Archive for the ‘Hollywood’ Category
September 12, 2017
Living disjointedly in time, apparently, I woke up thinking yesterday was September 10th and, as I read the morning paper, realized I was out of step with time. Yesterday was the sixteenth anniversary of 9/11 and I had a deep heaviness fall on me as I listened to a young woman on NPR who had been born after that day and for whom it is an event heard about in history classes, not something she can return to in her mind as so many of us can, particularly if you were in New York City, Washington, or Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
It’s not often I go there in my mind and today, for the first time, I haven’t felt an emotional ouch of the kind I have every other year. Much of that is that I am monitoring Irma as friends and family are enduring her as she moves up the peninsula. My sister and brother-in-law are without power but seem okay while I have friends not yet heard from in Jacksonville which is suffering “historic” flooding.
Yesterday was not dissimilar to that day sixteen years ago; bright sun, hardly a cloud in the sky, warm, waking on a day that seemed God had made to put smiles on our faces.
So, it is I ended my day with a moment of silence, thinking on the thousands that died that day and all the many, many thousands more that have died since in the ripple of effects of 9/11.
For perhaps the eighth or ninth time, I re-read the last few pages of “Call Me by Your Name,” a novel by Andre Aciman, a brilliant and, for me, painful read. It is the story of seventeen-year-old Elio, son of a professor, living on the Italian Riviera who has an affair with Oliver, a twenty-five-year-old graduate assistant to his father.
Andre Aciman’s writing is so exquisite it is hard for anyone who works with words to read because that kind of beauty is so hard to achieve and I know I will never achieve that kind of beauty in my own work.
It was also hard for me to read because during my 17th year I had my own Oliver, though we never consummated our affair. On a sunny, spectacular Minnesota fall day I walked into my first Spanish class of my freshman year and there was Marvin, my T.A., a man slightly taller than I, exotically handsome. He looked Latin, as if he walked out of Andean village.
He was from Queens, who had been in the Peace Corps in Chile. As I came into the room, he greeted me with “Hola, rubio!” “Blonde one” and that is what he called me during the year. And I am not sure how it was I became friends with Marvin but I did as well as his two closest friends, Maryam and Caroline.
We had dinner together at the old Nankin restaurant in downtown Minneapolis, a palace of Chinese deco and good food. Marvin and I talked through the night on many nights, wrapping each other in words when we probably wanted to wrap our arms around each other. Maryam lived in Mexico when she was not in school and was addicted to Coca-Cola and we made a hysterical search for a real coke one winter night, tearing around in my Acapulco Blue Mustang. Place after place served Pepsi and that was no alternative for a Maryam in need of a fix.
Early on, Caroline and I sat drinking coffee in Coffman Union and she suddenly looked at me and said: why am I telling all of this to a seventeen-year old? But we told most things to each other and I loved them all and Marvin most of all.
Not seducing me was his way of loving me. And I remember the last summer, drinking Cuba Libres and hearing how he was not coming back to work on his Doctorate but leaving for New York to become a rent boy, which shocked the other three of us.
He left one day, leaving me with a sadness that still can be called up in my heart. Caroline went on to more grad school; Maryam back to Mexico and that magical year slipped into the wake of my days, coming back to bittersweet life as I read the story of Elio and Oliver, remembering a time when I had an Oliver.
Tags:9/11 Anniversary, Andre Aciman, Call me by your name, Claverack, Claverack Cottage, General, Media, Political, Politics
Posted in 9/11, Claverack, Columbia County, Daesh, depression, Education, Elections, Entertainment, Gay, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Hudson Pride, Iran, IS, Life, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Social Commnentary, Taliban, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
September 6, 2017
Today, earlier, as I sat sipping morning coffee, two huge geese came crashing through a tree fallen across the creek, landing hard, splashing as they hit creek water. It was startling. Geese, once so abundant on my creek, have been rare these last few years. Mature birds these, I wondered if they were from one of the many families of geese I have seen growing up while I have resided at the cottage, come home to roost for a moment. Sailing majestically up and down for a time, they departed and I’ve not seen them again.
Irma has become a Category 5 Hurricane and will reach Saba tonight, the Caribbean island I visited earlier this year. Two friends from my Los Angeles days have retired there and will be facing her fury as I write this. For a while, I got lost on Facebook to see if they had posted anything new but they hadn’t. It’s now that time when you get on your knees and pray, which I will tonight and have not done since my very Catholic days and that was a long while ago. And I am worried for them because Irma is as fiercer than Harvey.
