Red Hot Poker

So I had lunch today at a favorite Chinese restaurant… no stranger to what I like, I ordered the Chicken Pad Thai (yes, I know that is NOT authentic Chinese cuisine) sans the MSG and salt (I haven’t worked out this hard to be taken down by a chicken dish) and was pleasantly surprised when we got to the fortune cookie portion of the meal… 

My fortune read – Strike While The Iron is Hot…  For the first time in a while I concurred with my fortune…

I think it is high time that we all strike while the iron is hot, cause who knows when that chance will come again.  For me, I wish sometimes I could go back in time and strike what is now just a very cool slab of metal. 

If I could, I would go back and seize opportunities I let slip away, say I’m sorry more to people, laugh more and above all else live more.  The paradox of course is, if we could do that would our lives be the same…  Can you imagine the ability to edit life, like I edit this post?  We would all be infallible – perfect – gleefully rewriting history…  But thankfully we can’t, because bumps, bruises and wounded egos are what makes us – well – us…

Underneath all the blather and stories that I write – I think you all are starting to sense the theme of this blog…   It's a little bit about redemption and it is definately about change... Most importantly this blog is about hope and renewal and forging ahead… 

I wake up every morning now, excited to move ahead more and relish the victories of this journey I am on. 

But in the spirit of this post, and not wanting to miss an instant, I want to thank you all as well for coming on the journey with me.  Together what would have been a lonely road is filled with the brightest and the best and mark my words – we will all make history…  Stay tuned!

To the one...

"Though still in bed, my thoughts go out to you, my Immortal Beloved, now and then joyfully, then sadly, waiting to learn whether or not fate will hear us ...
Yes, I am resolved to wander so long away from you until I can fly to your arms and say that I am really at home with you, and can send my soul enwrapped in you into the land of spirits ...

No one else can ever possess my heart - never - never - Oh God, why must one be parted from one whom one so loves ... Your love makes me at once the happiest and the unhappiest of men ...

My angel, I have just been told that the mailcoach goes every day - therefore I must close at once so that you may receive the letter at once ...

Be calm - love me - today - yesterday - what tearful longings for you - you - you - my life - my all - farewell. Oh continue to love me - never misjudge the most faithful heart of your beloved.

Ever thine, Ever mine, Ever ours."

— Ludwig van Beethoven (The Letters of Beethoven)

Charming as Barbara and Oliver Rose... War of the Roses 2011

So its not hard to imagine that War of the Roses is a favorite movie of mine....  OK it's dark comedy, but at its core - I feel - shows in exaggerated sense the depth to which two people will descend in the name of love or to avenge it...

But have you looked around lately - for me every where I go there are Barbara and Oliver Roses' abounding...  People who in the name of love do the craziest things...   It is as if generations who saw this movie were silently, subliminally programmed to become those two, years later...

Now love to me is a complex and dense emotion...  It goes to the very core of everything that we hold dear... and for me it gives me great pause at both the wonderful and chilling effects it can have...

So today, Valentine's Day, I ran into a Barbara and Oliver Rose at a great cafe on the Upper West Side...  Like always, I ordered the Pesto Scramble (simply the best eggs you could EVER have) and while I was checking email and drinking coffee there entered a very well dressed couple...

The woman was in her mid thirties, impeccably dressed with big dark Channel sun glasses on... Wondering why I am so up on eye fashion these days?  No wonder... the word Channel appeared on the side of her glasses...  Any how, she sat down immediately to my right...   With her processed hair and very pouty lips she looked like she was about to be interviewed in Vogue.  Wearing quite form fitting black from head to toe, she gave off a vibe of a fashion ninja - ready to strike at any time - perhaps her sun glasses were her weapon of choice. In comes this guy who matched her in every way...  you could tell they were a couple... 

Sporting a very trendy grey suit and quite sleek hair - he too looked like he was ready for some action - this time in the board room...  He kept checking his phone and/or his watch and every so often checked himself out in a reflective surface of choice...  He was, like her, just a little over done - betraying a false sense of confidence that only his waxer could call out...

For at least a good 3 minutes nothing was said as they sat there... mind you there are no menus on the table and they are simply staring at each other...  when they weren't admiring their personal glorious view.  It was like watching cats size each other up...  To his great dismay, he could never see her eyes for the sunglasses obscured them...  but boy could he see himself in their reflection...

