religion
just finished reading the best-selling book “Unorthodox” about a young woman who grew up in the Satmar Hasidic sect of Williamsburg and all that she endured in pursuit of being individual. She finally left the sect having to leave most of her family behind and has written an amazing book about it.
She is brave beyond words as insiders in the hasidic world rarely speak out.
it’s something ingrained in us as kids, if it’s bad for the jews don’t do it, don’t say it and above all don’t print it!

she tells of being forced to shave her beautiful hair, to not being allowed to read books in english, to not being allowed to go to movies, see the outside world, to not being allowed to even consider loving freely who she may want to love. Her the crime of just wanting to read a book like “little women” would be considered an atrocity.

she escapes and with her escape my heart flew with her, good for you! I shouted in my soul!

this is not to say of course that all satmars are miserable and want out, but certainly this young woman did and certainly it is a frightening thing to risk losing your child and your entire circle of friends and family just to want to be yourself.

i know what it’s like to live amongst the hasids, in my case, the Lubavitchers of Crown Heights, as a scared teenager..i met some of the best people i have ever met in that sect but also met some of the worst most horrible hypocrites

My mother told i could trust anyone who wore a yarmulke, clearly so clearly NOT true..she also told me i could trust anyone in a police uniform, clearly so clearly NOT true either..

it took me awhile to come to the conclusion i keep to this day..there are good and bad people why would the religious be any different?

i turn on the news every day and see people massacred in the name of religion..

i watch the footage of the new pope and hope upon hope that he will be more progressive, more open to gay rights, more willing to stop washing over the sex crimes of so many catholic priests and catholic leaders and see justice served..

he is said to be a man of the people, let him be a man for all people then

i was having dinner with friends last night and we got to talking about religion..how all of us feel the burn of having been hurt or see so much hurt in the name of the lord

so i come to this simple place

the moment your religion makes you feel that are better then those who do not worship as you do, is the moment that you can not be serving a just and loving higher power of any kind

we are all equal

no one is born better then anyone else
perhaps luckier certainly but not more deserving

we are all holy

so much happening in the world my dears
the stock market finally is up to its height
to the pre- 2008 days of awesome
and i feel like dancing in the street celebrating
as with the stock market surely will go the recession, depression whatever the hell you call it
but reality tells me there’s still unemployment, there is still this massive cut back and lord knows what that will mean and mostly, mostly there is still fear.

it was fear that forced the economy into the toilet
and only a lack of fear that will really get us out
what was it FDR said during the depression
there is nothing to fear but fear itself
but fear is palpable
and fear is more powerful then any gun
any pile of cash
fear is deadly

so here’s hoping we all can take a deep breath and see that everything comes in cycles
everything is temporary and so long as we can keep love, joy and our friggen ethics in check
we can have it all!

in my business, since 2008 i have watched many businesses that are my competitors resort to lies, cheating, all sorts of crap to lure clients
in the short term, they win, the clients lured in by the lies think they are getting a better deal
it’s painful to watch my dears
in the long term, they lose- i think-i hope- as those un-happy clients walk into the world and talk about it … a lot.

i take a deep breath and say to myself, be honest, be open, be calm and be open to miracles
and mostly

be kind, be kind, be kind

not always easy but as the economy maybe, hopefully is finally lifting
i get to look at myself in the mirror and like the person i see

did you throw your ethics, your honor, your personal code of conduct out the window
when the times got tough?

if you did, honey it’s not too late to regain your humanity, start now
make it right

if you didn’t and stayed honorable
stayed open
stayed decent
then hurray for you
the world may not know it
but you do
and you deserve the oscar award for good-ness
rock on
today and every day

let’s stand tall folks
and be real

if not
nothing is really worth anything

I didn’t watch all or even most of the Olympics, but like a lot of you
I cheered on the American women’s gymnastics team and of course Mr. Phelps
But it was the amazing double amputee, the one in a million guy who managed to rise over his terrible obstacle and actually make it all the way to compete in the Olympics who won my heart.

Oh man didn’t we fly seeing him fly!

Now Oscar Pistorius is breaking my heart

Its this Lance Armstrong part two, only far worse, our hero who conquers the worst of odds only to show himself as anything but heroic in the after-match.

Can this really be true, that he killed his girlfriend??

