Are there super heroes in our world?

We’ve grown up knowing that Super Hero’s exist or hoping that they do…because we’ve seen them. Remember Superman, Batman, the Hulk, the Green Hornet…just some of the folks protecting us regular people from crime and evil in our comic books and on television?

Isn’t there a part of all of us that hopes, wishes, enjoys the flight of fantasy that suggest they exist.… or would want to be one of these good guys on the side of the angels?

Now that we’re at an age when our Super Heroes are the stuff of movie fantasy…with powers way and beyond…we realize that those special gifted ones don’t exist. Couldn’t exist…the world and the criminals are too scary.

But, do they exist…still in these days? I can remember a time, years ago, when Angels patrolled New York’s tough streets to be there as a symbol against crime.

Today I heard about some masked super heroes – people like you and me –but something pushed them over the edge and they decided not to let criminals rock the world. Phoenix Jones, Purple Rain and Fanatos are just some of the few that have committed themselves to being street saviors…to be there to stop the actions of those who would harm others.

No, they aren’t vigilantes. Sometimes, like Phoenix Jones, they go out in groups and video what is going on – and land up getting thugs prosecuted. They research where crime is likely to happen and lay in wait and catch the action. If the police did that, they’d be accused of setting criminals up…but Super Heroes aren’t real law enforcement and they can tape what they want. Just like you and me.

Phoenix Jones said something today that I have heard before, having worked for the Department of Corrections. Most criminals do drugs, drink, smoke and/or don’t take care of their bodies. Corrections officers in prisons and jails know that a duke it out between the incarcerated ones usually lands up with the combatants exhausted and hoping for lawful intervention. So, Super Hero Jones doesn’t try to chase down and beat them up; he doesn’t have to. He runs alongside of them and calls 911…as the criminal becomes exhausted

One thing I can say I agree with…we all need to be more aware and responsive to what happens in our neighborhoods. We need to be brave, to call the proper authorities and demand that criminals not rule our streets.

If we all reported on the questionable things we see…there would be less crime. You don’t have to be a Super Hero to call a law enforcement agency. The scariest thing is to imagine a world where people are robbed, raped, murdered, assaulted…with witnesses present who are too afraid to report. Get armed with a cell phone and help the police do their job…without going beyond and hurting yourself.

River Monsters

I found “River Monsters;” which airs on Animal Planet Sunday nights at 10 p.m.  I was flicking channels because I was having trouble falling asleep.

I’m not a great fan of fishing shows.  Lots of commentary and little action; I’m just saying.  But this is no ordinary fishing show.  Jeremy Wade, the star, is an “extreme angler”.  I have no idea what that means.  He is an educated biologist and travel writer.  He grew up in the United Kingdom and started fishing young…from about two years old from what I can figure.

Ladies, he is also a rather nice, mature looking man with a deep, throaty British accent…just in case you are interested.

In 1982, inspired by a magazine article about fishing for mahseer, he went to India.  Fishing for these huge water dwellers is quite the tourist industry in India.  Who knew?  The record thus far is a 76 pound mahseer fish caught in 1975.  So, what do you do with such a big fish?  Treat it with respect…do do do do…ba bump…giggle.

Jeremy also fishes in the Congo and on the Amazon River.  In 1992 he published ‘Somewhere Down the Crazy River’.  He searched for a rare animal and it was the subject of a British television show, “Jungle Hooks”.  The series gained popularity.

Jeremy points out that although fresh water resources like lakes and rivers cover only 1% of the Earth’s waters, we know little about the creatures living in them.  Many of these waterways are hard to access.

Last week, he veered from his usual haunts overseas to go “noodling” in Oklahoma.  You have not seen anything till you see this sport.  I’m just saying.  Jeremy joined a crew angling for the grand prize of capturing the heaviest load.

They find water holes and pipes in tributaries, streams and rivers where gigantic cat fish lay their eggs.  One of the team goes legs first into the hole, as bait, to draw out the catfish.  They attack (the fish that is).

The noodler’s partner tries to grab the jaw, once the big fish chomps down. Or maybe the noodler does, but then he would surely drown.  It was intense to watch and I was traumatized.

