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Wednesday, November 30
TV for president
Have you been watching Commander and Chief?
Dang I love that show and honey I have not liked Geena Davis since
Well since Thelma and Louise..
What I love about the show is that its letting the notion of a woman in office sink in
to mainstream America.
Let’s face it WILL and GRACE has probably done more to help the gay rights movement then any march because people in bum-fuck no where watch the show, like Will or Jack
And then start to say to themselves hey…maybe gay people can be okay!
I’m hoping those same folks will watch commander and chief and after awhile some aspect of women being in power being okay might sink in too.
Here’s hoping anyway.
Its funny how people work.
I can walk up to any homophobe on the street, beg them to support gay rights and they may well laugh in my face or worse… yet sit those couch potatoes in front of an image week after week of funny likable gay characters on the boob tube and maybe just maybe they might think twice before signing an amendment to ban gay marriage.. well I said maybe..
I’m hoping Geena Davis today might mean Mrs. President tomorrow and whether or not you like Hillary it is time to support the notion of a woman in power because honestly honey, no matter what side of the political spectrum you’re on, you have to admit men have done a crappy ass job!
So here’s for Geena
And Will and Grace
For changing the ignorant couch potato a little at a time
Now if only we had a show about a black, Jewish, lesbian president
We would have it all covered quite nicely…
Saturday, November 26
eat the love
well they came
they saw
they pigged out massively
and they left too stuffed to walk
ah yes
another successful T-DAY
i do hope you all had a great one
and are not doing too much processing
about your weird families
i know the holidays
can really bring out the love
and warmth of family
but they can also bring out
the disfunction
and madness
and guilt
and fury of family
its a mixed bag
and ive had more then a few friends who opted to
forgo the family in exchange for peace and harmony
this holiday season if you
are not accepted by your family because
oh maybe you're gay
or maybe you've fallen in love with the garbage man
and not a doctor
or maybe you gave up that harvard education
to spend you life painting abstract portraits of dogs
whatever
please know
that there is love out there
and understanding
and when it does not come from someone who's blood you share
it can and does often come from the strangest of places
i mysef was not blood related to anyone who shared my table this year
but i had family there all the same
here's wishing you
warmth
and compassion
for the holiday season
bon appetit
Tuesday, November 22
holiday oy vey and hey
food for thought here as the holidays approach
last night i took a peek to see when Chanukah landed this year
and for the first time that i can ever recall in my life
the first day of chanukah lands
on christmas
it just knocked me on my tuchas
i thought how wonderful that in this time when religion seems to be tearing the world apart that jews and christians can celebrate together
on the same day
course it may also be the day that jews and christians band together
as moslem fundamentalists start world war three
but im not gonna destroy the beauty of this moment if ya dont mind
anyway
tis the holiday season for one and all
im gonna have my adopted family over
for a major feast
with far too much food
far too much wine
and hopefully far too much laughter
i do hope you all find peace this season
eat a litttle too much
and have more love then you know what to do with
Wednesday, November 16
Dear God
Dear God
Please help me I’m confused and I could really use your guidance here
I was taught growing up that to follow you meant I had to be believe in the old testament but not the new one and that all those folks who thought they were worshipping you by worshipping Jesus were misguided because Jesus was in fact a rabbi and a very talented one but not a son of god any more then we are all your children..so okay…I got that…and never really cottoned to the notion of Jesus being anything more then a truly passionate, Kabalistic, spiritualist who was so inspirational that millions around the world follow his teachings today..but I gotta believe that the poor guy has to be in something that must feel like hell to him now because from everything I know about him, he was a kind peace loving fellow.. so if he’s been looking down and seeing the millions of people murdered in his name he’s might wish he was never born..or so one might think..but I digress..
Here’s where I’m confused you see I’m Jewish because my parents were and that’s what they taught me..and most Christians are Christians for the same reason…so if I and a Christian person were switched at birth they would now be Jewish and I would now be Christian and if that’s the case then the religion we follow really and truly can not be what decides our after life if there is one because its all so circumstantial.
