NEXT YEAR, THIS YEAR, LOVE IS WHAT WE NEED

And on we go. It's that weird limbo time between Christmas and New Year's, when we all think about the year that has been and speculate on the year that will be. It's never quite the same, and I note that there are no really great films about this time. Plenty of holiday films, not a lot of late December thinking about the specific year that just passed and trying to prognosticate movies. Maybe there are, and I just can't think of them due to the fog that has clouded our collective mind since the virus kicked into high gear and changed the world forever. And ever. 

So here I go, mulling over 2020 and pondering 2021.

In obvious ways, 2020 sucked balls.

I think we all know that, so I won't dwell too much on how awful the pandemic has been, how shocking the murder of George Floyd was, how worrying the economy has been, and how insane our would be dictator has proven himself to be in the events before and after the election.

That's pretty clear. 

There were some positives in the year. Some in spite of events, some because of them. So here are a few things that have made this year bearable, and my life better.

My wife and I have started taking an hour walk every day. Very awesome. We get up early, roam the neighborhood, and usually leave our phones at home. It seems like such a simple act, taking a walk with no distractions. But it is something I haven't done on a consistent basis since I bought my first cell phone long ago in another world. I find the walks make me feel present. Alive. And happy. We greet strangers, notice gardens and decorations and birds. It makes getting up early a joy. I recommend it. 

I've written in this blog more than any other year. For a long stretch of time, I wrote every day. And it's been fantastic. Not the content. Some of what I've written has been nothing much more than stream of consciousness blather. But even blather has merit, has a function. I've always thought that unexpressed thoughts fester in your mind, turn toxic, go rogue. By letting them out, I feel healthier. Happier. more connected to myself and the world. I've also gotten reconnected to old friends through this blog, which has been so nice. And I've exercised my writing muscles. I think you have to write often if you want to write well. 

I wrote a complete screenplay, based on my childhood, which I a quite proud of. It's working title is The Belvedere Jungle, and I think it has legs, as they say. Legs, arms- a whole body. And soul. So hurrah. I also wrote a one act, and have been working on a book for a musical. The Shut Down opened up my writing, both of stories and blogs, and for that, I am grateful. 

I've come to appreciate time spent in person with friends and family. Not that I didn't before. But it's different. After not being able to sit together whenever we want, the rare times we do get to be in the same room with people has a magic to it, an almost sacred feel. And I long for hugs. But even without the hugs, seeing people in person is something I hope I never take for granted again. 

I've taken up cooking. Mostly on the Instant Pot. I bought Lisa one last year, and it has sat on the shelf for the most part. So I decided to start cooking meals for us with it, so that the gift would still give her something. Chili, Mac-and-Cheese with smoke bacon, a Dixie Roast have been some of the things I've made, and for the most part, they've rocked. From the Instant Pot, I've expanded my repetoire to the actual oven and stove. Not everything has turned out well, but I've enjoyed the journey. 

I've called old friends I haven't called in a while. And that has fed my soul. Old friends are the best, because they get you. They speak the same language, share some of your history. Remind you of who you are. 

And I've listened to a lot of music. Of all types. Modern, classical, jazz. I don't really care what genre it is, if something rocks my world, that's that. 

There's been many other good things in this past year of hard times, miracles large and small, unexpected joys and magical moments, but it's almost time to take our walk.

As for next year, I have so many hopes and dreams. I hope we all get vaccinated. I hope we take better care of ourselves and the world we are so lucky to live in. I hope for so much for all of us. 

I love you all.

Here's a song. It's Next Year by Foo Fighters. Enjoy.

