bikinis and brisket....

labor day weekend...the last "official" weekend of summer...time to soak up the waning rays...dine al fresco...late night ice cream run...defrost some brisket...what?, you might ask...this year has been one of unusually early jewish holidays...if you google it or if you are a more learned maven, you will read that it has something to do with lunar and solar calendars, and the jewish calendar adjusting to ensure a spring passover...in layman's terms it has meant an icy-cold, sweater-wrapped passover...now a new year the same week of labor day...and coming this fall, the first day of chanukah is...thanksgiving!!...giblets and gelt...crazy...it's hard to get my mind cleared and ready for the "days of awe"...truly the holiest of times for even the least observant...i remember being told when i was so young how it would be decided in those days who would be inscribed in the book of life for that new year...it was a large concept for a little soul and left me a little anxious...would G-d remember those instances of torture inflicted on my little brother?...or how my eyes may have roamed to the test page of the kid in the next row?...oh, how i tried to be good that week...i tried not to squirm when older relatives who smelled of mothballs and chicken soup squeezed my cheeks in earnest...i tried not to drive my mother to the brink of pre-rosh hashanah dinner insanity...i tried to do homework with a minimum of bitching...and then the holidays were gone...halloween was within my grasp, and dreams of chanukah toys in the not too distant future...and now i am older...in shorts, pushing a cart in fairway with a list and some old memories...at this point in life G-d and i have a silent understanding...my wishes are mixed in with honey cake and atonement, and are for those i love dearly...just hoping for a quiet week during these days of world chaos...just wishing all of you a sweet, happy new year...and above all else, may you and yours  be inscribed in the book of life...

blurred lines

blurred lines...the quintessential song of the summer...or as i refer to it brain crack...the minute it comes on the radio, it becomes a permanent fixture in my brain for the day...not a good thing since i seem to have trouble keeping anything else in there lately...i'm sure some of you can relate...you complete your "to-do" list only to realize that you forgot to put half the things you need to do on the list...it is part and parcel of age, or merely overload?...i couldn't really tell you because if i think about that, then the things i need to remember...the useless minutia of daily life...will slide into that bermuda triangle..blurred lines...those lines that writers walk along...like a tightrope...putting our work out there...asking for criticism, then cringing when it hits you like a shitstorm...and here i am, book number two a file in "my documents"...sending it out to small poetry presses...along with hundreds of other writers...for the chance at publication...most presses have only 3 or 4 slots open...you do the math...so hopeful as i hit the send button...until reality sets in with the dreaded email in the inbox...the attempt at personalization, but you know it's a standard response...and these are the thoughts that keep me up, tossing and turning, in the deep greys of early morning...the only sound i hear is my heartbeat...accelerating in the self-induced anxiety of a writer who still believes in the power of print over i-pad...who still is in awe of all the undiscovered dreamers hitting that send button...but now its 3am...maybe it's time to push these thoughts off the cliff into that bermuda triangle...i think i'll try listening to the music in my head...it's easier to sail to sleep with robin thicke's falsetto in the background...and imagining those baby blues...

if i were an oscar meyer weiner, everyone would be in love with me....

or everything old is new again...for once, i do not envy those that live within new york city's borders...to say that truth is stranger than fiction is the greatest understatement in new york city politics...i stand corrected...new york state politics...the return of spitzer...the return of the madam...kristen davis...not the lightweight actress of "sex and the city" fame...no, the piece of work that says she is a feminist...setting the feminist movement back to the stone age...says she's running against him...who is really running these days...certainly not the voters to the polls...then weiner...i won't even blog the billion jokes, puns, one-liners...because bloomberg is leaving the city in quite a mess...and because the voters actually would have chosen weiner against all his opponents...until he latest mea culpa...no, this mayoral race is not a joke...just ask detroit...oh, and being in nassau county is not exactly a political laughfest either...let's see...for county executive you have the current, mangano, running against the former, suozzi...neither has been able to get a grasp on a county being swept away in a fiscal cesspool...but they will spend lots of money...make lots of photo ops...and the sandy-weary voters will shrug and pull the lever...and let us not forget the man who would be king...peter king...abrasive...doesn't play well with others...never will make page six of the post...nah, this king will never text a photo of the crown jewels...yawn...snooze...no scandal...you lose

into the great wide open...