He said it was all a mistake, that when she went to surprise him on Valentine’s day he shot her thinking she was an intruder. But he shot into a locked bathroom door, multiple times?!

It’s hard to imagine that this was the reaction to an intruder and if it was, wow this guy is a whole lot more then jumpy. How friggen paranoid would you have to be to do this?

I guess I will wait, like all of us will, to see what the court decides, but what I mourn for now is myself and the millions of fans who felt a little prouder, a little taller and a little bit more like anything, I mean anything is possible, after we saw Pistorius run.

I want to remember that heroic moment as one of the greatest ever in Olympic history and not let the after-math take it away it from me.

I think back before the news and the head-lines to the moment when the handsome young man in blades took off like nothing could hold him back. The medals didn’t matter, nothing mattered but seeing him run. Oh Oscar, Oscar WTF man!

Here’s what I remember about Ed Koch.

New York City was in the toilet, tires floating in the waters of Central Park, the city parks filled with heroin needles and junkies galore.

NYC was broke, bankrupt. Not the swank Disney land it is today. The city I have come to love was truly in ruin. These were the years landlords opted to burn their buildings down on the lower east side and in the Bronx rather then try to rent or sell them.

The famous black-out caused a riot of looting and violence the aftermath of which still brings terror to the hearts of those who lived through it.

Then came Ed.

Affable, charming, Jewish, adorable and tough, no person has ever personified NYC as much as Ed Koch.

In 1981 when I was trying to survive in Crown Heights, Ed would come to my little hood to visit the head rabbi, the rebbe, to pay his respects. He was Jewish and proud and known to be un-apologetically pro-Israel.

He was honest and straightforward and stood up for NYC in a way that no one else seemed to want to back then.

He didn’t give up on NYC and helped pull it out of financial ruin.

A lifelong bachelor, who many thought was gay, he championed gay rights when politicians willing to do so were a rare breed.

He was basically, one big cheerleader for NYC and the first person I think of when I think Mayor.

No one, not Bloomberg, Not Giuliani, not anyone in history, comes to mind as Mayor of NYC like Ed Koch.

He was human and with as many flaws as he had fanfare. Ed Koch was New York City.

I will miss him.

it’s pretty hard to comprehend
why banning assault weapons violates
our rights to arm ourselves

i mean WTF am i missing here??

yeah okay
you need to protect your home
or you need a hunting rifle
or something to show off at your next cocktail party
but not a friggen assault weapon!!

i hate that this is even turning into a political thing
it should be common sense

you don’t need a military weapon hanging over your fireplace!!

we do need major league back-ground checks and a mental health clearance
before we hand out a weapon of small mass destruction at a walmart!!

in honor of those 20 angels just so recently lost

i gotta say
GUN SLINGERS get over yourself!!!

let’s put a little less emphasis on macho
and a little more emphasis on saving our children for crying out loud!!!

I don’t know why it is that I feel sorry for Lance Armstrong, but I do.
And it’s not like I am some big bicycle enthusiast, lord I haven’t been on a bike myself in almost 25 years. Had a bad fall in Newport Rhode Island when some drunken frat boys ran me off the road and never wanted to bike again. And honey’s it wasn’t like I was enjoying the ride before the fall. Me balancing on two wheels, not a good match.

Probably the reason I never got around to going to motorcycle school, although they do have those cool three-wheelers.

But I digress. Lance Armstrong moved something in me and clearly millions of others. The way he overcame cancer to continue to be such a magnificent champion, the wondrous foundation he started to fight testicular cancer, the very fact that a biker had risen to such fame, HELLO CAN YOU EVEN NAME ONE OTHER BIKER? all this was part of the great myth of Armstrong.

Even his name was heroic; Armstrong. Arm of the strong.

Like a lot of folks, I felt the avalanche against him, was a witch-hunt. It seemed like the whole world was out to get him and I didn’t want to be any part of it.

Then in honor of his son, he finally fessed up to doping on Oprah.

First of all, kudos to Oprah because I still can’t find her network on my TV channel, so she clearly needs to get the traffic over there but what I don’t understand is why I still care about this guy.

I feel the pain of him being stripped of his titles and medals. I think of him going into his living room and handing over the ribbons, trophies and medals despondent and broken. But I don’t think they actually take the item from him just the official status or do they? Will those ribbons and medals now go retroactively to the second runner-ups? How the hell does all this work years later?

