Oh God

Friends of mine have been telling me for years now that God is trying to “get my attention.” They say this based on the path that my life has followed. My response is always the same, “I was put here for amusement purposes only. I am God’s comedic relief.” What else could explain this bizarre and crazy path?

I don’t know if God goes around trying to get people’s attention, and I definitely don’t know if he is trying to get mine. Oops, I said he, and of course I would have no way of knowing if God is a man, a woman, or some combination thereof. I don’t know if God exists, so I definitely don’t know what race, creed, color God is. Yet another of my favorite movie lines, “there are two things of which I am certain, there is a God, and I am not him.” I am actually not certain of either of those things, but I am pretty certain of the latter, although, if I were God that would sure explain the sorry state our planet is in right now.

I am not God. I am about as far away from being God as is possible. I do believe there is a God, or at least believe there is a higher power “behind the curtain.” I also know that God or not, higher power or not, if I am going to enjoy my third life I am going to have to be the one that makes that work. Not that there isn’t a plan, and not that fate does not play a part in all that happens, but even the most advanced form of “autopilot” still needs someone to point the craft in the right direction, set the course and turn the thing on. We have not yet reached “USS Enterprise” capabilities in domestic, international or space travel, and I would have to say this is true with the spiritual and emotional journeys that we are on as well.

Much of the time I would say I find myself hoping there isn’t a God, or wondering how there could be, with all that goes on these days, all that has happened in the world. 9/11 was a horrible day, a horrible event, and not something that a rational mind would say were possible if God exists; Katrina, the fires last summer in Northern California, the rapes, and child molestation, and senseless murders that occur every day, all around the world, and in our back yards.

It is comforting to send your thoughts out there and believe that there is someone listening. It has always been comforting for me to walk into an empty church, or cathedral, and light a candle and say a prayer for, or to, those that are no longer with us. I just have trouble making sense of the existence or not in my head, but I guess that is a part of the journey as well, whether there is a God or not. Even if there is a God, and even if this God had a master plan, why would he (she), have given us the ability to think, wonder, ponder, question if he did not want that to be a part of our journey.

This is what came out tonight as I started to type and so this is what I wish to share.

Thank you again for getting this far with me.

Phoebe In Wonderland

If you have not seen this movie, please do. I am a movie junky and I had not even heard of it, but Blockbuster On-line struck again. As soon as I saw Elle Fanning’s name listed under cast I had to rent the movie. Elle Fanning, younger sister of Dakota Fanning, younger enormously talented sister. What did the Fannings put in the water?

Yesterday I watched “Push,” a pretty good movie, very different which I like, and Dakota Fanning was a member of that cast. I rented that movie because Dakota was listed. Are you sensing a pattern here? Everything I have seen Dakota Fanning in has been amazing, or at least she has been amazing in each of her roles thus far. The same can now be said for Elle Fanning, or least for the movies I have seen her in, one so far. These are two very young, very talented actors.

The movie though, “Phoebe in Wonderland,” is extraordinary. To me any movie that makes you laugh, or cry, or think, is a good movie, well this movie does all three, at times at the exact same time. It also has you on the edge of your seat, or squirming, or fidgeting, and yes I typically do all three, but watching this movie I was compelled to do so.

Please don’t misunderstand, this is not a comedy, this is not a love story, this is not an action film, this is simply a very strong, very deep, very moving story, very stirring story. The message, or messages, is very much worth whatever it cost to make this film, and more. The way in which the story is told is unique in its own way. The characters are each fully developed and with great detail, and depth. This movie is not at all what I was expecting, and yet it pulled me in and touched me.

Phoebe in Wonderland is filled with emotion, the actors show it, feel it, exude it. Please just watch this and allow yourself to be overcome with it. I am sorry, but after watching this film I am, for me, mostly speechless.

Thank you again for getting this far with me.

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

I was speaking with a friend of mine today when something he said made me realize there was only one thing I could write about tonight. We were discussing upcoming plans for a trip I am making back to Chicago where I was based for eight years while working for the “firm.” Being based there did not mean much as all but one of my clients was out of town, and the one that was in town was my first client. What this means is that I was traveling somewhere every week for seven and a half years. The travel is actually the part of the job I enjoyed the most, one hundred plus flights a year, not remembering where you were at times, especially when you wake up in a hotel room that looks a lot like the hotel room of where you were in the city you just left, yes that is the part I liked.

