What, and Get Out of Politics?

It’s one of those story-jokes like “The Aristocrats”—everyone tells it differently. This isn’t film and I’m not Bob Saget, so here’s my “nice” version:

An old vaudevillian is passing through a circus grounds when he spots another vaudevillian he knows from days of yore. “Sam!” he says, “What are you doing here?” “I work here,” says Sam. “Here, in the circus? You became a… clown, Sam?” “No,” says Sam, “I take care of the animals.” “You, Sam? You were up there with the best!” Seeing the crestfallen look on the man’s face, Sam quickly tells him, “It’s OK, my friend, really! Come, I’ll show you. I have to give the elephant an enema.” Taking the man with him, Sam grabs a tall ladder and props it up against the elephant’s rear. He grabs a fire hose, turns it on full blast, mounts the ladder, and shoves 12 inches of the hose into the elephant. The elephant gradually becomes so engorged with water he explodes, throwing Sam from the ladder in a wave of excrement. As Sam lies sprawled on the ground in a pool of dung, his heartbroken crony pleads, “Sam, you don’t have to do this! You can quit!” Sam says, “What and get out of show business?

It’s a punch line with a moral. Vaudeville is long dead, but electing to swim in shit is not. Witness anyone in politics. If, to quote a master shit-detector, Yip Harburg, “It’s a Barnum and Bailey world,” Washington is its big top—and Congress is the center ring.

Infantile men and women of all ages run off to join the circus. As a rule, they leave family responsibilities behind to assume public responsibility irresponsibly. They call themselves Senators and Representatives. By electing them, we enable them.

I’m proposing “New Conditions For Congressional Officeholders.” Let’s give it a catch phrase for the C-SPAN debates and the ad hoc press conferences on the steps: The Stay Home Amendment. I hereby propose: we elect congressional candidates for terms at home. Instead of sending them to Capitol Hill, we post them to their homes and their families—and their own beds. Instead of living in caucus, committee or sin, they can learn, first hand every day, what the rest of us unavoidably know: drugs, unwanted pregnancies, hunger, broken wills and shattered dreams, essential needs and unpredictable ill health, lurk or fester in everyone’s backyard.

Now, Congressman, let’s debate “public option,” “freedom of choice,” “right to serve”; “bail-out,” “paygo,” and the ringer of ringers, “socialism.” On the cesspool side of mini-mindedness, let’s see if we can skirt the corrosive detritus of the Birthers and Tea Baggers. Welcome home.

If you were fortunate to see President Obama’s commanding appearance last Friday before “The GOP House Issues Conference,” variously referred to as a Republican retreat, a House caucus, or from my impression, a staged reading of scripted talking points by 10 toadying Republicans, you saw how the president, hungry for dialogue, patiently forbore bore after bore. It was reminiscent of a carny side show as the champ took on all challengers, all of whom entered the ring swinging unskillfully, hoping to land a lucky punch. Flailing and failing, the hapless pols needed someone to stop the bleeding. Roger Ailes to the rescue! (What’s a side show without a fat man?) While every other major network naturally continued to carry “The GOP House Issues Conference” to its conclusion, Ailes, the Fox News’ boss, decided to ring the bell and throw in the towel 20 minutes before the contest was over. And then “began attacking the president for ‘lecturing’ to the lawmakers,” according to Politico! So much for Fox’s “fair and balanced” news.

Now here’s Ray Fox’s fair and balanced news:

Ailes had this to say about his decision: “I’m not in politics, I’m in ratings.” And this non-sequitur when asked why Fox (TV) cut away so early: “Because we’re the most trusted name in news.” Arrogant and unbalanced newsman.

Obama had this to say to the conference: “I don't think they [the American people] want more partisanship. I don't think they want more obstruction. They didn't send us to Washington to fight each other in some sort of political steel-cage match to see who comes out alive.”

Who would you rather listen to? Just like back-room politics, what started here with an old joke ends with anything but a laughing matter.


