Is "Gay" the New "Black"?

Can the Proposition 8 struggle in California really be compared to the civil rights struggles in the 1960s. Read this article from an LA Times blog, which asks the question.

Mad Men: Not the Beaver Cleaver 60s

Interesting article about my favorite TV show "Mad Men". What do you think? Is its depiction of the 60s accurate? To me, it seems so, although I didn't grow up in the executive-dad world, and my mom was not the wife of a white-collar man. She was a stay-at-home mom and smoked while she was pregnant!

Fortune Cookie Chronicles by Jennifer 8. Lee

Okay, Jennifer 8. Lee [that's apparently her real middle initial], has sort of beaten me to it, but not really. In her book, and companion blog Fortune Cookie Chronicles, she talks at length about the rather bizarre relationship between Jews and Chinese food through her own Chinese experience, but I will be doing it from a Jewish perspective. Anyway, she provides a link to a "Last Supper" parody, where Jesus and his other Jews are eating Chinese food -- very funny-- click here

Music Update for Boomers

Thanks to blogger Gumbo, here are updated titles to old classics for aging boomers

Herman's Hermits --- Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Walker

Ringo Starr --- I Get By With a Little Help From Depends

The Bee Gees --- How Can You Mend a Broken Hip?

Bobby Darin --- Splish, Splash, I Was Havin' a Flash

Roberta Flack --- The First Time Ever I Forgot Your Face

Johnny Nash --- I Can't See Clearly Now

Paul Simon --- Fifty Ways to Lose Your Liver

The Commodores --- Once, Twice, Three Times to the Bathroom

Marvin Gaye --- Heard It Through the Grape Nuts

Procol Harem --- A Whiter Shade of Hair

Leo Sayer--- You Make Me Feel Like Napping

The Temptations --- Papa's Got a Kidney Stone

Abba --- Denture Queen

Tony Orlando --- Knock Three Times On The Ceiling If You Hear Me Fall

Helen Reddy --- I Am Woman, Hear Me Snore

Leslie Gore --- It's My Procedure, and I'll Cry If I Want Too

Willie Nelson --- On the Commode Again

Posted by Terry at 2:43 PM

Thanks for that one!!

Who is This Man?

Answer to the quiz from last time:




Okay, so in my last entry, I posted a picture of a very distinguished-looking middle-aged man, and I asked you who he is.






yep, Mike Nesmith of the Monkees, who is living very nicely off his mom's fortune. Betty Nesmith, Mike's mom, was the secretary who invented liquid paper!

Who is this man?

a- German ambassador to the UN
b- millionaire businessman
c- serial killer
d- politician
e- all of the above
f- none of the above

answer next week. in the meantime, send your guesses.

more on Feb 0७, १९६४

Apparently I didn't know the extent of the mania at JFK airport that day. The Beatles arrived on PanAm at 1:00 that afternoon....It is still freaky that my class was on a field trip that day, unsuspecting that there was such pandemonium!

Anyway, I found a great video of the Fab Four when they arrived at JFK
check it out here

February 7, 1964 [part one]

I remember the day I was born. My birth certificate says I came out of my mother's womb on June 7, 1955, but the date I was born was more than eight years later -- February 7, 1964. We all have days that change our lives, and the world, forever. I do remember a day about three years earlier when someone shot our president, and that was supposedly changed the world. I remember a lot of people on television crying, even men. All of a sudden John Kennedy's face was everywhere. And I remembered he had a little girl around my age. I recall briefly wondering how it would feel to have your dad shot to death, and see it on the news. But my dad wasn't the president, and I couldn't imagine why anyone would want to kill a mailman like my dad. The only person who got angry with Dad was Mom. So, although I felt sad that a little girl and her younger brother had to lose their daddy, I can't say that it changed my life any. I played with my friends and went to school as I had done before the president got shot.

Anyway, these days that change your life always start out to be very routine. We almost never wake up and say "This is the day that will change my life". If we wake up and think "this day will change my life", it won't. I knew this Friday morning was going to be somewhat exciting to an eight-year-old in the fourth grade, but I didn't realize how much it would change me; as a matter of fact, this day would change America, and was part of something that would change the world forever. My world, and the way I looked at life, was about to be flipped around in a way that I could only begin to fathom many years later.

Mrs. Hazelcorn, my fourth grade teacher, took us on a lot of field trips that year --probably one a month. She needed to enlist a lot of moms to go on the field trips. And this was the sixties, when most moms were home. I think Ellen Wallach was the only kid who had a valid excuse; her mom was a teacher. Teaching was the acceptable career in those years for a Jewish mommy; otherwise, they just stayed home, and most of us had a mom in the house when we got home from school. I liked going to Ellen's house after school, because she had a key and her mom would come home a little after we arrived, so we could do whatever we wanted for at least 45 minutes to an hour. I didn't appreciate the fact that my mom was always home. I wanted Ellen Wallach's life, with my own key and an hour to do whatever, with no mom there to breathe down my neck. So Ellen had a valid excuse to say that her mom couldn't go on class trips. After all, Mrs. Hazelcorn couldn't go on her kids' class trips. But she wouldn't accept my mom's reason for weasling out of her duty -- that I had a baby sister at home. "Mrs. Hazelcorn wants to know when you are going on one of our trips", I would tell my mom. "You tell Mrs. Hazelcorn that if she wants me to go on a class trip, she can hire me a babysitter." End of subject.