Being based in Chicago meant being able to be there on weekends when you wanted to be there, and going to Cubs games with friends, co-workers, strangers, just to be in Wrigley. My first trip to Chicago was for the on-site “interview,” where you basically had to steal money from the person interviewing you to not get hired. The hiring process was so regimented that by the time the firm flew you somewhere to be interviewed it was more an opportunity for you to interview the firm about the job, the place, the people, and to find an apartment, see the city, decide if this is where you wanted to be - I wanted to be in Chicago.

I am a Cubs’ fan, and I have been a Cubs fan for a much longer period of time than I can remember. Having moved to Chicago from Northern New England, I am also a Red Sox fan, and have been for the past twenty four years, and so moving to Chicago and living four blocks from Wrigley field was amazing. Actually, when I was in town, all of my running routes had me passing Wrigley at some point in the run because it is such a beautiful and historic place, not historic necessarily like Gettysburg, or Philadelphia, or even Boston, but historic exactly like Fenway. The other part of being a Cubs and Red Sox fan is that at the time I was in Chicago both clubs still had their respective curses. The Cubbies, of course, still do.

So my friend and I were talking this morning, morning my time afternoon his, and we are discussing plans for the trip out there, a trip I moved up a few days so I could be there for the weekend of his son’s birthday, two days before mine, and his birthday party is on the Saturday I fly in. I called today to find out the details of Saturday, and also in the back of my mind I was hoping that maybe there would be a baseball game scheduled in there somewhere. So we are on the phone catching up, and I am telling him my travel plans, and he is talking about his son, and he says “too bad you won’t be here for Saturday because we are going to the game.” Of course when I hear this my ears perk up and I say “I will be there for Saturday because I changed my flight when you told me to be there for the weekend,” and his response was “no I mean this Saturday.” I was crushed.

Part of this is because we are a somewhat like Abbott and Costello. He has a bit of a problem hearing everything I say sometimes, or anyone for that matter, when he is focusing on something else, and he was calling from his office. I can see his wife reading this tomorrow and beaming because she agrees with me on this point. Much of our conversation today was a bit of “who’s on first? I don’t know. Third base.”

Anyway, so eventually we got to where I had pulled up the Cubs schedule on my computer to see if they were playing when I am there, and they are, so we decided to try and see a game the day after the birthday party, Sunday, and take his kids. This is where the decision to write this piece tonight comes in. His son, born in Chicago, raised on the North Side of Chicago, for the most part, living in the suburbs of Chicago now, and having been given a Cubs hat, by me, upon birth, is not a Cubs fan!! Not a Cubs fan?? Yes, I said not a Cubs fan!@!?*?

The amazing thing about this is that not only is he not a Cubs fan, but he is a White Sox fan!!??

That definitely deserved its own line. So, if you live in Chicago you are either a Cubs fan, or a White Sox fan, but never both. You are a Bulls fan, maybe now, definitely then, thank you Michael, you are a Blackhawks fan, still, and you are a Bears fan because they are, Da Bears, but you have to pick a baseball team. This is where it gets tricky (read dripping sarcasm), if you grew up north of Wacker Drive you are a Cubs fan, if you grew up south of Wacker Drive you are a White Sox fan. There is also a blue collar, white collar thing so it gets a little bit fuzzy, but for the most part north is Cubs, south is White Sox, and to make it even simpler, the “New” Comisky is roughly the same distance south of Wacker as Wrigley is north of Wacker. I did not make the rules here, but it is about as simple as simple can be, and yet the kid is a White Sox fan. That is almost as bad as growing up in New England, especially Northern New England and being a Yankees fan!!


Thank you again for getting this far with me.

The One that Got Away

I am not talking about a fish here, although going back for a minute to my oldest friend, he and his father will tell you that somehow when we were very young we had all gone fishing for the day and the only one to catch the “big one” was me, the youngest and least experienced of the lot. He and his father, the original Marlboro Man, literally and figuratively, are the hunters, the outdoorsman, and I was just a lucky little kid that day I guess, but enough of that.

The one that got away for me is now hugely successful, still drop dead gorgeous, extremely intelligent and incredibly sweet, she is also someone that none of my friends or family ever knew, so if they are reading this now they can put away their lists.

I was working as a global consultant for one of the “Big Six” consulting firms at the time, boy has that all changed, this one was actually the biggest and the best, and they still are, but that meant that I did not have much time for anything other than work. The job was nothing but travel, especially back then, pre 9/11, pre economic crunch, car manufacturers disappearing, airlines being bailed out over and over, no this was the time of excess, with amazing flights and service and ease of travel from one side of the globe to the other.