All hope not to die while fighting to haul the catch to the surface.  These monsters spin and pull at the noodler’s limbs and are so strong, they can take off a leg in fighting mode.  The other guy(s) on the team is there to keep the “noodler” from drowning and losing a body part, as the trophy tries to drag him underwater.  Sounds like fun, huh?  This guy actually volunteered to try this activity.   Jeremy’s team landed up winning, having caught three catfish weighing in collectively at a total of 153 pounds.

Jeremy travels world-wide, searching for local lore about River Monsters, and sets out to find the odd fish, gator or monster.  There are some huge ugly water dwellers around and they put up a fight.  This guy can’t be married.

Even the website is neat.  Just for fun, you can go to http://animal.discovery.com/tv/river-monsters/game/ and play a fishing game.  Seriously.  It’s kind of like Pac Man, with a bait bucket.

I can’t imagine Jeremy’s kids, if he has any, going out with their dad fishing.  The things he reels in are big enough to eat small children in one neat bite.  You just have to check out this show once, for yuks…or if it turns you on, I mean, it’s on Sunday nights.  I checked last night just for research purposes.

There are stranger things in the water and earth than you and I could imagine.

   At lunch with a friend, I remembered a story I had read in that morning’s Arizona Daily Star. For some reason, at that very moment it struck me as funny. Maybe the guacamole and chips or the atmosphere at Elvira’s in Tubac had made me giddy. Roz had just finished a funny story about her dog swallowing an avocado pit.

“Did you read the newspaper this morning?” I asked.

“No, I never read the paper anymore.”

“Oh. Well I read this funny thing, well, maybe not actually funny – but kind of weird. There was this baby earless bunny….”

“An earless bunny. What?”

“Yeah, it was born without ears…some other country, I can’t remember where. It had become a celebrity due to the deformity.”

“Well that’s unusual.”

“I know. So, anyway, it was 17 days old and they were preparing to move it to a big zoo and launch a publicity campaign. One of the photographers stepped backward into some hay. The bunny had burrowed itself into the hay. He stepped on the little guy and killed it, quite inadvertently.”

“Oh, my God, that’s horrible”, said my friend. She looked stricken.

“They said he died immediately, so he didn’t suffer.” I realized it was not really a ha ha funny story, just a quirky tale.

“I don’t know why it strikes me funny now or what made me think of it…but what are you going to do?”

Hours later, back at the ranch, I went in the yard to water plants and meander around without purpose. It’s something I enjoy doing, the meandering part that is. I got out the hose, dragging to uncoil it, as I walked along the far side of my pool.

I sprayed the lantana and was moving to the next thirsty plant when I heard a loud rustle. Something whizzed through my legs. All I saw was a furry blur.

I heard a splash and turned to see a tiny bunny had jumped into the pool. It was swimming frantically away, against the current of our self-cleaning system and I guess away from me.

“Oh no, oh no!” I cried out. Panicking, I ran to get the pool skimmer.

I tried desperately to corral the little fellow in the netting, but he was having none of it or me. I tried to scoop and push him to the wall to pop him up, but succeeded only in slamming his little body into the pool wall.

I approached him from behind. He was swimming slower, getting winded. I quickly dipped the skimmer in behind, scooped him and popped it up.

Up went the bunny, flying through the air, out of the skimmer and landing with a splat on the pool deck. The tiny soaked animal took off at lightning speed and disappeared from sight. But, he was alive.

For a couple of years, we occasionally found bunnies in the pools filter. It so upset me that I bought a critter scamper ramp and put it in the water, tying the dangling rope to a rock. Supposedly, any animal stuck in the pool would find the ramp and scamp up and out.

As happens, after installation, the neighborhood rabbits seemed to have smartened up and stopped jumping in my pool, so I removed it. Maybe their eyesight had improved from eating my new flowers, so they didn’t fall in. I’m just saying.

This was the first time I ever almost drowned a rabbit. I realized belatedly I’d have to navigate the yard slowly, especially around any plants, lest I startle another poor bunny and cause him to take the plunge. The wildlife here will kill me yet.

