Archives for August 2013

5 Songs:

Dancing In The Dark- Bruce Springsteen
Dead Man’s Party- Oingo Boingo
Don’t Give Up- Peter Gabriel
Don’t Tell Me-Blancmange
Don’t You (Forget About Me)- Simple Minds

Dear Universe,

It is your old friend Jack checking in again. Been a while since we had a to heart-to-heart and I think it is time we have a sit down to figure out why some things are the way they are.

Don’t worry, this isn’t the kind of Tony Soprano sit down where you have to worry about getting whacked. You are the universe and I am just an ordinary Joe who has developed a particular set of skills that aren’t serving me the way I want them to.

I am told that things happen for a reason and that all will work out as it should but I am also told that there is free will involved so even though all will work out as it should there might be a variety of things that happen before and during while things work out as they should.

Don’t know about you but that reminds me of the news that the double stuff in Oreos isn’t quite double.

Forest Fires, Riots and Earthquakes

Ok universe I am sort of betwixt, between and bemused by the crap you are pulling. Remember you put me through multiple earthquakes, the LA Riots and had me evacuated from a forest fire.

You have made sure that I understand what it means to be punched in the mouth, kicked in the gut and slapped in both the literal and figurative sense and let us not forget heartbreak.

Because you made sure I learned about that too, can’t decide if this makes you a sick motherfucker or a great teacher because all of this has helped me understand and appreciate the sweeter side too.

That sweet side outweighs and most of the time overwhelms the negative crap. No doubt that on the plus/minus register the pluses outweigh the minuses and that life is pretty damn good.

But you know I don’t just let things go. You know that when I am attacked by the crap flinging monkeys of life I will reach down and throw it back at them.

It is not a matter of being a tough guy or not taking shit, but my unwillingness to always accept what is said or handed to me.

Why?

Why don’t I just accept things? Well universe you are to blame for that. You taught me to ask questions and to push back. You taught me to stand firm and hold on when things are hard because they change.

And that is why I ask some of these questions because when things don’t make sense I try to figure out if there is a reason why. Sometimes there is.

Some things don’t make sense and I don’t waste time trying to figure out why but that is not how it is with everything. Sometimes they don’t make sense because people don’t want to do the work.

Sometimes they take the easy way out and say “because” for no reason other than it is easy.

Well universe I have gotten pretty good at doing things the hard way and not always because I like or want to. But it has helped me develop a good work ethic and an unwillingness to accept certain things.

Don’t tell things happen because G-d has a plan that I can’t understand because my capacity for understanding is pretty damn deep and that sounds like me telling my kids “no” because I am exhausted and can’t offer any other explanation.

And if G-d exists and is all powerful then he doesn’t get tired or exhausted so…

Musical Intermission

Here is another five songs:

Dreams- Fleetwood Mac
Eight Miles High- The Byrds
Eleanor Rigby- The Beatles
Elysium- Gladiator Soundtrack
The End- The Beatles

So What

Ok universe, you all powerful, mystical and mighty something or other– stop saying ‘so what.’ Stop rolling your eyes and asking me to climb mountains so that some scraggly bearded yogi can give me some sort of wise sounding answer to the mysteries of the cosmos.

I asked you before and I am asking you again to give me a straight answer as to what you expect/want me to do. Yeah I know I don’t listen to anyone and that I march to the beat of a drummer who has no rhythm but trust me when I say it will be better for both of us.

5 Songs:

The Wrestler– Bruce Springsteen
Tuesday Afternoon– The Moody Blues
Kashmir– Led Zeppelin
Barton Hollow– The Civil Wars
A Kiss To Build A Dream On– Louis Armstrong

It is winter in Santa Monica and I imagine that you are out there somewhere, don’t know your name or where you live but you are out there. Maybe you are like me and you think nothing watching the sunset on a warm winter’s day in Santa Monica.

Couples walk down the beach arm in arm and I wonder if one day that will be us and then laugh, because I haven’t a clue if I will ever get married so the idea of there being an us is sort of funny.  But at twenty I am not concerned with whether one day I will get married and am barely concerned about having a girlfriend.

That is because I have a woman who is happy to help keep my bed warm and though she would like to hear about my day I don’t get any grief if I don’t talk about it and that is good.

School is out for Winter Break and at the moment I am enjoying sitting here by myself. It is quiet and it gives me some more time to think about whether I want to go to law school or go a different direction. Either one is good with me because I know whatever I do will work and success will follow me.

Twenty Years Later

Twenty years later I am back in Santa Monica and am walking along the beach to clear my head. Life is different than I had expected it to be and I am just beginning to see how dramatically different it could be.

Different isn’t necessarily code for bad or for worse but I haven’t quite decided yet how I feel about everything. That is because I am processing everything that has happened.

I am married with two kids, have a house and in many ways am living the so called American Dream. Except my dream is different than the one I heard and saw growing up.

We are fighting two wars and the wounds from that and September 11 are still felt all over. And then because we don’t like little problems we are in the middle of the worst economy since the Great Depression my grandparents went through.

Some friends have died from a variety of cancers, several have gotten divorced and a bunch of us are fighting to hold on to our houses.

Out With The Boys

It is noon and a group of us have assembled at a local diner. Under other circumstances this wouldn’t be remarkable except it is during the week and normally we would all be working, except none of us has a regular job anymore.

The economy and life have taken a bite out of our collective asses and we are gathered in large part to support each other. It is a chance to help prop each other up so that we don’t feel like a the losers and fuck ups we once pointed at. Life has humbled us and we are doing our best to keep up our spirits.

It is not easy for a host of reasons not the least of which is our circle also contains people who haven’t felt the wrath of the recession. They are still going to Hawaii or Europe or Hawaii and Europe for vacation.

