SCAT1 -- see sarnatscat2.blogspot.com/ for post 8.6.6 posts

Re: Hi from Gerry

2011-09-25T06:57:00.001-07:00

Got it - though Greek to me! Adios, will reconnect when back.
On Sep 25, 2011, at 6:50 AM, Stuart Weinstein wrote:

> Gerry
>
> of Course i Will be available to adeude so Long as you feel it is appropriate
>
> I am in capadokya now and then On to
> Púber spots in Turkey greece and final The amalfi Coast. We aré not Home until oct 22.
>
> If this turns out to be a problema for you your Attorney Will advine you On options
>
> Please confirma receipt of this reply and let me know how you wish to proceed
>
> Sorry for The spelling and punctation. My iPhone wants to write in spanish for
> Some reason
>
> Stu
>
> On Sep 24, 2011, at 10:41 PM, Gerard Sarnat <gsarnat@aol.com> wrote:
>
>> Stu, I trust you're well.
>>
>> Just a head's up: the good news is Dad had a 99th birthday party earlier this month. The bad is that he's been hospitalized 3 times recently. I just got him home Monday, and he's failing rapidly. Although I have no crystal ball, on the basis of yesterday's visit, Lela and I cancelled a trip to visit Eli out in the wilderness.
>>
>> I keep Joan in touch with how Dad's doing. A main concern of hers is Who's setting the estate? You may not know that at Dad's request, I changed his lawyer to Ken Goldman, a longtime friend of his. As I recall, you were designated to be key in the Stock Tr. process - are you still up for that?
>>
>> Thanks, Ger

Simonized

2007-01-27T06:30:00.000-08:00

"Boola Boola"

"Flourish or die!"
cries great big James Eaglewing, the apparent bull
of a bronzed Native American media businessshark success story,
his dyed raven-black mousse-slick ponytail braid
hanging behind a fine turquoise and silver bolo tie.

"It's time to fish or cut bait!"
he orates a well-practiced well-turned well-received hunting metaphor
directed not especially to the mainly pale geriatric WASPy
New Haven bookstore attendees, but more at CSPAN2 viewers,
and even moreso trolling the crowd for gyrating nonjailbait groupies.

"Power to the Indians!"
our spellbinder aerates,
as the TV klieg lights begin to create
gross puddles of sweat on his richly decorated handmade leather jacket
just starting to stain from his back-West colorist's cheap hair products.

"But castrate the Asian kind!"
the self-promoting self-proclaimed redman says,
his non-PC white-hot vulgar eloquence
fueling a low vibrating tension among the liberal bluebloods
that deflates many among their fiftieth Yale reunion audience.

"And while we're at it, let's off our mongrel Jewish classmates!"
the now wobbly speaker whines, as the shopkeeper,
suspicious of intoxication, finds the unkind words losing many
of the previously glued, now vacillating hearts and eyes -- and more
disturbingly, the producer's berating cameramen to shut down fast.

"Aboriginal terrorists are gonna strike the US real soon!"
shouts the dubious onetime chieftain mutated to pathetic showman,
stoking the coals for the few remaining foolish souls not yet fled,
hate dripping off the cape of the bloody stage, as he urges
no one in particularly to join him at the Hitler Cafe afterwards.

As bloggers and newspaperwomen try to catch up with the raving,
the deceptive magnate ducks back into his mind's subway
and heads for home (whatever that means) ... just as
the university president puts out a press release stating quite clearly
Mr. Eaglewing's an impostor, no Native American matriculated in 1956.

8.21.06

"Lazy River Songs"

Ten years ago at age fifty, in the middle
of yet another round of hurtful and he thought unwarranted
board attacks on his staff, the CEO sitting at a no longer cozy table
spur of the moment slipped the bitchy chairlady to his left a sly smile
with a two word note, got up, left the chambers, took pleasure
imagining the egg on her face as she read, "I quit,"
laughed a little bit, and that was that, never looking back.

A decade later, mellower and less impetuous, in fact I do look back.

At my type A
seemingly happy
fastlane high pressured life
from birth
through school
through various careers
... through death?

Telling myself
each step of the way
how much I enjoy
every
single
competitive
minute.
(Would do it without a paycheck!)

Until the very second when I crashed,
a dragster out of gas running on fumes,
engine on fire, tires smelling of burning rubber.
(As a physician I had to ask, am I having a grand mal seizure?)

After a year or so withdrawal period,
hermetically sealed, not answering headhunter calls,
learning how to be with myself without doing,
I gradually reemerged into the world.

Put some seeds in the ground
of which a few grew
into worthwhile activities
to mix with mainly quiet.

Began to grasp Machado's,
"The poet doesn't look for the fundamental I, but the essential you."

Became more comfortable
with always-changing verbs
(I'd always preferred static person, place, thing nouns):
sitting zazen, not a Buddhist,
writing poems, not a poet.

Then it became clearer
that for me the poems wrote themselves.

I just supplied the head,
at best immersing an open heart,
until my fingers caught up with the feelings
(on a good day, it's not about meanings)
knocking from inside.

I began to understand
Thich Nhat Hanh's story
about the tie choosing the man
more than the shopper finding the cravat...or something like that.

Which brings us to today,
yearning to shed a forever summer virus
that exiles me til I'm not coughing and infectious,
so I will be taken back into the family fold down south,
reunited with my baby grandson Simon, the muse I miss so much.

8.20.06

"The Sisters of Mercy"

On one side of my house, a megalomaniacal entrepreneur who
after twenty years chilly silence (if you don't count her shooting
down venison and our golden retriever and almost the kids),
put up an Auschwitz type electrified barbed wire barrier between us,
then wrote me a note as if to mend it -- "Done to keep out
the deer, and anyway 'good fences make good neighbors'" --
clueless in our cool relationship that Frost meant the exact opposite.

On home's other side, the ex-White House powerlunch hotshot whiz who
came up with Reagan's Star Wars initiative-- under a gradually blackening
cloud, now cloutless since farmed out to Stanford's Hoover Institute --
suddenly one day with nary a word to us compatriots, machetes and poisons
all her abutting forest vegetation, turning a once rich green wonderland
into starkly depressing gray emptiness, a toxic waste dump and polluted
creek that within weeks exterminate our family's chocolate Labrador puppy.

8.19.06

"Reflections"

Hunched over inside, the hacking cough paroxysms, hocking up
green and black phlegm (no blood) just as the sun's first blush
of light makes it all right to finally climb out of bed again.

When Master Puer Eternis looks in the stainless steel mirror,
his blurry red eyes note not the boy he feels he's always been
but rather who he truly is, a sour bitterly sweaty Mister Dirty Old Man.

The once fine auburn beard and thick mustache now appear
only as mangy four day growth, more grubby salt than lovely copper
surrounding a truly drooly grayfaced fishmouthed tan thermometer.

Besieged by life's battle-scarred winter -- sinful bags, sags, tags; lumps
and bumps; wrinkles -- the spitting image wonders should he see another
doctor or just quit staring at the not-getting-any-younger-one in the glass?

What is it about summertime blues and fevers that make me whine so,
make August parainfluenza more of a bummer than in February when
you expect to get sick...with at least a flu vaccine's shot at salvation?

8.19.06

"Better Red Than Dead"

What a hero that Hugo, on furlough from Caracas,
showing up at hallowed Castro's Havana bedside, hoping
the hemisphere's great revolutionary leader can dodge a deathblow.
Fidel and Chavez -- the dynamic duo echoing the past and the future --
choose a touching tableau for their photo op tango: both donning
pinko hospital gowns, the pseudo-populists spoon in red jello
and milky yogurt, looking wholesome as motherhood-and-apple-pie;

while north of the border, a US Federal Court rules George ain't no king,
that America has a Bill of Rights, that warrantless wiretaps
aren't all that different from totalitarianism -- call it
communism or fascism or whatever you want.

8.18.06

"Marked Men"

John Mark Karr, murderer or nutcase,
in any case admitted he did the dirty deed, doing in
six-year-old Denver beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey a decade ago.

Watching him stand there surrounded in the sweltering Bangkok airport,
cool as a cucumber in his buttoned-up short-sleeved green Banlon shirt,
I wonder if he's a cold-blooded killer or just another schizoid wannabe?

Seeing Lt. Gen. Suwat Tumrongsiskul, head of the immigration police,
and his hordes of buttoned-down uniformed officers on TV, reminded me
of my own little scare in the very same place the very same decade ago.

Disembarking our plane from San Francisco
-- likely where Karr also started from his home in nearby Petaluma --
my oldest (a beauty queen in my eyes) and I were quickly surrounded.

A polite man with a severe face and a very long name
stepped out from a horde of other buttoned-down uniformed officers
to request our passports, that we please come with him.

My jetlagged daughter and I were barely conscious
and I had only enough paranoid juice left
to worry someone'd planted illegal drugs in our luggage -- or worse.

Ready to but not quit panicking yet,
when I asked the boss if there was a problem, expressionless
Colonel ___________ again responded, "Come with me."

The twenty or so cops led us past
the usual customs and baggage claim areas, where we
sat down alone in a bare hot room to sweat and sweat some more.

After an excruciating half hour or so
during which I contemplated beyond imaginable horrible fates,
an older decorated soldier type walked in.

He introduced himself as the General of the Thai Royal Police,
but more importantly, the father of my daughter's college friend
who'd invited us to Thailand to stay with them.

Extending a kind hand and smile, he gave back our stamped passports
and escorted us to an air-conditioned chauffeured limousine,
already packed with our bags.

Sirens screaming and lights whirring,
we three sat in the back, joking and laughing
and eating yummy mango sticky rice all the way to the family palace.

8.17.06

"Tombstone Blues"

Two blue stars rise, as sighing
we say our good-byes, wipe
ripe tears dry, disguise
redness under nightshades -- silent chastising eyes despising
the limo guy for standing by
in his full-gloried happy-as-a-lark black magpie
insolence -- wishing in all our shy innocence the roles could be revised,
denying their demise one last time,
seeking a final reprise,
that the truck'd struck us instead of the kids, now left behind
under the cold dirt as lonesome allies, last week's warm unstreetwise
toddlers crushed just like fireflies,
I can surmise no earthly clue as to why --
after all it was only a year ago this Sunday the twins were baptized
in the name of Jesus Christ.

8.16.06

"Cedars of Lebanons"

Returning to south Beirut
after a month of bombs

I couldn't wait for Mom
to greet me at our door

which she did, feet first
broken in her wheelchair

beneath piles of rubble
and beams of cedar

still holding an open
Koran in her hands

just like before I left for
the army of Hezbollah

which I'd served as a
doctor since finishing

my residency at a
good Jewish hospital

in Los Angeles known as
The Cedars of Lebanon.

In the morning we buried
Mom in a simple grave

marked by a large stone
between two olive trees

that somehow survived
in a charcoal field that

until thirty-one days ago
was a lovely cedar grove.

8.16.06

"Ain't No Leaves Of"

Grass under fire, what that boy been smoking,
beating on his tin drum with such a tin ear?

Why, everyone asks, at age seventy-eight does
Günter find this the right time to finally confess?

Yes, says the now ignoble moral authority since
World War II, I once been in Hitler's Waffen SS.

That from the dude who'd previously said he was drafted
in '44 as a flak helper and held as a prisoner of war until '46.

That from the man who after the war became
an outspoken pacifist and icon of the German left.

That from the guy who for decades has demanded
that Germans come to terms with their Nazi past.

That from the creator of "Tin Drum," the wonderfully weird tale of
eerie eels and an oddball midget, our eyes to fascism's terrible rise.

That from the man who's brilliant invention,
Oskar, decides at age three to stop growing.

Little O effectively shutting out the world,
only communicating by banging on his tin drum.

Maybe Oskar represented GG's wishful thinking
he might simply have skipped the whole SS thing.

That elite force of volunteers of course played a key role in
the Holocaust, operating death camps in which millions died.

Cynics say Grass did not reveal his past sooner
at the risk of not winning 1999's Nobel prize.

Critics see GG's belated mea culpa as more of a cash cow than
tin ear, preceding the September release of his autobiography.

The convenient admission, before "Peeling Onions" explains why he
joined Adolf's gang, leaves behind a bad taste of book promotion.

Bild am Sonntag says, "Grass ... cannot be castigated for being
a member of the SS ... But he can be for lying about it for 60 years."

That he was in the SS at seventeen is by itself a misdemeanor --
had Grass not thrown his smug weight around so much since then.

Grass told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on Saturday,
the dark secret weighing on his mind, was why he wrote "Onions."

"My silence through all these years is one of the reasons
why I wrote this book," he said. "It had to come out finally."

Ralph Giordano, a leading German-Jewish writer, said
he would not condemn Grass -- and in fact praised him.

"It's good what Günter Grass has now done. What's worse
than making a mistake is not coming to terms with it.

His example also shows how seducible young people can be."
Me, I'm pleased fellow Jews forgive, leaving judgment to Germans.

Who am I living in my glass house, passively buying into
our American conduct, to be out there throwing stones?

8.15.06

"So Glad You Made It"

Have you
ever met
a mistake

toddling
down the
street?

Don't mean
a new blooper
a tiny blunder

maybe muddling
into a clear
little puddle

while not
paying enough
attention.

I mean the
big old dirty
kind of misstep

that reminds
both of
you of

the times
when each
just needed

some kindness
but didn't
find it

when no
matter how
fine the sex

spellbinding
streamlined
young bodies

the stars
weren't
aligned

to shine
bright trust
and compassion

when greed
and jealousy
combined

entwined
designed
to blind

deluded minds
from bliss' delights
and divine kisses

consigning our
grinding torsos
and broken hearts

to die unless
we resigned
to unwinding.

Was it
Christ
who opined,

"Love your
neighbor as
yourself...

but don't
forget he's
someone else"?

I know for
a fact that
Machado

penned,
"In my
solitude

I have
friends.
When I am

with them
how remote
they are."

Antonio
also wrote,
"I give advice,

an old man's
vice. Never
follow my advice."

8.14.06

"All of my friends come to see me last night
I was laying in my bed and dying...
See here how everything led up to this day,
And it's just like any other day that's ever been.
Sun going up and then the sun going down.
Come around, come around.
The people might know, but the people don't care,
That a man can be as poor as me..."

From "Black Peter" by Robert Hunter for the Grateful Dead

""Refuge"

Despite fifth grade grammar,
you and I are verbs, not nouns --
some of us just age slower than others.

I think it was high school nuclear physics
that taught me solids are fundamentally empty ...
or was that the Dalai Lama more recently?

Investigating the illusion of separate realities
awakens the knowing to step off Samsara's wheel,
awakens the shedding of craving, clinging, suffering.

Can we pry open the doors of our solitary hearts,
flow together into the pure white love of convergence,
that ever-changing oneness of fleeting yet enlightened being?

8.13.06

"Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May"

Sweet Jesus shuffles over to shake hands and hug, belly and feet
swollen from diabetes, eyes mostly blind from the sugar, lion's
mane and beard graywhite from all the years on the street. Wearing
his black T shirt and pants, rose-colored sunglasses and a great big
smile, he's the spitting image of a reincarnated Jerry Garcia.

Molly strolls by to thank me for delivering her, wondering
what we might arrange for the next baby she's carrying. Moll
suggests considering Stanford, although we both know she's eighty.

Habitually obsessively clean Aziz' just a mess, slouching
under the trees far from his buddies, slopping
ramen into his festered mouth, not having shaven or changed
for god knows how long. Very slowly I make my way there, stopping
to greet longtime friends, helping out whenever I can, learning
from a minder/informer whom I've treated for scabies and high
blood pressure that Ziz quit his AIDs RVTs when word got out
his nephew who'd left Karachi was arrested in London
as part of last week's foiled terrorist plot.

Raven (nicknamed for the straight flightpath his Canadian
Football League passes took back in much better days) raves
about the pain in his tired throwing shoulder, charms me for Percodan
which of course I don't give, each of us playing our parts
in the decade old game that always ends the same. When I hand
him a whole Costco bottle with almost five hundred Kirkland Advils
left in it (what the hell, after all, no one'll be here tomorrow
or the next day or week or month anyway), the huge black man grins
and bends down to plant a wet good-bye kiss on my forehead.

My schizophrenic alter-ego (we attended the same grade school
in Chicago) bikes in, a boombox blasting techno-trance hanging
from his handlebars. Wheels still turning, fingering a nose zit,
he accuses me of conspiring with all of California to kill him slowly
with squamous cell carcinomas -- then says "Just kidding! I've given
you such shit over the years, I wanted to thank you for the kindness,
I've really needed it ... but damn you, write me a Viagra script
before you leave me forever; my product doesn't work without it."

A new drop-in center arrival -- perhaps the last -- looks exactly
like the Star Wars Jedi Plo Koon, with fluorescent plastic blue tubes
looking like long skinny probes extending from her head's
cerebral lobes to her jaw and to vents on a nosepiece -- none
of which get in the way of her maniacally ingesting bag after bag
of microwaved popcorn. Her first and only words to me are, "The
Force is with you, brother, though Yoda you're not: if you're some
real healer, why are you caught in a crummy outside joint like this?"

Hector, hacking phlegm from a tubercular cough, takes
offense and sets her straight quick, "The Doc been here ten years
when no one else could care less." And for emphasis, H waved
the laminated green computer "T H E D O C T O R I S I N"
printout he so proudly made, two or three inches in front
of her exquisite glow-in-the-dark turquoise brained face.

About a quarter to twelve, the clients begin the last roundup,
pitching folding chairs and card tables into the storage bin,
emptying out the coffee urns. Jesse, once the cock of this roost, now
limping badly on a cane, uses hot water dregs to shave, gives me
a final glance with forlorn eyes, calls it quits, walks away.

Wade grabs the day-old bakery remains -- two donuts, one chocolate,
one pink sprinkled -- and the almost full jar of Tapatío Salsa Picante,
then heads out into the world with his grocery cart full of
recyclable soda cans and bottles. He makes it as far as the park
before temptation deep in the bushes near the creekbed beckons.

So apparently it ends, the era of our parking lot medical clinic.
The case workers tell me they've no idea when the new
Taj Mahal gig'll open, we'll just have to wait and see.

It's been an eerie quiet day. Even the usual black and whites
haven't cruise by to hassle folks, as if the cops knew it's a funeral.

As I pack my I S I N sign in my black bag and prepare to leave,
an older jogger running by taps my arm, "Mister, I've been watching
this operation for years, you've got a really a nice setup here, whatever
you volunteers been doing, keep it up. And by the way, is there
a nurse in the house 'cause I got a terrible ache in my heart."

8.13.06

"Homescoming Meditation"

Clambering from drawer to drawer
to rummage for spoon, knife, and fork,

wondering if here's where I pick garden mint
and plop pine nuts in steeping tea -- or there,

hitting 3-8 on the cable remote to negotiate
CNN but landing on ESPN Sports instead,

shifting the car into gear without recalling
if this is the Volvo that sticks -- or not,

scanning the FM knob to reliable old NPR at 88.5
but for some reason hearing static not chatter,

noting the traffic's too civil and slow and I'm
cold in my south country shorts and T shirt,

being very confused inside a Trader Joe's which
normally I know better than the back of my hand,

punching speed dial after speed dial in, having given up on
remembering all those 310 and 323 landline and cell numbers,

unsure when someone answers the phone if
we're within five hundred miles of each other...

I could go on and on with story upon
story of how disorienting it all really is --

after twenty-four years living in one home (what's
that?) to now basically be hovering among three,

the original house around San Francisco plus the
new duplex rental near our daughter's LA place,

never quite sure which side of bed is mine, if this
mattress' too hard, that pillow too soft, or the opposite --

though the itinerant issues feel quite mixed
in with memory's tricks beginning my sixties,

I just aim to go with the flow as best I can,
breathing in and out peaceably wherever I am.

8.12.06

"Great Full Dead"

Alone but not lonely
yet plainly the only
attendee older than
forty, fifty ... or sixty,

and aside from the
three pimply groupies
with rainbow rubber
banded braces in the

front row middle seats --
likely the sole being
with no lip, nose,
or eyebrow piercings;

or total body tattoos
showing everywhere
there'd been bare skin;
or big bad clodhoppers

or high-healed black boots --
I tried not to stand out
too much by standing
to clap in the SRO hip

bookstore, when the
crowd rose in unison
as if we were in a
stadium or concert hall

to cheer the speakers
who in reality were
rock 'n roll stars from
the bands Primus and

Guided by Voices, here
gone literary to pitch
their debut novels, which
judging by what was

read outloud batted fifty
percent, the first excellent
-- funny, interesting,
universally appealing --

except for too many
fart, piss, shit and zit
jokes and references
to all manner of drugs

entering the body by
every conceivable route
and cavity -- while the
second struck out, no

doubt, no way "Artificial
Light" would've ever
landed a publisher
if Z were not a

CD-selling celebrity
though in all honesty
I'd never heard of either
pop group before.

Both men (actually
one was just a boy)
dwelt obsessively
on death, which each

obviously felt was
both very cool
to write about and
very cool of Kurt

to have done, but
something that was
not on the near horizon
for themselves.

It was an extremely
hot night in Los Angeles
with the electric grid
gone out earlier that

afternoon at Greek lunch
in the chic Larchmont
District, so no one was
all that surprised

when halfway through
the questions and answer
session (by far the cutest
girl in the middle front row

breathlessly asked X
where he'd found such
a beautiful shirt and
what his necklace meant?)

the A/C went down and
it got awfully warm as
a Skylight clerk tried
to made light of it until

presto, the owner emerged
with candles that he
lit to make it less dark
and even a bit romantic,

imploring the audience
to take care since his
precious hardbacks were
extremely flammable.

Some of the less happy
campers decided to
pass on the rest of the
evening -- it's still not

certain exactly what
happened to the three
teeny boppers that
made them scream --

and rushed the exit,
which they soon
found was locked,
requiring the power

to go on before the door'd
open --or at least that's
what the management
claimed, although a

woman who said she
was a safety technician
shouted out that was
a pure ruse ("b*** s***")

used to assure that
nobody sneaked out
without paying for
merchandise, since

the normal security
system's invisible
eye device obviously
was on the Fritz.

To make a long story
short, after the riot (really
no big deal, just a few
muscle-shirted goateed

guys in fedoras throwing
chairs til the storefront
window broke), the folks
who stayed had the time

of our lives, all for
one and one for all,
swaying alongside
the sexy rockers who

by now'd pulled their
acoustic guitars from
the cases, preparing
to strum old favorites,

and we whooped out
almost a play list from
Bill Graham's Winterland
days, and I sang right along...

"Rat in a drain ditch,
caught on a limb, you
know better but I know
him. Like I told you,

what I said, steal your
face right off your
head" ...til the juice came
back on, and all the gang

remaining there hugged,
leaving at least one geezer
Deadhead and another
Jerry may he RIP, ecstatic.

8.11.06

"Day 29"

"Since it costs a lot to win, and even more to lose,
You and me bound to spend some time wondrin' what to choose.
Goes to show, you don't ever know,
Watch each card you play and play it slow,
Wait until that deal come round,
Don't you let that deal go down, no, no."

-- Robert Hunter for The Grateful Dead

'And Amos answered, and said to Amasias,
"I am not a prophet, nor am I the son of a prophet;
but I am a herdsman plucking wild figs..."'

So I sez to myself,
I' m no general, no politician, no son of slick generals or politicians;
but I am a world citizen tryin' to do the right thing...which got me thinkin'.

As I matured into a CEO, my job description shifted to plucking figs --
figuring out the right deals to go down -- from doing those deals right; in
short, to policy setting, resource allocation, and marketing -- not operations.

As a junior medical director, I'd managed to find all sides of failure: doing
good work on wrong priorities plucked from my inbox, bad jobs on right
projects assigned -- and sometimes both strategy and tactics were flawed.

Thus I learned quickly that three out of four possible outcomes
were unsatisfactory, that the one in four business successes -- be it
Kleenex or healthcare or war -- required doing the right thing right.

Looking backward further in my life, it's been 45 years since high school
Latin (wrong thing done right?) whose ROI never justified three years'
study, either in subsequent general knowledge or medicine specifically.

But (finally coming to the point) in this sixth battle in Israel's sixty year
war of independence, Latin's become a bit handy as part of an ethical
toolbox attempting to understand right from wrong in Lebanon:

The casus belli, jus ad bellum -- the justification to make war --
can exist without jus in bello -- without fighting the war justly, not abiding
by temperamenta belli --restrictions on warfare, rules of engagement.

And the four quadrant logic above offers three other permutations:
unjust war can be fought justly, unjust war can be fought unjustly, and
just war be fought justly -- if you make the huge assumption of just wars.

Coming down to it in plain English, I believe the Israelis were justified in
responding to Hezbollah that not only provoked the fighting, but declared
it sought the total destruction of a Jewish state and its very existence.

I also believe on the whole the IDF's fought the war justly: attempting
to avoid civilian targets (apologizing and self-correcting when mistakes
were made), justified in taking out resupply lines, roads and airstrips.

Israel's disporportionate responses are harder to measure -- or justify:
for example, destroying power and water stations that create civilian
chaos and suffering if not death, were less clearly handled ethically.

On the other hand, Hezbollah's justification for war is not defensible;
and it's explicit use of mosques, hospitals, schools and human shields
to hide launching sites, weapons and soldiers is absolutely deplorable.

Behind the scenes,
Iran seems to be the major culprit,
Syria simply a waystation, Hezbollah the proxy.

And while we're assigning responsibility, what about UNIFIL (and
Kofi Annan if he knew) which just sat on the border for years, watching
terrorists gear up, digging tunnels -- without doing or saying anything?

8.10.06

"Sabbath Prayers"

Two Semitic tribes, Muslims and Jews, celebrate their Sabbaths
on Friday and Saturday respectively -- if not always respectfully.

1.

Last week
the Guardian Council Secretary Ayatollah Jannati sermonized in Tehran

about Islamic history repeating itself today
with the battle between the descendants of Ali and the Jews:

"God is using one of Ali's descendants [Nasrallah] to confront
the spiritual and physical descendants of Marhab of Khaybar [the Jews].

God is reviving the memories of early Islam – the memories of the conflict
between Ali and the Jews of [the battles] of Khaybar and Khandaq.

On one side stood Ali with a small number of Muslims,
and on the other side stood the strong, rich, vain, and arrogant Jews.

Ultimately, the sword of Ali did what had to be done,
and he humiliated the people of Khaybar and the vain and arrogant Jews.

Today, this descendent of Ali stands in the same position, and so do
the descendants of Marhab of Khaybar, the Jews of Khaybar and Khandaq."

Crowd: "Allah Akbar.

"Allah Akbar.

"Allah Akbar.

"Khamenei is the leader.

"Death to those who oppose the rule of the jurisprudent.

"Death to America.

"Death to England.

"Death to the hypocrites [Mojahedin-e Khalq] and Saddam.

"Death to Israel."

"What Hizbullah does shows [is] that all the humiliation
endured by us and the Islamic world stems from our own impotence.

If [the Muslims] were men enough to enter the arena,
their spit and threats would be enough to put the others in their place."

2.

Last week
in synagogues around the world, congregants read that Shabbat's

Torah (Deuteronomy, 3:24-7:11 )
and Haftorah (Isaiah, Chapter 40) portions.

Afterwards, in Washington, D.C., Max Ticktin sermonized, developing
the point that a recurrent theme is one of "fear" in multiple forms

that many Diaspora Jews feel
in the context of the current Middle East conflict:

Fear of the objective reality of enemies committed
to destroying Israel and who have already inflicted grave damage.

Fear of the complacency that we in the Diaspora may experience
in not fully appreciating the very real dangers facing Israel, and

Fear of accepting, too casually, the wisdom of experts,
who have in the past led Israel (and the US) into military quagmires.

3.

I wonder and pray, what it'll take for a more equanimous ratio of swords
and ploughshares to speak for both peoples observing their next holy days?

8.9.06

"New Testament Genesis"

The earth
breathed softly
as if she were dead.

And it is said,
the world swayed in silence,
restless in her stillness.

Waters gathered slowly,
one single singing sea
laying there calmly.

Truly nothing was
that otherwise might've been,
except perpetual night's thunder and lightening.

The heavens, despite
their omniscience and omnipotence,
were lonely above this void.

No human or beast, fowl or fish,
crab or tree, stone or bush,
cast shadows yet.

Then the seventh angel
from a seventh sun trumpeted
a single star to fall from heaven to earth.

After which the primordial trance began, gnawing acid, sucking
leaches, everything becoming about light and brains, tears
and rage, voices and flying, as our sleeping sister and brother awoke.

Was it Eve who spoke to Adam, "Be a man, not a bloody lamb.
Winners don't shiver, and losers get eaten by cancer.
Eat this red apple...no one can do you like Jesus"?

8.8.06

"Little Miss Sunshine"

Little Miss Sunshine, it's time to get a life.
The honeymoon's almost over, sweety.

While the world loves an ingenue,
you do turn sixty-one this autumn.

Whaddya think, we parents'll bail out
your juvenile identity crises forever?

It's way past due for you to grow up; don't
count on us tolerating all the acting out.

Precious, you know it yourself: tough
love's no fun, but it's just what you need.

And you'll admit, it's not as if you haven't
been around this block before, my darling.

Afterall, you've survived in the Big Apple's
rough and tumble crucible since birth.

And remember, folks like us are your best friends:
righteous enemies far to the right brand me as naive.

I wouldn't go so far as some Bush league nuts
and Boltons who accuse you of gross negligence.

But, sugar, what fool would continue supporting
such Condi-coated self-serving avoidant behavior?

So before they blow your house down, dear,
what about you yourself bring some order to it?

Don't be lulled by wolves in sheep clothing.
Be straightforward calling a spade a spade.

Flush the sinecures, third world or not.
Don't be bullied by the only superpower.

Deal with the formal states you were conceived for,
but don't ignore their shadowy borderless agents.

Please take care of our earth...for example, don't believe for
a New York second that Middle East hokum you've recently spun.

What warring neighbor in their right mind'd turn the keys to the
Cedars of south Lebanon over to a Hezbollah-disguised army?

What could be more important than enhancing your role
as the only possible honest broker in truly uniting nations?

8.8.06

"Herculaneum 2.0"

Unjustly less famous than big brother Pompeii,
Herculaneum 1.0 was gobbled up by ground-hugging lava,
an avalanche of hotly spewed ash, pumice, and rock fragments.

Volcanic gas gurgled down Mt. Vesuvius at sixty-five miles an hour,
the temperature reaching maybe 930° F. within the pyroclastic flow,
the force of darkness said to exceed five or six modern atomic bombs.

Earlier in that explosive decade, in 70 AD, further east on the Mediterranean
then overland, the second Hebrew temple was destroyed in Jerusalem
a few generations after that Jewish-boy Jesus' breakaway crucifixion there.

Was it Christ or Satan, Oppenheimer or Leonard Cohen,
who prophesied,
"The gates of paradise will open to everybody who is born dead"?

Flash forward two millennia, envision some perfectly irresistible
heavenly tropical island's 40,000 citizens charred to a cinder
by the worst volcanic disaster of the twenty-first century.

Imagine the science fiction scene before the fireworks begin:
sows and piglets starving to death (no garbage left) as all humans aim
to flee impending doom by highways inevitably leading into powderkegs.

Dogs and cats and chickens and sheep and goats
sit on sofas and chairs in front of flatscreen TVs
in eerily still air-conditioned abandoned homes.

Restless donkeys roam silent streets, ride trams
and occupy the capital city's opera house,
scavenging and tense, sensing catastrophe.

Although the pier's devoid of ships
the nearby sea is full of floating cattle horns and dead snakes
that've crawled down from the mountain and promptly drowned.

As the crater's edge blows, opening deep fissures,
searing flames and toxic sulfur clouds descend in milliseconds
to shroud all sentient beings in anonymous neglect and oblivion.

Suspended in midsentence, slicing a loaf of bread turned to coal,
spooning spaghetti that burnt circles into plates, families wait for rebirth,
suspended like Emperor Qin Shihuan's terracotta soldiers 2000 years ago.

As in savvy sc-fi sequels, this one too ends with a paradox:
the only survivor is the baddest man, alive because he was isolated
underground in solitary confinement awaiting his sentence of death.

And listening to him -- "I accept God's command. No one can tell
when death will come. Where could I go anyway? I am ready, at peace," --
can you really say who's a circus sinner, who's the serene saint?

8.7.06

"Hearts of Green and Gold"

1.

Back in the day, making my way
to the far edges of the inhabited world

praying I could convince the boss and his board
to hold not to sell

the whole USA's only Medicaid poverty plan
embedded in a federally-qualified commercial HMO

I flew to Nashville
from Berkeley, of course the usual unique radical chic suspect

the place you could find professors eager to share lobby space
waiting next to down-and-out addicts to get their healthcare.

My burden was severe:
I was a young rookie CEO

and worse, a known bleeding heart from San Francisco, no less an MD,
needing to interest a clan of hardheaded older Southern businessmen

-- who'd as soon be dealing Kleenex
if it yielded more profit --

in the allotted no-more-than five minutes
pitching them with clear numbers and compelling logic

that'd keep the door open
to a longer discussion

of why they should grant me the time
to roll out my strategy's tactics

because at worst
the now hopeless enterprise'd be worth more to them at sale

and at best'd
earn them a ton of money.

As it turned out, the night before our get-together
while I was on board the redeye from points west

after his Sunday supper, the board chair
had what he thought was just a little gas

that his worried wife
didn't buy for a New York second

and rushed him to the hospital
(one of many he owned with the current Senate Majority Leader's family)

where his indigestion
was diagnosed as a myocardial infarction

thus putting the kibosh on our meeting, and maybe his life
...or so it seemed.

Well, not one to be deterred
by a challenging situation

I rallied my most physician-y attitude
and barged through into the Cardiac ICU

talking to his nurses and doctors
perusing his chart

then sat down next to him while he slept
and was right there when he woke up.

Well, he was so shocked by my concern
and relieved by what I told him about his likely full recovery

and impressed by my chutzpah
-- or whatever they called it in Tennessean --

that he heard me out briefly
and later told his colleagues to trust him and me.

In the end it worked out fine for everyone;
my chief's now the Governor.

2.

But what I remember most
about that Nashville trip was celebrating afterwards

no longer a mind of steel, just a leaf on a river
picked up by buddies in a vintage '55 Chevy

throwing back a few brews
at Second Fiddle and Tooties and Beyond Tonkin'

before taking in the Grand Ole Opry
where legends leave their tracks in the golden sound

the state of the soul, not the nation
unfolding in that church, the house of American music.

The morning after which
-- having caught some breaks --

they piled me into an airplane
to fly home with the license

to pursue resurrecting a dream
of rich and poor receiving good medical care together.

8.7.06

"Reflections of a Monkey Muffin"

The all powerful and good Miss Mobile
beams down on me lying buck naked.

I smile and kick back at her green, blue and yellow
face with the red clothy nose and big fat grin.

I listen to something spinning called Johnny
sing my very favorite song, Walk The Line.

Maybe it's my round friend above but the
sound seems to come from elsewhere.

And my icon looks more like mama
while the voice sounds like papa's.

Mommy puts my mouth
around her milk factory.

Later as I'm making caca I hear
my grandpa Coach approach.

After a quick dirty diaper change
we decide to play Jolly Jumper.

Now as a four month-old
I'm not really fit to stand.

Still my auntie holds me
so I can do lots of flying.

When I'm up, a sliver of sun shines
through the open bedroom window.

Another little boy's shadow seems
to bounce right in time with my body.

I coo to him and am
sad he doesn't too.

He won't take Rainbow Worm
I offer him from my hand.

I begin
to cry.

Then Bubbe pulls on the shade and
puts me to sleep in my own cradle.

As she does that my
new buddy disappears.

That's all I remember
about my nice Sunday.

8.6.06

--SEE sarnatscat2.blogspot.com/ FOR POST 8.6.6 POSTS--

"Quality Parts"

Between Los Feliz and the zoo,
the Griffith Park merry-go-round
has been an LA family favorite
for well over five generations.

Built in 1926 and brought
into the park late in 1937,
everyone of the circle game's
68 horses is a confirmed jumper.

Each is an original, hand carved
with jewel-encrusted bridles, finely
detailed draped blankets, lions'
heads, yellow and black sunflowers.

A military band carousel organ,
reputedly the largest in the West,
plays over 1500 selections of
rousing marches and waltz music.

This is all nice, to be checked out alongside
bike and hiking paths, a miniature railroad,
the equestrian center, live steamers, and
swings among the fab things to entertain baby.

Well, maybe Simon's a bit too
little to giddyup a horsey yet
or appreciate the observatory,
but soon he'll be full of wonder.

But what I notice now gives
great grandfatherly pause:
two young men with their sons
cause me more sadness than joy.

One sits on a red and blue painted pony
next to his boy's, enjoying a wild ride
as if he were five, arms waving, eyes
wide open and smiling brightly at his kid.

The other parent sits somberly on the
rotating platform with a similar aged lad
on a not up-and-down bench, spending the
four minute jaunt dully reading his email.

The second's son doesn't even once
glance at his dad (who totally misses that
something's wrong), but instead just
stares ahead at the blissful opposite pair.

Whereas the former child is having
a gas, squealing and grabbing his father;
the latter's embarrassed, absolutely alone
next to the random man who brought him.