I’m proposing “New Conditions For Congressional Officeholders.” Let’s give it a catch phrase for the C-Span debates and the ad hoc press conferences on the steps: The Stay Home Amendment. I hereby propose: we elect congressional candidates for terms at home. Instead of sending them to Capitol Hill, we post them to their homes and their families—and their own beds. Instead of living in caucus, committee or sin, they can learn, first hand every day, what the rest of us unavoidably know…

America Forward

I hate to kick a man when he’s up. The president’s State of the Union speech last night was exhilarating and touching. But…

This is what I was thinking before the speech:

What are they waiting for? Has the White House made all who enter tone deaf? The American people are screaming “jobs!” and the Democrats are only hearing “health care.” The people are imploring, “Talk to me!” and the president is scolding bankers and brokers. Americans are chanting “Now!” and Obama, Axelrod et al still have campaign huzzahs and hoopla ringing in their ears.

And why isn’t Rahm Emanuel screaming… anything?! (I’m listening for “Where’s the exit?”)

Now that I’ve heard the speech, my thoughts are:

If the race is not to the swift, is it to the slow to come around? I can’t see why not.

Clearly, President Obama was late coming out of the gate—so phlegmatically dilatory he had his visionary PACs shaking their heads and chomping at the bit to hedge their bets. That was going into the first turn. As all the front-runners he’s left in the dust know from the gritty taste in their mouths, Barack Obama’s a capital closer.

The real Barack Obama stood up last night. Stood up for the people who cling to their faith in his ability and resolve to make a difference. Stood up to the Party of No, the Supreme Court, and his own recalcitrant party.

Now that he’s spoken out, I know what he’s waiting for. For people to come to their senses. He can talk about listening to people in Elkhart, Indiana or Elyria, Ohio, but I believe he’s waiting for someone like the sobbing woman at an Arkansas town meeting who wants her America back to sober up and figure out what her America is or ever was. And waiting for many more like her.

Barack Obama is waiting, patiently, because Barack Obama is first and foremost, is and always will be what he supremely was, a community organizer. Not to recognize and grasp it is not to understand him. He learned how to bring people together and accomplish the seemingly impossible with little or usually no resources other than his own, namely, his brain, his soul and his remarkably indefatigable will. In Dreams of My Father, he tells of organizing a protest to present the problems and living conditions of people from a poverty- and crime-stricken Chicago slum to a Chicago municipal authority. Lacking faith in a system that had all but abandoned them, only two or three people from the neighborhood showed up to board the bus Obama has arranged, not easily, for the trip to downtown Chicago. Refusing to let it end there, he went around the neighborhood rounding up people, more than enough, to make a good showing. Wednesday night, he wasn’t exaggerating when he said, “I don’t quit.” He doesn’t.

I don’t want my America back, I want my America forward. My belief that my chosen president wants the same thing is restored. In my previous entry, I said, “I still believe in him. I have no choice.” Now I say: choice or otherwise, I believe in him.

Something's Bothering Me

Am I the only one waiting for the real Barack Obama to stand up? Not by a long shot, according to the long faces I talk to.

My mother used to say, “I’m not a mind-reader.” While I mulled that over, she would add, “If something hurts… or something’s bothering you, honey… tell me.” Her “tell” had a warm extra beat in it that made it easier for me to speak.

Mom isn’t here and I don’t know whom to open up to, but something’s bothering me—a lot these days. All the more so now that we have the results of the Massachusetts’ senatorial election and I have to live with a Republican’s rightful claim to the seat that Ted Kennedy occupied for 46 years.

I brought up my daughters in a similar, but blunter, fashion than my mom raised me. When either would hem and haw and say, “I don’t know whether I should tell you…,” I’d say, “When in doubt, spit it out.” They always did. Full of doubt today, I’m following my own dictum, starting with:

I don’t understand where the presidential hopeful formerly known as Change We Can Believe In disappeared to. The campaign trail’s great communicator has become the oval office’s stage whisperer. We charged his predecessor et al, the Bush-Cheney-Rove cabal we couldn’t believe in, or even believe, with paranoid, unwarranted, unethically excessive secrecy. What do we make of this Obama-Emanuel-Axelrod coterie? If they’re conspiring behind closed doors, what’s the plot? If they’re biding their time, what are they waiting for? I cling to my charitable notion that my chosen president is playing possum. But how long does a possum wait before he springs into action? A threatened possum is supposed to growl and raise his voice. This one, if (understandably) feeling threatened, is threatening to become Rip Van Winkle.