But again, I still care. My gf says he is a sociopath, some say he is not capable of real remorse that he is a driven man going for the end result annihilating all who get in his way.

But I still think of the wiry guy who made millions of non biking fans like myself care if only for a moment about the sport, who raised millions of dollars to help overcome cancer, who rose over his own cancer to soar faster then most of us can even dream of.

I guess what it comes down to is this. He was a John Wayne on wheels, an American Icon, a survivor and a hero and now all that has been shamed. We have so few heroes really, so few people who inspire us to do better, to strive for more that when one of them is shown in the harsh light of truth to be a false god, it just friggen sucks.

oh one little addendum here; the fat bitch comment he made during the Oprah interview and all the ruining of the lives of those who dared to tell the truth about him, that really friggen sucks.

The older I get the more I believe in miracles.

Synchronicity is all around me.

I am starting to believe that when you say something out loud it really does give it power.

So I am trying to say things out loud that I want to come true or as my good pal Melly would say, already are true, say them like they already are true and they become true.

Okay listen don’t go running to the toilet to throw up now, although if you have a hangover you may wish to. I’m still the same bitchy broad I always was. I’m not going all new age and “the secret” and all wussy gussy on you, I’m just sharing some pearls that fell before me and that rather then stomping on, I chose to pick up, polish off and wear like a radiant necklace. (poetic imagery ain’t it?)

One thing I put to a test recently, is that in my quest to fulfill my dreams, I have spent a good deal of energy working like a maniac and being too busy to fulfill my dreams. I have also been too busy to notice that miracles were being handed to me left and right, but I blindly plowed forward bitching and moaning about my dreams being out of reach and working, working, working.

One day, I stood still and I opened my eyes and said to the universe, okay I am ready to respect whatever you throw at me. Within days, several miracles in the form of people who at first seemed to have nothing whatsoever to do with my dreams were presented to me and rather then shoo them away, I stayed open and you know what, sure enough they were bridges to bigger bridges to bridges to my dreams.

I am not saying it happened dears, but I can see my dreams bubbling just over the horizon and they are almost close enough to touch now, not a million miles away anymore. Okay, okay they are already here, say it like they are already here. Okay Melly, but hey work in progress here.

Here is another thing I figured out recently. A co-worker of mine Bee spends her time jet setting around the friggen globe. Every time she gets a week off she is off living her life in full glory. When all the rest of us are whining about how cold it is, she is playing tennis in the sun. When we are complaining about being too tired to have fun, she is swimming in the ocean, dancing the night away, and sharing great wine with great friends.

So a day before New Year’s I asked her, “What the hell is your secret?”

And she just said, I am not postponing my life anymore, I am living it.

And there was my new year’s resolution just handed me, right when I was trying to think about what my new year’s resolution should be.

Do not postpone Joy.

You see in all the years I have spent searching for my Eden, complaining about all the crap we have to take in this life just cause friggen Eve (they always blame the girl) ate the apple, I missed the biggest lesson of all, the one that was hanging right over my head all along.

I AM EDEN

And so are you dears, so are you all.

For this New Year’s Day 2013 I invite you all to celebrate love, elevate joy and live, live, live your life like a magical gift

I AM EDEN and so my little love muffins are you

Oh my god
What the @&*@*(!@((@ is going on with the world when an armed gun-man starts shooting kids in kindergarten!!!!

Like most of you, I have been watching the news- un-fold while at work today and fighting back the tears as I imagine those 27 innocent people dead and amongst them 20 children, 20 elementary school children!!! their families just ruined, ruined forever!

The horror of what happened this morning in the nice, safe town of Newtown Connecticut in the nice safe school of Sandy Hook Elementary School is beyond reason.

There is no reason; only madness, only evil.

Dear lord please tell me there is a special kind of hell for this bastard. I gotta hope he is gonna pay for this!!!

Oh he’s an early bloomer all right, at only 20-years-old and already giving Hitler a run for his money in evil land.

Adam Lanza, I will pray and this girl does not pray often that you burn in hell for eternity!

The prick killed his own mother! Who worked at the school and targeted her and the kids in her classroom!??
I gotta say this woman is probably better off dead because what mom and school teacher would want to live knowing that her off-spring had done this!

