a day in the life...

I read the news today, oh boy...and had to share it with those I knew from way back when...NYU days...School of the Arts days..before there was Tisch...when classes and studios were in an old shitty building called "South Building"...where we joked that the tv studio equipment looked like it was dropped out of a plane...when film students bowed at the Scorsese shrine...way back before the Village and Soho became high-end shopping grounds...when you knew exactly where the back entrance to Chumley's was...when the bathroom was unisex at McSorley's...and when we were impossibly young...blessed with many talented professors, some not that much older than us...and so when I saw that obituary...Mark Chernichaw...there was a catch in my throat...my advisor...my teacher...my friend...I remember his laugh...his caring...I remember him barely holding back the tears as we sat around the morning after John Lennon was murdered...yes, way back when...before we became numb to murder and loss...and how in that morning I saw him as a peer...and it was awesome...such is the grace of creativity...with the torch passing forward again and again...I think of his family and I am truly sad for their loss...but I cannot picture as he was now only then...and when I think of him...that time in my life...I remember with joy how I was then...art pooling at my feet and the world opening wide and bright...and for that I thank you, Mark, quite deeply...rest in peace...

let's talk turkey

I think turkey may be the only thing left we can talk about...well, that and that latest episode of (fill in the blank)...not NY sports...there ain't enough Zantac for Giants and Jets fans...Mets fans have to bite nails thinking about losing Syndergaard...which according to Mike, unless the trade would involve Hank Aaron, well you get it...we could spend three minutes discussing the weather...and whether we should kill all the weather forecasters...the divide is deep...it could easily rip down the middle of your beautifully set table today...so on this day...this Thanksgiving day...perhaps we need to look inside and what drives the divide...and mostly it is fear...fear of random violence...it is all we see and hear...it moves closer and no longer sits at the proverbial six degrees of separation...it is fear of losing that job...that check...the one thing that might separate you from that guy sprawled at the bottom of the subway stairs in Penn Station...or maybe you are getting older...seeing it all from new perspective...and your deepest fear is that there might be fewer hands to grasp around your bountiful table next year...so let's skip over the intensely politically incorrectness of a holiday rooted in the premise of how happy the Indians were that we took their magnificent land, trashed it, pushed them to near extinction, left them on reservations...ahem...let's just give thanks for what is around our table...and if the conversation gets heated...turn on the tv...turn up the game...pass the stuffing....Happy Thanksgiving!

open your eyes, look up to the skies....

one of the most ironic moments in "Bohemian Rhapsody" comes when snippets of music critics reviews of the song flash on the screen...not very flattering...were they talking about the same song?...I had to laugh inside...it was just like the snippets of the movie's reviews...and for this hard core movie goer...critical many times...gotta tell you...when the movie was over the critics really didn't matter to me...and I saw every criticism glaring in front of me...like swiss cheese...and it didn't matter...perhaps there is another movie script out there...one that is less sanitized...rougher...created without the surviving members of Queen over a writer's shoulders...a film with one director...and certainly not PG-13...Freddie Mercury was not PG-13...and I'd love to see that one...but back to this one...perhaps you need to be of a certain age...an age where you vividly remember first hearing that voice soar from the radio...maybe you need to have actually owned "Bohemian Rhapsody"...as a 45...worn it to shreds...or the sheet music...what a beast for the piano...maybe you need to remember how as a society there was a time when we liked to keep our artists closeted...put them way up on pedestals and never thought what their personal life was like...how their needs to please us denied them that ultimate luxury...maybe you remember what it was like to toss off youth and become an adult in a decade of monetary excess...while horrific death from a disease that at first had no name slithered along...watching Mercury's genius, vulnerability and loneliness broke my heart...every note and lyric took me back in a way that few movies have...last week was a week in this country where pressure meds didn't cut it...blood in the streets and fire in the sky...but once there was a boy...not a "Paki" boy...but a boy with a voice that soared to the heavens...and sent shivers down my spine...still does...

The Silent Amidah...

again...this time in a synagogue...Saturday morning...Shabbos morning...a piece of shit spewing hatred of Jewish people...(hey, Sherri, we give you off for Christmas, how come you don't give us off for your holiday?)...our President condemns but never says the word "Jewish" (my mom told me I can't dance with you at the 5th grade party because you're a Jew)...the left and right raise pointed words as swords...twitter tells me my second hottest news trend is "Jews"...(we study the Holocaust in history class, and someone comes from behind me in the hall...hey, Sherri, don't stand too close to the oven)...the President now says that someone should have been packing in the synagogue...to protect them...us...from who? from whom? very fine people?...I can't shake it...I picture those people...wrapped in a faith I cannot seem to always embrace...were they whispering the silent Amidah...praying in Shabbos joy for world peace when it shattered for them?...(he's not anti-Semitic, his daughter is Orthodox...but she tweeted on Shabbos...covering her father's repetitive sins of omission?)…this is today's news bite...it will fade...there will be some new tragedy to swarm twitter...but this one I cannot shake...it is stirring the memories deep inside...I am 58...and little has changed being Jewish in this world...it is not time to forget...but act...and this comes to mind..."if I am not for myself, who will be for me?"...let me widen that...if we, as Jews, are not for ourselves...well, you get it...

