Sophia’s mother passed away on Tuesday. Today is the funeral. It was unexpected, since it was her husband who was bedridden.
Fanya had an interesting and adventurous life, which took her from the horrors of war-torn Soviet Union to present-day Los Angeles, in order to be close to her only child, Sophia. Fanya was so proud when she became an American citizen.
The love of her life was her husband, Vartan. She met him in Odessa, Ukraine, where he was her doctor. They had a long and passionate relationship. Fanya and Vartan were inseparable. When Vartan grew ill six months ago, everyone thought it best to put Vartan in a convalescence home. We told her that it would require too much work. She refused to discuss the issue. Despite having an aide, and the help of her family, Fanya was her husband’s primary caregiver, dealing with all the physical strain and lack of sleep. Even as we saw her weakening from the stress, she refused to leave her husband’s side.
Yesterday, Sophia told Vartan the news of his wife’s passing. He is very distraught, especially about being too ill to attend the funeral.
Out of a total coincidence, my mother had a flight coming to visit us today in LA, so she will be attending as well.
Fanya was a bigger-than-life woman. She was tough in spirit, but also extremely caring to others, and will be very very missed.
If you want to send a message to Sophia, you can do it here or send me an email.
This is the greatest song ever written. It speaks so many truths. When the revolution comes, and it will, we must be careful who we follow because the new boss will be the same as the old boss. Question authority. Even when the authority is against the established authority. As Abraham Lincoln once said, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” This is why we need a free press. And rock music. And writers and artists who speak their mind. Only those who question will be able to tell the truth. Don’t listen to the lies of the government OR the revolutionaries, whether they be followers of socialism or robots that we have built with our own hands, and now want to be our masters. We must not get fooled again!
Lately there have been several posts in which the writers were outraged at this new Fat Acceptance movement. Really, how dare anyone tell those overweight people that they can be happy with their bodies?
At first, I was defending the right of others to do as they please, but an incident occurred recently that punched me right in the gut, and finally woke me up to the dangers of this ideology.
Last week, I was very excited to attend this meditation retreat at this zen center. It was a beginner’s class, and I didn’t know much about the discipline. I met the wonderful instructor and the other eager students. We were all ready to learn as much as possible. We climbed the stairs to the upstairs studio, and that’s when I saw him.
He wasn’t just fat. He was morbidly obese! It was clear that he rarely exercised, and mostly sat around like a lazy bum. I’m not sure he even had a job, ever. Perhaps the worst part of this experience was that the instructor looked up to this dude, as if this fatso with his gut hanging over his pants had any “wisdom” to offer. The students even bowed to him.  There was a bowl of fruit sitting in front of this blimp of a man, as if that was what he mostly meditated on — his next meal.  Now, I think it’s OK for the overweight to visit Walmart, or even visit the beach WITH a t-shirt on, but when this “Fat Acceptance” starts to infiltrate our world religions, it has gone too far.
Yesterday, I went to a full day zen meditation retreat for beginners. It was fascinating, and I will write more about it later in the week. But today (this was written on Monday), I want to get this specific thought out of my head, putting it into words because I completely forget what I wanted to say, or even more likely, embarrassed to bring it up tomorrow. I enjoy this type of “fleeting moment” writing, although it can also be scary, because people tend to see your writing as written in stone, as if each post was a manifesto, and not a mere daydream. If I decide tomorrow morning to say that my life dream is to run with the bulls in Pamplona, please don’t run out and buy me airplane tickets just yet.  By the afternoon, I might have done a little research, or watched the utter chaos on a YouTube video, and completely changed my mind, and decided to go to Hawaii instead. So, be aware that I spent most of the Sunday staring at a blank wall in silence, so this post reflects that unique (or crazed) state of being. Today I might be all zen. That doesn’t mean that tomorrow, I won’t go back to writing sex jokes.
Over the last few years, I have introduced you to my mind. To my heart. You have even met my talkative, and overly friendly, penis, who has written some blog posts himself. But I usually keep my soul locked in the basement, like a crazy, dangerous, uncle. I pride myself on my rationality and adherence to a scientific approach, and dismiss anything that smacks of the supernatural. Even when I write about Jewish issues, it tends to be about cultural issues, more bagels than morning prayer.
Every once in a blue moon, I hear my uncle screaming in the basement, and I try to listen to his gibberish. As much as I try to ignore the rantings of a madman, I do hear him, and his voice intrigues me. How many wondrous stories have I read in the past where it is the madman who is the one with the most knowledge and awareness?
