Goodbye Amma

I returned today from Amma's funeral. Amma was my 87 year old grandmother. I wrote a eulogy replete with jokes and sweet memories of all of our years with her. I salted a few members of the audience so that my jokes wouldn't fall flat. This was the first time I had ever delivered a eulogy. I was sort of nervous and worried that my voice would quiver and that I'd be a puddle by the end of the first page. Things went surprisingly well. I have a Southwest Airlines flight attendant to thank for some coaching. I met this particular flight attendant on the flight from Phoenix to New Orleans. He appeared too old and well-spoken for the job. Turns out he was a rabbi in a Reformed congregation in Phoenix for 30 years before he fulfilled his lifelong dream of becoming a flight attendant. He informed me that his salary is the same (low triple-digits, in case you're curious). It's just that now he doesn't have to deal with Jews complaining about his sermons for a living. He cracks dumb jokes in front of the cockpit and pours diet cokes. Look for a balding man with the last name Pinkwasser the next time you're on Southwest.

I'm feeling good about the send-off we gave Amma. It was a simple grave-side funeral. The young rabbi, Uri, who presided had all of us shoveling dirt over her grave. I've never seen Augie (my brother)do that much physical labor. My uncle, Norman, was clutching his chest after 4 feet of earth covered her pine coffin. Amma would've said, "Isn't this what we paid the funeral home for? "The rabbi did the symbolic tearing of our clothing; for the ladies, it was a ribbon pinned to our lapels. We cried when my mom yelled "Goodbye Mom," down into the grave. All of our speeches included imitations of Amma's high-pitched thick southern accent.
Augie's speech involved a prop: an oatmeal cookie. Light rain fell as we walked away from the grave. God's tears, according to Uri.
I've said goodbye to a lot of loved ones over the past few years. This whole cycle of life thing is proving to be true. I guess I'm not getting out of here alive either. But in the meantime -
happy Halloween, keep in touch, and make your friendship with me a huge priority.

The Harvest On Its Way: A Birthday Dedication

It's with a heavy heart that I am in L.A. right now and NOT attending Blake's 35th birthday
in his backyard in San Francisco. I've got a valid excuse and it weighs about 21 lbs and crawls real fast.
I was along, via cell phone, for all of the decisions and hardships that came before this blessed event, so it's just not right that I'm AWOL. It sucks, and I spent all of today in a cranky mood.
For his birthday, Blake orchestrated a way for all of his friends who aren't afraid to get dirty and can handle a shovel to plant him a garden of his own replete with fruits, veggies and herbs. A chef should have his own artichokes, tomatoes and squash, right? Having friends with "agricultural"operations up in Mendocino County and lots of friends who know lots about landscaping, he should have it made. That, and a spit-roasted lamb - what more can someone with a belly want for?
Tonight's waxing crescent moon will glow over his new garden in his backyard. I look forward to the meals we will share over the next 35 years. Happy Birthday, saster.

Playing Swanee

You'd never know it now, but I spent ten years of my life taking weekly piano lessons. That's roughly 520 lessons! Put me in front of a piano now and I might play the same dirge that I was working on back when I stopped taking lessons at age 15. Or, I might piddle around and play a little part of Swanee by George Gershwin - lately, I find myself tapping it out on my son's Fisher-Price alligator xylophone. It needs some work...to say the least.

Over the years, I had four different piano teachers. The first was an older, bearded gentleman (at that time late 30's seemed "older") named Greg. He came to the house to teach me. We played a few songs that involved middle C. One song was called Halloween:

C-D-E, C-D-E, E-D-C, E-D-C: Halloween, Halloween, let's have fun, let's have fun

Bust that out at a holiday party. I accused Greg of stinking once. He never came back to the house after that. I was 5 years old. Years later, I realized that it wasn't him, but rather broccoli steaming. My mom was a vegetarian at the time.
Ava Rosenberg was next. She taught lessons to me and my brother out of a small studio at my school. She was sweet and had a dyed blond fuzzy mustache. I'll bet by now she's discovered wax is better than bleach for that kind of thing. She taught my brother how to play Saucer Man.

Then came Mrs. Phillips, who I studied under for the longest stretch of my career as a piano student. She worked at our synagogue and had actually given my parents lessons when they were newlyweds. She was a classic mean old lady who wore too much rose-scented perfume (luckily, she was never in the same room with Greg! Broccoli + Rose= ?). For years, she scolded me while I played, struck my hand with a pencil when it stumbled over the wrong notes and screamed, "that's an E, honey!" She entered me into recitals and forced me to play a duet with her on stage. These were my first episodes of anxiety that I can remember. I would get up on the stage, forget to say my name and what I would be performing, and do something really awkward like lick my lips in a circular motion. I must have looked quite psychotic. While on stage I would often blank-out on what piece I was playing - it was as if I had left my body there on the stage to fend for itself. I wonder if Mrs.Phillips is still kicking?

