River of dreams...

Billy Joel...on Longgg Island he is our music god...(and yes, after living here for almost 33 years I suppose I can say "our")...I always laugh a little...whenever Newsday seems to struggle to fill the Sunday Arts section...there is another article about Billy Joel minutia...I have always liked his music...and those lyrics...the catalog is staggering...when I spent my freshman year at Binghamton and would ache for the dirty streets of Manhattan...it was his "New York State of Mind" I would hear in my head when that bus would pull into Port Authority...Mike and I used his song, "This is the Time" for our first dance at our wedding...I only saw him once in concert...Nassau Coliseum, New Year's Eve 1989...singing in a new decade...the 1990's...from the nosebleed section...and I loved it...I never saw his residency at Madison Square Garden...don't throw things at me...I have a theory about remembering artistic genius a certain way...so, I was more than a little curious about the HBO two-part documentary, "And So It Goes"...I have to say, it hit me in ways I hope I can articulate...being a writer...being a writer who still struggles to call myself a writer...and I do have to say it loudly and with conviction...I think I've earned it...nothing hit deeper than listening to Billy Joel talking about writing and composing...the primal need to push boundaries and not stay complacent...the utter loneliness when creating...the protectiveness he feels for his songs...like they are children...the ones that were his favorites, which audiences did not necessarily see the way he did...the hits that baffled him...the associations that brought him to times in his life that he might not want to have dwelled on...the harshness of reviews and critique...and ultimately...when to put down the pen...it is hard to watch the documentary knowing he is not well right now...and if you fall down the google search medical rabbit hole, you might wonder if the prognosis is really what he says...but you hope it is...and then I hope that he will pick up that pen again...let his fingers dance the piano keys...and sing us his new experiences...new lyrics that we will all know by heart...he always is reaching for something...like every one of us...the search keeps us going...keeps us creating...makes me think of this line from "River of Dreams"...oh, and Billy has the lines that's for sure..."we all end in the ocean, we all start in the streams, we're all carried along, by the river of dreams"...

Can you please spell Gabbana?

The devil wears Prada...but this weekend he, and his mistress, wore Dolce and Gabbana...Bezos and Sanchez...the wedding of the minute...we all know Venice is sinking...this past weekend should have sent it into the Venetian Lagoon...the weight of all those plastic boobs...I was thrilled to see the less than happy response from the local Venetians...the ludicrous amount of money...and media attention to what passes for A-listers these days...but we are all in on the joke...the grotesque joke...about the man that is worth roughly 237 billion dollars...whose workers need to pee into water bottles to make quota...did the guests pee into water bottles at the wedding?...me thinks not...I wonder how much all the seamstresses were paid for the 900 hours it took them to make Sanchez's gown, which at least was an upgrade from her high-end hooker outfit for this past January's inauguration...or were they merely given Amazon gift cards?...this criticism might seem mean-spirited...but here's the thing...I already lived through the accepted excess of the 80's...with breaks for the mea culpa of celebrity social conscience...We Are the World, anyone?...and guess what?...there are still many starving children...and people dying of preventable diseases...but there was Bezos...all 237 billion of him...having a second wedding that cost between 45 and 56 million...with gondolas flooding poor Venice...Venice is sinking...last weekend it was stinking...

good vibrations...

last week saw the deaths of two musical legends...Sly Stone and Brian Wilson...both 82...both responsible for pushing music into new and exciting stratospheres...and for me, both behind the quintessential sounds of summer...the Beach Boys are summer...light, breezy...then soul-searching and ethereal...sitting in traffic in the sixties...if one of their songs came on the radio...you were transported to a little convertible car...speeding the coastline in the sun...or the heartache in the lyrics could stop you in your tracks...Sly and the Family Stone...ground-breaking...and when I hear "Hot Fun in the Summertime"...well, I am back on the beaches of Brooklyn...sun beating on the sand...eating a cold plum or fudgsicle, chocolate dripping down my sunburnt neck...the transistor radios are blasting...moms are yelling not to wade in too deep...I don't have a care in the world...a world that is burning and changing and aching...but Sly is bringing the funk...slyly...we don't even realize it...both men didn't have an easy time of it...such is the true nature of creative genius...but as we celebrate the summer solstice today...take in the last crumbs of daylight tonight...I will think of Brian and Sly...and the gift of music that keeps giving eternally...if only in our memories...

