revenge of the nebbish...

nebbish...like most words it loses so much of its essence in translation...actually,  I think all Yiddish words lose 95% of their "flavor" in translation...and so you have a nebbish..."a pitifully ineffectual, luckless, and timid person"...Saturday night I winced watching SNL host Larry David draw a somewhat painful common thread amongst several of those high profile men accused of sexual assault and intimidation...that being religion...Jewish...and for Larry David...a man I usually find quite funny...I kept thinking no, no, no you're missing the point...(let's not even discuss the concentration camp shtick)...the common thread...and this extends to Spacey and other gentiles in this group as well...is what I call the "nebbish factor"...the men you walked past in life...those who sat awkwardly invisible at the end of bars...who you ignored, or worse, bullied in school...ah, what power and money can do...Weinstein, Spitzer, Spacey....the list grows...years of them very visibly in the media...successful politician or actor or creative force or money-maker...all masking lurid behavior silenced with that power...many women, and men, who have been perusing the tabloids of late have been silently nodding in agreement...perhaps remembering being on the receiving end of very unwanted advances from bosses and other figures who dictated their business advancement or paycheck...or maybe you cannot understand why it took people so long to speak up...if so, you are either lucky enough to have never been on the receiving end of sexual harrassment or worse...or you are forgetting that the evolution of a safe and balanced work environment is the perpetual one step forward, two steps back...because all I can think of as this happens is that ugly memory of a vice president of my department in the 80's...at a very well-respected cable network.... introducing him to my husband, my fiance at the time...and him glaring...a very polished, impeccably dressed nebbish, joking how we must be glad that my yeast infection cleared up...and we stood stunned...what to say?...oh, I know some of you reading this are laughing...thinking, it was only a joke...well, it never is a joke if the one telling it could destroy your future career in the time it took for a witty response...and it is nothing new...the casting couch was never a sale item at Sears...but if we want to move forward then we can't lose sight of the work we should be doing...let's not go down a rabbit hole of floundering punishment (because who is Netflix punishing if everyone at "House of Cards" loses their jobs?)...try the crimes in a court of law...make sure company policies have real teeth...and really treat the disease at the root...your sons are not all princes...your daughters should never trade their souls for the crown...

we skipped the light fandango...

this morning I turned on the news...for which I, at first, sighed with relief...yes, we had power!!!...and then it was Mueller Monday...a little more than 9 months of 45's term and I am freakin' exhausted...it is relentless...turn off the media and then there's Mother Nature...pissed as all hell...and those musicians...those who would sing me to sleep...or croon to me in my car, literally keeping me from going insane driving on Long Island...well, they are all leaving for that great wide open...and now it is just about Halloween...and there is no movie, costume or creature that is scarier than Kim Jong Un and that haircut, and his sadistic rhetoric to match...and so I find myself digging in a bit...getting ready, like the proverbial bear, for hibernation...but that Procol Harum lyric has become an earworm..."we skipped the light fandango"...and I ponder the meaning...but realize how incredibly stoned the writer was and laugh...yep, laugh...cause whatever the hell it means, I know that as the DC fan spews shit on all of us for the next few months of Mueller Morsels...I know I want to skip that light fandango...do cartwheels across the floor...and I laugh once more till I see this week's Rolling Stone cover smiling at me from the coffee table...Tom Petty and those baby blues, and mocking grin...and those tears well up inside...trick or treat...as winter beckons...

Travels with my aunt...

I put on my lipstick...and there are tears...”you have to wear lips”...my late, dear Aunt Harriet’s voice in my head...memories flood my heart...my yearly summer visit...a week at Lake Carmel with my beloved cousin, Jennifer, and aunt and uncle...the daily adventures...the late afternoon chase in the car after that Good Humor truck...giggles way into the night...then, paintings at the MET...oh, yes...Harriet and art...paintings throughout her home...her beautiful oils of ballet, bullfights, portraits...then I am 15...and she takes me to my first ballet...Nureyev!...the music, the lights...the climbing in to our seats after the light are out...always late!...and all those wonderful, spirited discussions...with bagels...with chocolate...around tables...in my grandparent's house...in Vermont...in Florida...and of course, Montauk...she was so intelligent...the best sparring partner...she was one of the strongest people I ever knew...I do not know how she kept going when life hit her so hard...maybe, it was for the pure joy her grandchildren would give her...and for the love and life lesson she would give them...now if I pause...I can hear them all laughing and yelling around that table...Harriet...my dad...Sharyn...my dear Uncle "Boss" (Godfrey) and her beloved Nicole...all those giggles tossing the waves of Montauk...rest in peace and love...

heart of darkness...