8.6.06

"A Rags to Riches Story"

Night train from Hong Kong to Guangzhou,
she looks out the window and asks
"Where do the poor get so many clothes to hang outside?"

Not knowing the answer, I inquire of our minder
who tells us that most folks who live along the railroad
work sixteen hour shifts daily and rent a third of a room's time.

"You mean three different people
share one little space and never see each other
since two of them are always in the factories?"

"Yes, exactly, dear. By the way,
do you think that's really so different from back in the States
when you're just waking up as Mommy and I are going to sleep?"

8.5.06

"Hollywood Hallelujahs"

1.

Four and a half months into baby
after maybe a dozen trips to the Hollywood Mecca
(the term lactating mothers use to refer
to the world-class breastfeeding consultants,
support groups and videos at the Pump Station ©),

it feels like a state of grace,
the way the maternal-industrial complex ladies
have begun to take me more seriously as a committed grandfather --
incompetent as I am, nevertheless a seemingly well-intended old geezer
here to do the best he can for his daughter and Simon.

And for my part, I suspect the women
are now a bit more comfortable with me
since I began taking their advice seriously
instead of simply using the rote list
I was given by my wife and firstborn,

ignoring professional guidance, just on my own finding the perfect-sized
and color (lilac) Maternelle nursing bra, nipple cream, Binkies, Medela
breastpump plus nifty accessories, Miracle Blanket, white-noise machine,
sling, baby carrier and Bliss Gripe water -- and today a larger cooler
with blue ice that five five-piece eight-ounce bottles fit nicely inside.

But this morning the stuff I was sent for
ended up not being what I brought home
because once Shirley and Marla and Jackie and Gwen
got a good hold of me, understanding the mother’s real needs,
they turned me on to products they believed suited her and him better,

keeping precious breast milk cold longer with more certainty,
less expense and hassle … I was so proud that after my expedition,
to be taken aside before I left, offered a sign
of my rite of passage, the right to wear my very own epaulet:
a genuine Pump Station © violet and white ballpoint pen.

2.

To celebrate my apparent grandparently victory,
I rang my wife and youngest daughter to invite them
to join me around the corner at the ArcLight Theater's
first showing of the newest summer kids' movie,
even though ours is actually already twenty-one years old.

Which they did, and we saw "Barnyard," charming enough
but also quite annoying in the way its animation
represented bulls having udders, obviously absurd; but worse because
what could have been marvelously alive mammalian protuberances
looked more like fake plastic baseball catcher mitts than bovine teats.

I mean, what's the deal, Hollywood, portraying no difference
between male and female cows other than facial expressions and voices?
That's frankly grotesque -- I'd even say "bull."
Come on, you can do better ... but if you need help,
next week come with me to the Pump Station ©.

8.5.06

"The Last of the Just?"

One very un-Buddhisty religion's myth has it that for each generation
its god chooses 36 `just men' to bear the burden of human suffering.

Although indistinguishable from us simple mortals,
God has granted them the privilege of martyrdom.

Some number of `unknown just' see the world differently
remaining inconsolable to earthly anguish and misery.

When one of these dies his soul is so cold that God must warm him
in his fingers for 1000 years before he can open up to paradise.

So from time to time, this Creator sets the
clock of last judgment forward one minute.

Sadly, this adventure story's heroes are all male...
thus belonging on the same shelf as other bibles.

If you thought the next device would be virgins -- that I
was talking Allah and Islam -- you've got me totally wrong.

Schwartz-Bart's 1959 epic "The Last of the Just," which won the Prix
Goncourt, the French Booker, traces a millennium of Jewish life in Europe.

(André, born in Metz, France, the son of poor Polish Jews
murdered by the Nazis, joined the resistance movement.)

...A member of each generation is one of the 36 just men
that Jewish tradition claimed feel the pain of all the living.

And without whom the world could not go on: since the Jewish word
for 36 is lamed vov, these men were often called Lamed Vovniks.

This strange singular honor was first attributed to the Levys in 1085
following a massacre attempt by the Bishop William of Nordhouse.

To save his people, the Jewish citizens of York, Rabbi Yom Tov Levy
led them to an abandoned tower where they withheld a six day siege.

Rather than succumb to their captor's indignities, the Jews decided
to take their own lives as was done in Masada 1000 years earlier.

The Rabbi takes on the role of blessing and killing his community,
then taking his own life: a few, including his son Solomon, survive.

Solomon has a vision from God: because of his father's noble act,
each generation of his family will contain one of the Lamed Vovniks.

The tales of Jewish accommodations to subsist as a European minority
marked for extermination by the Christian majority conclude predictably.

The definitive insanity of course was the Holocaust, the Shoah,
the ultimate mission for all people of compassion and wisdom.

But what lessons has history -- forever replete with one tribe butchering
another, entries of men of all colors from all continents -- taught us?

It appears
not much.

May all beings
be at peace.

8.4.06

"Did You Hear?"

The king walks in circles,
talking his graveyard cough.

"The trick's between my thighs, not in the brain,"
he exclaims insanely to no sycophant in particular.

It's strange how terrible times uplift human spirit: inflation, unemployment,
attempted coupes, mass Jew trials, and bank rushes did it for Hitler's fans.

And today's odysseys -- screwing the poor and running amok in Iran and Iraq,
Korea and Lebanon -- hit the spot for praise-the-Lord hardcore Bushies.

Our righteous Prez' already forgiven Mel Gibson for what he says and does;
they're two odd peas for their collective pod wanting strongman leaders.

George gives his kinda folks what he thinks they want -- he's the seer,
the prophet, the clairvoyant who can see Putin's soul deep in his eyes.

Yet what he and the boys did (do?) at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib
and god knows where else extraordinarily-renditioned beggars the mind.

Freed of many of the old ways (we call them laws and Bill of Rights)
with no shame, he makes it up as he goes in the name of security.

King George's latest signing statement just arrived:
"WASHINGTON, August 3, 2006. President Bush,

citing his authority as Commander in Chief of the armed forces
and his inherent constitutional power over foreign affairs,

today ordered a postponement of the 2008 presidential election
in order "to protect the American people in our war on terror."

With plausible deniability, Rumsfeld kills detainees on a whim, if he
has indigestion, for target practice -- to him, they're all insects.

As ready-fire-aim Cheney exclaims,
"Practice makes perfect, we're getting bigger than the Beatles!"

8.3.06

"Alchemy"

Obsessed dreamers like Jesus are said to have made wine from water.
In everyday life, grapes become wine, wheat becomes bread.
We know from bioequations how sour green apples grow sweet and red.

Meanwhile shadowy lab geeks and charlatans pore over obscure formulae.
Misguided crackpots and stumbling magicians squeeze deluded strictures.
Occult crucibles' silver flames transform our paradise into fools' lead.

Look into the distance to the end of the world.
Time tumbles, and coppery cirrus clouds begin to race seriously.
The earth rises out of high blue waters, edges crumble, boil over.

Trees burn like matchsticks.
Snowcapped sierras molt tin towns below into glass.
Virgin bells toll, everything starts to collapse into white hell.

A gold bullioned calf is split open.
Divisions of red ants file along its flank.
Blackwidow spiders claw and digest its entrails.

Oxygen is sparse as mad-as-a-hatter beggars' soles.
Mercury lava freezes fleeing children in place.
Women are cast into mineral forests.

Cataracts of volcanic ash blind my millstoned eyes.
Day melts into night, vertigo seizes my heart into iron.
I sleepwalk this hangover that swallows your elemental diaphanous soul.

8.3.06

"A Summer Stroll"

Flaming in August LA
awaiting my broken-down old Volvo wagon's repair
ball cap and SPF 45 on, Machado's "Border of a Dream" under arm,

I stroll alone
east on Fountain Blvd. toward Western
passing a passel of deserted tequila-stinking turquoise taquerias,
nakedly gray thrift shops, an abandoned 98 cent discount store,
Sorley's Barbecue and Massage, Sal's Smokes/Liquor/Laundromat,
and a boarded-up 99 cent minimarket.

I stop in Cely's Productos Centro Americanos for a coconut popsicle.

Refreshed a bit
I proceed down the street
whose sidewalk blazed by heat day and night
is littered with trash and slashed mattresses and the innards of plastic toys.

A wild child pulls his mother toward the junk, screaming so loud
if a world war broke out right there, you wouldn't even notice.

Needing to sit
with Bangkok Cuisine's storefront whitewashed and locked
I crisscross to the other side where green umbrellas shading tables beckon.

Too hot outside
I enter an air-conditioned oasis, Vaco's Business Center/Internet Access,
where I parley the purchase of one Diet Coke I grab from the frig
and fifteen minutes of online time ($.75 plus $1.50)
into an hour's reclining on a torn but comfortable black leather couch
where I almost make the mistake of feeling so at home
that I bite into the lovely Delicious apple I crave, just laying there
until at the very last second
I notice red wax melting onto a nearby Oxford Dictionary.

Reading threadbare hulking reclusive Antonio M's ecstatic poems
about death and decay in every recess of his body and soul
my fever passes its crisis, lyses.

Lying back
I watch assorted forlorn hopefuls from Chicago and Seattle
approach 20X20 squares of golden PO boxes.

A pasty pedal-pusher and curlered white lady's smile
turns to gloom when nothing jumps out but junkmail and bills.

An Eastern European-accent behind me complains
to a stuttering factotum
that the classical CDs, Kirkland Trail Mix and multivitamins,
and Jolly Rancher Fruit Chew for sale are way too expensive.

Really getting into it now --
I turn around into a kind of voyeuristic bliss
like drinking in Brooklyn neighborhoods in a Spike Lee movie
or maybe Wayne Wang's mom 'n pop shop along side Harvey Keitel --
out of the corner of my eye I spy
a Vietnamese family lined up four Dells across
with mother and dad emailing (to what I imagine's Ho Chi Minh City)
and the kids joining them (presumably after school)
to play video games in the cool.

A long-haired Filipino man in blue shorts and green muscle shirt
built like a human manhole cover with tattoos all over
gets into a ferocious hassle about his account debit
with the 400 pound Hispanic owner, who tells him to leave pronto.

Like two dinosaurs wallowing in a swamp feast
the gents finally work it out.

My cell phone ring wakes me from my reverie.

Siebe says my car's ready...
except for the gearbox bulb he'll have to pickup in Glendale tomorrow.

Although I want to stay, I don't.

Hearing my first words since paying for the soda and computer
I bid adieu to the befuddled wispy mustached clerk
a true Larry Bird look alike who's trying to hit
on the prim tightly ponytailed blond Parcel Post pickup girl.

Without looking up, he hands me a "HOW TOXIC ARE YOU?"
questionnaire on pink paper (in Spanish on the back)
with a Sunset return address to the Hubbard Dianetics Foundation.

Opening the door into Fountain Blvd.'s Satan National Park
I'm immediately drenched in humidity like in New York City.

I limp back into my distant barbaric dream
where babies peel wallpaper from bombed out buildings
and their mommies boil off gluey nutrients for dinner.

Tempting fate that death doesn't want me today
I buy a mushroom and cocoa bean empanada
from a blind Guatemalan lady frying 'em up in a vat of oil
on a flimsy card table in front of the solid Western Ave. Baptist Church.

8.2.06

"The Landlord"

After owning my own home for decades
it's a new experience renting a duplex.

Not really new at in Never
more like new as in Again.

I must admit one of the stranger epiphenomena is
the opportunity to use the word Landlord once more.

I'm not the lord of my own manor
not the master of my own domain?

Somehow my mind finds its way
back to Bergman's medieval flicks.

You know Seventh Seal kinda movies with castles,
knights, indentured servants, serfs, and Grendels?

And Akira Kurasawa's Seven Samurai
with lots of filth and plague and death?

About a week after moving in
I finally met my building's Man.

He was unlike the Super I expected after learning bits
about him from the young tenant who subleased to me.

Not a tough savvy business guy
property-owner proprietor type.

Just a kid, a struggling artist, making a few measly
bucks tending to details the landholder told him to.

Ah so.
Amen.

8.2.06

"The Flinch"

Hollywood Bowl rock 'n roll pyrotechnics
where forty years ago I ushered at the original LA Beatles concert,
now Crosby Stills Nash and particularly Young
preach and prance like young kids not the sixty year-olds they are.

All but one fat still body and more importantly the music
seem fit as back in their sixties prime, in spite of everything --
all the water and other substances under their bridges, though who
am I too speak, aching as I do so bad where I used to play so good?

Yesterday I first read
the US is more divided over Iraq than it was over Viet Nam warwise,
and last night with friends and wife who back-in-the-day argued
for (or against) my burning my card and actively resisting draftwise

we stood and applauded (or sat on our hands)
for three wonderful hours of nutritious antiwar rhetoric and peace symbols.
Marinating there in the midst of the pervasive mist
of Los Angeles basin smog and boomer secondhand marijuana fog

slowly, very slowly came the slow-cooked realization
that for all my ranting and raving against Bush lies and fascism,
that after a lifetime of scorning Germans for allowing Adolf,
here I am not doing a damn thing about my own George.

And what if for some reason (like maybe
this week's massacre of fifty innocent Lebanese women and babies?)
Neil went off bigtime against Israel right here, how would I --
for all my walking the progressive Middle East talk -- really feel?

All of a sudden it comes to me,
the epiphany that as a Jew I'd be caught in the middle,
my heart going out to all victims, including Muslims, yet my mind
defending a duly-elected homeland -- like World War II's Berliners did.

I push my head a bit further: perhaps even if I didn't agree
with Jerusalem's decisions, or a Hitlerish demagogue
(Avigdor Lieberman?) rose to power, what would I do
if I saw the alternative to support as my people's destruction?

For just a guilty second I cringed inside, shivered,
understood others, forgave, asked more of myself...
before returning to celebrating, shouting and dancing to
There's Something's Happenin' Here/What It Is Ain't Exactly Clear.

8.1.06

"Hotspots"

Coursing east through The Strip,
free-associating generous aliquots of nostalgia and youthful indiscretion,
my Volvo passes the same Whisky a Go Go I snuck into as an underage kid
to catch early glimpses of The Doors and Janis Joplin.

The Hollywood's Screen Actors Guild now appears to live at 77 Sunset
where ducktailed finger-snapping, slang-talking cool
Kookie, Kookie (lend me your comb) valet-parked and preened on TV
in front of which I dusted my white bucks nearly fifty years ago.

The billboards have also adjusted somewhat
from what in retrospect were
the prim less sophisticated fifties and early sixties,
with new humungous male crotch shot layouts

revealing almost all in glossy high-tech ads
now exposing everything imaginable
up there in plain view
with seeming absolute passerby indifference.

Caught in commuter traffic thick as a parking lot
in front of LA's Rush Hour Jewelry Kiosk,
I have more than enough time to contemplate
whether the public relations gurus who invented the posters

proclaiming "The Family That Prays Together Stays Together" and
steering believers to worldatprayer.com had the slightest clue that
forty years ago "those who play together stay together" flyers declared
beret horn-rimmed Dizzy-of-the-huge-cheeks bebop trumpet was in town.

Waiting to get the car washed just past Vine,
I pound this out fast as I can on my laptop,
and after stumbling onto next door's Discount Tire Centers wi-fi hotspot,
post it to you.

7.31.06

"The Celebration"

For her sixtieth birthday, Miss Cassidy gathered only her closest friends.
She invited folks who like her were blind-deaf since birth or for decades.

To begin the festivities, Miss Cassidy signed an original poem,
which in its own way was a koan with it's own particular rhythm.

It worked itself around the round table from one palm and tip to another,
a tactile translation of dashes and dots, short and long, up and down.

A few stroked their neighbors' lips, but in any case, the guests
understood what she meant, adapting the see-hear world's alphabet.

She asked the puzzling paradoxical question, why we who
live in silent darkness feel the happiest smiles on each of our faces?

The man-companion seated at the place of honor to her right
tapped right back, "We're all so pleased to be here with you, Mona Lisa!"

A tittering made waves through their hands
as everyone took a turn rapping out his or her little joke or riddle.

A dapper gentleman who'd brought a recorder player put it on, and
everyone was reborn from loneliness, fingering Mozart's vinyl vibrations.

A man who'd tripped, mistakenly landing in a wimpled nun's lap,
made everyone laugh when he teased, "Let's stay in touch!"

After a while one of the more solemn participants, a pretty younger lady,
wondered if others listened to buzzing noises and saw gray and black colors?

The eldest in the room patted back that at times
in the distant past he could even see green and yellow in the garden.

The wife of the single married couple present laughed,
"My husband is glad that he can't hear well enough to be hen-pecked!"

In return hubby Herzog replied, "Not to be too serious, but when I go into
contemplation it's like she let go of me, as if I were a million miles gone.

Sometimes I settle into a dreamland where I'm normal, not condemned,
neglected like garbage in a rich society where only productivity counts.

I'm convinced that we who are last will later be first -- my afflictions
are my meditations, my means to gaining greater spiritual awakening.

My blindness is a black river flowing slowly
like a melody toward great falls.

On its banks trees and flowers and birds sing sweetly.
Another river coming from the other side is as clear as pure crystal.

This one also flows slowly but without any sound.
Deep down there is a lake very dark and deep where the two rivers meet.

Where they join, there are rocks making the water foam.
Afterwards they flow silently and slowly into a somber reservoir

which lies in a deadly calm only troubled
by an occasional ripple of deaf-blind struggle."

After a prolonged stiff stillness (and lunch), the hostess' girlfriend to her left,
on behalf of all attendees, gave her a cuddly trained golden retriever gift.

After tea the whole bunch took a field trip they'd been looking forward to:
driving to the city's annual floral show in a huge limousine.

The birthday girl was the first to touch the town car's purring hot motor,
and the first to touch the flower of her choice.

Miss Mona chose a cactus, smelling the blossoms, feeling the prickles,
peeling the fruit, sucking its sweetness.

On their way home, as long planned,
the limo stopped at the city's petting zoo.

The family -- self-made to fend against isolation -- still chitchats whether
the silver fox kit, lamb, baby goat or elephant or chimp was the cutest...

7.29.06

"Mexicali Motors, Universal Parts"

Last week after the left headlight blew, Drew sold me a fancy new one.
And when with the aid of Jose's brains (Pep Boys has a no-touch policy),
my unclever head and awkward hands couldn't install it under the hood,
they kindly referred me to a nearby Armenian auto electrician, Sarkis.

This week the old Volvo station wagon needed some ramped-up attention.
Old Sarkis sent me along to a young Viet Namese guy across the street,
who wildly gestured he didn't know jack about ignition locks that stick, and
pointed me to a repair shop on the other side of Normandie on Fountain.

Siebe's fiftyish, bald and dark and squat, smiling neatly in his gray uniform.
I assumed from his sign he was Mexican until we got to schmoozing, but
it turned out he's a quarter Ghanan and Salvadoran from his father, and
from his mother, Dutch Jewish and Filipino, which's where he was born.

Amazingly he came within a fraction of an inch of kosher designation.
(Does a quarter from his mom's side do the trick?) As I learned over
coffee, he's lots more religious than 100% J-gened me: I see a Star
of David peek out, and hear talk about attending synagogue regularly.

Making his way from Manila to Los Angeles had been anything but easy.
Now since his career's going real good -- just bought out the body shop
next door -- and his family of six is thriving, Siebe's very determined not
to ignore folks in need, those suffering, all beings that're less fortunate.

Although he puts it in the 500 year-old Kabbalist terms of "tikkun olam,"
or repair the world, his social action while we sip -- gently dropper-feeding
infant formula from rubber-gloved hands to tiny bat babies, so dehydrated
and weakened by the heatwave that they've fallen -- strikes me as Buddhist.

7.28.06

"Ooops"

Fresh from his civic book lessons
Georgie Bush pushes democracy
to lessen world evil, to cure all our problems -- whoosh, just do it.

Which ain't a bad idea, but in practice
as Hamas' and Hezbollah's populist social service arms
have cultivated support in Palestine and Lebanon

with the help of their patrons in Iran and Syria,
if you give a man a vote (or a Katusha),
he'll use it.

Now add to the mix a June Pew poll showing
that a large majority of Turks, Jordanians, Egyptians, and Indonesians
-- and British Muslims -- don't believe that Arabs carried out 911.

And that Germans and Spanish and Russians and Brits
feel there's a conflict between being a devout Muslim
and living in modern society.

Here in America, Dubya's bedrock constituency
of Christian evangelicals quote the Old Testament's
"bless those who bless you" and "curse those who curse you."

POTUS' turbocharged fellow Texan telepreacher buddy and leader
of apocalyptic Zionists, wrapped himself in the Star of David last week,
proclaiming,"God's foreign-policy statement" in a "war of good versus evil."

"The end of the world as we know it is rapidly approaching...
Rejoice and he exceedingly glad --
the best is yet to be."

Melding realpolitik and religion,
the President sent a message of encouragement.
A Congressman chimed in, Israel's enemies "do the work of Satan."

Add to the mix that if Saudi Arabian and Pakistani men
could exercise their will (of course excluding unfranchised women),
they'd thrown out the pro-West crown prince and military dictator.

Which isn't to say
extending the ballot
to a billion-plus Muslims is wrong.

But we richer-than-God Americans haven't thought through what's next,
a way to share prosperity, create harmony not frustration and war
and generation upon generation of Islamist fundamentalist terrorists.

That's leaving aside
US-inspired internecine struggles in Iraq,
Africa's one-man-one-vote-one-time,

South America's thriving anti-imperialism, North Korea's
nuke-protected hell realm, Eastern Europe's kleptocracies, etc. --
but those're nightmares for another time...

7.27.06

"Rooster in the Night"

My ears are ringing;
my departed love's imagining me.

I sing these forty-nine days,
first sitting by her crumbling body,

then weeping heaven's stars
into her urn's ashen pasty sky.

While I contemplate white shadows,
disorderly life alone,

gloomy fingers
fumbling shabby beads;

her soul's still at loggerheads,
scuffling to take its earthly leave,

a gray cocooned silkworm,
tethered,

struggling to soar black and yellow
past sour wisdom,

funnel death's melee,
channel through tainted mirages,

hurtle on bardo wings
into morning's...

7.27.06

"Nimbly N.I.M.B.Y."

1.

The sign that really gave away the ad hoc Neighbors League desperation
was the black grease-penciled handwritten "ABANDONED" scribbling
covering the LA Metro Transport Authority Route #26 red and blue logo
at a Hollywood bus stop in front of Franklin and Beachwood's Shell station.

Then a buddy mentioned Los Angeles politicians had finally bit the bullet to put one of the city's new homeless centers further down on Gower around the corner between Sunset and Santa Monica - though naturally it was almost as controversial as nuclear waste dump placement in Nevada.

As it happens, at the same time the same concerned citizens on nearby
richer Larchmont Blvd. lobbied for favored zoning for more pet specialty stores, "bark mitzvahs," "barking lots," "animal companion bistros" serving "succulent primecut beef" "Viet Nam pig yoga," yada yada to be allowed.

Now maybe I'm crazy, but pet cancer, hip replacement, and pacemaker
hospitals covered by high-end concierge insurance, plus air-conditioned boutiques hosting their own annual fashion shows that bring made-to-order canine couture to the doggy-digs' catwalks seem awfully absurd to me.

I understand we all need someone to love, but I have tons of trouble with a bazillion dollar for-profit pet-pampering industry pushing hamster bakeries and lizard-friendly menus while dehydrated Homo sapiens die on sweltering pavement, no one providing them the time of day - no less food or housing.

2.

Alas, yesterday's Science Times rode to the rescue, possibly solving this particular existential dilemma: fifty years of Siberian research explored what makes animals nice to be around, qualities selected by the Neolithic farmers who developed most major farm species ten thousand years ago.

The project's hypothesis was that all domesticated species had one criterion in common - tameness - which dragged along with it most of the other features - droopy ears, patches of white in the fur, changes in skull shape, rolled tails - that distinguish them from their less clean, endearing, and quiet wild forebears.

After only eight generations, using their tolerance for human contact as the sole criterion for choosing which to breed, silver foxes routinely made excellent house pets, the kits picking up cues from people, seeing them as social partners not as predators as reliably as puppies who'd "lost" wolves' fear and aggression.

3.

So, in the end I've a modest proposal, No Homeless Left Behind: Bush's DHHS'll breed these uncuddly rejects like river otters and mink, selecting out individuality and filth, selecting in Judeo-Christian guilt and faith, until lo and behold in a hundred years we've self-domesticated the apes, made pets -- or eaten 'em.

7.26.06

"Doing Shakespearean Time"

Geld me.
Compel me to lie down in lime.
Mail me to Dachau in a boxcar.

But don't make this prison with no hope of parole my life's home
one bird in a thousand caged in a Big House built for two hundred
where ravens on concertina wire above laugh, "Fool, you got it bad."

I wish I could be an angel
soaring out of here on purple and green polka dot wings
to return to the neighborhood where I was born and raised.

I came in as an infant,an orphan, then reparented, first trying it out
as a do-good inmate but quickly restructuring to convict, to con
inside like out on the streets that don't seem all that mean now.

With two life sentences minimum in this maximum security hell
why not just fuck up some more: what's the worst they can do, take
away my dollar a-day job, Yard and TV privileges, put me in the Hole?

Hard time feels harder than death;there's no light at tunnel's end.
This'll be the first thing I've ever finished in my life.
That is, unless I kill a guard or two or commit suicide.

The dregs of the storm will never pass.
Truth is I did heinous crimes, moves without purpose as a stupid kid.
And whenever I wake from my dreams, I'll still in a nightmare.

Reveries, rethinking the past are better alternatives
than existing in the present, just going through the motions
always embraced by the starving tiger.

But I'm in to the end with the rest of my unHenry-Vish band
of brothers, we unhappy unfew who were abused when little
neglected if lucky enough to have somebody not too drugged.

Macbeth said, "Blood will have blood."
I've his unconquerable haunting guilt but black,identify with Othello.
There is no happy Hamlet role for me.

Instead I'll rot away on this island, at best Prospero confined to a
tempest,practicing virtue of forgiveness over vengeance, mentored by a a
couple airy Ariels among Caliban savages & villainous Antonio bros.

But these ain't no theater games, I ain't spouting to end Will's play,
"As you from crimes would pardoned be,
let your indulgence set me free."

The ones who need mercy the most
are the ones who deserve it the least.
Poetry's not a job, it's a verdict: Redeem me.

7.25.06

"News Doodling"

Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle...
when Georgie Porgy meets Iraq's prime minister
in the Oval Office in about an half hour
our president will tell him to jump over the moon.

Nouri-Al-Malki clashes sharply with The Shrub's son's boys
advocating nasty Israel quit its Lebanon hostilities quick
demanding way more autonomy from the US for his military forces, and
along with other top Shiite leaders, wanting to maintain strong ties to Iran.

Rumsfeld and Cheney laugh to see such sport
giggling they hadn't yet given poor Dubya a civic book chapter two lesson
that POTUS didn't know the difference between democracy and fascism...
which is good for Halliburton, etc., who spoil to run away with all the oil.

7.25.06

"Why"

all
of

a
sudden

am
I

happier
with

the
more

conservative
Fox's

charm
since

CNN
cable

basically
ignores

Darfur
and

even
Iraq

attacks
etc

which
kill

far
more

than
in

Israel --
Lebanon

while
Iran

plus
NKorea

advance
their

oh
so

very
merry

nuclear
ways?

7.24.06

"Blogging Leonard Cohen"

Lapses of modest poetry
on the e-virtual lamb

meek temples of refuge
each subtlety anonymous

aimed to sublimate ego
wolf togged in snail self

awake in a state of grace
surfing not resolving chaos

heartily nourishing amidst
bloodroot crowded solitude

so easy to be steamrolled
into dry-cleaned blurdom.

7.24.06

"Oh Well"

With one hand
we grant Israel
bunker busters
to turn Beirut
into Mid East hell.

With the other
later this week
Condi'll convene
a donors' conference near Rome
to rebuild Lebanon how swell.

7.23.06

"The Great Liberation (adapted from the Tibetan Book of the Dead)"

We submit to delusion's dance, ignoring the reality of death.
Anything with shape will break, will crumble away.
Everything in a flock will disband.

We're all like bees
alone in this world
buzzing and searching with no place to rest.

Illusions are as many
as reflections of the moon on the rippling sea;
beings are so easily caught in their own nets of confused pain.

May I develop compassion as boundless as the sky
that all may rest
in the clear light of awareness.

At death we lose everything we thought was real:
unless we can unleash what we cherish
we're terrified.

If I can't stop holding onto my old life
fear will drag me
into yet another awful reality.

Where do we go at death?
The body collapses -- earth into water into air into fire --
while consciousness dissolves.

Now
without daily life's patter and screams
the mind can be seen directly.

Dear friends and relatives, don't cry.
Your tears confuse the dying
who is trying to release life's force.

Dying man, do not be afraid
of crushing weighty mountains
tossing black waves, scorching hell flames.

Don't resist.
This is the time to pay great attention
to recognize your true nature.

Compassion is infinite:
rest in the vast emptiness
the piercing luminosity of your constituent elements.

There is no darkness, separation, direction.
Free yourself
from the shadows of birth and death.

Don't get lost
don't go missing
in the swamp of dreamless sleep.

Engulf yourself
into the Oneness
alongside the awakened.

That is all that is necessary
as death passes over
and you don't know whether you're alive or not.

You can still
see your sobbing family
but they can't hear your replies.

You can look down
on the bed where you slept
which instead holds a corpse.

Go forward.
Though the world seemed stable and solid
nothing is permanent.

Like the water, the snow, the ice, the Christ
all life shifts
in ever changing forms.

Our fate is always in the hands of death
the risk of endless wandering
naked in purgatory's realms.

But when you glimpse your essential self
recognition and liberation are simultaneous:
penetrating blue radiance becomes wisdom's mirror.

Be reassured, all humans feel flickers of anger
sparks of greed, twinges of jealousy
which remain small seeds unless we incubate and nourish them.

Become a white lotus
sharp in her own clarity
suspended above the earth.

Strip off the masks
you forgot you were wearing
running from others like dead leaves on a gale.

See your beasts, Lord Death's mashing teeth and glassy eyes
and armies of demons: shed final glow on your dark caves
of desperate thoughts driven on the winds of hope and terror.

Breathe.
Be at peace.
Let go.

7.23.06

"Umbilicals (A Fiction?)"

Not the summer she originally imagined --
twenty-one and single in Los Angeles
interning for an upscale glam magazine
... as reality occurred, our daughter's
roomies turned out to be none other than
her own vacationing (dear) mother and father.

Not that it wasn't lots of fun for her
being offered popcorn and fashion tips
on the way out to clubbing about ten
at night and then coming back alone
(or not) around four in the morning
into the room immediately next to us.

It started out a little rocky, but as
they say, necessity is the mom of
invention; our ties are tight, and
with give-and-take on every side,
we eventually got jazzed to make it
work out absolutely as well as possible.

What that means is still evolving:
we offered our youngest baby the only
garage parking space and the primo
suite, the one with the DVD/TV, Internet,
air-conditioner and landline phone cords
(no cell reception here in Hollywood's hills).

On her part, she doesn't treat us to anything
resembling a hard time, instead seems
gracious and friendly like yesterday when
the three of us went to see the "bargain"
matinee (can you believe $11 a ticket?)
of "The Devil Wears Prada" on her day off.

And on my way to the apartment from
visiting friends, I located the nearest Trader
Joe's to buy her the all-natural mango mochi
and big cartons of blueberries that she desires,
stocking the frig with as many of the foods
I can remember that she loved as a little girl.

Growing closer and closer, without many words
we establish implicit cooperation whereby
all of us assume some basic daily tasks --
alternating emptying wastebaskets, bringing
fresh supplies in, cooking, doing the dishes,
washing clothes, cleaning up -- just like home.

Back in the subleased duplex today, I notice
one surprising new thing, that her room's short
gray computer cable has been replaced by a
flexible spiral twisted blue ethernet tube
reaching into the hall so I can get online
when she's asleep and/or the door's closed.

In return, downstairs I install a thin black
electric line connecting the CD player to a
headset on my just-purchased Craig's List
$100 spinner cycle so (looking a bit like a
wimpy astronaut or scuba diver) I don't wake
my daughter while piping in exercise music.

On a roll generating a tit-for-tat positive family
rhythm, keeping up the momentum, my babe
who once was a fetus attached through her navel to
my wife's placenta, leaves her desert hydration pack
on my bike to supply old Dad essential fluids to suck on
teatlike through a hollow plastic hose in the July heat.

7.22.06

"Shiva Sitting Shiva"

We are born with death's weight on our shoulders.
Birth inevitably leads to sickness, old age, and death.
Which are real and cannot be escaped.

Basic awareness is beyond born or dying.
Each who suffers is challenged to find his true nature.
Unchanging wakefulness is at the heart of everything.

Free yourself from confusion and fear, abandon terror.
Never auction the body to wrathful hungry ghosts.
Nourish the blessed ones up the mountain with sweet barley and butter.

Let go the blood-drinking mind games on Samsara's wheel.
Cease ruthless projections of your own creation.
May bardos release our souls from endless prostrations and wanderings.

Take refuge in abiding peace.
Bathe in love's radiant pure white light.
Breathe with me, breathe.

7.21.06

"Intelligent Design"

What does it give me?
Nothing.

Helplessly reaching for suns made of wilted sunflowers
moons pieced together from slivers of rotten wood.

Born alone in the world
skin crawling with tingly golden bug stars.

But he fingers and smiles and listens to death
seduces and plunders and plies my heart with love.

I'd give heaven for him, laying his head on mine.
Why?

For billions of years since creation
gazillions of ants have plopped out, copied perfectly.

DNA coils oiled and ready to roll
cogs in some incredible humungous collective machine.

But our flash-in-the-pan species
of nouveau riche Homo sapiens is different.

Each's original sin is vulnerability
not even able to lift a too huge brain.

An individual
dependent again and again on the good will of strangers.

I can truly grock
how tree-primate ancestors got useful grasp reflexes from science.

But pray tell how we evolved our beautiful grins and winning ways
that keep others so attached, desperately afraid for our survival?

7.21.06

"Charm School"

Our befuddled POTUS witlessly imitated Elmer Fudd in front
of a disgruntled NAACP convention in his DC backyard this morning.

The President's just Looney Tunes in the deluded conceit that
a sincere appearance will compensate for folks witnessing his deceits.

Not a soul in the audience thought it worth a hill of beans
that he brought a canned black photo opportunity of Condoleezza Rice.

Trying to impersonate a leader of all the people of these United States
he shucked 'n jived despite a six and a half year record ignoring the poor.

What can you say about a man who supports boondoggles for the rich
who elected him, repealing estate taxes while eviscerating Medicaid?

What do you feel about his credibility, claiming to be against torture
though - with plausible deniability - his mouth's other corner blesses it?

(Hey, don't trust lefty me: do your own research, including the piece
on Cheney's Cheney, David Addington, in the July 17 or so New Yorker.)

Thank god we've got only another year-plus of this cartoon character
before the nation'll move on...hopefully to a worthier feature film.

7.20.06

"Autopsy Prayer"

Topsy-turvy, nature is over.

The world grows dim, dissolves like a spider's web, is yet isn't.

Modernity needs answers by dissection.

We run through creation like a razor.

But since my life was blind and deaf, it could not be misled.

There was no hunted look to my stride.

Man is an abyss you get dizzy looking in.

Playing my magic flute, I got itchy from enlightened gringo-breath.

If poor darkies get to heaven, bright angels'll make 'em work the thunder.

You wonder?

Amen.

7.19.06

"Manchildren"

1.

I consider myself more imaginer than fantasist - a stripper, not a flasher.
A borrower, not a plagiarist (Roth loaned above, Buchner and Herzog below)...

Did you hear that horrible green shrieking
engrossed in zones of gray twilight most stylish men call silence?

Do you let freshly dropped red apples rot
if they're tired and just want to rest, not sleep here forever?

Coming into the world was a terribly hard fall.
Why can't the work of living sweetly be as easy as breathing?

Some people are wolves to me - echoes and weasels,
society a dungeon, every man for himself, god against all.

Maybe I'd prefer the solitude of prison darkly, uncouth, stinking,
putrid grub shoved under the door, berserk, a marginalized freak.

At least to so-called civilization's sledgehammers in the stomach,
trial by fire and sword, word and garb, alone in this brightly lit world.

Even dwarfs start small
before crying themselves to gigantic deaths.

If truth be known, my mortal coils feel unexpectedly old today.
But with honeybee music strong in my heart, this is what dreamed:

2.

Heading west on the Sunset Strip, I see a cop car in the rearview mirror.
Soon the snooty yellow and brown "Entering Beverly Hills" sign pops up.

On the left side of the road, orange bulbs flash, "LAW STRICTLY ENFORCED,"
below which "N O I S E A N D S P E E D" in big pale letters grab my eye.

In between mine and the lane moving east, a refined troupe of uniformed
squat brown square-headed men ride powermowers on lawny central divides.

Growing up in these rarefied parts of 40,000 square foot homes
I always assumed the police were tailing me - and often was exactly right.

Cruising along, not watching squat except girls, acting silly, burning rubber,
blasting KFWB, perhaps open brews -- we proved perfect targets.

Then for many middle age decades
I lost my black and whites paranoia.