Finally Barbara 2 blurted out, "You can at least get me some coffee..."  It was as if she threw a throwing star at him and silently he rose and went to the counter...  While he was ordering she pulled out of her purse a mirror and began to check her lips...  I thought it strange she just didn't use one of the other surfaces she was already admiring herself in - but perhaps she needed to pull out the big guns... 

Some loud electro-pop-synthesized ringtone blared out of her pocket - loud enough to make me jump and her to quickly fold the mirror...  She looked at her phone, then looked at Oliver 2 and said, "Tell them to make it quick, our appointment is in 15 minutes..."  Again Ollie 2 went back to his stare down of the wait staff to get the coffees...

Thankfully my eggs arrived... it gave me a prop to further investigate the goings on of the table to the right of me...

Oliver returned with coffee and cake in hand...  With out warning - like a good ninja should - Barbara 2's attack was calculated precisely between stirring milk into her coffee and grabbing a forkful of cake...

"You know this is all your fault..." she hissed, "we wouldn't even have this stupid appointment if you would have listened to me..."

"Listen to you?  Listen?  That is the last thing you do when I talk is listen..."  he retorted as a tiny sugar explosion erupted with his response...  It was like the granules of sugar were little pieces of him - collateral damage from Babs 2's first blow...

After coming to grips with the sugar situation, he continued his attack, "I mean really, its all about blame for you?  What about the big picture..."

At this point I have to say as good as the eggs were, this free entertainment was becoming quickly the thing to watch....

"Let's face facts, this is the big picture, it's Valentine's Day and we are going to a couples counselor...  not my idea of romance..." Good point, I thought...  I did get a little nervous that more sugar would pour out of his psychic wounds...

You could tell this was a fight they had before, after gulping down some coffee he said, "I think that it's the most romantic thing we could do... save our marriage..."

Now at this point I have to say witnessing this at point blank range and on the face of his statement he seemed sincere... It was like he pushed the big red button and the nuclear option was used...  but Barbara 2 was no slouch...  She came back with her own nuclear weapon and its uranium was made of deadly combination of anger and high drama...

"I don't know if I want to save our marriage...", I waited for old fashion organ music to play, but sadly it didn't happen...

At this point, I believe the owners were glad its a cash and carry establishment...  Barbara slammed the table into Oliver as she rose...  Her scorn was like a heat lamp melting the pan au chocolates in the near by case... 

Spinning around on her expensive heels, she said, "Hurry up" and mockingly "We have to go S A V E our marriage..." and out the door she went...  I am positive there was love in that statement - but perhaps buried way down deep inside...

Oliver removed the marble table from his chest, slowly got up, and with anger and hurt in his eyes followed her out...  These moments seemed almost too real for him as he fumbled to open the door... From the plate glass window I watched them disappear into the city, bickering and yelling as they made their way to what hopefully is salvation...

Now I know this isn't the most romantic story, especially on Valentine's day... But there is a lesson to be learned... I implore you all, whether it is the love of your life sitting next to you as you read this - or its someone you have loved and lost, or if you are thinking that you are out of love with someone - DO NOT BECOME BARBARA AND OLIVER ROSE...  Seriously, we are all better than that... 

As the waitress was clearing my plate, she looked at me and smiled...  She said, "Talk about awkward..."  I said, "No, not all - they were charming as Barbara and Oliver Rose..."

Happy Valentine's Day kids...

All You Need is Love...

So I am blessed with a wonderful and diverse tapestry of friends...  Whether we survived a show together, we worked in the movie theatre or for the last decade plus survived a campaign together each of you has a special place in my heart...  As you can guess from this blog, I feel very safe in expressing my ideas...

I just got off the phone with a friend of mine, Idida...  Now some of you immediately know who she is...  Wonderful, charasmatic and funny as all get out - and through the years a friend in the best senses of the word...  We haven't talked in a while and I needed to get her take on a situation...  Like a true friend she was there for me in an instant... 

The interesting thing about Idida is that she is enrolled in seminary school above all the other things that she is doing. And after I got some of her thoughts on the subject at hand, we drifted, like friends do, to other bits and pieces of conversation...  Among them we got to talking about emotional issues and that led to a conversation about acceptance and love... 

She couldn't have said it better, that amongst all other things you truly have to love yourself too...   As a person who is slowly learning how to do that - it brought a smile immediately to my face...  Now we weren't talking the overboard, self absorbed variety - we were talking about being at peace with yourself and appreciating it...

So today, amoung the loves of your life, take a moment to recognize that loving yourself, even a little, is probably one of the greatest Valentines you can get...