Hopefully, I will know tomorrow more than I know tonight. Tonight, they are battening down the hatches and waiting, hoping, maybe praying though I don’t think either of them are religious. There have been posts from people I met there. They will be in my prayers, too.
Tonight, across the country, “Dreamers” are praying because Jeff Sessions announced the end of Obama’s DACA order and Congress has six months to fix it or all those “dreamers” will begin to be deported.
Color me cynical. How cruel can this Administration be? Trump is playing to his base but not to the interests of the country. Color me angry and not surprised. So little surprises me anymore. And there are all kinds of folks who think this is just wonderful.
And that scares me and makes me hopeful because all the rage in America is boiling to surface and maybe we will finally deal with it. It would be good if we did because we are in a very delicate place.
Back in the day, long, long ago, I was in Canada to be in my roommate’s wedding to a Canadian woman and, as I was preparing to leave, a group of my Canadian friends did an “intervention.” They did not want me to leave. Viet Nam was in play. They wanted me to stay, become a Canadian.
I didn’t. Because I was an American. It was a very profound moment in my life, making the decision to return. Those were people I loved, who loved me and I might have been happy there – a completely different life but not unhappy.
But I am an American and so I returned, got lucky, didn’t go to Viet Nam, didn’t serve in the military and made my life here.
But here is not the here I know. This here seems very strange to me, like the clock has been turned back and I don’t get it. Something is afoot and we need to fix it, once and for all. Maybe electing Trump will be the catalyst to fixing the festering wound that has damaged our national soul.
Tags:DACA, Dreamers, Hurricane Irma, Jeff Sessions, Saba, Trump
Posted in 2016 Election, Columbia County, Earthquakes, Hollywood, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Music, Political, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
September 4, 2017
It is an excruciatingly beautiful day at the cottage, the sun is warm, a wind blows to temper it, the only sound is soft jazz in the other room. I have just finished a late lunch of eggs, sunny side up, steak and toast, eaten on the deck. The first leaves have begun to fall, scattered on the table top, reminding me of the fleetingness of time.
Soon we will be in another season, fall, which I love and loathe, as I always seem so alive in the fall and, at the same time, so painfully aware life is short and death is long. It’s been that way ever since I was a kid, walking down the leaf strewn streets of south Minneapolis, knowing winter was coming and being entranced by the magic in the air.
It is Labor Day, 2017.
“According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the holiday is ‘a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers.’ Labor Day is a ‘yearly national tribute’ to the “contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity and wellbeing of our country. Newsweek, 9/04/2017
And it is a holiday with a bloody history. “Labor” wasn’t always celebrated. Suggested reading: Walter Lord’s “The Good Years.”
The summer is unofficially ending when this day becomes part of history. When I was a kid, it meant school was starting the next day so this was a day I always endured fearfully. Today, I am not fearful about returning to school. There are other things…
Kim Jong-Un has me a little fearful as does having Trump be the president who is facing him. There was some analysis this morning that the timing of Kim’s tests of bombs and missiles has more to do with tweaking President Xi of China than with President Trump. The latest bomb test came just as Xi was greeting officials from the BRIC countries, Brazil, Russia, India and China. Took the wind out of Xi’s sails in terms of making news. Kim does these things lately just as Xi is set to make some news. Hey, I’m HERE, President Xi! Got it? I’m here and I’ve got some pretty big toys!
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, has said North Korea “is begging for war.” President Trump is saying, “All options are on the table.” This might not end well.
Down in the Caribbean sits the Dutch island of Saba, part of the Leeward Islands, which I visited in February. Friends have retired there and are sitting directly in the path of Hurricane Irma, now a category 4 storm. An email today said they will be in the eye of the hurricane tomorrow and were busily preparing, friends helping friends prepare for what could be a very nasty ride. If you pray, think of them.
Michael Eros, son of my longtime friends, Mary Clare and Jim Eros, is returning to Houston today after the Burning Man Festival. He left Houston before Harvey hit and he will now find out what it has done to his city. He and friends built a giant figure which they burned, leaving behind the metal shell.
Harvey will likely be the most expensive storm in history; it is believed 180 billion dollars of damage has been done. Ted Cruz is having a hard time now explaining why he voted against Sandy help now that he is asking for Harvey help. The phrase, “people who live in glass houses,” comes to mind.
