and directed the Alfred Hitchcock Hour and Presents. I mentioned Orson Welles. Lloyd was involved with the Mercury Theatre, you know the one that did the historic, "War of the Worlds" on radio in 1939. He called Hitchcock "Hitch".  Now, come on, that is downright cool!

As it happened I had just watched a movie in which he appeared in 1989, "Dead Poets Society" as the unyielding headmaster to Robin Williams' "Carpe Diem" English teacher, and listened to his memories of doing that movie with director Peter Weir. So, though I was feeling lazy about going out that evening, I said, "Sure."  And boy am I glad!

The man tell stories, and remember every detail, even what someone was eating during some momentary encounter. He told one story of Welles flicking expensive whiskey on his actors while they were on stage. He talked about meeting Welles many years after they had parted ways, and receiving a bear hug from the great man, as Welles said, "You son of a bitch!" with great love. 

The thing is, what I saw Saturday night was an ordinary man who did extraordinary things. As he talked I saw my dad in him. My dad would be 96 right now, so he and Mr. Lloyd shared a part of long gone time. Both were born on the East Coast, both sought out education and learned to speak and write and think well. They both went to New York University. I could imagine my dad, also an amazing raconteur, and, in his youth and even older age, having a matinee idol look, having taken a slightly different turn in his life. Dad had a chance to go into the entertainment industry. friend of his worked for NBC after the war, and offered to help dad get in there in some capacity, but dad was unsure of himself in those days, a lingering effect of his own background, and he declined. I remember thinking, "It could have been you Dad." Instead, it was Norman Lloyd with his gestures so much like my father, his love of women (when photos were being taken Mr. Lloyd was delighted to have his taken with a young woman and he beamed), and his ability to hold you in thrall over some encounter years in the past. I felt close to Mr. Lloyd and my father, at once.

The extraordinary things Norman Lloyd did are interesting to the ordinary me, a student of the entertainment industry that I once hoped to become part of as a television writer.  Like my dad, I was afraid, and chose a more certain, though not necessarily safer, occupational path, that of a lawyer. So, I admire those who took a path less well traveled, like Norman Lloyd and who have been the source of many wonderful and still lasting products of their talents and imagination.

Oh, and the movie was good too. Get it on DVD or Netflicks.

Things that Aren't Here Anymore, the Djinn Version

If you watch PBS as I do when my 400 other channels seem to be devoid of anything to watch that doesn't involve blood or sex or explosions causing either, then you might have seen the documentaries by Ralph Story, "Things That Aren't Here Anymore" and "More Things that Aren't Here Anymore" focusing on attractions, stores, celebrity haunts, family entertainment venues that were popular in the 30s, 40's, 50s, 60's and 70s in Los Angeles and its environs that are no longer part of its kitschy landscape. You know, like the Brown Derby on Wilshire Boulevard, or Tail of the Pup that used to be around La Cienega and Beverly, the Garden of Allah on the Corner of Crescent Heights and Sunset where the stars would covet and cavort with one another clandestinely. Oh, and Schwabs, also on Sunset, where Lana Turner was said to have been discovered.

I was driving along the other day and it occurred to me that since I came to Los Angeles in 1981, I too have seen many a Los Angeles venue pass on to it great reward, often to be replaced by a banal, square strip mall or banal, square apartment building named after the place it supplanted.

Speaking of Schwab's that is one of the locations that was disappearing just as I arrived in La La land.



Alas, when I saw it, it did not look like this.  It looked more like


  this and it was about to become one of those large malls, now housing movie theatres (albeit quite a good one, Sundance), and Crunch and Starbucks and the like. The stars and the crowds who followed them were long gone.

Another location, deteriorated in Dickensian fashion, was the Original Spanish Kitchen, but when Ii moved into my Fairfax District neighborhood, it still was an extant landmark.




It looked like this, decaying and the source of many a tale of its demise, for twenty years after my arrival in Los Angeles. What I heard was that the last remaining member of the original family that owned the land refused to touch it (leaving all the furniture and appurtenances exactly as it had been) after it closed abruptly in the early 1960s. Only when she died was it able to be in any way altered. There was one or more movies about the place, all speculating on what REALLY had happened (and naturally a sordid tale) to cause a successful restaurant to close overnight. Assuming any of the rumors were true, she must have died, as the space was ultimately made into a Spa. The only thing partially preserved was the sign off the top right of the picture. They kept the first three letters.

My very first experience at a trendy Los Angeles restaurant was actually several years before I moved here. It was 1977 and I had a week's vacation from law school in New York. I had not yet learned how to drive and so I was squired about by a friend (hello Dennis) who had a fellowship at USC. One of the first trips was down the 10, to the Pacific Coast Highway and then to Malibu, for dinner at the Sea Lion. If you were a fan of Johnny Carson, you might remember a skit he did on his show about a particularly bad storm that caused a wave to go right through one of those ocean view windows. That trip to Malibu was what sold me on California.  While the old Sea Lion isn't there anymore, the spot is still a trendy restaurant, Duke's, an outpost of the Honolulu Dukes. You can wave from one Duke's on this side of the Pacific to the one on Oahu.


One of my favorite things from 1981 to today remains the original Farmer's Market on Third and Fairfax. I can't say it isn't there anymore. It isn't there like it was, and while I have accustomed myself to the Grove (alas, perhaps, more than accustomed myself) that is the primary lure for tourists these days with its upscale shops and attractions, I miss the half that was razed in order to make the Grove.