Gatsby's Green Light

So my favorite book of all time is The Great Gatsby, it has been since I first read it 25 years ago.  I can say that was the first book that ever spoke to me... and throughout time it has always come back ever present in my life.  My favorite quote is from the end...  because to me it is really where I have been sometimes in life or more appropriately how I understand this adopted verse...

"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning--

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

I, like Gatsby or Fitzgerald, believe that the future will have to be better - even sometimes when our hopes and dreams are behind us... we still press on - still strive. But the Daisy's of my world aren't always human, they are the dreams and experiences I want in my life as well.

I have placed a green light on my being now for the last year...  Trying to, calling for people and experiences that I yearn for.  I have to say it does work and more importantly it takes work to accomplish this.  You see even the green light is fickle, and what you call and what arrives sometimes are two different sides of the same dream and its up to you on how to interpret what comes to you.

Now I know this all has an air of metaphysics.  Sort of the belief that we have the unspoken ability to call things to us or away from us.  I believe we do have that ability.  Ever notice the thing you most want is the hardest to get, yet when you don't want it - it is available in abandon? 

I think there is a message within this ability about balance... We all should strive to balance what we want versus what we need...

Some people, most of us in fact (I use to be one of them), don't have that ability all the time and an inequity occurs. 

I have watched with almost puzzled amazement people and how the quash their dreams.  I think I was amazed because I did this too.

One friend of mine is gifted in music, yet she let the world beat her down and not only has abandoned her craft but has basically reviled it as a way of dealing with the trauma.  Another friend of mine in plain words is simply beaten down.  Dangerously close to submitting to a world that has drawn him into a corner - a million miles where he should or wanted to be.  How many of you out there "give up" something for the greater good but in your heart of hearts knows that what you long to do?  Or more importantly have to do...

Now as we all "grow up" we make these sacrifices - some more than others - to appease the situation of our life.  But shouldn't there be a balance?

So I came up with an idea - that I would like to put out there...  I think we should all challenge ourselves - starting today...  What is something that you have always longed to do or use to do and stopped that had real meaning in your life?  Is there one thing that you can start working towards today that will appease the inner needs that you have?  Basically I am asking you to turn on your green light and call for something and see what happens...

I mean let's face facts - you have proof that it works - you are reading this after all aren't you?  This is one of my green lights - I have called and for whatever reason - you have read...  That is pretty amazing...   So what do you say?  Are you willing to walk with me on this little journey?  Can you find it in you to call upon change?  I hope so... 

Till then know this... This not so little boat still beats on against the current - and will for as long as he has breath in his body...

This is just a test

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Get Stupid - or the aftermath of Anonymous

Ok - so I am a kid in a candy store sometimes...  I just love knowing that I have a new toy to play with... Take for instance the identity of my unnamed frenemy whom so kindly decided to dip their toes in the murky water of blog posts...  LET ME REMIND YOU I KNOW WHO YOU ARE...  There I said it, I know that your act of cowardice, coupled with the lack of insight as to how the web works makes for a delicious combination of awkwardness and embarrassment... and boy I can't wait to see you live...  I can only hope the rest of your cabal of our friends are with you when I do the big reveal...  Forget Extreme Home Makeover...  this might be one for the records... or maybe I will wait and watch from a distance as you try to lay ground work to cover your tracks...

Last night, over a fab dinner, I had a conversation about this very topic... My dinner companion asked me why didn't I just delete the message and move on...  wasn't I breathing life into a situation that didn't need it...  All valid points, might I add...  And the other burning question, "Why are you doing this - what's the point?"

Let me get to that..  So the video I attached to this is "Get Stupid" by Madonna...  If you ever need to understand why I am doing this little blog... the video might say it all...  "You have got to say what's on your mind..."  More importantly, sometimes silence is not so golden... look at what happens when we are not informed or silent...

Now you all know that I am NO stranger to controversy, working in politics and all...  In fact when this little anonymous issue came up a friend called me and was amazed to watch me "blow them up..."  A family member referred to it as "that's what I call a beat down..."  All of you who posted something on Facebook get my thanks for coming to my aid... But what's important here is that they, like 99% of you recognize that there isn't every going to be a problem posting your opinion about my opinion, except when people like (oh I almost slipped and gave the name up... LOL) that person just chooses to say something with out taking ownership for it...

Now that we got this out of the way once and for all, my blog will continue unfettered...