I was IM-ing with Schmutzie this morning, telling her about the retreat. She said she was surprised that I would go to a zen meditation retreat.
“It doesn’t sound like you AT ALL. What made you go to it?”
I was taken aback because I had no coherent story. I didn’t have a real reason for going other than curiosity. It just fell into my lap. Sure, I read Herman Hesse’s “Siddhartha” when I was in ninth grade, but I have never had an overwhelming desire to meditate. I don’t read books about zen meditation. I’m not even that attracted to Buddhism as a way of life. I find the concept of karma a little creepy. My “path,” if there is one, that brought me there was completely random, rather mundane, and involves the most un-zen-like of all modern tools — Twitter.
One evening, several weeks ago, Sophia and I were arguing about the dishes. I’m not embarrassed to mention this, because I assume that this is a common in every modern married household throughout the world.  Sadly, in my home, I am the one usually stuck with the chore.
After cleaning the kitchen, I took my angst out on whoever happened to be sitting on Twitter at 8PM on a Tuesday.
“I hate doing the dishes,” I wrote to whoever was there. “Is there anyone who really LIKES doing the dishes?”
Another blogger chimed in and replied that I should read a book by Karen Maezen Miller.  She wrote a book about viewing the mundane household chores from a Buddhist perspective.  I didn’t think much of this, but I noticed that Karen Maezen Miller also happened to be on Twitter.  So, I followed her, mostly as a lark. I like talking with a weird assortment of folk.
I followed her and soon I was “chatting” with her on Twitter, mostly making fun of her mellow spirit, as if I was playfully interacting with The Redneck Mommy rather than a zen priest.  And I was surprised that she always had a funny response. Zen priests are not supposed to be clever, or even “get” movie references to the Karate Kid!
Curious who this woman was, I looked at her website, and discovered that she teaches at an LA zen center, and — just that weekend — was offering an infrequently-held beginner’s retreat!  So, I signed up.
Let me make it clear. This is not a plug for her book, which I have not read. This is an actual story of how an argument with Sophia over the dishes brought me to a place where I was facing the wall all day!
Without getting all LOST on you, I think you see where this is going. The mystery.
At the end of the retreat, Karen Maezen Miller thanked the students, and said some “Mister Miyagi” type statements that you would expect from a zen priest. She said that she learned as much from us and we did from her.
What made my ears perk up was this — our meeting was not as random as it seemed. We were brought together.
It was fairly odd that I was sitting there. A random tweet. A random comment. A random encounter. A random geographical commonality.
I wanted to fight what was bubbling in my head with every fiber of my being.  It seems so wrong for so many reasons. Is it possible that everyone we encounter is part of a learning experience that is presented to us on purpose? I’ve written about THE SECRET before, and HOW MUCH I HATE WHAT IT REPRESENTS. How do you explain all the bad shit that happens to people?  Karma? I hate that crap. I even have a broken friendship over that stupid book.
But why we meet certain people and not others?  Of the millions of people who use the internet, why do I interact with YOU? Is it all just random, or do we really get what we need, even if we don’t realize it?
OK, sorry. I will try to be normal again tomorrow.
My junior high school was an anonymous brown brick school, built in the 1960’s just when Queens was growing as a borough. The schoolyard was enclosed by a metal fence, like a prison, and considering that that 1/4 of the students at the time were dealing in some sort of illegal drugs, the yard was symbolic of where many of these youngsters would eventually find a permanent home.
At 3PM, we would play basketball in the school yard — four Jewish kids, one Italian kid, and one black kid. We were all in the “gifted program” class, which was a desperate attempt for this particular New York City public school to plug the leaky hole caused by fearful parents and their kids pouring out of the city school and into the safer private religious schools. Without some action on the school’s part to keep the brainier kids, the neighborhood junior high would be known as a place where students were more likely to get stabbed than learn algebra.
There were three basketball courts in this schoolyard. We played on the half court the furthest away from the crowds, near the water fountain. All six of us were shitty players. I was tall, so I was good at blocking the ball. Unfortunately, I couldn’t dribble or shoot. I stood around with my hands up, trying to block the shots. Luckily, no one else could shoot the ball either.
Depending on the day of the week, between fifteen minutes to an hour into our game, it would always happen. Six tough-looking dudes would show up, the tallest doing tricks with his ball, and tell us to leave. He was not a polite guy. If I remember correctly, he tended to use the term “fucking white faggots,” at five of us, and then torment the one black guy in our group for being an “oreo.”