So I set out that day to PS286, the Jane F. Shaw School, in my neighborhood of Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn. Dad insisted on calling it Idlewild Airport, even though less than three months before, the name was changed to John F. Kennedy Airport. Dad said he never liked those Kennedys. They were bums. Their old man hated Jews. It was sad that President Kennedy was assassinated, he said, but those Kennedys were no damn good anyway. I didn't care what they called it, I was going to an airport for the first time in my life. Mom told me I might see people in foreign costumes, like the ones in my book at home "Children Around the World". "Look for women in saris, or people in African dress. You might see a Frenchman wearing a beret, or even a Dutchman with wooden shoes, or a Japanese woman with a kimono", Mom said. I told her I would look for those things. I got even more excited as we walked onto the bus, and Mrs. Hazelcorn told us that we were going to try to get into a real airplane!

Idol Gives Back
well, nothing like this show to remind me that I have no right to complain about anything. Today, I am okay, and I will be figuring out a way today to give something back. In fact, I will be looking at ways to pay forward what others have given to me. When my own bills are paid this month, and every month, I commit myself to giving some of what I have left, no matter how small. Even if it's a piece of clothing given to a charity that dresses homeless women to go out on a job interview, I do have excess. I have been blessed with 52.7 good years so far on this earth [and I hope a few more]. Any writing about it on my blog will be for me to keep myself in check, and hopefully inspire others to be thankful for today, and to give one little thing whenever possible, to make someone else's life better. The one thing that sticks with me is that $10 can buy netting to put over the beds of babies in Africa to keep the mosquitos out, and save babies from malaria. I am going to start with that.

Mike Smith of Dave Clark Five, Dead at 64

Just when the Dave Clark Five were about to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, I learned of Mike Smith's [lead singer] death at 64. My idol, Peter Noone of Herman's Hermits, has been raising money for years to get Mike the things he has needed, including a motorized wheelchair, for years. You see, Mike was paralyzed from the ribs down, in a 2003 accident. He fell off a ladder while fixing up his house in Spain, and sustained a spinal cord injury. His death was a result of pneumonia, a common complication in spinal cord injuries.

The Dave Clark Five were part of the British Invasion, started by the Beatles in 1964, and which also included my lads, Herman's Hermits. This band was so much a part of my life. The Dave Clark Five were on the Ed Sullivan Show 12 times, and I probably watched it every time [eating Chinese food of course]

"Definitely, Maybe" Brings Me Back to the Clinton 90s

This past Sunday, my friend asked me if I wanted to see a movie. I jumped on the chance to go out and see something outside the four walls of my studio apartment. You see, I have ALS/Lou Gehrig’s Disease and I am confined to a wheelchair. Can’t really go anywhere alone, without a friend or my home attendant. My home attendant is nice, but she doesn’t share my taste in movies. I like independent films, and films I can talk about later. She prefers films that take her away from a boring hum-drum job, silly films that remind her that she can dream of a better life than taking care of me. I have many friends, and they do care about me, but from a distance. Since becoming disabled, I’ve had to accept that most of them can’t be bothered to spend time with someone who requires advance planning, can’t pick up anything I drop, and communicates by writing notes or typing into a machine that converts my text to speech [Lou Gehrig has robbed my ability to speak]. Most of my friends have raised their children already, and being with me brings them back to a time they don’t have energy for anymore in their 40s or 50s; they have to put the straw in my drink, fetch what I can’t reach, and help me put on and take off my outerwear. They’ve been there and done that, and they don’t want to deal with that, for someone who is older than first grade.

When I can take along my home attendant, it helps. But some people don’t want an extra person along. Furthermore, I have to pay my HA’s way, a hardship on my fixed disability income. So when this friend e-mailed me, I jumped. She is one of the rare people who will take me out, cut my meat if need be, and even deal with bathroom issues. But we had to choose a movie house within walking distance because wheelchair-accessible paratransit has to be booked the day before, and it’s not easy to get me and my foldable wheelchair in and out of her car. Pickings were slim in the immediate neighborhoods. There were lots of silly movies playing, but no thought-provoking fare. So I picked the lesser of the evils, a film called “Definitely, Maybe” because the TV ads were cute, and featured Abigail Breslin, who was adorable in the title role of “Little Miss Sunshine”, one of my favorite quirky films.

Well, it delivered as promised: a silly romantic comedy where the girls were cutesy and glib, and had those fabulous Manhattan apartments in the right up-and-coming neighborhoods. For anyone who is not from NYC, or has never apartment-hunted there, these apartments do not exist anymore, so don’t bother looking. At one time, you could brave an “edgy” barrio, complete with junkies and bodegas, in the hope that your persistence paid off if you stuck it out [and lived] for the next ten years. At least in Manhattan, there is nothing like this anymore. And even when it did exist, no young person without a trust fund could afford anything without one or more roommates, and for a stair-climb below the third floor.

