40 is the new...

40 is the new reality...40 mass shootings since the new year was ushered in...40...a number used frequently in Scripture...both Old and New Testament...if Moses were up on Mount Sinai today...and knew of the carnage...would he bother coming down?...what would Jesus say to his disciples after the resurrection if he saw the anguish?...would faith be enough?...what world have we fashioned for next generations?...if we get there...I realized after the second shooting in California...that my mind cannot retain the details of one massacre when it is quickly supplanted by the next...I felt that happening the last few years...particularly when we emerged from Covid quarantine to an angry and violent society...that the sheer horror of it all would need to be buried...and the need to flip the TV channel to something mindless and numbing was overwhelming...I finally understood why the Bachelor franchise lives on...why so many cheer on the WWE...we don't want to think...it has become too painful...instead we watch from the safety of an old worn couch...and text our friends...ignore the news flashes on phones...or glance quickly and feel perverse comfort if it's happening in another state...miles away...I am often reminded these days of something my mom said to me years ago...always watch something funny before bed...the news will give you nightmares...at 10:59 pm the local networks brag of breaking news...Seinfeld, anyone?

you say you want a resolution...

the best way to keep a resolution is not to make one...cynical?...maybe, but in reality, not so much...let's face it...some old tradition...or bubbe meise...has us drafting lists the last week of December...as we stuff our faces and probably break that last New Year's list in one Netflix binge...and think about this...we make lists of the practical and ethereal...and then head into January...where, at least here in the northeast, we face cold bleak weather...little sunlight...when our only holiday weekend is Martin Luther King Day...where we pause and think about a wonderful man...murdered for most likely half of what you aspire to on that list...ouch...so what to do...remain the cynic?...sprinkle a list with platitudes?...here is what I think...as I sit here this last day of 2022...straddling the old and new...I resolve to do the small things...hold open a door...smile at a complete stranger, and savor the return smile if it happens...let the woman with the screaming toddler go ahead of me on line in the supermarket...she is one "maaaa" away from CPS...refrain from giving the middle finger to the first asshole who cuts me off in January...start with these small things...tackle what gives life meaning later...like maybe in spring...when it's daylight more than 30 minutes...but whatever you bring forward into 2023...and leave behind...however large, or small, your goals are...may 2023 be a healthy and blessed one...and remember, when it gets hard...and it often does...remember you are not George Santos...and smile

Don't You Look Back...

 2022 is taking the songstresses...the voices...the lyricists...the background of my youth...Loretta Lynn...I will admit it was Sissy Spacek in "Coal Miner's Daughter" that sparked interest in her life...her music...her spirit...a feminist in so many ways she would deny...but those lyrics...always reminds me of what writers hear...write what you know...and she did...her songs were funny, sassy and poignant...her voice, unmistakable...the Queen of Country...the new crop of bleached-blonde wannabees should take a lesson...Irene Cara...her voice armed with pain and promise...her career hit pinnacles early...there should have been more...much more...her former managers should hang their heads...and watch footage of her singing "Out Here On My Own"...and weep...Christine McVie...the sultry singer of Fleetwood Mac...much of her career playing second fiddle to Stevie Nicks...and not...her presence was commanding...and her absence glaring when she chose not to tour in later years...the pain in her back not helped by standing over the keyboards for years...the list of Fleetwood Mac's hits penned by her is astounding...people have said...well, she was 79...not much comfort to this 62-year-old...I will always remember her low purr in "Over My Head"...oh, yes, Ms. McVie...it sure felt nice...

the banshees of westbury

a banshee, by definition, is a female spirit in Gaelic folklore whose appearance or wailing warns a family that one of them will soon die...I went to the movies today...to my happy place...the lights dimming...the previews appearing...the M&M's disappearing...and then darkness, and the movie...today's choice...The Banshees of Inisherin...or maybe should be subtitled...the quiet desperation of ordinary lives...we were about 5 minutes into the movie when I heard it...at the end of my row to the right...we were only 10 souls in that theater...but I hit the jackpot...a couple sitting there...talking back and forth...like how should I put this...oh, as Colin Farrell would say in the movie...like they were in their own feckin' living room...I tried to ignore it...concentrated on the plot...and how amazingly good Colin looked in what could be described as 1923 Irish schmattas...but it was distracting...and I thought...I'm gonna lose it...wail like a...like a banshee...but I didn't...sadly realizing that this happens...this lack of courtesy...on a daily basis...it happened before covid...it is worse now...it happens in movie theaters...and in Broadway theaters...and then your seat costs a kidney...it is everywhere...and the saddest part...most people don't realize they are intruding on your experience...they have forgotten how to truly appreciate theirs...so when the movie was over...and they left...talking the whole time...I stayed...let the credits roll and the haunting music wash over me...the writer's vision wash over me...before leaving the theater...into the quiet desperation of ordinary life...