Why does this keep happening?

It was just days ago that we had the terrible shooting in the Portland Mall, this country is still reeling from Columbine and all the other horrors, but this one; this one feels worse..because of all those children…

the thought of these innocent young lives being cut off before they had hardly begun
oh my dears
my dears
I can only say for the survivors, and the families and the friends, my heart aches for you all.

I am so sorry, so very very sorry…

Chanukah Oy Chanukah

Oh Chanukah, oh Chanukahhhh come light the menorahhhh
La la la la, oh how the hell does that song from my child-hood go anyway?
Dang it I knew all those Michelob Lights in my formative years would catch up with me one day.

Anyway kishkah punams, its Chanukah once again and here goes my shpeel!

Growing up I felt, how shall I say it, JEALOUS!!!!! The Christians had it all man. They had huge parties! Non-stop television specials, celebrities singing Christmas songs, the whole friggen world seemed to be painted in green, red and gold!!

But for us of the 12 tribes, forgetaboutit! We had a couple of crappy specials on PBS maybe, the after-thought at a few super-markets; a menorah shoved behind the nativity scene and 8 days of candle lighting.

My mother Harriet, who we called “The Big H”, gave us the same speech ever year.

“It’s better to be Jewish! We have 8 days of presents and the goyim only have one!”

Yeah, 8 days of socks, shampoo, roll-on deodorant, notebooks, pens and other items that parents are supposed to give their kids all year long, not on holidays. Every third night or so, we’d get a real gift; a doll, (in my case the GI Joe Action figure) but the dolls were purchased at going-out-of-business sales, so they might be missing a small attachment, like say, for instance, an arm!!

Yes there I’d be after 8 days of Chanukah sitting in a sea of knee sox with an amputee GI Joe, a vampire comic book missing two pages and a jug of shampoo I wouldn’t use to wash the car! I didn’t even know shampoo came in jugs!!

My Christian friends played with their new puppies, train sets, designer dolls with all four limbs and munched on sugar cookies in the shape of stars while they sipped hot chocolate in front of the fire.

We sipped Diet RC Cola and ate day-old onion bagels in front of the TV!

Sigh, but Chanukah was not without it’s amusements. Dancing around the dinette set covered in Mom’s Chanukah feast of Empire Kosher fried chicken, ketchup, canned string beans and egg noodles, we sang the Yiddish version of the Chanukah song.

None of us knew all the Yiddish words so we improvised; Oy Chanukah, Oy Chanukah, Oy Yom tov go-norrra, (I think this is come light the menorah) a lista, kat a trela kat, a la, la, la a la la. (this part I have no idea at all), a li nechen dreidel, (something about spin the dreidel ).
We sang on and on in our lack of Yiddish something about latkes and one line that sounded like “fardy nesun? “ Which we all felt was about farting while perhaps spinning the dreidel, which trust me after fried chicken and ketchup not so far off. The point was, we had long lost the original song, but my whole family singing in a circle and dancing around the table, like Indians around the fire, was despite all our groans and complaints to the contrary; pure joy.

I’m guessing that was the point of The Big H, to dupe her kids into having a jolly old time 8 nights in a row.

We were so busy laughing; we didn’t even notice that the chicken was as dry as sheet-rock and the ketchup had been stolen from McDonald’s.

As an adult I am much more merciful about Chanukah, I celebrate one or two nights, give gifts my loved ones actually want and appreciate the warmth and generosity of the holiday season, regardless of religion.

The real significance of Chanukah is religious freedom anyway. It’s a festival commemorating the liberation of the temple of Jerusalem.

So in honor of liberation I declare red, green and gold the colors not just of Christmas but of Chanukah too!

This daughter of the tribe of Judah is declaring all 8 nights of Chanukah to be a celebration for everyone regardless of what or what they pray to and a dedication to this awesome time of year, when folks remember to be nice for at least a minute.

Now pass the Latkes heavy on the applesauce and let’s get to singing.

OY Chanukah, oy Chanukah la, la, la, la. They got fardee neisun et goot farty isummm. This part really cracked us up.

Anyone out there know the real words to this song?

Well a month later and I am seeing yet another wave of sandy aftermath.

