Posts Tagged ‘Medora Heilbron’

Letter From Claverack 04 04 2017 Musings from yesterday…

April 4, 2017

It is dusk on the day that seemed to say:  Spring is here, for real.  Walking around today as I did errands, I was jacketless and soon, I thought, I will be wearing shorts.  All day today, I felt a letter happening in me.

It is an interesting time for me.  My work for the Miller Center for the Presidency is on pause while they work out budgets for the coming year.  It maybe I will be part of it and it may be that I will not.  To be decided.

The guest bathroom is being repainted and today I went and picked up the new medicine chest and lighting at Lowe’s.  The inside of the car was vacuumed and the winter’s gunk washed mostly away.  It needs a good detailing which will happen soon now that I have found a place in Greenport.

This time of day is brilliant.  Outside it is pearl grey, inside jazz plays and a martini is sipped.  The creek floodlights are on and it is all good and hygge.

Martini

 

Just finished watching my friend Medora Heilbron’s vlog about matzo place cards for Passover!  It was a treat, watch here.

All this is very comforting on a day when the Los Angeles Times published a scathing review of the first days of Trump’s presidency.  You can read it here.  It is the kind of editorial about a President that hasn’t been seen since the 1970’s.  Yes, since Nixon.

At 4:31 AM our President tweeted about whether Hillary had apologized for having been giving questions prior to one of the town halls.  Yes, that was wrong.  It’s over, Mr. Trump.  You are now the President.  You won.  Move on, please.  Please.

Are you capable of moving on?

Not moving on will be the people killed in a Metro explosion in St. Petersburg, Russia.  A bomb went off on a train, killing, at last count, eleven, and injuring dozens.  St. Petersburg is on my bucket list.  Over the years, I’ve read a lot about the city and feel a connection to it.  I will hold a thought and prayer in my heart for them tonight.

And for all the people who are facing starvation in Yemen and South Sudan and…

For all of them, I lit candles this week at church.  As well as young Nick, who continues struggling.

The web of Trump’s Russian connections keeps getting murkier with Erik Prince, a Trump supporter and founder of the infamous Blackwater Group, apparently having a meeting in January, days before the inauguration, with Russian contacts in the Seychelles.  Now this was reported by the Washington Post, a liberal newspaper but a credible one.

Along with every thinking person, I am finding this fascinating.  What is going on rivals, or equals, the Nixon years.  And Nixon was six years into his presidency when Watergate bit him in the you know where.

We’re not much more than seventy days into this presidency and the storm is not going to abate.

John McCain, whom I did not vote for nor would have considered voting for considering his choice for Vice President, but for whom I have respect, has been saying things like this is the most concerned he’s ever been about the state of our democracy.

And I agree.  With Nixon, one had a sense the system was working.  Right now, I am not sure the system is working.  And that scares the hell out of me.

 

 

 

 

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Posted in 2016 Election, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Letter From Claverack 09 30 2016 Reaching for the stars and more…

October 1, 2016

Something like sixteen or seventeen years ago, my friends, Medora Heilbron and Meryl Marshall-Daniels, began having weekly phone calls to shore each other up as we were all in transition points in our careers.

That wonderful custom has continued to this day.  Almost every week, except when one of us is traveling, we have had calls, sharing the highs and lows, the concerns, the fears, the triumphs of our personal and professional lives.

Today, we had one of those calls.  When it was my turn to comment on my state of affairs, I burst out with, “I am verklempt!”

Yesterday evening, an email that should have come in on a project I am up for did not come as promised and, for reasons that are hard to explain, released what Winston Churchill called, “the black dog.”  Discouragement and depression.  I woke at three in the morning and read for three hours before falling back into a fitful sleep.

It has been amazing to me the number of times in the last couple of years that I have awakened with a sense of happiness. Today, it was all I could do to speak my usual morning affirmations.

After our phone call, always good for the spirits, I made a decision to do NOTHING today but work on my physic wounds and get back my equilibrium.  Three loads of laundry and tearing recipes out of the newest issue of “Food & Wine” was as ambitious as I got.

The day matched my mood; grey, hostile, chill and rainy.   Marcel, the dog I am caring for, and I curled up on the couch.  He napped, I read.

Now that the day has slipped into evening, I have to say “the black dog” and I seem to be getting distance from each other.  Largely because of the wonderful support group that is our weekly call.  Together we have laughed and cried.