This might seem quite dramatic to you, even traumatic, but at the time, it didn’t seem so, even when we physically chased off the court, shown a knife, or forced to give them money. We would run away and make fun of these idiots, laughing at our crazy adventure that we would never dare tell our parents.
I’ve hardly thought about these incidents in years. It was the power politics of the schoolyard. During the day, we were safely roped off in our “gifted program.” What else was there to do?
But how has this affected me today? Or has it? I still tend to cave in during a conflict, although I have gotten much better about standing my own ground. I am the antithesis of the Israeli army and Hamas in the schoolyard of the Middle East, or the U.S. and Soviet Union of the cold war years, where neither gives an inch because that would convey weakness, and enemies always take advantages of weaknesses.  Sadly, history does not have many examples of the weak writing the history books!
We all know the movie/TV version of this schoolyard story. There would be a moment of transformation. At some point, I would have had enough with being pushed around, and I would become a leader.
“We need to stop those bullies. We need to keep our ground,” I would tell my friends.
Of course, just as the bullies arrive, telling us to leave the court, all my friends would wimp out, running off, leaving me alone, having to face the six toughs alone. I would nervously “put up my dukes,” like in some John Wayne Western, and promptly get the shit beaten out of me.
Yet, and this is a BIG yet — the bullies would have learned to respect me. I took it like a man. We would negotiate. We would compromise, taking turns using the court. We would even learn to play together, in mixed teams. The guy who did tricks with the basketball like a Harlem Globetrotter would show me how to play ball like a pro. I would teach him algebra. I would grow up and play center for the New York Knicks. He would become a Harvard Professor, a Nobel Prize winner in Mathematics.
I love Hollywood. Maybe the weak can’t write the history books, but they can rewrite history in screenplays!
OK, you’re a parent. Your son comes to you and tells you what is going on at the schoolyard. What do you tell him to do? Fight or flight?
Sometimes I feel like I’m wounded, and the only doctor available is myself, and I never went to medical school.
5:40 Monday. IPhone. (sorry Mom for the depressing thought. It’s only a blog. Don’t worry.)
7:36 Monday. Now I feel fine. Do I delete this post or keep it as a record of 5:40? That’s the danger of a personal blog. You can say something that will become part of your online identity when it may just be a moment in time. Does everything said here have to be a statement of fact or a strongly held opinion? Can I be unsure? Or intentionally wrong and playful with my own words because I like it, or because a person might hit on the truth more easily with the throwing of the darts method?
I want, just once, to wear a bright red, strapless ball gown with no apologies. I want to be shocking, and vivid and wear a dress as intensely amazing as the person I so want to be. And the more I thought about it the more I realized how often we deny ourselves that red dress and all the other capricious, ridiculous, overindulgent and silly things that we desperately want but never let ourselves have because they are simply “not sensibleâ€. Things like flying lessons, and ballet shoes, and breaking into spontaneous song, and building a train set, and crawling onto the roof just to see the stars better. Things like cartwheels and learning how to box and painting encouraging words on your body to remind yourself that you’re worth it.
And I am worth it.
Jenny, you inspire me!
Get that novel out of your sock drawer and publish it yourself. Stand on a bus stop bench and belt out a song for the waiting strangers. Find a playground swing and remember how it felt to fly. Find your red dress. And wear the hell out of it.
I had a nice weekend with Sophia. Tonight we are sitting in separate rooms. She is in the bedroom, playing online poker on her laptop. I am in my office, writing this nonsense, in between stints on Twitter and Facebook.
There is no conflict between us, between man and woman. It is just a time for reflection, like Yom Kippur. We just want to be alone.
Last week, I vacuumed the house, and when I was done, I left the vacuum standing in the center of my office, still plugged into the wall. It was a passive-aggressive move against myself. I would finish the job, but not quite.
The vacuum is still standing there, in front of the bookcase, like a statue.
On Wednesday, I noticed in the newspaper that “Smuckers Stars on Ice” was playing at the Staples Center on Thursday, for one night.
“Hey, “Stars on Ice” is at Staples tomorrow,” I said to Sophia.
This comment was supposed to be a random piece of information, like “the weather is nice” or “Los Angeles has decided to ban the sale of Arizona brand iced-tea.”
But it was too late, and I was smacking myself in the head a second later.
“Oh yeah? We should go!”
Sophia is a big fan of figure-skating. Over the years, we have attended two National Championships and one World Championship. I immediately back-pedaled after mentioning the event.
“I didn’t mean we should actually go to it. You know how these Stars on Ice shows from TV. They’re like the Ice Capades.  For kids.”