There are joyful things happening in the world. Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge are expecting their third child. Peggy Whitson has returned from the International Space Station, having notched more time in space than any other American. There will be another Indiana Jones film, without Shia LeBeouf’s character. A young girl in Harvey’s floodwaters got herself and her family rescued by asking Siri to call the Coast Guard, which rescued her as she was slipping into a sickle cell anemia crisis.
Bad things will happen. Good things will happen. All we need to do, to keep moving forward, is not to blow ourselves up. I’ll pray for that.
Tags:Angelina Jolie, Begging for war, Burning Man, China, Claverack, Claverack Cottage, Hurricane Harvey, Hurricane Irma, Indiana Jones, Kim Jong - Un, Labor Day, Leeward Islands, Michael Eros, Nikki Haley, Peggy Whitson, Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge, Saba, Shia LeBeouf, Siri, Xi
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Education, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hollywood, Hygge, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, North Korea, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Trump, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
August 11, 2017
As is not unusual, jazz is playing in the background as I am sitting at the kitchen table of my brother and sister-in-law’s home in Bloomington, MN. Last night, after my arrival, a magnificent thunderstorm slashed across the sky and I sat for a while, watching out the window. In a strange way, it felt warm and comfortable, evoking some good childhood memory.
Sleeping in later than usual, I found myself feeling plastered to the mattress from a heavy sleep that had wrapped itself around me. Morpheus kept blowing tenderly on my face.
The weather today promised more thunderstorms though none arrived, though the sky is mostly leaden and threatening. Soon a friend from high school will pick me up and we’ll go off to see other friends.
When and how I return to the cottage is undecided. I arrived by train and maybe I will train back, maybe fly or drive or…
For reasons I don’t understand but which I accept, I am wanting not to feel boxed in by a defined schedule even though I am scheduling lots of time with family and friends.
Ah, I looked up and a soft rain has started. Best I take my umbrella this evening.
This morning, I deleted every email that contained news. I didn’t want to know until after a couple of cups of coffee because our world does seem more and more unsettled. A few minutes ago, I opened Google News and the top story was “Meet Kim Jung Un, A Moody Man with a Nuclear Arsenal” from the New York Times.
Well, as I pondered whether I was going to click on the link, I thought of our president, who I think of a as a moody man and he has a bigger nuclear arsenal than Kim Jung Un and I just don’t know what to think any more about much of anything.
As I am away from my home as I write this, I jokingly [but not totally] said to a colleague, I want to be back home before the apocalypse.
The president has raised the verbal ante and has declared we are “locked and loaded,” which, according to reports from retired generals, we are not anywhere near.
China has declared it will remain neutral if North Korea strikes first and not if we do. Russia is saying we are both being belligerent and they’re right. We are. Well, President Trump is being belligerent; everyone else is trying to keep things calm. I feel sorry for John Kelly, now Chief of Staff. What a job he has! And not one I would want.
The president is taking on Mitch McConnell, which pundits are saying is not a wise move.
And do we expect wisdom from this president?
Not now, not ever, I am sad to say.
Tags:Bloomington MN, General, Jazz, John Kelly, Kim Jung-un, life, Locked and loaded, Mitch McConnell, Morpheus, North Korea
Posted in Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hollywood, Hygge, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, North Korea, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
August 9, 2017
As I begin this, I am rolling through the lush green country of eastern Virginia; we will cross shortly into West Virginia and then begin moving leisurely north through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and then to Chicago for I am on Train #29, the Capitol Limited from Washington, DC to Chicago.
The sun is still high in the west, the side of the train on which I am riding, ensconced in a bedroom compartment, about the size of my bathroom at the cottage; very amenities complete. Dinner is at 6:45 and I am eager to find out who my dining companions will be. Everyone in the past has been a memorable character and I see no reason why this time should be different.
For reasons that have eluded me, yesterday and today, I have been on the cranky side. Yesterday was full of errands to be done before I left and every one of them took more time than allotted. Racing up to Albany, I made a doctor’s appointment exactly on time when I was sure I was going to be late. There was a delicious moment when I felt I had caught up with my day.
Then I was told I had arrived forty-five minutes too early. Stunned, I decided to go get a cup of coffee as I had yet to have any. Returning, there were different receptionists who chided me for being late. Disbelieving of me telling them I had been on time, I finally convinced them. The first receptionist had apparently misread the calendar. Discovering they were all upset because I was to have tests I had not been told I was going to have, I did something very uncharacteristic of me: I was not a good boy.
