Category: Life

Each moment is different. Here are some of mine.

Machine Time

HOW MANY HOURS do we waste waiting for our thinking machines to do their thing?

Browsers to load. Files to open. Printer jobs. Email delays. Forms to register. TFA codes to arrive. And a hundred other petty inconveniences that result in impatience, lost tempers, and general cussedness.

Now, I am a patient man, but I swear – if I had a dollar for every minute spent waiting for my machines to catch up to my schedule, I could retire to my own private Idaho. It’s a ridiculous feature of modern life that these (what used to be called) “labor-saving devices” may be actually causing more helplessness than enabling usefulness.

I have no solutions to this mishegas – what can one person do against a vast cultural tide anyway? – but I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels this way. Perhaps that Butler fellow had it right all along. Who’s with me?

Silent Revolution

PROPOSAL: EVERYONE-BE-QUIET DAY.

The Idea: We were fretting about leafblowers disturbing the local birds, and wondering what the world would sound like were all the machines to be turned off for a while…

The Action: On June 1, 2026, between 12:01 a.m. and 11:59 p.m. UTC, everyone in the world turns off all cell phones, computers, televisions, radios, games, leafblowers, lawnmowers, weedwhackers and cars — in short everything that beeps, rings, roars, rattles, or makes a sound louder than a normal human conversation and isn’t essential to maintaining human life. (Sort of like The Day The Earth Stood Still, but voluntary.) Conversation is optional during this period, but it might be fun (and instructive?) to enjoy the silence in silence.

The Method: Get the word out by linking this announcement through Facebook, email, Twitter, texting, DMs, Usenet, phone-pole posting, graffiti, listservs, Bluesky, letters to the editor, and whatever remains of talk radio. (Pretty please.)

Motto: “Shhh.”

Moon Shot

THE FOUR ASTRONAUTS who recently swooped around the Moon and back again – Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen, may their names live forever – did more than visually explore Earth’s neighboring world from close quarters for the first time in decades.

They injected into this world a burst of hope and vicarious glory sorely needed in this age of cynicism, distrust, chaos and doomcrying.

Think of it. When’s the last time you felt a surge of positivity and pride at human accomplishments? Speaking strictly for myself, it’s been more than one year, three months, and a day or two.

But watching the Artemis mission’s textbook-perfect splashdown and recovery had me shedding at least one tear of grateful joy.

This is what humans can do when we all work together, I thought, dabbing my eyes with a tissue. This is what’s possible.

I don’t know about you, but I needed that.

5 Thoughts: Why Sonoma?

0. WE SONOMANS LIVE in the greatest semi-isolated piece of spacetime findable on this vast and tiny Earth. Here are five reasons why I believe that.

1. Environmental infrastructure: Green hills in winter, golden in summer, wildflowers in the spring, and – partly due to the ubiquitous vineyards – some of the certifiably best autumn foliage that will ever knock out your eyeballs with giddy wonder. (Not to mention Sonoma Plaza, which San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen once called the most beautiful public square in California.) And all of it available within walking, hiking, or biking distance.

2. Social infrastructure: A friend of mine refers to this place as “the island.” Unlike other Sonoma County population centers, we’re not on any main highways/freeways – so to get here, you have to really want to. And because of that, there’s this fierce community spirit and shared sense that “we’re all we have.” In addition to our many volunteer-built niceties (a feature-rich senior center and independent FM radio station, to name just two), this was most evident during the October 2017 wildfires, where folk used their skills and resources to help their neighbors (and house and feed the many first responders who helped save us from a fiery fate).

3. Quality of life: Taking into account the countless farms, restaurants, museums, music and food venues, newspapers, artists and artisans, festivals, markets, parks, charities and benevolent societies, sister-cities, youth programs, tree-lined streets, classic cars, cottage industries, and 1930s-era moviehouse, there’s a reason we call it “Slownoma.”

4. The people: With Sonoma’s estimated population of less than than 11,000, one person really can still make a difference. And they make for great neighbors! (Mostly.) In any case, there’re a lot of friendly folks round these parts, and due to having lived here since 1998, a lot of familiar ones as well. You can’t buy that kind of connection.

5. Reality check: Oh, we’re not perfect: we have our occasional (and sometimes bad) crimes, a high cost of living and housing, our share of homelessness and hopelessness, and crushing poverty side-by-side with privileged opulence, just like many other American communities. But we also have more nonprofits per capita than many other American communities, meaning an unbelievable proliferation of goodhearted and competent people working to change or at least ameliorate our problems. Sometimes that may seem a Sisyphean task – but then, Sisyphus couldn’t muster so many cheerful and enthusiastic helpers.

Sober Assessment

TWO-AND-A-HALF MONTHS AGO, I completed my tenth year of clear-eyed, clean-headed and grateful sobriety.

Now, when some people hear that, they might think, “Great, here comes the self-righteous lecture on the evils of intoxication.” But that won’t happen, at least not from me. I don’t and won’t disdain anyone else’s recreational or coping choices; frankly, they are none of my business, and refraining from inebriation is not a crusade that I feel either comfortable or qualified to pursue toward others.

Instead, I want to speak about the rarefied and addictive intoxicant that actually “saved” me, keeping me sane and healthy not just during the past decade but all of my life – and if you know me as well as you think you do, you can already guess what that is.