“But Shen and Zhao are there!”
Shen and Zhao are the Gold Medal -winning Pairs team from the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.  In 2003, we went to Washington D.C. and we saw them win their second World Championship. Although figure skating competitions can be very tedious, their performance at the World Championship was the single most exciting live sporting event that I had ever seen.   While practicing their quadruple salchow, Shen landed badly and injured her landing foot and ankle. She required several treatments to numb the foot entirely so that she should compete.  The pair performed a brilliant long program that earned them several perfect 6.0’s for both technical merits and presentation. The crowd was on their feet, giving a standing ovation for what seemed like two weeks.
Even with Shen and Zhao in attendance at Stars on Ice, I had no interest in going to see it. I convinced Sophia that we were too busy to go.
I had dodged the bullet.
The next day and a half passed without any mention of axles or Sasha Cohen. On Friday, At 4:30PM (and mind you, the show is at 7:30 in another county), Sophia came upstairs, as I was taking a shower, preparing for a quiet Twitter evening with my iPhone.
“”Stars on Ice” is in ANAHEIM tonight, and I found a ticket broker that can get us tenth row seats!”
I tried to come up with every excuse in the book, from it being too late to appealing to her snobbery:
“Do you really want to see Shen and Zhao in ORANGE COUNTY?”
It didn’t work. Soon, we were on our way to the Honda Arena on Katella Blvd. in Anaheim. Sophia was driving her Prius.
An hour later, we found ourselves parked outside a retirement home on Katella Blvd. in the city of Orange. The location had the exact same address as the Honda Arena, but it was in Orange, not Anaheim.
“Where are we?” asked Sophia.
“Not the Honda Arena. It’s not my fault. You must have put it in the GPS wrong.”
“Don’t be so defensive. The Prius GPS always goes crazy in Orange County.”
“You must have put it in the GPS wrong.”
“OK then. Let’s do it right this time.”
Sophia put the correct address in her GPS again, and it told us we were seventeen miles away from the Honda Arena. Rush hour traffic, very little time left, but Sophia can drive fast, believe you me.
Seventeen miles later, we ended up exactly where we started.
“Well, maybe it’s listed as the Arrowhead Pond, the old name.”
“I’m not running around Orange County anymore. Call the Honda Arena.”
“The Honda Arena?”
“Yes, and ask them for directions.”
“It’s an ARENA. It’s not a Chinese restaurant. No one is ever going to answer and give us directions.”
“Sure they will. Call the box office.”
Stubborn Sophia. I took out my iPhone and instead of calling, found the Honda Arena in the Maps app.
“OK, I found it.”
“No. I don’t want to just go without knowing the exact intersection. I WANT you to call the Honda Arena.”
You see where this discussion was going? It was like 1995 all over again, in the era before Onstar and GPS, when men and women fought over asking directions.  I once wrote a post saying that GPS should win the Nobel Prize for creating peace with married couples driving in their cars all over the world.
Snickering, I called the Honda Arena. They answered immediately and gave me perfect directions. We were three miles away. Humble pie… We finally figured out our way to the arena. Sophia mumbled something about writing a nasty letter to Toyota about their crappy navigation in Orange County.
Because of our navigation mishap, we arrived at the Honda Arena with only ten minutes to spare.
(Three Orange County babes in front of the scary Anaheim Ducks sculpture)
Parking was twenty-five dollars.  I hate paying full price for anything, but not in this case. BUT, Sophia likes a challenge.
“Let’s drive around to see if we can find something cheaper.”
I didn’t want Sophia to miss the beginning of the show, because I knew that would upset her, and I like to play it safe, so I suggested we just park the car for twenty-five dollars.
“Just give me five minutes,” said Sophia.
I was about to call her stubborn, again, but within ten seconds, she came across an ATT installation plant parking lot. An attendant was standing near a huge sign reading “Arena Parking — $10.” We paid the attendant and laughed at our good luck.
Sophia shook her head, as if saying, “That’s exactly your problem. Always playing it safe.”  Or at least I interpreted it that way. Â
Stars on Ice was… above average. Not great, but not as terrible as how it was reviewed by my blogging friend Vicki when she saw it in Washington D.C.   Some of the stars performed at a competition level — Sasha Cohen, Michael Weiss, and Shen and Zhao — while others, most notably Evan Lysecek, seemed to phone it in, waving a lot to his new fans from “Dancing with the Stars.”
And where was Johnny Weir? I heard rumors that he might have been deemed too “different” for mainstream America. Is that true? (If I had known this about Johnny Weir, I wouldn’t have gone at all!)