Let’s turn it to beauty and make it poetry..lest I die….

Some days go by in a haze of panic, tears, and memories I can’t erase…

Sometimes you can see the tears even when they’re not pouring in the traces…

                Of the deep lines of red tracks under my eyes…skin so blue…so dark…

I scrub and scrub and can’t get rid of the black, shadowed furrows I see…

All you have to do is to see me and you see the grooves, my sadness marks.

                                And to put off the past further, to put my mind on anything else, all I see is the hurt on the sad, ugly, fat, old woman I have become. I can’t really see me anymore…only the ugly parts.

Once upon a day, I suppose I was a little girl, and the world was new and I was forging ahead…

                And once I thought I escaped.

Now, most days, I think of all the people in my life who are dead…

And I can’t think too much or too well anymore…cause I have to fight against the pull…of pain from times behind me…

And no one wants to know…everyone else has their problems.

One day I told someone and they assured me this was the case.

And I understood.

Did it begin as a toddler…with marks for others to see?

Did it begin when I first saw her put a plastic bag over her face?

Did it begin when she put her head in the oven…and called police when she realized I was watching?

When she told them she would kill her children?  When I held my baby brother on the bed and couldn’t stop him from screaming?

When he beat him so bad I felt every strike and the welts ripped upon spaces in my heart and I wanted to die?

When he would climb into my bed at night and she’s ask some days later, “Did he touch you?”

When he’d call me to him and tell me to look at the creatures on the wall and he was afraid and sobbing?

When he’d sit me down and spit on my forehead and spend minutes…seemed like hours…fixing my bangs into an S shape on my forehead…cementing with more spit.

                And when I went outside she knew and she’d laugh…so I did too.

     Did the pit began when he chased us down the block with an ax; when he took his sledge hammer and tried to break down the door.

Or when he got so sick, he couldn’t breathe and the old sorrows and sympathies of a child meant to care came roaring back with a vengeance and I could barely breathe myself…because I knew he was and had always been in such pain.

     Or did the path to hell open when I realized that someone else had hurt the baby…someone else invited into our lives…and no one did anything…said anything…and everyone knew that he was in love with the child.  And the child grew quiet and fat and eventually died of pain.

Did my heart crack so that it would never mend when she cried and cried and cried till I thought she would die from her tears?  The years I spent where I couldn’t be happy…because all I thought of was her, and I so pitied her and thought her life was unfair.

                Did it end for me the day the baby died?  The one sweet hope…the one I should have been able to save, but I didn’t.  And no one will talk about him…they don’t want to remember.

                Or was it just a years ago, when one of my walking terrors said, “she said you were afraid of me…so I had to leave, that was my home.  My life was horrible, your mother was damaged…I was punished.   Your baby brother should have been institutionalized, he was sick from the time he was little, and that other man went down on him in the bathroom and she knew.”

Will it ever end?  The march of memories, the words I can’t erase, shoot down or forget?

Will I be free one day?

Will I always come back there…to the memories…to the terrors…to the nightmares…to history…

    When I was young I thought I’d bypassed it and I did do my best to survive it…

Did more than those who had anchors….and sailed further on my own…

Now, it doesn’t take a whole lot it seems…I keep falling…someone attacks me, vandalizes my property…rejects me…hurts me…ignores me, knows me, but doesn’t feel me…doesn’t care…

     And back I go…to the time, to the films in my head that run on and on… My nights are full of dreams where I’m being chased and killed.

     I have so much and yet….my mind goes back there…is it fair? No, but that’s the way of life…some get their’s – without even trying – some have presents of peace, some have hope, some have others that can show the way…but not all of us.

Will it ever end…?  I’ve tried…believe me…I’ve gone so far… it just follows me.

I know I didn’t die back than…but I think it may kill me now.

http://youtu.be/rYEDA3JcQqw

I heard Adele flipped her middle finger “after being cut off during an acceptance speech at the Brit awards” on February, 21, 2012.  That was yesterday, by the way.   She won…several awards in her home country.  Of which she is so proud and so wanted to share that pride.  By the by, she won British album of the year for “21”.  They gave more time to other people and awards and performances…she, they cut off.

