call your grammy...

the grammy awards...the grammy red carpet...the gifts that keep on giving...the last red carpet that has not been sanitized over the past few years to a yawn status...the artists who intentionally cause a twitter explosion...the ones who think they are all that but should have looked in a mirror before they left the house...with the lights on...the only thing funnier...or maybe scarier than the fashions are the interviews...i wonder what the cumulative IQ was last night...over the past few years the show itself has become more of a cbs concert...a white bread view of the current music scene...which actually is like the grammy's of yesteryear...only now it's shorter...but you remember...a performance for each of the 962 genres...flamenco...polka...and being a young teen in the 70's that meant that although i was blissfully buried in my records of joni, linda and carly...the name announced from the podium was the milquetoast queen olivia...but i digress...last night...thank you kim for wearing a dynasty cast-off joan collins bathrobe and calling it a dress...thank you rihanna...because you brought one of my favorite movies to the front row...the wizard of oz...as you channeled glinda in that pink 1960's toilet seat cover...thank you madonna...the mistress of style over substance (sorry fans...but cyndi had the voice)...for your red carpet outfit...did you get lost on your way to the "fifty shades" party at shady pines?...thank you beck...why i don't know...thank you grammy's for finally honoring joan rivers with an award before the telecast...and then leaving her off the dead montage...there were some better moments...tony and gaga...finally ac/dc...elo...hozier and annie lennox...but they somehow got drowned in all the rest...so i will clear my head...blast some led zeppelin IV...and wait for the oscars...pray that neil patrick can find that show's pulse...so i will not have to swim in my fifty-something memory for salvation...

the cost of deflation

they say the third monday in january is the saddest day of the year...they call it blue monday...and at this point many would argue that the new england patriots should be blue...and not because of their uniforms...but for deflated balls...laugh track...and in this day and age when bowls are determined by balls...laugh track...i want to laugh...because i want this, the ultimate in distraction, to...well...distract...but it's the third week in january...and we are just a bit over one third into winter...not close enough to spring for me...and i am, hopefully, one week away from taking this freaking sling off my right arm...but that's only a small step in what is turning out to be a longer road to recovery than i thought...and i'm getting stir crazy...and i should just paste everything i eat...and don't eat...to my ass...and i am going to throw the scale out the window...and hope by some miracle that at that given moment tom brady just happens to be underneath...pretty boy face with the idiot knit hat...poker face as he claims innocence...yes...i hope he is there...with that uber-skinny bitch wife, giselle...and then maybe the spell of blue monday will be broken...then i would laugh till the sling ached...and so would peyton...and bridget moynahan...and my dad, up there, the ultimate giants fan...we'd all laugh at the cost of air in your balls...which as it turns out...is priceless...

let it go

a few weeks ago...one of my last days at work before my shoulder surgery...as i straightened up merchandise between the rush of christmas shoppers i playfully squeezed our talking olaf toy...and uttered the words out loud..."i never saw 'frozen'"..to which my boss and coworkers chimed "WHAT?" in disbelief...i told them it was on the dvr...that lauren and i meant to watch it a thousand times...and so there i was shortly after...planted on the couch watching it with lauren...it started true to disney form..taking me back to movie theater days when lauren was a very little girl...anyone reading this who had young children in the 90's will relate...about 10 to 15 minutes into any disney animated hit...before your little boy or girl has you running to explore the joy of public bathrooms in any given multiplex...there it is on the big ass screen...a parent dies...or parents...soon to be replaced by evil stepmothers, maniacal uncles,
witches, etc..to which your child turns to you and cries..."what happened?"...to which you scream, on the inside, fuck you disney..so now i am watching "frozen" and sure enough the parents are gone in a few minutes...and i'm waiting for the empowerment that is supposed to be the subtext...let's see...elsa, the sister of untold powers, finds her mojo by banishing herself on a cliff, unleashing a pretty cool ice castle and a disney-sexy gown to match...anna has to deal with two suitors, a reindeer and talking snowman in a hideous heidi-hand-me-down frock...despite the back story of romance, it is the sibling love that empowers these disney damsels...okay...a move somewhat forward...flash forward three weeks and i am watching "into the woods"...fully aware that with disney's paws on sondheim it will ultimately be sondheim-lite...and it may be why there is a visible seam in this movie...two thirds into it and then what to do?...this after all, is sondheim's view of fairy tales...not for children...but more how we treat each other...how we try to shield our children...who must confront all the good and evil there is..outside and within..to the children out there...all singing off-key...all the time...adele dazeem's "let it go"...remember too sondheim as you grow and venture your own paths..."sometimes people leave you, halfway through the wood. others may deceive you. you decide what's good. you decide alone. but no one is alone."...