Only recently, as dexterity, vision and judgment maneuvering autos
have receded along with my gums; I've become aware of them again.

Turning left on Rexford, braking for speed bumps to spare my wife's neck,
I slow down to a crawl as I spy the ritzy town's gold cupola-ed City Hall.

As we approach Santa Monica Boulevard's Sheriff's Department
I regress to a teenager behind the wheel, worried I'll get a ticket.

When we park in front of my mother-in-law's house
my sudden relapse from age sixty to sixteen or so is almost complete.

But something interesting, different from what I expect, happens inside.
Now my kids' grandma seems more like her own great-grandson.

Both are about ninety-eight - whether years or days is a quibble.
Each one thrives - dribbling the same spoon-fed rice cereal.

Bloodcurdling screams, spitting up everything, cute in tiny pink or blue
taffeta, and relying totally on others for survival are it for these two.

Later on in Westwood, picking up my parents to take them
for an early deli lunch, in this crowd once more I feel like a normal adult.

Until crossing the street, I offer Mom my arm, which she happily takes.
Smiling, we giggle as I remind her of walking me to kindergarten.

"Look both ways!"
comes out of our mouths at the same time.

We laugh and laugh with Dad over Doctor Brown's Cream Soda, dill
pickles, bowls of matzo ball soup, and corned beef on rye sandwiches.

7.19.06

"Theories of Relativity"

Trudging back to our apartment in the dark after a prolonged day,
failing to placate one screaming achy grandson
who'd just got his first shots, hearing some other
family's baby cry meekly all night is non-relative paradise.

Waking in the morning, watching a covertly filmed TV documentary,
to starving abused spied upon North Koreans,
the grass looks greener, freedom relatively grand
on the Chinese totalitarian side of the Yalu River.

7.18.06

"Apocalypse Approaching"

The earth's burning up.

Flames ate San Bernardino this week.

In early July, not waiting for nature's usual September infernos.

Strange summer rains threaten death-by-mudslide in crispy Los Angeles.

But searing weather kills way beyond here in Southern California.

Heatwaves devour babes and aged from Shanghai to South Bend.

While the Middle East cannibalizes itself.

Haifa is (was) one of Israel's few proud religious mixed cities.

At the moment, Katushas exterminate Muslim next to Jew there.

What might Jesus-of preach about Arabs bombing Arabs in Nazareth?

And why would a Chosen People choose to make a mountain out of a molehill?

That's not to say my Star of David hasn't been provoked -- and badly.

Surely the IDF was wronged with its soldiers kidnapped.

But hostage-taking's been common currency in this unholy land for millennia.

Why give a foe match and gasoline to light your fire?

I do get Olmert's restraint only taking out bridges and airports.

At first.

And still -- at least until I turn on the news.

I worry, how long can Jerusalem's self-discipline last in this smoldering?

As renegade nation-states cozy closer to borderless terrorists.

Iran and Syria come out of the closet in Lebanon...again.

Beirut's Christian suburbs refuse shelter to fleeing Allah-believers.

Another civil war's rumored in the wind.

Meanwhile Hezbollah and Hamas, Shiites and Sunnis pretend to make nice.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend...for now.

Play-it-both-ways Saudi Wahabi oil money funds guns behind-the-scenes.

In the south, explosions break open the gates between Egypt and Gaza:

Jamaat al-Islamiyya and Islamic Jihad join Al-Queda pretty near Tel Aviv.

If Palestinian squalor spirals downhill much further, it'll hit Somalian chaos.

Maybe Israel's hawks and doves are birds of the same feather.

Both warned against leaving...unilaterally or otherwise.

The world watches and condemns.

The UN's toothless.

The US has squandered its leverage, isn't trusted.

Uncurious George's Religious Right takes it with a grain of salt.

Evangelicals don't invest in Gore's inconvenient truth of global-warming.

Afterall, what's the point, come the Messiah, the unveiling of God?

'Cause we're outa here.

Who cares if the center doesn't hold?

Don't need no more globe.

Jews done their work rendering us off this planet.

When the End of Days arrives, the first will be first.

Burn, baby, burn.

7.17.06

"Diagnostic Dice™"

A Portola Valley auto mechanic buddy
who hunts wild boar on Catalina with bow and arrow
crows about two half-ton trophy heads slopped on his pickup's flatbed.

In return I show him my grandson Simon's photo
after which Tom tells me the story of presents to his nephew
and his sister's predictable (exact word "piss-ass") rejoinders.

It began at birth with a pair of dice
then quickly escalated to video games with lots of noise and violence
and fire crackers and a beebee gun.

Which annoyed the doctor-mother so much
that she put her younger brother
on a special "do not accept from uncle" gift-list.

I was told this tale in strictest confidence
-- knowing full well I too am a local physician --
because Tom believes me to be sympathetic (which I am).

Although no doubt in ways I'm also similar to his sib
Tom seemingly sees me more
as his bad-boy Marlon Brando soulmate.

Whereas most people perceive
I'm Woody Allenish, likely to give a kid existential books, classical CDs,
red wagons or hobby horses rather than knives and pistols.

Which is really no dilemma
since I'm completely jazzed
for once imagined as a man's man.

7.17.06

"Friday Night Fever"

A sleep-deprived
obsessive-compulsive
meth-high
redneck-addict
reconnoiters rural neighbors' mailboxes for red flags up
signifying poor families' monthly water and electricity checks inside.

Once the identity theft's done
and cashed in or bartered
there's enough stuff in hand
for one more --
or at least one last --
run before crashing.

7.16.06

"Melting Pot Highs"

A sweltering LA day
slouching on a leather couch
in the air-conditioned lobby of Los Feliz district's Palermo's Ristorante
next to a wine cellar chocked full of Marilyn Merlot bottles
her breasts at their best in a low-cut blue sequin dress
passing the time for three pizzas to go
I down a Heineken, watch ESPN, skim a NEJM, and compose
on a stenographer's pad offered up by a really nice Italian man, Luigi
who -- presumably pitying my scribbling this on paper napkins --
hands me the notebook with a cold beer.

Okay, so I confess, more than likely
inebriation plays a little role in this perception of ecstasy
after a not-looked-forward-to afternoon that began as a big hassle.

But without encountering such inspiring human beings on the way
I wouldn't feel half this fine simply because of an imported brew.

My adventure starts after landing at the torrid Burbank Airport
when a delightful Armenian surgeon entertains me
playing Dvorak and Mahler all the way to Hollywood
while toward the end we chatted more seriously
about our people's respective Holocausts
and what can be done to prevent others in the future
in his clean cool cab. (I tip Kaspar liberally when I see
from the $23 bottom-line that his meter isn't rigged.)

Getting back home
I quickly notice that my parked car's headlight was smashed
and that neither it nor my laptop's wireless (again) work.

Instead of spending the rest of the day
playing with my grandson as I planned
I bite the bullet, tackle the two tasks at hand
plus grocery shopping and figuring out dinner for six
which is harder to accomplish here down south
than up in Palo Alto where everything's familiar, slower, smaller, easier.

Hoping my warranty hasn't quite expired
from the first time my Airport Card got unseated from its thingamajig
I first rush to Melrose Mac on Highland
where a generous Ethiopian, Sentayehu Hilassie,
working full-time to put himself through engineering school,
said although I am four days beyond the ninety day service guarantee,
"No problem, given your commute from San Francisco, we'll cover it."

With that fabulous news
I proceed to Pep Boys at Hollywood and Vine
to have a new bulb installed
only to be told, "Company policy, we don't do Volvos,"
but after a little cajoling -- and Jose figuring out I was clueless --
the sweet buzz-cutted Parts Manager agrees, although he's very busy
to step outside and supervise (at no charge)
my replacing the broken part with a good one...
which is a great idea that for some reason doesn't work
so he goes beyond the call of duty, referring me to a nearby electrician.

Upto my elbows in grease
looking up from under the hood
I'm surprised to see my son-in-law staring down:
he needs to leave his family's Beetle to have a battery put in
so decides to comes on the rest of my journey
before we head home together.

Ten minutes later at Fountain and Normandie
the unshaved mustachioed owner of Sarkis' Greek Auto Shop -- Cash Only
shrugs his shoulders, fiddles with a volt meter, twists a few wires
while serving us cups of mint tea with filthy fingers, and lo and behold
twenty dollars later, the low beam's on
and I'm in business.

We cruise over to Gower and Sunset's strip mall
where we can't convince ourselves
that the gang'll like cheap Chinese takeout
even though the $6.21 chicken chow mein, smoked tea duck
and fried shrimp triple combo (with a can of Diet Coke thrown in)
has become a favorite of mine when alone
particularly when prepared and served up
by one of the most likable local merchants
an old lady who speaks almost no English but smiles and cooks beautifully.

Moving on to Vermont
after passing on ordering dinner
from Electric Lotus' earnest Indian hippy couple
who try to please us but their food's too hot for tonight
we agree on Palermo's pleasant peasant faire as just right
and while I wait and write, my grandson's dad does the shopping.

He drives to the closeby Mayfair Market on Franklin
that's a rip-off in any estimation --
everything wildly expensive
the produce often moldy, the meat and fish going bad --
but location location location allows them to charge what they want
with the grinning arrogance they're actually doing you a favor --
exactly the opposite of the can-do-take-nothing-for-granted
happy-to-be-here-to-earn-a-living-and-have-a-chance-to-make-it
attitude of the wave of hardworking honest lovely immigrants
like my grandparents and aunt and uncle were generations ago
that I had the chance to meet today.

7.15.06

"Even-ing"

Long July day coming to an end
Simon fed, head sideways in the crib
we listen to a slow comforting CD
of low-frequency heart beats
like four months before in mom's womb.

When he falls asleep
I stay nearby
to hear his breathing.

Sitting on the floor in tripod position
from the left comes the pulse and
from the right my grandson's breath.

For sixty minutes
I go inside but
not so deep
my meditation
isn't conscious
that stereophonic
cardiorespiratory
sounds ground me.

As the CD finishes
and silence begins
through almost
closed eyelids
I can sense the
redballed sunset.

In a few minutes
darkness descends.

Crickets start up.

Finishing my contemplation
I see the earliest evening stars
come out behind the leaves
outside my baby's window.

Myself now rested and calm
I leave our darling infant
to his refreshing slumber.

7.14.06

"Blood-Curdling Raspberries"

The maybe someday
United States of Europe
came within ten minutes
of a global sports trifecta.

After weeks of dealing
with cycle-doping and
soccer-fixing scandals,
the authorities cleared
the headlines just in time
for Wimbledon and the
World Cup to culminate
last Sunday with only
Europeans left in the
tennis finals and the
football final four with
the Tour de France
not really far behind.

Breakfast at Wimbledon
(so billed on US television)
demonstrated the best
in tennis, with Federer
from Switzerland and
Nadal hailing from Spain
carrying themselves with
a combination of grace
and skill that viewers
seemed to embrace in
a way so very unlike
the spoiled brattish
crude bad-boy ranting
and raving of previous
decades' Ugly Americans
McEnroe and Conners
(whom I must admit the
adolescent boy in me still
likes -- and in fact Jimmy
looked a bit like Roger
though he could not
have acted much
more differently).

The three time defending
champion came out
in his creamy white
custom-made blazer,
and as the crowd
settled into feasting on
traditional strawberries
and cream, Rog rose
to the occasion and
conquered Raf, the
only opponent he's
lost to this year -- every
time they've played.

Both men exemplify
the best in celebrity,
Nadal living with his
brother and sisters
and parents and
uncles and aunts
in a single building
on the little island
of Majorca; and
Federer well-liked
by his peers who
could easily simply
be envious of his
genius, fame and
fortune, but instead
appreciate him as
their game's truly
great ambassador.

Though equally
compelling, the
World Cup story --
taking place at
Berlin's Olympic
Stadium where
Hitler insulted
Jesse Owens, the
black American
who won four
gold medals --
unfortunately did
not have a sweet
fairy tale ending.

Zinedine Zidane,
the captain of the
1998 French winner
returning to the
pitch for his final
game before retiring,
with only ten minutes
left in overtime, head
butted an Italian player
and was disqualified
probably costing his
team the victory -- and
though still receiving the
Gold Ball as the Cup's best
may have tarnished his
place in soccer history.

Subsequently he revealed
that an Italian had taunted
him again and again about
his mother and sister -- which
though too bad, seems to me
to be a part of big-time sport
that a seasoned veteran would
take with a grain of salt and
not be baited into over-reacting,
thereby costing his nation.

Less clear (this part being
denied by the perpetrator)
is whether Zidane -- whose
family was Algerian and who
symbolized alienated Muslims
populating France's under-class
-- was called a terrorist, or even
worse in some circles, his family
were branded as informants
during the civil war against
Mother France; which wouldn't
justify his response but might
better explain why he didn't
take it without severe reprisal.

In any case, today Zinedine's
a mythic hero to some, mainly
Muslims, for defending his people
(e.g., an upbeat song, "Coup de
Boule," or The Head Butt" has been
released); yet to others, he's hated,
deserving only a Bronx cheer, an
undisciplined thug who lost the
single most important success
in the world to his countrymen.

There it is once again, possible
racism raising its head, with
people hypersensitive universally
and everything complicated by a
growing Islamic Christian divide.

I'll be interested to see
over the next weeks
if Lebanese Christians --
who don't support
Hezbollah but nevertheless
get bombed by Israel right
along with the nation's
fifty percent Muslims
who on the whole do
back Syria and Iran's
surrogate --get pissed
enough to start their
own little civil war.

7.13.06

"Entrepreneurs"

So the King asks the Queen,
"Looking back at your success, when did it all begin for you?"

And Number Two replies to the stud,
"About age six back in 1934 when I resold Cokes for a nickel more than I paid."

Then Number One Bill says to Warren (who now owns a chunk of Coca Cola),
"Similar for me; I think when you start's more predictive than business school."

To which the World's Second Richest Man Buffetts at Gates,
"Of course you'd say that -- since you're just a college drop-out...but I agree!"

With twinkles in their eyes, almost in unison they wonder out-loud 'bout the Jack,
"Should we bring Number Three, the Sultan of Brunei into our little colloquy?"

I thought about fifty-five years ago when I was five in inner city Chicago, selling
old newspapers and soda bottles to the junk man's horse and wagon in the alley...

I remembered these stories this morning, watching
a homeless man gather sellable recyclables from garbage cans in my neighborhood.

7.13.06

"Feed Your Head"

Over a mixed seafood grill
of finless scaleless prawns and fried calamari treif
in a Tel Aviv neighborhood hole-in-the-wall
the pale and black, tall and short, blond and dark
blue and brown-eyed miscellany of Jewish women --
so different from the garden-variety uniformity
of white squat dark brown-eyed Ashkenazi girls
who once upon a time juiced us in high school --
turns me on even more than the pack back home.

My new Israeli friend says
he considers himself a citizen of the world:
his parents and theirs and theirs from all over the Diaspora --
Europe, Asia, Africa as well as eight generations here in Palestine --
and his wife's from everywhere too.

Therefore it logically follows
their family's cool existing in many countries
and that they likely plan to move again, soon and often.

Although on paper
our genes appear to've pretty much
been around the same blocks
our heads definitely seem in very different spaces.

Not that I'd consider my wife, children, and me monotonous
(after all that adventuresome backpacking in Cambodia, Bolivia, etc?)
but we've always lived in one spot and in the US except
for the kids' spending student years in Fiji, New Guinea, and Ecuador.

What is it that makes my buddy feel at ease anywhere anytime
and me barely able to reside simultaneously in Palo Alto and Hollywood?

Why the big deal
subsiding in nearby California towns
basically peas in the same coastal pod speaking the same language?

What's the fuss
keeping clothes in two places
bringing bills and check books and cars up and back
forwarding mail, suspending papers and garbage indefinitely -- or not
food rotting and plants wilting and clothes dirty twice
not sure which of four phones I can be reached at
if we should continue this and that insurance
where Netflix should be sent
when I'll see which enemies again
whether it's a good idea to carry my special tea
and homegrown succulent mint leaves
and favorite meditation cushion
and best mechanical pencil
and one pair of pet sandals
along each time in both directions...

poses such a luscious mindgame
for one fundamentally monolingual Chicago-born compulsive American
that he's resolved to explore, if not solve, sitting on his pillow.

7.11.06

"Not Your Man"

Craving a great-grandmother/mother-in-law break
for a timeout, I whisk my grandson
up the urban flatlands square block to where I attended grade school.

The clever baby's most intrigued by the alley, where a grinning ponytailed
Captain Hook with red bandana and granny glasses pulls his black garbage
truck's levers to lift and empty green, yellow and orange plastic cans in.

Looking both ways before crossing Rexford from the west to east side
north of Santa Monica, a "Neighborhood Watch: Top Block 1993" sign --
totally inconceivable during my Pollyanna childhood -- hits me in the eye.

A white and blue Livonia Glatt Kosher delivery van
almost collides with a silver Bentley, as a blond babe contesting
the right of way, shakes her gold fists at a terrified Hispanic guy.

Back in the fifties before kids did freebase drugs instead of Boy Scouts
during free time, Troop 17 met just below Hawthorne in a scuzzy log
cabin soon to be developed into yet another showy Beverly Hills home.

Now an infrequent visitor to these elite parts, I return to old school
haunts for the first time since scrambling over the chainlink fence to
play ball on the playground when each my now grown-up kids was little.

At three and a half months, Simon's way too young to climb, so we
content ourselves watching two snarky boys ignore us, skateboarding on
broken rubber hills labeled "HAWTHORNE VIKINGS" in gold and royal blue.

Even though it's been forty-seven years since matriculating,
I'm shocked at both notions, that either I didn't know our bland school had
a nickname or that a student body 90% Jewish could be so inaptly labeled.

Suddenly feeling very elderly and pale, invisible with a ghostly cold sweat
I hold the world's still perfect future, cooing and nodding at every plant
he wants to shove into his mouth, tightly cradled in my wrinkling arms.

For good reason (having just seen the great bleak Leonard Cohen movie)
I realize I'm no longer the hero of my own drama, life isn't always paradise
or winnable, that time has come and passed to abandon the masterpiece.

As the aging Montreal zenmaster-poet puts it whispering his sweetly-sad
klezmer-minor off-key raspy-can't-carry-a-tune straight-from-god songs,
tonight will be fine (for a while) turning tricks, getting fixed on Boogie St.

Cohen's voice pitches me into memories of owls and lutes, cherries and
fools' gold; last Fourth of July when my fingers burned on Liberty crackers
while red Indians and blacks were thrown to the dogs by hanging auctioneers.

You and I chew Snickers and throw back Buds kicked from vending machines
watching NFL steroided-oafs suffer heart attacks on prime-time reality TV
until gray flannel-suited bankers repo your prefab RV and my color Sylvania.

It's a hell of a country we got here south of Canada, us citizens thinking
big about success and conquest, money grows on trees, truckers parking
where bears run free, and grease monkeys can strive to do the right thing.

7.10.06

"Rainbow Gathering"

Just your usual Los Angeles daydream
summer Saturday, hot and dry
catch your breath, maybe get the car washed.

Whites and yellows and even blacks
all of us colors pull up to the Hollywood Car Wash
where only browns in blue shirts and tan hats do labor.

The thermometer beneath the awning reads 93
but judging from the workers' sweat
it's a good ten degrees hotter out in the midday sun.

While the gold Mercedes, green BMW, etc., move along the line
we owners sit on benches in the shade
sipping free lemonade, eating free popcorn, and reading the free papers.

Some who aren't satisfied just watching the parade go by
zip across the strip mall parking lot
to Rite Aid and Starbucks.

Next door's Out Of The Closet thrift shop
makes all signs bilingual so the Salvadorans and Mexicans
can buy used clothes and appliances during their breaks.

Such is the scene in a world where it seems everybody knows
the poor stay poor and the rich get rich, that those on-top
seize every little edge to their advantage over those toiling under them.

Somehow for a measly $6.99 (more for SUVs, vans, and trucks)
the possessors determine they can play I-Make-Them-Jump
plantation masters entitled to anything they can wish or imagine.

So one guy asks -- rather orders -- his "man"
to remove an I-Make-Them-Jump car battery charger
from the tirewell and clean it up good and quick.

Another requires that his "dryer"
grip a brown buddy polishing another car
to help lift his surfboard out of his trunk so it can be cleaned.

A third oversees the lifting
of his fancy mountain bike out of the back seat
barking "don't mess up the leather" as if he's talking to a dog.

When grease inevitably runs
he screams, "I'm gonna clock this guy!" loudly
and demands to confront the manager to receive reimbursement.

Meanwhile lady patrons drink mint juleps and talk on cell phones -- making
employees waving red-we're-done-flags wait and wait and wait and wait --
then say demurely "You missed that...get this spot...Christ, it's all wet."

What is it about us north of the border Americans
treating our southern neighbors like slaves
seeking every means to get more and more for a measly seven bucks?

I'm feeling so guilty about the old man
standing by my old Volvo for 30 minutes or so in the blazing heat
that I mean to stop him before he Amorals the tires -- and just leave.

Of course when grabbing a rag myself, I succeed only in making him jittery
no doubt worried that he'll become the center of his boss's attention
and that he'll get fired for not keeping up at his age.

Anyway you cut it, I make a mess...
since the silver Bentley in front of me isn't moving anywhere soon
its driver nowhere to be found.

Making the best of a bad deal, I sit down behind my wheel
imagining how Republican members of Congress
must have hallucinated such a stupid immigration policy.

Given the loopy logistics -- no less loony ethical nightmare -- how well
off would the each-man-for-himself US of A be after deporting 12 million
presently breaking their backs for you and me for wages we wouldn't take?

7.9.06

"Puppetry"

I was Edgar Bergen to his Charlie McCarthy.

Or better yet, Paul Winchell -- born Paul Wichin
in a lower East Side Jewish ghetto, the son of Sol and Clara --
to his little boy mannequin Jerry Mahoney.

When I carry my three and a half month-old grandson
upright in the crook of my arm -- me no ventriloquist and he no dummy --
I do feel a bit like Simon's filled with canvas tube stuffing
as his body's still incompletely myelinated nervous system
struggles to figure out how to use its neck, hands and feet.

Each day he seems to make great progress,
his neck strong like the figurehead on the bow of a schooner ship
but organically straining this way and that in the wind
scanning the environment up and down from left to right
inhaling every bulldog or bougainvillea in our path as we walk
with him facing out in his momma's frontpack.

In fact the way he wiggles his fingers and toes
and learns to corral them in his mouth (or his nose)
reminds me most of my favorite of these 1950s TV shows,
the way my hero, the redheaded kid Howdy Doody
moved less than smoothly to the tune of rods, wires, and strings...
although you can be sure
that this strongwilled grandchild of mine
is absolutely nobody's puppet.

7.7.06
"Love Potion Number Four"

If I knew how to brew, I'd bottle it.

You know that thing infants do that's
way beyond newborn reflexive smiles
and grasps that makes EVERYONE
in their presence who's at all clued
in to babyness, ridiculously happy?

I'd pretty much forgotten the ecstasy
of this simple experience since our three
were little, the white magic having lapsed
til my own flesh and blood had her first child.

So I guess maybe my head wasn't all
that clued in during the thirtysome years
between mine and my babies' babies.

That's not to say I didn't like teeny ones
because I did -- and if anything had a rep
as a pretty babe-oriented dad and man.

But something extra seemed to kick
into my ego when the tyke happened
to possess at least a few of my genes.

That's just a fact.

I'm not proud, but that's how it is.

And it's not just me.

Yesterday Simon's mom and her
parents drove him to visit his
three surviving greatgrandparents.

All over ninety and more or less
on inward and downward slopes,
nevertheless within minutes the
tiny guy'd seduced each out for a
bit of human contact and pleasure
that was truly unusual in their lives.

Just lying there on his blanket on
the floor in the middle of us all,
his cooing and eye contact and
tracking our movements brought
a joy that joined us all together
uniquely, warmly and meaningfully.

Although it took a while, the two
"younger" matriarch and patriarchs
eventually held the babe-in-arms;
the eldest, almost a hundred, couldn't
quite muster the energy for touch
but hung in there amazingly well
and unbelievably long anyway.

Not anticipating the magnitude
of our encounter, I hadn't thought
to bring a real camera to capture what
possibly could be the last such chance.

But making do with what we had,
I caught the gist of the spirit on
my cell, which if not ideal quality,
at least I can appreciate and share.

When we returned to our daughter's
home, my dad -- by far the most
with-it of the greatgrandparents --
had already left blissful messages
on my phone and on my email which
I'll keep always alongside the photos:
"We enjoyed the visit yesterday very much.
Most gratifying. Simon is quite the guy.
Thoroughly loveable.
Thanks to all of you for the effort."

What is it about newborn babes
that bring us such contentment,
that serve as deus ex machina to
bind us together, resolving complex
family plots that exist underneath?

Beginning when sitting down to
Fourth of July barbecue with our
recently drawn together ingathering
of daughters and son-in-law, we've
begun a modest probably shortterm
tradition of Simon joining us for dinner.

Parked there on top of the dining room
table in his little chair, smiling and cooing
and making eye contact and tracking every
movement; we bask in the pure happiness
of his still uncorrupted perfect innocence,
knowing full well that it won't last forever...
in fact, usually after a few minutes (which
for all the world feel like an eternity), Simon
grows hungry, fussy and demanding again amen.

7.7.06

"5766 and Counting?"

1.

This begins being pissed
when my early-rising wife
still jetlagged from Israel
wakes me before the 5:47 sun this morning.

"Come watch this!"
she chortles, exhorting
that I forego anger and
tea to watch TV with her.

Exhausted from July 4 family
barbecuing and staying up
really early devouring Philip Roth's
autobiographical Tel Aviv fiction

thinking to myself
this's just ridiculous
but since I can't get back
to bed anyway, I say, "OK."

However, what I then see justifies
(as usual) my spouse's inscrutably
rousing me: nothing less than a fascinating
University of Santa Barbara lecture

by France's latest greatest
rockstar-philosopher Bernard
Henri Lévy about "The Resurgence
of Anti-Semitism in Europe."

2.

In our cute modest duplex rental
we revisit the erotico-intellectual
buzz we felt 33 years ago in front
of the tube every 6 AM catching

the Sams Ervin & Dash Watergate
hearings live EST while pregnant
with a baby who's now the mother
and the reason we're down here

though instead of playing grownup
in the Pt. Reyes National Seashore PST
as firsttime hippy parents, now we're
merely a dreary grandma-pa pair in LA.

Admittedly I hadn't been a Lévy fan
until hearing his shtick (which you too
can watch at http://uctv.tv/ondemand/)
surprisingly onpoint, stimulating, scary

philosophizing about the millenia-old
anti-Semitic clouds now blowing back
over Europe as their newest
post Holocaust-passé souvenir.

Often referred to simply as BHL
since breaking in as a young Turk
Bernie made part of his rep dissing PC French
communists and socialists as knee-jerk anti-Israeli pro-Palestinian.

He counsels that fellow Jews (metaphorically?)
sleep with guns under their pillows one eye open,
keep gold rings in home safes, and be ready to run
when the US Christian evangelicals (read "Bush" in Part 3 below)

sour on befriending Holy Land Hebrews
grown tired of these strange bedfellows
after the short-term apocalyptic fun's done
and like Abraham's goat sacrificed in Isaac's stead

Jews're are scaped again,
if not for past history --
the old jellyroll blues
killing (or creating) Christ, racial and plutocratic reasons;

then for newfangled theories
knit from fulsome cloth by Holocaust deniers,
blaming Zionists as crooks competing for prime-time victimhood,
daring to declare they're still Chosen Ones in Judea and Samaria, etc.

3.

Yesterday's Ha'aretz ran an interesting piece
"America's Weakness" by my buddy fellow progressive Yossi Beilin
which contends, "September 11 and its aftermath,
the war in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq,

and the Iraqi quagmire have resulted in a US nearly entirely absent
from any involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
President Bush has not visited Israel since he was governor of Texas.
...envoys he dispatched...have failed to make the slightest impact.

The administration will grant its blessing
to any Israeli withdrawal on the condition that it
will not commit it to anything,
including any sort of financial expense.

...The United States is cut off from a number of Muslim countries,
doesn't have any form of dialogue with Iran or Syria,
it boycotts the Hamas government,
and all that is left for Rice to do is call Israel, Egypt and Jordan...

When the latest conflict broke out....The United States was not
even mentioned as an option. The White House spokesman on duty did
take the time to inform the world that it was Israel's right to defend itself,
but said it should do so carefully.

Thanks a lot. Really.
A different administration, in a different situation,
would have sent a special envoy... who would shuttle between Syria, Gaza
and Jerusalem, trying to calm things down, threatening, promising, fuming...

The worsening violent conflict in the Middle East
is a blatant reflection of the weakness of the American partner.
At the moment of truth, when Israel needs a powerful third party
capable of moving things in the area,

it turns out
that little beyond the repetitive recitation
of Bush's vision and of the dust-covered road map can be expected,
which neither side intends to actually implement."

7.6.06

"Gravity's Rainbow in a Pynch"

Although my conceit is
that we've always been
a particularly close family

the reality of our two daughters,
one a mother with her baby
and husband, plus the parents

living together again after
so many years, picking watermelons,
what and how to cook, barbecuing

and cleaning toilets, deciding
who does which when, squabbling
and pitching in or not and

all the little forces that
can push atoms apart
or defying kinetic laws

pull us closer to form
a tighter-knit molecule
as we warm up more

I inevitably want it all
feeling a bit sad and
incomplete without

my son and his woman
who're on their way to
backpack in Yosemite.

Still I'm a glass-half-full guy
happy my son-in-law's
becoming a true son to me...

but it's way past time to stop
this whiny self-congratulatory
tedious Hallmark cardish rhyme.

7.5.06

"Independence Day"

1.

The turnkey operation mostly done, finally moved from the motel
into a cute Hollywoodland duplex subleased from a friend of a friend,
filled full of Buddhas and good books and familiar Jewish objects
with lots of leafy trees and birds chirping happily outside,

we're just a ten minute beautiful neighborly walk
from our daughter's family's house up the hill
while the apartment's owner spends his badboy summer away
having Fire Island fun on the other coast.

When I first open the door
(declining to carry my bride of thirty-seven years over the threshold),
a hotter-than-hell blast whacks us back like a two-by-four board
with air built up over weeks behind closed windows and undrawn drapes.

Settling in for the night,
tired and ready for bed,
we find the sheets stripped and pillowcases a bit stinky
presumably residual from relatives crashing here in June.

Which in the big picture's really OK (a quick wash and dry tomorrow)
since sleeping in the buff without covers
seems right tonight anyway
whether we're here or in our homier home (thank goodness for the fan).

Figuring out remedies to the annoying little details
-- the weird smells behind the frig (rat?) and in the air vents (fungus?),
the busted shades, fuzzy TV, broken Internet, and god knows what else --
will have to wait for morning when we've got way more energy to cope.

Waking before daylight, still jetlagged from Israel,
as the sun rises, the rug looks scruffier than I remember
and someone's tracked mud all the way from the entry
into the kitchen and upstairs into the bed and bathrooms.

But magically the Adelphia highspeed modem works again,
all four balls coming up solid yellow like a slot machine jackpot,
so I'm digitally with it (sheepishly admitting to using AOL dial-up
fail-safe in a pinch), and needn't spend July 4 expecting the cable guy.

My better half impatiently splits, leaving the rest to me:
after picking up the watermelon, corn, chicken to barbecue, etc.
I walk the path
to visit with my grandson, son-in-law, wife and two daughters.

Becoming sensitive to renter's life in the big city of Los Angeles,
it's full of surprises I'm just beginning to pick up on:
I've never seen such compulsive paranoia, what with padlocks
on the black and blue and even recyclable green plastic garbage bins.

And since I was a kid here, riding mass transportation
to the beach and jazz clubs before I had a drivers license,
I've noticed the old-time mortuary commercials pitching
a dignified expensive death on every bus stop bench

have been replaced by attractive ads featuring energetic smiling
senior citizens acting forty, that're designed to catch those obsessed
with healthy living into buying costy medical procedures, some good
ideas (colon "c-answer" screening) and some less so --mesotheliomas?!

2.

230 years ago, it may have been more complicated in many ways
than the history (always written by the winners) we learned in school:
an underdog civil war breaking from the world's most powerful country
versus remaining a generally prosperous and faraway independent colony.

African slaves and American Indians often felt they'd get a better shake
from the Brits than the Patriots; passive Loyalists -- whether from belief
or self-interest (their jobs depended on the English) or family ties or
inertia -- were often persecuted and tarred and feathered as seditionists.

75,000 or so fled to Canada or to the West Indies or home to avoid being
ostracized as traitors -- or worse; if Washington (or a lesser man) had
accepted the tempting offer of becoming the first US King George,
possibly the country'd be in a bigger mess than the one it'd been in.

As an upper-class flack wary of uneducated rabble running a democracy,
of the inmates controlling the asylum, said,
" I'd rather have one ruler three thousand miles away,
than three thousand rulers one mile away. "

But, as usual, most folks just ducked their heads down
(some who spoke up had them chopped off and their bodies quartered)
just sticking around to see the winners,
who fortunately came up with the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Sadly today we're drifting fascistic under George II's Unitary Presidency:
Chaney and Rumsfeld're still traumatized by post Watergate executive
restraint, not caring that Alex Hamilton's Federalist Papers vision
lost out to Madison's prevailing balance of powers a long time ago.

7.4.06

"Simon Eyes"

Not having laid eyes on Simon for two whole weeks,
a gigantic piece of his three-plus sweet months out of the womb,
I'm a bit apprehensive he won't still cotton to me now
and worried I'll be cowed if I can't comfort his crying.

I'm concerned he won't shine when we see each other again, that I
won't be smooth and confident when he really needs it, that I'll lose
the polish to soothe him when fussy, somehow that I'm no longer upto
the task of being a good granddad -- in fact that I'll be waxed, Simonized.

7.3.06

"Once Upon Two Times"

Just yesterday twenty years ago
a brash young fop with long mod hair and prettyboy outfits
made the scene, traveling around the land searching for four masters
he felt he must battle to achieve true greatness.

Out of Las Vegas
he followed a brutal path, striving to slay a new dragon
every fourteen days, trying to make it to the Sunday showdown
as the baddest fastest dude around.

During the narcissistic first half of his career he lost his humanity,
but the second half brought it back, as he befriended former enemies,
got the girl of his dreams (a bigger winner) who made him a family man,
and spent time and energy bestowing his bounty on those less fortunate.

Of course, I'm talking about no other than Andre Agassi,
one of the few on the worldwide tennis circuit to win all four grand slams,
who married all-time champion Steffi Graf, and set up
a school foundation to educate kids less fortunate than his own.

Yesterday, he played his final Wimbledon, losing in straight sets
to the new heartthrob on the block, Raph Nadal with his dark good looks
and gigantic bicep guns; but Agassi seems wiser, more ready
than most celebrities for a mature fulfilling post-sports existence.

I'm struck by Andre's reallife similarity to a fictional surreal gunslinger
who also began hairy and bearded and leather-clad: both are Americans,
one from Nevada, the other from Chile; like in a religious allegory,
each shaved off his ego with his hair to see the light of selflessness.

The Chilean is Alejandro Jodorowsky, the Russian-Jewish born filmmaker
and star in a wildly electric Fellini-ish psychedelic 1971 western, "El Topo,"
the mole, who begins as a lonely weirdo gunfighter looking like an old-time
Hassidic rabbi who reinvents himself -- reborn shorn -- through humility.

The heroes labored in the fields of manual labor -- Andre with racquet,
Alejandro with shovel, the mole who in strikingly bizarre tableaus
digs cripples and freaks representing neglected second-class citizens
out of their black nightmare in a broad indictment of Western capitalism.

"El Topo" became a massive word of mouth success, a midnight cult
phenom when it opened -- that is, until the Beatles manager bought rights
to the film, refusing to release it in any form...although surely bootleg
videos or pirated laser discs won't be hard for Andre to find in his retirement.

7.2.06

See sarnatscat2.blogspot.com/ for post 8.6.6 posts

2007-01-27T05:58:00.000-08:00

Today is the day the sun rises in the west

2006-07-03T05:41:00.000-07:00

"Lilies of the Valley"

I flew my wife
from Tel Aviv
to the Tuileries
in Paris France
for a single day
to see the lilies.

We waited peaceably
in a long line outside
Musee de l' Orangerie
on a fine shady lane
under thick leafy trees.

A sad bearded old man
in a tattered old vest
which held an old pipe
played sad clarinet
in a slightly-off minor key
almost in a klezmer way.

A few queued ladies
tried to smile at him
while dropping change
in a plastic bucket
attached to a metal
sheet music stand
next to his mangy dog.

The whole scene
set back against a
fancy aging palace
reminded me very
much of what I
imagined existed
here around 1938
until Vichy-washy
lily-livered Petain's
pilotless ship of state follies.

More important to me
were Warsaw blood
libels and ur-memories
before my family was
dragged off to the
valley of death's
camps and ovens.

I whispered my
nostalgic angry
fears to my lover
but was halted
most abruptly
by the sound of
guttural German
spoken by a nice
couple behind us.

