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.