The last teacher I had, Tim Davis, is someone who keeps coming back to my thoughts. He died shortly after I quit taking lessons from him. Tim really wasn't a piano teacher by trade. He was, however, an excellent self-taught pianist and entertainer. My parents discovered and befriended him at a fancy party where he was performing. He was pretty stunning to behold: skin the color of caramel, a well-designed handlebar mustache and a body rippled with muscles that he didn't have to work for. He was a complete clown and really wasn't effective at teaching me piano. It probably had more to do with me and my programming. After years of traditional and classical instruction, I couldn't learn piano the groovy way. Playing by ear was out of the question. I needed to slave over sheet music, and I had no jazzy inclinations. Mrs. Phillips had ruined me.

Still, my parents payed Tim to come over every week. That's when I began working on Swanee by George Gershwin. Tim took away the sheet music and tried to teach me to feel the music. It's a project that was never completed. Perhaps my cousin, Jason, can sit me down and show me how it's done. We spent most of the lessons goofing off. Tim liked to imitate me, and I couldn't get enough of him. He made me laugh at myself and my mechanical approach to the keys. Sometimes we'd shout to each other during the entire lesson, as a means for more effective communication. He had nicknames for my different wardrobe ensembles. At that time, I was in a preppy, girly phase involving sweaters with hearts and tightly closed collars. He called my look "very puppy."
Tim and his wife, JoAnn, partied with my parents. Often, they would join us on our boat during the weekends. Tim was a one-man-party. They were guests at one of the rowdiest Thanksgivings that my house ever witnessed. Tim showed up at this jeans and tee-shirt event wearing a white tuxedo.
According to Tim, his mother was one of the vocalists from the original The Lion Sleeps Tonight - you know that backup melody? It was probably a lie, but I still think of Tim whenever I hear that ubiquitous tune.

Well, here's the heartbreaking part of this whole story. Apparently, Tim had a drug problem: crack, to be more specific. I never witnessed it, but JoAnn confessed the problem to my dad, who mentioned it blithely to me, as if a 15 year-old could handle that news. I became hysterical when I found out. I had only heard about people doing crack, and I never imagined that I actually knew one of these people. And, of all people, Tim! Things kind of fell apart for Tim; Jo Ann and her daughter kicked him out, and he stopped coming over to give me the lessons. My parents gave me the green light to abandon the piano, though I would, on very rare occasion, sit down and try to figure out the rest of Swanee. My dad still communicated with Tim, who was living in a rough part of town. He had become skinny and hollowed-out, but still maintained his handlebar mustache. I can't remember the last time that I saw Tim, but he didn't seem to have any special affection toward me at that point. Maybe he had left his body behind to fend for itself, like I did during those recitals. When you're a starry-eyed 15 year old, it's hard not to take things personally.

It's fun to think back and remember Tim and how he would croon along with my mechanical piano playing. I'm looking to get back into playing a musical instrument. Something where I can let go of my inner robot. It might not be the piano though. My dad, at 67, still takes piano lessons sporadically. He, too, plays like a robot, but one who's low on batteries. Next to him, I'm Ray Charles. My step-mother winces when he sits down to tickle the ivories. If Tim were around, he'd be marching alongside Dad at the piano like a member of the Korean People's Army with crossed eyes and his tongue wagging. Where did that Tim go?

To Share Or Not To Share

W.W.J.D? Is there anything written about this in the 10 Commandments? How about the Qu'aran?
TO SHARE OR NOT TO SHARE?
That is the question.

This morning at 7:58 AM, my landlord and his hound appeared at my locked gate. He rang the doorbell because he was desperate, I suppose. For the second time in less than a year, he had stopped up his toilet and came up to our house to borrow our plunger. Wire hangers weren't cutting it this morning, I'm assuming. Let's define the work of a toilet plunger, shall we? What is does is make mince-meat out of poo. Right? It's a job that needs to be done, and some years it has to be done more than others. Eat your fiber and you will be blessed - God willing, Baruch HaShem, Insha'Allah. And, it's worth taking the plunge (pardon the pun) to buy one of these things because you will inevitably need to do some mincing during your many decades on this planet (again, God willing, Baruch HaShem, Insha'Allah). Plus they're still pretty affordable.
Come upstairs once, fine. But, then go and buy one! And while you're at it, get some other personal items that you might not like to borrow from others: Prep H with the long applicator, Tucks pads, lube...what have you. Lending out my plunger to another person and then storing it, knowing it was mincing elsewhere - I have a beef with this. As my grandfather wrote in a letter he sent to me over 20 years ago: "neither a borrower nor a lender be."
I know it sounds crazy. I don't mind having one plunger per household for all who dwell under one roof to share. Guests are included. I just don't like the idea of mixing family matters. I like to think that there is some kind of biblical taboo.