Overcome by
guilt and very
embarrassed
I witlessly called
more attention
to my faux pax
by mocking the
bad situation I'd
brought on myself:

When I cocked
both arms to
offer a formal
waltz position
to my now mad
partner, she
gave me that
I-don't-know-you
aliens-of-uneasy-feet
look, then turned
and walked away.

Eventually we
made our way
into the exhibit.

My expectation --
amazing varieties
of state-of-the-art
greenhouse gardens
of hydroponic white
purebred perennials
with all lotuslike manner
of chaste layered bulbs,
blade-shaped leaves,
and pale single large
trumpet flowers --
proved idiotic.

This was no
living museum like
Israel today witnesses.

This is a
dead museum
like Auschwitz
buried in lilies.

(Do eugenetists
conclude Adolph's
hothouses did us
Jews a favor by
selecting in our DNA's
strongest survival
characteristics?)

I suppose
I like Monet
as much as
the next guy
but wasn't
ready after
a day's travel
for two rooms,
maybe eight
large paintings,
of water lilies.

Me, I'll take
the ones still
alive, growing in
Claude's garden
pond in Giverny
which I last saw
maybe ten years
ago; or canvasses
from the same
batch at MOMA
which I can see
each time I'm in NYC.

Although my body
language may have
hid some disappointment,
my mouth didn't hide
my stupidity at not
knowing this outing
was about Impressionism.

Emphasizing total ignorance,
hopefully I didn't dim my
spouse's enjoyment of the
paintings she'd looked so
forward to for so long.

Afterwards we walked
ecstatically all the way
to Chez Paul on Rue de
Charonne in the 11th
stopping for mint tea
and wine and pastries
and banter with locals.

The French undoubtedly
have a greater appreciation
for civilization's best
than we USA philistines.

This complements their
parents and grandparents
history of acting shabbily.

Every one of hundreds
of TVs visible from the
street is tuned to the
Germany Argentina
World Cup quarterfinals.

A little drunk, hot, tired
I find myself fantasizing
about ex-Nazis and Holocaust
survivors chasing each other
around in immigrant circles on
Buenos Aires soccer pitches.

I update an old DVD
playing over and over
in my head by cutting
and pasting in today's
Middle East conflict
between Jews and Arabs.

Next I mix and match
images to create the
post Munich eunuch,
England.Chamberlain.2
now become Fatah's
poor Abu Abbas, the
Palestinian Prime
Minister deballed
equally by the
Israelis and Hamas.

Over dinner at our
favorite place, an
absolutely vibrant
flashback to a lively
Impressionist setting
of everyday hardy
folks enjoying everything,
writing this down on
a white paper tablecloth,
glancing at a gorgeous
young Gauguin lady
speaking sexy French
across from me...
I wonder if she harbors
half-Jewy worries of
impending doom, living
in relative comfort with a
chronic sense of discomfort,
becoming extermination's
victim in Crusades.IV as an
Eurasian darkly crossbreed.

Early the next morning
we fly home to Amerika.

7.1.06

"This Land Is Your Land, This Land Is..."

Back in the States, Mom and Dad, son and daughters
phone and email understandable worries we're at risk
after viewing clips of the smoldering conflict
in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria.

But on the ground here in Israel life's simply unsimple as usual...
which certainly doesn't mean normal by US standards...
whatever that means (not to mince words)
in our increasingly fascist nation
where even a Bush, er shrub, I mean shlub-controlled Supreme Court
two days ago was compelled to limit his war tribunal powers.

Writing in Ben Gurion Airport, waiting to leave this morning
security is tight but standard with no sign of panic.

Intense chain-smoking Tel Aviv-ians go about daily business
with their third eye of uniformed and invisible gunmen,
graduates of the Defense Force,
always trained to spot potential terrorists.

Yesterday we drove and walked all over
with crowds everywhere and no sign of heightened stress
from Tel Aviv University in the southeast
to Dizengoff Square's prime shopping in the center
to Old Jaffe in the northwest.

Part way down the coast from Tel Aviv to the Gaza Strip
this mixed Arab-Jewish city, one of five so designated,
has a functioning synagogue and ritual mikvah bath constructed in 1760
that Libyan Jews reopened after the 1948 War of Independence.

Walking arm in arm with a Palestinian Israeli friend
seeing that the shadows of our broad-brimmed tan safari hats
look exactly like those of two all-black Hassids further on,
for the first time I feel an equivalent right to the public sidewalk
no need to defer, to move aside climbing the azure blue stairs
framed by the gorgeous azure blue sea and sky.

Taking a break from the midday heat and humidity
which play chutes and ladders with my tired mind and body
and out-of-nowhere turns travel ecstasy into encephalopathy
we enter a head-watering hole with a peaked pyramid glass ceiling
built between two centuries-old stone buildings
whose outer walls now provide the inner decor
for a cool bizarre California-ish flowerchild experience
with Janis Joplin's Big Brother and The Holding Company blaring.

Hydrating me like the hippy waitpeople wet the plants,
as I perk up, my wife asks if I remember
1978 when we were stoned in East Jerusalem?

Embarrassed --
taken aback that my discreet better half'd dare ask such a question --
in front of my buddy, her firsttime acquaintance,
I quip offpoint to quickly change the subject
that that was a long time ago, that I'm now sixty
in this sixties' flashback Bay Area fern bar
except for the Middle East hookah touch.

Smiling that enchanting twinkly green-eyed smile,
with her right hand she pantomimes throwing a ball -- or stone.

Now I get it, that the Jerusalem reference's
to an out-of-the-blue bewildering terrifying rock fight
between a few Arabs and Jews
that felt like we were suddenly transported millennia backward.

I'd instinctively commandeered the driver of a passing car to stop
to shepherd my three year-old and spouse out of danger.

So I duly answered my wife,
"Never before or since have I done anything heroic,"
and she solemnly agrees.

But reminiscing more completely, we recall
that vivid visit as bliss
when boarding in an Arab neighborhood was good.

Our Islamic landlord's daughter baby-sat for us.

His family hosted mine on a daytrip to Bethlehem and Hebron relatives
where we broke bread and my child was showered with little gifts
(we still have an azure blue pot thrown specially for her)
and where today only the most
pistol-toting paranoid provocateur badboy Jewish settlers would go alone.

The window to what we then naively imagined
as an everlasting paradise slammed shut
like the golden (or decadent, depending) sixties in San Francisco.

Making our way back north on the beach promenade
modern Tel Aviv's skyscrapers inform the story of a desert bloomed
beyond a fifty-eight year-old country's visionary infancy
of live-and-let-live collective kibbutzniks planting orange and olive trees
and an early history of the least breach between rich and poor.

Today's harsher reality -- surrounded by larger enemies --
has led to maturing into a worldclass military muscle
with social policies that've created a bustling capitalistic powerhouse
sadly now second among the twenty-two developed democracies
in it's gap between haves and have-nots.
(Guess who's number one?
An unfunny Laffer curve joke:
fifteen years after failing in America
Israel adopts the same economic policies that favor the rich --
precisely those who don't need the help.)

Nevertheless, you do what you can to keep Israeli society civil
with human rights and economic justice and tolerance
for the largely disenfranchised and overwhelmingly loyal Israeli Arabs
who make up a third of the population and wanting to stay
(even if Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Egypt and on and on
would welcome their brethren in, which they don't)
earning a much better living within the green line than they would outside.

Not to be overlooked
Jewish immigrants from Iraq and Iran
and north Africa and the Former Soviet Union have well-founded gripes
ranging from education, health, and employment discrimination;
the minority Orthodox retain our-way-or-the-highway monopolies
on laws governing all Jews religious or not
regarding birth and death, marriage and divorce, and other life-events.

Nevertheless, given the constant barrage of threats and attacks,
we in the New Israel Fund stay the course to strengthen civil discourse.

While many hard-scrabbled Jews
are concerned about being pushed into the sea
before entering our hotel, I jump in just for fun.

On my right are an Orthodox young woman and man
shyly holding hands until they surprise at least me
by kicking off their shoes and holding up black pants and long skirt
to splash around a bit in the Mediterranean.

To my left two Arab women whose heads are covered
much like the Jewish girl's, squirt their three year-olds who laugh.

I wonder if underneath the frivolity,
the mothers are imagining the unimaginable goings-on
not far south on the Gaza coast where their relatives and friends --
some innocent bystanders, some irritants, some destroyers --
serve to torch or reach peace,
turning the Holy Land to Hell or returning it to Eden.

Glancing at a Muslim family picnicking on the same grassy knoll
where Jews also gather to barbecue around their own tribal fire
watching a pack of multicolored runners zip by
I'm energized to stay the middle path course
no matter how fiercely difficult, rather than submit to both sides' extremists.

6.30.06

"A Locked Out Tale"

I rush out the elevator
sweaty post exercise
slip my computer key
into the hotel room slot
and see the green light go on
oh good.

But the door only opens slightly
maybe two inches
as I wonder, what's up?

Somehow
the U bolt inside --
you know the kind
shaped sort of like
_____________
____________) --
that swings out from the wall
over a big stainless steel ball
screwed onto the door
until the male and female ends
clasp together for extra safety
after you're in.

I think
no big deal
since this
always happens
when my wife
is asleep or
in the bath.

So I call her name
and wait and call
her name and wait
and call her name and wait.

Finally I must admit to myself
either no one's inside
or if there is
he/she or/and she/he
doesn't want
to be discovered
by me at least.

But I'm in a hurry
needing to shower
and meet someone for dinner
whose number and my mobile
isn't in my shorts
in half an hour.

So after spending
three or four minutes
fiddling with the fickle device
working to unfasten the metal pieces
by inserting the computer card
to diddle with the moving parts
I give up the ghost.

Lickety split
I reach the reception desk
on the phone down the hall
and an Israeli tells me
he'll send Security
immediately.

Which happens
and the guard
shows up swiftly
neat and slim
in a dark blue uniform.

After trying the tricks I did
equally unsuccessfully
she quickly moves on to
her more sophisticated bag
quite literally.

After bending
my computer key
and almost getting it done
she takes a pocket knife
off her many-gadgeted belt
next to the gun
which is mandatory
equipment here in Israel
and shifts the U bolt
back to where it should be.

Oualah I'm in (alone)
then I'm out of the air-conditioned space
into Tel Aviv's heat and humidity
to greet my friend on the street.

The end.

6.29.06

"Sound and Fury Signifying..."

11 PM on Tel Aviv's silver sands
surrounded by lots of youngsters enjoying themselves
my wife and I sip Heinekens and munch burgers
without cheese because of kosher restrictions on mixing meat and milk.

At first we appreciate a breathtakingly beautiful orange moon sliver
but on closer look the crescent
(which Hieronymus Bosch used six hundred years ago
to emblemize the devil -perhaps Muslims- in his paintings of Christian hell)
appears blood-crossed as the fluorescent waves disappear behind clouds.

Now a few miles south on the beach
I'm almost convinced I can see
firecrackers and smoke like on the Fourth of July at home next week.

From the north come sounds like low flying jets.

On the street everyone agrees that having the
increasingly unpopular US as their sponsor
is becoming a mixed if necessary blessing as well as burden.

When the two of us wobble back to our room soon
Sky News shows IDF fighters strafing the Gaza Strip
to increase the Palestinians' misery index, creating utter chaos
by blowing up power plants, bridges and water sources
and strafing towns with unbearable supersonic booms
as tanks and artillery take out the shoot-and-scoot Qassam missiles
that Gazans lob into southern Israel.

CNN says planes with blue Stars of David overflew
President Assad's ocean palace up in Syria
to send a message that he better not shelter
Hamas' leader whom they're trying their best to assassinate
until the dictator's own best intercept and force them out.

The weak terrorists have played their newest trump card tactics
seizing a soldier as a hostage, then civilians
to prevent peace talks from proceeding
as the Arabs and the Jews play chicken
continuing their endless tit for tat revenge
as both Semitic branches of Abraham's disciples
prepare for their kids to die in impending military and guerrilla actions
fighting for their millennially warring symbols.

6.28.06

"Back to the Future"

In Delhi's Old City
transportation's remained state of the art for centuries.

While Hanoi, Nairobi and La Paz
measure progress in the percentage of folks
moving up the curve to motorcycles then cars,
modern India's metrics boast of a continued reliance
on feet and bikes and fuel-efficient rickshaws
as the way of the future as well as the past.

6.28.06

"Scrambles"

Ditching a board symposium on religious pluralism
I breakfast with a skullcapped young lesbian rabbi from the States.

Enjoying our omelets long in the making (a Japanese businesswoman
clueless to the hotel's morning buffet etiquette jumped in front of
us in the egg chef queue), one mushroom and cheddar, the other
onion and peppers, we heatedly debate the virtues of whether or not
to fund which worthy programs in these hothouse Middle East environs.

She expresses her point of view as I chew on my cod
and classical Israeli chopped cucumber tomato salad.

While noodling her words, I peer out the huge picture window
directly overlooking the Mediterranean Sea.

In front of me on the beach, I see a very little man all in black.

The closer he gets, the more I think he might actually be
whom I'd fantasized from a distance.

In fact, amazingly, he does turn out to be a hypochondroplastic
dwarf Hassid, squat in black gabardine pants and black long coat
with white tzitzit fringes sticking out the bottom
and a black broad-brimmed hat and full black beard like a shovel.

He carries a prayer book, and the bit of reddening pale white face
that shows through perspires profusely.

I'm quite embarrassed and look away before possibly making
eye contact.

Not sure if my companion notices, I don't mention his presence
as his tiny now flesh pink presence passes away down the promenade.

In a daydream, I perceive a beautiful tall thin blond
mermaid emerge from the turquoise sea onto the silver smelling sands.

The skimpy bikini-clad sabra applies suntan lotion
until accepting the side glance offer of a bronze Jack Lelanne-ish
Ashkenazi muscle man in an equally revealing swim suit
to rub some onto her back in an unsubtly erotic way
as their bodies seductively mirror each other,
and I look on Woody Allen voyeurish.

Before pulling my mind back inside the dining room,
what looks like a coal black Ethiopian Jew and a Palestinian Israeli
or Mizrachi Jew (I'm a foreigner who can't tell the difference
between the two oppositional Abrahamic Semites) race by.

This young state that'd fit seven times inside Illinois
and is surrounded by fifteen Arab countries
is a pretty interesting and complicated place.

Then my senses return from the apocalyptic circus
to the Tel Aviv conversation rattling around my head.

6.27.06

"Wrong Side of the Bed"

An altecocker 37 years into sleeping on the right (not my choice),
wonder of wonders, here in France she changed sides by chance.

At first glance I took the stance (or more accurately, reclinance)
perchance our romance might be enhanced with her on the left.

But waking the next morning to sterner reality bereft of that trance,
nevertheless we wandered in Paris, advancing as far as the Marais.

I'd say we easily pranced an expanse of at least fifteen kilometers
keeping eyes open in the now gentrified ghetto for old-time rabbis.

As is proverbially said about when in Rome, we roamed Left Bank book
stalls before financing petit déjeuner then head to the hotel to rest.

After a swell catnap to clear the jetlagged cobwebs still in our heads
we left Ile St. Louis again & strolled ten kilometers or so before tea

Although snoozing on the right (wrong) side of the bed wasn't as sexy
as I'd fantasized, the consequences were more amusing than imagined.

Perhaps I've put the horse before the cart, got it upside down,there's
no actual cause & effect, these're just meaningless pseudorhymes, etc.

Have it as you must,the thrust of what I've artlessly been leading up to
has do with reversed bed correlating with reversed brain sides.

Forever on the right (right) side of bed, she's been more right hemi-
sphered: nonverbal, emotional, intuitive to touch,music, color, shape.

In comparison, I on the left side had more classically understood left
hemispherical analytic,logical,practical, rational, precise qualities.

So here we are walking through Paris suddenly she's insistent we use a
PDA map while I'm happy feeling my way this way & that on the streets

to the Luxembourg Gardens where we took the kids when they were little
to sail miniature boats & play with French children & ride the ponies.

My wife can't recall friends' names we made there but somehow I can &
for some reason I correct her on how to pronounce college & collage

as well as remembering chocolate macaroon smells and moods surrounding
our trips while she raises her voice a bit too loud at tandoori lunch

(any food's OK for me today) asking why Punjabis're considered like us
Jews & god knows why but I seem more interested to talk about babies

& visit Tuilerie Garden's fantastic lily exhibition & compliment her
on the new blouse bringing out the green in her eyes & earrings nicely

& suggest we do nothing but sit and have tea totally relaxed after she
assertively doesn't give a damn about crossing quite against the light

& she's more into museums & churches & talking about Goth teeners
with spiky blue Mohawks and Truffaut's "The Four Hundred Blows" and

how a slice of both fundamentalist Jewish & Muslim women have symmet-
rically gone stylish and sleek underneath their allcovering robes

& all sorts of things that seem exactly backwards from our usual roles
which includes my science-y type A physiciany personality now becoming

a sort of poet not mainly interested if it's good or bad or folks love
or hate it or I should edit or censor cause I don't really give a shit

and at my once-in-a-lifetime request we dance the night away..although
honestly if you look at the thesis of what I spew forth more carefully

it's a Swiss cheese of contradictions, starting with the bogus "left-
handed artist" stereotype(I'm a lefty & my doggerel poesy's exhibit A)

& the left hemisphere'n not factual (which I am more than imaginative)
& my right-handed wife should understands symbols and representations

better which is ridiculous and pretty much sums up how my argument
just jumbles together personal with population-based statistical data

and confuses equally crappy social-biased gender research with brain
side in a mishmash it's way over time to finish with anyway the end.

6.26.06

"Not a Confidence Builder, Oy Veh"

Okay
so financially strapped disinterested Peru, Cambodia, Ghana, etcetera
don't have no agenda of highend management and technology
homeland security screening in place.

But I believed -- as it turns out, naively --
I understood a lot more about the whys and wherefore goings on
in prosperous non-Muslim countries: exhibit one's that the Paris
airport did exactly the opposite of what the US considers basic.

By that I mean it seems a lot more serious than simple contrarian
I-can-do-it-better-than-you nationalism; at de Gaulle they asked me
to take off my belt and load my plastic pen in the bin, and a bored man
asked a few questions, flashed his wand detector, patted me down a bit.

Back in San Francisco the authorities-that-be demanded I take off my
shoes (PLEASE keep your pants up) and load my laptop in the bin (don't
DARE touch that BIC), and no human even desultorily asked any questions
or passed a magic twanger over, or copped even the slightest little feel.

Now it's not a very appealing hypothesis or reality that all these years
and money later -- presumably after testing theories and studying data
-- either or both France and America have it totally right or wrong after
coming to diametrically opposed conclusions -- or at least operations...

Over dinner on the flight out
(although so far thank god there're no hints of highjackings or crashes )
I mention my alarmed bemusement
to the German businesswoman across the aisle.

Her answer
suggested she's got me beat in logic and systems engineering skills,
and proceeded to quiet me down a little: "In Paris, they vary
the safety formats around to always keep potential terrorists guessing."

Which made some sense -- at least more than the totally predictable
procedure each and every of dozens and dozens of times flying from
San Jose -- but what I've just decided is to pay seriously closer attention
when we disembark and then again later in the week embark in Tel Aviv.

6.24.06

"Louvre Oeuvre"

Peeking from Fra Angelica's fifteenth century sweet Jesus foreplay
in I. N. R. I. earthly fealty rose reds and slate grays and heavenly blues,
I look forward to my favorite room in the world,
the orgasmic Grand Gallery of Italian masters.

Each time here, some new sensory feastly happening occurs to me,
be it that Giotto's walled garden symbolizes The Virgin Mary, or
off the main corridor, La Jocanda's smile's become less enigmatic
but superpopular alongside the Da Vinci Code craze and all.

More mysterious is why the winged Victory of Samotrace woman
remains simply compelling though she has no head, arms or feet --
while no one staring at her dares to gaze at the young amputee
gamely using his crutches to get around the sides of the colossus.

Similarly, the Venus De Milo's two stumped arms don't freak people
out as much as the live pair of black tents with eye slits who hold hands
with their kids while their crewcutted husbands wearing sleeveless
green and orange muscle shirts walk behind them oogling other girls.

Although I saw no traditional Hassidic Jewish men covered in black
from head to toe like centuries ago (and not unlike the Moslem women),
the modern females of both Semitic branches often wear chic elegant
outfits which also maintain due religious modesty in the museum.

Even way back then in medieval pictures, the doctors tending to the
already beheaded (soon to be named saints for not renouncing Christianity)
and standing near the assorted sordid body parts and pieces
and the sworded pagan Roman soldiers -- are shown clearly as Jewish.

This morning over my croissant reading the International Herald Tribune
I was struck by a Pew Trust poll that showed Muslims and Westerners
both thought their opposite number was disrespectful to women and
violent -- and the majority of Muslims believe terrorists didn't cause 911.

I watch cute little French boys holding hands,
imagining their American counterparts would rather die than do that;
amidst the background buzz, I fantasize Japanese girls snapping
at each other, "If we spend our time here, we won't be able to shop."

While a porky uniformed guard snoozes in the corner
two sleek tall stylish ladies in tight jeans first admire a portrait
of two greyhounds tied together, then inch their way closer
to actually touching El Greco's King Louis who looks just like Bob Dylan.

After the Hals, Vermeers, Durers, and a Bosch are done; and I've seen
a dozen Christs that look like John Lennon, and one like David Crosby;
and I've gazed at enough wimpled nuns and one reminding me of Marianne
Faithfull; I can't leave without saying hello to the old Venus de Milo.

Why are the French distinct and thin
and us from the US so herdlike and pudgy?
That's not to say I'm still not a bit Franco ambivalent
since they defiled themselves and we Jews in World War II.

After hours with my carilageless knees burning
like metal rims digging into flat tires,
and my fingers numb and swollen like sausages;
it's time to leave.

Why do teenagers preening in black Jagger T-shirts
outside IM Pei's glass pyramid
apply sunscreen at the same time
they're ruining their lives dragging on cigarettes?

On the way home I notice all the tourist kids with
overpriced bronze Eiffel Towers and photos of Jim Morrison
after buying the dreck from Left Band book stalls, and wonder why;
until I realize you've gotta learn somewhere, and their time is now.

I'm so tired I barely notice
a spiky orange Mohawked guy riding his bike
whilst a bald pierced chick on the back
carries a huge French horn in a big pink bag.

6.23.06

"Midsummer Night's Dream"

Here on Ile St. Louis (your morning, my afternoon)
after yesterday's summer solstice La Fete De La Musique
sharing a bun and tea with my love
in our favorite quiet cafe overlooking the Seine and Notre Dame,
life couldn't be sweeter for us

as we wonder how back home
longtime friends are doing
she suddenly dumped after spending thirty years building a close family
(or so we thought),
all tossed away in a flash

when his flesh was spirited by bad karma fairy dust,
a besotted pricked Puck
mad with middle-aged black magic and adolescent discontent
on the eve of tomorrow's druid rite bonfires, celebrating
St. Johann's Night throughout what's now called a Christian world.

6.22.06
http://sarnatscat.blogspot.com/"Franco Israeli Expressionism"

Jetlag haggard
I had to find some exercise quick to revive me.

Fortunately an old stationery bike
was hiding alone in the small hotel's dark cold dingy cellar.

Although there were no fancy telemetry, gears, or computer readings;
the elemental turning of wheels worked just fine.

When I climbed off in my sweaty too shorts, unmatched moth-eaten shirt,
and stinking sneakers; for a second it wasn't clear what country I was in.

Thinking I might be in Tel Aviv,
everything seemed totally copacetic and normal.

But when I realized it was Paris, I veritably panicked at the prospect
of embarrassing my partner as the very worst sort of sartorial avatar.

6.21.06

"Get-It-Off-My-Chest Solipsistic Sour Grapes Two Hours Before Vacation"

No Zen equanimity on my part,
on theirs, no gold watch, not even a cursory insincere,
"We've decided to go in another direction."

After ten years of single-handedly caring for the uncared for
when no one else would, the local nonprofit wheel turns hard and sharp,
the new corporate sheriff in town steamrolling right over now invisible me.

Not that I didn't see payback coming, after my voice-in-the-wilderness
one-on-one meetings with each city council member, doors opened and
accompanied by a highly respected blue-blooded developer-philanthropist

who Cassandralike understood and could explain in convincing detail the
know-nothing do-gooder folly of raising 25 million dollars to house a few
without homes on the world's most expensive real estate, instead of

spending the community's hard-earned money on less chic digs
(my homeless patients scornfully call it the Taj Mahal) nearby that
would be big enough to accommodate hundreds of needy people.

The two of us represented such to elected representatives before
holding the project sponsors' feet to the fire as the only opposition
(except for NIMBYs, fascists and goons) in the public approval process.

Now five years later
when the extraordinary Taj's finally built and almost up and running
comes retribution time where whoever pays the piper calls the tune.

The underfunded dilemma leaves the truly destitute -- the fundraising
glossy materials' original tear-jerking cause célèbre coverboys with no Title
VIII rent subsidies -- sadly still on the streets exactly where they started

while my patchwork clinic (more specifically me) is replaced
by a more comprehensive, really wonderful nonvolunteer healthteam
which in reality is pretty great, and which in theory I totally support...

having absolutely no beef, at least with the substance, but the process
of never being informed -- no less asked if I wished to continue as part
of the services I started and staffed -- is a bitch, especially in the context

of all the other volunteers invited to stay on -- never consulted
once medically about my experience regarding what the homeless need
or their records or transition or triage or conferring with the new docs,

feeling like Holmes' dog that didn't bark, totally in the dark, ignored,
no longer needed, not even a mealy-mouthed thank you very much...
until recently I called their bluff, asked their intent for my services

in September when the Taj opens (as if I didn't know), to which a low
level functionary, his eyes meeting mine with blank stares answered
with some gibberish about not being interested in discussing that at all.

This too shall pass, the retaliation and paranoia and settling of scores
(when the bosses and bureaucrats aren't looking, I'll informally meet
with the new providers whom I actually know and like), and in fact

the only core importance is whether the homeless are winners
or losers, which is why I chose to resign, didn't Samsonlike bring
the house down when I had the chance and power as boardchair.

So reprisals be damned, this is about basic homeless services,
not delicate neurosurgery, and I hope for the best,
and since stability is the key, so I'll just shut up and move on

which is what I've anticipated for well over a year anyway,
migrating huge chunks of time down south caring for
my first grandbaby (and maybe offering time at a homeless clinic).

But I can't pretend
I won't be watching the trends up north
regarding who gets to sleep in the high demand beds

and if the truly needy
who were promised them
don't,

if the outcomes fall behind the curve (which is likely since the housing-
before-services best-practices data's been largely disregarded), don't
show that the major donors' intention to serve the poorest of the poor,

I'll be back in the city council chambers, an I-told-you-so whistleblower
with my influential businessman friend (whom I lunched with yesterday,
watching and waiting and perhaps a little plotting) at my side, amen.

6.20.06

"Felt Tips"

On this fine hot dry clear bluegreen Northern California foresty day,
gathering rosebuds while ye may, confiding Shakespearelike in friends,
we cross the sizzling pavement to a hiking trail on the other side.

A squirrel -- you know those tiny black spring babies
that look like preemies barely able to scamper from here to there? --
appears terribly distraught whimpering at the head of its crushed dad.

It's sad it's life it's dead 'tis better to have loved and lost than never
to have loved at all, I Tennyson a buddy who continues emoting he can't
lose hope for the family matriarch surviving her recurrent brain cancer.

Afterwards, more personal pampering (my delayed Fathers Day gift to me)
than preparing for tomorrow's trip to Paris and Israel,
I drive downtown to my favorite stationery store.

Having been here so many times before, I again engage the maybe grim
prim wellfigured darklyglassed tightlybunned graying lady half my age
to assist in finding yet another perfect 3-way mechanical pen and pencil.

We dabble with different combos, trying each out together,
until mutually arriving at the Faber-Castell red and blue inks
with 7 mm black leads as the implicit answer to my covert dream.

The sleek two-toned gray beauty fits easily into my palm
where the University Arts employee teaches me the tricks of the trade,
how to get the best performance by taking care to treat her well.

After asking me whether I want extra erasers (no) or a box (yes),
instead of handing me the purchase to carry to the cashier,
she herself walks to the register to ring me up.

Wondering whether there's anything else, I consider but reject
birthday cards for my ninetysomething parents (this is the first
year I consider it discreter to wait until a bit later in the summer).

We brush fingers when she hands me the bag and says, "Nice pen, enjoy."
Both of us are embarrassed by the touch, almost blushing at the eroticism
underneath what appears to be only an obsessive writing implement affair.

6.19.06

"E-motions"

For my first Grandfathers Day
each loved one does what he or she can muster and more,
touching me in his and her own special way.

The baby's mother, my daughter down in Hollywood,
deeply fixed into breastmilk pumping then storage
and deeply mixed about returning to work soon,

manages a heroic last second rally
with an Amazon e-card notification
of a wonderful cache of arriving books.

My ninety-something parents
on the last legs of living independently in LA
and not getting out so much to the mailbox

separately e-mail their heartfelt warmth
acknowledging my being a not-so-bad
son and dad and now granddad.

My Oregon backpacking son and his woman
planned carefully for a package of goodies
and cheer to land on my doorstep yesterday.

My dear lifepartner kills the usual two birds with one stone,
sparing me the dread of shopping (which I wouldn't do) while
getting me into shorts and shirts that won't humiliate her all summer.

When our youngest, now a college senior,
swoops home after a first night-on-the-town after finals,
the three of us'll drive to the beach for the afternoon

listening to our traditional sunroof-open family car music
Crosby Stills Nash and Young, and Buddy Holly, and Dylan
which I'll spice up with hot Hassidic reggae rap star Matisyahu

before Pescadero feasting
on gardengrown broccoli cream soup and freshcatch abalone
and homemade strawberry rhubarb pie at our favorite Duarte's.

Driving back over the hill, we'll reminisce and miss dogs now gone that
loved these celebratory ocean trips, and little Simon and his dad, and
anticipate a graduation party then dinner with a friend newly lonely today.

Sometime along the line, I'll call my dad and son-in-law, congratulating
them on their first Greatgrandfathers and Fathers Days; and (embarrassed
a bit by their cards' absence) they'll offer profuse thanks for my snail-mail.

6.18.06

"A Life in the Day"

A Holden Caulfield clone assassinated John.
Then tobacco carcinoma kayoed George.
Newly separated Paul's sixty-four on Fathers Day tomorrow.
(And the chorus as usual's, What about Ringo?)

I spent an ecstatic good today sunshine
inside a fantastic green yellow submarine
playing out of my mind acting naturally
with more than a little help from my friends.

I know it wouldn't have happened at all
if not for those cute mop-headed Liverpudlian boys
who schooled many of us '60's teenagers -- at least me --
to keep score way differently from our parents...

When I get older losing my hair
Many years from now
Will you still be sending me a valentine
Birthday greetings bottle of wine

If I'd been out till quarter to three
Would you lock the door
Will you still need me, will you still feed me
When I'm sixty-four

You'll be older too
And if you say the word
I could stay with you
I could be handy, mending a fuse

When your lights have gone
You can knit a sweater by the fireside
Sunday mornings go for a ride
Doing the garden, digging the weeds

Who could ask for more
Will you still need me, will you still feed me
When I'm sixty-four
Every summer we can rent a cottage

In the Isle of Wight, if it's not too dear
We shall scrimp and save
Grandchildren on your knee
Vera Chuck & Dave

Send me a postcard, drop me a line
Stating point of view
Indicate precisely what you mean to say
Yours sincerely, wasting away

Give me your answer, fill in a form
Mine for evermore
Will you still need me, will you still feed me
When I'm sixty-four.

6.17.06

"The Love Question"

Buddhism's five precepts for ethical living
include one primarily about harming self (no intoxicants)
and four primarily about harming others
(no killing, stealing, lying, sexual misconduct).

In reality the principles are admittedly quite complexly intertwined
(after all, didn't the nonviolent, nontaking, nongossiping celibate monk
proceed to break all the rules when he got drunk?), and although all
are interesting, I'd like to explore the very last on the list a bit more.

In the Buddha's day, sexual misconduct referred to involvement with
someone under another's guardianship or in a committed relationship;
it's changed over the millennia depending on different cultural norms,
but has always continued to mean not doing harm to self and others.

Strict constructionists establish a redline rule: sex only in marriage.
Liberal interpreters see a mirror, not a barrier, with a rainbow of
possibilities: open marriage can be fine if explicitly agreed, loving, kind
and compassionate without suffering, hearts settled in contentment.

But beware of Dylan's weapon words in "Memphis Blues Again,"
"Your debutante just knows what you need, but I know what you want,"
from the typical scamartist shamtantric guru's inflexible absolute
transgression, be it in the form of aggression or withholding,

"I know what you need-- and it's me!"
while really just abusing a trusting innocent
who afterwards, no longer naive asks,
"How could something that feels so good be so wrong?"

6.16.06

"Letting Genies Out of Bottles?"

John Keats got it totally wrong two hundred years ago.
The Grecian Urn's just flat-out plain broken.
Although I'd like to believe his beautiful poem,
woe to those deluded by the romantic ode,
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

Thirtysome years ago as a Stanford medical student
I was shocked when William Shockley, who'd received
the Nobel Prize for inventing the transistor, almost
got his head chopped off by the faculty senate intellectuals
for hypothesizing that smaller cranial size correlated with lower IQ --
and specifically that this had a lot to do with Afro-Americans' plight.

I was very naive, believing that the role of academic institutions
was to nurture free speech and thinking no matter how
politically incorrect or even crazy -- and in Bill's case, let colleagues'
methodology test his ideas to determine whether they were worthy
of consideration or pure Hitlerish racial demagoguery
or fraudulent like all the Utah gibberish about cold fusion.

Admittedly I was glad that Shockley was eventually discredited
but I was never sure it was for the right reason -- that the proposal
didn't hold scientific water rather than because it was too controversial
to consider seriously: ten years ago, Charles Murray's bestseller
"The Bell Curve" again raised the ugly argument that African-Americans'
lower than average IQ scores had genetic as well as social components.

Yesterday's New York Times ran a delightfully provocative piece on how
genes are linked to behavior, how recent studies in peer-reviewed journals
demonstrate (although a causal relationship hasn't been shown) that people
with specific variants in certain genes are more likely to manifest those traits:
for example, AVPR1a and SLC6A4 correlates with dance talent, neuroD2
with risk-taking, fruitless with sexual orientation, and DRD4 with sexual desire.

Today's Wall St. Journal front-page headline screams, "Head Examined:
Scientist's Study of Brain Genes Sparks a Backlash -- Dr. Lahn Connects
Evolution In Some Groups to IQ; Debate on Race and DNA": the young
scientist says he's moving away from his research showing genetic changes
taking hold and spreading widely in Europe, Asia, and the Americas weren't
common in sub-Saharan Africa, "It's getting too controversial."

What's good for my goose is good for my gander: if I use
science to validate theories I support, such as the role of
manmade greenhouse gases in global warming, shouldn't
science similarly prove or disprove theories I don't prefer --
and let the chips fall where they may, the apparent "truth"
prevailing while constantly being challenged in an iterative process?

6.16.06

"Where Have All the Flowers Gone?"

Ten years it's been
looking after homeless folks'
quirks and needs and diseases

ten years of attending
to the silent risk factors
of cigarettes, hypertension, and diabetes

ten years it's been as important
caring for my patients' often unspoken hearts and souls
as their bodies' noisier livers and coronary arteries.

Times have changed
and I'm weaning us
from my weekly practice

which has given me
way more than I
could ever offer.

Before closing the door for good
(if there only were one plus a ceiling
out here on the sizzling summer pavement)

we're pampering ourselves
with a farewell oldies' tour
that'll last through June.

Lots of laughs (when Gail's bipolar mutt
jumped on the table to grab the sausages
that shocked Stanford students'd just cooked)

and reminiscences (right there on the street, resuscitating my favorite
'60's brilliant radical hippy in trademark gray beard and ponytail, rainbow
tie-dyed hairband, granny glasses, love beads, boots and jeans jacket outfit)

and tears (Peety and Rashawn and all the others who did themselves
or were done in long before scoring their three score and ten,
all the spare funerals attended only by a few drugged people).

But today's really cheerful
as I check in on my buddies
doing what can be done to get us ready for our separate futures.

Normally I ask a case worker or trustworthy client
to clean wounds and apply bandages, but as I said,
now it's more about pampering than efficiency.

So on our final laps together
around this glorious adventure
I do what I've always wanted to do.

Not delegating,
I bend down on my knees
with the Betadine and gauze pads and paper tape and scissors

washing elfin Brucie's drunken fall's filthy stinking feet,
lovingly applying antibiotic cream and
making it all look pretty as a picture.

Smiling up at my ripened friend, laying on hands,
I'm awfully embarrassed when instead of calling me Doc as usual,
he softly whispers in my ear, "Saint Sarnat."

6.15.06

"Vitamin See"

Every once in a blue moon as a medical student
twice Nobel Laureate Linus Pauling and I'd find ourselves
munching our brown bag lunches alone in silence
in an empty cubby off Stanford's Cardiology Clinic.

Little did I know that when
he'd open his thermos to wash down a humongous bunch of pills,
his fine old brain was incubating a hunch
that vitamin C will be good for the common cold.

Since then I myself've become a big vitamin fan of
senior-one-a-days without iron
and another to thwart macular degeneration
and assorted goodies to prevent heart disease and cancer.