Taking the forms, I put them down on the counter and said I was upset and would call them when I returned from my trip.
Today was much better and still, though, a little on the cranky side until I rode out to the train with a woman from Greenville, SC. She wanted to see a picture of my creek and when I showed it to her, she said: you’re blessed.
And I am. How quickly we get caught up in the shoelaces of our lives and forget the bigger picture. Taking a very deep breath, I have now settled into my compartment and am enjoying the view out my window: trees in the full flush of green, a river and a bridge crossing it with the sound of clacking train wheels. It is a good moment.
Not so good is the news flash that North Korea, with its pudgy, petulant and unpredictable little dictator has probably miniaturized nuclear warheads to go on top of those ICBMS he has been testing.
Our president has warned him in no uncertain terms that if he uses them he will “face fire and fury like the world has never seen.”
So, we have an unpredictable barely man dictator with nuclear weapons facing an unpredictable aging man boy petulant president who has the nuclear codes to the biggest arsenal on earth. Could this end badly?
Unfortunately, yes.
If it does, I want to be home. At the cottage, with jazz playing and a good martini in front of me because I will absolutely need it.
There are two very huge egos at play here and no one knows how the China card will play. Probably, hopefully, pray God it is, this will all be okay.
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, even more than my parents did, I knew, as a child, we were in a dangerous place. We are again and don’t have a John Kennedy and his team, for all his crazy faults, to pull us out.
We have Donald Trump, with all his crazy faults and few strengths I can find, and a team that seems more like The Three Stooges.
Tags:Amtrak, Capitol Limited, Claverack, Claverack Creek, Cuban Missile Crisis, Donald Trump, John Kennedy, Kim Jung-un, life, Media, Politics, The Three Stooges
Posted in 2016 Election, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Hollywood, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, North Korea, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
August 2, 2017
The last several days, my deck has been my living room, my office and my dining room. It’s here I have spent the daylight hours. As I type now, a storm threatens with distant thunderclaps.
The water in the creek is so clear I can see stones that line its bottom. The day is cooling as I sit here; having been warm and humid.
On August 8th, I am departing Hudson and journeying by train to Minneapolis for a reunion of old friends. Whenever I tell people I am making a trip by train they ask me if I am afraid to fly? No, says the man who, for a time in his life, flew at least a hundred thousand miles a year.
Trains are interesting because there is a sense of a journey when taking them. It’s not a magic carpet ride from place to place [though these days rarely is flying a magic carpet ride]. It is a journey, as you pass places and towns, sit for meals, read, look up and see surprising things and meet surprising people. You have an incredible sense of going from place to place and I love it.
It will give me a chance to think, contemplate, speculate, dream, postulate and hopefully not pontificate.
And then, when I am ready, I will fly home from Minneapolis. My trip is a bit open ended, a reflection of the joys of my life right now.
While the water in the creek is clear, so very little else is clear.We have lived through the extraordinary and extraordinarily short tenure of the foul-mouthed Anthony Scaramucci as White House Communications Director. In that brief time, he missed the birth of his son and was served with divorce papers by his wife.
He texted his congratulations to her on the birth of their son. Might have been the straw that broke the camel’s back…
Seth Rich was a young man working for the DNC. He was murdered. Fox News suggested he was murdered because he had leaked emails from the DNC. A lawsuit has been filed by a Fox contributor that claims Fox colluded with the White House on the story that Mr. Rich was the leaker when he was not.
How convoluted this all is.
Politics has always been a dirty business and it seems dirtier than ever right now. Or, at least in my memory.
As “any father would,” Donald Trump helped craft the statement Donald Trump, Jr. made about his meeting with some Russians, who promised him dirt on Hillary. That’s the story from the White House. Other, less kind versions, have him dictating the statement his son gave.
It’s another JDLR – just doesn’t look right.
After six months, I am worn out.
Really, I am. Every day when I wake up, I wonder what new roil I am going to encounter in the news. There is no shortage of them.
General John Kelly has been named Chief of Staff at the White House. Is there a more painful job in the world right now? I mean, really!? Kelly kicked Scaramucci’s butt out which shows he is exercising control and has demanded the President pay attention.