It wasn’t until late in the afternoon when my spirits were beginning to lift that I even looked at the news of the day.  The sound of uplifting jazz plays in the background.  Happier than I have been all day, I am sipping a martini and typing.  Getting back to the happy Mat.

What did make me happy today was that Alabama’s Chief Justice, Roy Moore, was suspended for the rest of his term over his urging state officials to refuse to grant marriage licenses to same sex couples.  Interestingly, this is not the first time he has been kicked out of being Chief Justice.  Last time was his refusal to take down a statue of the Ten Commandments.

And I was both sad and happy that Rosetta, the first spacecraft to orbit a comet, did a belly flop onto the comet’s surface and went silent, leaving behind reams of data for scientists to parse.  He/it/she was a plucky fellow.  What do you call a spacecraft anyway?

Elon Musk wants to send people to Mars.  He is thinking of a million or so colonists over the next fifty to a hundred years.  He has envisioned a rocket to take them there.  And they should be prepared to die, he said.  It made me think of the first colonists who came from Europe to the Americas.  They had a hard time too.

The thought excites me.  More than likely, I will be gone by the time there is a first rocket to go but if I were here, I would volunteer.  Wow, what an adventure…

The New World captured the imagination of the Old World and millions upon millions poured into North and South America, looking for better lives, something different.

My father’s family came from Germany.  My mother’s from Sweden.  We are a nation of immigrants and we always seem to forget that.  I am not sure how we manage to forget that but we do.

Growing up Catholic in Minnesota was nothing like growing up Catholic somewhere else as I have learned in conversations with friends over the years.  My good friend Bill told me once that he wouldn’t have been allowed to know me where he grew up in rural Missouri.

So I look forward to a time when we go out and populate the planets and then the stars.  I think it’s in our blood to do that.

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Posted in 2016 Election, 9/11, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Gay, Gay Liberation, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Letter From New York 05 13 2016 Thoughts on mortality….

May 14, 2016

It is Friday the 13th, a day feared by many as unlucky.  It has neither been lucky or unlucky for me, so far…

The cottage is ripe with the good feelings from a lovely dinner party last night.  There were six of us.  We had appetizers, soup, salad, fish, lamb or pork or both, baby gold Yukon potatoes, sautéed carrots, green beans with butter and ice cream and berries for dessert.  People arrived at seven and left after midnight.  A good time was had by all.

I am now in my fourth load in the dishwasher.  We had cocktails, champagne, white wine, red wine, cordials.  It was a long, delightful evening of food and wonderful conversation.  It was a moment of recognition of how lucky I am, to be in the cottage, to have friends, to be alive.

As I returned from the city on Tuesday, I got a text letting me know that Vinnie Kralyevich had died the night before.  He was fifty-two, was on the treadmill, collapsed and could not be revived.  He was someone I worked with a lot about nine years ago and I was staggered to learn he had passed.  I am older and there was another moment that reminded me of my own mortality.

I am at an age when mortality is knocking at my door.  The people who mentored me are growing older and are leaving the scene.  I have younger friends who are cursed with terminal diseases and are leaving me.

For more than fifteen years my friends Medora Heilbron and Meryl Marshall-Daniels have had a weekly call to check in and support each other.  It’s a phone support group.  Medora ran development for USA Network when I was out pitching shows.  Meryl got me involved with the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.  I was on the Board of Governors when she was the Chair of the Academy.  Medora reached me on 9/11 just before I lost phone service to check on how I was.

It is a deep and rich sharing, once a week, except when one of us is out of the country.

Medora shared today that Bruce Lansbury, brother to Angela, a producer of great renown and who gave Medora her best break in the business, was suffering from Alzheimers.  Angela and Medora live in the same Los Angeles neighborhood, run into each other in markets but Medora had never introduced herself to Angela but, for some reason, she did this week at the Whole Foods in Brentwood.  She was devastated by the news that Bruce was alive but gone.

It is what all of us fear.  I do.

While I write this, on a day which has been dark and drear, a soft fog is descending around me, enveloping the creek, the end of a rainy, dismal day. And the view in front of me is a bit magical.  One could imagine woodland nymphs dancing in the distance.

However, there are no woodland nymphs dancing tonight in American politics. 

Trump has a butler who is now retired but still gives tours at his estate in Florida, Mar-a-Lago, built for Marjorie Merriweather Post, a cereal heiress whose daughter, Dina Merrill, was an accomplished actress.