 This side of the market is the site of the second parking lot and places like Maggiano's and Wood Ranch Grill. It used to house a bevy of kitschy souvenir stores, or should I say, the rest of the kitschy stores including an antique place, and truth be known the upscale David Orgell (now in Beverly Hills solely). To the right of that picture is the original Gilmore adobe, which has survived the Grove.  I was within walking distance of the Market for many years and I would go to the newsstand, buy a Hollywood Reporter (in those days I still thought I'd end up a television writer), and have a couple of slices at Patsy D'Amore. The family came from New York and so these were two pieces of New York pizza heaven.  I am no longer within walking distance, but I still go from time to time to the part that remains of the original market, which was helped financially by the existence of the Grove, buy Entertainment Weekly at the newstand and have a couple of pieces of Patsy's pizza.

I have been writing while at a volunteer job that had moments of quiet, and it's getting to that point where  have to wrap a few things up, so I pause here aware that there are so many other places to mention, that gave so much pleasure and are, in some cases, no longer available to be enjoyed by a new generation.  I will be back with my "More Things that Aren't Around Anymore."  Soon.

Lunch at the Chateau (Marmont)

Today is a rare day, even for the Djinn in retirement. After I served at Mass this afternoon, I was free to do as I wanted.  No important errands. No favor to be accomplished. No volunteer activity whatsoever.

I did pick up a tarp at the 99 cents store because we have been informed that it might rain in Southern California and I have terrace furniture to protect.  Right now, there is a significant breeze and errant rain like clouds overhead blocking the sun occasionally. So just maybe we will get the first of a rain for which California finds itself in extremis.

But a few hours ago, it was sunny and seasonable and I decided to do something I have long wanted to. I walked all of four blocks and up a hill to the Chateau Marmont and on an impulse had lunch in "The Restaurant". 

I think this comfort is a product of being at an age when I am largely invisible. I might well have been the eldest person there. And though I remain a bit of a wanna be, I am not presently vaguely in the entertainment industry. There was no one I recognized until Mark Ruffalo came handsomely breezing in, seeming like a very nice guy.

I found myself considering the look of the women. I generally don't share too much of my internal world in these pages, but heck, I am at that age now, also when frankly I realize that my internal world doesn't amount to a hill of beans in the scheme of things, so what's to hide?  I was looking to see in them what I have been told is missing in me, (and I don't quite disagree as it happens) although it might be nice if people did not feel that they have a right to make overt observations about me when I could make equally difficult observations about them I am certain they would be enraged to hear.  I was recently told that I look asexual, that I dress asexually, that I am fat (true) and that if it is true (it was my fault for saying that I wouldn't mind having a soul mate, but I meant just that a SOUL mate; I wasn't speaking of anything particularly sexual) I wanted a soul mate then I had to lose weight and go to Beverly Hills and change the way I dress. This came from a Hollywood (I mean Hollywood prime) friend who was on his way to rehab and who isn't looking his very best at the moment and my first reaction was to scream, "Are you kidding me?!" with all attendant expletives.

So, there I was looking at the women. Three in front of me, one of whom had the trendy hat, each with identical full pouty lips and ample well presented bosoms. The three men with them looked like slobs, but that seems to be the trend.  The women dress, the men wear track pants. Another woman, large, dressed baggily, even more baggily than I do ever and to whom the word asexual might apply, was with a fairly handsome man, and they seemed fully a couple. How different did I wearing a nice pair of black pants and a casual but frilly ish turquoise shirt look from them? Older to be sure, as I keep dwelling on, for I think the average age in the room was 30. What did I lack? The willingness to put my feminine self out there?  The promise of sex?  To say that there is more to life than the promise of the giving or receiving of sex is to be downright heretical in this society. There have been moments, Lord help me, that I have wondered whether I have been greatly mistaken in thinking there is more to life than that. That is the subject of someone's dissertation perhaps, but not mine, here.

By the by, though, I did not think that I fell particularly short in the looks department or the dress department among these kids. Is it possible that I am just who I am, just as I am, with positives and limitations, just like every one of the souls in this beautiful arched courtyard?

I wasn't overly preoccupied with these thoughts happily.  I had a blast in that space, two prosecos, and a chicken salad and cappuccino, without a care in the world for like an hour and a half, talking to the hostess (an army brat she said) and being well treated by Scott the waiter. No demands. No expectations.  Good enough and even better for it being as different from the life I knew in the Bronx as going to Venus might be. I paid my 45.00 plus tip bill and walked back down the hill to my West Hollywood apartment, where I tell you the tale.

This is a place I'd go back to. . .alone or with others. Surprisingly unpretentious for the attendance of the arguably pretentious or the potentially pretentious.  My neighborhood. Where Schwabs used to be. And the Garden of Allah. At the entrance to Laurel Canyon.  All in all, I am a lucky girl.

And when I came home, a message from my friend in rehab, letting me know why he had not been in touch (and talk about too much information) and reminding me that as he was getting himself together I was to do the same in terms of my, well, let's say, look. I think I might have committed myself to doing something. Well, it couldn't hurt to lose weight anyway! 

The clouds have rolled in fully. I am praying for the rain to relieve us from the drought. And thankful for a pleasant interlude before they did.

All the Small Crosses

 

The trees have been groomed these last two days courtesy of the City of West Hollywood.  This is lovely. There will be fewer hard falling fronds to dodge.

But the process was unmerciful as it combined with several other events in my living area.

Let me elaborate in my lament.