But I managed to enjoy this movie. The two quirky love-interests, played by Isla Fisher and Rachel Weisz, weren’t gorgeous. And the guy, played by Ryan Reynolds, was cute, but by forty he would look as tired-out and world-weary as any guy you know.
But the part I liked most about this film was the time setting. You see, the main character moves to NYC from the Midwest to work on the Clinton campaign. By the way, that’s Bill, not Hillary. Yes, think back to the presidential campaign of 1992, which was an unbelievable 15+ years ago. Remember when we all wanted change from Bush? Does this sound eerily familiar? I remember it well, but what I really remember vividly is where I was the night of the election.

On that Tuesday night in November of 1992, I was watching the returns in the lobby bar of the Pier 66 Hotel in Fort Lauderdale. I had to get an absentee ballot when my boss at Cayman Airways told me I would be out of town for a sales blitz. I was Northeast USA Area Sales Manager, and I knew this trip would be my last hurrah with this company because they announced they would no longer be flying non-stop out of New York. So it was a time of change for me too. In fact earlier that day I set up an interview with another company by phone; I would meet with them when I returned home to New York.
What was so momentous about that night in the Pier 66 bar was that I was the only one happy about the outcome. My bosses were all staunch Republicans, and this was terrible news to them. My immediate director kept insisting I would keep my job, despite closing up the JFK Airport operation. But I didn’t trust that. When I found a job with another airline, I learned that they never hired anyone in my place.

I remember where I was on Bill Clinton’s Inauguration Day. Now a sales manager with a Chilean airline, I was making a sales call to a travel agency owned by an Ecuadorian immigrant. She had brought in a TV that day to watch the swearing-in of a new president. She felt, as did I, that this was a new era for her adopted country. We both watched William Jefferson Clinton take his oath of office amid a feeling of hope and optimism.

In the film “Definitely, Maybe” the scene jumps to 1994, and then the Monica Lewinsky affair. By then, I was a sales manager for a hotel chain, and I remember sitting around with my colleagues discussing this scandal. There is also a scene from the movie where the couple is listening to Kurt Cobain, and then she gives him the sad news some time later about Cobain’s death. I can recall sitting with those same co-workers discussing that death. For me, the optimism and change represented by those Clinton years was so real. As I write this, it doesn’t look as if Hillary is going to perpetuate that legacy. We are once again anticipating an era of change, albeit not with a Clinton in the White House, but with Barack Obama. Once again, I am hoping for a change from Bush, this time the son. “Definitely, Maybe” transported me back to a time of hope and optimism. I want that feeling again. I am hoping November’s election can give us that.

My Dad's Eightieth Birthday

Today is my dad Irwin's 80th birthday. Yes he was born January 24, 1928. Like all depression-era dads of the Jewish persuasion, his mantra is "Don't buy me anything; I don't want you to spend your money." This would not be so annoying if I knew something he wanted, so I could just send it to him. But the man has no interests besides the Disabled Veterans,of which he is an officer, his grandchildren [my sister's kids], and reading. I was thinking of sending him Tom Brokaw's new book "Boomer" because I know he will enjoy readin about the 60s, when he was a young-ish dad. But he thinks buying books is a waste of money. "I can just go to the 'liberry'", he says. Oh, what to do........

In Memory of Suzanne Pleshette aka Emily Hartley

I heard today that Suzanne Pleshette died and a few memories came back.
First, I remember how much she was a part of my 70s life, as Emily Hartley, wife of psychologist Bob Hartley of "The Bob Newhart Show". When I was at SUNY Stony Brook, few people were around on Saturday night on campus. Stony Brook was a real suitcase school, one of my biggest mistakes in life. But that's another story. So I and my boyfriend Jeff Nahmias would go over to Roth Quad and look to see if Bob Komitor and his gang were around for the weekend. We would get drunk or high and watch "The Carol Burnett Show", "The Mary Tyler Moore Show", and the "Bob Newhart Show". And of course after 1975, we watched "Saturday Night Live"

So today made me think about the seventies. And also about the first time I stayed up to watch "The Birds", that scary Alfred Hitchcock movie. Suzanne Pleshette was in that too, as Annie the schoolteacher who rents out a room in her cottage to Tippi Hedren. That movie freaked me out so much that my mom had to feed my pet parakeet, Davy Jones, for two weeks because I couldn't go near him!

Forced to Shut Up and Sit Still

I thought I would start by telling why I chose this title.
All my life, I have been running, always busy and always talking.
In January of 2004, I was diagnosed with ALS/Lou Gehrig's Disease. But this blog is not about that; I have a separate blog for that called Living With ALS, which you are welcome to read too.
But since I am now confined to a wheelchair and cannot speak anymore, I have been forced to shut up and sit still, and reflect on my life as a boomer [born June 7, 1955]

I will first open with a paraphrase of a question posed by the John Cusack character in the film "High Fidelity"

WAS I MISERABLE BECAUSE I LISTENED TO POP MUSIC, OR DID I LISTEN TO POP MUSIC BECAUSE I WAS MISERABLE.....

HMMMMMMMMM