Citizen of the Month

the writing and photography of Neil Kramer

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Ideology and Realism

January 22, 2010 / / 16 Comments

Several months ago, I was invited to join a group that wanted to promote more women directors, writers, and female-oriented films in Hollywood.  I signed up, and later day I received an email that I was blocked from the site because the administrators decided that they wanted the site to just be for women bloggers.  I understood the reasons.   I wasn’t hurt or angry, but at the time I didn’t say the obvious — it was a dumb move on a practical level.  I was the one who knew something about Hollywood.  I had contacts.  I had experience writing movie scripts.  And my own personal tastes leaned towards character-oriented films.   I have seen every Meryl Streep movie at least three times, even the bad ones.

In my opinion, the group chose ideology over the real world.  When I first got blocked from the site, I composed a passive aggressive tweet on Twitter that said something like “Eh, screw my romantic comedy.  Time to start that violent thriller about Denzel Washington having to stop a bomb from blowing up the UN.”

Better to go with the demographic that at least talks to me.   And pays more.

+++

Do we realize that a big part of the Democratic loss in Massachusetts is that blue collar and middle-class white men, the “Joe Six Packs” of our country, don’t believe that the Democratic party cares about their interests?

The Suffolk University poll in Massachusetts, which was pretty much on target in the final result, singled out two white working class towns, Gardner and Fitchburg, as bellwethers. Obama won Gardner, where Democrats hold a three-to-one registrations edge, by 59% to 31% in 2008. Brown won it by 56% to 42%. Obama won Fitchburg, with a similar Democratic edge, by 60% to 38% in 2008. Brown won it by 59% to 40%. That suggests a fairly dramatic shift among white working class voters.

Why did this happen?  Why are only the Glenn Becks speaking to this constinuency?  I think Obama’s election was seen by many of us as the end of the Bush era — and the demise of the blue collar guys who shopped at Walmart and flew American flags on their porch.    We were a new, hipper coalition of upscale liberals with advanced university degrees, accomplished women, and strong-willed minorities who would forever change the face of America.  Hey, I consider myself part of that group.  But is it good politics to completely ignore those that could benefit by being included in the fold, even if they remind us of the relatives from Podunk, or Staten Island,  or because they don’t watch Jon Stewart or Rachel Maddow?

My Health Care Plan

January 20, 2010 / / 43 Comments

Many Democrats are shocked that a Republican won Ted Kennedy’s seat in Massachusetts yesterday. I’m not. It is a referendum on Obama’s health care plan, and I think I am uniquely experienced to comment on this subject. For the last two weeks, I have been visiting my father-in-law in the hospital, and just like a journalist going undercover, I have seen FIRST HAND how our health care system really works.

The simple fact is that there are a lot of sick people. Too many sick people.

The beds in the hospital are never empty for long. In fact, since my FIL has arrived in the hospital, he has had five different roommates, and one of them didn’t make it out alive. Is that really a good success rate?

And who are these sick people anyway? If we examine the word “sick,” we see that in general discourse, we mean someone “not healthy.” And why aren’t these individuals healthy? Is it the taxpayers responsibility? Should we really feel sympathy for a bunch of lazy leeches who CHOOSE not to care for themselves? Many of us work hard to look and feel good. It is something we are proud about. It is an achievement. But it is WORK. Hard work. Why should I subsidize those who don’t eat and exercise correctly?

Do you know how much it is costing YOU to keep my father in law in this fancy hospital room with costly equipment and highly paid “doctors?” You’re even paying for his FOOD, which gets delivered to him from a MENU, like in a four star hotel! Sorry, folks, but my family is using you like a bunch of suckers — and you don’t even realize it!

Obama has it wrong. Universal healthcare is like a band-aid, welfare for those who want to sleep late rather than go to the gym before work.

I’ve heard the excuses before. You say you have “no room” for an exercise bike in your bedroom. Well, you certainly find enough room in that bedroom for that big screen TV and that stack of burgers from In-N-Out, you scourge of America with your wii age of 95!