the last days of july...the sun already setting a bit earlier...and as i emerge from the easy-bake oven that was the last few weeks i feel restless...trying to kickstart my creative juices...submitting a new manuscript to small poetry presses...hoping to avoid the self-publish route this time...deadlines...editing...all the while trying to keep writing...realizing i have been slacking...then forgiving myself...summer was meant for slacking...leave the angst for a biting cold january night...i am typing away next to my blogging companion...my 11-year-old tabby, donut...it's been a rough road for donut since his diagnosis of diabetes in march...he's looking a little weary and i am looking a little sleep-deprived...and yet, there he is next to me, purring away...not a care in the world...sometimes i think about driving down an endless road...the wind in my hair, the ocean to one side and pastel dunes to the other...and donut, my indoor kitty, next to me, not in a carrier...just sitting with the soft breeze all around...that little curve of a feline smile from the side...tom petty on the radio...all our worries a blur in the rear mirror...into the great wide open under them skies of blue...

ramble on....

and so as this endless heatwave plods on i find my mind skipping aimlessly...first, the heart and jason bonham experience concert about 10 days ago at jones beach...incredible show...ann and nancy wilson giving me hope that creativity does not peak before fifty..."stairway to heaven" in the rain...sublime...but like all concerts it did attract its share of weird...like before the show when we were sitting by the concession stands next to another couple...some man, stoned beyond all comprehension, asked us where the train was...the other couple tactfully told him we were just about on the water and there was no train...he said he had no car or way back so we suggested he see security...and when he walked away the couple turned to us and said "uh, how did he get here?"...then towards the end of the concert when two morons moved down behind us and proceeded to talk loudly and yell...where is that random lightning strike when you need it?...flash forward...this weekend an overnight in the city...first, a visit to the museum of modern art - for art and air-conditioning...decided to see it bottom to top...tried to have an open mind...white canvas...installation of jars...snow shovel suspended from the ceiling...woody allen was whispering in my ear, "was it heavy? did it achieve total heaviosity?"...aching for the uptown metropolitan museum of art...until the 5th floor...and there it was van gogh's "the starry night"...and all was okay with the world...later the old music box theater and "pippin"...almost 40 years since i saw the original production...and then all was glorious in the world...smiling as i sauntered into the five billion degree steambath that was times square at 11pm...navigating through the sea of humanity...and strollers...and so many languages...a warped "it's a small world" and i secretly wished for the old times square...before it was disneyfied and all...the old sordid times square in its 11pm saturday night stroller-less glory...next rooftop drinks...a warm breeze, music thumping, laughter...the guy next to us with his date, an obvious escort leaned in and above the roar i heard, "what do you think of tom cruise?"...oh, yeah...gotta love it...ramble on

the heat is on

so the flood that was spring is behind us and low and behold it is summer...but somewhere along the way we skipped right to august...heat...humidity...rain...crappy movies...i am generally not the blockbuster type...i don't need to see the prequel of the sequel and part v where we meet the superhero's fifth cousin...henry cavill was beyond hot in "the tudors" but i think for me it will always be christopher reeve and margot kidder...today...actually this morning...i went to see "before midnight"...11am at a multiplex i think i shocked the guy at the ticket counter who had gone brain dead from the repeated chant of "monsters university"...there i was the weirdo and the single ticket for some angst and drama...this the third in a series...i know this contradicts all i wrote before...but this one was not intended as a series...it started as a small indie gem, "before sunrise", that featured a much younger ethan hawke and julie delpy and a one night romance...or was it?...nine years later the director, richard linklater, and hawke and delpy brought us "before sunset" that explored a second chance meeting, and second chance at love...and now nine years forward again...their characters now in their early forties grappling with work, kids and life while trying to keep the spark going...it was so dead-on at points that i felt i was intruding...a lot to think about...maybe too much for summer...maybe it would do better as a fall release...the wheels in my head always turning...and as i left the theater for the shvitz-bath outside i thought...hmmm...if they make another one in nine years...the characters would be fifty..."before menopause"...yeah, that's the ticket...

snap crackle...pop...

another father's day coming to a close...as i looked at facebook today and saw all the pictures looking back at me...all the dads...recent pictures and vintage black and white...men who i do not know...and those i remember well...i couldn't help but feel a little catch in my throat when i read the words that were with all those pictures...i felt a kinship with these friends and family...our memories both vivid and vague...and the desperate need to hold on to them...and so at a family barbeque today as i watched my nieces and nephew, and my daughter...spending time and laughing with their dads...i took a moment or two to remember mine...and the pictures that played in my head were fast and furious and kind of out of order...and then vague...and i began to resent that other father....father time...realizing how powerless i was in some ways to the reality of aging...and so today i grabbed this laptop to write...and vowed to keep writing...we need to keep telling our stories...and as best we can the stories of fathers who can't write them down anymore...and if i wrote this one while inhaling a chocolate egg cream...all the better to keep my story going...and that of my father, carl...he wouldn't have it any other way...