Good luck with that. Trump’s tweets early this morning goaded his new Chief of Staff about not promoting the stock market heights it has achieved may indicate his attention span lasted the night. It’s not your Chief of Staff’s job, Mr. Trump, to spend his second day in his job telling people how great the market under you is. That, arguably, is for your Communications Director.
Oh, yes, you don’t have one right now, do you, Mr. Trump?
And, as several friends remind me, we will survive Trump.
Thank goodness. At times, I think of the Roman Empire which survived a hundred bad Emperors, carried along by the bureaucracy that supported it. As we will be, by the bureaucracy we have built but we may have lost the dream, I’m afraid.
John F. Kennedy was one of our most flawed presidents and yet he inspired us.
And, while there have been monsters enough in human history, we now have ones with nuclear weapons, like the North Korean dictator who is testing ICMB’s, an acronym whose meaning had almost slipped from my mind since the Cold War.
Yikes!
Every Sunday since January 20th, I have lit a candle for us, the people of the United States, as well as all the other people out there who are living on this crazy planet. And for solutions to the craziness…
Tags:Chief of Staff Kelly, Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Fox News, General Kelly, Hudson NY, ICBM, JDLR, John Kelly, Minneapolis, North Korea missiles, Roman Empire, Scaramucci, Seth Rich, technology
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Putin, Russia, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
July 28, 2017
A gray, foggy morning yielded to a fairly sunny, rather cool afternoon; whenever the sun slipped behind a cloud I was tempted to come into the house from my perch on the deck while the cleaning crew spiffed the house.
Now, with cottage clean, I am sitting at the dining room table, sliders open to the deck. Birds are singing and music from the 1940’s is playing on my Echo.
Returning from the Vineyard Tuesday, I made myself a martini, wrote a poem, and found myself purchasing Christmas presents from a site that emails regularly, from which I buy irregularly and, yesterday, had some things I wanted. Saying there were only four available, I pounced. I think they were being clever as the number available never went below four.
Insane for Christmas shopping in July? No. It saves so much stress come November. In January, I saw something I thought would be perfect for my friends, Nick and Lisa, and thought: if not now, when? And, you know, I have been back to that store several times and not seen the item again.
All this, the creek and future Christmas shopping, visiting my friends on Martha’s Vineyard, is very hygge. And I need all the hygge I can get.
Monday or Tuesday I received a scree from a relative who supports Trump that was filled with things that made me flinch, a repudiation of most of the things I think are advancements. Should we go back to the days of a segregated America?
And while I look out at my sun kissed creek, I read that Ventura County, just north of Los Angeles, has published a 252-page pamphlet on how to deal with a North Korean nuclear attack. That was something I needed to read a couple of times. Hawaii is also preparing for such an event and I am holding my head to keep it from exploding.
Somewhere along the line in my now longish life, I read that one of the contributing factors in the fall of Rome was lead poisoning. Romans lined their wine amphorae with lead which leached into the wine they drank and we all know lead poisoning isn’t good.
Sperm count has dropped by 50% in the western world in the last forty years. Gives me pause to wonder what historians will say about the cause. Pesticide poisoning? Another reason?
President Trump addressed the Boy Scout Jamboree this week. What you thought of his speech probably depends on which side of the political spectrum you are on.
Speaking of our President, his relentless attacks on Attorney General Sessions seem to have many Republicans up in arms, particularly in the Senate where Sessions was a member for a lot of years and it’s a tight club.
Republican Senator John McCain, with whom I have often not agreed [particularly in his choice of Sarah Palin as his VP choice], made a speech for bipartisanship after returning from surgery for a brain tumor. If you want to both hear and read what he said, click here. It reminded me of the times I have liked him.
Our president is not going to allow transgender individuals to serve in the Armed Forces. It’s not necessary for me to elucidate the storm that has created, not the least of which happened in the Pentagon, caught off guard by a Twitter announcement of a policy change.
The president made mention of medical costs for transgendered individuals which turns out to be less than what the Army spends on Viagra each year.
The cynic in me feels it was announced to please his base and divert attention from all the White House chaos.
Hello, Anthony Scaramucci!
The world in which I live seems so mad on so many levels that I am grateful I have the ability to sit here and look out at my canopy of green, look down into my creek and see the bottom of it through the clear, clear water, that I can listen to music and celebrate it, that I have had the chance to stare out at Edgartown harbor thanks to the kindness of my friends who invite me to visit them, that, even though I think the world right now more mad than it has been since my adolescence, I have places and moments of refuge.