He called Obama a “muzzie” who should be hung.  The Trump campaign is working to distance itself from those comments.  A “muzzie” is a Muslim, by the way.

I had a long chat with my client, Howard Bloom, who has just finished a new book, “The Mohammed Code.”  It is an exegesis of the roots of fundamentalism in Islam. We have battered back and forth about the book because it exposes the roots of ISIS and I am hoping will reflect the differentiation between fundamentalist Muslims and the majority of Muslims who have renounced the ugly parts of their religion.

This is the great conversation of today. We must come to peace with Islam and they must come to peace with us.  Not easy but must be done…

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Posted in 2016 Election, 9/11, Claverack, Columbia County, Columbia Greene Community College, Daesh, Greene County New York, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Obama, Political, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Letter From Shepherdstown 01 01 16 Bounding into the New Year…

January 1, 2016

Happy New Year!  It is another grey day in Shepherdstown, WV, which has had nothing but a string of grey days since I arrived here almost two weeks ago.  The day, while grey exteriorly is sunny inside, surrounded by old friends.  My nephew, Kevin, is prepping to make bacon to go with waffles.  His wife, Michelle, is reading the news on her phone and I am beginning my letter while waiting for a call.

My friends, Medora Heilbron and Meryl Marshall-Daniels, and I have convened most Thursdays or Fridays for almost fifteen years to share our week’s experiences, our highs and lows and to love and support each other.  It is a gift the universe has given us and we have helped each other through a whole variety of things and have celebrated our successes and supported each other in our bumps in the road.

When one of us is traveling and the call doesn’t happen, it doesn’t feel like the week is quite right.  It’s good to be starting 2016 with a call.

I can’t quite believe it is 2016.  I never thought I would live this long but here I am, slowing moving into old age and having a better time of it than I thought I would.

My stomach bug has lifted and I woke this morning in fine fettle, eager to burst into the new year.  I texted friends to wish them Happy New Years and then came down and made coffee and read another 25 pages of my textbook.

The world, of course, is not coursing as quietly or as joyfully as my life in Shepherdstown.

A suicide bomber struck a restaurant in Kabul last night.  Five were wounded in the French restaurant, one of the few still catering to foreigners.

During New Year’s Eve celebrations in Dubai, a luxury hotel and apartment building caught fire and competed for attention with the fireworks at midnight.  Officials are investigating the cause of the fire. 12 were injured but there appear to have been no fatalities.

Wayne Rogers, “Trapper John” from the TV series “MASH” passed away last night, surrounded by family.  A much beloved star, he was also a shrewd investor and successfully managed money for a variety of clients while also acting.

Less than an hour ago, it was announced that Natalie Cole, one of the great voices of the 20th century and the daughter of the legendary Nat King Cole, passed away.  She was 65.

In a Tel Aviv pub, two were killed and four seriously injured by a gunman.  Investigators are working to determine if it was a crime or terrorism.  Isn’t terrorism a crime? Yes, I think so.

In Turkey, President Erdogan, who was Prime Minister for ten years, is seeking to change Turkey’s constitution to make the President, not the Prime Minister, the senior position.  An example he quoted:  Hitler’s Germany.  He did not elaborate.  No wonder the world thinks he may not be committed to democracy.

What I am committed to today is to enjoy feeling well, my spirits boosted by the sun breaking through the clouds and the camaraderie of friends and family.

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Letter From Columbia County 09 09 15 Thinking about life, ruminating on its joys…

September 9, 2015

It is getting dark as I sit here on my deck, there are still some small glimmers of light off the creek and the sky to the east is pearl grey. A wind has come up in the last few minutes, a bit of blessed relief after a day when it hit 95 degrees with humidity nearly as high.

It has been a gentle day, spent here at the cottage and in its environs. I woke late for me; the alarm went off and I continued to hit the snooze alarm, up until the moment the plumber arrived. He will come on Friday and replace the device that increases my water pressure. Until then, I am to use as little water as possible. I feel a bit like a pioneer.

A few weeks ago I went to an event for the Hudson Library that was a joint venture of DISH, a relatively new store in town on lower Warren Street and the wonderful Olde Hudson, run by my friend Dena. At the event, I spotted something that would make a wonderful Christmas present for my friend, Nick. I returned today to buy it as well as other things that went into the armoire that is in the guest bedroom. In it I place gifts that I have collected throughout the year for Christmas giving.