I work hard to stay out of the hospital, and then I have to pay for YOUR unhealthy fat ass who won’t walk to the supermarket! The fashion industry does a better job than the medical establishment in promoting HEALTH with their healthy thin, role-models. Those who insist that “real” (read fat) women should be portrayed in ads, are not your friends. These women, so-called “feminists,” are mostly lobbyists for the pharmaceutical companies wanting to promote bad health to increase profits for diet pills.

It breaks my heart to see my father-in-law sleeping so much. He used to be a strong guy who built chairs and loved to garden. But as he aged, he grew lazy. While the nurse was undressing him, I noticed that his abs had grown weak. I have seen photos of him when he was younger in the Soviet Army. He was a hunk! So, what happened? I blame America, the decadence of the West, her seductive processed foods, and her constant search for the easy way out.

As I thought about all those in the hospital, I had an “aha” moment. Fancy medical equipment and high priced pharmaceuticals are not the answer. Massachusetts voters were right. Obama’s health plan would bankrupt America. The real answer is as simple as $19.99 per American household. Yes, I am talking about Jillian Michael’s “30 Day Shred.”

If every American was required to complete this video, our country will truly be as healthy and fit as our forefathers hoped when they wrote the Constitution. Rather than pissing away our money into more debt to China by creating universal health care, our hospitals could be turned into greenhouses to grow organic tomatoes. I have a dream: One day, we will be a country of tight abs! After all, a person’s fat content tells a lot more about a person’s overall health than an EKG!

Granted, our country would need more qualified physical trainers, but this could be easily arranged by creating a ShredCorps. Many trainers could already be shipped to various parts of the country from Los Angeles, where one out of every three residents is an unemployed physical trainer.

Hospitals do not make you healthier. I can see the toll on my father in law. He is lethargic and depressed. Is this really worth $10,000 a day? Can you imagine the results if my father-in-law had Jillian Michaels yelling at him to to “push” one more crunch. He’d be his old self within days!

Next time you are in the hospital, take a look around. Why are the sick children lying in bed playing video games and getting fat on vanilla pudding? Those who are sick WANT to be sick so they can get free room and board at the hospital. If you want my tax money, I want you to WORK for it. Have those kids do squats to get better.

I applaud the people of Massachusetts, who are as revolutionary as in 1776. Throw those Crestors, Prozacs and diabetes monitors into Boston Harbor, and let’s ride like Paul Revere to a world of fitness.

“Jillian Michaels is coming! Jillian Michaels is coming”

It’s time for a revolution. Out of your beds, you lazy bums in Cedars-Sinai. It is time for your workout!

Editor’s Note: This is supposed to be a satire, perhaps not well done, but it made me laugh. I hate to have to put this disclaimer up on my blog because it ruins the joke, but let me be perfectly clear and state this to a new reader: No, despite me saying so in the post, I do not truly “believe” that we can solve our country’s health care problems by supplying sick people with Jillian Michael’s 30-Day Shred rather than having them stay in hospitals.

Categories

January 18, 2010 / / 8 Comments

I’m not a big fan of “blog awards,” but if anyone is going to add a new twist to this type of endeavor and make them special, it is Schmutzie and her new Canadian Weblog Awards, because underneath her sweet demeanor is a woman with the soul of a radical.

Schmutize is an individual very concerned about how we label and identify each other, particularly when it comes to religion, ethnicity, and gender.

Check out the categories that she has created for the blog awards. Some are quite different, such as:

Ecology & Social Justice
Ex-Pat
Family & Parenting
Feminist
French Language
Health & Wellness (includes physical/mental health and disabilities)
LGBTQ
Life
Religion, Spirituality, & Philosophy
Science, Technology, & the Internet
Sports, Fitness, & Recreation

What I like about them is that she has thought “out of the box.” She has tried to be as inclusive as possible, following her own brand of thought.