She won for the same album that garnered her all the awards in America at our equivalent ceremony, the Grammy’s.

Let’s cut this woman a break.  Why is the world being so hard on her?

It’s not been an easy road for her, this is no London princess.  She wasn’t raised by rich people or even by a set of parents.  She just had the music in her and that voice of angels.  I cannot believe the people who are dinging her now, saying her voice isn’t that good, she’s not so good….and the one I read that added…. “Motown performers behaved better.”   Say what????

Motown performers were black pioneers.  They couldn’t have ever given a bird on stage…it would have destroyed them in America of the day.  It would have destroyed a white artist in the day.  Why compare this white young chick with the history of Motown performers?  Let’s reflect on Roy Orbison and Elvis Presley…my God, I do believe both these incredibly talented “olden” day performers did things that were scandalous in their day…think…back.  Let’s look at the vile mouths of some of our performers, all races and sexes today…who should we compare her act to?

Let’s reflect a moment on the curse words, the lyrics of some of our popular music now.  The bird is kind of quaint by comparison.  And, young people, black, white, olive, dark, Hispanic, whatever….use language you and I didn’t use in the day.  The best thing that can be said for our young people, in my humble, though antiquated opinion is they seem to be color blind…God Bless them and us for finally getting there.

Let’s look at how 13-16 years talk in our day…let’s look at what we’ve accepted over the last 30 years?  So, Adele flipped the bird.  Not to her fans.  Not to get attention.  Not just cause she had the stage and could.

A 23 year old performer, Adele has had a life that many of us could maybe relate to, and she showed frustration.  You want to call it a lack of maturity?  You have at it.  I think I might have done the same and worse.  It’s not because I’m not mature, or I’m low class…it would be for me, because sometimes the world is beyond comprehension and as a human being…like you…if you think…we react.  Sometimes things become too much.  Sometimes, it gets to be surreal for all of us.  Don’t you think?  Such is life….such are the things that we do that aren’t perfect.  Please let her not second guess this forever, let it go, let it go…shit happens.  If you are perfect, have always been, please write and publish your book, so we can all worship at your altar and learn….

Mind you, I’m not saying a bird is the best way to protest…but think…who were you at 23?  And when did you…and all the critics get so special, mature and worldly…almost saintly, that you feel you can point out to her, “oh Adele, you shouldn’t have, how poor, how classless, what a showing of utter vulgarity???!!”

In December 2011, Adele became the first female in Nielsen Sound Scan history to have the year’s number one album, number one single and number one music video.  The same month, Billboard named her artist of the year.  She won for Billboard Album and song of the year; becoming the first female to top all three of these categories.

What do young people do?  They curse, they float the bird, they ignore you, they gossip quietly behind your back…they unfriend you.  They tell other people when you’re not around that you are crazy or bad…cause they grew up in a generation where they didn’t learn to confront other people, to address differences in opinion, to deal with the bitter daily trifle and sadness of the workplace, the utter blatant unfairness that is inherent in life…cause they grew up making friends on the computer and negotiating all their relationships there.  They didn’t grow…. up spending long days alone without any adult supervision, hanging with friends, at 8-12, riding bikes, roller skating, playing odd chase em and catch em games for hours on end, without adult oversight, intrusion, and intervention.  You learned to tell someone when you were irked, when they annoyed you, when they crossed boundaries.  You had to, they were in front of you, not on a screen you could minimize.

If you grew up like me, you were threatened, you got in fist fights, you were scared, but you played and you talked … and you told people what you thought in the here and now or then or there.  The younger generation people didn’t grow up that way.  They had a different life than us.

So, get the hell off the judgment wagon, it’s just getting too old.  One artist flips a bird, for no damn reason at all at a Major American event…MIA, and that’s all I’ll say, because it was so classless, it doesn’t deserve comment.  It was an affront to the woman who hired her to be on stage with her.  It was an attempt to upstage and get attention, much like an infant might do.

