Blog

  • It’s Here

    My first February in New York was back in 2007. What I remember most was that the week leading up to Valentine’s, the temperature never got above 30 degrees. For a kid who grew up in Texas, where fridge weather was 40 degrees, I thought I would never be warm again. And I was running around the City in Black canvas All-Stars, so the fact that I still have all of my toes is pretty impressive.

    Now that we are back in New York, and February is drawing to a close, there has only been one day when the high temperature was below freezing. This is pretty shocking to me as February is the coldest month of the year here. And what it actually feels like is the start of Spring around here.

    We have to admit that climate change isn’t coming; its already here.

    It was apparent that the climate had changed in out 18 months in California. In that time, it went from, “Who odd that this weather disaster happened again,” to “We should just plan on this weather disaster every year now.”

    Australia knows that it is here.

    When we moved back, my daughter was excited that we would get to be around snow again. This Winter of 19/20 has a good likelihood of having no snow at all.

    I know that we can come together and stop this from getting worse. It will take commitment, political drive, and sacrifices from every corner of the world.

    I just wonder if we will ever return to the way the climate used to be.

  • Enablers

    I was nervous that Harvey Weinstein wouldn’t get convicted. I hadn’t been following the case closely, as I felt that it was only a 50/50 shot, he would be found guilty, and I had already decided that I believed the survivors. I didn’t need a jury to justify my stance.

    But Harvey is going to jail, and I hope that this brings about the beginning of the end of the idea that there are “untouchable” men in any industry that take advantage of their position.

    Now, it’s time that we start addressing the enablers that helped Harvey. The agents who sent women to his hotel room, and office. The directors who were ordered to put women in, or take them out of their movies, the assistants who heard what was happening and did.

    I know that there are people out there that want to punish all of these enablers, and I understand where they are coming from. And that may or should happen.

    From my experience, and I have spent some time in theatre education, it needs to start in all theatre classes, and be reiterated again, and again, all the way up to grad school, and supported by all the unions in the entertainment industry. There needs to be an ethical standard that everyone needs to understand and follow. And I’m talking about simple things like no more one on one meetings between actors and producers or directors. Actors/artist have the right to have an advocate present at all times.

    Harvey didn’t create this world of casting couches, and treating women as if they are disposable. And it is wrong for us to believe that even if these few men that have been outed by #MeToo all go to jail that this issue will go away. We have to start building the new acceptable culture of the entertainment industry today.

  • Thanks, Alex

    I think I need to take a break from the news. I could talk about South Carolina, or that Harvey Weinstein was just found guilty on two counts.

    But what I really want to talk about is listening to Parliament.

    What has brought this about recently is that we showed the kid “Guardians of the Galaxy, and Vol. 2” this weekend, and she completely latched on to the movies, the characters, and the music. (She’s been running around the playground telling the other kids that she’s Gamora.) We added both soundtracks to a playlist for her, which means we have been listening to it pretty much non-stop. That’s not a complaint.

    Vol. 2’s soundtrack has Parliament’s “Flash Light” on it, and this is how we get all of this tied together.

    I have some time for myself this day to work in the home office, and this would make a great time to start listening to Parliament again.

    I know the first time I heard/saw them, and that was on Saturday Night Live in 1986. (I know this only because I can look it up, not that the date was seared into my brain.) Watching George Clinton, Parliament-Funkadelic did leave me a little confused, as I knew it was a band, but the music and attitude on display was not like anything I had seen before.

    Jump ahead five years, and being in 9th grade I make that friend who loves Parliament, and my music horizons are broadened in a most needed way. The Mothership Connection, and Bootsy Collins, and the funk, and for a little white kid growing up in the suburbs, it was like getting invited to the party with the cool kids.

    I mean, I want funk uncut.

  • Moderates Don’t Get It

    I like Bret Stephens, and I know that he is a very smart guy. He is knowledgeable, logical, and pretty funny as well. He put out this op-ed in the New York Times today, titled, “The Democrats Are in Trouble: The party’s riskiest bet is now its likeliest.” A little dramatic, but hey, they guy is trying to sell papers here.

    Bret starts off by saying that he is/was for Bloomberg, but Mike melted down at the debate, and now the Democratic party is in dire straits because, as Bret sees it, Bernie is now going to win the nomination.

    Stephens then rhetorically asks, why Democrats want to risk it with Sanders, to which Bret answers;

    “Maybe it’s because they have overlearned the lessons of the 2016 election: that nominating the centrist and responsible candidate served them poorly. Or maybe it’s because they’ve reasoned that “electability,” being an insufficient requirement for the nomination, is an unnecessary one as well. Or maybe they feel that, when their hearts scream Yes, it’s best to ignore the brain’s screams of No.”

    Sadly, what will cause the Democrats to lose in the Midwest, which is where this election is really coming down to, is this thinking that people in the middle of this country want a person to be reasonable and logical, and to have a plan that appeals to everybody. That’s the “electability” that Stephens refers, and that might be a winning argument if the other guy was Mitt Romney or John McCain, two who also tried to run campaigns aimed at the middle and “electability.”

    Except, that’s not who is running.

    Look, I don’t like Trump, but compared with a Democrat moderate, Donald comes off as the cool guy who doesn’t give a fuck. That makes voters excited, and excited voters show up.

    Bernie has the most excited votes behind him, and they will get others to show up with them.

    Again, people, there are no significant numbers of swing voters out there. Again, read “The Audacity of Hate,” if you don’t believe me. To that, I just have to add, Democrat moderates, ya’ll gotta chill out, man. Bernie is not the problem.

    The belief that logic will beat passion is.

  • At MOMA

    Yesterday, I took the kid to MOMA. I thought that she was at the age that we could go to a museum and she would be able to start recognizing some paintings that she had seen before in the books we have at home. I was correct, and she remembered “Starry Night,” and “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.” And when I say “recognizing,” what I mean is that she would say, “I know that picture.” I think that’s a good start when it comes to art appreciation.

    Out of everything we looked at, the kid really latched on to Gretchen Bender’s “Dumping Core.” I don’t want try to explain it here, as the link does a better job. When we went into the little theatre space that 13 tv screens were in, I thought the exhibit would be a stimulation overload for the kid. I was surprised at how serious she took it. When we left, I asked what she liked about it, and she told me that she liked how the music and pictures worked together.

    What caught me was the Frank O’Hara exhibit. They had some of his original manuscripts, and drawings. I’m not the biggest fan of poetry, but something about his work, and how it was portrayed. It stuck with me; his work and what he was able to accomplish in his notebooks. It left me inspired, and wondering if there still aren’t new things I can learn and try.