Last year, our condo redid half the building roof.  It was the only way to begin the too long put off work--which was needed even when my father lived in this apartment but minimize the already pretty steep assessment required of the homeowners. The other half had to be done, and the Board took a vote to do it now, before what they said would be a winter's El Nino. (We can only hope for that would bring the rain of which we are in dire need in California..)  For at least two days, cars would have to absent themselves from the garage so that the big truck of the roofers could be put in a spot for the removal and dumping of the old tar covering.

Meanwhile, for about the last month, a new building has been going up a few doors away, the concrete and other sundry trucks making an obstacle course amid the pounding of the ground and the yelling of the workers and the honking of the horns of distressed drivers. Meanwhile, the City decided that it was time to trim the high palm trees in the block, forbidding day parking on much of the street onto which our cars had been banished. Is that something like a hat trick in hockey?

I may be retired, but I have a variety of projects and activities that sometimes cause me a bit of stress.  I allowed myself, for example to take the lead on something for which there is turning out to be little consensus and even less approval and I see the handwriting on the wall that I am to be the bad guy, despite my intense best efforts.

So, when, yesterday, I woke up, uncharacteristically early, to thundering feet across my apartment ceiling (the thundering caused a glass cover on one of our common area lights to drop and shatter), and loud pulling and scraping of tools, combined with the thrilling sound of the as loud buzzing of tree trimming, and the usual sounds of trucks pounding through for the new building nobody in the block wanted that was forced upon the.citizenry, I was nearly beside myself with the need to escape what is usually my shoebox of solitude (it isn't big enough to be a fortress). 

While I was dressing for escape  to, as it happens, the dysfunction of my parish office where I volunteer, a friend called for advice on a subject of which I have little experience . I looked for some spot in my apartment where there was not pounding or scraping or buzzing, while I worried about getting my car out before the gate was blocked. I tried to be kind and responsive while desire to pull out my hair was overtaking me.

I am fortunate truth to tell. These are small crosses to bear. And yet, isn't it interesting that I fail to be grateful for the fact that, thus far, and I pray for the future, I am not faced with the panoply of hardships which beset friends and so much of my fellow men?  More than that I am an angry mass of loud complaint and raging woes to me!  At such moments, I find that the thing I should most do is the last thing I can imagine doing, praying. Perhaps it is the lack of a place of quiet. The disconnect within is disquieting particularly as I claim to be a member of a faith that posits the joining of suffering with the God who saved by suffering Himself.

I am not likely to change overnight and become sanguine with all the little crosses of my days.  But, as I sit here on my terrace, the orange of the sky backdrop to the darkening trees of a night to begin, and the blessed quiet of a work day ended--the buzzing and pounding is at end for the evening at least--I take in a deep cleansing breath and finally thank the Lord, whom I follow so poorly, for the beauty and peace of this moment.

Dennis Prager, Prophet

     I have been listening to Dennis Prager since 1982 when he was a radio broadcaster neophyte. My late father, a long time voracious consumer of late night talk way back to the days of Barry Farber in New York, introduced me to Dennis as "moderator" of a midnight Sunday show called "Religion on the Line".  Every week there would be a Catholic priest, a Rabbi, a Protestant pastor and, often, a representative of another faith or philosophy like Hinduism, Buddhism or Islam. They collegially discussed faith and its impact on daily life in the context of their own theologies, reflecting on the large similarities in values and distinguishing the differences in beliefs.

I am a pretty articulate person, but from the moment I heard Dennis, facilitating and questioning and yes, pontificating based on his broad education and, though he was then young and arguably inexperienced, I found myself wishing I could frame my thoughts as concisely and forcefully as he did. This was a contemporary (we are roughly the same age; as Dennis was starting his work in Los Angeles, like me a New York transplant, I was beginning a West Coast legal career that led to my becoming a prosecutor at the State Bar in 1986, which lasted 25 years) I could admire and emulate.

I looked forward to hearing Dennis before I went to sleep as much as watching the night time soap opera "Dallas". Now there is an irony.

Dennis always speaks something I have felt but could not frame at the moment of my experience. In a world in which I largely feel gaslighted by the public discourse and the demands of political correctness, he confirms that I am not in fact crazy to believe and think as I do on a variety of subjects.

He is passionate without ever becoming angry or nasty with those who disagree with him. That is a rarity with radio personalities of the left or the right. He doesn't demean the one with whom he disagrees. His motto is that he seeks clarity rather than agreement.

It is that clarity of thought in a world of psychological and verbal jumble that, to me, makes Mr. Prayer a prophet.  Today people think of prophets as augurs, like the people in those storefronts reading tarot cards and crystals.  No, this is like the men (alas, yes, they were mostly men, sorry political correct tyrants; there are a few women today who might qualify as prophets thought) of the Pentateuch who simply were able to sift from the forgive the word, "crap", of the societies in which they lived and find objective truth and try to warn the people of that truth in order to save their very souls. The men of old stood in the desert and shouted to the deaf. Dennis sits at a microphone and stands at podiums, and quietly proclaims and responds to questions of the thoughtful and the less than thoughtful, assuring those of us who usually feel at sea in the world that we are not, in fact, in need of a straitjacket, and keeping the truths of God and man and republic in circulation. A voice in the wilderness he is. 

There are many wonderful commentators on talk radio. But I can truthfully say that if Dennis were not on the air I would be bereft and might not even listen any longer. I would have to be satisfied with my reading only, for even my Church (I am a Catholic) is a victim of confusion and the preaching is geared to avoid offense. I haven't heard a single preaching on abortion since my former pastor retired (he has since died). Dogma and practice seem to be completely divergent. Dennis, my Jewish cousin, keeps me on track even theologically. 