Tags:Anthony Scaramucci, Brad Pitt, Christmas in July, Claverack, Claverack Cottage, Claverack Creek, Donald Trump, Echo, Edgartown, Fall of Rome, General, Jeff Sessions, John McCain, Martha's Vineyard, North Korea bombing, Obamacare, Sperm Count, technology, Transgender military ban, Trumpcare, Ventura County
Posted in 2016 Election, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Education, Elections, Entertainment, Gay, Gay Liberation, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Hygge, Life, Literature, Martha's Vineyard, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
July 20, 2017
Edgartown harbor shimmers below me; boats bob at anchor on a quiet, very warm afternoon on Martha’s Vineyard – the warmest day I have experienced in the half dozen or so summers I have visited the island. Seated in the shade, with a soft wind blowing off the water, it is tolerable though earlier today most people seemed intent on finding air conditioning, crowding cool restaurants and shops.
Last year I was here to help with my friends’ bookstore, Edgartown Books. This year, I am here for just a week, to relax, read, relax some more, eat, perhaps sail a bit with my friends, eat, relax, sip a martini, read, a wonderful and undemanding rhythm; my friend Jeffrey calls it “the land of off.”
Reading was too wearying for me and I went to my room and promptly napped, waking just in time for a conference call.
Sadie, one of the two Bernese mountain dogs who live here, is recovering from back surgery, making slow and steady improvement from a bad fall some months ago. Every day, she has water therapy in the pool.
Far above me, a bi-plane circles, taking sightseers on an aerial tour of the island. It is soft, bucolic and very, very far from the madding crowd.
Which is why it is very nice, in these strange times, to be in “the land of off.” The amount of news consumed is less. Last year, the kitchen television played CNN. This year, old movies run constantly. In the background of my morning coffee, “The Great Race” played, starring Natalie Wood and Tony Curtis.
Finishing a trifle of a murder mystery by a woman who seems to knock off a book a month, I felt content with little demanded of me.
An exegesis of political affairs is a shade depressing, to make mild of a situation now more astounding by the day.
Donald Trump, Jr. is being described as a “good boy,” a “nice young man” though he is scraping forty and has five children. It is a time honored American defense used by the Kennedys when Teddy drove off a bridge not far from where I sit and a young woman died, Mary Jo Kopechne, lest we forget her name. It is a time-honored defense for American men though not for women. Ponder that.
Railing to the New York Times, Donald Trump, has declared he would never have offered Jeff Sessions the job of Attorney General if he had known he would recuse himself from the Russian investigation. Sessions has said, post Trump’s remarks, he’ll stay as long as “it’s appropriate.” Geez, I don’t know if I would stay when I knew I wasn’t wanted, especially so publicly unwanted.
Today, at noon, Trump celebrated the six-month mark in office. You make your own decision on how well he has done. We are one eighth of the way through his Presidency.
In Palos Verde, CA, forty-one-year old Chester Bennington, lead singer of the group Linkin Park, was found dead, an apparent suicide, succumbing to the demons he was open about but could not, it seems, master. Rest in peace.
Twenty-two years ago, I was in Australia when OJ Simpson was acquitted of murdering his wife Nicole and her friend, Ron Goldman. Today he was granted parole from a prison sentence resulting from an armed robbery. He should be released in October.
Seeking comfort, I watch the newest season of “Midsomer Mysteries” and anticipate the return of “The Last Tycoon,” starring Matt Bomer and Kelsey Grammer, about a movie studio in the 1930’s, based on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s last, unfinished novel.
It seems no wonder to me, we are immersing ourselves in some of the best television in history; we need escape, diversion and pleasure from a world that is more than untidy.
So, I sit, on my friends’ deck, watching boats bob at anchor or scud across the bay, with birds chirping while Sadie is ministered to, the future feels far, far away and the present oh so pleasant.
Tags:Chester Bennington, Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Edgartown, Edgartown Books, Jeff Sessions, Kelsey Grammer, Linkin Park, Mary Jo Kopechne, Matt Bomer, Natalie Wood, Nicole Brown, OJ Simpson, Ron Goldman, Russians, Teddy Kennedy, the land of off, The Last Tycoon, Tony Curtis
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Entertainment, Hollywood, Hygge, Literature, Martha's Vineyard, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Russia, Social Commnentary, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
July 15, 2017
It is closing on 6:00 on the 15th of July, 2017 and I am riding north on the auto train from Sanford, Florida to Lorton, Virginia. Pierre Font, married to my friend Lionel, and I are bringing his parents’ car from Miami to Columbia County, which is where they will be living while they sort out their lives.