Now another…flips a bird…when she is trying to tell her countrymen how much they mean to her and her success.  She’s told, sorry, girlfriend, no more time for you…because Jo Blow went a little long.   We must be sure to play the entire musical number planned to end this event.  Little girl, it’s so much more important than you, than what you accomplished, than your sense of feeling good, your satisfaction, your special night and your need to tell the public in your home land you love them.  The show must go on…right, despite whatever’s on stage in the moment?

Okay, I’d have given the bird and told the host to get himself away from me.  Just saying.  But, you know, I’m older.  Some things take time to learn.

It’s a small world, Disney said so many years ago, but it’s also an ever changing world and we can’t keep flipping back and forth and making decisions as to who and what we are going to judge today…by our standards.

Times, they are a changing.  When will we all get and accept that and apply it to all of our current young people and future generations, to our children, to the brave new world of performers out there putting themselves out on the line, front line, for our entertainment?  Let’s reflect, teach, talk about our experiences and stop making judgments.

Adele, is a very young girl, who worked her ass off, who had the kind of life so many of us could relate to if we thought about it.  This is not a rich girl, who grew with advantages.  She’s the child of a single mother.  How many children are there in the United States being raised by Single women?  How many times have we talked about how the lack of father involvement is destroying our current young generation?  Well, she’s kind of part of that generation…and she’s making her way.  So, women, maybe you can raise a good and successful child even if the man who fathered the child is absent, unavailable, alcoholic, mentally ill, abusive, or just gone.  And maybe she will be dissed when she’s grown up, worked hard and made it…what do you teach her?

I feel fathers are important, especially for young girls, who rarely successfully survive to reach their full potential without the support and love of a stable daddy.  Girls are for a lifetime affected by that lack of a daddy figure, though the popular culture likes to fault lack of fathers for our son’s problems.

Adele made a comeback after throat microsurgery in November 2011.  She had her surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital.   She performed at the Grammys in February 2012.  She won in six categories, making her the second female artist after Beyonce4 Knowles to win six in a single night at the Grammy’s.

Not too shabby.  She’s all of 23.  Sorry…in my lifetime of advanced years, she’s a baby.  No disrespect intended; she’s accomplished incredible things for a baby.  And she has a look, a style and a presence that is ageless.  She will be 24 on May 5^th 2012.  And, I admire the steel in her back.

How did she get where she is now?  Money, family connections….good fortune, good luck, incredible family and support, talent?  In 2006…yes, barely six years ago a friend of hers posted Adele’s demo on My Space.  She was 18.  At age 19, she released “19”, named for her age at the time she started recording it.  She received numerous rewards and in March 2008, before she turned 20, she signed a deal with Columbia Records.

In 2008, she cancelled some US tour dates, as she explained, for a boy…and she was drinking too heavily.  She commented of her action, “It seemed so ungrateful…”  She left her mother’s home in November 2008 and stopped drinking.  Her album was certified gold here in February 2009.  She’s been involved and contributed to the Keep a Child Alive, a charity that helps African Children and their families, living with HIV/AIDS.

In 2011, she released her second album, 21.   It went platinum in her beloved United Kingdom 14 times.  It held the top position in the United States longer than any other album since 1993.  She rivaled Beatles records.  “Rolling in the Deep”, the song she sung at the Grammy’s was the year’s BEST SELLING SONG here in our country.

So, Monday, this’ horrible wench’ said on stage “…Nothing is better than coming home with six Grammies and winning Album of the Year.  Nothing makes me prouder to be British.”   She also won British Female Solo Artist earlier this evening.

The crowd booed when the host gave her the hook and told her there was no more time for her to talk.  It was running late because someone ahead of her took too much time and evidently they weren’t stopped at the time.

Adele said she wanted to thank the British public for all their support, but she was pulled before she could.  Next, a long closing performance by Blur.   More important than all she’d accomplished.

Has this ever happened before in the annals of music history?  Hmmm, let me think.

Why I do believe MIA flipped a bird at the Super bowl, here in the good ole USA, while Madonna was performing, but for no particularly good, guessed at or for any understandable reason.   Except, the usual, for fame, notoriety, to get attention.  Wander what Madonna thought afterwards?  Madonna, who put her on stage with her.