MORE PERMANENT OBSTACLES

It's Thanksgiving Eve. And we are home. No road trips or plane rides. No traveling whatsoever. And no one coming here either. It reminds me a bit of being a Thanksgiving orphan in NYC when I was a starving artist, either stuck with working at the restaurant or short on cash to get home to California. Sometimes, Mom would come out and we'd have Thanksgiving in the city with my brother, sister, brother-in-law, and whomever else was in town who couldn't get home. And those were some of the best nights ever. Nothing like a bunch of theatre types crammed into a tiny apartment all day, drinking and smoking and yapping away. My mom would eat it up like candy. And we all loved it. 

It also reminds me of my first Thanksgiving away from home. I had just moved out to NYC, and was working at Triplets Romanian Steakhouse down in Tribeca. I was the new guy, and didn't get a lot of shifts, and money was very tight. In fact, the week of Thanksgiving, I had only one shift. Thanksgiving itself. I asked if I could have it off, but my bosses said no. They were identical triplets, separated at birth but reunited later in life. There was a documentary about them. (For more info, click HERE) One trait they all shared was a lack of empathy for new workers wanting to go home for Thanksgiving. And worse, on the day of Thanksgiving, I showed up ready to work, and they told me the books were light and I could go home if I wanted. Which I did.  I told them I'd be back in two weeks. My car, and old Hyundai Excel, was parked in Jersey. I ran home to my tiny studio, grabbed a few things, headed to Jersey, and drove West. Somewhere in Ohio, I got a speeding ticket. The cop wouldn't let me off with a warning, even after telling him my sad tale. It was raining, and once it was clear I was on the hook for about sixty bucks, I asked as many questions of that cop as I could, just to make him stand in the rain. Petty, I know, but satisfying in a juvenile sort of way. I got home a few days late, but still managed to have some left overs, and of course the turkey sandwiches. I like mine with a lot of mayo, cranberry sauce, and tons of black pepper. That's it. It took me three days to drive from New York to San Jose. The thought of those sandwiches floated in front of me the whole way, all along Interstate 80, from Omaha to Winnemucca and finally over the Sierra Nevada past Reno and home. The sandwiches, and seeing friends and family, was worth it.

Holidays are strange, in how they conjure up the past so effortlessly. Good times and bad occupy the soul on holidays. 

I remember the last Thanksgiving with my mom. She had been told by the doctors that she had about two years of life left in the spring, and we were all trying to figure out how that could be. I often got very high and tried to convince the Moon to intervene on her behalf. It didn't work. So we all gathered at the house, one last time. When I was a kid, we would rotate who hosted Thanksgiving between my mom and her two sisters, Aunt Mary and Aunt Alice. There'd be a ton of food. Aunt Alice always made Aspic, and Aunt Mary made Mince Meat Pie. And Uncle Bruce always said grace. Those were the rules. The rest I don't remember, other than it was awesome. Usually, we'd take a walk after the main meal but before dessert. On that last Thanksgiving, all the aunts and cousins gathered at my mom's house. 

It was great to see everyone. And quite terrible. It made it all very real. 

I had just met Lisa, my wife, and was full of love and joy. But at the same time, misery and sorrow. I was bursting with happiness at meeting the love of my life, and crushed and near insane at the idea of a world without my mom in it.

Like I said, holidays are strange.

Even so, I remember the love at that table, the laughs, the food, the joy in each other. Even though mom was dying, there was joy in being alive. 

I find that holds true to this very day.

We are all not quite where we want to be this Thanksgiving, or with everyone we'd like to be with. Some are separated by miles, some by more permanent obstacles. But even so, we carry a bit of each other with us. In the dishes we make. In the jokes we tell. In the favorites old movies we watch. 

A tradition my wife has that is now law is that we watch the original Miracle on 34th Street Thanksgiving night before we go to sleep. Sort of kicks off the Christmas season with magic and love.

This year, in what might be a new tradition, I'm making a mincemeat pie. In honor of Aunt Mary. And Aunt Alice. And my mom. The Three Ladies of Thanksgiving's Past, who always have a seat at the table.

Here's a song. It's Lyle Lovett's Family Reserve. Enjoy. And eat some pie.