I read the news today, oh boy...here we go again...you know how it goes...you turn on your phone...or the tv...and today's disaster du jour greets you...I'm beginning to hate my phone...and this new tragedy demands a response...in  a twitter second...sadly, we are a numb society...we try to put back pieces in rote movement...we hang on to our own sanity by very frayed threads...but this morning...my mind raced and kept going back to the same thought...how could one person be so evil...was he always like this...how did it remain so invisible to those around him...or was it there, underneath, too ugly and terrifying to confront...I truly believe that when we climb out of this cesspool of despair in Vegas...that it is imperative that we focus on the heroism of every day men and women...do not glorify evil but elevate the good...and when this becomes another horrible footnote in our new narrative...maybe it's time to examine...to carefully and quietly examine the heart of darkness of twenty-first century mankind...after all...if we do not find the root of this disease we surely cannot survive...and I want our survival to be that film that leaves me crying tears of hope...not some over-budget, bloated disaster burning a hole in my pocket and leaving me empty...and now as I prepare for a cavalcade of faces...those lost in an early October night raining bullets...I say for all of us...rest easy, the faithful departed...and viva Las Vegas...

behind the curtain...

I hope there is never a "Hurricane Sherri"...I mean many of you reading this may have already had your name associated with horrible storms...days of destruction and endless news coverage...but it could always be worse...imagine dealing with a name like David Berkowitz or Charles Manson...you get it...and this is really not the focus of the blog...but anyone over 50 reading this knows what focus is like for those this age, especially early morning...and it is always early morning because we don't sleep...and this morning...facing a New Year...days of awe,...thankfully, once again...my mind is all over the place...but today there was this image...a memory of me as a young girl in the 60's...Brooklyn...watching my father praying with other men from our neighborhood...upstairs...behind a curtain...removed...at a distance...both beautiful and perplexing...religion has reluctantly, and not always successfully, reflected strides women have made in society...for those following ancient paths, not bending to be inclusive...religion is as it was...a higher calling...women just hearing it through a filter written by men...in the early 70's...when embarking on a path to becoming a bat mitzvah...I stopped...a response in two parts...one, to wanting my faith invisible as a response to cruel anti-Semitism from children parroting what they probably heard at dinner tables...and two, deciding that for all my studying and effort...would I be viewed as equal to my brother, or any young man, as I approached the bimah?..it was the emotional logic of an eleven year old...it was a conclusion in rapidly changing, and confusing times...I have long since reconciled those feelings...perhaps with a sigh of regret when I watched my daughter become a bat mitzvah...but the pact I made with my G-d, years ago, does not permit judgement of the "what if's" but only love of what I try to do with my heart each year...and so, when I peel back that curtain this year...my silent wish will always be for the sweetness of that honey dripping in my tea...on this Rosh Hashanah, 5778

houston, we have a problem...

I once wrote a poem...after the terrible tsunami in Japan...it was about water...the power it possesses and the devastation it unleashes with too much...or none at all...think about it...before the frail egos and weapons of mass destruction...what did it...no, actually what does it really still boil down to?...land and water...just ask the women and children dying daily in countries we cannot even pinpoint on a map...the middle east...even Syria with that tempting port...it is hard to watch the news these days...Harvey's story is not over as I write this...and September starts tomorrow...we are heading into deep hurricane territory...already behind the shouts of Harvey is the whisper of Irma...and many more names...we scramble to help our fellow citizens...and because it is too much...we carefully avoid the evening news...or should I say world news...that sliver of a half hour that airs after the local news and relentless tales of train delays, child abuse and political corruption...that half hour that shows human misery in India, Nepal and Bangladesh...1,200 lost here...so many more to come...relentless flooding no end in sight...makes me think of that brilliant documentary title following Katrina...trouble the water...here's praying for all those in Texas, Louisiana and around the globe...and if praying is not your thing...just ask Mother Nature when you seek that quiet moment...ask her to cry somewhere else next week...like maybe over the barren lands of Africa...oh, but first...drown the warlords...amen

gentle on my mind...

1968...the year starts with the TET offensive at the end of January...MLK assassinated April 4...RFK, June 6...the Chicago Convention Riot August 28...and Glen Campbell's voice soothed us on the radio with the release of Jimmy Webb's beautiful "Wichita Lineman" in October...I was only 8 then...probably didn't quite get the lyrics...but I had no doubt that every word was measured and heartfelt...such was Campbell's delivery...music is so often the backdrop of our lives...we hear a song and we are instantly transported to another place or time in our lives...sometimes bittersweet, melancholic...other times pure joy...there were many other hit songs from Campbell...many marriages...a scandalous for the time affair with Tanya Tucker...many children...awards and accolades...but his denouement...tragic and a reminder that the playing field is level in life...disease knows no class and no one is exempt...so rest easy, rhinestone cowboy...rest in the knowledge that your music brought a smile or sigh to so many...and as we avoid the news these days...anxious over egos and trigger-happy fingers, I wonder...are Bieber and Daddy Yankee going to croon me to sleep?...oh, Glen Campbell, yes, we're gonna miss you...