chasing cars

"what can i do to get you in this car today?"...i am in hell...the leases on both our car, and lauren's, are up in may...and so comes the search...and for every dealership we walk into, the catch phrase...i clench my jaw...cause what i want to say is...something along the lines of...buy it for me...and while you're at it...throw in my mortgage...and credit cards...how about gas for a year...unleaded!!!...ugh...and on that little form they all ask you to fill out there are those lines for phone numbers and email addresses...i think of putting in my old phone number...from the 60's...the one my mom made me memorize till my little head hurt...HI4-6184...keep them busy...because you know they are going to call...and email...all the time...like when i was trying not to drop the 14 pound turkey en route to the oven on passover..."what can i do to get you in this car today?"...does it come with a 5 foot invisible shield to surround it...so when I take it out the first time...like to fairway...it won't get battered by some shopping cart racing from the next row that some dumbass couldn't roll back...and also for that car careening onto the northern state without a glance in the rearview...can it fly next time i have to navigate the potholed belt parkway...didn't think so...cars...when we sit down with the pen and the money...and sign on the dotted line...just give me the color i want...let me download "full moon fever"...and drive away...into one mile an hour long island traffic...deal?

what a fool believes

last week i was shuffling through the port authority to visit my mom...this being my mode of transport when i want to avoid the craters...i mean potholes on the belt parkway and staten island expressway...and also pass on the 100 year construction project that is the status quo in the tri-state...anyway...I am having coffee, this after walking by fatigues and guns and police...the authority in this port...a reminder of the fragile state in which we still exist post-911...i am trying to write...and trying to avoid the news from the tv above...another fire in new jersey...hey, new york post...the hell with bridgegate or whatever the catch-phrase du jour is...new jersey is burning...and a plane is missing a la lost...i can't watch those relatives wailing in close-up in yet another report so i look away...and my eyes try to avoid the growing number of homeless also shuffling along...all while mayor de blasio won't shut up about universal pre-k...and i am thinking that coffee is not strong enough...even at noon in this "port"...flash forward...monday morning...the last day of march...the first day in the three-card-monte game that is a presale for tickets for fleetwood mac...prices not bad they say...unless you want to eat this month...but i think of christine mcvie...over my head...as i lament that i have to go to work and therefore will not be able to click search at 10am...it is snowing...i have to dig my freakin' snow boots out again...and it's not april fools' yet...but i remember two weather forecasts sunday night...newscasters flashing pearly whites and mentioning the possibility of flakes north...and we are east...and as i slip into work i am thinking about all of this...and laugh...what a fool believes

on lions...and lambs...

somewhere between the inane olympic commentary...and (the bachelor) juan pablo's brain-numbing assurances of..."it's okay"...all isn't okay as i suddenly find myself sliding towards the infamous ides of march...my last rant to all who read was dated february 17th???...how the hell did a whole month go by?...or almost a quarter of 2014...i am beginning to think that i am creatively a bear...and with that first burst of icy cold my brain hibernates...or maybe not a bear?...through circumstances of work and weather i have missed my weekly writer's group for the better part of this winter...and today as i edited one lonely poem to read tomorrow, i began to ponder the unthinkable...was there any juice left in my creative veins?...was i done??...a list of poetry contests to enter...I became more miserable with each poem i selected...as if each one was just a lamb to the slaughter...this sunday is purim...another one of the jewish holidays that is essentially...they tried to kill us, we won, let's eat...but maybe not...i mean queen esther was really such a bad-ass diva...maybe it's time to channel my queen esther...pull a lion out from behind my lancomed-mask...a poem that will roar...yeah, this sunday i'll drink a little wine, summon the creative spirits and hit the send button!...happy purim (and happy st. pat's)..see you in spring

Now is the winter of our discontent....

to steal a little shakespeare...who had no idea when writing this little gem of the wrath of mother nature in 2014 new york...then again living in those old drafty castles probably was no picnic...but i digress...the weather...it is all we talk about...bitch about...post about...and it is still february...two weeks away from the weather crapfest that is march...we are also in the middle of the winter olympics...and i am remembering that in the past how i would really look forward to the ice skating competition...always amazed at the spins, jumps and grace as I would recall my attempts on the ice...owning white skates with pink pom-pom laces and no apparent skill whatsoever...but this time, maybe blah and numb from lugging around in 400 pound snow boots and winter gear since november, i am less interested...but then a few days ago as i played spin the dial to avoid another dire weather interruption i saw it...little yulia lipnitskaia of russia...wearing red on a sea of white ice...skating to "schindler's list"!!...i did a double-take...figure skating to the sob-inducing music of "schindler's list" in the land that gave us the pogrom...in a nation where it is dangerous in the 21st century to be openly gay...could a 15-year-old know all the twisted irony when she chose the music?...i've googled in earnest...reading how she was discouraged by many over her insistent choice of music...how she had watched the movie many times and was drawn to the girl in the red coat...how they searched for a choreographer...and ultimately chose a russian jew...how, all politics aside, it was a hauntingly beautiful interpretation...if she takes the gold, I only hope putin doesn't steal her thunder...he certainly will never understand the strength of spirit that always burns even in the most oppressed souls...maybe this should be what we take away from sochi...