It is rare for me to say that I wish I personally knew a "celebrity" (yes, Dennis you are a celebrity, a cerebral celebrity), but I would be honored, delighted to share a meal with Mr. Prager.

I live in California, in Los Angeles.  Dennis helps me to know that I am not alone. And that I should not despair. 

Saving the Fly That Went By

No, this is not a new Dr. Seuss tale.

It is my life. There are those--I know who you are--who will say, "She is strange.". Ok, so maybe I am. But who isn't when you get close enough. You know the saying, "A normal person is someone you don't know yet.".

I saved the life of a fly. And I am delighted.

It was this very fly.

The fact that I was able to get a picture of the object of my largesse is part of the story.

I love my little condo's terrace. It isn't perfect because most of it faces a wall, but that part has space enough for a table and chairs, overlooks the swimming pool and presents a snapshot of the sky that is often incredible, red skies as the sun sets, puffy clouds left over from some nearby storm that hasn't reached us so that our drought will be over, and hummingbirds quenching at the feeder I have put out for them.  I sit out there whenever I am home and the weather mostly provides.

The other day I was doing just that, in the late afternoon. I had this computer, a book and a lovely peach nectar concoction to drink. At some point I turned my eyes to that glass and started to put the glass to my lips when I saw a fly had managed to fall into it. My first thought was to run to the kitchen and pour liquid and fly down without further thought. Then it occurred to me, "Maybe he's alive. Maybe I can save him.". The reason is that once I saved a bee in my pool, by swishing him onto the landing and I watched him, for quite a long time, maybe ten minutes, allow the sun to dry him off, and occasionally shaking his wings and using his gossamer legs to do a little wiping of his striped body. After a while he took off.

So, it occurred to me that just maybe this little fly had not been long in the nectar and could revive, if I got to him in time. So, I dripped him onto the ledge of my terrace. Not clear if he still was alive. Then, he slowly dragged himself from the remains of the liquid that poured out with him and his wings began to whip at lightning speed. I could have sworn I felt a drop of something on my face.
And then, painstakingly, he began to wipe his body, with front tentacles and back. I wondered if he was afraid with me looming over him, but he had no choice but that before he could fly, if he could again fly, he would need to be well, unstuck. The peach nectar, although mixed with sparkling water, had to be a bit sticky. I watched for a while, and then thought to grab my camera. I knew this would take time. And so back I came while he was smoothing his bee buns with his back legs, removing whatever detritus was still restraining him.

And then, I could tell as he slowly turned around, a bit like an aircraft carrier, he was about to take off.  And so, he did.

I felt, as I had with the bee in the pool, felt incredibly happy. Why?  I don't know. Bees, flies, animals, both by human hand and nature, die in droves every day. What's one fly more or less?

It just seemed that once I thought he might be alive in that glass still it would have been cruel simply to let it happen. His life is short enough. If I, with dominion over him by God's gift, could give him the whole of his time, why deny him that because he is not a higher creature?

And so, the fly lives. I hope he is not attracted by another glass, another liquid.



 

You Know You're Getting Old When. . ..

I remember a time lo, probably some 36 years ago, or thereabouts, that I sat on a curb somewhere in Orange County after a visit to Disneyland with Lens Speaks, Malcolm Moran, now a well known sports writer and professor, and my cousin Angela, awaiting some help after Len's rented car had a bit of a glitch. And I had with me a fresh new People Magazine with a cover story about the latest James Bond movie, starring Roger Moore.  I had followed Roger Moore from the time he did the short lived series Ivanhoe, through The Saint, and The Persuaders. He was one of a series of actors and actresses whose work I enjoyed and about whom I enjoyed reading in the celebrity press. 

There were still some of the real old timers around then, like Jack Lemmon, or Lauren Bacall, or I think even Laurence Olivier was still alive then, Peter O'Toole, Richard Burton, Liz Taylor.  Even Bette Davis and maybe Paul Henried, who'd shared a sexy cigarette scene in "Now, Voyager". Oh, Jimmy Stewart. Roger Moore was kind of a second generation star in this crowd of stars.

Year by year, they have passed away. And what has replaced them?  The Nicky Minaj types, the Kardashian, and the like.  Sensuality used to be presented by implication. Now it is literally, well, thrust upon us.

I used to hate the fact that my dad knew nothing about my generation's interests. He didn't know anyone on the entertainment shows. I mean, he thought I was an idiot for watching "The Monkees" on NBC. He was proud of his ignorance of all things post 1967.  I thought, "Well, he's old. He's still interested in Pérez Prado, and the Tango, and the Big Bands.. We are a different generation."

I still buy People and Entertainment and in order not to be completely out of the loop and become my father, in essence, I still watch programs I used to love like Access Hollywood, or Entertainment Tonight, but I know something has changed. Is it me? Am I just old now?  I cannot believe, like my parents could not before me, what passes for public consumption..

There she is, in the picture above, Jennifer Lopez, Jenny from the Block, a Catholic school girl, no less, over 40 herself.  I decided not to post the photos of her with her booty hanging out, but I think that is what did it for me, the "Yup I don't get it, I must be getting old" jumping the shark moment, the dueling shaking booty's of Jennifer and Nicky. 

Maybe when I was ogling Roger, whose movies had him discretely under the sheets with the latest Bond girl, I should have realized that we were on the slippery slope to the full Monty in every movie, in every photo, in every description, in everything, but I didn't expect this level of how do I say it in my old age, this level of visual debauchery to which every generation is now subjected on a daily basis.