I had been traveling so much that an “old football injury,” yes I do now have those, was really starting to bother me. Basically, my left shoulder had become so lose that it was floating too much and there was a great deal of what they call “bone on bone” contact. It was to the point that to push on a revolving door hurt it too much. I decided that I had to see someone to find out how bad it was and what could be done, and given what I was doing at the time, the way I did it, and the time pressures associated, we did not take much chance when it came to anything, especially when it came to doctor care.

I decided that the best option was going to be to find an orthopod, or orthopedic surgeon, that I knew was as good as it gets. I was officially working out of the Chicago office and so I decided to call up Northwestern University’s Football Office and ask who their orthopod was for shoulders. We had a connection with the firm because their head coach at the time had spoken to multiple groups for us.

Once I had the contact information I reached out to his office to schedule an appointment to get the shoulder evaluated. The only problem was that the woman that answered the phone for the doctor, and scheduled all of his appointments, threw me as soon as we started talking. “Verbal sparring” for me is very important in people, women, with whom I spend time. There is a certain amount of intelligence, confidence, and craziness, good crazy not bad, that is required to be good at the art of verbal sparring and this young lady was more than good this particular art. I actually found myself, after a period of time, making up reasons to call the office to ask questions or to get more information. This went on for quite some time before I actually went in for the appointment.

Something I did not know until later, she was looking forward to these calls as much as I was, and while I had reached a point where I had gotten it in my head that if there was a physical attraction, a chemistry, to go with the connection we, or at least I, already felt, I was absolutely going to have to marry this women.

After a solid month of calls, and follow-up, and questions in both directions, some related to the shoulder, and some not, I finally had the appointment. When the appointment was over I asked to speak with her and she came out of the back office, the administrative offices to say hello, and I am pretty certain that in that moment I lost the ability to speak, and perhaps even to breath. This woman was stunning, with a smile that matched her personality, part smartass, part sweet mid-western girl. I was doomed.

We said our brief hello, she tried to be somewhat professional and ask if everything went ok, were there any questions, stuff like that, but basically it was just a bunch of noise in my head, like the 4th of july had come early just for me, I could hear nothing and think of even less.

I remember leaving the office, going down the street to a pay phone; yes they still had them at this time, and calling her office to apologize for being a babbling idiot and embarrassing her in front of her coworkers. She just laughed it off and made me feel better about the entire encounter, so much better that we continued to speak regularly after that point. Of course we still had to because I had surgery to schedule and pre-surgery whatever they call it, and post surgery appointments, but most of all I had to speak to this amazing woman as often as possible.

One thing that came up from time to time during these conversations, as they moved from mostly doctor related to mostly not, was that there was a strict policy of not dating patients, that was just something to deal with eventually, and eventually was going to be once my last post surgery appointment was concluded, all the billing was done, and I had been cleared to go back to work. I could not wait, through thirteen seasons as a high school and college athlete; I had never wanted any injury to heal faster. It eventually did.
Once there was no more need for me to see the doctor, and to visit the office, I had to call to see what her thoughts were on the end of me as a patient, they were very much the same as mine, and so a plan was hatched. I vaguely remember a lunch or something near her office, but not certain, but do remember what I have ever since referred to as “the greatest first date in history,” at least my history.

I very much enjoy Toronto, I had been there every week for fifteen months with a client, and got to where Toronto felt like a second home. The people are extremely nice, although this was during the Blue Jay’s run to two consecutive world series, so there was some issue dealing with the gloating, and it was also during the Bull’s bid to win a championship without Michael, part 1, and famous phantom foul on Scottie Pippen, which if you can get a Canadian sports bar to put on NBA basketball instead of hockey and curling…yes curling…good luck.

Anyway, this is a clean, safe city, with great food and great theatre and so I decided that to fly up for the weekend, see a show, eat some great food, pick up a couple of European cut suits along the way would make for a great weekend, it didn’t really feel like a first date anyway since we had already gotten to know each other so well. The most important thing was that she said yes, I don’t know how, or why, but she said yes and I was delighted, scared out of my mind, but delighted. Now it was time for me to do what I do, put together a weekend she would not forget.

We flew first class; we stayed downtown in the nicest hotel and the nicest room I could find. We had dinner each night at two of my favorite restaurants, we had tickets to Phantom on Saturday night, seventh row center, there is no better seat for that show. We went to the stage door afterward and I introduced her to Peter Karre, the Phantom, and we walked with him for a bit on his way home. She was swept off her feet. As Harrison Ford’s character says in Sabrina, “after a few days of that she would have fallen for Noriega.” He was not speaking of my date for this weekend at the time, but he may well have been.

Ok this is the part where you may want to remove anything from the room that could potentially be thrown at the computer. We did not get married. We did not really date. We did lose touch sort of, which means every time I go through the process of cleaning out my contact information, as I did this afternoon, I run across her cell phone number and I call her to say hello. I always hear the same exact tone in her voice, that one of is it really you, and there is still a spot in my heart, and why didn’t you make this work. All of what I can hear in her voice makes me feel guilty, and stupid, and sad all at the same time.

After all, she is married now, just had a baby, well last year, has a thriving practice with her husband, who I very smart, very capable, and a great business man. I am still single, and it is because I always seem to find a way to screw up the good things and stick with the bad…yes dad the first step is to admitting you have a problem.

She has an amazing voice, an amazing smile, an amazing sense of humor and intellect, and the greatest name of any woman ever, and she is definitely the one that got away.

Thank you again for getting this far with me.

The Sound of Silence

I have always loved music. When I was little, from my earliest memories, there was always music in my life, whether it be going to sleep at night, at age six or seven, to the sounds of “Bye, Bye Miss American Pie,” or the many songs from the late sixties, early seventies, that I, to this day, associate with being near the water and sailing the summer away.

When I was in high school and college I never went anywhere without the music cranked in whatever car I was driving at the time, from my grandfather’s brown, Plymouth Valiant, which we eventually put a better radio in, to my dad’s Plymouth Fury, man could that car fly, to the 1982 Toyota Corolla lift-back that I had all through college, thank god for the lift-back, but that is a very different story.

I was a percussionist from 4th grade on, actually if you count the pots and pans in my grandmother’s house much earlier, and then in band, orchestra, marching band, jazz band, and eventually a couple different rock bands. I was also in the “pit” for three musicals in high school, I was the percussion section, everything from the “traps” to the tympani, to the paper bag, when Charlie Brown gets his kite stuck in a tree and it rips.

In my adult life, I have seen countless musicals, on Broadway and around the world. I have seen Phantom eight times now, in four different cities, the one in Chicago was a road show, not done well, and the last in NY had its issues, but the Toronto shows never disappointed, with Peter Karre in the lead each time. Fosse, which I also saw in Chicago, was amazing. If I ever get the chance to see that show again I will in a heartbeat. I will say out loud that I did not like Les Miserables, I can hear the shocked responses as I write this, but so be it.

When I drove from the East Coast to the West Coast I had ever intention of listening to music the entire way. I packed every CD I owned into the car and had them readily accessible. I also had Italian language CDs as well for the occasional break from the music. What I discovered is that I spent eight to ten hours a day, for nine days, listening to the smoothness of the car, and the sound of the airstream over a well designed car at eighty miles per hour. I found myself looking out the windows, in all directions at nothing, and enjoying the view. I found myself driving through North Dakota, while the whole country was watching the flooding there on the news, completely unaware of the situation until I drove by oceans that were once fields on either side of the highway, for the better part of the day.

When I listen to music now it still has the same effect on me it always has, and if I hear one of those songs from my past that I loved then and still love now I will crank up the sound system and bug my neighbors. If I hear songs on last.fm that I have not heard before, or artist I have never heard of playing something that sounds familiar, I will crank that too. When I decide to hit the way back machine and start listening to Ray Charles, Dizzy Gillespie, Louie Armstrong, Dave Brubeck, Stevie Wonder, from the early years of his career, I crank that stuff up and pull out the sticks and away I go, traveling back to a time when I could play a little, when music was everywhere, when I had friends that I played and listened to music with.

I still love music, but there is a great deal more silence in my life today. I still love music, but listen far less frequestly. I still love music, but haven’t played a lick in a very long time. I still love music, but can’t remember the last time I really danced. I still love music, but I spend most of my time listening to “the sound of silence.” I wish I knew why.

Thank you again for getting this far with me.

Searching for Bobby Fischer

I have chills. I just watched the introduction to “Searching for Bobby Fischer,” a movie that is a bit about Bobby Fischer, first World Chess Champion from the United States, but it is a lot about a seven year old boy named Josh Waitzkin, who just started playing chess one day after watching it being played in the park, and he knew how to play, and he knew how to win.

Bobby Fischer is just one example of what I wish I had, what I wish I was. I say what I wish I had because Josh had a gift, a gift that was just in him, and one that no one else had, no one else understood, and no one else controlled, he also had a focus when playing that was impossible to duplicate, he just saw the game, saw all of the pieces, saw all the moves, and that was in his head, lastly, he had a kindness about him, a goodness that was remarkable, my mother would say I had that when I was young, others would say I still do, but his was just a pure, good heart. I say what I wish I was because to feel what it is like to “just play,” as the main character in the movie “Good Will Hunting” says while trying to describe what it is for him to see math, what it is to be a genius at any level relative to anything.

There are those that have these gifts, that are born with an innate ability, some do great things with these gifts, and some don’t, but they have these gifts. There are many more such people, but many of them you never even hear about because their gifts come at a price, come with strings, come with a pressure and expectation that most cannot face or deal with. Others have these gifts, but don’t have the means, or the opportunity, to show these gifts, grow these gifts, use them in the way they were intended.

I am in awe of these people, and I am extremely happy that people such as this exist, and even happier that some, not many, but some, get to use their gifts and show their gifts to us, allow us to share in these gifts even if just briefly.

Josh Waitzkin’s Biography and Website
Charlotte Church Biography and Website
Josh Groban Biography and Website
Tiger Woods Biography and Website
Gioria Fumanti Biography and Website

Thank you again for getting this far with me.

America the Beautiful

I spent my day yesterday in the sun with some friends trying to help them sell some food at the Farmer’s Market, but really just chatting. It bugs me now when I use the word chatting because it seems to have too much of a computer connotation now, but people still do chat in person. Anyway, at one point I mentioned to one of them that he was not looking very 4thish because he was wearing an olive shirt and olive shorts and hiking shoes of some kind, as opposed to my choice of very red t-shirt, khaki shorts, and running shoes that were white with navy blue trim and logos.

His response to this joke about the difference in our red, white and blue attire, or lack thereof, was “patriotism is dead.” What? I thought it was just seriously wounded but expected to make a full recovery. As Robin Williams put it “the George W is gone…America is officially out of re-hab.” Again, I am not a democrat, I am not a republican, I am an American, and as an American I find what Mr. Williams said to be funny, and was crushed to hear that patriotism is dead.

Patriotism is not dead, it has just been drowned out by all the noise being made by the “Y generation,” which I am hereby renaming the me generation, but wait, because I need to point out that much of this generations focus on themselves, and instant gratification, and no one ever saying no to them, began with their parents. Some of those parents are as bad in this sense, or worse, than their children, and they have, without a question, enabled this behavior at every turn.

This piece is not about “Gen Y,” however, it is a simple declaration that patriotism is not dead, and that simply because things are as bad now as they have ever been, at least for the majority of today’s population, “baby boomers” and younger, does not mean that we give up, quite the opposite, it means we get loud, we dig deep, and we find a way to take back this country. This is not about whether it is possible or not, it is a simple matter of making it happen.

My friend continued to make a number of valid points about what we have done, or are doing as a country, and the problems we are having, and the financial hole we are in, and my response was the same all the way through, “so what.” Anything that anyone can say about how bad things are right now, anything anyone can say about what is wrong, or what we are doing now that does not make sense, we just need to keep saying “so what,” or perhaps “it is what it is,” and then move on and find a way to make it better. We, as a people, as a country, cannot do anything about where we are right now, we are where we are, but we can all do something about where we are going and the more we can work together to find solutions, and to be heard at the highest level, the better chance we have of taking back this country.

We have gotten fat, lazy, complacent, spoiled, pick your word, that is us, or the big us, the US. However, just as with anyone who has become lazy, fat, complacent, the answer is simple, get up, get moving, change the behaviors that are inherently bad, and take action in a direction that is inherently good. Basically, be a patriot. Now is not the time to wear less red, white and blue, it is the time to wear more. It is not the time for those that are feeling as though we are less than we once were as a country to back away, accept it as fact, and live their own lives as best they can, it is time that everyone in the country wear any red, white, and blue that they can, to show the rest of the country, our leaders, and the rest of the world that we are still here, we are still one, we are still the Red, White and Blue, the US of A. It is just simply time for a revolution befitting the times, a revolution that is not fought, but rather shared, not one of bloodshed, but of hard work, and sweat, not one of physical strength and brawn, but one of mental strength, discipline, determination, hard work and sacrifice.

We in this country have sacrificed an awful lot in the past decade, and especially the past few years, and some, much more than others, but it is time for everyone to do what is necessary to put this country first, and their fellow countrymen first, to take back this country. Enough is enough. This is not complicated, it is not being the grasp of the people in this country, this is something we can all do, but first, everyone needs to decide to do so together, from the poorest of the poor, to the richest of the rich, and everyone in between, those that can do the most should do the most, and those cannot afford to do as much need to do what they can, and all those that can help others should.

This is simple, it starts by reaching out to someone today and making their life a little better, then tomorrow everyone does a little more, and a little more, and soon we would be at a place where people are looking out for themselves far less and each other far more and then the bigger changes we need to make will be that much simpler.

Thank you again for getting this far with me.