WRITING.

Not for nothing did Stephen King say of this 6,000-year-old-plus art: “Do it for the buzz.” There is an ineffable thrill in watching the words spill out onto paper or screen, an actual physical and mental rush only gotten from congealing thought into alphabetic form, that’s as hard to beat as it is to describe.

And the best part is, it’s free. Easily accessible. Shareable. No more watching my money go up in a cloud of marijuana smoke; no more furtively prowling dodgy neighborhoods; no more keeping it all to myself lest I run out.

Did I mention addictive? Once you start writing, you’re hooked for life. I sometimes find myself typing and typing until I fall asleep at the keyboard, literally unable to stop ’til I drop. (True story.) E.g., tonight: I meant to take advantage of the finally clear Sonoma skies and do a bit of long-delayed stargazing. But as I write this, it’s well after 10:30pm (or, if you prefer, 2230 hours) PDT and I’m already getting sleepy.

So before I trundle off to Dreamsville, I’ll leave you this hard-earned advice: Try not to let the Great American Novel (or Essay, or Blogpost) keep you from tending your other bodily needs. Otherwise, you may find yourself face down in a pool of your own ink – or even with “QWERTYUIOP” reverse-imprinted deeply into your throbbing forehead. Nighty night.

Aged I

LET’S SHIFT GEARS for a second and talk about something that’s been on my mind for a long but indeterminate while: in a word, aging.

Later this month, may the Force so will it, I’ll celebrate my 64th birthday. While momentous enough in itself, what’s even more of the moment is the matter of perspective this milestone brings.

I have now outlived several dear (and once-dear) friends and family members.

Many of the Hebrew-school children I taught when we first came to Sonoma are now out of college or vocational school and pursuing their own successful careers – some with children of their own.

I have seen my beloved hometown change from a quaint and sleepy rural community to a quaint and world-famous tourist playground. (Don’t get me wrong – it’s still by far the best place on Earth in which to live, filled with the best people to live with. It’s just … different, that’s all.)

And I have matured from a depressive but charmingly self-aggrandizing hophead to a joyful and sober social asset. (For some values of the term “social asset.”)

All these changes – particularly the sobriety – have helped me realize the fragility, continuity and inevitability of time and its cycles; it’s the sort of realization one can only derive from direct experience, and has also given me an appreciation of depth and focus. (And rocket-fueled my innate and sardonic sense of the absurd.) Most valuable of all is what the kids today call “radical acceptance” – a healthier byproduct than cynicism of struggling against the unchangeable – as well as a fierce love of life and its many inhabitants.

Wisdom? Enlightenment? Inner peace? I wouldn’t go that far, because I don’t know how to define or even recognize any of those. Let’s just call it a grateful and quiet delight in the simple, in the small, in the deep happiness of becoming and belonging. And we’ll leave it at that.

Life Coaching

AS YOU MAY KNOW, Stephen Colbert – one of my cultural heroes, for more reasons every time I see him – has this feature on his show called “The Colbert Questionert.” The format: after he interviews his guests, he poses them twenty questions like “What’s the best sandwich?” and “Have you ever asked anyone for their autograph?” and “Apples or oranges?” His final question is always, “Describe the rest of your life in five words.”

Last week, one of his guests was the always intense, always entertaining Weird Al Yankovic. After being put through his interrogatory paces, Weird Al summed up the rest of his life thus:

“Be kind. Bring joy. Repeat.”

‘Nuf said. Me too. Right?

Dead Grateful

AT MY DAD’S shiva minyan tonight, came a moment that caught my breath.

Roughly two-dozen fellow congregants had turned out in our synagogue’s sanctuary to help my copilot and I navigate the choppy waters of fresh grief as Jews have done for millennia: tearing the black ribbon that we had pinned on each other, praying the ancient weeknight service, sharing memories of the decedent, saying the Mourners’ Kaddish, and sharing a post-service nosh. All very halachic, heimishe, and loving.

But what really touched me was just before saying Kaddish, our rabbi (who had popped in from sabbatical to conduct the service) asked for whom else the assembled mini-multitude were also currently saying Kaddish. As each name was quietly offered, I thought, So this is why we mourn together as a community. We are none of us alone – we’re also members of a dead-relatives club. And it helps to know that. Viscerally. And very much.

To quote Spider Robinson: “Shared grief is lessened; shared joy is increased.”

Looking forward to that latter. May it come not soon enough.

%$#@!ing Goodbyes

SO. MY 89-YEAR-OLD father entered a Jacksonville hospice yesterday following a week-long bout of very severe pneumonia/COPD (reports vary) and attendant complications. When I spoke with him by phone, his speech was slurred as he said, “It’s been a wild ride.” Those may have been his last words to me; I don’t know if he was talking about the illness, which robbed him of his natural optimism, or his life in general – the latter being very full with people he loved and who loved him in return. He taught me to be a mensch and how to appreciate eating and cooking (especially the adventurous variety), classic comedy, baseball, Slack, music, generosity, thrift, and “the little things in life you treasure.” (See more at “Why I Love My Dad.”)

As Dad would say, “C’est la vie.” I believe he will eventually be at peace.

But dammit — he will be missed.

(And today, the 23rd of January, at 2:40pm Eastern, he is. Terribly. BD”E, Dad, and welcome to the What-Was.)

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