“Religion, Spirituality, & Philosophy” – what’s so special about this category? Think about how many wars have been started over religious ideologies. Most of us see Christianity, secular existentialism, and crystal healing as angry antagonists, each movement thinking the other as hogwash, even dangerous. But what if, rather than focusing on what separates them, we look at what unifies?

Schmutzie doesn’t divide the religious, the secular, and the new age into three categories. She looks inward — at the common attitudes and interests of these seemingly disparate individuals – and puts them all in one category. Those who write about Religion, Spirituality, & Philosophy — the religious Jew, the religious Muslim, the vehement atheist, the philosphy professor, and the New Age guru — might all disagree with each other, even hate each other, but in reality, they ponder the same BIG issues – life, death, and ethics. They have more in common in what they WRITE ABOUT — than a co-religionist who blogs about Iphones. Why not focus on the common interests of these writers than the differences? Shouldn’t we categorize by content – the similarities in the thinking process — than on the specifics of the individual? Inclusive over Exclusive. Imagine if this type of thinking spread into the real world, where all THINKERS of all religions saw themselves as members of the same category?

The same could be said for the category titled: “Sports, Fitness, & Recreation”

Does a New York Yankee fanatic, a bodybuilder, a hunter, a fisherman, a guy who loves to fly kites, and a chess grandmaster blogger really belong together in one category?

You wouldn’t normally see these types of bloggers grouped together, but if you stop and think, all of these bloggers are hobbyists or fans, and are frequently obsessed with their hobbies, driving their spouses crazy on weekends. Sure, football is brawn and chess is brains, but I bet these individuals might actually hit it off if they had the chance, much like the football players and the geeks in the TV show Glee!

Today is Martin Luther King Day. Dr. King is one of my heroes. Is there any speech as powerful as his “I Have a Dream” speech?

“I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

Is there any more powerful statement? If we broaden Dr. King’s vision to include social issues other than race, we create a world that is inclusive — unified by our character — our thoughts and actions — rather than isolated and excluded because of factors such as race, religion, or gender. It might be a stretch to go from Dr. King to blog award categories, but Dr. King WAS talking about categories — how we judge and see each other, and who we allow into our “group?” Are we exclusive in our words and actions or inclusive?

Perhaps Schmutzie’s most radical act for the awards is in the category of Family & Parenting. Schmutzie herself understands that she was going against the grain —

It was originally suggested to me that one of the categories that the 2010 Canadian Weblog Awards needed to have was Mommyblogging, but that label has always rubbed me the wrong way. It seems to embrace only one part of what constitutes parenting and family, especially in a world that acknowledges the diversity of family structures out there, not to mention fathers. So, the more inclusive Family & Parenting category was born. These bloggers write about the complexity of parenthood and family life in a way that would leave most parenting magazines quaking in their boots, so read, comment, and enjoy!

That is a powerful statement. Maybe the terms mommybloggers and daddybloggers are becoming just a little stale — by focusing on WHO — in the same way that we do race, religion, and gender — over WHAT — the content of the blog or interests of the person. Shouldn’t the mother who writes about sports or politics be considered a sports or political writer? Are the old-fashioned labels holding society back? If we are going to be using labels for our writing, should it be an identifier of the person or the content?

Schmutzie does it right; she creates a category of family and parenting as an umbrella for whoever writes about family. This could be a mom or dad who write about their family. It could be a gay man raising a child with his partner. It could be a single man who adopted a son. It could even be a woman who is caring for her sick sister. Are we going to say that these sisters are not a family unit, with the same types of problems that any family might have, just because they are not child-rearing. If I moved in with my MIL to care for her, and I started a blog about it, would you discount me from being in the “family” blog category along with your traditional mommyblogging blog?

Just thinking.