Good luck, and good night...

I don't sleep well...I suppose doctors would blame it on my newly minted Medicare card...this happens at "your age"...our medical community is flooded with specialists, each playing their "instrument" with aplomb...but we have no maestros, we slip through the cracks...and count sheep...healthcare 2025...I could blame it on my knee or back...or mattress...but last night it was the look in George Clooney's eyes on the close-up shot at the end of CNN's live broadcast of Broadway's "Good Night, and Good Luck" that haunted me...did he know that the National Guard had hit the ground in California while on stage?...was he thinking, like Murrow or Friendly would have, about the magnitude of this breaking story?...a page out of Project 2025...could it be reported fairly?...without AI interference...without administrative interference...oh, the irony...CBS...was Clooney crying in character?...and do I even care what he thinks?...I toss and turn...and try and count sheep...but JD Vance has shot them all with his forward in the sequel to Project 2025...good night...and good luck...

Endings...and beginnings...

Pope Francis passed away yesterday...a day after Easter and after he summoned all his faith...and all his mortal strength...for one last appearance and prayer...he has been called the people's Pope...but maybe his ultimate greatness came from his humility...and love for humanity...still...on a lighter note...you have to wonder what was going through his head when briefly meeting with JD Vance...did he ask Christ to impart some humility to this man...a heartbeat from our presidency?...now Catholics around the globe await a new Pope...as people around this broken world claw for serenity...I am a 1960 baby...last month I got my Medicare card...cheap paper...not even durable plastic...to remind me of this transition this month...a new chapter...some will take a cheap shot and say the last chapter...it has been hard to wrap my brain around this...as I feel so much younger...in my head...my body...that's another story...but that's where Pope Francis comes in...because I need to remember that it was in his mid-seventies when a conclave chose him to lead the Catholic world...to give hope to the hopeless...restore faith to those adrift...and for this Jewish girl from Brooklyn...to remind me that there really are no final acts...just people trying to belt out their 11 o'clock number...to add their footnote to early 21st century mania...to say they were here...

fools, and poets

 "April, come she will"...a month that starts with fools...then baseball blooms at Citi Field...college basketball shoots its final hoops...holy days...for Jews, a celebration of freedom...and the eternal hope that future annihilation passes over...for Christians...a chance for rededication and rebirth...and chocolate bunnies...Earth Day...time to clean up...the roadways and Congress...and all of this during National Poetry Month...30 days to celebrate small works of observation...twisted phrases...pictures painted with words...metaphorically speaking...we turn down the noise...turn up the heat...hopefully, let you see things in a different way...we celebrate the unique...embrace the commonality...so for this month...read a poem...write a poem...support a poet by attending a reading...or buying a book...encourage children to try their hand...I write today because of a third grade teacher who did just that...in a public school in Canarsie, Brooklyn...she read Shakespeare sonnets...told us to try writing a poem about them...I still have mine...in my little black composition book of my first poems...I'm still learning...still listening and reading...still writing...the arts are a gift your soul never knew it needed...Happy Poetry Month...

Stop and smell the roses...

recovering after a wedding weekend...in the other promised land...Boca...my beautiful niece, Ilyssa...the warmest woman with a loving heart...a poetry buddy...because, you know...Sondheim...children and art...it is a very special thing being an aunt...loving and rooting for this little person who, with no warning, blossoms into an adult...the relationship can shift...suddenly, you are friends...and hopefully as you age...that person can, with your children, carry your memory forward...so there I was watching her radiate with joy as she married her bashert, Michael...Mikey...although my Michael is also Mikey in his family...so that would make this groom Mikey #2...they took their vows under the most exquisite chuppah...white roses...white roses everywhere...the room was fragrant and sweet...they were wrapped in the tallit of my late father-in-law, Joel...wrapped in everyone who came before hoping this moment would come...in this world which can take your soul if you let it...in this life which can put a burden on your back that can break you...you must seize these moments with both hands...and for a few hours...not let go...you must dance no matter which body part roared in agony when you got out of bed...smile and hug...laugh...and love...embrace people you wish you could see more...meet new people...snap those selfies...post with pride...and to Ilyssa and Mikey #2...this aunt wishes you a lifetime of sweetness...don't rush your journey...always take time together...to stop and smell the roses...