Fear of Flying

the sharp divide cuts deep this week...but here's the bottom line...or several bottom lines...Dr. Ford, by stepping forward, has essentially ruined her life...although, by watching her testimony what happened to her at 15 already started that process...Kavanaugh came into the lion's den with everything to lose...whether telling the truth, or telling what he has convinced himself is the truth...all he had to do was be calm,speak somewhat eloquently...kind of like, love her or hate her, Hillary did when skewered in hearings...and he failed miserably...oh, I know...many of you are reading and saying...what if it were your life and family and reputation on the line...you would have done the same thing...but you are not poised to take a seat on the Supreme Court...what Kavanaugh showed is that he does not possess the temperament for this honor...and when I looked at him and his cheering squad...Graham...Grassley...Cruz...and even Trump from behind the keys of his cell phone...I saw floating images...of entitled boys at dumpy bars in the eighties...you remember them...Live Bait...Chevys...need I go on?...boys to men in the cesspool workforce culture of the eighties...where talk and touching and intimidation, at best...full out sexual assault at worst...permeated all industries...oh, why didn't you come forward?...to whom I will answer you!...to the few women in mid-level power hanging on by a thread?...to the few sympathetic male ears trapped by the need of a paycheck and fear of retribution?...I went to a work reunion a few months ago...and with MeToo permeating the air many of us talked...everyone had a story...vivid and real...why didn't we come forward?...it haunts many to this day...but I wonder...if those we talked about were suddenly thrust into the public eye for some great humanitarian honor...what would we do?...would be able to remain silent?...who would open her mouth to have her world implode?...not so easy, right?...there are good men and women from both parties buried below the shit we are watching...it's time to clean house...sweep the shit from both sides to the curb...talk about how we as men and women can move forward from the hurt...our sons and daughters are watching...oh, and you uptight, need-to-retire assholes who grilled Ford over that fear of flying...crack a fucking book...you know, Erica Jong's "Fear of Flying"...the joke's on you

Dear John...

Dear Senator John McCain...since your passing, we have given you wings and elevated your memory to lofty heights...perhaps, it is because your death has occurred during this sad period in our nation's history when there is little but discourse and apparent lack of civility...or maybe it is that despite the fact that many did not vote for you, and probably would not do so if given the chance again...that these same people admired you, and your willingness to serve the nation before your own ambition...we admired your courage, survival and your commitment to public service...the years of torture in Vietnam could certainly have left you in despair and darkness...faith and love of country dissolved in the years of solitary...it is a testament to your character that the path you chose was the opposite...you pushed through personal pain and political disappointment and fought till the end...those who knew you in the political arena...from both sides of the aisle...their voices all crack with tears as they share memories and prayers...and so, as you are eulogized, and honored...I remember you too...I try not to judge you alone by your hawkish errors...or for unleashing Sarah Palin...instead I hear your speech after your loss to Obama...sadness, but great hope for this nation...and so, in your name I challenge those who now sing your praises...the Senators, Congressmen...to roll up their sleeves and reach across the aisle...it is such a small distance when compared to that long road you walked with dignity for the country you loved so dearly...rest easy, citizen McCain...

Stop! In the Name of Love...

the dog days are upon us...New York has been under a soupy sky...humidity rising every day...and I am looking like the long lost Supreme...Diana's distant middle-aged cousin with the Jew-fro, Sherri Supreme...there is no product strong enough these days...so it's the ponytail, with curls escaping, then frizzing...or just letting it go...I keep thinking back to the endless winter...the torturous cold spells...the spring that wasn't...and I feel I shouldn't kvetch...but then I find myself longing for those three or four days of crystal blue skies and no humidity...hell, my hair could have made like page 65 of Vogue then...but it is not to be...the thunderstorm symbol dots endless days in the forecast...I glimpse the sun symbol in the distance...and hope it remains...last night a tornado warning flashed on my cell...I did a double take and turned the TV on...and there was Lee Goldberg and his white teeth showing some shitty red cell of torture floating over parts of the tri-state...I scratched my frizzy head and thought...where's that Glinda bitch when you need her...ugh...baby, baby, baby...where did the sun go???