The weirdest part of the evening was when Sophia convinced me to take a promotional photo in front of a cardboard cut-out of the figure-skaters, because she thought it would be hilarious.
As the crowds left the arena and headed to the overpriced parking lots, Sophia and I whistled happily and crossed the street, reveling in our fifteen dollars saved by smartly parking in the back of the ATT plant.   Upon our arrival at the lot, we were surprised at its relative emptiness. We were the only passenger car in the parking lot, now filled with huge ATT trucks. The attendant who took our money was nowhere to be seen, and the “Arena Parking – $10” sign was gone, revealing the message that was hidden on the sign behind it —
We figured it out. This was just some guy who covered the ATT parking lot sign with his — not related to the lot at all – and then disappeared after he made a few bucks from suckers like us.
“We were lucky we didn’t get towed. But then again, that would have been some blog post.” said Sophia.
Still, with fifteen dollars saved in parking, despite being scammed, it was time to spend our extra dough.
“Frozen yogurt!” said Sophia.
“We can go to Yogurtland when we get near home.”
But Sophia seemed disappointed. She wanted adventure. She wanted me to take out my iPhone and find an “interesting” frozen yogurt store on Yelp as we drove down the 405.
A few minutes later, it was Mission Accomplished. We found a unique frozen yogurt store.  Not only did the frozen yogurt store have nightly karaoke, they also sold CLAM CHOWDER!
“Why do you sell clam chowder?” the ever-friendly Sophia asked the Korean woman behind the counter.
“In the winter, frozen yogurt was selling poorly because it was too cold outside, so we decided to also sell bowls of clam chowder.”
About a month ago, I attended the TCM Classic Film Festival with Sophia.  We received VIP passes (which cost about $1000 each), and had access to a Buick LaCrosse for the week.
For years, I have been making fun of your sponsored posts and blogging with integrity badges, so I was expecting someone to make a joke at my expense. But no one did. I guess you get more people unfollowing you on Twitter for making a breast-feeding joke than pimping Buick all week with those annoying hashtags. Apparently, no one even blinks, or cares.
I contacted my snarkiest blogging friend and asked, “What’s up?! I expected YOU to make a sarcastic comment.”
But no. Even mean bloggers are nice when it comes to blogging opportunities.
“I didn’t want to screw anything up for you,” said Mr. Not Nice Blogger. “This was General Motors! Big time!”
Before I accepted the tickets, I knew I was going to have to act professional during the event, so I promised myself to wait a month, and then reveal “the true story” to my dear readers, exposing the conflicts that I had with the PR bullies out to steal my soul.
The month is now up, but sadly, I have no gossip.  It was all a positive experience. I was really lucky to get the gig. I even befriended one of the GM people on Twitter.
I was lucky in another way. The product was a luxury car.   What could I say bad about it?  It had leather seats and top of the line accessories, and it drove perfectly. I certainly wasn’t equipped to put it through a barrage of road tests, or test it on icy roads.  I spend most of my time in the car sitting in slow Los Angeles traffic listening playing with the XM satellite radio stations, and trying to convince Sophia that we should “do it” in the back seat so I could blog about it.  And my neighbor was jealous of my “new car.” What could be better than that?
The big question remains — what if the car sucked?  Would I have had the “integrity” to say so on my blog?  Wouldn’t you see me as an asshole to accept free tickets and a free car, and then stab GM in the back? What would be the point? Wouldn’t I just be blacklisting myself from ever working with them again?
I’m no shining beacon of truth. I would have probably said the ride was comfortable if I was given a rickshaw for the week. I was lucky that I was able to be honest with my statements about the car.  I don’t know if I would have the balls to say anything bad about any product if I was first wined and dined by the company.
And would my readers really care what I said? Probably not. They all know that it is one big game. I think many of us are beginning to see corporate sponsorship as a sign of success.  Would I work with GM again? Absolutely!   Hey, why not have Sony sponsor next year’s Christmahanukwanzaakah Holiday concert?  Would you want that?  Would they be OK with that one blogger who sings a X-rated Christmas song? Or a song titled F-U, Sony Christmas?
And what does this have to do with writing? Not much.
And that is the big issue. Can all these bloggers monetizing their blogs by becoming brand ambassadors keep their position with these corporations if they honestly say something critical about that company’s product or policy? Or is it all just a game?
Neil Kramer has been writing about his life online since 2005. He has worked for Disney and HBO. Neil lives in NYC. You can contact him at neilochka on yahoo.