There are no stops. Well, except for the one where one of the engines lost power but they managed to fix it and we are going again. It is a bit like being on a cruise, having a day at sea.
Forty years ago, in Tehran, Maryam Mirzakhani, was born. She is the only woman to have won the Field Award in mathematics, the equivalent of a Nobel Prize. And today, she passed away, a victim of breast cancer, a brilliant mind gone quiet. She has been a Professor at Stanford University since 2008. RIP. It is hard to lose such a brilliant mind. By the way, she was Muslim.
Yesterday, one of my relatives sent me an email warning me about a young Muslim politician in Michigan. It was, to me, both xenophobic and un-American, and I angrily deleted it. We were being warned he might one day become President of the United States. Today, I wanted to retrieve it but couldn’t seem to find it. My relative’s unhappiness with the man was simply based on the fact he was Muslim.
One of the finest people I have known in my life was Omar Ahmad, a Muslim, who when he died prematurely from a heart attack a few years ago, was Mayor of San Carlos, CA.
There was a moment when I wanted to respond. I didn’t because it would have no effect on him as nothing I say would change his mind. This is who he is, xenophobic and un-American and he has been that way since I have known him.
Yet, I feel guilty at not having responded.
Such is life in 21st Century America.
The election of Trump to the Presidency has given lots of people more freedom to express xenophobia and racism and all the ugly things we haven’t dealt with in America. And all the things that more and more of the world is having to deal with as huge populations move around the globe.
France was welcoming to Josephine Baker in the 1920’s; it could afford to be. It looked down on the United States and its racial policies. But would a Josephine Baker from a Muslim country today still find the embrace she did? I’m not sure.
It is one thing to be a rarity in the 1920’s and another to be part of an encroaching potential majority in the 2010’s.
I am saddened and worn by all these things and grateful I will be gone before all this plays out.
It is possible for me to look back and think, gratefully, on what a life I have had. It is my hope that the people who are younger than me will also have a wonderful life and that a solution will be found to all of this because if we do not find a way to embrace each other, it is not going to be pretty.
Tags:Auto Train, Field Award, France, Josephine Baker, life, Lorton VA, Maryam Mirzakhani, Omar Ahmad, Pierre Font, Sanford FL, Stanford University, Tehran, Trump
Posted in 2016 Election, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, depression, Elections, Greene County New York, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Hygge, Iran, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
May 4, 2017
Well, the time is nigh. Today Republicans voted, successfully, on “Repeal and Replace,” hoping to end the Affordable Care Act with their own American Health Care Act. “Obamacare,” long despised by Republicans, may be gone and they will have had their way and many of them will be holding their breath that it does not go badly wrong because if it does, the piper will need to be paid.
We will find out if, as President Trump says, pre-existing conditions will be covered or as Democrats are saying, they will not. If they are covered, it does seem coverage will be much more expensive.
Not a fan of Jimmy Kimmel, I was profoundly moved by his discussion of his newborn son’s heart surgery. If you haven’t seen it, you need to watch it. It is from the heart. [Yes, pun intended.] Please look here.
As I ponder this, I am, not surprisingly, listening to jazz, being all hygge at the cottage, sitting in my favorite corner on the couch, starting preparations for a Friday night dinner party. Have I mentioned I tend to look at the Food Section of the New York Times before I read the news? First thing, comfort and coffee, and then I hit the hard stuff.
Yesterday marked the month anniversary of my once a week radio program. My first guest was Jeff Cole, CEO of the Center for the Digital Future at the Annenberg School of Communications, part of USC. We talked futures. How we are changing and being changed by technology.
His great concern, and I share it, is how we will, as individuals and society, adapt to the coming advent of AI, artificial intelligence, which is already shaping our lives. Last night, as I was heading to bed, I paused and asked Alexa to set two alarms for me and they went off flawlessly, a soft chirping sound in the dark which could be eliminated by a command: Alexa! Snooze! And she snoozes.
I am experimenting with Siri, changing her responses from American English to British English. All fun and games until we get to the moment when the machines decide we are superfluous. Think the Terminator movies or the Hyperion novels which, to me, are more likely than the Terminator scenario. [In some respects, particularly Book One.]