After dropping shirts at the cleaners, I went to Lowes for some cleaning supplies I hadn’t found at the grocery store yesterday. Summer is gone; Halloween is here. I was met at the entrance by all sorts of Halloween supplies. At CVS there were displays of Halloween candy. The year is moving on.

Relish, my favorite little sandwich joint, has just moved to their winter hours, closing an hour earlier than before. Winter hours? It’s 95 degrees out there! But yes, the world is moving on. Summer is unofficially over.

As I mentioned yesterday, a few leaves have begun to turn. Acorns are falling all around me. One hit the ancient metal chair to my right and scared me.

I am relishing sitting here on the deck, with the wind blowing, all too aware that the days that I can do that are now numbered. So I am doing the best to enjoy it. After the plumber left this morning, I was out here, reading the Times, sipping my coffee. It was a most pleasant way to start the day.

Now it is getting dark and I am here ending the day, sipping a martini and thinking about life.

The Week is one of my favorite magazines and I read in it an essay by Oliver Sacks, the doctor who wrote “Awakenings,” made into a movie starring the late, great Robin Williams. He wrote as he was dying; it was filled with the sense of wonder of having been alive, of having made his own unique journey through this thing called life, a mystery that we often fail to appreciate. As he was dying, he viewed his life as a rich experience and prepared to go gently into that good night.

Now that I am entering what is the third and final act of my life, I hope that I can face the reality of my own inevitable death with the same awareness that Oliver Sacks did, appreciating that he had been alive.

In the last year, I have learned such lessons of gratitude. That I am alive this day, that I have the resources to survive this day, that my health is good, that I can see and breathe and resonate with the world and give something to it.

My friend, Medora Heilbron, mentioned last week in our weekly call that she does her best to leave in her wake, goodness and gratitude, shown in courtesy to clerks and strangers and the people she loves. I work to do the same.

I do my best to remember the names and the faces of the people who I interact with, such as Heather and Dana at Relish and the cab driver I met yesterday. I do my best to be easy for people who have to interact with the public because so many people don’t make it easy.

Night falls. I am joyful. I hope you are too.

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Letter From New York 08 13 15 Of nice days and atrocities…

August 13, 2015

This morning I woke early and took the third train into town. It was stunningly beautiful at the cottage and I was regretful about leaving and coming into New York City. I’ve been away for a while and it’s always a bit of an assault when I get off the train for the first time after an absence.

Today was no different; Penn Station was summer madness and I felt jostled by the crowds as I made my way down 7th Avenue to the Greek Corner, the little diner I frequent at 28th. The Spanish waitress who serves me seemed genuinely glad to see me.

Eating my egg white omelet, I read a book and then went on to my noon meeting. Some of my day has been productive; some of it not so much. Though all of it has been pleasant.

In the morning, I have a breakfast meeting and then am off to the train, back to the country and a full weekend there. Lionel and Pierre are arriving for the weekend and on Saturday a couple of neighbors are coming to my house for drinks and “nibbles and bits.”

Hopefully, the brilliant weather will continue and we can stand and sit on the deck, looking over the stream. As I rode the train down into the city, the river glistened with the morning sun. I was reading the Times on my iPhone.

The story was horrific.

Yazidis are not Christian nor Muslim nor Jewish. Because they are not “people of the book” they have been targeted by IS for particularly harsh treatment. The Times reported on manuals that have been written for IS soldiers explaining to them that raping these women is an act of worship and brings them closer to God. They pray before and after the rapes.

In Yazidi towns that have been taken, men are separated from the women. Boys must raise their shirts and show whether they have hair in their armpits. If they do, they go with the men. Most of them are told to lie down in fields and then are shot to death. Women are bussed away, sold into sexual slavery. One woman who had been purchased was set free when her “master” finished his suicide training and had no more use for her. He gave her a paper, signed by IS officials, that allowed her to leave IS territory and reunite with what was left of her family.

The reality of this happening is almost beyond comprehension. But it is happening. Frankly, almost any horror seems within the ken of IS.

A Croatian national, Tomislav Salopek, working in Egypt for a French company, was kidnapped outside of Cairo by a gang that demanded ransom. Then nothing was heard until IS began to demand the release of Muslim women prisoners from Egypt in exchange for him. They now claim they have beheaded him. Everyone fears the worst while waiting for confirmation.