Although there're always controversies
based on the quality of clinical effectiveness data
I'm a staunch believer in the mind-blowing results of several,
including A, C, D, E, and particularly several types of B and K and X.

Yesterday's New York Times business section
ran a front page piece about a new and improved kind of vitamin C:
Eli Lilly smells a fortune in its #2 impotence drug Cialis (big blue V's #1)
as a once-a-day version to replace the current on-demand application.

With the current market so flaccid, so flat, so limp
selling a drug that strengthens erections by blocking an enzyme
that slows the flow of blood to the penis is good business
(not a joke from one of Philip Roth's Zuckerman books).

If approved by the FDA, the daily dose will contain
a tad more tadalafil, vitamin C2's active ingredient,
allow more spontaneity in the user's sex life --
and generate a cool fifty percent more revenue per patient.

In addition, it may prove
to have broad cardiovascular benefits once-daily
inhibiting other blood vessels all over the body
and possibly treating high blood pressure.

Do you too see
this Madison Avenue miracle of modern science
bringing about a sea change in how we live --
if not in the mind's eye, at least in the penis' ?

6.14.06

"June Gloom"

After World War II's Holocaust
Nathaniel West's '30's
Locusty Lonely Hearts LA
became Raymond Chandler's
west coast almost Eden for us Jews among others.

At least that's the reverie
that drove our family's
old Chevy from Chicago
across the Great Plains and Rockies to the Pacific Ocean
to cast our lot with wave after wave of Southern California émigrés.

Although smoggy reality intervened to cloud once clear vision
our piece of that rock's combination
natural desert and manmade Mediterranean
still beat the pants off
those Midwestern winters and summers.

Paradise revisited after fortysome years away,
west Los Angeles looks more like an armed camp
than an Everyman's heaven:
the rich white in their castles,
the poorer other colors at the gates.

As an adolescent, window bars were meant to keep me in.
Now each house is a fortress
of iron and electrical systems
meant to keep riffraff out unless
they've got passwords to work on the lawns or in the kitchens.

Rugged individuals, every man has his own central alarm company.
Driving very slowly down my childhood block on Maple Dr.
(worrying that the police or private guards'd stop or accost me),
I see warnings from Global Custom, Strike Force, AB, Bel-Air, Westec,
Armed Security, ADT, Brinks, Protection One, Edison, and on and on.

What is the rapture, the ecstasy, the bliss in existing in such a separate
and unequal cloud nine dreamworld live-alone-then-die society?
On the other hand, this seems to be the wave of the future
with walls disconnecting us all the way
from the Mexican border to Beverly HIlls?

6.13.06

"Midnighter Rambler"

As a youngster
I was not one of the braver
or most popular
or a social climber
or among the hang looser.

My parents were bickerers
(e.g., about whether
or not to uncover
the plastic slipovers
from the sofa's corners).

What they weren't is coddlers
not caring much if I'd blubber
and bluster
about their not inviting kids to stay for the night after
my birthday parties were over.

As a teenager
I was a bit abler
at collegial bedtime banter
and a defter
getter-alonger.

Anyway that's what I aver
and remember
at least compared to my little sister
who was blander
and even more of a bragger.

As a 1960s bachelor
radical chic hippy hugger
I developed an ardor
to author
a gazillion opposite-sex sleepovers.

In all candor
they were the only pleasurable anchor
to a life that otherwise couldn't be grubbier
as a medical student scrounger
barely surviving as a very late blooming preclinical scholar.

That summer
I became an ambler
a hitchhiker
a Canadian draft dodger
all the way to Vancouver.

Settling down thereafter
the next winter
back in school I fell for
my one-and-only girl, originally as lover
and soon thereafter bride forever.

We learned to lower
our mutual armor
and simultaneously to be bolder
in our pre-baby capers
such as, looking for internships, sleeping in Iowa corn fields together.

Being a member of a repressed family of origin might well auger
my own converse parental tendencies as a liberated boomer
when the wife and I amped up our home's generative splendor
and warmth, opening it fully to a son and one then a second daughter
to encourage their friends to stay with us over and over and over.

As we five all grow older
the night venues alter
to sleeping bagging it yon and hither
from national parks like Jasper
to the Amazon, Chang Mai, Baja, Burningman, and even wilder.

Now I'm white eyebrowed and balder
and a bladder
dribbler
and a feebler
codger.

Recently my spouse and I, after a bit of a bender
decided discretion was the better
part of valor
so near the age of sixty, we did an unplanned sleepover
at friends we first knew as fellow anti Viet Nam War demonstrators.

These days, the capper
is now down south in LA where we couldn't be fonder
as new grandparents of little Simon, who also can be a big bawler...
I've taken to leaving pajamas and toothpaste in the trunk of the car
so when his mom and dad've had it, spur of the moment we stay over.

6.11.06

"Tumbleweeds"

After twelve weeks and a day living out of suitcases, here
and there, first circling waiting for grandson Simon's birth,
then hanging out, sometimes in our daughter's family house
and garden and sometimes Hollywood motels and sometimes
even back home where here's there and there's here, all mixed up
really, home in all or none depending on that day's outlook but
in any case the way it was and way we wanted to be mostly, now
waking this first morning in our duplex rental ten minutes
from the baby, happily surprised birds chirp in the new neighborhood,
we unpack and begin to lay down a few more deep roots.

6.10.06

"Big Love"

The HBO Original Series don't got it all covered,
ain't got polygamy cornered just portraying Utah.

Kamla Abu Zeila's no saint -- latter day or otherwise --
but she sees polygamy poisoning the Negev Desert's Bedouin.

Although she's concealed from top to toe in flowing modest garb,
her eyes shine with a playful glint.

There's an unexpected flirtatiousness in her manner as she asserts,
"My husband would not dare marry a second wife."

K won't say it, but her self-confidence clearly implies,
"I give him everything he needs."

Steeliness enters her voice as she adds, "Before we got married,
I told him that if he ever took a second wife I would leave him.

That's not easy for a woman in a traditional society.
But he knows I'm not bluffing."

In Rahat, the Negev Bedouin settlement where Abu Zeila lives,
the threat of polygamy is very real.

"No scientific survey hasbeen undertaken, but certainly
over half of the men in Rahat have more than one wife."

Polygamy is illegal in Israel, but the authorities
generally do not enforce the law in the Bedouin community.

Partially due to polygamy, Bedouin have the highest birthrate in Israel,
contributing to their very high levels of poverty and deprivation.

When I visited what the Israeli government brands an "unrecognized"
village two years ago, it was basically used as a toxic waste dump.

The level of development compared unfavorably to places like Cambodia
Kenya, and Guatemala; with no highway commerce, not even bicycles.

Abu Zeila is the 2006 recipient of the Yaffa London-Ya'ari Scholarship:
she plans to use the money to produce a movie on the polygamy tragedy.

"Some of the men who take a second wife are university educated
In fact if you are wealthier, it is easier to take a second or more.

I suppose the idea of having more than one woman sounds very attractive,
to men, but it's a tragedy for the first wife and her children.

Usually the second (and third and fourth) wives
and eventually the man himself suffer too.

There is a terrible jealous struggle between the wives,
and the children of the woman out-of-favor become neglected."

Abu Zeila and a group of friends founded Tsaad Kadima (A Step
Forward) for the Promotion of Education and Society in the Negev.

They believe in female empowerment and that the Negev community
can evolve into a more just society in terms of sexual equality.

Her first movie told the story of an illiterate Bedouin woman
who's unable to help her son in first grade learn to read and write.

But aided by her friends, she manages to learn
to read and write and is then able to assist her son.

I'm on my way to Jerusalem New Israel Fund board meetings to raise
consciousness and support for Kamla's worthy causes among others.

If you'd like to learn more, let me know,
or check out http://nif.org/

6.9.06

"A Treasured Chest"

My old green
Volvo's trunk
holds much to
be grateful for.

I open the gray
top up at least
twice a week
I'm in town.

Monday nights
I remove my
orange zafu to sit
with dharma friends.

Then Thursday mornings
the black bag affords me
great pleasure practicing
medicine at the homeless shelter.

Each habit's good in itself
and also dress rehearsal
building red muscle for how
I want to be out in the world.

6.8.06

"Jack Sprat Could Eat No Fat; A Womb Built For Two?"

Babies can be really funny without trying.
Last night I giggled at twins who exploited their mouths so differently.
While one sucked and sucked on a baba, looking like a chubby Oliver Hardy,
his way-thinner non-identical brother was Stanley Laurel's spitting image,
just grinning and grinning at their mother.

This morning witnessing my eleven week-old grandson wake in his crib,
quiet alert, cooing and beaming tucked under his blankie,
I feel a kinship thicker than blood,
a serious craving to climb in alongside
to savor timeless contentment doing nothing together.

6.8.06

"Decay and Mea Culpa"

Waiting in line...

behind seven elders, I feel like a veritable child
watching my Coming Attractions at the movies, listening
to five of them muddle and whine to a saintlike pharmacy tech
basically about what a dirty dark bitch life north of ninety is, while
the other two are happy as larks (at least one has dementia).

At sixty, my testosterone's generally gone a bit south,
but on special occasions (e.g., being shafted and hassled
by Medicare's new drug coverage) I can still rally clean white anger,
which as it turns out -- if observing the non-statistical Rx sample's
significant -- will get lost in the wash over the next three decades.

Queue dreaming...

anger's what seems to happen when I'm hurt or afraid: back in the day
when I was hustling a pressured career, juggling home responsibilities
with making it for myself and the family, back to the house after
a two hour commute, sometimes I'd just explode for a second -- and
like a burst boil, poof, everything was fine immediately thereafter.

For me, that is. Although maybe better than festering equations
(delayed frozen anger = resentment), my decompressed pus
evaporated into a miasmic gas that often covered the wife and kids
in a terrible toxin which they absorbed, couldn't wipe off; I didn't
know this til years later, and have worked hard on it ever since.

6.6.06

"Aspiration Pneumonia: AIDS At 25"

Although sometimes quiet, shy and healthy,
at other times my noisy aspirations choke me short of breath.

They want it all now,
want it quick, cheap, and easy.

Not the kind of upmarket retail therapy thing
that constant chichi craving to consume anything to soothe my nerves.

My drivenness is less shallow and real,
less about tangibles than fundamental human rights fantasies.

I aspire to inhale physical knowing, stillness, silence, emptiness;
aspire to plumb way down deep into my most basic intentions...

Frankly it never occurred to me that Bono (wearing his famous rose
colored wraparound glasses), charmed Billy Graham's boy Franklin,

who then convinced Jessie Helms,
who then convinced Dick Cheney,

who leaned on Bush to fund (at least in principle)
African bush wholesome wholesale basic retroviral triple therapy for AIDS --

all cause Bono, being a good Catholic (and doing whatever it took)
could quote chapter and verse from the Christian Right's Good Book.

Resultantly, a few immunocompromised Africans live into life's prime,
aspiring to live without drowning in CMV PCP TBC alphabet killer soup.

6.6.06

"Tinker To Evers To Chance"

Why were we joined at the hip in the mall?

Why does she drive so slowly with my car behind?
Why can't her oxygen-tanked walker scoot across the parking lot quicker?
Why won't she move faster picking a laxative bottle off the Longs shelf?
Why's she taking so much time at the pharmacy counter, given the line?
Why is she gabbing on and on to seemingly no one about prices years ago?
Why won't she go elsewhere instead of shopping next to me at Safeway?
Why does she wait to grab the same high fiber oatmeal I reach for?
Why did she also decide to buy new $.39 stamps at the UPS Store today?
Why do I remember first-class cost three cents when I was born 1945?

Why is it
I didn't notice
a forty year-old guy's
been equally upset with me
each and every step of the way
as I was with the eighty year-old lady
until burning rubber, he zooms ahead at the gas station?

6.5.06

"Points of Light"

I spend much time alone in my quiet home office
overlooking a wild oak and Japanese maple forest.

The walls are covered with photos of six generations of those I love,
some of whom, like boyhood hero Sandy Koufax, I really don't know.

I'm constantly adding commemorative momentos -- family trips and
kids' marriages and most recently grandson Simon's fetal ultrasounds.

Nearby are prints of Bolivian backpacking and a Baja roadtrip with my
son, and coming down Disneyland's Splash Mountain with my youngest.

On my own, I almost never subtract anything; but every once
in a while, my wife compels me to weed out my visual garden.

The desk is actually a small rosewood table from our first
dining room that we outgrew almost forty years ago.

After many decades, my spouse gave me a fine brown and black
leather blotter with the initials GDS in gold tucked in the lower right.

To its and the laptop's left -- to the right of the fax machine and printer --
is a little Lao Dawood box I got in Luang Probang after dawn alms rounds.

I bought the exquisite hardwood, and an equally prized one
for Simon's mother, on our second father-daughter trip to Asia together.

A wonderful snapshot of us with two of her dear college friends, all
holding up colorful Cambodian umbrellas in Angkor Wat, hangs elsewhere.

My 90 year-old mom, who looks down with my dad from our 2003 San
Diego Zoo excursion, just gave me her life's pen and pencil collection.

One stationery lover to another, I keep her favorites in the Asian box,
and I peek at them frequently when contemplating my daily writing.

Last week when visiting my parents,
my mother suggested I begin to use the fountain pens now.

"Life goes by so quickly. If I were you, I wouldn't wait to enjoy the
green tortoise shell Waterman and wood inlayed turquoise Fujiyama."

6.5.06

"Masks"

When Dalai Lama calls the faithful,
half a million strong pilgrimage to Bhod Gaya,
the Indian village in which the Buddha is thought
to have attained enlightenment.

Some devout followers
spend years on this spiritual journey,
circumambulating Mt. Kailash on the way,
trekking thousands of miles over the Himalayas.

Many wore masks to keep out the cold
while others prostrated their bodies
down every single step
on the stony snowy ground.

During the Kalachakra initiation --
a twelve-day ordainment that centers on creating
a "wheel of time" mandala out of sand --
monks use masks so their breath doesn't shatter the delicate patterns.

Even in the moderate conditions of the general compound,
many cover mouths with masks, practicing purification
by keeping to the sacred precept against killing
in the Jain extreme (e.g., inhaling invisible insects).

Vendors who hawked masks back in Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City
and Varanasi to avert pollution and to fan ladies' vanity
by protecting their light skin from the sun, do well here selling
to those scared of contracting Asian bird flu.

One or two of the few Westerners present hang fancier high tech
facades on the front of their emaciated skulls to delay AIDS
or leukemic infections during endgame quests away from confusion,
toward liberation at death.

The rest of us camouflaged rich Americans and Europeans possess veils
too, our rugged individualistic faces commonly trying to conceal hard
for soft, more repressed than open, masquerading as happy
but hiding sad underneath.

Despite the pretense of equanimity, somehow we often seem to manifest
less lovingkindness for self and benefactors -- no less enemies -- than
all the undisguised poor folks living communally,
owning practically nothing.

6.4.06

"Burning Desire"

June sky, bone dry,
Dharma tripod, go inside

Soul breeze, mind's eye,
Heart tears plumb my hot coals.

6.4.06

"I-Read-The News-Today-Oh-Boy 401: Asian Mice That Roar"

While the blah-so-what horticultural headline
tucked way inside the weekend Wall Street Journal --
"New Fruits Get a Sugar Rush: to compete with snack foods,
breeders cater to consumers with a sweet tooth" --

captures America's insatiable soft underbelly for vibrant and juicy
new Cara Cara oranges; Pink Lady apples, denser and crisper
than Golden Delicious; Grapples, Washington Fujis dipped in
Concord-grape flavored solution; Bambino Mini watermelons, etc.;

the front-page above-the-fold what-me-worry? cutting-edge piece,
"The Andover of India? Graduates from Doon Score Top U.S. Jobs,"
tells the powerful story of how India's elite (including scholarship kids
not from Gandhi or industrialist families) compete successfully with us.

Shifting a bit north and east, direct from Shanghai,
the New York Times' Howard French clues us in to
Freezing Blade, Quiet Moon, Bronze Mustache,
Spring Azalea, and the World of Warcraft in today's China...

'It began with an impassioned,
5,000-word letter on one of the country's most popular Internet
bulletin boards from a husband denouncing a college student
he suspected of having an affair with his wife.

Immediately, hundreds joined in the attack.

"Let's use our keyboard and mouse in our hands as weapons,"
one person wrote, "to chop off the heads of these adulterers,
to pay for the sacrifice of the husband."

Within days, the hundreds had grown to thousands,
and then tens of thousands, with total strangers forming teams
that hunted down the student, hounded him out of his university
and caused his family to barricade themselves inside their home.

It was just the latest example of a growing phenomenon the Chinese call
Internet hunting, in which morality lessons are administered by online
throngs and where anonymous Web users come together to investigate
others and mete out punishment for offenses real and imagined.

In recent instances, people have scrutinized husbands suspected of
cheating on their wives, fraud on Internet auction sites, the secret
lives of celebrities and unsolved crimes...

While Internet wars can crop up anywhere,
these cases have set off alarms in China,
where this sort of crowd behavior has led to violence in the past...

Many draw disturbing parallels to the Cultural Revolution,
whose 40th anniversary is this year, when mobs of students taunted
and beat their professors. Mass denunciations and show trials became
the order of the day for a decade.

In recent years, the government has gradually tightened controls
on the Internet, censoring popular search engines, like Google and
Technorati; employing thousands of Web police officers; and requiring
that customers at Internet cafes provide identification.

There has been recurrent talk by the government of registering
all Internet users, and many worry that a wave of online threats
and vigilantism could serve as a pretext to impose new limits on users.

The affair of the cuckolded husband first came to public attention
in mid-April, after the man, who goes by the Web name Freezing Blade,
discovered online correspondence between his wife, Quiet Moon,
and a college student, Bronze Mustache.

After an initial conversation, in which he forgave his wife,
the man discovered messages on his wife's computer
that confirmed to him that the liaison was continuing.

He then posted the letter denouncing Bronze Mustache,
and identifying him by his real name.

The case exploded on April 20, when a bulletin board manifesto
against Bronze Mustache was published by someone
using the name Spring Azalea.

"We call on every company, every establishment, every office,
school, hospital, shopping mall and public street to reject him," it said.

"Don't accept him, don't admit him, don't identify with him
until he makes a satisfying and convincing repentance."

Impassioned people teamed up to uncover the student's address
and telephone number, both of which were then posted online.

Soon, people eager to denounce him showed up at his university
and at his parents' house, forcing him to drop out of school
and barricade himself with his family in their home.

Others denounced the university for not expelling him,
with one poster saying it should be "bombed by Iranian missiles."

Many others said the student should be beaten or beheaded,
or that he and the married woman should be put in a "pig cage"
and drowned.

"Right from the beginning, every day there have been people
calling and coming to our house, and we have all been very upset,"
said the student's father, who was interviewed by telephone but
insisted that he not be identified by name, to avoid further harassment.

"This is an awful thing, and the Internet companies should stop these attacks,
but we haven't spoken with them. I wouldn't know whom to speak to."

In hopes of quieting the criticism, Bronze Mustache issued
a six-minute online video denying any affair with Quiet Moon,
whom he is said to have met at a gathering of enthusiasts
of the online game World of Warcraft.

At the same time, Freezing Blade has twice asked people to call off
the attacks, even joining in the denials of an affair — all to no avail.

At its height, the Bronze Mustache case accounted for huge traffic
increases on China's Internet bulletin boards, including a nearly 10 percent
increase in daily traffic on Tianya, the bulletin board with the most users...

Zhan Jiang, a professor of journalism at China Youth University
of Political Science, in Beijing, said: "As freedom of expression is not
well protected here, we have to choose the lighter of two evils.

The minority who are hurting other people in such cases
should be prevented, but this behavior should not disturb
the majority's freedom of expression."

But there are obvious drawbacks to unfettered discussion,
as the Bronze Mustache case illustrates.

"What we Internet users are doing is fulfilling our social obligations,"
said one man who posted a lengthy attack on the college student
and his alleged affair.

"We cannot let our society fall into such a low state."

Asked how he would react if people began publishing
online allegations about his private life, he answered,

"I believe strongly in the traditional saying that if you've done
nothing wrong, you don't fear the knock on your door at midnight." '

6.03.06

"I-Read-The-News-Today-Oh-Boy 301: "New Lease on Life..."

...is today's front-page feelgood local headline
below which pictures of alcoholics previously without housing
supposedly now with the program, getting along fine, recovering
doing menial tasks cleaning bathrooms and sweeping streets.

Which is all fine and dandy and sweet, except for the fact
that it isn't really fundamentally true: if you look at the large denominator
with unmet needs instead of cherry-picking a cute numerator of the few
success stories, you'll see most folks remain with neither leases nor homes.

If you don't believe me,
just visit my parking lot homeless clinic
where I experienced gritty reality
after reading the warm and fuzzy morning paper.

Since I was here last, everything's become a bigger mess,
with staff turnover so high and budgets and morale so low
that no one in charge really knows or cares any more
what the hell's going on.

When I asked for some help triaging a severely mentally ill woman
(with excellent Medi-Cal insurance) who spend last night in jail
misdiagnosed as stoned, then dumped in the park without her medicines,
the case managers had no idea how to find a live mental health worker.

I spent over an hour calling around, mainly meeting dead-end software
and answering machines and interminable waits, begging the rare voice
who picked up to patch me through to a psychiatrist, always met with yet
another 800 number or, Please leave a message, I'll call you back (never).

Finally, having exhausted my network and IOU's,
realizing if I told her to go to one of the two county hospitals
that she couldn't or wouldn't or'd leave after a few hours,
I put her in the car and drove over to the Stanford ER myself.

When I returned, two Rubys -- one a black teenager, the other an elderly
lady from Delhi -- were arguing with two Chinese-speaking women
whether they were related. I gave Jack antibiotics for a horribly infected
gangrened leg, which he didn't let me see cause he had on no underpants.

I spent another hour filling out endless idiotic forms any social worker
could but obviously preferred not to, for Jewel, a huge dear bright guy
who's spent much of his life in San Quentin, can't read any more, been
applying for Medicare and SSI for years for strokes and a brain tumor.

And on and on, a supplicant on alms rounds,
a tiger at the gate, a hen sitting on her eggs, bringing the work of
human kindness alongside my baggage, losing my patience,
wondering if I should just get in line, go insane next to my patients.

6.1.06

"Post Memorial Day Election Season"

With Dubya's public standing at a nadir
and Gore reappearing on the world stage to great nostalgia,
POTUS' new chief of staff seems intent
on improving appearances, if not reality.

Joshua's Bolten out of the gate fast,
making June jaunty, not waiting for Labor Day to wind up
the midterm Republican campaign, making changes left and right, with
even liberal Dem Schumer supporting his new Goldman Sachs Treasury Sec.

Yesterday's overtures for direct negotiating with Iran apparently represent
an about face, a facelift in George's foreign policy, although realistically
it's likely to fall flat, unlikely to lead to Condi's folks sitting face-to-face
to negotiate meaningfully with off-the-reservation Ahmadinejad's people.

Today's press conference represented an openness
we haven't seen in ages: fresh press secretary Snow seems to
have energized Bush into looking charming, confident, robust,
even articulate...if you exclude that old nemesis "nucular."

The President seemed sincere and on top of his facts in calling for
the rule of law regarding our military engagement in Afghanistan
and Iraq: I was almost convinced he means it when he says we need
to correct his Holy Grail's Abu Graif and Guantonamo mistakes.
"Post Memorial Day Election Season"

On top of all that, his recent prime-time comprehensive immigration
speech struck me as the only policy in six years worthy of his high
office, perhaps the single area where he'd had experience
and actually cared about back as Governor of Texas.

What a shrewd move to position himself
right in the middle, with the far right seeming hardhearted
about deportation and the left too wishy-washy about
amnesty, leaving him compassionately conservative again.

Ultimately, of course I don't trust him and his team,
look at it all as just about politics and legacy, not policy,
assume King George's flashingback to his vote-getting mode
which has little to do with the skills and hard work of governing.

6.1.06

"I-Read-The-News-Today-Oh-Boy 201: Choose-Offs"

Sick people who seek "death by train" often
lock eyes with the engineer or conductor
in their dying moments, trying to make
haunted hapless bystanders feel their pain.

Although we are increasingly familiar with
"death by cop" in which suicidals intentionally
provoke police to open fire, no one talks much
about this newer rapidly growing phenomenon.

Both insane methods create suffering for all,
be it the trigger-pullers, train-drivers, or others;
detectives investigating the grizzly collisions say
involved folks' grim faces still wake them at night.

As with a stare-down -- even if lasting only a fraction
of a second -- it can seem more like a couple of months.
Traumatized personnel remain heartbroken and spooked,
knowing they were the final humans these sad people ever saw.

While accidental railway deaths do occur, they're way
outnumbered by self-inflicted wounds: in my San Jose
neighborhood, the Foundation of Suicide Prevention's
organizing an "Out of Darkness" educational campaign.

May you be healthy.
May you be happy.
May you be at peace.

5.31.06

"I-Read-The-News-Today-Oh-Boy 101: A Wrinkle in Time"

A day in the life: the early seventies, my first clinical clerkship,
a shiny bright-eyed medical student, not very smooth, amazingly
is befriended by the wise bemused chief reconstructive surgery resident.

Jim Foreman -- an uncommon man -- was my role model, caring for rich
and poor equally, repairing difficult cleft palates with compassion and integrity,
generously giving time he didn't have to teach and let me do procedures.

So I decided, I too will become a plastic surgeon. That lasted until my
second rotation changed my mind about what real skills I had to offer...
which was lucky for patients subsequently needing surgical intervention!

Anyway, at the bottom of the front-page of yesterday's local throwaway,
I saw Jim's name again in a neatly boxed advertisement: "Botox® $10/unit
323-4631, Foreman Center for Aesthetic Surgery, www.jforemanmd.com."

When I visited his website, I was disappointed that instead of a discussion
of medicine there was only a businessman's special: "Current Special on
BOTOX®. Please call for details. Cannot combine with any other offer.

Are you fed up with those cosmetic 'miracle cures' that say they can
correct everything from wrinkles to facial blemishes, virtually overnight?
Perhaps you've begun to think about a more permanent solution.

Well, now there's a newly released FREE consumer guide, 'How To Look
Great At Any Age" that explains in plain English the safest options now
available for facial rejuvenation. Zero percent financing. Se habla Español."

But who am I (with so much water over the dam of my own imperfections)
to sit in judgment of another's flaws, to say what's right or wrong, to hold
yesteryear's hero to impossible standards just for my own little pleasures?

5.31.06

"Double-edged Countdown

seventy-one days
meter running

baby loved
far and wide
unconditionally

unscarred
so far
as far
as biased we can see
and hope

Team Simon's job's
prolonging Eden
as long
as can be

each month
each week
each day
each minute
each additional second

fortifying
his sense of self-esteem

that I believe
will shape
a more secure foundation
for the rest
of life

so he and his
have a chance
for peace and happiness.

On the other hand
the sheer intensity
of single-pointed affection

apparently (according to some experts)
may pose its own risks
to existence's balance...

self-centered
moody
jockeying for attention
wound up like a top, then popping

without which all is agony despair beaten desolate failure
facing the new world
alone and naked, pale white
thoroughly smug
thoroughly incomplete and uncomfortable...

but

ultimately

I reject this uptight nonsense

for letting go,
diving deep into intimacy with self and others

generosity, sharing
lovingkindness
compassion
sympathetic joy
equanimity

ecstasy's middle path

Or in Kabir's words:
Suppose you scrub your ethical skin until it shines,
but inside there is no music, then what?

5.30.06

"Memorial Day"

My guess'd be that today's
no more than a Monday without pay
to most of the large families barbecuing
with lots of kids playing Frisbee, hiking, and skateboarding
on summer-dry aqueducts here in Griffith Park above LA
which could be most anywhere in the western hemisphere
where Spanish is spoken and 1961 clunker Oldsmobiles are driven
and carrying a cute two month-old whose two pudgy fists
clutch onto my shirt like a monkey with its baby is absolutely
no big deal (brother, if holding back your seed earned you a place
in heaven, eunuchs would be the first to arrive) except to us gingros
who sold these cars forty years ago in this case meaning me, my wife
and daughter Simon's mother who still believe it's all pretty special
but consider ourselves Jewish, not Anglo.

5.29.06

"Did You Know How Beverly Hills High Got Its Oil Well?"

Below scrawny Magdalene's hairy moles and jagged nose,
above her few remaining rotting teeth between pussy gummy holes,
eighty-nine million eons of wrinkles, layer upon layer of blood blisters
and varicose veins, surround the deathless crone's Promethean grin

as she whimsically begins to bargain me down,
Son, if you'll do alI asked, no questions,
I'll put infinite treasure around your barren land.
Which I did and she did, plunking the only rig ever seen in these parts

under a wooden Trojan figleaf camouflaged with pretty painted butterflies.
Not knowing whether to laugh or cry or run away, one thing led to another:
wealthy as Croesus, I built a school just for rich kids; a peasant who betrayed
his poor neighbors, then suffered their eternal outpourings of malice and envy.

5.29.06

"Freak Flags"

big blue marble, big blue sky, big blue Pacific under the Hollywood sign,
big blue Dodger baseball banner on Sunset Boulevard,
big blue cozy sleeper swathing my sighing little baby boy.

why do we cloth girls in pink so fast?
why do new mothers become women so quick?
why when mamas attach irreparably to their babes,

do dads get the dropping-off-the-pecking-order blues so regularly
whether they're shiny human beings down here on the ground
or brown hairy chimps and orangutans up in the trees?

is the same true for infinity's space travelers
who finally, randomly stumble onto our tiny green boulder
after eternal picking over heart cloths and dust bins of the universe?

as Rumi said way back in the twelve century,
Ecstatic love is an ocean,
and the Milky Way is a flake of foam floating on it.

and from Kabir two hundred years later,
If you don't break your ropes while you're alive,
do you think ghosts will do it after?

...When love hits the farthest edge of excess,
it reaches wisdom.
And the fragrance of that knowledge!

My eyes will have to be the love-candles this time...
(while) the spiritual athlete often changes the color of his clothes
and his mind remains gray and loveless.

5.28.06

"Myopia"

In this apparent utopia
of us frisky boomer bubbes and zeydes
hovering so eagerly over all our new grandkids

with all the sophisticated thought-of-everything safety gadgets and
environmentally friendly gewgaws, I'd figure the baby-industrial complex'd
get the dilemma that we can't read the blurry faraway fineprint directions

on the portable bassinet mattress bottoms and follow them simultaneously
...which is really less a problem for me than for you, my sixtyish-year old
comrades practicing in vitro miraculous primarycare firsttime parenthood.

5.27.06

"Mausoleum Row (Ain't Got No Forest Lawn Hokum)"

I was born and raised an urban flatlands kind of guy.

Chicago inner city block life was where it all began.

By age six, I happened upon work at a corner newspaper stand
and collected old soda bottles (1 cent for littles, 5 cents for bigs)
and magazines in my little red wagon from generous relatives
(Dad's shtetl-born brother and sister's families lived right near
and loved me) and considerate neighbors.

The local junkman then bought the stuff cheap,
hauling it away in his horse-drawn cart, ringing a bell as he
hawked in Yiddish when passing through our alley.

The landlord's daughter, my first crush, Joy, fooled around
with me, teaching everything one hot winter in the basement
where I learned lots through hard knocks, including how to ride
my first two-wheeler while avoiding metal pillars and other disasters.

Our gang mainly hung out on busy sidewalks and lively school grounds.
I recall one Halloween after a third grade buddy got hit bad
during a snowball fight: he took quick revenge, landing a mean
curveball with a rock hidden in it, almost poking out Sandy's left eye.

For decades after moving away, until gentrified, I couldn't
convince friends or even pay taxi drivers to take me back to my
third floor walkup in what had become a drug and crime infested hood.

Our second flatland was in Paradise
which is what my parents' called Los Angeles when we arrived in 1955.

In many ways, LA was the best of both worlds, dense apartment buildings
with lots of kids on the street and much better weather than the Midwest.

But when we climbed the socioeconomic ladder, I found BIGGER grander
homes with their own backyard tennis courts, pools and hoops in Beverly
Hills to be a real isolating downer -- so much harder to find others to play.

Eventually I grew up and went off to college, returning to LA
to visit but never really to live, until just this year four decades later,
when our daughter had her first baby there and we rented a close duplex.

From my view today
in the up
and
down
narrow
windy
Hollywood Hills,
and hip bohemian Silverlake,
and especially of the dynamic flatland Vermont and Larchmont districts
below,
with young often struggling multiethnic folks
and their dogs
and their kids
and their strollers
and their lattes and ice creams
and their dreams
spilling boistrously all over the streets
full of good cheap family-run restaurants and bookstores;

the whole grandiose Beverly Hills westside
thing with elite Rolls Royces and mansions
laid out on wide flat empty perpendicular
roads is literally square and straight and
feels like stale stiff whitebread (except
for the Hispanic domestics, maids and
gardeners and the rest, who are the only
humans on the sidewalks, trudging to and
from bus stops that transport guest workers
back east) -- actually seems pretty dead to
me...but, hey, I'm just a dumb interloper who
don't know nothing 'bout Santa Monica etcetera.

5.27.06

"Taken to Baby School"

Before we left for our walk down the hill,
I spied a thick paperback on the coffee table
with the stupidest title ever written.

I thought, Come on, get a life:
there's no way any Hollywood wife
could actually do "Breastfeeding Made Simple."

However, as often happens with me (you?),
in an astonishingly brief instant
another too-quick judgment proved immediately and absolutely untrue.

On our way back up the hill,
little Simon began crying bloody murder
even more vigorously than usual.

So much so
that my daughter
took him out of the Baby Bjorn sling she wore on her chest.

When nothing else would succor, for the very first time
she just plopped on the side of the small windy road
to offer the ultimate in baby comfort (most simply, I must confess).

As he sucked at one breast
before turning to the other,
his mother and I gazed across the beautiful green valley.

Sitting, looking at the two newly renovated domes of the Griffith Park
Observatory (remember James Dean's "Rebel" knife-fight scene?),
we impishly grinned at each other, then laughed and laughed.

5.26.06

"After a Week Away, Baby Still Makes Me Happy (Except When He Cries)"

On his second (month) anniversary,
like time lapse photography,
lying there on the same changing table as when I left,
Simon all of a sudden looks longer and stronger than before,
cheeks so full, lashes so thick,
with too-much-to-hope-for reddish hair (the non bald part),
even a cuter meeter-and-greeter charmer (if that's possible),
more out there, beginning to hold his neck by self,
grabbing each and every fresh face that comes near
(no matter mother or other, pink moon or green elephant)
with either his patented I'm-so-so-glad-to-see-you blue eyes,
or newly-perfected ay-ooh-ay-ooh guttural come-hither gurgles,
or rakishly crooked sly grin always inviting you in to coo and play,
sharing each baby pleasure --
when I kiss his rubadubdub tummy,
while he chats with the purple polka-dotted banana
and yellow red-striped tomato swinging on mister mobile above --
at times literally grasping my hairy arm with his own chubby hands,
which for the very first time seem under control,
unlike the little toes and linebacker thighs
kicking like the dickens below,
although I realize his nervous system's
not myelinated down that far just yet...
particularly when he (unintentionally?) pees up at smiling me.

5.25.06"Everyman, Part 2"

1.

Fortysome years ago, as a high school know-nothing
just following outdated parental orders (or well-intended
counsel, as they no doubt considered it), I signed up for useless
antiquated Latin classes which amazingly still attracted quite a few
of the academically elite, even though Romance languages
would prove way more practical. (French for the snooty; Spanish
for the rest. Back in the day, public educators couldn't imagine
teaching kids Asian, even in California on the Pacific Rim.)

In order to qualify for a student trip to Europe (ironically basing
us Jews in Austria's Saltzkammergut, an SS first-class vacationland
during recent World War II, which afterwards continued to harbor Nazis
and sympathizers), I needed to learn a little German, which I did.
The only things I still remember a little are gibberishy auf Deutsch
poetry fragments ("...Wasser stürzt, uns zu verschlingen/ Rollt der Fels,
uns zu erschlagen/ Kommen schon auf starken Schwingen/ Vögel her,
uns fortzutrage...") and Viennese Hugo Von Hoffmanstahl's (himself
surprisingly a Diaspora Sephardic Jew) early twentieth century version
of the medieval "Jedermann," or "Everyman," morality play
about faith and salvation.

I recall being enthralled by a new idea of portraying one human being
broadly, to represent -- maybe identify -- us all. It did strike me
as highly ironic that I first grasped this concept visiting nearby Dachau's
extermination camp, where my relatives, Gypsies, and homosexuals
were thrown into ovens by the more-equal-than-others
Teutonic Master Race's short-term Supermen.

2.

Early this morning, before boarding a plane, eager to fly south
to LA to reunite with my baby grandson and his family, I put down
Philip Roth's latest novel "Everyman" (like life, really more a short story
about universal loss, regret, and stoicism...with an appropriately
red-tinged all-black cover) to watch on C-SPAN as Israel's Prime Minister
Olmert had the honor of addressing a joint session of Congress.