I was laughing the other day when some parents were upset that a middle school had a book called "Rabbit is Rich" by John Updike which some enterprising kid discovered had sexual content. For the life of me I cannot understand why they would be upset.. Every billboard has something sexual on it in one way or the other. Network television has sex and violence as their primary ingredients. Middle schooners have required sex education in classes, whether their parents want it or not. Cut the proverbial crap, folks. The only thing free about this society is the availability of sex and violence, but mostly sex.

My dad used to say, "I don't belong in this world.". I know I must be getting old, because I find myself on the edge of saying the same thing.

Maybe our parents' generation was right when they were horrified at the shaking of Elvis pelvis.  It was a precursor to a world that looks depressingly like the set in "Blade Runner". 

I remember suddenly another moment. I was about fifteen and I was in a theatre watching Joel Grey, in full makeup, especially the ruby red lipstick, singing "Cabaret" in the movie of the same name to an audience that looked hard, and sleazy, and violent. The movie was depicting Germany in just pre-Nazi days, from a book written by Christopher Isherwood (Berlin Stories). 

I felt so depressed and even a little afraid as I watched the scene. But I could leave the movie behind me, all the sleaze and hopelessness it depicted. 

It's hard to leave the ugliness of Jennifer's booty behind, because it represents a cultural phenomenon. Nothing is left to the imagination. 

Maybe it's better if I do take myself out of the loop. I know I'm getting old because I find myself in despair of the society in which I live, and hope that I won't live to see its worst, its predictable worst, for mankind just never learns from its prior mistakes. As long as man thinks he is the measure of all things he will always destroy himself. 

But then what do I know?  I know.  I'm getting old.

Maybe I'll watch an old movie tonight.

Out (with the) Patient

Joan Rivers will be buried tomorrow, eleven days after her last performance. By next week, or so, we should begin to hear more about the outpatient procedure during which something happened that ended her life. 


Some might say, that at age 81, such things are inevitable, well, death is inevitable. That was true of my dad at 91. But both, in my view, were victims of the societal need to push way too many medical procedures into the out patient arena.  I have wondered whether there are any statistics on how many people, and in what age ranges, are lost because they should have had their medical treatment in the hospital, or, if they made it through the procedure, were sent home and then developed a crisis that got treatment too late. 

Had Joan survived the procedure proper, she would have had enough folks around her to care for her at home. But there are many people who either don't have that safety net, or if they have a family member or friend, the designated person is not skilled enough to spot a problem or to handle the intricacies of say, changing a dressing, or a catheter. Yes, you can get someone say, through Medicare, but with all the paperwork and the restrictions, by the time you got someone, the patient is no longer in need, assuming survival. 

Over the years, for myself and others, I have uttered the phrase, "You're kidding me. That's out patient?". In 2007 or so, I had to have a salivary stone taken out through my neck. I have a more than two inch scar. The number of nerves in the neck and face, never mind the proximity of the carotid artery, made the consent for this "simple" procedure as scary as the idea of having to do it in the first place. But I was in pain, the inside of my mouth and tongue were swollen, and I sounded like a person with cotton balls in her mouth as I yelled at my internist that I couldn't wait for him to bring in an "in network" doctor to do the surgery.  (Another long story).  This was my first anesthetic experience and I woke up, apparently after some difficulty although I was never given the details, crying.  I had a lift home from a friend, and my dad, who no longer drove, came over with various provisions (he had worried through the whole procedure sitting with my friend in the waiting room), to make me comfortable. But I had to sleep sitting up with a drain in my neck for several days.  As I live alone, any emergency was between me and 911.  Seemed to me that an overnight stay in a hospital would have been a good idea. But as things worked out for me, I wasn't really worked up.

Then my father had an outpatient procedure to replace kidney stents which to this day I do not believe he needed in the first place.  He did have a slow growing bladder cancer, but once the original stents were put in (in an outpatient procedure), he started to lose weight. By the time of the need for the change of stents, he was skeletal. I tried to warn the doctors that I thought this "procedure" he would not survive.  But the doctor said it was necessary, because of potential infection, and so in he went for the out procedure. Now, to be fair to the doctors, which I am not inclined to do truth be told, my dad wanted to go home. But both before the procedure and after, he was cold, which, if you are a doctor, should raise the red flag of infection. And his blood pressure was low. And given my concern over his weight and frailty, and the fact I yelled at dad's internist about his manner of doing business and demeanor (arrogance personified), you'd think they would I picked the up, but I don't recall in the few hours in which things changed dramatically, if he got to take them. Had he been in a hospital overnight, they would have been intravenously provided. I changed and checked the catheter (a distressing event for both of us) and dad fell asleep, something he had been unable to do in the days before his surgery.  He seemed disoriented. I called my uncle but since dad was sleeping there appeared to be no emergency. But of course, one was in the making, and when I checked the catheter a few hours later when I heard dad stir, there was indeed a problem. And I called 911 for him as I had not  They had to do for myself.  Four days later, after aggressive antibiotic treatment, he died.  He had had a fever of 104 when I brought him in the night of the outpatient procedure that I had worried dad would not survive.  He didn't. 

I never got to talk to his primary doctors after dad died, as they avoided me assiduously.  I considered my legal options, but I am the least litigious lawyer one might meet on personal issues, and given dad's age, and his lack of earning power at this retired stage, I settled for writing a couple of letters that outlined my thoughts on dad's medical care.  Naturally, I never heard back from them, as their own lawyers might well have advised. I do believe that had dad been in the hospital for the procedure or after it, he would well have survived into what would have been his 96th year. Dad had had many scares over the years and surgeries for things like bladder polyps. He had his first fairly major heart attack at 51. A couple thereafter and a quadruple by pass at 79,  It took an outpatient procedure to do him in.