nypd...blue

let me preface this post...i am not a cop...or a retired cop...or child of...and this post...these feelings are not a pulpit stand for left or right...black or white...or the real grey we all live with in between...this is for a sadness...a profound sadness...a real deep blue...this morning as i griped about all the fun my ten-day post shoulder surgery is...and the real delight of a sling on my right arm...the same that will make this posting proceed at a real turtle pace...yes, after saturday morning kvetching i put on the tv...and there it was...the funeral for the late detective ramos...and there was that tear...or two or three...hard to look away...hard not to feel flush with sorrow...bratton's eulogy was the real tear inducer...the boston accent rolling in a sea of genuine sorrow...i kept thinking who the hell wants that job...and being a film fan i cannot escape the bits and pieces that play in the reel always turning in my mind...a fictional soundtrack for warped reality...it was al pacino..."sea of love"...and that crazy line...defending himself to ellen barkin...something like, "in the wet-ass hour we are everybody's daddy"...and as i watched that sea of blue today i did think of what nypd does and must do day in and day out...again, this is not a debate over what needs fixing...what doesn't...it is really just a humble realization...and thank you...for men and women who do what would repel most...when every hour...every minute on the job may end in a day like this...a day when every new yorker..present and past...is nypd...blue

head, shoulder, knees and toes...

ah, yes...the gleeful toddler song...parents smiling...anxiously...hoping their future genius...who they will post about ad nauseum on social media...touches the right body parts when performing at family get-togethers and neighborhood barbecues...but as i reference this rhyme today it is because as of tomorrow i will have completed the quartet and had some procedure or surgery on all stated parts...tomorrow the right shoulder...and as my fingers fly on the keyboard i frown realizing i will be pecking in frustration with my slow left fingers for a few weeks to come...and so i cook the last supper, as it were, on the first night of Chanukah...before the shoulder feels like that latke on the bottom of the plate...i think back wistfully to my childhood and to the joyous anticipation of that first night...the first present...and the first candle burning in my parents' music box menorah...that as we got older played a rather asthmatic sounding "Hatikvah"...i think back to all this holiday was, and is...and wish, for just this moment, i was that little strawberry blonde...singing that song...giggling throughout...all my grandparents, my father still with me...my poor mom rushing to clean up sixties-style...no dishwasher...and my grandfathers hoisting me up to light the first candle...Chag Sameach...Happy Chanukah...wishing you all the blessings and sweetness of memory...

the god of small things

last night...after midnight...mike turned to me and said, "how about assisted living for donut?"...donut, our cat...the same cat that is in a coma all day, was racing through our apartment and scratching everything BUT the scratching post...this is his revenge...our thanksgiving trip to florida...while he boarded at a vet due to his diabetes...has now resulted in a total reversal of day and night...not so bad before the trip...but you get it...and i thought about all this...these small creatures...and then small people...children...about how since i am now light years away from when we traveled the florida route when lauren was little, i am less tolerant...like, when they announce boarding at the gate, they should just say, "anyone who does not require assistance or is not traveling with small children may now board"...and all 5 of us will approach...or when a bored 7-year-old finds kicking the back of your seat amusing is there any parent that will say "stop"?...or when a mother tried to rush past me as everyone crunched like sardines in the aisle of the plane, waiting to exit...worse than the E at rush hour...she shoved, stating she had a baby...and i looked behind her and saw a virtual sea of weary looking parents and babies...and wanted to say, "bitch, really?"...but just laughed, let her go...ugly toddler in tow...and jotted it down on the inside...where i would forget it...until 4am...when i am staring at my demented cat, thinking...atria for kitties...

O Captain! My Captain!

today i spent a wondrous afternoon at walt whitman's birthplace...thinking about the "leaves of grass" as i watched leaves falling on a cold but glorious fall day...but here is the irony...for twenty years i lived about two miles from the place...passed it all the time...wrote, edited and agonized over my poems at a panera across the road...moved to nassau county two years ago...entered some poems in a contest sponsored by the nassau county poet laureate society...didn't win but had one published in their brand new anthology...which was launched today...and there i was in whitman's house...an afternoon bursting with poems...funny and poignant...and inspiring...trying to listen as my heart raced waiting to hear my name...and suddenly it was my turn...and damn, it felt good...the best in life is often that minute or two when it all comes together...we often forget that and don't appreciate that moment...because just as quickly the mundane and ordinary will return...and it did...as i kicked the fallen leaves under my heels on the path when i left i closed my eyes...and breathed deep...but it wasn't the glory of whitman's leaves i smelled...but the aroma of the laundromat across the road...coffee from dunkin next door...and life returns...o captain...it does