I actually heard someone say on television today, and don’t throw up…”well, I wonder if she (Adele…) got a free pass because she’s a portly white female?” Say what, and what? What?  If I have to explain and pick that statement apart with any of you reading this, we’re on different worlds and wavelengths, so I’m not going to try.  But, really….portly…really…she got a pass cause she’s white…really, did she not have at least some reason to react, and maybe to momentarily let a flash of anger overwhelm her normally calm, sweet, grateful demeanor?  Come on?  And, I know…I wasn’t going to pick this apart, but since when is having a woman’s body…never mind …. Stupid statement to begin with.  SHE IS neither PORTLY…nor fat.  She is a woman in a woman’s body.  And what does that have to do with anything anyway?

She looks fantastic.   I say God bless her heart for not apologizing for not being a toothpick, in a model’s body.  Yet is she jealous of her contemporaries with their fabulous bodies?  No, she admires Katie Perry and Gaga and likes to look at them.

Well, hell, I like to look at them too…it brings me back to my younger days and it’s all good….and you know what, Adele…. I’m straight, married and a woman.  I think you are beautiful and I love to look at you.  I love that you feel no need to have your body parts hanging out.  That you know who you are and are comfortable with yourself, you should be.  That you are wearing a long blonde flip, much the same hairstyle I sported in the day…back when it was fashionable for me…Goldie Hawn…and other women of that day.  You look marvelous, darling, to coin an old Saturday night phrase.

Her inspiration at the tender age of 13 was Pink, who she saw in concert.

This young lady’s father sold “his life story” to The Sun last year.  She had been thinking of reconciling with him prior to that.   He talked about his split with her mother and said he had a serious alcohol problem.  Being the daughter of an alcoholic…I know how that legal drug can affect families and relationships.  He took credit for shaping her musical tastes, but he’d never attended one of her shows or listened to her music very much.  He stated he loved her so much.

So, she said “it blows my mind”.    “Really…why are you telling me that through a newspaper?”    This is a young woman with a past, not an easy past…and everyone has an opinion…don’t they?  The things people have said, “She’s too cockney, she’s portly, she’s low class, she’s abusing her voice and it can’t last….”    I’ve talked to people in all walks of life, that don’t know her, that are so ready to classify, downgrade, stereotype, and write her off cause of the BIRD.

You know, at 58, today, if it happened to me, I’d just have told the host “I’m not finished…”  I’d have kept talking.  I’d have giving him my most best warning evil old lady eye, the look that would have sent him trucking.  But, we don’t develop that ability till our 40s, 50’s and 60’s, do we?  I would have given that host interloper the best wide open Tucson/New Yorker/Irish/Hispanic Warning Eye I could have conjured and I would have scared the Bejesus out of him.  I have no doubt.  But, I’m old…and I don’t really give a shit anymore.  But I do care about giving a talented young woman a chance, a break, and encouragement.  You know what…she’ll make it regardless.  You go girl.

  I don’t know if I mentioned this, since I no longer have a consistent, reliable memory of any sort…but I’ve become quite artsy fartsy.  Now some of you will say, “what the hell is that”.  I pity that you’re not familiar with the art world dialect…I’m just saying I think I’m into arting out.  No, not being a crafter, to me that’s kind of well… boring.  I think the art thing is in the air in Tucson…must be the Catalina Mountains or those damn palo verdes…and that yellow stuff falling off them, who knows.

But my newest fun is to create personalized umm pictures, in frames, for people I care about.  I started it at a low level of intensity some months ago…back in September.  My sister-in-law was I think, my first recipient and she loved it.  But she got a fairly tame version of my new art.

  There’s nothing more special than creating something for someone that is personal and pretty and done by your own hands.  If I could make clothes, I would.  So I make my pictureoids.  See the snaps I made of a couple of my pieces, for special people, hard to see but you may get the gist.  Try it, it’s fun, just think about the person you are making it for and go to town with a regular old picture frame, parts of cards you like, blingy things, scrapbook paraphenalia..special little collages….and so on.

Adele hit it…so glad to see she got the new artist Grammy award.  She is phenomenal….powerful voice..great and meaningful lyrics…touches the heart.  “We almost had it all…I can’t help feeling…we could have had it all…”…the most plaintive heart ripping wailing lyrics in a long while.