About Joan. 81. We are hearing that she worried about some heart problem. Was that taken into account by the clinic and her doctors. They usually do. As one article said, with all that prior plastic surgery was she a good candidate for out patient procedures? 

On thing we know.  Joan had continued earning power. She might not have needed it, but she had the power, and was going to appear somewhere the day or so after the "procedure", relaxed to her vocal cords.  The first thing I heard was that it was an endoscopy. But I am not clear any longer. When the crisis occurred, it is clear they did not have the facility to deal with it, or they would not have had to send her to the hospital. 

What is the solution?  I don't know exactly but I think the medical industry (and that is what it is) needs to reconsider how many people are shunted and shuffled to out patient, and their ages certainly need to be taken into account, more, if it is at all now. And when someone doesn't have automatic professional home help, well, at least a day in the hospital seems reasonable. 

Out patient procedures for non-serious conditions or tests, that's a good idea. But as with all things in human affairs, we go overboard and what is serious is redefined, foolishly, as non-serious. That's the kind of things that have to be looked at in the days to come. Joan has certainly given the impetus to that necessary review. It is unfortunate that her death had to do that.

And when doctors say that a patient should ask his or her questions, they need to mean it, not look like they have someplace else to be. . . .


Here's a link to a Fox News article on such reconsideration of out patient clinics:

Www.foxnews.com/health/2014/9/05/joan-rivers-death-puts-spotlight-on-outpatient-clinics/

Joan Rivers: Wish We Could Still "Talk"

How many times did I hear her say, "Can we talk?!" both on the tube and in person,  and off she'd go lampooning some poor soul, but usually some high powered politician or celebrity, and as well herself.  Maybe that's why I did not object to her, even savored her admittedly abrasive comedy. 

I am told this is a photo from the last appearance she made on August 28, just seven days ago.

That's what I find I want to "talk" about here, because everywhere else it will be replays of her pieces, often involving plastic surgery.  Something like "She's had so much plastic surgery when she sits down her mouth opens.". Her guest hosting The Tonight Show for Johnny Carson, who never forgave her for not telling him that she had been given her own show. By the time she called him, he knew and he silently hung up the phone. He had given her the break in show business, and told her she'd be a star, but he cut her off with a cruelty that even now is hard to understand.

But then that is life, isn't it. One thing is happening and then it all changes.  There, a friendship ended abruptly and forever. And now, the woman who in this picture appeared healthy and prosperous is suddenly dead.  How many of us have had "out patient" procedures that were supposed to be simple and successful?  Joan's wasn't. Still not clear what it was, some kind of endoscopy (reminding me, never have one) or work on her vocal cords (should that even be out patient? "Don't get me started," I can hear Joan saying from her new digs in the Divine cosmos. 

I have heard so many phrases about life thrown about, "Life is short, and then you die.". "Life is just a breath," a bit more of a hopeful phraseology if you are inclined toward the idea of an afterlife as I am. But whether you believe in an afterlife or not, it is clear that our time here should not be taken for granted and our relationships either.  Funny, I was going to write today about how hard it is to love my neighbor as faith teaches.  I was going to give examples, from the British accented murderer of innocent American young men whom I fear, dear Lord, I loathe, to the young man on the Gelson's line who refused to move to let me by with my wagon, remaining on his spot like a lawn statue with a bad attitude.  But Joan's death has softened me, Joan that hard boiled, laser taunted comedienne, makes me feel like I should be softer toward my fellow man and woman, and not become a hermit.

Our lives hang indeed on gossamer threads. Here; Then gone. We need to make the most of every day and most especially with each other.

Joan certainly did. I don't think I'll ever laugh that hard again. 

Remembering George Parnassus One Year After His Death: Pray for Him Always

I would like to have written, "one year after his entrance into heaven", but that would annoy him ; he would have chastised me verbally, because he was most painfully aware of his recurring sins. He said he most definitely wasn't going directly to heaven. He believed that he would have to spend time in purgatory to be made pristine for his vision of God in heaven. In one homily he called it "Gym for the soul."  I, and others, have always felt that the suffering of his last two years, maybe more than that, was sufficient to purge him, on earth, such that he bypassed purgatory and is experiencing the fullness of God's endless, timeless love.

Sunday, August 17 there was a memorial Mass for our former pastor, my former mentor, friend and something of a father substitute after my own died in 2008. I know I was not alone in this experience of him.  The Mass was well attended enough, I suppose, although I did note absences of many old friends of his life, with a certain amount of sadness. Perhaps they did not know, and it was not, a matter of, as one friend of mine said, "out of sight, out of mind."  Enough friends were there, one next to me in tears said, "I miss him so much." It was, whatever the numbers, a reverent, beautiful Mass with hymns, several of which were his favorites during his life, that engaged the spiritual senses and emotional heart. The Ubi Caritas, Bread of Life, to the music of the adapted spiritual from Dvorak, known as "Coming Home."

Monsignor Murphy, in his homily, a blend of religious instruction and memories of Monsignor's contributions to the beauty of the parish edifice and appeal to our spiritual senses in order to create the context of prayer, struck just the right tone. You can hear the homily if you go onto the Saint Victor Catholic Church (official) web site for the 17th.

It was a concelebrated Mass, somewhat by accident, although again, Monsignor would have said, "There are no accidents with God" and I have come to see that certainly in the last many years. The concelebrant, Fr. Rudolf Lowenstein, OP (a Dominican)  was the son of an old friend of Monsignor Parnassus, the father having been a famous business manager for the Rolling Stones, a character who in business suit and dislike for rock music, presented something of cognitive dissonance in the rock world. With his serenity and English accent the son (a second son is also a priest) he added particular poignancy to this one year remembrance.