I must admit to a bit of trepidation, wondering if Ehud -- with Cheney
literally breathing down his neck-- would veer too far to the right-wing
white fatcats, trying to satisfy the Bushies' war-on-terror theme, suck
up to Christian evangelicals and Texas oilmen and AIPAC Jewish hawks.

I did cringe when the PM did his Judea Samaria shtick.
I almost ducked under the table when he bragged on little Israel's slew
of Nobel laureates and high tech entrepreneurs, verging on slipping
into rhetoric about The Chosen People. I got sick during his obligatory
hagiography of his previous boss, now comatose Sharon, redacting his
soul as Shatil and Sabra refugee camp butcher and general bully, only
glorifying Ariel's recent disengagement Nixon-to-China-legacy kinda plan.

But in the end, Israel's main man made me proud: thinking high, feeling
deep, he moved beyond roteness -- beyond Jews' right to the entire land
-- to preach the necessity of compromise, each side giving up a part
in order to fulfill the dreams of both peoples, the importance of
all the region's kids living in a clean environment, of replacing
a culture of hate with one of hope.

But don't get me wrong; he didn't mince words. If he couldn't reach
peace with the Palestinians under a mutual understanding -- if Hamas
continues to advocate the destruction of Israel and won't give their
Prime Minister Abbas the chance to negotiate -- Israel wouldn't
be taken hostage but would "realign" with or without the Arabs.

In the end, Ehud did a brilliant job on the world stage, painting himself
as a gracious mainstream non-warrior Everyman, with Israel as
America's very best friend, sharing democratic and economic values
(for better and worse as the two developed countries with the biggest
gap between rich and poor, occupiers and torturers too), alluding
to Warren Buffet sinking four billion dollars into Israel where more
Jewish companies were listed on our NASDAQ exchange than anywhere
outside the US and Canada, mutually protecting each other against
fanatics, appealing directly to US citizens' shared pioneering spirit,
and closing by invoking Joshua's Old Testament words to gird an ally to
stay the course -- exerting strength as well as courage moving forward.

While the Congress rose as one and clapped in total bipartisan support
-- stumbling to get photo-ops to assist their November reelection bids --
Israeli commandos raided Ramallah, killing four Palestinians
and wounding thirty-two, including children.

But at the very least, Prime Minister Olmert's more a Jedermann than
our President Logan, who just two nights ago on TV hit "24"'s season
finale, was arrested for treason after assassinating his predecessor.

5.24.06

"The Physics of Great Expectations: Does Pip Squeak?"

The garbage cans
outside my house
gradually shrank

from three to two to one
as first one, then another
then the third of our kids

left this home for their own,
where the trash began to grow
proportional to the new families.

The hourglass of my life
drains (hemorrhages?) sand,
just as Dickens' novel arranged

for grim rich Miss Havisham, misandrous
and dry, clocks stopped, living out a lonely
troubled life in a crumbling wedding gown

to gradually disappear, just
waste away, emptier as she aged,
ultimately virtually disintegrated

leaving little sign or trace
when her aptly named Satis House
burned to the ground --poof, no more.

5.24.06

"Dark Stains"

Today I browsed a Wall Street Journal above-the-fold story
about a slew of already high-priced executives' insider option grants,
that were very very nicely timed right before fantastic stock run ups.

Maybe a twenty million-to-one longshot to simply be coincidental;
though below the belt, not kosher, no beneficiary likely'll
get even close to the slammer for his or her hanky panky.

I then stumbled on a smaller front-page item: for the first time,
the US prison population, already the largest in the world, grew
to above two million according to new 2005 statistics.

One in every 136 residents is behind bars; we lead the world
with 724 prisoners per 100,000. The Russian Federation is next at 594.
China has 118, The United Kingdom 81, and India 31 per 100K capita.

American prisons and jails add more than 1,000 inmates each week.
The just released "Justice" Department prison-industrial complex figures
report that 62% of those in jails have not been convicted.

Jails often hold inmates for state or federal systems, as well as folks
who've yet to begin serving a sentence: this demographic's increasingly
unconvicted, since judges have become reluctant to release pre-trial.

Members of minority groups make up sixty per cent of detainees
in local prisons, according to the US Department of Justice,
which did not give the minority breakdown for federal prisons.

Nearly 4.7 per cent of African-American men are behind bars.
That percentage grows to nearly 12% for black men aged 25 to 29.
For that age group, 2.9% of Hispanics and 1.7% of whites are in prison.

How bout them dirty apples in such an exemplar country, where
abusive priests and wealthy cheats wear white collars and go free, while
we makes the nation safe for democracy by jailing mostly people of color?

5.22.06

"Books and Covers"

Sunday was a wonderful day
breakfast with a Nobel winner, dinner
with a renowned football coach, both hawking new books.

Their roles reversed most of what I expected: the self-referential
Peace Prizer dripped tired old bromides about indifference and hatred
while not hearing or answering worshipful college students' questions.

The peak emotional moment broke when hundreds of genocide victims
from all over -- Auschwitz to Cambodia to Kosovo to Rwanda to Darfur
-- stood outside applauding the idea of him more than the actual reality.

On the other hand, the legendary jock mocked himself, not taking his
accomplishments too seriously, avoiding warmed-over banal threadbare
cliches, always looking for ways to connect with the next generations.

There was something genuinely exciting about how he conveyed
that the lessons he'd learned on the athletic field improved himself
and may be universally applicable to make the world a better place.

Not only were his words more inspiring and wise, less hackneyed and
platitudinous than the famous Holocaust survivor's, but his quiet
kind attention to a crippled wife was quite unusual -- I'd say truly noble.

5.23.06

"Chunk"

"Dad, thanks for the aspirin, advice, and love. Chunk."
Sweeter words have not been written.

Reading them (a bit smitten), I realized way back
my family of origin didn't do saccharine, syrupy, sugary nicknames.

Everything was clinical, efficient, dry, cool; I was Gerry, at tenderest, Ger.
If I suffered a pain in the neck, I felt like I was being a pain in the neck.

Certainly by the time I was a similar 28 year old man, neither parent
(especially the doc like me) took injury as an opening to show affection.

Instead of a rare opportunity to get close to a grown up kid again,
illness was rather considered a weakness not at all to be babied.

Not surprisingly, the wheel turned in my bigger juicier nuclear family.
Each of us has several pet names, special handles, teasing monikers.

We began calling our skinny little middle lad we adored so, Chunk --
at a time when he was built exactly the opposite.

And we continued using it warmly, twinkly,
even when his hormones came in and he became a big one.

So let it be with our first grandson, Simon Hershel Maxfield Aron, variously
dubbed Little Package, Dolly, Sweetness Two (after our own boy) so far.

5.22.06

Ciphers?"

Last night
I think I went to dinner
with a mirror.

Over seafood risotto
and goose liver, we kvelled and kvelled
about our respective first grandchildren.

He too lives in Portola Valley CA,
and with his wife commutes frequently
to be with his only kid's growing family.

They to Cambridge Mass, we to Los Angeles,
both sets of parents get very excited alternating
elsewhere happening new cities with forest time at home.

Each place syncopates to enhance the other,
the more intense three generational urban visiting lending spice, then
country life contrasting nicely as a quiet spacious empty nest respite.

Since his granddaughter at four's already a star doing complex math and
speaking Russian, my buddy previewed maybe coming attractions, chuckling
(benignly?) at our pride in Simon's pre-walk, pre-talk tiny cooing milestones.

5.21.06

"Safe Haven"

Come inside your temple, the contemplative life,
a monastic environment where sacred time
allows for quiet to bubble up and down.

Rama once heard someone
call his name very faintly
though no one else could hear.

Following the voice to a boulder
and laying on his hands, it split in two
and Alliya, whose name means "home" in Sanskrit emerged.

We need this place of deep destressors to withdraw,
to drop our usual identity and concerns, to listen to an inner voice
calling us home to unwind and discover ourselves in whole new ways.

They say self-knowledge is seldom good news,
so full of unresolved issues
we'd rather not meet.

But we also see what's beautiful,
the best in human compassion,
kindness, warmth and well-being.

Retreat is a time to be free:
although ultimate liberation is available to few,
enlightenment is an accident, and meditation makes us accident-prone.

Having begun to purify body, heart and soul,
return to the world, bring back peace,
heal me with your gift-bestowing hands.

5.20.06

"Calculi Hurt More Than Symbols (Byzantine)"

from birth
one dies
slowly
at first

until

finally

we're
aware

about
midway

that Life goes fast faster then done.

Boom.

don't need
no math
functions,
Leibniz
or Sir
Isaac,
to know
the rate of change

fromexistencetowarddeathspeedsup.

unnecessary to
use differential or
integral calculus
[f(x) = L yadda yadda]
b + dx

to get it

....or let it
remain
a
mystery
an ecstasy (x)
to the
very

end...

which sometimes comes from
abnormal body concretions
(often mineral salts)
found in the kidney or gallbladder.

N.B.,
so far,
dental
tartar
won't
kill

I think.

5.20.06

"Goodnight and Good Luck, Wherever You Are"

As Howdy Doody's final Clarabell,
your TV novelty captivated us young baby boomers.

I remember after a 13 year run, tuning in to the final episode
in 1960 -- even though by then I was a bit too old at 15.

Long mute, only pantomiming and tooting a bicycle horn, you broke a
clown's silence with trembling lips and a visible tear (me, too, as I recall),

speaking for the very first and only time, the show's final words,
"Goodbye, kids."

At sixty, your mixed puppet and human gang remains important to me:
red-haired, 48 freckled (one per state back then) Howdy is my alterego.

My children still giggle about the resemblance,
especially when I wear what they call "Howdy Doody shirts."

A dear friend's a real life heart-of-gold, cranky Mr. Flusterbuster; I still
love Flubadub, Princess Summerfall Winterspring, Chief Thunderthud,

Dilly Dally, Bison Bill (Gabby Hayes), and your seltzer bottle squirting
predecessor Bob Keeshan, who went on to become Captain Kangaroo.

I already miss your sweetly androgynous manner, yellow frilly collar over
blue-striped pantaloons, silly bald orange-tufted red and white painted face.

We'll always be Peanut Gallery kids enchanted by Doodyville's circus town.
RIP at 84, Lew Anderson.

5.19.06

"The Doctor Is Clueless"

Five six like me, but fierce and young,
more a son than a second tranquil grandpa

buzz cut, not balding
black skinned, not white

built more like a human manhole cover than Woody Allenish
guns ablazing under his muscle shirt while my biceps sink concave

as both of us listen to 50 Cent on the parking lot boombox,
Ezmeralda blows me off for refusing to renew her Percodan script

and when I tell her where she can go, Cuz belly laughs and throws
a sequence of ratatattat heavyweight punches that just miss my chest.

Bending down on the asphalt to pick up a dime a hundred or so homeless
clients have passed right by, I wonder what the hell I'm doing here today.

5.18.06

"First Summerlike Spring Day"

Sunrise cool,
circling hawks kite then stalk baby groundsquirrels.

A few hours later, sun sizzled sky high
busy honeybees buzz red and purple azaleas

while dinosaurish midget gray green lizards
perform incredible hot rock pushups.

Midday now well past
(as if old cowboy movie mess hall triangles

clang clang clang metally silence)
a last call's widely sensed by coldbloodeds:

insects, reptiles and all the rest
suddenly cease and desist, folding up shop.

White prim roses and assorted more sordid garden girls
turn inside their beds as night approaches.

Sunset's blackening's
mostly quiet

except for
mosquitoes whining over stagnant water

and pesky cars
whirring on too near roads under far off moon.

When raccoon, fox, rat
and highway eyes come out;

it's finally time
for forest perching hooting owls to dive down again,

their blue talons ripping into speckled robins' eggs,
or better yet, gripping onto field mice too little not to die soon.

5.17.06

"Turn Turn"

Mothers Day turbo-boosted our family celebrations
into a whole nother level of generational generativity, extending
beyond my wife to fete firstime greatgrandmas and a firstime daughter,
all fuel-injected to the hilt by her and hubby's recent baby arrival.

When Monday dawn broke Hollywood,
honking's what woke me
through LA's salty sultry smoggy soupy sea
of asphalt and tall buildings.

That afternoon we flew north
into home's clearer cleaner air
where summer's browned the green Irish hills
since we were last here together a week ago.

Finches atwitter become silent
while I sit sunset among sangha friends
back in my sweetly familiar
dharma center.

5.16.06

"Déjà Vu Monday"

It's the same old familiar jelly roll blues breakfast hurryup scene --
quick bagels and red jam, eggs and orange cantaloupe,
juice and black coffee and milk for six
with the littlest drinking direct from his mama --
then the kids off to their assorted things --
school and work,
and a pediatrician check up stuffed in the car seat,
and a summer job interview --
while left at home
I sit by the phone like a taxi dispatcher
giving them all directions as needed as they call in,
and when it's empty (one sleeping in)
I clean up the kitchen
and load the dish and clothes washers
and pay the bills
and make a shopping list
and figure out everyone's schedule for next week
and meditate a bit
and exercise
except instead of a young man of thirty,
now I'm a sometimes energetic
sometimes creaky sixty year-old grandpa.

5.15.06

"The Milk of Human Kindness"

Rocking the babe who made our first a mama, kvelling
proudly bout Simon's roundness as he seeks titty's hind milk,
he slurps the cream that flows only after minutes nursing on skim,
which allows goodly fat to follow, leading both to mylenating
baby's brain and thankfully to sleep, a godly satiating soporific
we can see in the satisfied grin on his dreamy little face.

With each of my own three kids (now grown), I wished and hoped
that with just a bit more effort, my papa toils'd be received the same
as hers (why do football players always say, "I love you, Mom!" on TV?);
but now the distance of a generation makes it so clear no matter
what I did, there's no getting round the proper honoring of mothers'
nine months carrying, labor and delivery, and breastfeeding.

5.14.06

"Not Butterflies Day"

This Mothers Day, California's wave of butterflies has slowed to a trickle,
way beyond the huge habitat loss that insect genus had already suffered,
as our cold, soggy spring has recently thinned out hundreds of species.

Exuberant climate change has reduced
migration through The Golden State to
nearly a 40 year low, researchers say.

"Some of them were already in decline, but this weather
really added insult to injury, kicking them when they were
down," said a University of California Davis entomologist.

Shapiro, who over 35 years of tracking the insects has developed
one of the world's largest butterfly databases, monitors observation
stations from the Bay Area to the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada.

About half of the usual species haven't shown up, while others — such
as the drab-colored sooty wing and the iridescent eastern tailed-blue —
are fluttering in at one-fourth or less of their usual numbers, he said.

The transformation is particularly dramatic for the red and black painted ladies,
which last year enjoyed a possibly record-breaking migration after feeding
on vegetation nurtured by abundant rain in Southern California's deserts.

Millions traveled through the state and into Oregon, passing
Shapiro's Sacramento site at a rate of four per second; now,
he reports a measly four painted ladies a month in the same area.

Erratic seasons were part of the problem: a mild winter,
warm February and wet March upset the usual cues
telling butterflies when to emerge from their dormancy.

To be sure, many factors contribute to Mother Nature's decline --
alterations in rain patterns, pavement, other manmade development, etc.
If you whack a population and whack it again and again, it'll go extinct.

5.13.06

"Hip-hopcrisy?"

Throwing polyphony into the mix,
this May's Oregon Bach Festival prelude
featured turntablists facing off, re-spinning
"Little" Fugue in G minor three hundred years
after old Johann Sebastian first composed it.

As the local Register-Guard published,
"This was no classic DJ battle;
it was a classical DJ battle...
to attract at least a few young
people back to classical music."

Each disc jockey was given
an old-school vinyl BWV copy to
prepare a five-minute showcase;
three became finalists in a mid-April
audition at Eugene's University of Oregon.

During last Saturday's contest,
20-year-old student Danny Straton,
aka DV8, took the top prize of $500
and a gig at the world-renowned festival,
which kicks off June 30.

"Straton was first up and went heavy
on the Bach, building intensity before
using a spoken-word sample to transition
into more traditional hip-hop beats,
enlivening the crowd of about 300.

DJ Smuve, Bobby Green Jr. - whose father,
Lane County Commissioner Bobby Green,
was in the crowd -- opted to go straight
into beats and relied on the main four-bar
theme around which Bach built the fugue."

Second place Green said he'd go heavy on
the hip-hop if the crowd was younger; though
there were more than a few gray heads bopping,
he sampled such mainstay hip-hop mantras as,
"go shorty, it's your birthday" and "party people."

"The last contestant, DJ Soulution, or Sharif Lindel,
took the riskiest approach, at first trying to use
three turntables, prefacing the feat by noting the
fugue was recorded live by the Philadelphia Orchestra
and its tempo varied a lot, making beatmatching tricky."

Bach festival Communications Director Evano said,
"We haven't heard any snooty responses. These days,
people are realistic." The champ, Straton, didn't know
whether the event would draw kids, but said
the message got through to at least one: him.

"It's intriguing. It made me want to learn more."
As for his winning performance, after weeks of listening
to the organ composition, he said he had a "stroke of genius,"
pulling out his copy of DJ Shadow's "Organ Donor." If the
young Bach had been there, he might have said, "Word up, G."

5.13.06

"Rescued At Seven Weeks"

Back in Simon's saddle today,
the week away was a geologic era.

He's so much out there now,
he coos, he smiles, he marches,
he assumes the supine fencer position like they taught me in med school,
he sees way more, babbling up a blue streak
to friendly baby photos perched on his changing table.

After breast-feeding we play, pretending to ride hobby horse
Jackie, Jr. to Donovan's "For Little Ones"
like I did thirty-two years ago with his mama and Jackie, Sr.

In a while (lots longer than before) he gets fussy of course,
not calmed by my burping or patting, mobile or walking, rocker or Binky;
until his all-knowing sixth-sensing mother wakes up to save the day
by bouncing with him on a giant rubber ball.

As I anticipate tomorrow with his parents away for their first full day
-- leaving us grandma and grandpa in charge of bottle feedings
and everything else in between the three hours intervals -- our boy
begins to self-soothe, finding and sucking his own little fingers,
finally falling asleep sweetly in his cradle, his eyes clearly blue
and legs really long from his father's side's mechuteneste genes,
his hair red like mine was, and shedding, as I start to recede.

5.12.06

"Belizean Fields, Salvadoran Gnomes"

No high school diploma
(college degree, you must be kidding)
or personal references
(just up to El Norte from Guatemala)
except for her friend, my neighbor's nanny

she's illegal,
speaks few English words, mother of three,
looking for work to send money back home,
really anything will do as a second job,
Bueno, sé hacer de baby-sit.

The moment Rosa snuggled him up
he quieted quite magically,
instantly, easily,
her arms patting, eyes smiling,
lips singing softly in Spanish.

Me,
I couldn't soothe that well in a thousand years
and neither could my wife or mother or father or brother or sister
or high-powered friends or all the white kids I interviewed
or any of the Ph.D.s I was lucky to hire for my software company.

So here at the undocumented bottom of the food chain
(sure, I'm generous, but not enough to be President)
the worst is the best, the last is first, I'm blessed and she's cursed...
except US-down looks mostly up to her
like it did to my Polish shtetl immigrant grandparents.

5.10.06

"Imagining After a Week's Absence (1/6 of His Life, Reunion Tomorrow)"

Supine Simon spies
six silky spiders
five fat frogs
four friendly faces
three tiny tadpoles
two topaz turtles
one ornery owl
whirling round and round
on a soft hand-knit many-colored sparkly mobile above the changing table.

The not so simple, no longer newborn grandson's
coocoocooing, while wigwigwiggling
chubby thighs and elbows
prompts me to wind up some music
choosing my downbeat favorite if not his, pushing the button
to Bo Diddley's hooting, whooping, squealing "Who Do You Love?"
about walking on barbed wire, cobra neckties, rattlesnake whips,
human skull chimneys, tombstone hands, graveyard mines,
and dying at twenty-two.

5.10.06

"The Hilo Boys"

School over for the day,
students diffuse
throughout
The Big Island.

Some of the diligent stay for play and baseball practice;
while a few hamburgers blast music, messing
with fuses and gas caps in the parking lot.

Others make their way home.

But most mosey across the highway,
surfing and waiting and watching for
The Hilo Boys to appear again.

A pack of five or seven
silent raven-haired bronze-bodied strapping bathing suits
finally arrives about five to a mixed reception.

Awed adolescent and adult hangers-on males
(who should know better instead of egging the kids on)
howl and jeer like arsons striking matches to oil.

Would-be virginal mothers and Mary lovers quietly shudder
like The Baptist dowsing The Christ
in holy water for the very first time.

The half dozen sons' entrance
splits the crowd down the middle,
veering toward older women
though no words or touch comfort them.

Edging toward the cliff,
now poised on the abyss,
for just a moment
all goes calm for the young men.

I romantically imagine
an infinite
aboriginal
calculus,

the millennia of ancestors' everyday living and dying --

weak eyes mean no gathering, broken knees don't hunt,
a boil runs rampant within your head, eat or be eaten
by a bigger animal, attacked by neighboring tribes, dying in childbirth
or raped or pushed off a mountain in old age or by a rival --

for everyone here for the last thousands of years

put alongside a modern litany
of snarled traffic, too many people,
polluted air and water and asphalt,
crystal meth and all the rest, a life sentence
of inside learning then office slaving til death --

as the Hilo boys
inhale,
exhale,
dive down the rocks,

knowing it's really not much
compared to their fathers' risks...
so what if a few of us go dead in the process?

5.8.06

"Cinco De Mayo"

The community center hosted us almost.

Caspar's full throated citizenry burst through the doors,
queuing in toward trays of sweet smelling hot tamales and chile rellenos.

Friends and neighbors chit chatted together, as the Friday night social flowed out past rows of cars on the grass bending around to surround the village synagogue that was a church til a few years ago.

We three long weekenders drove up the coast from Frisco
for our annual visit, settling into a favorite oceanfront rental
near the bigger bit touristy town of Mendocino, halfway to Oregon.

By the time we arrived tired and hungry and tried to buy tickets,
a polite but firm organizer broke the news that the fundraiser
was oversubscribed, couldn't hold or feed any more.

Fortunately I knew kitchen movers and shakers, who smuggled
us in, making sure hefty plates of food appeared, which we
gobbled to the sounds of local volunteer musicians, all the while
watching fathers and daughters and lovers and old people even
including a few Mexican-Americans, salsa away the fine Shabbes evening.

5.7.06

"Tikkun Olam"

Catnapping in the barber chair
where I've comfortably snoozed and healed for six hundred years
always amused by familiar endearing neighborhood characters
chattering on about modern illogics like a well-oiled orchestra --

the nerve of $5000 furnaces and $4 a gallon and Kentucky Derby favorites
why the new local US blue post box was removed from the corner
who piles garbage up on the sidewalk that raccoons and feral cats chew into
when pay phones began to swallow coins whether connected or not --

to the rhythms of Albert King
belting out Born Under a Bad Sign
slipping on my glasses and usual chagrin inspecting the damage
of this month's greater gray amid lesser thinner hair in the mirror

my mind still muddling asleep masquerading under neatly clipped mane,
I slide away from the barber-surgeon
to rise again and when reaching the street
a homeless man doffs his hat in greeting surprising me with "Hi, Doc."

5.4.06

"Mothers Of Invention"

Leaving the iconoclastic band's
lead singer aside, or astride his crappa
as I -- and possibly you if old enough to remember --
imagine zany Frank Zappa, still dumping
in the buff on his risque sixties
hippy toilet poster
(it's oh so eerie
that a mere twenty-five years later
he crumped straining with prostate cancer
way too early at fifty-two)

in my experience (are you experienced?)
necessity is truly the mother of invention
not just a worn cliche' for drug-hazed
unruly Hendrix riskwarriors
busting guitars and minds wide open
but a cold modern existential reality
for privileged first world young women
desperately isolated
with their educations and toys
with no millennial warm village wisdom
or hands-on support
innocent at wits' end
trying to do the right thing by the babies

which I witnessed
and participated in
as a fathermother of three
and now see helping care for my grandson
and recently scribbled about
only to hear back almost immediately
from an honest brave mother
riffing on her toddler:

"there's a war happening in my living room
my four year-old son against
all of my ideas of how he "should be" and how I "should be"

no heart
no mindfulness
no room for connection and communication
no curiosity
only tension and anger and guilt

there's a war happening in my living room
my four year-old son against
all of my ideas of how he "should be" and how I "should be"
and no room to live in"

as we struggle to buckle the kids
into the world's niftiest most complicated
safety board-certified carseats
to exit loneliness and screaming
for just a few minutes
or at least get our tickets punched
by others similarly rummaging
around for validation
at yoga and lactation classes or over lunch
so like the marines
or whatever upbeat
army recruiting bullshit,
we can be all we can be

please don't give up hope,
in the long run it'll work out,
we'll all become
mothers of invention
before dying.

5.4.06

"Placebo By Proxy"

The Planet Los Angeles May Day Immigration Rally on Wilshire blocks me from
transporting my daughter and her newborn to and from the pediatrician's.

It takes longer to drive here than fly San Jose to Burbank, house to house.
The 2-doc office offers a wildly different universe from medicine back home.

Instead of the Peninsula's huge multispecialty groups, these LA physicians
run veritable mom 'n pop shops with obvious good news bad news tradeoffs.

But that's really not what interests me much: I'm lots more into Southern
California's rich ethnicities and distinct fashions than its health practices.

Slouched on a couch across from a hassled receptionist, my curiosity's
pricked when a slick handholding mother daughter tag team swishes in.

The perfectly coiffeured railthin blonds make the scene, color coordinated
in matching pink green cashmere sweaters over tight fitting fancy jeans.

Each wears red Prada shoes and designer wraparound sunglasses straight
out of Pope Benedict's playbook, though they speak Spanish not German.

Primping down next to me, I doubletake as Mom grabs a lipstick from her
ultra-stylish bag and applies it, which the kid mimics by plugging in a pacifier.

Too much too quick makes my head spin. My eyes drift from observing
this dressed-to-kill five year-old suck on her Binky to a divergent reality.

It begins with eavesdropping on front office staffs' heated deliberations
regarding a parent's request for a referral to an adept kosher circumciser.

Two ladies seem at lagerheads about competing recommendations,
one boosting a moyel (more Jewish than skilled), the other a physician.

Eventually they summon a pleasant young woman to break their deadlock.
Her long skirt and loose blouse remind me of a yesteryear hippy.

After listening, she suggests neither the old observant macher (too dirty)
or the young doctor (too secular), but rather a middle-aged kosher urologist.

I realize then not only that she's pregnant, but that she's an Orthodox doc
in a large Jewish metropolis with a bevy of frequently reproducing females.

The next time the door opens, in walks a Hassid mother dragging a pimply
boy behind her, his graggy cracking voice protesting just about everything.

Before Doc can flee, mama hugs closely, congratulating her on being with child
again; and in the same breath, blames unkosher Chinese shrimp for her kid's zits.

5.3.06

"Sleep Deprived Lullaby"

Swaying the unswaddled baby's cradle with my right,
left-handed I swing myself toward the shelf's dish and the spoon,
shoveling a bite of strawberried organic oat bran in when I can.

My mouth, that is, but I monitor his rosebud too,
using an extra few shushes and foot swooshes to snuff out a cry
mid coo like aborting a sneeze.

Please please understand that grandson Simon's
a sweet delight most of the time,
but approaching six weeks, it's common to be a bit fussy.

Whiny or not, I love to scrutinize his supine dancing, fingers and toes
wriggling reaching for the mobile's purple and green, red and blue,
orange and pink stars and butterflies and cow jumping over the moon.

Finishing up my cereal, singing Sweet Chariot, I can't let down on industrial
strength motion or Simon'll get a notion to scream, waking his mama, as I
roll the crib to the kitchen to brew a nice cup of Mother's Milk tea for her.

5.2.06

"Mudita Infinita This May Day"

My oldest nurses her first while her younger sis (visiting with boyfriend)
wakes for Sunday celebratory Koreatown breakfast. Middle boychick's up
north tending his spring garden, fiancé and their slab-of-flab dogchild,
Cassava, adopted during their work-year in Fiji. Ballabusta big mama's home.

For me life's mostly just gravy these days.
But not always.
Past more testosteroned paths led into less blissful more ruthless spaces.
And every once in a while I still feel the pull toward alarmingly vile places.

Of the four forms of love known as Brahma-viharas, the divine
abodes, (lovingkindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and
equanimity), sympathetic joy, or mudita -- no single English word
captures it's meaning -- is the rarest, the hardest, my favorite.

Mudita comes hard to me.
Until investigated meditating, I didn't even realize it existed.
I worked hard and then worked some more to cultivate sympathetic joy.
Now I see jealousy early enough to do something about it sometimes.

It is said there are enemies to sympathetic joy (SJ). The far enemy
is envy: we hate the fact that someone is happy. The near enemy
is giddiness. It is a superficial high or delight or joy when we are
connected to the feeling but not really connected to the person.

To be happy, it helps to feel the joy of others. When my mind relaxes
and opens in the presence of happiness, it resonates in a nice way.
Yet a feeling of envy or resentment can arise. Like with the rest of the
B-viharas, to have SJ one should be in a friendly relation with the others.

SJ can be developed. It feels close to gratitude,
is one of the ways to allow the mind and heart to be more fluid
and flexible. As we encounter new situations, we can meet them
in fresher ways through SJ. It can help to heal wounds.

Become familiar with the obstacles to SJ. Work from the easiest to the
most difficult person for you. Do SJ for yourself: it's a virtue to rejoice
in your own good deeds, to strengthen the sources of happiness within.
Then express to others, "I'm happy for you. May your happiness continue."

5.1.06

"LA Games Up Close and Personal"

Home team led
Phoenix's
Marfanoid
geniuses
2 to 1.

Like always
crowd came late.

Roundball
playoffs
halftime
tied as
Laker
girlies
almost
all white
strut stuff
around
black boys
Black Jack
Magic
Spielberg
Denzel
while in
men's room
yellow
sea of
Kobe
T shirts
line up
in stalls
one hand
on cell
other
grasping
Treo.

Before
endgame
down three

frontrunning
whiney white
winers leave
early as
Bryant's shot
sends into
overtime
then wins with
clock beater.

4.30.06

"Not A Teddy Bears' Picnic"

As global warming melts the bedrock of their existence,
polar bears face unprecedented environmental stress,
their numbers plummeting on the Hudson Bay ice pack
habitat off my old home town of Churchill, Manitoba.

The imposing white carnivores -- the world's largest bear --
are now classified as a "vulnerable" species based on a
likely thirty percent decline in their worldwide population
over the next approximately thirty-five to fifty years.

Diminishing ice affects their ability to find food and reproduce: packs
thaw three weeks earlier than thirty years ago. For polar bears, not all
weeks are created equal: they're losing the best time for feeding, when
seal pups are abundant and bears put on fat to store for living on shore.

Having lost this critical hunting opportunity, polar bears weigh about
fifteen percent less (maybe 150 pounds for an adult male): bears are
losing their physical conditioning, a cumulative process causing a
steady decline in survival, particularly for cubs and sub-adults.

Hungry bears are drawn to our village dump and other settled areas
where they come into conflict with people and are sometimes shot.
For us local citizens witnessing the increase, it's no picnic encountering
huge polars wandering the streets, scavenging anything good to eat.

Polar bears evolved from brown bears about a quarter-million years
ago to become specialist carnivores, marine mammals that can thrive
on ice packs and feast on seals. Climate change, though, is happening
too fast for the bears -- not having time to devolve backwards -- to adapt.

Remember last year when President Bush lobbied at a G-8 meeting in
Scotland to prevent specific targets for reducing greenhouse gases from
inclusion in the final communique? Hooray for out neighbor the USA, the
only member refusing to ratify Kyoto Protocols to reduce killer emissions!

4.29.06

"Pied Piper Turning Wheels"

As a kid
hamsters
followed Dad home from his lab.

My favorite
Hammy
had the run of the family bathtub.

He particularly loved
to munch Rice Krispies ® bars
Mom made for him, Sis, and me.

So much so
that fifty-four years ago
I wrote to Kellogg's in Battle Creek, Michigan:

"Dear Sirs:
you can make more money
advertising that hamsters eat your cereal treats."

And sent
them a glossy color photo
of us two to boot.

From age six on
I waited and waited in vain
for their corporation to respond which it didn't.

I also really
enjoyed watching my best rodent friend
run around and around and around on his wheel.

Plus with him
living in the tub
I sadly couldn't shower very often...

Today I took care of Simon,
bathing my baby grandson,
doing the wash and the dishes and the cooking and the shopping.

Fourteen hours later,
I drove to the Best Western ® motel where I'm staying
from my daughter's home in the Hollywood Hills.

Cruising down
the narrow winding streets at night
I can often see inside the fine lit houses.

An awful lot
of people
run on treadmills in the windows.

4.29.06

"Greed, Hatred, and Delusion"

Boarding the outside elevator, for seven years I've always smiled
and said Good Evening to the couple emptying buckets of dirty water.

The once young guy acknowledges me with kind dull eyes and a nod, but
a women I assume to be his bored wife and boss frowns away and hisses.

Second floor, quarter to eight, nine men or so sit tripod in the same
circle every Tuesday, usually beginning silently inside for a few minutes.

As I quietly contemplate who it is I want to be, often the sloshes of
her swabbing out the men's room and vacuuming the halls bothers me.

Bothers me that all the swishing's drowning out our sensitive whispers,
the whirring's intentionally impairing my listening on our side of the door.

Bothers me that while I'm privileged to do my warm fuzzy laughing crying
thing, Señora's out there hating my guts for damn good imagined reasons.

Sometimes at the end of our couple hours together, before we stand to hug
each other, I get the urge to swing the closed door open and invite them in.

But then I realize they're long split for home or a third or fourth job (maybe
why she angers us locking the lift so early it prevents late men getting in).

And that it's my saccharine bullshit fantasy I can be a truck driver or a sage,
ineffably compassionate and wise, on this little straw edge of our universe.

4.27.06

"Recluse or Not"

Those first days alone, scurrying this way and that, I barely noticed them.
About a dozen This's alongside one That sufficed for my first week's info.
Then as I slowed, the others gradually ushered me deeper into their presence.

Toward the end of my self-imposed hermitage--getting set to leave home
to join the wife for a night before she rotates up from our LA grandbaby
while I shift down into the family way--the thirteen or so urge me to see more.

Here we are, sluicing beneath the stars and the silence, between birth and
death, nothing and everything, mutable and forever, inside myself and all;
I gaze at my bakers' dozen or so similar small reddish brown companions.

Though ascending the glassy smooth coating's impossible without yaktrax
and ice axes, the bigger brownish red That attempts to climb from a lower
base camp to the glittering summit's fluted rock spire aglow in monsoon snow.

She slips and slides from the corniced ridge into a gully on the slopes
facing blue green icefalls and washed-out bridges, her expedition's assault
failing amidst a fierce unexpected storm's bitter cold and fierce gales.

Without sherpas or oxygen bottles, headlamps or harnesses, no matter
how gallant, she can't make it across the great rock step glacier to the
vertically pitched spur, and falling headlong, seeks shelter in a crevasse.

Bivouacked inside a snowcave couloir, almost defeated by terrible
weather and high winds, in her weakened condition, exhausted, she
gruelingly reconnoiters a last best chance of clambering out of here.

Meanwhile, the two handfuls plus of equally reddish brown but tinier
other inhabitants, having kept their distance, assessing whether she's
deteriorated enough to close in, ramp up their tactical reconnaissance.

Carefully watching her deploy last gasp pitons among the mountain's
collapsing seracs, biding their time, military style teams boldly run fresh
troops, carpenters, farmers, even slaves into the bowl to replace the old.

For eight days they've lived in my bathroom sink -- that is, the arachnid did
since her four pairs of legs couldn't scale it and her two abdominal spinnerets
couldn't spin a web sufficient to paraglide out of the smooth white porcelain.

On the other hand, the vastly less large more organized colony of social
insects (I think they're typical household pest pharaoh ants), have two
pairs of wings and anovipositors seemingly poised for stinging and piercing.

The endgame begins, the itsy bitsy spider newly entrapped in greenish
toothpaste spit, surrounded by twelve brownish red ants, while countless
newcomers cluster on my glasses, water cup, and wash rag outside the basin.

Realizing that unsolicited assistance is often self-serving; nevertheless, as
my final act before closing the door to go to the airport, I offer the little lady
a fond ride back outside into the forest dawn on an envelope ready to mail.

Too feeble to resist, knowing she was dying, nothing to lose, my new friend
reluctantly hops on to avoid starving or being eaten; and before locking the
door, depositing her under the porch, I notice hordes more Formicidae flood in.

Fleeing the rain, their lines thicken all over the kitchen floor, some making
a beeline toward the cupboard's not-so-closed oatmeal and muesli, others
queuing up the sides of a platter holding last night's blue cheese as I leave.

4.27.06

"Pours Forth From Heaven"

Sky rain gray
brain quite dry
Times fuels mind

glance lead obit
Satmar rabbi
Williamsburg born

lived in Brooklyn
Manhattan died
ruled worldwide sect

considered king
first name Moses
but likened self

to Bible's Jacob
who like Teitelbaum
deferred to elders

the builders
Abraham
then Isaac,

"I'm not digging
any new wells;
I'm just watching

the wells father
and grandfather
dug, that they should

keep producing
good clean water."
(After which I must

blushingly
admit I
finagled

"continue to produce
clean water" from above
to keep meter intact.)