"You want to go where everybody knows your name"...

Columbus Day...or Indigenous Peoples Day 2022...running some errands on a glorious October afternoon...we found ourselves having lunch at Center Coffee Shop in Plainview...decades ago, I was there many a time...meeting Nassau County friends when I lived out in Dix Hills...unglamorous was being kind...noisy was being understated...but, your kid could impale themselves on the dirty floor in the back screaming...or drop seventy-five fries on the floor and who would care?...today, it was relatively crowded...and they were woefully unprepared for this...perhaps they forgot it was a holiday...but we shrugged it off...only one waitress...gave us menus...disappeared...we felt bad...there were so many tables of orders...we ended up yelling our order to the cook behind the counter...when the waitress came back everything was in reverse...cleaned the table under the menus...slapped down napkins...a few minutes later silverware...it was like a scene in a movie...played out between the gleeful hello's from everyone who came in...they all knew the cooks...the woman at the register...and each other...in today's hurried, large world, there is a sweetness to this...and the conversations...the older couple behind me...ordering a salad...the waitress shouting to the cook...chop the salad...in another minute I expected to hear that old scene from vintage Saturday Night Live..."cheeseburger, cheeseburger, cheeseburger"...then a friend of theirs paused to chat en route to his table..."hey, kid, how are you doing?" "I go into Mt. Sinai next week"...now, we all knew...but the bacon was crisp, the iced coffee just right, and Mike's fries...yeah, I stole a few...crispy...well then, the diet starts tomorrow...and I thought...I will not wait this long again to stop in... and I'll have my sandwich with a side of sweet memories...

Pomp and circumstances...

so, when I got up this morning, I couldn't resist reaching for the remote...to catch whatever part of the Queen's funeral was broadcasting...it is still going on as I write...I have had such mixed feelings about her death...or, let me correct myself, the media circus that has surrounded it...when she died I did feel a bit sad...and a bit in awe of the scope of history she lived through...had to carry herself through...wearing that crown and all it signifies...she always did so with grace...and perhaps unseen to most of us...at great personal sacrifice...then her death became an unending media loop...of course in England...but also here in the good ole USA...and I had to laugh inside...didn't we fight a little war in 1776 so we would not have to care about any of this?...and we certainly do not feel it like our friends across the pond...and in countries of the commonwealth across the globe...but we want to...our democracy is ailing right now...not growing pains...more like growing apart at the seams pains...who knows where we will be 70 years from now...maybe we wistfully wish there was some symbol like Queen Elizabeth II...a symbol living and breathing on the moors with corgis...smiling and waving and while not determining lawful things in life...reminding us of the continuity of a country...how the torch...or crown is literally passed down...generation to generation...the vitriol left to the halls of Parliament...and so I do sigh at her death...and marvel at the length of her reign...think about other dynamic Queens in England's history...Victoria...and way back to Elizabeth I, who was not supposed to live, let alone reign over 44 years...and for all that you really have to bow...or curtsy...or just nod and say...long live the Queen...

"from both sides now"

 I live in a lovely development sandwiched in a retail corridor...highway entrances close by...it was built on the grounds of the old Roosevelt Raceway...then flea market...I live on the earth once pounded by the hooves of majestic racehorses...then bargain seekers looking for schmattas...and so my curiosity was piqued with an article in Newsday earlier this month about a music festival that took place here in 1974...NY Summersault '74...an impressive line-up...Jesse Colin Young...the Beach Boys...Joni Mitchell...Crosby, Stills, Nash and (a late arriving via helicopter) Young...set lists to swoon over...and suddenly when sitting on my terrace these waning summer days...I no longer hear the distant roar of the Meadowbrook Parkway...but instead hear the lilting voice of Joni...who not only performed solo but would join CSNY for exquisite 5-part harmonies...being a writer...a poet...I often go back to Joni's music...her lyrics...genius...recently she was able to perform at the Newport Folk Festival...after many years struggling since a brain aneurysm...it was miraculous to see her performing "Both Sides Now" in the clip circulating throughout social media...her vocal register lower...the pauses...the gut-wrenching delivery of someone who has finally grown into the lyrics written in youth...if you have not seen it please google it...you will be reduced to tears...and so these days when I walk the roadways here...I think of this music and smile...and write...hoping to see what my poems might mean down the road...looking back...