Right now the world seems torn apart by Moslem fundamentalists who are blowing themselves up and murdering a whole lot of innocent people all in the name of mohammed who is another person that seems to me to have been a decent kind person from what I’ve heard and who if he can look down on us must be pretty damn miserable seeing all the death in his name too..
But if I could have swooped down and grabbed one of those self righteous ALLAH chanting suicide bombers when they were a baby and dropped them off in the crib of say a Baptist in Indiana they would most likely grow up as Christian as the day is long…so again I say the religion we follow is all about circumstances and therefore can not be what determines our after life if there is one..
I’ve met some rabbis that were so hypocritical they would just walk by a dying person in need if they were not Jewish and I’ve met atheists who would give their last dime to a stranger. I’ve met folks who go to Church every Sunday and don’t give a rats ass about anyone but themselves and I’ve met supposed sinners who have the heart of a saint..
I’ve got pals who gave up their college education, their sense of right and wrong, the freedom of choice, expression and dreams to follow Jehovah and are now considered outcasts by the same religion they dedicated their life too simply because they want to ask questions, or want to make love or want to speak out loud and proud.
So here’s what I want to know God…if that is in fact what you would like to be called. I have no idea if you might prefer to be called Hashem or Josephine.
Did you drop pebbles of truth on this planet and let them scatter in the wind, then give man and woman free choice to see what we would do with these seeds and watch as we sprouted up all over the place with all different sorts of beliefs that quite often made us feel righteous enough to commit genocide?
Or did you simply create us and then go on to other things perhaps other worlds and let us make up our own stories and then kill each other in the cause of them.
I know I sound cynical but its hard to fathom all this endless death in your name and its hard to comprehend why people don’t understand the simplest lesson of them all that
Its not how you worship or who you worship but how you live your life, that your life is the gift you were given and cherishing it and using it to bring joy and laughter into the world is the mission you were put here for.
A life spent causing pain is a lost life, a curse of a life no matter what form of god you may have dedicated it to.
Anyway I guess I’m just checking in cause the world seems anything but holy these days at least not the holy I know.. and I’m just kind of wondering where its all going and just when it is that folks are gonna wake up..
Do you think you might drop off a pebble of truth or two just to get things a bit under control or have you been doing it all along but nobody is listening?
I’ve got my glass to your wall Lord…but all I hear is sadness
Hmmm
Maybe you are dropping those pebbles after all
Friday, November 11
SMOKE HOUSE
Here in NYC
the first thing Mayor Billionaire Bloomberg
did after getting elected his first term
was to ban smoking just about everywhere
after watching Guilianni white wash NYC
push sex to the edges of Manhattan
and then into the friggen Hudson
push out the mom and pop stores
and welcome in the superstores
turn Times Square into Disneyland
and yes he did also get rid of a whole hellavalotta crime
but it was a baby with the bath water kinda thing
i was hoping
that a new mayor might mean
a possible salvation of some of old ny
that we didn't want to see go
plus bloomy was some sort of financial wiz having built his own fortune
and nyc was hurting after 911
so whats he do first
86 smoking
bar biz was down 30-% right off the bat
i figured no one would re-elect the guy
especially in democrat nyc
but then i figured no one would want bushie back a second time either
i was wrong
seems a lot of folks are darn happy about the smoking ban
the comments in my previous post
have also shown me that this is certainly not just a nyc thing either
so heres what ive seen now that smoking is 86'd
people still smoke
but they stay outside to do it
so now when i come home
there are always smokers on the front steps to my building
cigarette butts all over the place
smoke blowing in the windows
its like an obstacle course getting thru the hoards of smokers out on the streets
im pretty darn sure i suck down a whole lot more of the 2nd hand smoke now then i ever did
why not bring back the smoking section
and protect the employees for whom the smoking section was banned
by having all smoking sections be self service only
wouldnt this be a little more fair to the smokers
and a little easier on folks trying to make their way around the city|?