Call to Mom

January 14, 2010 / / 25 Comments

Sophia has been away all week on a job, so I have been here in LA, holding down the fort, like they used to say in the days when we lived in forts.  I’ve been spending a lot of time with Sophia’s step-father and mother at the hospital, which is stressful because they can only speak Russian, and my knowledge of the language is limited to food related statements like “Please pass me the blini” and exotic curses such as “Fuck you, your mother, every relative in their grave, and your two favorite horses.”

I’ve been spending a lot of time playing on my iphone, ignoring reality.  I do know what is going on in Haiti, and I am purposely keeping my head in the sand.  I just can’t deal with the news of the scope of the disaster.  Even the Leno-Conan O’Brien drama was too intense for me right now.

Speaking of iphones — did you know that the latest Facebook update transfers profile photos of your friends into your contacts, so if one of your virtual friends actually called you up, a large photo of your friend would appear on the bright screen as the Justin Timberlake ringtone played on your phone?

Why can’t real life run as smoothly as modern technology?

Playing with my iphone has helped release some tension (video apps!  Scrabble!),  but I have been quite cranky lately.  I would love to take it out on my readers, because I enjoy that, but since I am in the middle of a PR rehabilitaion, I have decided to take it out on my mother instead.  And I have good reason to.  Sophia’s parents are a little older than my mother, and I am seeing first hand how age can slow you down to the point where the child is caring for the parent.  This is when you wake up and realize that you are OLD.  My mother is in her seventies, but — knock on wood — KNOCK KNOCK — in great health.  She traveled through a million European cities last summer.   She is more energetic than I am.   But… old age comes fast.  I see it.

Usually, my mother calls me, bugging me like a stereotypical Jewish mother, reminding me to take my cholesterol medicine, or wondering why I still haven’t made a dentist appointment.   Today, I called her up to nag her.  It was MY TURN!

“How are you feeling today?” I asked, ready to pounce.

“Fine.”

“Didn’t you say your foot was bothering you?”

“It’s nothing.”

“I noticed in Queens that you sometimes had trouble standing up from the couch.”

“That’s because the stupid couch is too low.”

“It might be arthritis.”

“I have a little arthritis.”

“So, why don’t you see a doctor?”

“What is a doctor going to do?”

Normally, I would have given up with the questioning, but I felt as distrustful as an El Al security guard.

“Aren’t you taking yoga there?”

“Yes, every day.”

“But I know you.  You just do whatever the instructor tells everyone to do.  Speak to her.   Personally.  Tell her you want a special exercise suited for YOU.”

“Leave me alone.  I’m fine.  Did you make an appointment to your doctor yet while you are in LA?  And what’s going on with you and Sophia anyway?  Have you talked about it yet?  You can’t live like this forever…?”

“We’re not talking about me.  We are talking about you.”

“Me?  I’m enjoying life!  You’re the one who’s screwed up.  And besides, my cholesterol is lower than yours.”

“Do you know where I am going every day to visit Vartan?  This rehab clinic?  Do you know what it is LIKE in here?  It is awful.  You don’t FUCKING want to be in here.  I don’t want to FUCKING visit you in one of these places!”

“I know.  I’ve been there with my parents.  My mother was in a nursing home.  Half of Century Village ends up in assisted living.   Never put me in a nursing home.  I’d rather be dead.”

“Stop talking nonsense.  Go exercise your legs.”

“Right now?  I’m eating lunch.”

“You don’t want to EVER fall and break a hip.  Because that is BAD NEWS at your age.”

“I’m fine.  YOU need to exercise.”

“Stop being an idiot, Mom!  You’re getting old.”

“I am old.”

“You’re not old.”

“I am old.  So, if I fall, you’re not coming to visit me?”

“You’re acting a real jerk today.  Just don’t fall, OK?  And don’t eat too much deli food.  It’s not healthy.”

“I’m eating a chicken salad sandwich.  You’re the one who goes to McDonald’s.”

“We’re talking about YOU.  Sheesh!  You’re impossible!!”

