We’re all just raindrops on a windshield.”
— Jerry Seinfeld, to Michael Richards in “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee”
Tag: …wow.
I mean “wow.” Just … wow.
Let’s Get Real
ON THIS DAY EIGHT YEARS ago, I stepped out from under the shadow of a decades-long cannabis addiction. And I haven’t been the same man since.
Thank God.
What brought me to that point was twofold: I decided that 1) I was being selfish to the ones I most love by robbing them of my alert and unaltered presence, and 2) I just didn’t like feeling stupid all the time anymore.
Looking back, I realize that cannabis had structured my existence in some scary ways. I planned my life around it, spent my money on it, self-sabotaged with it, and turned into a raving jerk when I was deprived of it. What I didn’t know at the time was that these behaviors are all symptomatic of addiction. Continue reading “Let’s Get Real”
One Another
THE SCENE: LAST WEEK AT a medical office.
It was a strictly routine matter, but one which involved removing my cabbie cap and disclosing my kippah.
“How was your Chanukah?” the technician asked.
“It was good,” I replied. “Lots of light in a very dark time.”
His eyes held mine. “Tell me about it. I celebrate Chanukah too.”
Real As Rain
Fear of death is worse than death.”
— R. Yehudah de Modena
A Weary Wariness
UNTIL OCTOBER 7 AND ITS AFTERMATH, I hadn’t understood just how pervasive and systemic Jew-hatred was. (Is.) I did know it was Out There, of course, but only intellectually. It’s something else to see it in its natural habitat.
Case in point: This past August, I encountered what I call an incident of “casual antisemitism.” In its wake I sent the following email to some Jewish friends:
Hope this finds you all in good health and spirits. I recently had an experience which left me feeling shaken and more than a bit helpless, so I am turning to you for sharing and feedback.
Last week I was at a reunion lunch that [a mutual friend I’ll call “Z”] was having with one of her former teachers and classmates. [Z] hadn’t seen these people since 8th grade. (Obviously, I didn’t know them, and I wasn’t wearing my kippah at the time.) During the course of an otherwise very pleasant afternoon, [Z’s] former teacher, “Miss C,” related a conversation she had had in the late 1960s at a party with other young teachers – colleagues – and two of the couples were voicing what Miss C. called “radical” political viewpoints, touching on Communist ideals.
Then she said, matter-of-factly: “The Nakamuras hated America because they were Japanese; the Weinsteins hated America because they were Jewish.” Continue reading “A Weary Wariness”
Why I Love: KSVY
IT’S SONOMA VALLEY’S HIDDEN JEWEL. It’s Bill Stallings’ “Tasty Nuggets,” a decades-spanning flashback every Friday morning. (It’s also his prog-rock “Rocks Files Radio” on Saturday nights and every-hourly :20 weather forecast.) It’s Tuesday night’s “Big Fish,” surveying and promoting the Valley’s eclectic music scene. Speaking of eclectic, it’s “Kitchen Sink,” Sooth Slinger’s weekday wakeup at 7 a.m., followed by “The Morning Show” from 8-10. It’s Mike Ryan’s never-miss two Thursday-evening hours of punk, New Wave, and assorted indie rock. It’s the “K-Pop Hour” (I mean, who else brings you an hour of synthesizer-rich Korean popular music?) It’s the hyperlocal focus. It’s “Jeff’s Joint,” a lively 1920s-40s Monday retrospective. It’s Thursday afternoon’s “Sonoma Valley Interfaith Radio Hour” (full disclosure: I engineer and cohost). It’s the Latinx, French, and Sinatra programming. It’s community-sponsored and -supported. It’s the passion and dedication of mad wunderkind, blazing electric guitarist, and chief-cook-and-bottle-feeder Bob Taylor as well as the kind attentions of Ronny Jo Grooms. It’s forces-of-nature George Webber’s and Butch Engle’s “Radio Theater of the Wild West.” It’s the coffeehouse sounds of “Coyote Road,” “Nowsville Junction,” and “Uncle Dirtbag.” It’s Chef Marco’s, Sheana Davis’, and Kathleen Thompson Hill’s culinary insights. It’s the varied weekday tuneful and topical offerings of “Guys at Five.” It’s the breaking disaster-news of fires and floods. (It’s also the endless calendars of events.) It’s having to forego in this brief synopsis many, many other important and diverse musical, cultural, community, sports, business, personal, and political shows. And it’s literally the only radio station I listen to — at 91.3 FM or streaming live at ksvy.org.
… And So Say All of Us
I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”
— Thos. Jefferson
Stellar Blues
do the stars know the names
by which we call them?
we,
the hubristic and temporary,
label the unthinkably ancient
with quick mouth sounds
and fading pen-scratches.
will they mourn
when we are gone?
would they say:
“nice try, two-legs;
you had one chance
at planetary survival
and missed it
by not paying attention.”
would but those who did pay
had more power than
only the will
to shout
stop
and make it stick.
Zero POV
Clearly the best time to be alive is when you start out wondering and end up knowing. There is only one generation in the whole history of mankind in that position. Us.”
— Carl Sagan, June 1974
For Franz Kafka
THE OLD WOMAN SAT, SOFTLY singing, on a blue wooden chair in the vast cobbled square, rippling a carpet of birds with each cast of her seedful hand.
Tall jagged buildings loomed on all four sides — blocky and black-windowed, granite-yellow in the light of the dying sun, their shadows not quite lengthened to cover her frail red-shawled form. The air was cold her cheeks red as the birds fought for dried corn and cracker crumbs.
A tall man strode toward her — dark blue and broadshouldered, cap visor shading all but his dour mouth.
She rolled with the blow which sent her sprawling.
Fluttering clucks roared, arose, the birds swept round and round him. He raised his arms, alarmed; they were wings and he dwindled, his voice now one chirp among hundreds.
She felt herself, sighed, and satisfied, arose; then shifted her shawl and sat, singing softly, scattering seeds.
Participatory Solipsism
I am the greatest man in the world; indeed I am so great that I can afford great generosity: I encourage all others to adopt the delusion that they are as great as I. If they truly thought that they were themselves the greatest, they too would be as generous; and then we would all be able to humor each other, in peace, for none would feel threatened by the now-harmless delusions of everyone else.”
— Dr. Philo Drummond (Now go thou and do likewise.)
From Stars to You
By telling tales about stardust, I hope we can remind ourselves that we live in an interconnected and beautiful world, full of rare and precious elements. It is our duty to treat it, and each other, with care and respect.”
— Astrophysicist Sanjana Curtis