Then the Old
Testament
tale proceeds

with predictable
horror when the sons
at times violently

fight with each other
behind dad's deathbed
over who'll succeed

to Moshe's throne
(and the hundreds
of millions of

dollars of prime
real estate the
Grand Rabbi owned).

From Queens College
Prof Sam Heilman,
"One of the signs

of the Satmars' strength
is that in spite of
internal conflict,

they are not now
on the verge of
falling apart."

Jewish calendar
5758
eight months pre Christmas.

4.25.06

"Self-Help Quantum Mechanics"

Organically squeezed between every Sunday morning's bhakti yoga
and monthly green veggie pot lucks, our dharma teacher offers us up
a delay in his twice a week talks, deferring to the busy sangha's grabbing
the ring for Q&A, which fortunately proved quite enlightening for me today.

One of the pearly answers he plucked from an oystery question went well
beyond his usual insightful plugs for vipassana meditation, adding to a
predictable riff about its lowering fears of dying, surprising data that the
only folks with less death anxiety were some energized by psychedelics.

For one who spends much time in the discursive maze of worldly words,
I urged my soul to jump into a higher orbit, my body to step outside
its monkey-mind, my being to drop into silent infinite internal landscapes
where I imagine my innocent prespeech infant grandson Simon still lives.

4.24.06

"Right Writing"

Me, I'm a hit-and-run author, riffing most mornings in the mood,
putting it out there then moving on, a minor epiphany or two walking
the dog later on, my glass-half-full son crowing dad's like Tupac Shakur
prolific, not into polishing--though I know 2Pac's a pro, no amateur bro.

If Leo'd presented at a writers' workshop, Tolstoy's first sentence
might have read, "Happy writers are all alike; every unhappy writer
is unhappy in his own way," but instead he set the tone of his classic
about Anna Karenina's lovers with a slight variation on my pipedream.

I have to admit when struggling to recall the masterly opening gambit,
it's often unclear to me when he's describing alter ego Konstantin and
Vronsky, building word by laborious word like a manual laborer laying pipe,
whether the unhappy families are all alike, or unhappy in their own way.

I wonder if Konstantin Levin's tortured passionate voice reflects his
creator's writerly day-to-day experience fussing to bring him to life?
Without knowing, I imagine Tolstoy as courtly -- like some of his
characters, leading a double life, part man-about-town, part hermit.

In the name of art, I see Leo fading from view to an underground room
where he spends months on end alone doing research in his soundproofed
windowless bunker (today there'd be no phones), admitting to friends
after he'd finally birthed the novel, an experience resembling self-torture.

He'd speak to me like Talese in his fourteen-years-to finish meta-memoir
"A Writer's Life," "I suppose there's a part of me that resists taking the
easy way. As an old self-flagellating Catholic, I need to suffer,
and something has to be hard to be worthy."

Gay's wife (not chopped liver, rather an editor with her own imprint)
said recently about his composing: "I can't say he never complained,
but no matter how hopeless it seemed, he went down there
every single day and sometimes back again in the evening.

I often read aloud to him what he's written, and with this book
it was literally sentences and phrases that he kept working over.
I'd say about something, 'That's good,' and he'd say,
'You don't have any taste.' "

To quote yesterday's Sunday New York Times, Mr. Talese,
"has compared writing both to passing a kidney stone and to 'driving
a truck at night without headlights, losing your way along the road
and spending a decade in a ditch.' "

The piece continued, he's a "painfully slow worker — a tinkerer and reviser,
an obsessive typer and re-typer. He keeps track of his progress, or lack of
it, with memos and exhortations to himself...a road map of detours, false
starts and dead ends: 'If you'd get down to it!" and "Where am I going???'

Starting all over again, making wrong turns, putting aside, abandonment...
'What is going wrong? What did I actually do during the thirty-one days...?
Slow, slow worker am I. Every day I put in my hours, squeezing the grapes,
trying to make the wine ... but only a slow drop at a time comes forth.'"

Colleague David Halberstam added, "He burned with this absolute sense of
purpose. He needed to do things to his standards and his definition...There
are a lot of writers now who imitate his method but don't put in the time,
so what you have is the exterior but not the density."

The Times says, "Holding all this material together is an elaborate canti-
levering, with carefully placed trusses supporting digressions," Talese's
writer-cousin reiterates, "Partly it's his own fault..craziness..meticulousness
that has nothing to do with making a living. It's his own battle with his craft.

Gay could have tapped out a book about Lorena Bobbitt in about six months,
and it would have been a best seller. And then he could have been on to the
next...about the soccer player. So now he's got two best sellers, and then he
does restaurants — all of them would have got him on the Katie Couric show.

But no, he's not going to do it that way. This is the journey he has to take,
and he's pushed the finish line so far to the horizon that the rest of us
can't even see it." Every now and then, Mr. Talese, so fastidious in his
demeanor, so regular in his habits, simply flies the coop.

'It's just despair, which leads to a kind of recklessness,' he said recently.
'You get to a point where there's nothing to lose, because you've sort
of lost it with yourself already, and so you just do it. You stop fooling
around and jump off the bridge.'

'In a way I've been writing the same book all my life...collections
of short stories that use real names and have a real narrator and
that don't make anything up...The funny thing is that I never think
they're going to be difficult.' "

4.24.06

"Withdrawal"

1.

Eight days out, sure as shooting, I got the jitters kicking the habit.
Started slow, sniffly nose and goosebumps before the shakes.
Watery eyes turned red then big.
Heart racing, sweaty, screamed at the wife, slurred epithets.
Stumbled into bed, yawned, fell asleep.
Almost shat and pissed myself.
Can't wait to score my next fix.

Looked around but couldn't find means to ends, that special
paraphernalia injecting bliss into life, in and out, sunshine into flower
still water into solid mountain, feminine into masculine
body into soul, tender balancing tough, refreshing, rescuing
healing, leaving me fine alone, ample space for silent love
vulnerable, everyone an extension of my own true nature
when it used to be all too noisy inside myself, too crowded.

Furrowed brow, juiced, jacked, gouged, muddied, jabbed, bent,
spent -- more dead modeling clay than human -- just killing time
hanging by the phone, waiting for candyman
to offer a shot out, just the littlest hit
a tasty bit of jive to remind me what ecstasy
I'm missing here in the boonies, so isolated
eight days away from the rush and the action.

Finally the call comes in.
A person takes pity.
Tells me she's got what I need.
Reassures everything'll soon be set right.
Says they're higher than kites, smiling, cooing, drinking each other in.
Fool that I am, I don't believe my daughter's calm, her arms around him.
Til the new mother puts the receiver where I hear dear month-old Simon.

2.

I dreamed or read or fibbed ninety-six point three percent of us
first time grandparents encounter this amazing baby dependency.
Newborn addiction is an equal-opportunity affliction affecting
adolescents and the elderly, all races, and all socioeconomic strata.
Difficult to cure, remissions can be achieved in thirty-two to sixty percent:
the variation seems based on the level
of functioning at entry and the support systems available.

Treating the attachment-abusing zeyde is not a hopeless process
but can be a long one, similar to any other chronic disorder.
The reward of seeing an impaired grandfather return to normal
societal functioning is not, however, what makes my effort worthwhile.
Although I feel guilty growing tolerant to tiny Simon doses (always
wanting more), I'm annoyed when people comment on my dependence
whispering I need a Simon eye-opener to get started in the morning.

My partner's also an abuser: she introduced me to the newborn habit
thirty-three years ago and has been my supplier ever since.
Denying feedback, accepting personal choice and responsibility
the family's ambivalence, to confront or not, judgments, empathy
demoralization, blame, lapses, slips, and relapses are normal yadda
yadda in the twelve-step game of developing commitment and
confidence to change behaviors, especially addicting ones like infants.

Only four more days before I see Simon again!

4.23.06

"Darshan Lines"

Yesterday patient number three in my morning queue put a discriminating
question to me, not down at the knees and toes aches and pain level
but loftier, "Should the Centers For Disease Control be trusted?"

I must admit to being taken aback at first -- coming not from the lips of one
of my hip stable of unstable brilliant thin young homeless bipolar men but
rather from the meek mouth of an always grateful squat older Asian woman.

I asked Shu (who once confided her name meant kind and gentle)
"What is it you are so concerned about?"
"Learning about bird flu in China makes me worry for my grandsons here."

Buying needed time examining her rheumatoid toes and knees, finally I
answered wishywashily, "I think science not politics still runs the CDC,
though like other physicians I'm bothered that eventually it may not."

Shu looked at me hard and silent, didn't accept my reassurance that
her arthritis was quiescent as appreciatively as usual, and left, grinning
mischief, new prescriptions in hand, with barely a thank you and no bow.

Embarrassed at my mealymouthedness, Shu somehow knew my true
conclusion that Bush's team undermines the division between science
and politics as much as it dis' the difference between church and state.

Working overtime, I get home late after focussing as best I can to heal
every single patient waiting, my penance for defiling the parking lot clinic's
sacred space as refuge from street bullshit and haggard subhuman status.

Relaxing over muesli, berries, and the New York Times, a front page headline
blares, "F.D.A. Dismisses Medical Benefit from Marijuana - Political Fight
Widens - Agency Reply to Congress Contradicts '99 Report by U.S. Scientists."

The Mayflower's arriving bluebloods must've looked pretty undocumented
to the aboriginal redskins. When the Founders lined up to do the Declaration
of Independence, could they imagine where America'd find ourselves now?

Does any sane person believe today's leaders could create The Constitution?
Maybe India's over-the-top Amma, hugging lonely souls in New York, suggests
evolution's next step, a woman President awakening inexhaustible motherly love.

4.22.06

"R.I.P."

The biggest baddest dude around, when Jesse strode down the street
even grown men'd clear a path for his slow lofty straighttalking walk,
all six foot six of black hardpacked steel after years of barbells
and worse in prison where he was rumored to have killed someone.

But over the time I got to know Jess' sweetness after he came to my
parking lot homeless clinic complaining of pain in the back; his laser eyes
turned sad, he lost muscle mass and began to hunch over before needing
a cane to hobble, never explaining to a soul he had horrible bone cancer.

4.21.06

"Daydreaming a Friend's Visiting Lecture"

Already embarrassed at being so late, by mistake entering
the tiny Stanford library through the front not the back,

clumsily halfwaving passing my midlecture buddy, calling yet more
unwanted attention to myself while needlessly distracting her,

I finally slink into a distant seat to fret alone, only to notice her husband
sitting next to me, beaming bad vibes from his straight through my eyes.

Wishing very much to disappear under the table, totally out of my league
in grasping her esoteric premise part way through a high-powered talk,

with the usual academic technical mess-ups (you'd think here in
Silicon Valley we could do better) causing the PowerPoint slides

not to project large on the screen but small on her laptop at the
other end of the oval, the devil tempts me to rest just a little bit,

and for what seems like a mere second, I believe maybe I fall asleep,
all the time aware of a bad smell permeating my nose (what is it that

causes intellectuals not to use deodorant, think IQ correlates with BO?)
only to be startled awake by a perky coed brushing across my legs,

who on her way out of the room shakes one hand with a jock she
presumably knows well since with the other she sweeps dandruff

off his sweater collar before he too nods back down for thirty winks.
When the prepared remarks conclude, a saffron-robed Zen monk asks

something about the relationship of lactose intolerance to hunters and
gathers evolving to drink cows' milk, and while I desperately try to get

my head around that, a black woman riffs how interesting the question is--
perhaps there's a direct correlation with the 98% genetic overlap between

chimps and humans--right as the scaly-scalped dude suddenly pops up
from his nap to pontificate about grooming and language primate patterns

having lots to do not only with affection but also with alliances among
younger studs trying to overthrow the alpha male to get at all the girls.

4.21.06

"Schweitzerville"

I've always said, "I get more from homeless center doctoring than I give."

This morning was just another wonderful example of what that means.

As usual, Rodriguez bounds over to me in the parking lot clinic before I can even put up the laminated green "Doctor Is In" sign a proud client made a few years ago on a nearby Menlo Park public library computer.

I've had so much practice avoiding Victor's persistent hassling, that I've become pretty good turning in the opposite direction to different patients.

I've often asked myself why I find Vic so difficult: my answer internally is, Why doesn't he follow my advice to lose weight, quit drinking, and get off those pills for high sugar -- instead of continually bothering me about his chronic itchless rash that neither a general internist (yours truly) nor several dermatologists (Kaiser, county, private) can diagnose or treat despite suspicions it's related to his diabetes and empirical trials up the wazoo and back of all kinds of pills including high dose steroids.

But this glorious spring day's the charm.

Though Mr. Gotcha Victor Rodriguez bounds over to me as usual,
his body language and his smile rather than smirk are definitely not.

Before I can grab a Styrofoam cup to fill with hot water and dunk
a Lipton Tea bag, Vic -- eating a stale chocolate cupcake with pink
frosting and white sprinkles along with a chicken burrito dripping out
of its aluminum foil wrapper -- instead of complaining about almost
everything and making me feel it's somehow my fault and problem,
sort of like at home when things aren't going so well with the wife --
simply says, "Doc, I wanted to let you know I don't have a rash now!"

My God, I whisper to myself in a milliflash, What didn't I know or do
that God or luck or time or some smarter health practitioner did?

"That's great, Victor!"

But like the passive-aggessive guy he is (I think), no way he's gonna
take me out of my misery without doing the full blown mea culpas,
which in this case means asking him who found what great solution.

So I did.

And for effect, Vic grins like a Cheshire cat while slowly, very slowly rolling up his sleeves to prove it to me, and even more slowly he says, "That's all she did was take me off my high blood pressure pill Maxide..."

No, I can't document it, but I'm sure I heard "you idiot" under his breath.

"Wow, that's really good news! That's weird that none of the skin doctors tumbled to the sulfa allergy thing -- don't you remember I asked them about that, but nothing showed up on the tissue under the microscope" yadda yadda?

"Sure, Doc (...you CYA idiot)."

"And, by the way, who figured it out?"

"When I was in prison -- that's the reason I haven't been here in months -- the intake nurse said my water pill caused a rash, she changed me to Lasix, and in about two months my skin was fine, which along with the awful jail food and drying out allowed me to lose about twenty pounds, so now I'm not a diabetic, hypertensive, or alcoholic."

"Fabulous, Vic!"

"And thanks for all your help, Doc."

4.20.06

"Grandfatherly Saturday Night Bath Conceit"

Space heater on
our pinkly naked month-old grandson
newly nestled in the kitchen sink
takes it easy in his nifty blue-green tubby
pudgy toes and fingers splashing a bit
alert and quiet, tender and content, almost smiling
Simon reminds me of a tiny baby Buddha.

4.17.06

"Draculas Ripening"

Imagine your or mine or their extended family's
psychophysical geriatric zero sum endgame goes something like this:

two great-grandparents gain, one loses big,
through apparent direct neuronal transference from the third one alive

whose vacuoles grow, she quieter and quieter, emptier and emptier,
as her knowing 93 year-old husband attests, he ever sharper by the day,

still cruising to hospital rounds, founding journals, knowing everything,
while the other side's great-grandma, once a most proper Orthodox Jew,

now devolves into manic roller coaster derepression,
seemingly sucking all healthy white matter out of second granny's head,

regurgitating the world's dead collective unconscious, from ribald
sleepings with Frank Sinatra, dating Abraham, and fuckshitpiss swearing

to ineluctable infinite wisdom about ancient Kenyan women
who never let their babies touch the ground until their second year.

4.17.06

"Slippery Slopes"

Surfing my Volvo wagon through a geyser near Hollywood and Vine,
cops and tourists and residents like me stare a hundred feet high
where a giant broken pipe under 101's freeway overpass dumps up then
floods down the street, waistdeep for drivers and mudmen to hydroplane on.

On my mission to unearth a cheap well-oiled elliptical trainer or exercycle
(my grummous knee cartilage's shot from way too much downhill running),
I first stop at Goodwill on Sunset, but finding only a nice Yale coffee mug,
the kindly boss lady takes pity, directs me to her La Brea and Wilshire store.

No luck there, I'm referred to Out Of The Closet on Gower just west of
the Hollywood Car Wash where slipping and sliding Salvadorans and
Mexicans labor on rich folks Mercedes and SUVs, then for their midday
break, shop right next door for used clothes and furniture alongside me.

It has plenty of smooth bikes but nothing to ride for inside leisure (I'm a
bit embarrassed next to the sweaty workers), so one of the guys sends me
on what turns out to be quite a wild goose chase to the Salvation Army,
ending up back on Vine and De Longpre at the Need Money? Pawn Shop.

Greasy Samuel tries to sell me a slide trombone, electric guitar, TV,
computer, pistol and rifle but nothing I really want or really need, after
which I grab a quick burrito for lunch at Los Balcones next door south of
a Tarot reading parlor, and decide to chuck it all in and just return home.

In alternative-shiek slick Vermont's Los Feliz district among the bevy of
Manhattanish family-run fine-food good-value restaurants, I pass the
aberrant franchised House of Pies where culture-war battle lines are drawn,
whose parking lot's full of LAPD "to protect and to serve" black and whites.

Turning off Beachwood, climbing our slippery narrow hill, a truck prevents
my advancing, which is lucky since it's from St. Vincent De Paul gathering
stuff no longer desirable to the wealthy for redistribution to the flatlands'
poor, so I get their phone number from one of the Spanish-speaking loaders.

Although certainly failing my primary goal of locating the fitness deal of
my dreams (not yet beginning to scheme on eBay or craigslist), I can't
resist noting the pilgrimage's more basic success, procuring Rite Aid baby
Vaseline and stool softener to keep things copacetic on the newborn's bottom.

Speaking of fronts, the latest greatest is an Iraqi citizen had his head blown
off for the Marquezish sin of delivering ice -- a godless vice since ice hadn't
been invented back in the 9th century or whenever was kosher -- as the coalition
of non-willing madmen continues to slip 'n slide on the bloody side of the moon.

4.16.06

"Simon's Americana"

Was it Eisenhower who
warned me about the
infant-industrial complex
which as he might have
predicted has grown like
topsy since I was a Cold War
I-Like-Ike '50's kid and even
faster after being a 70's
do-your-own-thing hippy
living-out-in-the-country
natural childbirth new parent
myself to now with onslaughts
of every imaginable dohickie
from good old-fashioned lovingly
hand-knitted mittens and blankies
to state-of-the-art hypertech
Fisher-Price eight-speed twelve-tune
six-mobile motorized vibrating cradle
swings and papasans and my favorite
the R2D2-shaped all white plastic Baby
Trend Diaper Champ that gobbles up
the dirties like a CIA paper shredder
and the Symphony electronic double
breast pumping system and the still
packed Graco Baby Einstein Activity
Center and Pack 'n Play Portable Playyard
from Target or The Pump Station or
fancier buy buy baby stores or
more often over the Internet
and seemingly arriving by Fed Ex
at least hourly from friends
and relatives who most likely
like Tony Soprano in last Sunday's
seventieth episode insists that
Carmela keep track of the size
of the check he writes for Johnny
Sack's zaftig daughter's wedding
to make sure they're not stiffed
reciprocally when time comes
for his own dear Meadow
to marry hopefully very soon.

4.15.06

"Transitions"

Babe and Bubbe
three week and ninety-eight year-old buddies
upon waking from sleep, cry out for aid
having slid way too far down in their respective seats.

Both quite tiny, I carry baby to his changing table
then prop great-grandma on her Invacare commode
smearing cream and diapering both bottoms
as each screams bloody murder at me.

4.15.06

"Our Lovely Glump"

We called our three Smush,
their plastic newborn bodies
self-molding like banana slugs
responding to positive stimuli,
sometimes lean, neat and alert,
at others, like Yabba the Hut,
chubby and distant, most often
after breastfeeding when blood
drained from brain to intestine,
from head to digestion; here
this early Saturday morning,
as Bubbe Jr. coos Loop De Loop
and cradles now glumpy Simon,
while I fold the laundry then load
clothes and dish washers, so our
son-in-law and daughter who birthed
this taller, calmer and bluer-eyed
version can sleep just a bit longer.

4.15.06

"Good Friday Brahmaviharas"

The experience of love is an important part of my life, duh.
At times past I've fallen in love with meditation practice, with the dharma.

Sitting has often become emotionally dry -- or sometimes moist around love,
romantic love, love of friends, spiritual love, platonic love.

My dharma teacher says there are four primary forms of healthy loving.
In Buddhist psychology, these noble abodes, or brahmaviharas, are:

Lovingkindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity.
Lovingkindness, or metta, is expressed in wishing another being to be happy.

Basic goodwill, openheartedness, kindheartedness takes compassion
on the sufferer, wanting her to be free of suffering.

Mudita, or sympathetic joy -- intention to feel pleasure, not envy or jealousy,
in all our human differences -- happens to be my favorite internal workplace.

Equanimity has been called °Grandmotherly" love
because it has seen it all and is more balanced and even.

Some claim compassion that is clean (not mixed with fear or anger) releases
oxytocin, a hormone that may create a sense of well-being in nursing mothers.

This gives physical support to the idea
that the route to happiness is to cultivate compassion.

On the one hand, one could think of compassion as a sticky-gooey
substance that gums up the workings of the sword of wisdom.

But I prefer the Middle Path metaphor of wings,
taking flight on balanced compassion and wisdom.

Mindfulness practice tenderizes my being,
loosening defenses, softening the crusts of attachments.

I find myself with a tenderer heart practicing lovingkindness.
Think of someone for whom you hanker to have goodwill.

What are your fondest wishes for him?
Maybe repeat a few phrases expressing these.

During this meditation you're connected to a sense
of the person while holding your best thoughts in mind.

A sensation of warmth may come in
when you are absorbed in good will.

In this practice, you are the primary beneficiary.
It is an antidote for self-loathing, insecurity and fear.

It is protection from the struggles of life: The world tends
to treat you better if you relate with kindness and warmth.

Healthy states of mind enhance mindfulness:
lovingkindness enhances mindfulness.

Since mindfulness is clear-seeing,
it helps me know how to care for those dear.

Traditionally, the easiest person to start
lovingkindness practice with is yourself.

(However we Westerners often have difficulty with this.)
Work outward from there to universalize the love.

Overcome obstacles to goodwill by working to accept neutral persons.
Grappling with difficult issues is part of the process.

The task becomes more challenging working to love enemies.
But without stretching to meet new challenges, is there a true spiritual life?

Buried anger, resentment and grief may be exposed
as part of the cleansing process.

If you want to be happy,
don't focus on yourself but on what you can do for others.

Metta does not require anything in return; it does not need
being loved back; it doesn't want anything from the other person.

May all sentient beings be resurrected
from their stigmata into the light of peace and liberation.

4.14.06

"Simon the Lion (For Julia)"

At least in my head, I never lived sixth grade grade school terror.
Ordinary ornery hormones and identity stuff were there, but not terror.

Maybe it was different at Beverly Vista that went K through 8 with
playgrounds still built-in and lots of younger children for me to pick on.

But my three kids attended junior high school grades 6 through 8, with no
singing classes, where psychosocialsexualphysiological shit hit the fan way more.

I mean, as a junior high boy you're a nobody at the bottom of the totem,
and instead of ball as a refuge, it's all about being cool I was told.

Maybe easier for girls reassured by plenty of older guys sniffing around,
though I'd argue too risky and pressured to grow up quickly and bitchily.

I don't know why I'm thinking about this so much now fifty years afterwards,
when my daughters and son are adults having their own little ones.

Could that perhaps seed the anticipatory reason:
am I beginning to fret over future sixth grade threats to new grandson Simon?

4.14.06

"Magical Thinking/ Metaphysics 100,000,000,000A"

I read in the paper today that every human brain has as many
neurons as there are galaxies in the known universe, about 100 billion.

I began to wonder if that incomprehensibly large number was magical,
somehow maybe related to the number of grains of sand on earth.

Best I could tell, there are something less than 5 thousand
billion billion grains of sand on our world's beaches.

And generally speaking, the Milky Way can be considered an average
galaxy with the equivalent to that same famous 100 billion number of stars.

So in fact, 100 billion galaxies have roughly 10 to the 26th stars --
only slightly more (a mere 400 billion billion) than all the grains of sand.

But after all, who's counting? As in the 10,000 different neuronal cell types
woven into a 3-dimensional tapestry with trillions of threads of connections?

Think on the Tyndall effect that scatters shorter wavelength light better,
why the gazillion particles in water, sky and headlamp fog appear blue not red.

Or...

4.11.06

"Re:sarnat assignment"

In a message dated 4/10/06 4:53:54 PM, silverback888 writes:
<victoors deli and check out franklin ave stores/resturant across from
the scientology center/celebrity center (check that out too!!!).... use
to live in nichols canyon and silverlake , that are always had an
intersting atmossphere.... you write well and tend to met people so
info/ entertain us>>

Simon's recent rhythm's been relative heaven, allowing
his Bubbe and me to be more carefree nights after days
chocked full of grandbaby watching and washing and shopping.

Yesterday before "24" we dined at Kenny's favorite Victor's, just down
the hill from our daughter's across from the $$$ Mayfair Market. In
deference to tomorrow's Pesach, I passed on the primo matzo ball soup.

Although in the next few months I'm dedicated to sampling the huge
diverse menu (seafood linguine and calf's liver special especially), I
settled on my usual corned beef sandwich and bottled Dr. Brown's Wild Cherry.

Lela and I are very fond of Vermont's funky Los Feliz Theater and hip
Skylight Bookstore and family-run Il Capriccio restaurant and look forward
to trying a little place that looks straight out of Paris France.

LA's lots more developed and cool than I ever knew as a limited teenage
Beverly Hills Jew who thought aside from an occasional bus east ride to
Adams West jazz or an art film, life revolved around the westside.

I also biked to Hollywood and the beach, or after friends got licenses,
driving, and later, I'd borrow the family car to hangout in Silverlake
taking drugs listening to the Vanilla Fudge with a married BHHS-63er.

Nevertheless, until about two weeks ago, my concept of what LA is,
was mistakenly stuck, not evolving with the city over the last forty
years: Larchmont is another nearby fun neighborhood we discovered.

I bought tickets for Curland and me to Troop 621's August 20 Pancake
Breakfast from Asian boyscouts standing on opposite sides of Larchmont
in red kerchief green uniforms with merit badges like back in Troop 17.

We almost rented on Sycamore between Melrose and Beverly -- looked great
on the Internet -- but when we got there, it was a totally frum community
and we got bummed imagining living among only Orthodox Jews.

I'm on the other side of the curve religion-speaking: we rented a sweet little duplex
on wooded Glen Holly in Hollywoodland near our daughter for June when she
finishes her last med school year, through October when things should settle down.

Tonight after our chores are none, we'll likely catch an early flick
at the Arclight, then grab a bite and a beer at the short-order "101"
attached to our motel, which attracts a most swell younger Hollywood clientele.

4.11.06

"Electric Lotus Indian Takeout"

Vermont Blvd-sheik masala and tandoori dishes brought in by the kids' first
Simon era visitors, adds spice to a nice conversation about what's in a name.

The four of them, both married couples,
moved from Boston to New York to here in the Hollywood Hills.

I've know these college friends for umpteen years;
each pair consists of a TV writer plus a budding pediatrician or litigator.

Although and because I love them so, I tried (unsuccessfully)
to stay in the background, just drinking in their newfound adult talk.

Hanging back, I listen to serious career planning, which escalates
when even more juice is generated as they turn to babies.

The newborn-have -- my daughter and son-in-law -- and the have-not
duos share quite distinctive ifs and whys and whens and maybes.

All have passionate points of view about how important it is what
you call your kid...and (fortunately) how superb a choice Simon was.

4.10.06

"Kosher Karma and Palm Sunday"

Jesus' holy week beginning, anticipating next week's celebration
of The Passover and The Resurrection,
karma is universal cause and effect, showing us how to take responsibility.

In non Judeo-Christian terms, karma is composed of Sati and Sampajanna.
Sati is mindfulness and means to understand things as they are.
Sampajanna is wisdom and means how we respond to how things are.

We exist in a sea of change, encountering moments of choice as various ripples.
As we become more sensitive to their impact, we recognize more choices.
If a person does not see choice, then he is a slave to external conditions.

Mindfulness shows us where we have a choice.
The karmic outcome can be one consideration around the choice we make.
The Indo-Pali word "karma" means "action" as in "to make" or "to do."

Intentionality equates to karma according to Buddha.
We are like ducks on the sea of cause and effect.
Karma can be seen as a way of getting justice out of the world.

For those who want to see it that way, you will pay or be rewarded
for your actions eventually. But it does not explain everything,
since some things that happen are not due to karma.

Karma points to the tremendous impact motivation has on our lives.
Whatever fuels an action produces more of itself.
Healthy intentions produce more health.

Intentions themselves operate in certain tracks.
A primary track is in ourselves. For instance,
action produces memory which can operate on our future well-being.

Intention affects the physical body by setting up a habit.
The world of happiness is primarily a product of our intentions.
We can learn to be at peace independent of the conditions of the world:

By monitoring our intentions and motivations and making choices that
are skillful, wholesome, generous, wise, and based on love. Intentions are
seeds that we water to form and shape our inner life toward happiness.

We learn to stop and consider intentionality as we act in the world.
Speech acts have a lot of intentionality around them.
The physical body can be a guidepost for understanding

the effect of intention by noting
how one feels the results of action.
One can notice the emotion and tension or relaxation that is produced.

An exercise to be considered is to ask oneself periodically
"What is the deepest intention I want my life to be based on?"
The answer may change over time.

An example might be "to live a life without fear."
Alternatively it can be expressed
in a positive way as "to connect in a deep and loving way with people."

As one practices being aware of intentions and making skillful choices,
happiness and well-being are produced which makes it easier
to let go of things that you may cling to.

One is more able to let go of self-concern, to create the conditions in the
mind and heart that will allow you to experience moments of liberation,
and for those well beyond me, ultimately transparent luminous peace.

Happy Easter,
a good Pesach,
and a plentiful harvest for all.

4.9.06

"In-Laws of Special Relativity"

Until recently I always thought my wife and I
were the kind of partners that lived together forever and always.

On the other hand, A and B seem to like chunks of American bicoastal,
he here she there.

And Y and Z seem happiest alternating Yale or Zaire with California,
she there he here.

P Q and R -- 2 hims 1 her, vice versa, 3 XXs, 3 XYs, or whatever
genetic or gender permutation -- believe all of us are equally square.

"Always" ended the first day of spring when we became grandparents
commuting frequently from our home to our son-in-law's in Los Angeles.

One or the other, none, or both of us there or here; again
on Wednesday we passed in midair to or from Burbank or San Jose.

Watching for her at 20,000 feet over Pismo Beach brought to mind the
high school physics problem, "if L traveled north at E mph, and M ..."

In our brave new world of special relativity, sharing energy and mass
at light speed so intimately, our family's learning to merge time and space.

The itinerants' transitional calculus becomes:
Can you make sure to use your Southwest Air Rapid Rewards number?

Could someone pick me up at the airport, or do I need to grab a cab?
If I leave the Volvo for you at the airport, how will you pickup the keys?

Did you feed the cat, fix the car, water the plants, plug the leak at home?
When you return, would you bring the bills and tax returns and dinner?

Will we live with the kids, or rent on Glen Holly or nearer or farther away?
Should we sublet our house back home?

What about canceling the papers?
Is it worth it to redirect the mail and Netflix?

Do you want to unload dishes and pop clothes in the dryer then fold, or
prefer to change Simon's diaper and rock him to sleep after his feeding?

Have you washed your hands before picking up our daughter's baby?
Give me odds all the kids and greatgrandparents'll meet up for Pesach?

4.8.06

"My Little Pischer"

A golden liquidy heavenly flash evokes my long ago first trip to Europe...

A high school tour kind of thing.
Still bombed out from World War II.
Lots of cripples in the streets, on the buses.
Slept through most of it.
A few sexual false starts.
Got turned on to Flemish art.
Mainly remember Belgium's touristy Mannequin Pis.
A black marble lad pissing.
No way back then I'd fall for "pis" meaning "fountain" in French...

Drifting back to the present,
I gently scrub my grandson's sweet bottom,
Glop Aveeno Baby Ointment on his teeny tiny rash,
Paint Vaseline on the post bris penis with a Q-tip.

But before I can wrap up the nighty-night plan --
fresh diaper, my favorite yellow ducky sleeper,
swaddled all nice and tight, put him down -- I'm proud to brag
this little boy launches a grand stream that arcs from down below
over his head onto the Live Dead album cover next to the bassinet,
barely missing Richard Scarry's butterflies he's just beginning to stare at.

4.7.06

"A Gemisch..."

...by which I mean that messily familiar warm Yiddishe sort of mix, rather
than the neat scientific Germanic distinction among cold chemical states,

I mean that midway state between awake and dreaming
when it's not clear when or where or why or who's coming or going,

I mean middle of the night, right here with mama and rosebud, she nursing,
me changing diapers, all three of us listening to vintage American Beauty Rose.

Am I eavesdropping back to '73, hanging out in the Pt. Reyes Seashore with my
new family to music The Dead crew gave me after home-delivering their baby?

Or is it now -- whenever that is -- with my daughter and her son,
I really don't know one from the other as I wonder myself back to sleep.

4.6.06

"A Walk in the Woods"

Saturday
April Fools

I climbed
the hill
with eight
blood brothers.

We marveled
at the earth
its trees
man's statues

died on
the road
deep into
unconsciousness

and together
were reborn
in the arms
of our souls.

4.5.06

"I-read-the-news-today-oboy"

Nature stories make me cry with joy and sorrow.
Penguin daddies stand incubating eggs for months in the Antarctic dark.
Hungry lionesses abandon litter runts and move on.

In yesterday's cold and wet pre-dawn hours,
a newborn left at a downtown San Jose fire station
represented the fifty-first use of a safe surrender law.

Californians may now give up their babies
to hospitals or other designated places
within three days of birth without prosecution.

Although sad, the infants are more likely to survive
than if discarded like trash in garbage cans, forsaken
in shopping bags and carts, or dumped like feces in toilets.

The state also provides that parents can reclaim
their kids within fourteen days of giving them up
if they're willing to submit to DNA matching tests.

Returning to LA tomorrow, rejoining my daughter and her husband
and my wife to love and care for grandson Simon, I'm struck
by my profoundly naive understanding of our human condition.

4.4.06

"Death Knell to Nation States?"

Remember all the science fiction movies
where attacks from outer space united our planet?

Without quibbling about "science" or "outer,"
I wonder if earthlings could actually create this evolved nonfictional place.

What if all the world's people, like Nancy Reagan taught us, just said no,
we don't want our taxes to go for weapons any more.

The US President simplistically touts democracies, their growing number,
and the development of new ones everywhere.

So, no more simplistic, why can't voters internationally vote for folks
who'll spend our hard-earned dough on social programs or no new taxes?

Don't get me wrong, I'm no Pollyanna, I know that's no panacea with China,
Syria, North Korea and the rest of Bush's Axis of Evil, totalitarianism, etc.

Yet it's a start, and if you don't think I'm very smart (the NRA says if you
ban guns, only criminals will have them), let me hear your better argument.

Of course given human nature, would it be surprising if once we were one,
some'd want to spend money defending us from Mars or other solar systems?

4.4.06

"A Do-What-I-Say-er Volunteer"

An earsplitting Israeli stage whisper
from the parking lot homeless center's center
inquires from the nearby doctor whether
doing a certain illicit substance is truly bad for him

while in the same corpulent multitasking breath
smoking cigarettes, tossing a rubber ball,
smiling like a Cheshire cat, and hectoring clients
to get healthier by exercising more.

4.4.06

"Tight As A Top"

Spend your heartbeats wisely.
Drop down and in.
Slow the rhythm.
Single task.
Be at one.
Peace.

4.3.06

"Monday Morning Volunteering"

A color postcard of Rome's panorama in all her glory grabs my attention.
On the non-picture side, in exquisitely fine green fountain pen ink,
the writer hopes her dear friend is doing very well last summer.

One of my jobs is to sort this stack of mail every month or so,
culling out letters timestamped more than six months ago.

Following protocol, with some sadness,
I move Hedda's fondest wishes to Murray, John
from the alphabetized inbox to the deadletter bin
which I'm instructed to empty into the trash
if not claimed when the homeless agency closes on Friday.

Last time I saw Big John was maybe a year before
when he came in smoking and half drunk for a diabetes check.

I sent him to the Stanford Free Clinic
to see a surgeon about his right leg's blackening gangrene.

No one can recall Johnny being around here since then.

4.3.06

"Showing Up Cause You Want To"

I love fathering
as much as anything.

Nothing's been better than
bottle then spoon feeding our kids.

Particularly the baby
who still lives with us when not away at school.

She just left with a roommate
driving back to Santa Barbara.

Just we two spent the last week together
though her spring break was anything but wonderful.

Since she'd recently torn her right knee's lateral meniscus,
this was the window to get it fixed instead of playing in Ft. Lauderdale.

I had to pull strings to lasso the surgeon to get the arthroscopy
scheduled so quickly, and for Ems to miss follow-up visits, but we did it.

Originally Emma said, "No need for you to be home, Dad.
I've got all my gang here to take care of me."