Later that day, my mother called up, probably wanting to remind me AGAIN to make my doctor’s appointment.  At first, I didn’t know it was my mother because this Facebook photo appeared full screen in my iphone behind my mother’s name  —

Either this Facebook “contact” information app has a serious bug in it, or my mother really HAS been taking good care of herself in Florida!

I have no idea who this girl is in the photo.   Obviously technology is as fucked up as real life.

The Walmart Mom Question

January 13, 2010 / / 26 Comments

Today, as I received yet another email about this post I wrote last week, I understand what it must feel like to be a politician after a story is leaked to the press that YOU DID inhale during that one time you said you smoked pot in college, and now you have to pose  at a press conference, your conservatively-dressed wife at your side, your hooker girlfriend as far away as possible, as you strongly condemn all forms of drug abuse and promise, if elected, to start a new WAR ON DRUGS.

In politics, these leaks always come from an old roommate still pissed at you for stealing his girlfriend twenty-five years ago.  In blogging, proof that bloggers are mostly idiots with no career potential, we LEAK THESE INCRIMINATING STORIES ourselves!

Of course, as blogging becomes more professional, bloggers are growing smarter and more media savvy.   Let me re-phrase that.  Some bloggers are growing smarter.  As we become brand enthusiasts for Kraft and Walmart, we move beyond just telling stories about our lives.   We become representatives of something bigger than us.   A company or a cause.  And that is great.  But it gives me pause.  I wonder if I would have written my post, or many of my posts, if I was a brand ambassador for Nintendo or Sony?  Would my writing feel stifled?  Would there be any repercussions for writing about my past real-life actions?  Is my image, and what it represents to the company, more important to the company than my “real” self?  Is this what the exciting field of social media is all about, turning us all into one-dimensional avatars, the online equivalent of air-brushed celebrities,  so we can effectively market products  to each other?  No wonder why social media mavens love Twitter.   Marketers can speak to many at once, without really interacting with anybody.

Frank Rich, in one of his last NYT columns of 2009, named Tiger Woods as his “person of the decade” because he symbolized everything wrong with a decade where branding, PR, and illusion became more celebrated than the reality outside.  Frank Rich sees the decade as filled with con men, “influentials” eager to bamboozle their gullible victims.

The men who played us for suckers, whether at Citigroup or Fannie Mae, at the White House or Ted Haggard’s megachurch, are the real movers and shakers of this century’s history so far. That’s why the obvious person of the year is Tiger Woods. His sham beatific image, questioned by almost no one until it collapsed, is nothing if not the farcical reductio ad absurdum of the decade’s flimflams, from the cancerous (the subprime mortgage) to the inane (balloon boy).

Enron?  The Housing Market?  The Stock Market?  Baseball players with monster steroid bodies?  “Reality” Television?  Bernie Madoff? That was the decade. The blogosphere mirrored this fakery as marketers, SEO, and PR experts became our gurus, promising us big bucks and millions of followers, but mostly making themselves well-known by writing about marketing.

For six years, Tiger Woods was the multi-million dollar advertising face for Accenture, the big consulting firm.  While this firm has nothing to do with golf,  Accenture liked having their advertising campaign revolve around “high performance,” and Tiger Woods certainly fit that bill. The firm just didn’t realize how “high performance” he was!

Accenture is “a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company,” but who cared about any fine print? It was Tiger, and Tiger was it, and no one was to worry about the details behind the mutually advantageous image-mongering. One would like to assume that Accenture’s failure to see or heed any warning signs about a man appearing in 83 percent of its advertising is an anomalous lapse. One would like to believe that business and government clients didn’t hire Accenture just because it had Tiger’s imprimatur. But in a culture where so many smart people have been taken so often, we can’t assume anything.

After Mr. Woods confessed to infidelities, Accenture had a PR nightmare.  They immediately purged all record of Tiger Woods from their existence.