material grill

i originally thought i would title this, "now is the winter of our discontent"...a rant about the obvious...the winter that won't die...blah, blah, blah...and then there were the Grammys...and Madonna...the hat, the suit, the cane...the grill...a too-touched up face leaving her looking a little too-Faye Dunaway...oy...but later on that night i got to thinking...what does a woman do when she reaches that certain age?...should she shop at "frumps are us" or raid her daughter's closet?...if she works hard at keeping fit, then what's acceptable to wear to flaunt it....and i thought more...if on the inside we are all still so young and evolving...then how do we translate that to the outside?...and i found myself feeling sorry for Madonna...always a pop cultural icon...yet for me more the queen of reinvention...i always thought of that song from "Gypsy" when she would take on a new persona..."you gotta have a gimmick"...and now the "gimmick" becomes a joke...so maybe Madonna should let go...and just sing...well...better yet...produce...get behind some new talent...show them the ropes and how not to get strangled by them...throw out the grill...and smile...let a few wrinkles and laugh lines show...be less the material girl...and, you know, how that real 80's goddess, Cyndi Lauper sang...show her true colors...at this certain age, she owes nothing less to herself, and to us...

his, and her(s)...

a sunday in january...the golden globes...the official start of awards madness...so i think of the films i saw this year...those i missed...those i hope to see before they disappear to the small screen...what we like or hate about movies is a subject as wide as the grand canyon...and how does a couple choose what to see when their tastes are often...different...sometimes, it seems the choice is mutual...often, we joke, this one's yours...next one's mine...and so it would seem that it was my choice last week with spike jonze's latest, "her"...i will preface this by saying that i do really like spike's movies...many do not...and i was more than curious by reviews and trailers...i really liked it...the premise...the acting...the direction...you get it...i glanced at mike about twenty minutes into the film...oh, no...there was that look...it was kind of the same look he gave me during "pulp fiction" a million years ago...a movie, which i should tell you, he now watches anytime it pops up...i wondered how many movies of his choice i would have to sit through in exchange...i cringed...and found myself back at the multiplex last night..."the wolf of wall street"...let me give you a brief background on this one...i am a graduate of nyu's tisch school of the arts...before it was even tisch...although i was a television major, it was still in evidence through those old halls (again before the beautiful new digs on broadway were built) that we all were to worship at the shrine of "marty"...martin scorsese...nyu's esteemed graduate...and so i always find myself approaching his films with some indoctrinated adoration...mostly deserving...although not all the time..."wolf"...three hours later i cannot tell if i really liked it...it was certainly not like most scorcese films...or was it?...i did feel a bit nauseated when i, too, laughed with the audience...and this a long island audience...the home of stratton oakmont...would they laugh as loud if the subject was madoff?...then there was all the excess...profanity, drugs, nudity...footage...all understandable given the subject matter...but the movie was too long...and the portrayal of women...ah, there it is...as much as i have admired, and loved, some of "marty's" films...he most definitely has always had difficulty with his female characters...in this one alone why does the audience feel almost more sympathy for jordan belfort than his second wife, naomi?...i thought back to vera fermiga's character in "the departed"...lorraine bracco in "good fellas"...blah, blah...and so, as i wonder about all of this...and ready for the globes tonight...which is the greatest joke in hollywood...how does the foreign press explain "her" in the comedy category...anyway, when i watch, and ponder "wolf" i will need to really wonder...if i sort of liked it...who chooses the next flick???...such the dilemma as we dive deep into january...keep warm... 

old lang's sign...

and so it is a cold, sunny New Year's morning...the quiet before a snowstorm...or not...depends on whether your weatherperson sees forecasts as "half empty" or "half full"...but anyway... it is always a time of year of some sort of reflection...and I got to thinking about that old New Year's tune, auld lang syne...for those of my generation, this song was always the background when the big ball dropped in Times Square and Dick Clark told us it was a New Year...or for others, it was those last few minutes in "The Poseidon Adventure" when Ernest Borgnine, Shelly Winters and Gene Hackman clasped hands smiling before the boat flipped and they climbed and yelled for two hours...this year I decided to research the lyrics...the words that no one knows and everyone mumbles through the alcohol haze at midnight...and I smiled...so simple, so beautiful...and it became clear...the texts, emails, phone calls, holiday cards...reaching out to old friends, and new ones...family near and far...hoping to close the distance, literal and figurative, in the New Year...hopeful before the reality of life swallows us whole again...like that tidal wave in "Poseidon"...and so I leave you some of the lovely words of Robert Burns...as I reach out to wish you all the best in 2014..."And there’s a hand my trusty friend ! And give me a hand o’ thine !
And we’ll take a right good-will draught, for auld lang syne."