But I told her of course that was absurd, "Are you kidding, I'm your
daddy!" and I flew up the minute my grandson's bris in LA was done.

When I asked what she wanted for pampering food,
she predictably said, "Daddy, I don't need anything."

Which of course was silly -- soon she made
a huge list and I got it all on my way in from the airport.

As meticulous as she is, she had no problem
with the no eating or drinking before the operation.

What we did the next day while she waited was make it OK for her
to be scared of a tube in the throat and being awake during surgery.

At the same time, I comforted her as a doctor and father that
everything would be fine -- and that I'd be a watchdog by her side.

The next day we drove to the surgicenter, and I was proud of how she
took the lead with insurance, paperwork and durable medical equipment.

Then while we sat and sat and she got anxious,
I gave her little pats on the back to calm us both down.

My buddy the sports medicine doc and the anesthesiologist came in,
and I was pleased she could voice her concerns and fears to them.

After I gave her a kiss and she was whisked off was when my nerves
acted up, but soon enough the word came back everything went great.

As usually happens, the surgeon was a bit cavalier
explaining how simple the postoperative course would be.

Ems was feeling so good when we drove home that
for a moment we considered not picking up the Vicodan prescription.

But luckily we weren't fooled by her illusory immediate well being,
and decided to stop at Longs to have it ready if necessary.

The first night was almost painfree without needing narcotics, but she
agreed to take Motrin regularly to stay ahead of the curve just in case.

We were so relieved that everything seemed easy, that it was likely
she could go back to school four days later to start the new quarter.

By the next morning when the local anesthesia wore off and
the swelling came on, it was a different and disappointing story.

She slogged through the next days like a trooper -- unable to walk
like she could the first evening, unable to sleep with the throbbing.

In bed, knee straight and raised, ice machine and medicines -- even
with friends and dogs sleeping over -- this was no primo spring vacation.

But although my girl was worried something was wrong inside, she
didn't complain a lot after I called the nurse to give her reassurance.

Yesterday's post-op day three was big when I removed
the dressings, and she saw that her knee really wasn't so awful.

Today was the best since it's the first time Ems felt better,
and it became clear she could travel back to college.

Better not to fly -- shorter but tougher with no leg room -- lucky
to have someone drive with the shotgun seat pushed way back.

So while she took her first shower -- garbage bags guarding the
incision -- I cooked up a storm of grilled cheeses etc. to see her off.

Furiously working to get her ready, she offered so sweetly,
"Daddy, do nothing for a minute, please just sit here with me."

Which we did, with her final breakfast in bed, watching
Hulk Hogan and his hulkette daughter on vhr reality TV.

While Ems packed, I filled the ice chest with cold packs and ice blocks
for the trip, and a bag with bandages and pills and a homemade cake.

Then her roomie, whom I hadn't seen since dinner at UCSB, arrived,
really positive and supportive, making the transition so much easier.

She and I piled all the stuff in the car -- garbage bags and tape
and scissors, Ems' stereo, everything but the kitchen sink.

I'm so impressed how mature they are since
the first time they drove down together two years ago.

They begin to plan how all the roommates
will pitch in to get Emma to class while she needs help.

Finally I belt and tuck Ems into her seat sort of like an astronaut taking
off, leg straight, ice packs and bandages on, cell phone in hand.

A quick good-bye and kisses, and a reminder to check with
brother Eli about driving her down to LA for Passover.

Although they got a late start in the rain, I'm relieved Day Light
Savings Time begins today, giving an extra hour before it gets dark.

Now I have a few precious days alone and with soul brothers
before heading back south to care for our new grandson.

There's something very special about one on one love,
that getting to know each other all over again and again.

4.2.06

"Mornings After"

The morning after
an allnighter caring
for newborn Simon and
his mom Zoe my daughter
who also cares for me,

I take my leave
as a grandfather
can more than a
father to tend
to my own needs.

Failing to fall asleep
too giddy at the new
mama's success at
nursing up a storm and
that we did good,

I brag a bit
to my wife over
caffeinated coffee
instead of
my usual tea.

I learn from
the girls that
I've earned some
time off today for
whatever I want,

so I walk down
the hill alone
for breakfast
wherever I choose
and a paper.

Til a few hours
later when I have
to be back as my
next baby shift
comes up again,

scatterbrained
and frivolous I
wait for the local
Dairy Queen
to open at 11AM.

Surprised that
I'm only second
in the door, I stand
in line to order
a favorite treat,

a medium-sized
chocolate-dipped
vanilla soft ice
cream splurge on
a sugar cone.

My pending pleasure
triggers memories
of past pleasures
specifically when
living in Brookline,

the mornings after
twenty-four hour
emergency room
shifts, flying home
on an old bicycle.

Sleep-deprived
yet too excited
to waste my
precious day off
on sleeping,

I'd relieve my wife
of Zoe putting her
in a snowsuit and
hat and the infant
backpack carrier.

Happy as a
clam I am
trudging through
the ice and slush
to Coolidge Corner,

we'd stop on
Harvard Street
to watch an
Orthodox Jew
in the window.

The Chassid baked
fresh bagels and challah
in his storefront
which we'd buy
to bring home,

while on the way
my little baby'd
clutch part of an
egg bagel in her
tiny mittened hands.

Here at DQ I
can still feel
contentment
listening to her toothless
gums chew in my ear,

but just about then
I return to now looking
around to see the
only customer who
entered before me.

A humongous man
perhaps 500 pounds
of him all stuffed into
XXXXXXX overalls,

as my less than XX size
voyeurly observes him
devour a Peanut Butter Parfait
anticipating his Flame Thrower
Burger still on the grill.

Thinking the guy is
simultaneously catching
a glimpse of me in jeans and
my bald spot looking at him and
his patch in the wall-to-wall mirrors,

I get a dazed confused hit maybe I'm just
a trickster masquerading as a whippetish him
who's just let his body go to fat staring back
at our fatigued single soul in a hall of horrors'
distorted carnival nightmare crazy reflection.

After which he or I or both or neither of us
daydreamers leave barely squeezing past
some thin sushi eaters into a blue Ford
pickup truck or red Lexus SUV driver's seat
I'm not sure and speedily burn rubber,

coming to a stop outside
Karlita's Diner to takeout Happy Veggie
and Charcoal Chicken burritos with everything
on them for an intimate lunch on the bench
together with myselves.

4.2.06

"April 1, 2006"

Are you an April fool
mewling how prayer
offered up by strangers
fuels better surgery,
when rigorous studies
published in next week's
American Heart Journal
now conclude the unprayed
for have superior outcomes?

Are you an April fool
fooling yourself that
being alone if over
fifty years old doesn't
leave your body more
prone to problems,
including blood pressure
upto thirty points higher
than in those with friends
and family, a heart risk
factor of the same order
of magnitude as obesity
and lack of exertion,
say Harvard researchers?

Are you an April fool
who has faith in every
new little finding in the
medical literature's
constantly changing
sine wave, one day
up, the next down?

Are you an April fool
who doesn't get the
Hawthorne Effect --
the equivalent of
physic's Heisenberg
Uncertainty Principle
for people -- that
maybe investigating
religion scientifically
does violence to real
phenomena, making
for bad quantitation as
well as bad spirituality?

Are you an April fool
not believing the
Dalai Lama when
he promises that if
meditation is proven
not to work, that he'll
remove it from Buddhism?

4.1.06

"An Elegy of Rebirth and Redemption"

Swaddled sarcophagus, lying tightly wrapped,
frontal wrinkled empty fetal face, expressionless,
eyes wide shut like a creepy clock with no hands
on a shrunken misshapen hairless head,
neonate or geriatric, napping or deceased,
growing or decomposing, just arrived or just departed.

Friends and family peer in, smiling or grim,
at the baby or old man in bassinet or coffin,
each life hanging by a thread, busy being born or dying or dead,
buds opening or closing, light or dark, warm or cold.
Except for the loving, what really matters on this short earthly road?

3.31.06
"Barrio Juice Bumps"

How foolish, how naive
that I'm stunned, mouth open --
standing here, watching
two standard ladies push standard strollers,
both covered in plastic for the rain,
nothing very strange, just chatting with each other,
looking like average grandmas from the back --
that in this Hispanic neighborhood, one of the women's Chinese.

3.31.06

"Don Quixote Frenzy"

A skeletal Marfanoid black man sporting El Greco Grand Inquisitor glasses
asks if I can feel the drizzle at our outside parking lot homeless center.

"Friend, you're so much taller, your head's in the clouds.
Those drops must evaporate before getting down to my level."

"Doc, I understand what you're saying, that I'm just hallucinating.
But put it to me straight -- why do I have this chronic meningitis?"

"As we've discussed many times, you're meninges're normal as mine.
The trouble's in your mind, being burned up by your genius."

Seth smiles sheepishly as he always does at this point, shuffles his mess
of books and papers, and drops a brilliant seemingly out-of-the blue rap on me.

Today's has something to do with two hundred and fifty years of Rothschilds
in Europe and America, and how they assimilated by not celebrating Hanukkah.

And then without catching his breath, he speeds on, inquiring if my family's
from Poland, if we're Catholic or Jewish, did I have an arranged marriage.

Seth's bipolar disease is so hot, he loves the manic rush so much, that
he won't comply with SSRI's, and can't hold down a job though he tries.

After three years failing to change him, instead I've changed me: We
simply enjoy each other's riffing every Thursday, and leave it at that.

3.30.06

"Clip Art, Clip Science, Clip Religion"

Carlyle asked, "...through every blade of grass,
is not a God made visible, if we will open our minds and eyes?"

After Mister Whitman clipped his title from Tom, he advised,
"The old Clipper days are over, and the white-winged fleets no more..."

Me, I'll unflinchingly filch from both great men in composing this about
my dear grandson Simon Hershel Westfield Aron's naming day bris.

Today, his eighth, somewhat coincidentally began with me clipping off
his residual bit of dried brown umbilical cord still hanging by a thread.

And by the end of a rain deluged LA day, the lad's penis had lost
it's short-term raincoat, snipped away by the circumciser's blade.

The MD mohel (who lived two blocks from me and attended my O'Keefe
School fifty years ago in Chicago) combined fine urologic and sacred skills.

Three generations stood over baby's fourth as Jews have for 3700 years.
To avoid going out of her gourd, his mama, my daughter, stayed downstairs.

The rest of us prayed and stared and tried not to faint, spooning
sugar water into Simon's mouth as the doc worked on his tiny white gourd.

I held my grandson while the deed was done. I love him so much.
I cuddled him in tight when he cried, adding wine to the gauze he sucked.

Then my mom lit the candles on the ritual linen from my wife's mother's
house, and we said the broches, or blessings, over the challah and Manischewitz.

We bawled tears of joy and tears of sorrow over the sweet baby bundle's
middle names honoring two great-grandfathers who've passed away.

The bris contract with G-d's a primitive but meaningful ritual: I think of
Dylan's god warning Abraham, When you see me coming, you better run.

Why the eighth day? My uneducated guess was it had to do with bleeding
or likelihood of survival or something Oedipal -- not today's solar eclipse.

But the Kabbalah says seven days represent the physical world of creation.
Thus, when a child has lived eight, he's transcended to the metaphysical.

The covenant joining body and soul, physical and spiritual, can now take
place: after day seven is said to be kosher -- in both Abrahamic traditions.

I've read that in Islam some circumcisions are done at thirteen or later,
and that means years not days; I can only imagine the mothers' pain.

Circumcision is not mentioned in the Qur'an, but Muslims everywhere
regard it as an essential practice enjoined by all past prophets.

Significantly, it is also known by a euphemism: tahara, or purification.
The age at which it is performed varies by region to region and family.

Most often age seven is preferred, although it is done from as early
as the seventh day following birth all the way up to puberty.

Often Muslim boys pass through their major status change -- khitan,
or circumcision - when they have recited the entire Koran once through.

In Malaysia and other regions where this procedure is followed,
the boy undergoes the operation from about ten to twelve years of age.

While our new parents were instructed how to care for Sweetness' gauze
and Vaseline wrapped package, I taxied through Noah's flood to the airport.

...I'm actually writing this the next afternoon -- just waiting -- as my younger
girl's knee's meniscus is arthroscopically clipped under general anesthesia.

3.29.06

"Tracks of My Tears, Tears of a Clown"

Traveling the narrow hilly roads
right below the HOLLYWOOD sign
in a much too large Volvo,

I spill down into the flatlands
searching medical supply stores
for perineal irrigators and other assorted glamorous postpartum goodies.

Missing my turn onto Highland, after muddling around for a while,
I end up into the boonies, far past the Hollywood Bowl
where I worked as a kid, somewhere near Mulholland Canyon.

Turning around, I find myself on Fountain
buying cold packs and all natural Latex-free baby pacifiers
at The Pump Station next to El Pollo Loco.

Soon I'm back toward Hollywood and Vine,
right below the Capital Records building,
you know the Frank Lloyd Wrightish thing built like a stack of old vinyls.

I park at Yucca and Argyle,
get out of the car,
and wander past a flash from the past,

the epicenter of so many adolescent dreams,
can you believe it,
forty-five years later,

I'm at KFWB Radio,
where all the hot singles got air play from clever disc jockeys,
and since the cool kids listened, I did too.

But lo and behold,
calamity of all calamities,
there's a FOR SALE sign

on the deserted building
and when I approach
it's locked down tight

with a very little sign
saying it's now owned
by something called The Infinity Promotions Group.

Humming Smokey Robinson and The Miracles' tunes as it begins to rain
(my mother-in-law used to walk with him on Santa Monica), I trudge
to my station wagon, drive home, and become a doting grandfather again.

3.28.06

"Attachments"

Sunday morning began with coffee and oranges and an aborted glimpse
of William Macy and his kids in the Hollywood Franklin's breakfast nook.

After a long day doing mounds of laundry and racing to the Pump Station;
come evening, the doula's off, hubby's sick, and I'm the designated stand-in.

The job's to assist my daughter through early tomorrow morning: despite
some fear after twenty years, changing diapers is like riding a bike again.

Although Pampers haven't been transformed beyond adding silly happy
faces to the strip underlying the swaddled drying brown umbilical cord,

the surrounding newborn technology has evolved from a small cottage
industry to a gigantic complicated childbirth-industrial Freudian complex.

The kids tell me it's their opinion that in all of Los Angeles, Target's
the best place to acquire high value state of the art neonatal products.

My favorite is the R2D2 size and shaped all white plastic Baby Trend
Diaper Champ that gobbles up dirty diapers like a CIA paper shredder.

Supporting mother and baby all night's a lot like reliving my medical
internship: about every hour and a half, I'm woken from a light sleep.

Seemingly big decisions need to be made: sleepers with feet or open;
offer a Latex-free all-natural pacifier or let him cry; humidifier or not.

Like thirty-three years ago, the temptation when tired and giddy is to
schmooze, shooting the breeze instead of snoozing when work's finished.

However, unlike then, this is all cake, sweetness and light, side by side
with my baby, cleaning and dressing her baby before the next feeding.

I doze, listening to Simon's gurgles and wonderful new mama's cooing.
Jerry Garcia sings in the background like at concerts we used to attend.

After the little one's full up with breast milk and burped, we bounce
together on the big blue rubber ball til he's ready to go back to sleep.

I "shush shush" in baby Simon's ear like a white noise box to simulate
the swush of the uterine artery that he's heard in the womb for months.

After putting him down in his bassinet (the vibrators and nifty flashing
lights set to go off), we all go back down til the next round soon enough.

Lying there in between waking and sleep, instead of counting sheep,
I calculate that if I live thirty-two more years, my grandson'll be exactly

as old as his mother is now, and I'll be my father's current age.
Fading deeper, I feel sad for all the world's mothers who have it bad,

who lack one or another human resources or goods to make their
childrearing experiences rich and happy for themselves and the kids.

When dawn comes, I make mama a breakfast of cereal and toast,
and a bag lunch of fruit and a sandwich to carry along to Simon's

first pediatrician visit, which reminds me a lot of getting the little
man's mommy ready to go off to school when she was my little girl.

After Tuesday's day eight Jewish Bris, I'll be busy hopping a plane back
to the Bay Area to attend to my younger daughter's knee arthroscopy.

3.27.06

"Baby Inc."

Drinking in my girl, a breathtaking mother like her own,
cooing, rocking, smiling, burping his pudginess in the setting afternoon sun,
nursing, turning him from one breast to the other so naturally,
so comforting, loving her doting husband inside their vulnerable son;
I marvel how she's become such a woman since birthing five days ago,
so superbly nurturing Simon's transition from a quiet warm placenta
to a soft landing, alone yet together, on noisier colder terra firma.

Our sweetie's a gene-share between father and mother,
equal parts of all four of us constantly hovering grandparents,
each feeling oh so close in this totally unbusiness partnership.

3.27.06
http://sarnatscat.blogspot.com/"A Rosebud By Any Other Name: The Glory of Love"

Ramrodding through the tunnel of love can cause temporary distortions.
Well-rounded fetuses can be molded into pointy-coneheaded intellectuals.
It's all well and good to know your first baby'll eventually poop yellow.
It's all good and well to know the jaundice'll go away sooner than later.
And I try not to monger confusion, blathering, "Don't worry about burping."

On a good day, everything's wonderful; in bad moments, we four grandparents
hover more like televised big-brother antihuman mass-culture madmen.

I've been asking myself what name I'd like my first grandchild to call me.
My wife easily chose "Bubbe" (actually Jr., since her mom's now Bubbe, Sr.)
I tried on Zayde and Grandpa and Gramps for size.
Then I came up with it.
Which was fine with Simon's mom & pop, his pop & mom, & even my family.
I particularly like when "Coach" elicits tender giggles and warm smiles.

"Coney Island Baby"
Lou Reed

You know, man, when I was a young man in high school
You believe in or not I wanted to play football for the coach...
They said I was to little too light weight to play line-backer
So I say I’m playing right-end
Wanted to play football for the coach
’cause, you know some day, man
You gotta stand up straight unless you’re gonna fall
Then you’re gone to die
And the straightest dude
I ever knew was standing right for me all the time
So I had to play football for the coach
And I wanted to play football for the coach

When you’re all alone and lonely
In your midnight hour
And you find that your soul
It’s been up for sale

And you begin to think ’bout
All the things that you’ve done
And you begin to hate
Just ’bout everything

But remember the princess who lived on the hill
Who loved you even though she knew you was wrong
And right now she just might come shining through
And the -

- glory of love, glory of love
Glory of love, just might come through

And all your two-bit friends
Have gone and ripped you off
They’re talking behind your back saying, man
You’re never going to be no human being
And you start thinking again
’bout all those things that you’ve done
And who it was and what it was
And all the different things you made every different scene

Ahhh, but remember that the city is a funny place
Something like a circus or a sewer
And just remember different people have peculiar tastes
And the -

- glory of love, the glory of love
The glory of love, might see you through
Yeah, but now, now
Glory of love, the glory of love
The glory of love, might see you through
Glory of love, ah, huh, huh, the glory of love
Glory of love, glory of love
Glory of love, now, glory of love, now
Glory of love, now, now, now, glory of love
Glory of love, give it to me now, glory of love see you through
Oh, my coney island baby, now
(I’m a coney island baby, now)
I’d like to send this one out for lou and rachel
And all the kids and p.s. 192
Coney island baby
Man, I’d swear, I’d give the whole thing up for you

3.26.06

"Diary of a Mad Housegramps"

Having just pushed through the river of forgetting,
tonsured, yellow, right shoulder bare, the left saffron robed,
eyes closed lying there in quiet alert, the swaddled newborn
reminds me of a pudgy little inscrutable Buddhist monk.

Shopping for victuals more warily than usual
to assure unsurpassed building blocks for mother then baby,
I cook up wild salmon, organic yams, asparagus and salad; so the new
parents, their sibs and both sets of grandparents can eat when they can.

It's even a joy to scrub pots and pans tonight
while listening to contented tired chatter in the nursery next door.
All the extended family's so grateful to be here this informal Shabbes,
celebrating our baby Simon's fourth day together with us.

3.25.06

"Nursery Neither Rhyme Nor Reason"

Tick tock tock tick,
the clock kicks a mouse

scratch turn yawn snore,
a long-haired rat chases the short-haired cat

sleep-deprived, sore on cots and in chairs,
a nightmare whinnies here and there

yet with mom and dad and grandma
happy as clams sleeping right here

hours after my first baby
births her own cute little Simon

and I'm given the sweetest gift
in the whole wide world

the cat's pajamas, an hour's cat nap
cradling my grandson securely in my arms

gurgle lick burp hiccup suck cry spit XXXX,
getting the hang of changing a diaper again

until it's clear whatever I'm doing isn't working,
that I'm clearly out of my mannish league

it's time to wake his mama and hand him over
for the breastfeeding I can't offer but he clearly needs.

3.24.06

"Operation Babe-In-Arms"

Trying not to make Rumsfeld Franks mistakes surveilling Baghdad,
I strategize staging our LA campaign's time and place with aplomb.

Tactically, we covertly cruise southeast from the Bay Area, moles
digging through the San Joaquin Valley's breadbasket, secret agents

gathering intelligence on Rev. Jer's proprietary Jesus Evangelical Radio
then heading back west toward the coast, where around Pismo Beach

104.5 Oldies steadily slides into reach. We listen to Judy Collins' "Both
Sides Now" and the Beatles "Ticket to Ride" in more comfortable silence.

As I wonder how these thirty-four years have passed in a flash since we
loved this dear music traveling cross country, almost pregnant with our

first baby who now incubates her own first down in Los Angeles, the
passenger of us two reading "Diet for a Small Planet" to the driver --

in a blink of a second's psychic pause, inexplicably, simultaneously,
we ask each other what Adele Davis'd think of nutrition's evolution.

Somewhere along the way, under an ecstatic cumulus sky, I inquire
"Why not do what we've never done, go where we've never gone?

Let's make a once-in-a-lifetime plunge into Andersen's Pea Soup."
So our troop movement chows down in the 81 year Buelleton tradition.

A call comes in from our oldest that she's neither ready to deliver nor
ready for us, so we surreptitiously bivouac with her sister in Santa Barbara.

After dinner and breakfast and no word from Infant Central Command,
we soon-to-be grandparents decamp east to Ojai to while away time

til we're summoned, exploring one, then the next night a second site
of my wife's childhood memories, which she revisits, a bit with me.

A half century later, Twice Told Tales used bookstore remains intact.
I buy a great 1962 paperback "Major American Poets" for 25 cents,

marked down from $8.99, to read to me, and "Woody Woodpecker
Takes a Trip" Golden Book, 25 cents in 1962 now marked up to $2,

to read to baby. Our main thrust remains stealth waiting for a signal
to move to Labor and Delivery, but not sure what we'll do and where

we'll go the next morning, finally around six AM today, the cell rings,
the husband-emissary advising us she's well and well into labor, that

we should begin thrusting toward but not into the hospital. Traversing
33 to 101 to Sepulveda to Wilshire to Santa Monica to Beverly Hills,

our advance team proceeds to Nat 'n Als Deli where we break
K-rations of whitefish plates and lox and salmon eggs, scrutinizing

an adorable tiny toddler with an onion bagel strung round his neck
as he learns to walk, lurching booth to booth, entertaining us all.

We reconnoiter with our son who'd flown in, and keep his younger
sister, who remains at school for two more days of exams, current.

Slowly circling in, acquiring more infant gear at Pixietown and Kids
Gap, still undercover, while scouting the medical center, the word

conclusively comes that mom and dad and their newborn are fine.
Until summoned in person, we map a last three-way pincer action

over all-you-can-eat sushi across the street at the Beverly Center
before it closes and we're tossed out. Going dark so we won't be

noticed, we search the Maternity Lobby until we're allowed in to inspect
a healthy Simon and his relieved parents in a moment of apparent victory.

Unlike Bush, we heed Santayana's "those who cannot learn from history
are doomed to repeat it," and don't break out champagne and cigars yet.

3.21.06

"Starbuckaros"

Killing time waiting for grandson Simon to be born
(which he was a few hours later, the cutest rosebud of a button),
I wander Beverly Hills' streets, sleepless and somewhat frantic.

I randomly traipse onto Beverly Drive, have a whitefish plate at
Nat 'n Als Deli, check out baby clothes at Pixietown and Kids Gap,
and fall into a Starbucks -- which I must add, generally isn't my cup of tea.

I see a middle-aged man who reminds me so much of a buddy from
back home near Palo Alto, that for a moment I consider saying hello.

But an abysmal (my family would say embarrassing) track record
at this sort of warm cold greeting (and their warning NEVER to try
it again) leads me to a slightly more cautious gambit.

After looking him over, even though his unkempt full gray beard,
granny glasses and weird inside attire (floppy hat covering sunglasses,
rope not belt, buttoned shirt and tie, sockless sandals) distinctly match
my homeless friend's dress up north, his fancy pants instead of torn jeans
and expensive Gucci bags in hand rather than an overstuffed filthy backpack
leave enough uncertainty that I decide to stagewhisper "Phil?" -- and leave
it at that when he doesn't even remotely begin to answer, assuming
I've encountered just another rich eccentric Beverly Hillsian.

Which also turns out not to be true as I learn when continuing to watch
him do his most interesting thing (at least to an old geezer like me).

Listening a bit more intently to his endless phone conversations,
I hear the pseudo-Phil offer over and over in calls all up and down the coast,
variations on this theme: "I'll be in town someday later this week or next...
let's meet about this or that business over coffee at Starbucks...
I'll check it all out in advance and get back to you by email..."

His shoulder holding a cell to one ear, he simultaneously works both PDA
and laptop like some kind of piano prodigy, yet still has a right ear
left over to chat up women sitting around him with the same basic shtick
about how Starbucks are his offices in each city, etc.

He leaves in about twenty minutes with a lady he's picked up.

A previously seemingly meaningless mini-databyte floats into my mind:
an interview I heard a while ago, probably on public radio,
with some Starbucks muckamuck, who said his company plans
to become "the third place," a locale neither work/school nor home
but the alternative that offers people a comforting sense of familiarity.

Score one for the Starbuckaroos.

3.23.06

"Every Casualty of War Is A Mother's Child"

"I felt a funeral in my brain,
And mourners to and fro
Kept treading, treading, till it seemed
That sense was breaking through..."
--Emily Dickinson

A busy Sunday on the sunny Santa Barbara beach,
all shapes and colors enjoying each another,
one family bikes, another plays frisbee,
kids skateboarding as moms and dads do the crafts fair thing
right near the lifesize sandcarvings of two helmeted Marines.

And on the other side of the pier, it's nearly empty
except for 2318 little white crosses
behind 2318 and counting little American flags
blowing in the wind, listening for answers
this third anniversary of our invasion of Iraq.

Taps plays softly in the background at Arlington West.
Half-mast big American flags fly the four corners.
A Star of David and Islamic Crescent also honor the dead.
Some Veterans for Peace tend to visitors with smiles
while others tend to fallen little crosses with mallets.

I remember when first here in the autumn of 2003
to settle in our daughter just beginning college,
it was extremely unsettling, even though
at the time there were "only" 340 crosses to bear
for the Bush sandcastle follies around Baghdad.
,
Before returning to my wife and child
I pound a 24 year-old sergeant's white cross back in the sand,
look at a picture of him with his family, and assist the vets
take down the 2318 little flags early because of the fierce wind.
I want to ask if the crosses stay up at night but don't.

3.20.06

"A Brief History of Caring"

As I very young boy, I remember it was a very big deal, my family
sending CARE packages to provide relief to survivors of World War II.

For ten dollars or so, a food parcel of U.S. Army surplus, incongruously
left over from the planned invasion of Japan, was guarantee-delivered.

As Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe broadened, the
acronym now meant Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere.

Today CARE is one of the largest private international humanitarian
organizations in the world, with 12,000 staff in some 72 countries.

The same compassionate name attached itself to goodies transmitted
to nursing homes, USOs, etc. with the best of personal get well sentiments.

As parents, warm care packages of tasty nutritious homemade favorites
tided our kids and college roommates over until their next visits home.

As an expectant grandparent, I'm putting together another special kind
of CARE package for my parents, our children, and each significant other:

Cipro for terrorist threats
Anthrax prevention surgical masks in adult and pediatric sizes
Respiratory avian influenza antiviral Tamiflu packs
Electrolyte mix, bottled water, powdered milk, canned tuna, rose-colored glasses.

3.20.06

"Dark Sides of the Moon"

Although us early baby boomers born right around World War II
went through the silent fifties together; as we grew up in the sixties,
our lives fell on both sides of a louder new cultural political fence
built of civilrights-VietNam-hippypsychodelia-questionauthority-etc.

Personally speaking, it was nip and tuck where I'd land -- starting as
a mindless Milton dilettante at a Victorian Ivy League school, ending
holding a gun at the head of a huge marine driving a bus full of recruits
to the Oakland Induction Center -- but I felt lucky where I got dropped.

On the other hand, there's always one more or another divide up ahead,
all not so grand, and when I become as much of a serious adult as I would,
pedal-to-the-metal out there in the workplace every day, no such thing
as search engines existed to memorialize much if any of me for posterity.

By the time the Internet arrived big, my outer career'd passed its apogee
... I was beginning to be amazed by divinity, laboring more inwardly ...
yet I admit (a bit embarrassed) to chagrin at what my kids' kids might find
or not, if and when they should ever choose to Google their granddaddy.

Once I sat and grappled with my concerns, I began to understand better.
Although appearing unwise and frivolous, my worries were real: I don't
want to be "googoled," (the number 1 followed by 100 zeros forever
and ever) in history's ashbins. Then fool that I am, I remember poetry.

3.19.06

"Unhitting The Pause Buttons"

A gazillion years ago, or so it seems now,
the macher OB, presumably having nothing better to do with our time,
cavalierly pronounced our oldest baby'd deliver hers real real soon,
which weeks later she hasn't -- not that anything's wrong with that,
except for the GYN jerk who's put the family out on a limb so long.

Ever since's been déjà vu groundhog day after day,
or to be more precise rodent metaphorwise: we two little white mice
treaded a paddlewheel over and over, never quite reaching the cheese,
us soon-to-be grandma and pa going through the motions at home,
waiting for the kids' call to hurry on down as new bubbe and zeyde.

But hooray, Eureka we've found it, a way out of our stale inert gulag,
this sunny morning just jump in the car and start driving south,
visiting our youngest living on the coast -- that is,
unless her big sis signals from LA, "Don't stop in Santa Barbara,
please come on fast, I think I'm finally going into labor!"

3.18.06

"St. Patrick's Day Pleasures"

Green it is, out here in the pouring forest,
hot tub incubating us, waiting for our eldest to give birth
like we did some thirty-three years ago before she was born.

Another surprising morning just hanging out, déjà vu
a third Friday come round, killing time in mindless weekly routines,
fingernail clipping, sideburn trimming, restocking bromine floaters.

After breakfast and exercise and cleaning up and repacking yet again,
I'll gather the papers (not to be stopped til we get the baby news),
program the DVR for Saturday basketball March Madness I never expected,

And linger over Rilke over a glass of Trader Joe's English Breakfast tea
and organic pine nuts (bought yesterday just in case) with the last
of this garden season's emerald mint leaves added for good measure.

3.17.06

"Physiognomy of A Sad Entrepreneur"

Looking to all the world like a hangdog Michael Moore,
a streetsmart hulking guy in jeans, huge and moosey
under a baseball hat, glasses, straggly hair and beard,
I watch Roger cough and wheeze, maybe spit a little blood,
as he sweeps the parking lot homeless center after last night's rain.

"Hey, man, let me give your chest a listen," I suggest.
He looks older than forty-three with his bad case
of insulin-requiring diabetes, obesity, history of strokes, etc.

"OK, doc, not a bad idea, I've felt kinda thirsty, sweaty and feverish.
And with my sugar condition, I don't expect to reach fifty," he guffaws.

So I take his temperature, use my stethoscope, check his urine.
No fever or pneumonia or ketoacidosis -- this time.
Our conversation turns to his laptop.

"Doc, I wanna tell you how I got Frye's to fix my Toshiba.
It'd been sitting in their shop for over a month without
them doing jack. So finally I decide to picket with a sign saying,
'Frye's Electronics gypped me when I bought a used computer.'

Within minutes, the same morning manager who'd just told me
inside to hold my horses, comes outside to promise my machine'd
be back good as new soon, if I'd just disappear until the afternoon.

'Hell no,' I replied, 'I got nothing better to do, so I'll exercise my
freedom of speech right here until you return me my Toshiba.'
Which they did within the hour! How about that, doc?"

So I sez to my supersized friend, whom I've helped to
land several janitorial jobs at local schools where he's
done well and been loved before being laid off or hospitalized,
"With all your skills and ambition, why not harness your energy,
take better care of your dreams and bones? Lose some weight,
increase your insulin, get on Medicaid and disability
so you can see a nutritionist and physicians more often.
It's ridiculous for you not to plan to be around in seven years."

"Ger, I appreciate the thought, but I been there, done that.
Compared to beating Frye's system, getting on Medi-Cal
and Medicare and managing my insulin and diet and syringes
without a home or money is harder than me trying to climb Everest."

3.17.06

"John Birch Paranoid Fluoride Blues Redux:Abracadabra Polypharma Pollyanna"

Can you imagine a wonder polypill that slashes the rate of heart
attack and stroke and kidney disease by over eighty per cent?

"The polypill contains a cocktail of six existing drugs and should be
given to everybody over the age of 55," researchers argue.

"There's probably no other preventative measure which would
have greater impact on public health in the Western world.

"In people who start taking it at 55, about a third would expect to benefit.
Each of these individuals would gain about 12 years extra life -- enormous.

Heart attack and stroke kill half of the British population." The British Medical
Journal suggested this may be the most important innovation in 50 years.

The pill would combine drugs to lower four key heart risk factors: cholesterol,
high blood pressure, high homocysteine levels and blood platelet function.

At least as important, the pill could also be produced cheaply, since the
patents on many of the components have expired or will expire soon.

A 9 March 2006 New England Journal of Medicine Perspective article
discussing how to control the increased burden of obesity, smoking,

diabetes, hypertension, and pollution in the developing world describes
how "possibly the use of a single daily pill ("polypill") containing generic

angiotensin-converting inhibitors, statins, aspirin, and folic acid in order
to simultaneously control blood pressure, dyslipidemia, and thrombogenic

tendency -- should be on the agenda of many developing countries."
A physician colleague told me a similar story of how amazed he was,

able to stretch $2000 to buy drugs to treat patients in New Orleans
after Hurricane Katrina. "I'm astonished at how far my money went!"

3.16.06

"Ides of March"

The empty man I first met was fatted on food and anger,
full of worldly trinkets, trucks and guns and other clunky stuff.

In the course of a few short years, Stan thinned down his body, grew up
his soul, and spooled crystalline threads of a more peaceful inner dance.

3.15.06

"56X2 Bedroom Limbo Meditation"

Seven pleated stations every morning, seven pleated stations every night,
I pull each window cord eight times to let in the sun or block out the light,
flat cells when up, honeycombs when down, tick tock til the phone rings,
time's finally up, and we jump in the car to go meet our first grandbaby.

3.14.06

"Sleep Pebbles"

Enshrouded borderland of the living, singing not reason,
Lying down each night for my share of dying,
Melancholy mirror of used-up blossoms, lens of golden decay,
Dreaming sad diamonds, life buried in high moon's half-false light,
Blind eyes wide open to the memory of the seas of death, before
Resurrection's secret's reborn each day, restrained ecstasy in a dusty suit.

3.14.06

"Groundhog Day"

Back in the dog days of winter, lowly woodchuck Punxsutawney Phil
snuck out of his warm woodsy burrow only to see his shadow,
which oh so sadly forecast six more weeks of cold dreary weather.

Well here we are now approaching spring, my mermatron and me,
all packed and ready, taking it day by day, hot tub tanked yet again
for what surely must be our last dip waiting for a grandson to emerge.

3.13.06

"In Sexism"

The insect class
in the arthropod phylum
within the animal kingdom
contains odonates of two distinct suborders: dragonflies,
considered larger, more robust, generally stronger fliers; and damselflies,
known for weak, fluttery wings and exquisitely lovely, widely separated eyes.

3.13.06

"The Sopranos Are Back Tonight"

"Dr. Melfi, as unFreudian as I wanna feel, what's the Oedipal deal
when G-d almost has Abraham whack Isaac, a few millennia later
offs his own homeboy Jesus, then in two thousand years
sits around while cracker Madonna has Slim Shady up to her place
in LA -- she says just for Passover Seder -- can you believe it?"

"Tony, this time you're really mishigas, better off asking that hot
new hippy-turned-Hassid rapper Matisyahu what's kosher than me."

"Christ, lady, I'm paying you through the nose, so please let me finish."

"OK, you the boss."

"Last night I dreamed I was a big black African-American Rastaman
dressed in a black suit with a broad-brimmed black hat over a yarmulke,
sporting a full untrimmed beard, performing toasting raps
about the glories of traditional Judaism over reggae beats
in a hip-hop dancehall style directly from Jamaica."

"And what do you feel about that?"

"I loved the beat-boxing and stage-diving and open-mike competitions.
Carmela's eyes were on me the whole time!
Like I was Shlomo Carlebach at a Lubavitch Phish concert or something."

"So, Mr. Soprano,
what do you