A wonderful Japanese restaurant on my block KASADELA which is owned by the sweetest couple you could ever meet, must now close their business. Their insurance did not kick in nearly enough to save them. FEMA offered them nothing but a possible loan and they simply cannot recuperate from SANDY.

It was heartbreaking to watch them stare at their once beautiful floors, their once chic, now wrecked eatery as they pushed back tears and packed.

I see on the news a lot about all the great things FEMA is doing and I don’t doubt they are doing great things for other people, but in my hood, a neighborhood that was literally under-water with no power, heat, phone, internet and hot water, with all the businesses on Avenue D and C and the side streets flooded beyond our worst fears, I did not see any outside help for some time. The generators and the gas and the pumps we all used to save our wrecked basements, we lent to each other. Neighbor to neighbor, friend-to-friend, stranger to stranger. We were all in it together.

Everyone I knew called FEMA with great hope, but all of the local business owners I know reported the same thing I was offered from FEMA; a chance to apply for a “Low interest loan.”

I guess some took it. But certainly no bails outs and help outs free of charge.

Thanks but no thanks. I didn’t want to follow up the terror of living and working in the evacuation zone by also winding up in dept.

South Street Seaport has yet to recuperate, a pal of mine told me last night, her friend who opened his bar in the seaport after a life-time of bartending and saving money will now have to close, he is un-able to survive the damage of Sandy.

“He’s back to bartending now.” My pal said sadly.

A life’s dream down the drain.

I spent a few days after the power finally came on, throwing out hundreds of family photographs, paintings, my collection of books, CDs, ruined antiques, decades of sentimental items, a huge basement storage filled with things I loved all turned to a big pile of brown mush and rotting salt water.

Good friends of mine felt sorry for me and jumped in to offer flashlights, handholding and just a shoulder to lean on when I was covered in dirt and salt and the ink of the lost faces of my past. Kristy, Emory and Lavelle who all dug in the mush with me. Not for the faint of heart.

My GF lost her car; it was ruined under 10 feet of water. Just gone. She loved that car. She really loved that car.

Our basement took in about 15 feet of water, a foot of water in our lobby too.

I watched cars float on my block. A river came rushing down my street. It was a site I still can’t get past; Avenue C under water. It looked like the horrible images I would see on the news and thought that could never happen here. NEVER!

Most people in Manhattan do not have flood insurance, why would we?

Why would we??

FEMA sent myself and most of the other folks I spoke to an email saying we qualified for a whopping “0” in compensation. They explained to me on the phone that none of my lost possessions were life sustaining. No of course not, just soul sustaining.

Every time I started to feel sorry for myself, I turned on the news and saw the people who’s entire home was gone, who had lost everything, who maybe even had been injured or even killed and I realized that I was truly lucky, truly blessed, so I shut he hell up.

There are still people without power, without homes, who have lost everything.

I am okay. I am fine. Our intercom is broken, some power still funky in basement, we still need a demolition crew to tear down the ruined parts of our basement, our carpet is ruined, lobby is a disaster but our building is safe and warm however funky, our power back on. We get to live in our own homes.

My business was able to survive the ordeal, unlike so many many others.

In the worst days after Sandy, when we were all cold, scared and really in need of a shower and a hot meal, I did not see any government help, but what I did see was heart-warming. I saw the squatters of the C Squat co-op collecting everyone’s about-to-be-thrown-out food and building a buffet, throwing anything they could on sidewalk grills and feeding the neighborhood!

With a joint hanging out his month , a scraggly, long bearded guy happily doled out grilled plantains and vege burgers to anyone who wanted food. Yuppies, preppies, hippies, bankers, punks and home less, everyone lined up happy to be eating.

I saw Maristela, the proud Italian restaurant owner on the block standing guard with her cigarette and her laughter to protect our corner from the darkness and the sadness and looters. I saw G-man the artist in my building that waded thru four feet of murky possibly dangerous water in our basement to save two small gas generators that were used to pump out the water in all the basements on our corner.

We shared firewood and food and when nothing else was left an endless supply of free hugs.

That was all I could give the sweet couple of Kasadela yesterday, two free hugs and my prayers.

Two free hugs and my prayer, that one day, all this will just be a sad dream and that your new life will be richer, stronger, happier and more glorious.

To myself I say this; appreciate what I have around me, because nothing can be taken for granted.

All we are, is all we have.