a night in Hollywood/a day in the Ukraine

March moves on...the weather is psychotic, at best, in New York...Sundays mean movie award shows...and most movies, sadly, were not seen in the theaters...but in living rooms constantly interrupted by life...the news chronicles Putin's march through Ukraine...in real, unrelentless time...it's an interesting fact that movie viewership soared during WWII...many films part of Hollywood's finest moments...others military propaganda...we have changed since then...and then again we have not...it is no great surprise that the highest grossing films today are pure escapism...and that those fans rally against the awards grab by serious, often depressing, arthouse films...it is no surprise that...with the exception of some actors who put humanitarian efforts above their careers...we view the acting community with some disdain when they lecture us in 5-digit gowns...as my friend and I watched the Independent Spirit Awards last weekend...we sadly wondered if we'd lost our love for award shows...or maybe for the movies themselves...our appreciation for that one really great script that touched the creative soul...and it really isn't that...it's this world...which plays out in the palm of our hand...on a cell phone...24/7...ugly and immediate...it is hard to cheer for your favorite actress when a maternity hospital blows up at a glance in real time...it is more than sad...it is soul crushing...but...maybe it is fortuitous that the pandemic is waning...hopefully not a momentary reprieve this time...and that the smaller movie theaters rise from the ashes...so that on a hot July afternoon I can sit... phone off...popcorn in hand... and look up to watch...the subtitled or dubbed vision of a filmmaker from across the continents...and realize that the artistic distance is small...and most importantly...that the artistic spirit lives under the rubble of hate...which repeats like a scratched vinyl record in the dark...

the dye is cast...

 "one test begets another"...this said a few weeks ago by my doctor, in typical internist deadpan...but true...while being subjected to one CT scan ordered by one specialist...with a sliver of justifiable reason...your other organs are all out there...and if you are 61...you have opened Pandora's box...and now several weeks later...I truly have almost forgotten why there was a scan to begin with...I only know that two MRIs later I have been granted the right to breathe again...follow ups down the road...a pesky growth in the liver...a bit elusive...but ok...enough to cause the two MRIs...and a right arm filled with IV marks that make me look like a junkie...I hate MRIs...after a few minutes in the tube you are disgustingly aware of your own breathing...or about how your neck itches...and you want to scratch it but you can't...so that's all you think of...despite the ear plugs...the headphones playing music...classic rock my choice for the first MRI...and direction blasting over that...breathe in...hold...breathe...and your mind races...kind of like Woody Allen in "Hannah and Her Sisters"...yeah, we are not supposed to talk about Woody Allen...but tough shit...his writing was so spot on then...especially the fear simmering until you get test results...the bargaining you make...the promises you won't keep after they roll you out...for my second MRI there was no music...no inane hit from 1976 to drown out my inner monologue...ugh...so in between the second MRI...30 minutes of hell...and the results today...there was Valentine's Day...we went to a favorite restaurant nearby...and the tables were nicely spaced...couples softly talking...until we ordered and a table for four was seated behind Mike...we were laughing...enjoying being out...and then a guy at that table loudly pronounced, "Hillary Clinton should be executed"...I look at Mike...you probably know which way I lean...but actually, this isn't a political thing...but just common decency...it was freakin' Valentine's Day...and all through my appetizer and dinner I had to hear this loud asshole pontificate on every topic for which his knowledge could fill a thimble...again, Woody Allen...in "Annie Hall"...and the classic scene when Woody and Diane are on line at the movies...with Woody pulling out Marshall McLuhan (google the clip)...halfway through dinner I noticed the couple to my right roll their eyes...we ended up joking with them...but that guy kept going...staring at me...me staring back...I'm surprised he didn't explode into smithereens...but despite that, a lovely evening...and after my various appointments I feel pointedly reminded that we are all here on borrowed time...and Covid has stolen more of that unfortunately...best we enjoy everything we are given...everything we create...and don't forget to breathe...