On Sunday, hours after Accenture ended its sponsorship deal, the golfer’s face was replaced by an anonymous skier on the company’s home page. His name was scrubbed almost completely from the rest of the Web site. The company’s advertising campaign is about “high performance,” and Mr. Woods “just wasn’t a metaphor for high performance anymore,” a spokesman for Accenture, Fred Hawrysh, said.

By Monday afternoon, Accenture staffers had swept through the company’s New York office and removed any visible Tiger posters. The next day, marketing and communications employees around the world were asked to turn in any remaining Tiger-emblazoned posters and other materials. Accenture marketing employees did not respond to requests for comment about the Tiger purge on Wednesday.

This was a relationship based solely on business, not unlike so many of the “friendships” we have online, where we follow and unfollow each other daily, depending on the direction of the wind.

So, basically  — Can a Walmart Mom write a post about the time she stole some jewelry at Walmart when she was 17 and still remain a Walmart Mom?

If I start sleeping with a high class hooker, do you want to hear the stories about my adventures, or do you want me to hide them from you, so that I maintain my good “brand.”

Do I know any of you at all?

The Haunted Vagina: The Movie

January 12, 2010 / / 8 Comments

This is a real novel titled “The Haunted Vagina,” written by Carlton Mellick III.

You can buy it on Amazon.

The central plot of the novel poses a question that many men have pondered throughout the ages:

What if your girlfriend’s vagina was a gateway to another world?

The premise of this amazing novel intrigued me so much when I first read it in graduate school, I optioned the work from the author, and have been developing the screenplay for five years, trying to capture the immediacy of the writing to the big screen.

I can now publicly announce that the movie will finally be released this summer. Here is a sneak preview of the trailer to “The Haunted Vagina: Stargate to The Future.”

I Write

January 11, 2010 / / 25 Comments

I write to share my wisdom arising from my life experience. My words are like the rain, and you are like the soil, and when my nourishment satisfies your thirst for knowledge, you grow tall, like the grass and the flowers and the mightiest of trees. I write to educate you, to guide you to greatness. Once you were lowly, but after reading my words, you will be flying with the eagles in the clouds!

I write to lie, to make up shit, to come up with ridiculous statements like the first paragraph because I can imagine some asshole really writing that nonsense, and it makes me laugh.

I have no idea why I write. I’ve always written.

I write to clarify things in my own head.

I write to remember things.

I write to express love without having to say it out loud.

I write to imagine myself as other people, like an actor.

I write to be the real me, because, in real life, I am TOO much of an actor.

I write to impress girls so they will fall in love with him.

I write because writing is powerful, and I don’t own a gun.

I write just to amuse one person, who I know will get the joke.

I write because I don’t have a choice.

I write because good writers turn me on more than naked Playboy bunnies, and writing well is the only way I know to get them to talk to me.

I write to waste time.

I write to hide.

I write to be passive/aggressive in a cowardly way, and then feel guilty about it.

I write to be political, but not often enough.

I write to be truthful to others, because I rarely get a chance to be truthful in my daily life.

I write to force myself to stop lying… to myself.

I write because I’m not very good at football.

I write because when I read books, I’m always saying, “I can do better than that!”

I write because you can’t masturbate in Starbucks, but they do allow you to bring your laptop, so it gives me something to do while drinking coffee.

Eureka! I Understand My Blog!

January 8, 2010 / / 46 Comments

I’ve given a lot of thought to that post I wrote earlier this week about the incident in the car, as well as read several of the very personal posts by other bloggers on related themes. This week was the weirdest blogging week EVAH for me! All sorts of people came to my blog, including strangers and drive-by commenters who will never return. If I didn’t get back to you, it is because I was overwhelmed. Thanks for all the emails, etc. — even the crazy ones.

In a good way, this is what blogging is all about (or at least what it used to be about before it became about giveaways, self-promotion, and social media) — sharing personal stories. All the other stuff – at least in my heart – doesn’t even deserve to be called blogging. Whenever I see a list of blogs that “I need to read,” I immediately know that I don’t need to read them.

Now back to ME, because that is what this blog is about, right?