The Grammy’s totally rocked it.  How sad about Whitney’s death.  God Bless her and all the artists, the hearts in the world that left before we were ready to let them go.  I know they weren’t ready to go there either and can only hope they found some beautiful, peaceful, loving world on the other side….maybe in our dreams we’ll hear their new songs in Heaven.

Speaking of lyrics…Katie..Perry…girl you rock.

Today I was thinking.  I know you saw smog over Tucson, but it wasn’t me.  I think each of us could change the world.  I know there  are others out there who think the same thing.

You hear that most of us are feeling there is something lacking today…the world isn’t what it was some years ago.  It doesn’t seem safe for children.  There’s more suspicion, judgment and paranoia.  It’s easier for one zealot to end the world…if they can develop or afford the weapons we already have in our Universe.

The world has changed.  You’re not imagining it.   We’re bigger now.  Our piece of the planet isn’t Tucson, or Arizona, or the United States or Europe; our world is the whole enchilada…need I translate?

We feel we lack something…and sometimes can’t define what it is.  I consider myself blessed.  I have a life partner who is loving, patient and ethical.  I still sense black holes.  I applaud those of you who can fill the gaps with organized religion.  I can’t.  I want to believe, I still pray, and I damn hope there is a God or a higher power.  I’ve experienced too many good people hurt, too many children lost to sad things, too much pain.   Inequities exist…we don’t all have the same basics…the same advantages to start with.  It is harder for me to believe in divine benevolence.

Change is good.  I get bored and like to keep things fresh.  Some of the transformations that bloomed out of technology allowing us instant media communication (before anything is confirmed) suck.   Jobs aren’t what they used to be, workers aren’t treated like treasured contributors.  The nuclear family as it was in the fifties is rarer.  Young people are different.  Old people are not like the grandparents back in the day.

Life is harder to negotiate and tiring, in spite of all the new appliances and conveniences of modern life.  Someone recently told me the people today who were born in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s grew up with different access to the world…they are internet babies and bombarded with information all the time.  It’s hard for them.

They said that in the 50’s and 60’s we weren’t exposed to all this crap.  Hello, I remember when President Kennedy was shot, the Cuba missile crisis… and I was in elementary school.  During the 60s, 70s’ and 80’s we were redefining gender roles, sexuality, racial attitudes and ourselves.  Families hid painful human truths because of shame.  If you were different you hid it.

Each of us, from every country…every background…came to the US and had to endure.  Few of us can trace our lineage back to the settling fathers/mothers of our country.  As each new group arrived, they had to force their way in, work as hard as they could and spend time being low on the human totem pole.

We all need to make a conscious effort to make this a better world.  It is up to us, as a nation, a people, to know what we each want and then to give it to each other.

Our country was built on tolerance, freedom, individuality and sacrifice.  People made great sacrifices to come here, to establish a life, to build family.  When they came here they served in our armed forces – either because it was a requirement of citizenship, they were protecting their own… or it was the right thing to do.   Where many of us came from humanity couldn’t survive and prosper due to famine, turbulence, war, poverty, crop failures, and/or religious prosecution.  I don’t care what your heritage is …we all come from the same Human race.

I can’t always get what I want.  You can’t and we can’t.  But, if you think in terms of how you want to be treated and act that way, whether someone is watching or not….then you can give others what they most need and preserve us.  You do have control.

How about starting today … smile at one stranger.  How about starting today say hello to someone you pass on the street and with a smile that says I know you, you are the same as me.

How about, today, you ask one person “How are you” and mean it and listen?  How about, just for today, you don’t see age when you interact with another human being?  Why don’t we respect our elders and learn from their lives and encourage our young people.  We were all ridiculous and seemed to be living on another planet at some point growing up?  Agreed.  Let’s be more tolerant.

Today embrace the differences between all of us.  Let’s remember we are one people with one heritage, the human race. We all hurt and can hurt others with a word or unthinking gesture.  How about just for today let’s give a pass to each other.   Cherish humanity and respect, like and learn from those we don’t get or understand.