WE CAN DO THIS, BUT WE'VE GOT TO BELIEVE, BE STRONG, AND NEVER GIVE UP

The news this past week have been pretty damn awesome. And pretty damn awful. Two vaccines. A light at the end of the tunnel. But the tunnel is full of danger, and not all of us will make it to the end. Thanksgiving is almost here. But we can't spend it with all the folks we'd like to spend it with. The stock market is up, but so are all of our bills. 

I do think we are near the end. It will be an horrific winter, and people we know will get sick. We ourselves might get sick. Some of us will die. 

And I wish I could sugar coat that. Say that no more deaths will occur that are way too early. That nobody will have long term health problems due to this virus. 

I also wish I could fly.

Maybe I can. But not in the way most people mean when they say they wish they could fly. 

I can fly when I listen to music. When I talk with my friends. When I make my wife laugh at something goofy I've done. When I write something that makes people cry. 

That's a super power, to be sure. 

But we got serious issues going on in the country and we have to remember, it ain't over yet, The Thin Man hasn't sung. 

Put it another way: We still don't tug on Superman's cape, spit into the wind, pull the mask off that old Lone Ranger, and you don't mess around with a global pandemic and pretend it's a hoax or overblown or not wear a mask.

We can do this. 

But it will take all of us. We need to figure out how to function in a divided nation. We need to get another stimulus package passed, immediately. If we have lame duck senators, we have to call them and remind them they are still in office until January, and have a responsibility to their electorate. We have to call our relatives who are freaking out and give them comfort and hope. We have to support local businesses anyway we can. 

We have to stop complaining so much about how Zoom sucks. 

I think we all know how it sucks. 

We need to take more walks in forests and parks. 

We need to listen to more music.

We need to read more books, recite more poetry to strangers, and howl at the moon.

And what the hell happened to the nightly howls? When and why did that stop? 

And what did we replace it with? 

I think, tonight, I'm going to howl again.

For those who have passed. For those who are suffering. For those who are afraid of what's still to come. For those who have lost their jobs. For those who are late on the rent. 

For my friends, family, and neighbors.

For all of us.

We can do this.

And we will.

Here's a song. It's Like a Song by U2.

ON THE ELEVENTH HOUR...

This is a quote from Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions, about today, which is now called Veteran's Day but was once called Armistice Day.

"All the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month. It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice of God."

How amazing. I first read Breakfast of Champions in a long ago world called the 1980s. And that passage hit me like a ton of bricks. The idea of all that carnage coming to an end, leaving people on the battlefield standing in silence, surrounded by the awfulness of that war. The idea of how hope can sometimes break through, after terrible times of sadness and terror, after living in the worst of times, after coming to believe that maybe all hope is indeed lost, if it ever was anything more than an illusion to begin with. 

The idea of saying enough of this. Enough of killing each other over what patch of land flies a particular flag. Enough of division and anger and finding a way to accept the unacceptable as the way things are. 

Enough.

We made it to this day, through almost a year of Covid, through a nasty election, through economic uncertainty, through fear and suspicion and hatred and loss. 

We made it.

The sudden silence has come, and behind it, music. And with music, dancing. And with dancing, joy. 

I know my conservative friends and sad. I know my liberal friends are happy. I know we have more of the pandemic to endure. And more sorrow coming, as that is part of the deal.

But I also know we have all gotten through a hell of a year.

Yes, I know, we still have almost two months to go. 

Still. We crossed the valley. Some of us got the scars to prove it. Some of us didn't make it. Some of us will need a long time to heal.

But we made it. We, the collective we, the human race.

We made it.

Time to try and take what we've gone through and make ourselves better human beings. 

And to love.

Here's a song. It's "Are We Alright Again" by Eels.

MERCURY OUT OF RETROGRADE TOMORROW

I looked it up. Tomorrow, Mercury goes out of retrograde, and moves from Scorpio to Libra. That translates from astrology talk to: Good Times are on the way, Good Vibrations have begun, and the Sun will come out Tomorrow. 