Someone sent me an email, forgiving me for this event, writing that “You am clearly not the same person as you were back then.”

This gave me a slight chuckle. Despite the attempts at literary semiotic brain-washing that were attempted in my Contemporary Civilizations college seminar at Columbia, I AM THE SAME PERSON — in more ways than you know — as I was in high school. I’m just not in high school anymore.

And frankly, I wasn’t a trouble-maker in high school who was later reformed. I was the most polite, overly-sensitive, liberal-oriented person imaginable, who used to send letters to the Prime Minister of Japan to stop killing whales!

After I read this email, I had a “Eureka” moment, less about my days in high school, than about my own blog — in the present. For five years, I have been complaining about my blog, saying that it was formless, and without a theme. I have been jealous of your niche blogs, particularly those that revolved around parenting. Bu sometimes, things are so obvious that you don’t see them until the hammer falls on your head. I HAVE had a theme… right from the first day…

I don’t exactly remember why I named this blog “Citizen of the Month.” Something about my self-image. In elementary school, I was nominated as Citizen of the Month more times than the Yankees won the World Series. Even the icon I chose in the header is a boy scout-ish boy. This is how I see myself. My political-oriented posts tend to be about gay rights and women’s issues. I run community-oriented events like the interview experiment and the holiday concert. I write a lot about my MOTHER! Yes, I even love my mother!

But if you really look through my archives, what do you also see? Exactly. A whole lot of posts about f**king women! Aggressive conversations with my testy, demanding, over-educated cock! Fantasies about waitresses in Colombian diners. Sex thoughts about Jewish women, black women, Asian women — my liberal ideology spills over into my crazy imaginary sex life — I am a multi-ethnic, uni-faith sex machine!

Why didn’t I see this before? This HAS BEEN MY THEME. I am a Citizen of the Month, but about a do-good boy who wants to help a woman carry her packages across the street, and then politely ask to see her naked!

You realize that I am joking. And not joking.

I’m not sure I’ll continue on with this theme forever — it is getting old — but it feels good to be able to sit back and finally get when is going inside my head. You are mommybloggers. Or you write about social media. Or you write about depression. For five years, I have been writing to a mostly female audience about my internal conflict between my boy scout-ish, respectful Citizen of the Month world view, and my love of p*ssy.

Welcome to my world. Now I can finally write the book!

In the Year 2010, 2010

January 7, 2010 / / 17 Comments

In the year 2010, 2010
If I’m still alive
If my blog can survive
I may find…

In the year 2010, 2010
I’ll be unfollowed by blogger Gwen
Because I’m “just like ALL THE OTHER men”
And she KNEW it from way back when

In the year 2010, 2010
I’ll be insulted by blogger Glenn
For shirking duties now and then
And writing a post in the hospital, unlike caring men

In the year 2010, 2010
I’ll be accused by blogger Jen
For being “totally” a big fat hen
For “daring” to write the word divorce in pen

In the year 2010, 2010
I’ll get a IM from my friend Ming-Jen
She hates that I joke like a comedian
Unlike her blog, which was mentioned by CNN!

In the year 2010, 2010
I’ll be un-Facebooked by Madeleine
Who thinks my blog is a seedy opium den
Wants it closed down by her councilmen.

In the year 2010, 2010
I’ll get an angry letter from my old pal Ken
Who used to steal from the five-and-ten
Now prays to Jesus with a big Amen.

In the year 2010, 2010
I’ll get a call from Florida, in Boca Raton
It’s my mother breaking from a game of mah jonng
Screaming to me, “What the hell is going on?!”

It’s the Real Thing

January 6, 2010 / / 48 Comments

Tuesday Night

9PM – Sophia’s stepfather, Vartan, is not doing well. He is at a rehab center near Cedars Sinai in Beverly Hills. Sophia and her mother have been at his side constantly for weeks and they are exhausted, so I told her that I would stay all night and watch over him. Sophia told me to caress his hand and talk to him to help him sleep.