We all bleed, we all love, we all want the best for our children, and we all want to get to that other place.  You and I have the power to change the world, one person at a time, through one nice comment, one hug, one positive interaction, one smile, one greeting, and an attitude of tolerance.

Please Join me.  I will try my best each day to be a better person, to turn the other cheek, not to gossip, to take time and effort to compliment and encourage, to spread gratitude, to help in any way I can, to smile at strangers, to not stereotype, and to forgive those who’ve hurt and defined me by their own time in life.  I pledge to remember we each have our burdens and react sometimes not so well…despite our best intents.  Can you take that pledge with me?  I think if we don’t do it together…we condemn our world.  Now’s the time to stand for what unites us.   Let’s make a better planet with one action, one person at a time.   Think babies…they need us and deserve a better place…remember we were all once innocent children.

Superbowl Sunday is almost as big a holiday as Christmas, Chanukah and President’s Day.  Millions worshipped before the big screen to share the excitement generated by two gaggles of big guys running for seconds at a time, smashing into and falling over each other as they try to catch, throw, kick, punt, hide and run with a brown oval ball.

Football is a tad slow.  It’s kind of like flipping one of those little story books they used to do before real movies were invited by Martin Scorcese.  Something happens and just when you notice the movement, it stops, a whistle blows and somebody shakes their head.  I love it when one of the big guys actually gets to run several feet before the other boys jump his bones.

I don’t know what’s more fun about this day…the commercials, the half-time show, the excuse to eat high fat snacks before, during and after dinner or trying to figure out if you’re rooting for the team in blue or the one in red, white and blue.  They really need to make those little helmet decals bigger.   I mean, do you really expect the average American to be able to see those tiny team acronyms?

I knew in the 4^th quarter the Giants would win.  I felt it in my bones; I’m psychic like that.  Boy, it was a close game heading right down the wire.  But could anyone doubt the big NY boys?  They do have the better costumes after all.  As soon as the whistle blew and that big 21 versus what was it 17 for the Patriots locked in as the winning score, I got right up and did a smashing rendition of New York, New York.

The song was written for Liza Minnelli in some movie in 1977, BCP (Before Cell Phones).  It has become better associated with Frank Sinatra, as recorded in his 1980 album.  It could be a rumor, but I hear he’s alive and well and has a pizza parlor in Brooklyn.

I ramped up the standard and did it old school with a little rap flavor and some good old Rocket kicks.  You know like those Radio City girls, but  better.  I grew up in New York.  It was a scary place in the past before we got rid of the gangs and the hoodlums.  We used to let just any old jock drive a cab, paint it any color and make up road rules.  Now New York is like a big country town, full of happy, smiling people trolling around all hours of the day and night on the very safe streets.  So I hear.

How about Madonna?  It is amazing how good she looks for 70, isn’t it?  The woman got back.  I liked that she did a plethora of her old standbys with new twists and friends.  But I kept expecting her to belt out, “Hey Mickey you’re so fine you blow my mind, hey Mickie”.  I don’t know why, it just seemed like it was going that way.

When Nicky Minaj hit the screen, I got up to whoop it up myself…..she’s so cheery, all those pretty colors.  I taught Nicky that fast rap talking and I have to say she’s now surpassed me.  I cloned a small, young English girl who sounds almost just like Nicky – but she hasn’t gotten the colorful colors going on yet.  Maybe you saw her on the Ellen Degeneres show.  If not, google that.

Ce Lo is the man.  The only thing is I kept waiting for was Jesus to sweep in or for something to explode.   I was a little disappointed.  Madonna looked too proper.  I would have liked to have seen her wear something a mite more silver.  She should have been fixed up with big butterfly wings she could flap and then she could have  flown off towards the Heavens.  I would have thought she could have engineered something like that; she does live in England after all and is good buddies with Elton John who I hear has connections up the wazoo.

The commercials were pretty cool too…especially everything with babies and animals.  What’s not to like?  I hope you all had a good time today and will not suffer much tomorrow from poor food and drink choices.  Me, I’m sleeping in.  All that busting a move done busted me in, just saying you know.