Then there is the news that IS has claimed responsibility for a bomb attack in a Baghdad vegetable market that killed 67 and wounded hundreds. IS has been busy this week, getting itself into the news, rejoicing in knowing their atrocities are being reported.

I clench my hands and wonder what I as one individual can do? I do not know but I wish there was something.

On a brighter note, tomorrow the US Flag will fly above our Embassy in Havana again. Kerry is on his way to Cuba to be present for the official re-opening of the American Embassy in Cuba.

Investors are fleeing Russia, just preferring to do business somewhere a bit more predictable. Everyone is trying to read the runes of Putin’s actions but a former Kremlin insider posits he just not that interested anymore. He acts like a Tsar but has no succession plan. Right now Putin is Russia and he is disinterested…

I was not disinterested to find out that “Sesame Street” is moving to HBO for its first run and then to PBS and it’s being cut from an hour to half an hour. I am still getting past it. Good if it keeps “Sesame Street” on the air. As my friend Medora Heilbron once said: no deal too strange to make.

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Letter From New York 01 02 15 A week ends in a New Year…

January 2, 2015

The day dawned drab and dreary here in Claverack, a grey day, the kind that made you want to roll over and bury your head in your pillow. Grabbing my teddy bear to my chest, I did just that, the boy in me not wanting to face the day. But not long later, I was up and had my morning coffee and had a good hour perusing the New York Times.

The news today was filled with yesterday’s passing of Mario Cuomo, father of the current Governor of New York and a former Governor of the State himself. He was a big man who filled the rooms he was in and flirted with running for the Presidency more than once.

When he was Governor, I was always aware of who he was even though I wasn’t living in New York then. He died, interestingly enough, only hours after his son, Andrew, was sworn in for his second term as Governor of the State of New York.

He was a staunch voice for the liberal side of the Democratic Party, often stymied in his plans for the State by the dire finances New York endured when he was first elected. He served three terms, went into the private practice of law after being defeated by George Pataki in his fourth attempt for the office, became wealthy and watched his children grow into politicians and newscasters. Chris Cuomo of CNN is another son.

The day did not stay grey and in the early afternoon, the wonderful golden light that blesses the Hudson Valley showed and transformed the landscape. The deer crossed my yard.

Earlier in the day, I went out and walked the circle upon which I live with my friend Lionel. A squirrel perched on a tree branch, so steady as to seem a statue. We noticed trees that had been uprooted by some wind event in the last two weeks, including a birch tree in his yard and an oak in his neighbors.

We live on a circle, Patroon Street, a scattering of a dozen houses on lots from one to four acres, broad and spacious with scatterings of trees and wild overgrowth. During the summers I cannot see my neighbors as my two acres is all woods except for the clearing where the cottage stands. On the east side of my property is the Claverack Creek and on the other side there are only wild woodlands. Behind the northern edge of my little universe is a long open field belonging to a farm. Once when traipsing across my “back forty” I encountered a cow that had wandered onto my land.

There has been much stability here since I moved here thirteen plus years ago. I am sure that to all of us who live here, Rosemary’s Cottage will always be Rosemary’s Cottage even though she has passed and it has been sold, gutted and is being rebuilt by a couple up from the city.

Tonight’s sky is tinged with pink. What’s that saying? Red sky at night, sailor’s delight? If true, we will have a gentle day tomorrow. I have loved being here this fall and winter, having time to notice the rhythms and pacing of my little world.

The New Year begins. I will have more to pay attention and will probably be spending more time in the city than I have but probably less than I was. It will be an interesting thing to see how the New Year plays out.

Every Friday, I have a conversation with two friends who live in California, whom I have known now for twenty plus years, Medora and Meryl. When I met Medora she was Vice President of Development for USA Network and Meryl was about to become the Chairwoman of the Television Academy.

We gather by phone on Friday to support each other in life. Each of us shares and each of us supports and it has been a blessing. We have been doing this since early in 2001 and it is one of the constants of my life.

When we were talking today, I was realizing how blessed I am to have this ongoing support group. Exactly how we started is now lost in the mists of time but it is a great joy for me to stop for half an hour each week and share the joys and tribulations of the past week with two people who have known me so long and so well.

The sun fades. The barren trees stand stark against the light. The deer are now coming back across the land. A week ends. All is well in Claverack.

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