I could feel it in the night. I fell asleep, drifting in and out of consciousness with the TV on to Netflix's new take on Unsolved Mysteries, so my head was full of alien abductions and an unsolved family murder, so my head was full of misery and woe. On top of that, I was, like most of the world, wrapped in anxiety about what might happen tomorrow. Not that I am worried Biden/Harris won't win. I know they will. I am worried about violence in the street. More Trump caravans stirring up more trouble like less sexy versions of Brando's gang in The Wild One, minus the pathos. I'm worried about the Orange One trying to get the military involved. I'm worried people are going to get hurt. I still am. I am certain there will be some blood shed on our streets tomorrow. 

But I am also certain we are going to know we have a new President by sometime late tomorrow night or early Wednesday morning.

I can't explain it, but I feel it in my bones. In my soul. In my stars. 

Yeah. I know. It's magical thinking. And that can get one into trouble. And maybe I'm wrong, and there will be an attempted coup, and we will have to rise up and take democracy back from those who would end our country, and our world, with their wanton ignorance and blatant aggression.

But again, I don't think so. 

We, as a species, are in flux. We are at a crossroads. All of us. And those who sold their soul to the devil for four years in office, or some spiritual equivalent for where they are in their lives, have to pay up. I think, like all deals with the devil, it doesn't work out for them. 

And that is sad. 

I shall weep for those who gnash their teeth, hugging their Trump/Pence flags tightly as they bemoan the loss of what they think is their land but nobody else's. We must be kind to them, yes. But we must not let them slander us, attack us, or steal from us. 

Love is not love if you let those you love act like assholes.

It is time for a new age. For dealing with climate change, and lingering systemic racism, and the virus. For addressing our vast economic inequality problem. To boldly go where no one has gone before. 

So, get out and vote. And cheer. And love.

If you wonder how I got to be the way I am, here are some of those to blame, in no particular order: Jana McCoy, who was the drama teacher at Blackford High; Free Will Astrology and it's creator, Rob Brezny; Duncan Trussell and the Midnight Gospel; Shakespeare; JoAnna Beckson, my Meisner teacher in NYC; The Western Stage and both the 1992 & 1994 productions of East of Eden; Jon Selover; Taft Miller; Pod Save America;  and my very liberal, always encouraging mother.

More influences to follow.

Here is a song. It's Good Vibrations by The Beach Boys. 

THERE WILL BE HALLOWEENS

Thirty years ago tomorrow, I took my first step into Manhattan. Seems like a dream, a long time ago, and yesterday. I had just graduated from San Jose State University, done summer theatre at the Barn Theatre in Michigan, gotten my Equity card, done a show in Japan, and taken a cross country trek from my home state of California to New York. I took the PATH train in from Jersey, and got out at 34th Street. 

It was the most excited and terrified I had ever been up to that moment. 

Ever since seeing the original King Kong on Creature Features when I was five or so, I had this unquenchable thirst to drink in the air of Gotham. I don't know why. Maybe a past life, or my guiding angels, my tribe of spirit guides who I've always relied on. Maybe it was the fact that I was a theatre major, an aspiring actor who wanted to make it on the stage, and NYC was, and still is, the city in America for live theatre. Yes, there are regionals theatres, and tons of good theatre all over the country. But NYC is the one place where you can see a show every day of the year with no repeats, and at least half will not be terrible. 

So off to NYC I went. 

That first night, Halloween 1990, was magic. But it was a coarse magic, wild and unpredictable. My future room mate, a guy I had worked with over the summer, was my tour guide that day. He turned out to not be the best room mate, but I was glad to have him with me that day. He lived in Jersey, and knew the city fairly well. We of course went to the Empire State Building, to see where Kong fell. Then down to Union Square, where we met up with another friend from the summer, a young actress who was in her senior year at NYU and lived in a dorm. The plan was to dump our stuff at her place, roam the city, and then meet up later to go to the Halloween parade. And of course, being in our early 20s, to drink a lot. 