worst of all
my beloved Manhattan is turning into
Boston (no offense Boston but you're a different kind of city)
its so squeaky clean that the punk rockers in the east village
can make money giving photo ops
for the tourists
little italy is one block
the yiddish lower-east-side is like one fish store, one knish store
and a kosher style deli
the artists and writers have moved to brooklyn and are now being moved out of there too
just about the only ethnic hood thats flourishing is China town
and yeah
crime is still down
but where is the world famous edge of Manhattan?
i say its time to bring back the speak-easy
a place where down and dirty
edge ridden freaks can smoke
or be around people who want to
or just celebrate their right to
im an ex smoker
i dont like to be around smoke
ex smokers are notorious for this of course
im also an ex bartender
who adored making a forture off smokers
they were always the best tippers
so im not a smoker missing the right to smoke
im a new yorker of going on 25 years
who misses the days when ny was the wild child of the world
and hates to see it lose all of its
bas assness
dont get me wrong
i was sure glad to see the crime go
thrilled to see centrail park get cleaned up
the tires and pollution taken out of central parks waters
and the dead bodies too
i was way happy not to have to climb over a mass of heroin needles
in Union Square park anymore
but just cause you take a shower
put on new clothes
and dont break the law
doesnt mean you dont want to be bad girl too
does it?
Sunday, November 6
Timeless
well here's something only a few people in the world know
during a snowstorm on the freezing tip of cape cod
in january of 2004
i sat in my not nearly heated enough
150 sq foot
writers retreat pad that overlooked the white snowy bay
and started to purge a case of new years eve blues
turned into full scale heart break
into a short story
this is one of the great gifts of
being blessed with a creative urge
the amazing outlet
im fairly sure i would have
gone la la
were it not for this
anyway
ive never been able to write more then 30 pages
im a lots of short stories
lotsa memoir kinda girl
so i grabbed a box of tissues
and sniffled my way into what i thought would be a teary eyed short story
a bit of autobiographical fiction
that would showcase some sort of world class betrayal
then i could drink a few bottles of wine
and move on
but the short story didn't want to end
so after 50 or so pages
i decided just to write until it was done
and it kept going
the story took me thru a long, complex
journey where three main characters
are far more then they appear to be
and far more then i knew they were
at 200 pages
this being single spaced
which means 400 pages in book land
i began to want off the ride
i wanted the story to end so i could move on with my life
but the story
much like the story that had inspired me to sit down and write in the first place
had not reached its destination
finally in the summer of 2005
just before my birthday
i told my pal debilah
i want off
and she said
it will end when youre ready for it to end
when youre ready for the real story to end
and i went for a walk
suddenly felt the message enter my head
and ran back to my writers desk
to end the book
in just a few short pages
and it was the right ending
the long dreamt about
dream ending
having actually sat down
and written
yes i will say it
a novel
i assumed
that it was a huge pile of mental masturbation
un--readable
but then i let two close friends read it
including la c, (yes la c)
and my amazing editrix the great nancy aka jill matrix
la c loved it amazingly
and the matrix
only asked for a few minor revisions
which i will work on shortly
but ultimately
la editrix
really really (sally field moment) liked it!
so im left
utterly dumbfounded
with the possibility sitting on my lap
that i may have actually sat down
and written
a readable
novel?!?
not sure what to do next
but once
ive worked on a revision or two
and its been edited
i may just send it out and see if it flies
but even if it never does
knowing that i was actually capable of writing
a book
has changed me
as a writer
now nothing seems impossible
and now more then ever before
i can look upon
every drop of pain
as gas in the tank
fuel to create
and it is a grand feeling
giving birth
to something
timeless
now if only i could get over that
need to be famous, rich and successful stuff
and just stay thrilled with the creative
experience
everything would be just dandy
Thursday, November 3
fashion foible
Lordy
Just when you didn’t think it could get any worse
In terms of the horrendous job Michael Brown did
Over at FEMA during the Katrina crises
We get the emails
Now made press worthy
Notably the one where he appeared to worry more about the way he was dressed then the people who were drowning..
You just cant even make this shit up
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