When I elect a president, I expect him to take office. Not the space, but the province, capacity, authority and performance. If he’s not prepared to govern, or is inclined to continue doing what he already excels at, gathering forces as he gathers force, let him keep running. If he wants to be a philosopher-king, he’ll be more at home on a mountain top than on Capitol Hill. I’d read and listen to him as I would heed the Dalai Lama. But I think this country requires a thinker who knows how to twist arms. Good intentions alone don't sway Joe Lieberman. FDR thought he could handle Stalin. Who has Obama handled?

How do we protect our presidents from their ivory towers? Will the real Barack Obama finally stand up? And if so, to what or to whom? He quickly became someone he wouldn’t recognize. In just one day short of one year from his inauguration day, the president has out-Cartered Jimmy Carter. Could anyone be that naïve? Could I?—I’m still waiting to see the White House strategy unveiled. Trigger-ready to say, “Ah, that’s what he was doing all along! There’s the genius of the community organizer, taking and building everything step by cautious step! How clever he is! And at his own expense, without regard for his image or the polls!”

But while I wait… and wait… my sanguine expectation buckles under the weight of the words of philosopher/theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel, “Man is a messenger who forgot the message.” Has my chosen leader forgotten the message, the task, the objective? Has he become the establishment he campaigned against, specifically the embodiment of the anti-establishment voter’s bete noir?

The voters of Massachusetts aren’t any dumber than the voters of any other state in this country. In choosing against the incumbent Democrats and their agenda, not only have they voted primarily against national health care reform, but also, they have voted, astonishingly, for the status quo of ungodly bonuses, unconscionable greed, and unbridled further self-serving of establishment bankers and Wall Street brokers. Maybe 52% of the state’s voters are dumber.

Our most steadfastly Democratic state to all intents and purposes gave the country back to the people who left it in ruins. They opened the door to let the lunatics take over the asylum.

I still believe in Obama. I have no choice.

Am I the only one waiting for the real Barack Obama to stand up? Not by a log shot, according to the long faces I talk to.

Holiday For Sale

They finally took down the Christmas tree in the courtyard of my building. Stripped it section by section of its pre-decorated modular branches whose silvery load lit up like Christmas when plugged into its trunk of steel. Erected and dismantled by a company named American Christmas (according to the corporate logo on the deep packing boxes the peculiar pieces of tree are stored in,) its crew coolly denuded and felled their towering corporate conifer and carted it away in grimly uniform 4’ x 6’ cardboard coffins. And as they dollied the goods toward the exit gates, the sun came out! Is that an allegory, and if so, for what—Easter?

We also had a giant metallic menorah in our courtyard, but there is no company called American Chanukah, or Sunbelt Shmaltz, or Prairie Dreidel. It took five burly American Christmas agents three hours to put the Christmas tree to rest, but the menorah’s demise was clandestine and sudden—a pre-dawn chrome pogrom?

Gnawing questions arise. Will we have the same un-fab pre-fab tree next year or will we have a refugee from another courtyard, annex or mall? Are we victim or beneficiary of the Environmental-Religious-Industrial complex? To keep up with the Joneses, will next year’s menorah feature the 12 Days of Chanukah?

With every season getting longer with every year—baseball in November, Christmas season starting in November before Thanksgiving Day, November elections starting the previous November (What’s with November?), it’s beginning to look a lot like we could divide every year into two parts—six months of Christmas and six months of professional sports’ playoffs.

Do you detect an encroaching viral strain of commercialism in all of this? Thanks to Fox television network’s proprietary interest in Major League Baseball, games 4, 5, and 6 of the 2009 World Series were played in—here’s that chilly month again—November. And a game 7 was by no means inconceivable. An “exceptional images” company sells Christmas ball tree decorations with a $ sign—or yen, pound or euro symbol—prominently emblazoned on them.

The Great American Pastime has already been sold to the highest bidder, (an Australian who thinks people like me who take issue with people like him should go back to where they came from, which in my case happens to be the United States). His eyes are on the enterprise. Pray he overlooks the sign on Santa’s lawn: Holiday For Sale.


They finally took down the Christmas tree in the courtyard of my building. Stripped it section by section of its pre-decorated modular branches whose silvery load lit up like Christmas when plugged into its trunk of steel. Erected and dismantled by a company named American Christmas (according to the corporate logo on the deep packing boxes the peculiar pieces of tree are stored in,) its crew coolly denuded and felled their towering corporate conifer and carted it away in grimly uniform 4’ x 6’ cardboard coffins. And as they dollied the goods toward the exit gates, the sun came out! Is that an allegory, and if so, for what—Easter?

"You're Going... I'm Staying"

The old man, an improbable El Al Airlines luggage security screener, was the first ever to ask me if I’d left my bags unattended at any time. I hesitated. I’d been in Istanbul getting a difficult story; I’d barely seen my hotel room or my luggage. He gently said, “You’re going… I’m staying.”

Only days earlier, in New York, the harrowing film account of an American interned and abused in a Turkish jail, “Midnight Express,” put the fear of God into me; with the taking of 52 American hostages, the Iranian Revolution put radical Islamic fundamentalism before the world’s eyes; and the Turkish military had already put itself in control of Turkey’s government. I’d been aggressive in getting my story, an ethnically sensitive one. Indicating the authentic “Midnight Express” prison to me, a poker-faced state functionary told me I’d asked too many questions and it was time for me to leave.

The old man waited for an answer. Mine was,“Check ‘em.”

El Al has set airline industry standards for security procedures. Every passenger is interviewed individually prior to boarding and can be questioned by as many as three different screeners, all of whom are extensively trained and skilled. They look and listen for evasive answers, withheld information, and anxiety or nervousness. Yes, they have profiling. Yes, they do have armed, plain-clothes sky marshals in passenger seats on every flight. And yes, I’m only scratching the surface of the precautions they take and omitting the technology they employ. El Al was the first airline to resume international flights out of New York after 9/11.

Prior to 9/11, I mischievously used to test the airlines’ security—not a game I would play today. In Moscow, I lifted a bulky suitcase around Domodedovo Airport’s X-ray scanner instead of passing the bag through it. A week later in Uzbekistan, pushing my luck, I hoisted the same suitcase around the scanner again at Tashkent International Airport. No one said a word in either instance and suitcase in hand, I boarded.

In Germany, I fought against passing a film (in a canister) through the metal detector or scanner, and won. Gracious in defeat, Lufthansa officials gave me a seat for it! I put up the same fight in Tel Aviv and was on the ropes when a wise official intervened and suggested I open the can and unspool the reel sufficiently for him to see that it was… film.

Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) blames President Obama for lacking focus on terrorism and for failing to appoint a head of the Transportation Security Administration. He’s the same Jim DeMint who was at the forefront of blocking a vote on the President’s nominee for the position, Erroll Southers! The logic apparently is: in times of terrorist threat, no head of the TSA is better than a President’s choice. In all fairness to Senator Jim, he suspects Southers would allow TSA employees to unionize. Jim Demented.

Wish Jim had been present at Los Angeles International Airport when I observed an Arabic-looking man in a nice suit and tie hand a package around the metal detector to a swarthy, poorly-dressed man who speeded out of sight. When I reported what I’d seen to TWA personnel at the boarding gate, they were at a loss for what to do. I had to insist on seeing a security guard, who also didn’t have a clue. I practically forced him to “do something.” We boarded and walked through the plane for my flight twice as I looked left and right, in vain, for my suspect. I was content he was not on my flight, but the security guard was too content—for me—that the man was not on somebody else’s. Fortunately, I didn’t read bad news about it.

Another time at the L.A. airport, a former Israeli intelligence agent carrying my suitcase walked with me past the scanner and through the gate without being asked to show the flight ticket he didn’t have… to the entrance ramp to my plane, set the case down and said, “You see, that’s how bad security is in this country.”

So, Senator, pay attention. While you fret over unionization, security in this country is so bad that a machine dispensing airline tickets is asking purchasers the same sensitive questions on a screen that trained security agents ask passengers in order to observe their reactions and determine possible threats! So naturally we have to ask: can a machine tell if a suspect is perspiring… his eyes shifting… her words faltering? Your words are nonsense, Senator, and like the airport machine, self-serving.

Getting Away From It All

Shortly after 9 p.m. on December 25th we got what our family had wished for since October—a White Christmas at Mohonk Mountain House.

Maddan, our grandson, was on the ice, showing his family his acquired prowess on skates—including his six-year-old don’t-puck-with-me hunched-over, hockey-player stance. His three-year-old sister Finley was perfectly content to sit on an adult’s lap in a chair equipped with skates while Maddan, showing his true nature, patiently propelled the chair around… and around… the rink.

What is a snowfall without gusts of wind? Compliments of nature, clusters of swirling snow occasionally blew in on us through the open walls of the wood-roofed skating pavilion, crystals of snowflakes dissolving on our faces. At one end of the pavilion, heat shimmers as flames dance and rise in a 39-foot-tall stone fireplace. Maddan and Finley huddled there for comfort, and a photo op.

It is a far cry from an open-air refrigerated ice rink to an outdoor heated mineral pool, but hours later I made the leap—into 100 degree water. And as the world slid ever further away, it snowed again. I don’t know what Maddan and Finley would have thought of my Indigo Herbal (hot) Poultice Massage earlier at the spa, serenity not being an operative word in a child’s word bag, though uppermost in mine.

Mohonk is no place for edgy politics or even for news. If you know of a breaking story, best you keep it to yourself. I surreptitiously read my New York Times. I saw to it that the front page was always folded inside.

Clearly, this is not how we holiday or idle in Manhattan. (But why not?) I asked Maddan what he liked most about our stay. He answered in his genuine, matter-of-fact style, “I liked everything.”

My only disappointment was the snowball fight with clean snow we anticipated that never happened. But I didn’t tell him that. Now we are looking forward to a white New Year’s. So we can have our snowball fight. May yours be merry and bright.

In Holiday Spirit

I’m making a list and checking it twice. Because I have more envelopes than ever to fill with money this Christmas. Because I wish only half the Senate a Happy Holiday! Because Fox News’ commentator, Republican Strategist Noelle Nikpour, said the Jews “have twelve days of presents” for Chanukah—and I only lit candles (as I always do) for eight nights!

Making a list, it never occurred to me to include the worst Christmas song… until I unavoidably heard, “Oh, by gosh, by golly/ It's time for Mistletoe and Holly.” It doesn’t get better. “Tasty pheasants… overeating… fancy ties an' granny's pies.” Time, by gosh, by golly, for Alka-Seltzer.

Fa-la-la. La-la. Irving Berlin knew better than to put an oy into White Christmas. Jerry Herman didn’t write, “We Need a Little Mazel.” So how did it take three Christians—including Frank Sinatra, of all God-fearing people—to express their delirious joy to the world for “carols and Kris Kringle” with gosh and golly.

Scholars can debate the origin or actual date of Christmas, but you haven’t seen Christmas in all its contradictions until you’ve seen Santa and his reindeer on a sun-drenched lawn in West L.A. Through a tinted windshield. Imagine if the manger had been on Sunset Boulevard. Or the three wise men had followed a floodlight emanating from a Hollywood premier!

Not to be outdone this season, California’s sun-struck Laguna Beach Jews mounted a Surfboard Menorah from donated surfboards. Where there’s an oy there’s a vey.

From the ridiculous to the sublime: I spent two Christmas Eve’s in Bethlehem. That’s one more than You-Know-Who. The first time was while I was traveling with Elizabeth Taylor, whom I and two others “ditched” for the evening, left behind in a hotel suite in Tel Aviv because she was being such a pain in the ass. If you’re gonna find out who’s naughty or nice, there’s no place like the Church of the Nativity for the holidays. And if you want to go spiritual and festive simultaneously, tingly and tender and roused, Manger Square on Christmas Eve is that memorable place.

On my second Christmas Eve in Bethlehem, I helped escort cast members of “Beverly Hills 90210.” We met with the little town of Bethlehem’s Arab mayor, who had no idea who the actors were. Then they prayed—I saw them.

So this year, all I want for Christmas is national health care. Oh, and a stocking-stuffer—a Christmas sock to stuff in Joe Lieberman’s mouth.

A Trojan Horse and A Horse's Ass

We thought they were the decent guys. Maybe they weren’t our candidates, didn’t represent our party or politics, but we gave them this: they were decent.

We know better now. Let’s start with the man most detested by half of the country, Senator Joe Lieberman.

Having flipped on climate control and flopped on Iraq, he’s set his jaundiced sights on health care. “It’s time to get reasonable,” Lieberman declared last Sunday on “Face the Nation,” which CBS should have appropriately renamed “Two-Face the Nation” for him. Reasonable? A member of the Democratic Caucus, he’s threatened to filibuster against health care legislation if it includes a public option, threatened to join Republicans in opposition to legislation expanding Medicare coverage to people ages 55 to 64. What will he think of threatening to do next—outlaw band-aids?

He claims to be worried about adding to “tax-payer costs” and the nation’s deficit. How did he manage to be worry free when he supported the war in Iraq?

He claims to listen to his conscience. Since his largest campaign contributions stem from insurance industry sources and industry-affiliated political action committees, that would seem to mean listening to the voices of the people he’s heavily indebted to. He “owes” them. The Independent Senator from Connecticut is anything but independent.

Which brings us back to his membership in the Democratic Caucus. Many in his own party think he’s a Benedict Arnold. Connecticut Representative Rosa DeLauro says, "No one should hold health care hostage, including Joe Lieberman, and I'll say it flat out, I think he ought to be recalled…” Writer Tom Bisky thinks he’s a mole. I think he’s a Trojan Horse. I’m for setting Barney Frank on him.

Stop this man before he kills national health care. In his own words:

“We’ve got to stop adding to the bill, we’ve gotta start subtracting some controversial things. I think the only way to get this done before Christmas is to bring in some Republicans who are open-minded on this, like Olympia Snowe. You’ve got to take out the Medicare buy-in. You’ve got to forget about the public option. You probably have to take out the Class Act…” In other words, Joe Lieberman wants to accent the negative and eliminate the positive. Which brings us to Mr. In-Between, Joe’s bosom buddy John McCain. The Republican standard-falterer says, “Republicans see Mr. Lieberman as a voice of conscience. I'm proud of him for standing up for what he believes in.”

I’m tired of John McCain. He’s a nag.

Lieberman and McCain take their rightful places with Ralph Nader, George W—[add your own choices]—on a Mt. Rushmore of disenchantment.

"No Problem" a Problem

The lab technician I called this morning to ask if he could fax a radiology report to an MD’s office in advance of my appointment said, “No problem.” The data never arrived. Did I have a problem? A taxi driver, responding to my hasty instructions to take the fastest way, said, “No problem,” and promptly turned into a gridlocked street that indicated “No Exit.” Because I was late, I practically barreled into someone on the elevator who responded to my chagrin with, “No problem”—but although I was late, the doctor’s receptionist made light of it by saying, “No problem.”

This is what language has come to: the answer to everything is “no problem.” Music is no longer loud enough to drown out our inability to communicate. Now we have to obfuscate it with a ubiquitous non-sequitur so easy on the ear you don’t have to hear it to hear it. Read my lips, it says. Or my shoulders. Don’t you speak Shrug?

What the hell does “no problem” mean? Does it mean there was a problem? If I dispute that, does it mean let’s take it outside? Does it mean if anyone has a problem, it’s you, not I. If I can’t resist saying it’s I instead of me, does it mean now we have a problem?

Is “no problem” an answer? Then what is the question? Do you come here often? How long have you been having these attacks? Are you howling because I just slammed the car door on your fingers? As a ready answer to everything, “no problem” is a problem.

Most commonly, “no problem” seems to be a way of saying, “You don’t have to apologize” or, “I don’t need to apologize.” What happened to?:
“Excuse me.” Thank you.
“Sorry to take so long.” That’s all right.
“Believe me, I wish it were me under those wheels instead of your dog.” I understand.
“I didn’t know the gun was loaded.” God forgive you.

Multiple definitions come to mind—too many for three syllables. “Just doin’ my job.” “No big deal.” “It was nothing.” Nothing? From there, it becomes a somewhat condescending dismissal. “No sweat off my back.” “Don’t blow it out of proportion.” “Buzz off.”

“No problem” is not the answer to anything except “Problem?” As in, “Is there a problem, officer?” or “You there on the ledge… do you have a problem?”

Imagine. “Houston, we have a problem.” And Houston answering, “No problem.”

The Sound of It

Many years ago, I was in the control room of a small recording studio supervising the making of a “demo” record for a song I had written. Seated next to me was a close friend, an arranger who had told the handful of musicians what he wanted them to play rather than given them anything to read. That’s how we did things in those days. (And we thought we were sophisticated!)

In the middle of one take (a play-through of the song), a cumbersome set of metal earphones, “pots,” slipped from a violinist’s head, striking the edge of his violin before hitting the ground. Musicians routinely brought second rate instruments to sessions, so I was stunned by his reaction, which was panic. He raised his violin and started anxiously examining it from every possible angle.

“Why is he so upset?” I asked my friend. “Because it’s a Guarnerius,” he answered. “What the hell is he doing bringing a Guarnerius (a rare, precious instrument) to a recording session?” I asked. My friend answered, “He likes the sound of it.”

Months ago, in anticipation of moving from our apartment, I prepared to dispense with my large collection of LPs. To my surprise, my daughter Lauren expressed interest and began making selections for herself, first for the artwork, then for the sound. “They have more ‘pop,’” I believe she contended. In order to listen to them at her apartment, she had to buy a 33⅓ rpm record player. Now she’s buying more LPs. I held one up and asked why. Her answer was she likes the sound of it.

I started thinking about what I like the sound of. At an impasse as I sat in silence, it struck me how much I enjoyed sitting in silence. I’ve heard some of the most beautiful strings in some of the greatest concert halls in the world. Practically swooned to Pavarotti and Ella, Chet Baker a cappella. Pounding waves and heavy breathing come to mind. The sweet cadences of Robert Frost. The sublime music of “Obama is the winner!” I still have the first cry of a baby and the angelic laughter of two little girls in my ears. But I covet silence.

Our new apartment is on a courtyard. I haven’t heard a car alarm in the five weeks we’ve been here. Like the sound of that? I feel like the dog in the old RCA logo, sitting in front of the gramophone’s horn listening for his master’s voice. I sit in front of an arched window, writing as other windows go dark. I listen for silence.

In truth, I have sounds I irresistibly cotton to—rough voices that for my ears are like the grain of sand in the oyster that produces the pearl. The extravagant seductions of Leonard Cohen and Satchmo. The melodic assault of Kurt Weill. The growling intellect of Barney Frank. The appreciative roar of Yankee fans.

An actor calls his agent’s office. The agent’s assistant says, “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but your agent is dead.” The actor asks again to speak to his agent. The assistant says, “Look, I know it’s a shock, but your agent is dead.” Once again, the actor asks for his agent. The exasperated assistant says, “Will you it through your head? Your agent is dead!” The actor says, “I know. I just like the sound of it.”

There Oughta Be A Law

When comic books were comic, a syndicated two-panel cartoon strip, There Oughta Be a Law, gave voice and vent to Americans’ frustrations with just about anything they thought was unfair and should be redressed by a law. Between the 1940s and the 80s, Broadway’s biggest musical, Oklahoma!—with its significant exclamation point—ran for an unprecedented five years; the Mad Ave-hyped Ford Edsel lasted for only three; but There Oughta Be a Law stayed popularly in print for four decades.

I wish “Oughta Be” were around today. I would write cartoonist-creator Harry Shorten to say there oughta be a law in New York City that states anything that isn’t good for the city is unlawful. What has me fuming right now is—brace yourself—a bedbug billboard in Times Square. That’s right, a bedbug. On a billboard. If you haven’t seen it, avert your eyes if you come to it… cover the eyes of your children (and pets)… and, by all means, do not let a visitor to New York see it. Detour, sidle past, walk backwards, but take that tourist dearest to you and to the New York economy and jay-walk the hell out of there.

A bedbug on Broadway! Mayor Bloomberg, where are you? A big, ugly, crawly bug is straddling skyscrapers half its size across a billboard sprawling above a pizza parlor! You eat pizza! The villain is an ad—a tawdry, tacky scare ad for a company called Protect-A-Bed, a crass merchant telling us, “Protect Yourself.” But who’s going to protect Broadway theaters and Manhattan hotels and city restaurants from Protect-A-Bed?

Protect-A-Bed claims its same mattress covers protect against bedwetting. Will people come from all over the world to be sobered by a display of a man pissing on a New York skyline? Above a salad bar?

I don’t believe in curtailing free speech, Mayor B., but this isn’t speech, this is visual assault. There oughta be a law! It isn’t free enterprise, it is economic depravity. Why not a bill-boarded illustration of a bedbug taking a juicy bite out of The Big Apple?!

You spent 69 million dollars—and changed a law a lot of New Yorkers thought oughta be—just to keep your job. Let your affluence do the talking. Why not buy the billboard and change it to something all New Yorkers inherently take pride in?

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Curious to know what you, the reader, think there oughta be a law about. That’s what the “Comments” section below is for.

Once a New Yorker, Always...

I tell those new to New York there is a point at which you become a New Yorker. It happens either in the fifth or sixth year. Until then, you tell yourself, and try to convince others, you’re visiting or exploring the options, you’re going to school or “just taking in the scene.” According to every self-spun scenario, you’re here until you can go elsewhere.

I tell them, if you’re still here after six years you’re not going anywhere. You’re here because you belong here. Waiters, students, writers, interns—lanky women, eager tyros and wannabes—you’re stuck here. Give up the ghost of coming and going or e-mailing it in. Your adopted city has adopted you, sure as by fiat. You are no longer from anywhere else. You’re a New Yorker.

In New York, you are what you do. In Boston, you are where you went to school. In D.C., you are who you know. In LA, you are what you drive or where you live.

We live fast. It follows that we have to cut through the quick and initially get to know each other in shorthand—in a New York minute. Pass that test and likely as not you’ve made a friend for life, or at least for the life of the party, even if you never see that person again.

No one gives a damn where, or even if, you went to school—you are rigorously schooled daily and nightly by cab drivers, store clerks, waiters and doorman (from all over the world) in this city. Everybody knows someone well enough to suggest making anyone who makes trouble for him regret he did. No one who lives in Manhattan is foolish enough to maintain a car: if you drive and aren’t driven, if you use a car for any other reason than getting to the Hamptons, you’re probably a schmuck.

Once a New Yorker, you can say anything you want in the most public of places, and say it more colorfully, with a sprinkling of New York vernacular. Incomparable entertainer Mark Nadler used to hold court for fans and fellow performers Thursday nights at Sardi’s. Between songs, tinkling on the ivory keys he otherwise tickled or pounded, he would conduct running commentaries on whatever came to mind. One evening, after using a Yiddishism, Mark, originally from Waterloo, Iowa, said, “I’ve started to notice myself using more and more Yiddish words recently. I began to wonder—am I becoming more Jewish? And then it occurred to me. No, I was becoming more of a New Yorker.”

During my sixth year in New York, I was enlisted to write the lyrics for a Broadway show, “The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window.” The more I grasped who Sidney was, the more I realized how similar we were, culturally and politically. The audience discovers before Sidney does (if he ever does) that, fantasize as he may about leaving the city of steel and glass, New York, for the serenity of the countryside, he’s not going anywhere. During rehearsals, I discovered that while I had indulged in a similar fantasy, neither was I. Sidney and I were exactly where we belonged. For me, it’s been a love affair with the city ever since.