"faith is taking the first step even...

...when you don't see the whole staircase"...tomorrow, Martin Luther King Jr. would have been 93, had he not been assassinated in Memphis in 1968...my father, who passed in 2002,  would have been 93 too, born eleven days earlier...sometimes, those simple mathematical facts help put things in practical perspective...I think back to 1968...I was 8...when remembering life with my dad then...it is sobering and enlightening to realize how young MLK was when he was gunned down at the Lorraine Motel...and awe inspiring to grasp how much he'd accomplished and left as a legacy at 39...but I am thinking less of the fiery orator...passionate preacher...and more about that father and husband...a young man by today's standards...39...my father taking me to the park...teaching me to shoot hoops...ice skate...dance...helping with homework...especially math, which he had a natural aptitude for...Dr. King had four children when he died...four...I think about them on this holiday we use as both commemoration and as a day of service...the three children, now adults, who are still with us...and wish for them not the quotable words that have become part of his story...but of their private memories...the small moments that sustain us all when loss becomes the daily fabric of who we are and have become...I hope they have that quiet space to remember parks and swings...and holding hands in church on Sunday mornings...the few blessings his short life afforded them...the speeches, and non-violent teachings are for us...those memories are for them...and all those staircases they have had to climb since 1968...

Does anybody really know what time it is?...

does anybody really care?....and so we approach the end of 2021...or as I now refer to it as 2020 2.0...here we are again...omicron is rampaging...you can't get a testing appointment...a home kit...well, you can...but you'll wait...pay mark-up...if you were negative when you get on line, you'll be positive by the time you hear "next"...I think all of this is kind of like groundhog's day...the angst replays over and over...and the stupidity too...and it makes the concept of time very elusive...it still seems to slip through your fingers...but what have you done...because this is like fire...which needs oxygen to burn...and covid's oxygen is a host...to infect and mutate going forward...and that leads to vaccination...not just here, but in countries you might never have heard of...and the line between the haves and have nots...the inequality of this world might just kill us...and so I look to my salvation...the arts...and all those who are pushing back...still creating...giving us novels...streaming...music...movies...art...and I want to be wowed...because I need to be wowed...want to love a new movie...not based on a critic who heaps praises on it for its credentials, not substance...but this year that has not happened...so far this year I have only found that "wow" in one book...and two performances...the book is "Matrix" the latest from the immensely talented Lauren Groff...for the few days it took me to read, I was taken away from the relentless horrible news cycle here...and transported to an abbey in the time of Eleanor of Aquitaine...and taken to other terrible times...but also times of great redemption and heroism...and then last week...watching the segment on Joni Mitchell at the Kennedy Center Honors...Brandi Carlisle singing "River"...Brittany Howard singing "Both Sides Now"...google and watch...then google and listen to Joni in her prime...close your eyes...ignore breaking news on your cell...skate away on that river with Joni...breathe deep...glide into 2022 with time on your side, and hope in your grasp...

maybe not just like that...

and just like that I watched the first episode...the much anticipated continuation of the lives of Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda...and the ghost of Samantha...so, how is it?...well, first, as a writer, let me weigh in...I could hear all my professors...workshop compatriots...screaming...SHOW, DON'T TELL...Michael Patrick King and the writers need to go out on that limb...accept the audience has a decent baseline intelligence level...we can follow...don't bog the 41 minutes down with explanation...second...is this going to be 10 episodes of mea culpa?...we all know SATC was very white...it also was less than flattering in Charlotte's conversion to Judaism...or in its portrayal of "waspy" old money...and were Stanford and Anthony gay stereotypes...yes...then, no...in trying to right what current cancel culture dictates as wrong...the series risks get strangled as it tiptoes the politically correct minefield...I've been reading comments on Twitter, and elsewhere..."OMG, how could they do that to Big?...uh, wake up...our beloved characters are in their fifties and sixties...and dear Mr. Big already had a cardiac wake-up call way back when...and for the record...Carrie and Big's love story was messy and complicated...much like real life...this death may actually drive the plot...or not...let's see where they take her going forward...but here it is...the real problem rests with some of the show's audience...for women who were in their teens and early twenties watching the original...you aren't where these characters are now in life...so I hate to spout generalizations but you might not get it...whereas the original, with "Sex" blazing in its title...pushed boundaries within the confines of HBO...I am hoping this new chapter pushes boundaries of our dated perception of post-menopausal women...their relationships with significant others...children...peers...best friends...but most importantly themselves...if the writers can get there without tripping on the clumsiness of our "girls" navigating new territory...well, I'll raise a Cosmo to that...