The lady with the dog was there. This, I can tell you, Monsignor Parnassus would never have permitted; unless the dog was a service animal, he would have received an unceremonious, "heave ho"but as usual, the dog behaved with great dignity, sitting on her lap. I still love seeing that dog, despite myself, and I think I would have told Monsignor that, as we the servers spoke before Mass in the sacristy.  He would have dismissed my feminine tolerance. We would laugh over our disputation.

There will be a rosary said next week after the 8 a.m. Mass at St. Victor on Saturday, August 23.  A caravan of as yet undetermined size will go to his grave at Holy Cross Cemetery, off Slauson in Culver City, this ceremony, this prayer, which he so desired, to occur one year precisely after his burial at the site in front of the statue of the Good Shepherd with whom he now communes.  

            
All I can end with at this moment is an "Amen"; so be it.

Paul McCartney: The Long and Winding Road during which Life does Indeed Go On in a Wonderful Concert at Dodger Stadium

A lot has happened to Paul McCartney since his first appearance at Dodger Stadium in 1966. The Beatles broke up in 1970.  Two of their foursome died, one shot by a madman. Paul lost his beloved Linda.  A lot has happened to all of us who revealed in his three hour performance on his return to Chávez Ravine on Sunday August 11.  And the merging of our respective winding roads on a temperate bright full moon night was a nostalgic revelation. 

I didn't expect it.  I was going because he was part of a legendary group whose songs had been the soundtrack of any of our lives. And had another group Wings whose songs were the soundtrack of my college life.  And Sir Paul is getting up there, 72 years up there (isn't it interesting how the age gap between some of us fans who were kids when they first burst on the scene has narrowed so. The difference between my age 9 and their age 20 something was enormous. Now it is as if we are contemporaries), and it is possible we won't see public performances much longer.

I don't think I've been in that large a crowd since a Queen concert in Madison Square Garden back in the late seventies when a friend and colleague at 99X FM radio in New York (long since renamed something else) took me along. This was during the time I thought I wanted to go into radio professionally (as opposed to my college on air training) and realized that I'd probably never make it to an on air job without a lot more connections than none. 

But I love Dodgers Stadium almost as much as I love the Hollywood Bowl. It is a plain pleasing venue. And that crowd, it was orderly and truly wonderfully mixed, every age up and down. Although I loved some of the music from my dad's generation, there wasn't even a slight chance or moment in which he would have loved the music from mine. But here a 60 something could sit next to a 20 something and be singing the same words while wildly tapping their feet on the ground and gyrating joyously. 

The staging was terrific. The history of Paul and the Beatles and Wings and the solo career all playing on these side screens book shelf.  I was primed admittedly by the breeze and my first margarita of the night (I had only two).

He was late taking the stage, no doubt to allow folks to buy plenty of souvenirs and drinks and food.at large lines  And when he came out, he made me forget that I'd seen him on television recently not looking too spry and sounding pretty hoarse.  It almost felt like he'd been in a time machine. He looked a lot like the "cute one" of days gone by; jacket and what at first I thought was a slim tie, but was a tie like stripe down the front of the shirt, revealed when the jacket came off after a couple of songs.

If I wasn't smiling I was crying tears of recognition. Oh, yeah, I remember singing that song in my bedroom in the Bronx ("Yesterday" when Yesterday wasn't really yesterday for me; I was far too young). Len Speaks reminded me of Roger Moore (on whom I had a major crush during his time as James Bond; Oh, Wait, I had a major crush on Pierce Bosnian too!), during the Firework laced Live and Let Die segment.

I felt like the late high school and college kid I used to be, but finally without all the angst!

I even liked the few tunes he did that were from the "new" album. 

Whether rehearsed or not, it all felt fresh and only for me, next to all those people who felt it was only for them. 

Where has the time gone?  And yet it all stood still. I couldn't be happier that I went with Leo, Connie, and Len to this historical fest. 

I have heard people say, and maybe I even believe it myself intellectually, that civilization in America began to decline once the Beatles came over the pond.  But you know what?  I admit it, den if that's true, I didn't care on Sunday. It was a bona fide blast!

Thank you, Sir Paul as we go back on our winding roads separately.

Robin Williams: One More Psychic Post Mortem

Along with virtually anybody else out there who has shared the planet with Robin Williams, I can't help but think about his last few days and the moment he decided to extinguish his own flame.

From the way we hear he died, a belt attached to a closet from which he hanged himself, it sounds as if the final decision was an impulsive one.  They said that he had cuts on one of his wrists, rather superficial, but several. I admit to being a bit of an armchair forensic psychologist in saying this, but I suspect he originally thought to slit his wrists and then couldn't do that. 

I feel so sad for what seems to have been a frenzied patch that he could not escape from this time. Something, maybe something even small from the objective observer's point of view, sent him over the edge from the gift of life to a madness from which one cannot recover.