Since I was very young, I’ve been a space enthusiast. Stephen Hawking, the phenomenon of a physicist, has warned us we have about a hundred years to get off the planet.
We could do it if we put all our energies to it but I don’t think jihadists are going to put down their guns to get us into space.
Outside, there are soft sounds and the trees are blooming. In the morning when I wake, I thank God that I get to look out at the creek and am here, in Claverack, a place that centers my soul as no other place ever has. When I look out, I am sometimes nostalgic for the time fifteen years ago when the geese formed a flotilla on my waters. They are mostly gone now.
It sometimes reminds me of an episode of “Star Trek: Next Generation” in which Jean Luc’s brain is infused with the memories of a dead civilization and one of the signs of their passing was the drying up of a creek. Occasionally, I stand on the deck and think: if the creek is gone, so are we.
However, today the creek still flows.
Generally, I am not fond of George Will, the conservative writer. Today, I read an article of his that encapsulates my ongoing sense of unreality. Read it here.
Encased in the safety of the cottage, I am doing my best to live in hope because we must live in hope. Hope is what has driven the race forward; it is what has brought millions of immigrants to our shore, who have shaped the country in which we live. My great-grandparents, on my father’s side, were among them as were my grandparents on my mother’s side. They came to the United States, buoyed by a sense of chance, of opportunity.
It’s hard for me to think that could change.
Tags:ACA, Affordable Care Act, Alexa, Annenberg School of Communications, Artificial Intelligence, Center for the Digital Future, Echo, General, Jeff Cole, Jimmy Kimmel, Obamacare, President Trump, Stephen Hawking, technology, Trump
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Education, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Mideast, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
Letter from the Vineyard 
Letter From Claverack 09 05 2017 On my knees, praying…
September 6, 2017Today, earlier, as I sat sipping morning coffee, two huge geese came crashing through a tree fallen across the creek, landing hard, splashing as they hit creek water. It was startling. Geese, once so abundant on my creek, have been rare these last few years. Mature birds these, I wondered if they were from one of the many families of geese I have seen growing up while I have resided at the cottage, come home to roost for a moment. Sailing majestically up and down for a time, they departed and I’ve not seen them again.
Irma has become a Category 5 Hurricane and will reach Saba tonight, the Caribbean island I visited earlier this year. Two friends from my Los Angeles days have retired there and will be facing her fury as I write this. For a while, I got lost on Facebook to see if they had posted anything new but they hadn’t. It’s now that time when you get on your knees and pray, which I will tonight and have not done since my very Catholic days and that was a long while ago. And I am worried for them because Irma is as fiercer than Harvey.
Hopefully, I will know tomorrow more than I know tonight. Tonight, they are battening down the hatches and waiting, hoping, maybe praying though I don’t think either of them are religious. There have been posts from people I met there. They will be in my prayers, too.
Tonight, across the country, “Dreamers” are praying because Jeff Sessions announced the end of Obama’s DACA order and Congress has six months to fix it or all those “dreamers” will begin to be deported.
Color me cynical. How cruel can this Administration be? Trump is playing to his base but not to the interests of the country. Color me angry and not surprised. So little surprises me anymore. And there are all kinds of folks who think this is just wonderful.
And that scares me and makes me hopeful because all the rage in America is boiling to surface and maybe we will finally deal with it. It would be good if we did because we are in a very delicate place.
Back in the day, long, long ago, I was in Canada to be in my roommate’s wedding to a Canadian woman and, as I was preparing to leave, a group of my Canadian friends did an “intervention.” They did not want me to leave. Viet Nam was in play. They wanted me to stay, become a Canadian.
I didn’t. Because I was an American. It was a very profound moment in my life, making the decision to return. Those were people I loved, who loved me and I might have been happy there – a completely different life but not unhappy.
But I am an American and so I returned, got lucky, didn’t go to Viet Nam, didn’t serve in the military and made my life here.
But here is not the here I know. This here seems very strange to me, like the clock has been turned back and I don’t get it. Something is afoot and we need to fix it, once and for all. Maybe electing Trump will be the catalyst to fixing the festering wound that has damaged our national soul.
Tags:DACA, Dreamers, Hurricane Irma, Jeff Sessions, Saba, Trump
Posted in 2016 Election, Columbia County, Earthquakes, Hollywood, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Music, Political, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »