: lower black pain.

I went to college in one of the poorest cities in the United States. I believe it was number seven at that time. The college itself was a Hogwarts style oasis, complete with gothic clock towers and leaded glass windows. To be honest, I felt more immediately at home in the city part, as it reminded me of home somewhat, and was the only place I could get my hair properly cut. I only had to wander ab...

Yesterday at 5 PM, my daughter called me at work on FaceTime, which is how I could see how visibly upset she was. “They murdered him!” she said. “ What are you watching?” I asked. “I’m not watching anything! I’m doing my homework!” “What homework? Who’s dead?” “The little boy…” and here she paused. My daughter is not studying to be a detective, nor a coroner; she’s a seventh grader, and last I kne...

About two decades ago I got a new job, director of a large art production department in a storied New York advertising firm. I represented a demographic premiere (super young, and let’s just say: etc .) never before seen in a position like that. Inside the ad industry, times were politically rife. Inside our building, the company was evolving as fast as mosquito blood in a Jurassic Park lab. Thus...

At a young age I developed a very specific concern regarding stories: it always seemed that it was more difficult for characters to be honestly happy than to be afraid of something. Evil lurked everywhere, it could pop out of a cereal box or telephone or monkey’s paw (ok, well that one, c’mon, you had it coming), but Good always had to arrive at the last minute. And no one seemed to have an answer...

As the middle-aged father of a very New Woman, the idea that any homemade fashion I create would be enthusiastically adopted is a pipe dream, but I crocheted a snood for my daughter. A snood is a loop scarf, big enough to double over the head and become kind of a hat, sort of the same idea as the hoody dress Princess Leia wears when saying “Help me, Obi-Wan” in the hologram. It took three weeks, b...

My mother has big dreams for me. She wants me to grow up to do something significant and useful. She wants me to not quit, and to stay strong, and to hang in there, like a kitten on a motivational poster. She won’t let me always use the calculator, because then I won’t learn how to actually solve a problem (“…what if you don’t have batteries someday?”). She teaches me to type on the manual typewri...

I have some things I am excited to make this year, a few movies I’m anxious to see, and lots of books I’d like to read. We have a great deal of books. One might say “too many”, but One would not be entirely accurate. I classify the measurement as “We just need one more bookshelf. And maybe a wall to put it on.” My grandfather’s house held a library. I believe most of it was there when they moved i...

Covid in Our Christmas Stockings was not the name of a new holiday movie, but instead the elevator pitch plot of my actual life this week. Exchanging yuletide pleasantries for “Hark! The Herald Angels Sneeze!” has left me weak,  my head still spinning… …thus this brief poem, for year’s beginning. Dear Baby New Year, you can’t read this yetyou’re just an infant butI worked outyou must ageat leasta...

Ice and Snow I was convinced that every yuletide of my youth was a frosty winter wonderland. As previously mentioned, I am absolutely a product of the American midwest, born and mostly raised where annual weather patterns were defined by cut out cardboard schoolroom decorations atop the blackboards: a pretty spring flower, a yellow summer sun, a bright orange autumn leaf, and either a giant crysta...

I was 12 years old, it was 1978, beginning of November, a Saturday morning. I know it was a Saturday morning because that’s when the cartoons came on, and I was probably watching Bugs Bunny when the commercial played for the first time. TCR Total Control Racing was a slot racing set with little cars on an electrified track with voltage controlled by plastic trigger devices, except this one had NO...

Babies leak. They’re not really waterproof – I mean they are on the outside, but not exactly from the Inside . As soon to be parents we were told that there were two types of leaks in children: let’s just say chimneys and basements . We had a chimney baby, and took it in stride that we were responsible for maneuvering a soft uncovered pint glass filled with delicious formula. Every so often it mig...

I took the class because it the name of it was “The History Of Film Comedy” and I thought that it might be fun, because I was a freshman and it was the only course available to me in the giant blue book of offerings that didn’t sound either impossible or overwhelming. First class; the professor introduces himself and goes straight into the life of Buster Keaton, who as a baby was part of his famil...

9am. This year, the turkey is going into the oven at 9 am, because I am a responsible adult who can make that happen. And I’m not beginning the process at 9 - nope, that’s when the actual turkey is going into the oven. The pre-heated oven. So I’ll turn that on at 8:45. And the turkey will have to be prepared with the twine and the salt and the pepper, so I’ll start that at 8:30. The second thing t...

I’ve been thinking a great deal about flatware, which I called “silverware” until about five minutes ago. According to the dictionary, silverware only refers to flatware covered in actual silver, which means that I’ve eaten with “silverware” only a very few times. On special occasions and holidays, some families still pull out their silverware and a few pieces of the good china, but the effort inv...

I’ve never quite understood why people take pictures of their plates of food.  Photography very effectively records events, but display – while delightful – is food’s least useful aspect, and photos do not hold smell, taste, nor significant nutrition. I do have two photos of me with a birthday cake. In one I’m 13, and the other I’m 49. In one, I am giddy and giggling with delight. In the other, I...

The roller coaster of the year: Clackety clack clack CHUNK clack clack. It’s Spring. Clack chunk clack  It’s Summer.   And right now, when we start dressing in layers and appreciating cinnamon, is when the ride really starts. We rocket past pumpkins and turkeys, barrel through Black Friday and race through the glow of colored lights and fireworks until the ride suddenly PSSSSSSHSSSHH stops on Janu...

Welcome, Honored Guest… to my Halloween special. It’s nothin’ fancy, like a 45, a single with two sides. (…while maintaining accessibility, I must inform you that a great deal of audio elements are involved: so you may want to listen as well!) First, I’d like to welcome my special guest, star of stage and screen, Mr. Vincent Price . I interviewed Vincent Price in college: I worked for the film stu...

I’ve been working on my Halloween costume. It’s a little bit tricky, because I’m trying something new. I’m not wearing a costume this year as much as stepping into an identity... it’s a little hard to explain, and if I seem overly mysterious it’s because I don’t want to tell you exactly what I’m going to do just yet. I kind of want a “reveal” moment, and I have a little time left to keep working o...

60 seems younger than 57. 57 is my Heinz year. It’s one of my three food slogan years. You get three food slogan years . You know that, right? 11 (herbs and spices), 31 (flavors) and 57 (Heinz). 11 is when you come into your own, become a young adult, begin to navigate the chaos, at the start of the adventure; at 31, you accept the responsibilities of adulthood, begin to establish stability and re...

My daughter made me a pillow. She makes things. She got a doll one Christmas when she was seven and spent all of Boxing Day making a very detailed spaceship out of the box it came in, complete with a control panel and a small but elegant closet. Later, dissatisfied with plastic dreamhouses™, other dolls were lucky enough to live in an apartment building that she fashioned from a tall cardboard box...

Make a noise like a vampire. Chances are (inside your head) you either snarled or said the word “blah” in a technically inaccurate yet authentically dramatic Eastern European accent. Now, make a noise like a GHOST . “Boo!” Exactamundo. Ghosts say BOO. The Compact Oxford English Dictionary (the two volume blue one with the magnifying glass) doesn’t list the word “boo” at all; I had to refer to the...

I haven’t been on a school bus in a while: do they still have those super slick seats where you slide all over where the bus makes a turn – unless you’re wearing shorts, and then they stick to your legs like duct tape?  Are they still cold in winter, and hot in summer, and super duper loud? That’s so cool. I didn’t get to ride them everyday, I either lived too far away or close to school, so my on...

There is a small park in Queens, New York, on the site of the borough’s last one room schoolhouse. Built in 1879, just five years after citywide compulsory education had been established, the small building held six rows of nine desks, with each row being a different grade level, starting with the youngest. The students were mostly farmer’s kids from the area. There was a blackboard and a US flag...

Recently, I’ve seen a lot of children wearing Nirvana shirts. By children, I mean people younger than, say 26 and a half, and by Nirvana , I mean the essential 1990’s American grunge rock band. The band, if you’re not familiar, is an icon of raw emotion, unfiltered and in most ways we use the word, genius. Words that are poetry mixed with tunes that are musical. You don’t get either of those all t...

First day of the school year here in Brooklyn. Lunch has been packed, the pencils sharpened, a brand new Keeper has been Trapped. I know I’m not the one going, but it’s exciting nonetheless, anticipating new homework and classes and conversations and memories being made, like when Potatohead made that ridiculous face that we all found hysterical at lunch.  Ah, Potatohead. I was not a fan of homewo...