9:15PM – Vartan has an amazing life. He is older than Sophia’s mother. He fought in World War 2, and was a POW in a German camp. He went through turbulant times in the Soviet Union. He was a prominent cancer surgeon in Russia. He moved to America with Sophia’s mother because he loved her. Rumor has it that they fell in love while still married to others, and they waited decades until they were able to be together.

10:20PM – Everyone here seems to be elderly and in pain. If you’ve been to a place like this, you know what I’m talking about. If you don’t, it’s better off you don’t know.

10:30PM – The sounds. The screaming of the man in the next room.

10:45PM – In one day, I’ve gone from writing about the hormonal teenage years of early manhood to writing about the inevitable weakening of man because of old age.

11PM – I can’t wait until morning arrives, for the nurturing power of the sun. I know this sounds insensitive, but I don’t want to be in this place anymore. I’m getting dizzy. Don’t faint. Be a man. Be a man like Vartan. Think of all the stress that Sophia and her mother are under, doing this every day.

11:15PM – How many of my blogging friends are nurses? Kudos to you for the work you do.

11:30PM – There is another man in the room, in the other bed. He constantly watches sports on his TV. Every time I walk by, he wants to talk with me. He is lonely. He used to work for ABC Sports. He thinks that I am Russian. He wants to talk about the famous Olympic hockey game between the USA and the USSR. He was supposed to cover that Olympic event with ABC, but he was assigned to bobsledding instead. He has always regretted that day.

Midnight – Vartan is going in and out of reality. Sleeping pills don’t work. He tries to leave the bed. The nurses have to “soft restrain” him to the bed. It is painful to watch. At times, he knows who I am. At other times, he is in his own world. I try to decipher what he is doing in this other reality by watching his movements.

12:05PM – He is talking to someone in Russian. But this person is not there. Who is this person that he is speaking to? I don’t know.

12:10AM – He is petting what looks like a boy’s head. Or a dog? Perhaps it is a dog he had as a child? He is making rapid movements with his hands and fingers. Swatting flies? Conducting an orchestra? Writing on a blackboard?

12:45AM – The nurse enters, wanting to change the soiled sheets. What a tough job these nurses have! Still, it is a little sad that there isn’t more of a human touch to the caregiving at this facility. One patient seems interchangeable with the next.

12:50PM – Vartan is doing his hand movements, and the nurse just finds them an annoyance as she changes the sheets.

2AM – I decide the hand movements are Vartan performing surgery. I find that dignified. He senses that he is in a medical facility and is doing what he is trained to do. He is not just some old anonymous guy. He is a skilled surgeon, and he wants everyone to know that.

3:15AM – Earlier in the evening, Sophia had sent over some Chinese food from a local restaurant, but eating Kung Pao Chicken in this facility made me queasy, so I hardly touched it. But I’m just noticing that at the bottom of the bag sits a can of Coke. Not Diet Coke, but real Coke. Woo-hoo!

3:30AM – That was the best Coke I ever had. Seriously. This post could be a commercial for the intense power of Coca-Cola. This Coke was my escape out of here. It’s the real thing. It transported me. Coke does not belong in a rehab facility. It is the soda of youth. I close my eyes and I am at a summer picnic, drinking Coke. And there is BBQ. And women. Life affirming stuff.

4:10AM – Vartan is doing his hand gestures again. But, this time, I notice that during the movement, he brings his hand to his mouth, as if he is eating something. That’s it! He is NOT doing surgery with his hands. He is picking something — from a tree? — cherries? grapes? apples? — and eating them. He grew up on a farm. Is this eating of the fruit his equivalent to my drinking the Coke? Is he at a picnic too?

5AM – I try to calm Vartan down again by caressing his hand. He is a cool guy. He used to laugh at me because I sipped my vodka.

This is hard. Soon, I will go home and Sophia’s mother will replace me at his side. We’re all hoping that Vartan recovers.

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