Which we did. 

I remember Blackberry Kamikazees at a joint in the village called Rock Around the Clock. And getting cheap Japanese food at Dojo's on St. Marks. And feeling like I was in a dream or movie or hallucination. I was in NYC! I was leaping into the unknown. Besides a handful of people I had met over the summer, I didn't know a single person who live there. I didn't have a job. I didn't have a ton of money. I didn't have an apartment. 

And I didn't care. I was alive, and doing what I wanted to with my life. 

We drank and wandered all over, a bit tipsy and very ecstatic. It felt like the entire world was my personal Disneyland. The parade was magnificent, strange, and to this day the best I have ever been to. And there were these giant skeleton puppets of blue whales that were truly amazing.

Then we all went back to our friends apartment. And things go funky, a lovers quarrel broke out, and at around 6 in the morning, we were asked to leave. 

Wandering though NYC in the early hours after Halloween is a surreal experience. Felt like I was in a dystopian 1970s movie. I was hung over, tired, and hungry.

And I was alive.

And it was glorious.

There will be more days and nights and mornings like that. There will be new cities, and situations, and parties and parades. 

There will be Halloweens.

And there will be more dreams for all of us to follow.

FIND SOME JOY

It's TEN DEGREES outside. Hath Hell frozen over? I like cold weather. I love it. Snow, icicles, having your breath steam out of your mouth. All awesome. But when it gets down to single digits, I find I prefer staying inside. I'm glad it snowed. I'm glad it might help mitigate the nasty fires. I see all sorts of metaphors for the year 2020, Trump's cold heart, etc. Even so. Enough. Enough of this. 

Enough of seeing the numbers rise and rise of those who have gotten sick, and those who have passed, from this virus. Enough of people closing their minds and hearts to their own best interests. Enough greed, fear, anger, and sorrow. Enough.

We live in this amazing miracle of a world. We have so many wonderful things to experience: love, friendship, music, art, theatre, movies, dancing, laughter, nature, pets, cooking meals, reading books on cold days, finding a parking space, finding a dollar bill in an old pair of jeans, complaining about cold weather. We have all these things, these moments, these experiences, that are free and open and available to all of us. Why spend our time gnashing our teeth, living in fear, worrying about the other person? 

I watched Sixty Minutes last night, because I wanted to see this interview with our current president, see if it was as bad as I have read it was. And it was. The president, the most powerful person in the world, came across as a petulant, insecure, neurotic mess. And this guy has the nuclear codes. And in in charge of the federal government, which is in charge of our nation's response to the virus. And on and on. Then I watched the interview with Pence. He just seems like a yes man. What some would call a KissAss. And a robotic one at that. 

I think Trump and Pence need to take long walks, listen to more music, laugh more, try to tell jokes more, look at the stars and see if they can remember any constellations. Maybe they should take a camping trip together, get some bonding time in. Be human beings. Find some joy. 

They just don't seem to have any joy in their lives. None. And while it is sad, it is also dangerous, given their positions and power to shape the course of current events. 

I have had many people influence my life. And the ones who have had the best and longest effect, who I remember to this day when I need guidance, are the ones who always found the good in this world, the magic, the joy. 

The Love.

I think whomever wins the elections next week needs to find some joy in being alive. In their friends and family. In themselves. They have to remember that in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make. They have to publicly hug their children and spouses more. They have to sing loudly and off key at least once a month on live national television. They have to do an improv game with the Cabinet. Write poetry. Put out their top ten album lists. Make a playlist for days their legislation gets stalled in congress. 

They have to bring humanity and humility to the Oval Office. 

And if it gets cold, write long, meandering blogs about life, the universe, and everything.

Here's a song. It's The End by The Beatles.