Come on, haven't you ever felt like that?  I don't know if it was as extreme as the moment which faced Robin Williams, but I have had more times than I'd like to admit where logic failed me and restraint nearly did. These are hard to describe events. They come out of nowhere. Nothing in the external world or circumstance has changed from one day to the next, but on this day, old demons, and I think truly think they exist, attack. The brightest day of God's creation simply sinks into a kind of tunnel and all that you can think about is to escape this feeling, this I can't escape feeling.  I have to escape feeling. Remind yourself. Maybe Robin tried, "You have a great life. The best possible. Look at the horror in the rest of the world. Who are you to feel so lost?". Some people might say that if God was not in his life (from a religious perspective and I have no idea whether He was or not), then that explains it.  I disagree. I try to be a faithful Catholic, and I know, k-n-o-w, that in the throes of the "whatever it is", described by so many over the years, that it is almost as if, no matter the strength of belief, that one's body and mind seem almost to feel like they are being dragged from the light. It's like one of those horror movies where the victim is ripped from under her bed, where she is trying to hide.

With me, it is when certain responsibilities that I fear the most begin to press too much and I cannot be seen being weak. Williams was doing four movies, had been a great success in comedy and in drama, had three kids and a couple of wives, three, I think. Something always pressed on him and he usually kept it at bay, by performing, by using alcohol and drugs, by as many mechanisms as he could possibly manage until he could no longer manage them.

In those moments, while the world would say, "You should be thinking of others," everything is like a pinhole of intense cosmic pain.  There is a kind of raging blindness of soul.

Maybe in the next days we will hear what it was for Robin.  Maybe he left a note and tried to explain. Maybe there will never be nothing but whatever was in his head which we can never know. 

Don't assume anybody has it made. Frankly we are all broken people. But some breaks can be hidden better than others until the crack in the façade explodes the body and soul. 

Eternal Rest Grant Unto him O Lord and may perpetual light shine upon him.  May he rest in the peace he could never find on this earth.

Newman and Knox Pray For Us

On and off, for years, I have been fascinated by John Henry Newman, who in the middle of the 19th Century, after much complex thought and intense prayer, converted from Anglicanism to Catholicism. I have read his sermons. I have been to the pulpit in Oxford, at St. Mary's, where he preached before his conversion. I have been at Little more where Newman was received into the Catholic Church.  I have read several biographies of him trying to get into his mind, the mind of a man who can articulate, with relative certainty, the decision to become and remain Catholic, the essence of that Faith and its ultimate Truth.  And the teaching of that Faith without compromise. 

After Monsignor Parnassus of my parish died last August, I discovered a number of books in his library by another Anglican convert, who was born two years before Newman's death, Ronald Knox.  They were sold as part of Monsignor's estate and I did not have a chance to read but a few pages of one, a retreat for lay people. Those few pages were enough for me to make a note. I need to know more about another Englishman who made a conscious change to the faith which has been mine from birth.

. Fr. Newman



It is nearly a year after that mental note.  Something brought me back to Knox. I think it was a sense that my commitment to my faith was in danger. The world is falling apart. Christians are, literally, being crucified in the Middle East.  And here we Americans are living our lives as if we have all the time in the world and we cannot be touched by persecution. We have forgotten about 9/11 and are blissfully passive about the liberties being taken away from us in small bits. I am put in mind of the frog placed in a pot in cold water, heated gently, until finally, the frog realizes the danger too late.  And Catholics, in my parish, and elsewhere, seem outright apathetic during services. They come late and leave early. They wander around, often at the moment of the Consecration.  And there seems to be little more than a passing nod to theological principles. Ecumenism has somehow become a kind of "whatever" to any form of belief.  I have wondered why I should even remain a Catholic if what is taught is merely some kind of proscenium for an absence of first principles. There is a bit of the brother of the prodigal son in my attitude.  I see my own fellow Catholics saying, "Oh, that really isn't something you have to believe!", often things which are as the apostles said, "hard sayings" that it would be rather nice to be able to dismiss. 

 Fr. Knox

So I needed another level head, like Newman's. I turned to Ronald Knox. I decided to see if there was a biography. There was an autobiography, A Spiritual Aeneid, and a biography by the author of Bridgehead Revisited.  I read both. My first reaction was to note how similar were the experiences of the two men who existed together on the earth for only two years, Newman and Knox.  They shared a depth of intellectual dis-ease with what they tried and tried to reconcile--the confusions of the Anglican faith which incorporated low and high forms that were greater or lesser a reflection of the Catholic Faith from which they had split from after Luther nailed his theses and Henry the VIII had an itch in his groin that he confused with divine inspiration.  And each, ever so slowly (less slow for Knox than for Newman) read and prayed and read again and concluded that the Faith of the Church fathers was the faith manifested in Roman Catholicism.  It saddens me that Knox is not as well known in convert and Catholic circles as is Newman, but that is a potential subject for another entry.

What reading about Knox (and pieces of his writing) has done, as it did for Newman before him, was make me long for thinkers like him, for models like them, who can keep me from a tendency toward despair for the manifestations of Catholicism that are unclear, or contradictory.

They knew the faith they adopted.  It was not a matter merely of "feeling good" on earth to which I think Catholicism has devolved, in complete misunderstanding of the nature of life and the sacrifice of Christ.  It was an assent (Newman wrote a book called the Grammar of Assent) to a nuanced whole of which Christ is the Center and the Catholic Church's Magisterium is the admittedly imperfect repository, but one that has the fullness of the truth.  If you pick and choose what you will accept you have two choices (and I am talking to myself here as well as to this blog), then you are in the wrong religion. The New Evangelization seems to be missing the point of our faith.  I heard a priest say that it wasn't necessary to be theological. I think the opposite. I think it is first necessary to understand what our faith says, determine to embrace it even when it is hard and it is ALWAYS hard, and then invite those who would join what Robert Barron calls "The Strangest Way". 

The Catholic Church has survived far worse than the misunderstandings and meanderings of today. Blessed John Henry Newman and Ronald Knox, pray for us.