Housekeepers, nannys, private schools and luxury cars are not dreams, they are reality. The boys and I are good about not comparing ourselves to them because we didn’t have the housekeepers or luxury cars and don’t care. We miss the vacations and the ability to set aside reality but what we miss most is not having to worry about how to pay the bills.

We swear we will get back our on feet and that this will not be how we are remembered. And then we wonder if karma is bullshit because so many of the people who are doing well are obnoxious assholes.

A Handful Of Years Later

I am walking down the pier thinking about all that has happened. The twenty-year-old is long gone but if I listen closely I can hear the faint echo of his voice.

We are all working again and have made much progress on the promises we made to ourselves and each other but we all have a little voice inside our heads that reminds us of how dicey it once got.

But maybe it is more appropriate to be walking by the carnival games and listening to the sounds of the surf and laughter. It is hokey but those games are like life, you don’t win a prize if you don’t play the game.

 

 

“Hell, there are no rules here – we’re trying to accomplish something.”- Thomas Edison

Thursday night has arrived and I am staring at the picture of the bull and thinking about how I feel like him. Thinking about how there have been moments where I have been stabbed, beaten and bludgeoned to the point where I wondered how I kept my feet.

Mom has always said I have a high threshold for pain and dad says that I need to remember that brute strength won’t carry us through everything.

Picked up the phone to call my grandfather and shoot the shit with him and remembered he is gone. Laughed out loud, a bemused expression on my face and thought again about how very much I would like to speak with both my grandfathers because I know they would understand this moment and that something they would say would resonate with me.

And Then I Heard Them

And then I heard their voices. Don’t care if it is woo woo stuff, real or imagined. Don’t care if it was only my mind playing tricks on me because I felt them here, heard them and that made me smile.

Thought about those moments from two years ago that I wrote about below and smiled again. Thought about my kids, nephews and niece and how they think I know so much and laughed. Laughed because I know everything and I know nothing.

Smiled because I had a debate with a child today. Smiled because I might have have been as pompous and dumb when I was her age and would have been equally offended if that had been pointed out to me.

Closed my eyes and invited the grandfathers to stick around for a while. If I were back in LA I would go visit them, would stand graveside and just listen.

++++

I am most certainly not the little boy they once played with nor am I the man they last saw. Time, life and experiences have changed me and I once was is not who I am today.

Don’t know if that is a good or bad thing, it just is. It is just part of life. We do and we live.

Told my kids to pay attention to what happens around them because these moments that we sometimes think of as being little or inconsequential are often the big ones. They are the little things that we miss.

Twilight makes me smile because I feel like I can see into different worlds and different possibilities.

Time to say goodbye to today and prepare to say hello to tomorrow. I don’t just hear the echoes of the future anymore because I have begun to live them.

The Most Valuable Possession

It is Friday night of the weekend of my sister’s wedding and my parents are hosting Shabbos dinner for friends and family from out of town. Dessert has been served and the kids are running around with their cousins while the grownups drink coffee and talk. I am standing outside on the terrace staring at streaks of orange and red and thinking about my grandfather. It is only a week since he died and his absence is palpable.

The painted sky is simply beautiful and I can’t help but think about how this is one of those moments where all of my grandparents would have told me to try and burn all I see and feel into memory. It makes complete sense to me to do so. In so many ways memory is the most valuable possession that we own. Sometimes it is the most painful but I try to focus on the positive and think of it as being the most precious, most beautiful and most valuable.

Midway through my musings I have this bizarre thought that 25 miles north of me my grandfather lies in a box that is buried beneath a mound of dirt. He was claustrophobic and for a long time very unhappy about the idea of being placed inside the casket. Long ago I promised him that if he knocked on the casket I would stop everything and pull him out. I remember telling him that there were better ways to get attention than to be buried alive and he told me to stop being a smartass, but the smile on his face made it clear that he appreciated it.

The day of the funeral I made a point of bending over to whisper, “grandpa, this is it. Knock three times on the ceiling and I’ll get you out of there.”  If you haven’t noticed I have a dark sense of humor but he appreciated it and that is all that matters. He didn’t knock and so we carried him over to his body’s final destination and I watched as he was lowered into it. I suppose that it is important to clarify that I wasn’t the person who verified that he was inside- but  I have to believe that no errors were made.

However I can verify that the rabbi and I made sure that the entire casket was covered in dirt.  My sunglasses hid the look in my eyes as my shovel rained dirt down upon him. It is not the first time that I have helped to bury a loved one and it probably won’t be the last. Some people don’t like it but I take it seriously. It is one of the last courtesies that we can extend to those who wander off into whatever lies beyond the pale.

Saturday night there was another family function and I found myself standing in front of the home I grew up in with my kids, cousins, nieces and nephews. We tossed around a football and I watched boys who used to be babies turn into almost pre-teens before my eyes and thought about how much has happened. Close your eyes and life has a way of getting away from you.

It reminded me of people long gone and some just removed from my life who spoke about potential and living up to it. That is something that I sometimes find troubling…potential. Or maybe it is more appropriate to say that I find unfulfilled potential to be troubling. It sometimes eats away at me and I get lost in the land of what could have been and perhaps what could be. It is a line of thought that I try not to get caught up in as it is not real productive to dig at the wounds of what I wish could have been. I don’t have many regrets, but those that I do are…painful.

That is not the sort of possession that I am real fond of, but I suppose they help to make me who I am. From a different perspective we could say that they help to make me who I am going to be. Yep, I said going to be because who I am today is not who I am going to be tomorrow. That is not supposed to be some sort of goofy philosophical comment but acknowledgement that what is happening today is having a significant impact upon me now.

I wonder what sort of possessions this experience will leave me with.