ball of confusion

so there I was...Broadway...back in a theater...first time since early March 2020...before the shit hit the fan...theater is different in this world of Covid...and no...we are not post-Covid...we may never be...and even double vaccinated, boostered, masked...there is pause when the person sitting next to you is almost in your lap...the Imperial Theater...home to "Ain't Too Proud" is an oldie...which prompted a women a few seats down to comment during intermission...how small were people when it was built???...or is it the double whammy of that and Covid caboose...anyway...it is sad for me to admit...and I hope so much it changes...but much in the way that I felt last week...nestled in my seat at an early afternoon showing of "Belfast"...only 10 of us sprinkled throughout the audience...the thrill is not gone...but dulled...Covid has numbed my sense of joy...and that leaves me angry...but at who?...or whom?..."Ain't Too Proud"...there they were in front of me...an amazing cast...singing the incredible repertoire of the Temptations...songs that I know so well...the earworms of my youth...when they got to singing "Ball of Confusion"...well...I perked up...written over 50 years ago...not much has changed...and so when we venture out...try to resume life as we know it...there is a low flame of fear burning inside...fear of the intensity of this virus...fear of the growing unrest and violence of our immediate world...and fear that we are powerless in the face of all of it...maybe it's all like riding a bicycle again...wobbly and shaky the first time or two...then soaring with the wind in your hair and not a care in your mind...the sound bites and inane social media kings and queens can't rule you...you've reached a perfect state...and jump from your seat to applaud...like the Temptations sang...cloud 9...

Café Oy Vey...

so there I was at Le Pain Quotidien...my new guilty pleasure...get some walking in at Roosevelt Field...reward?...a hot, frothy café au lait...dutifully standing 6' behind the ladies in front of me, I suddenly heard a voice to my left...maybe a Covid-panicking 1 foot away...at least we were both masked...a small women leaned in to talk...she felt compelled to tell me of her woe...rambled about the fact that when she'd eaten a bread purchased here two weeks ago, her LDL was out of whack after, so there must be butter and other non-listed ingredients in the bread...she went over her exercise regime...the number of steps she did...I mentally thought of my walk that morning...I felt like Sherri the Sloth...she was petite and obviously trim, about ten years older than me...and she wouldn't stop...I was thinking about the croissants at the register...but with my paternal genes just looking at them filled my arteries to the brim...then I thought, without meds they did that with oatmeal...so maybe I would get the croissant...I kept my inner monologue going because the little lunatic to my left was now telling me how she wanted to move to Greenwich and I was hoping it might be in the next minute...I noticed the barista had left her station...or was that baristette here...anyway, now the register person was running back and forth and despite having ordered, it might be Christmas before I got my order...I lost my LDL friend though...she was chewing off the ear of the other woman behind the counter...who was probably glad for the mask as it hid lines of exasperation...I finally heard "Sherri" and took the cup...quickly exited the mall for a walk in the sudden cool air...Indian summer a lovely memory...the wind whipped my hair...tangled my earrings in mask straps that I ripped away bringing the hot cup to my lips...closed my eyes and smiled...then wondered...what was my LDL at my last visit?...oy...