Later on, when my awkward lonely landlord tries to return it, I'm not sure if I should allow it back in. It's been tainted too many times. It will be one of those conversations with a lot of fake politeness:

"No, really, you can keep it."
"You sure? I can buy you a new one?"

No, really, I insist.

What The World Needs Now Is Michael Franks

For many of you who admit to reading this blog, perhaps you'd also admit to owning a few Michael Franks albums. Maybe it's thanks to me. Or, maybe you happen to have impeccable taste. Since I've completely run out of blog-topics for the last two weeks, I thought I could turn some of you on to this exemplary adult contemporary music. Some friends have caught on and can see the genius, others think he's a cheeseball. My pal, Bruce, called it "Tootsie music" years back when I professed my love for Michael Franks. I happen to think Tootsie was a fine movie, and would have been even better, had they chosen a musical score by Michael Franks.
I got my first taste of his brand of music in the early 80's. My parents were fans and often played The Art of Tea, released in 1976. Back then my 2 favorites tracks were "Eggplant" and "Popsicle Toes." I used to run around the house reciting the lyrics: "You got the nicest North America this sailor ever saw - I like to feel your warm Brazil and touch your Panama."Of course, the interpretive dance that went with it was really special. If I'm not mistaken, I think it involved tennis balls and a pair of high-heels.

Undoubtedly, his finest album is Sleeping Gypsy. Every song is a work of art. Listening to this album makes you feel like you've lived on a yacht your whole life...and I'm not talking about the yacht that I lived on with my Dad yelling at me. This is the yacht where you eat tropical fruits and play the steel drum with your pet monkey on one shoulder and your Amazon parrot on the other. Oh, and in this world, you don't look like a ridiculous white person when you dance, either. Check it out if you don't already have it. A lot of peeps like to do the nasty to this album.

I like how ubiquitous Franks' music is, and it always appears when you need it most. I just received an e-mail from Sklave while on his honeymoon. He let me know that while dining in a kosher restaurant in Rome, "The Lady Wants to Know" (from Sleeping Gypsy) was cued up just as they finished ordering. Italians know what's up...
The television show Northern Exposure was smart enough to use the song "Monkey See - Monkey Do" on one of their episodes. I always wondered who were the Michael Franks fans out there? Are they fat and white? Lesbians? Are they always eating coconuts?

Fast forward to 2001. We find out that Michael Franks is coming to Atlanta, so we buy tickets to finally check out his crowd and get to see him live. [My mom had seen him in concert in the late 80's and was disappointed that he no longer looked like he did on his albums. Basically, he had gotten fat and looked old. It's kind of like the Christopher Cross thing. He was smart to put a flamingo on the cover of his hit album. Once you see him, "Ride Like the Wind" doesn't make you feel so foxy. Anyway, Franks hasn't had a decent album since Passion Fruit in 1983.] The crowd, much to my excitement, was mostly upscale African-American. Lots of the same people you'd expect to see at an Al Jarreau concert. But, the concert sucked. Franks looked haggard and didn't have a saxophone accompanying him. The band was dominated by an annoying pianist who thought he was playing free-jazz and some bad back-up singers. One thing Michael Franks' music is not and should not be is challenging. If it doesn't groove you into melancholy bliss like some kind of musical rum drink, then it ain't happening. We left early. It's not that we'd given up on him, it's just that we wanted to hold on to our image of Franks with long wavy hair, a mustache, tight jeans and a halfway unzipped Members Only jacket.


This photo of Biscuit in Peru was inspired by Michael Franks and our quest to capture his essence: There are 5 albums of his that should be in everyone's collection: The Art Of Tea, Sleeping Gypsy, Tiger In The Rain, Objects Of Desire and Passion Fruit. You can skip almost everything that came out between 1983 and 2006. I almost like his latest release, Rendezvous in Rio, as it feels like a throw-back to his old style. When morale is low in your house or you'd like to feel a little more like you just got back from Tahiti instead of Costco, pop in some Franks.
These days, Michael Franks has been splitting his time between Woodstock, NY, and Sanibel Island, FL, where he runs a shelter for errant Dachshunds. Is there anything jazzier than a wiener dog?

G-Dawg: The Kissin' Bandit

Today, around 11:50 AM, Bisq's 31 year-old cousin Grant, a.k.a G-Dawg, arrived at our doorstep with a six pack of Miller Lite and a cracked-open bottle of Diet Pepsi in hand. It's a rare occasion when G-Dawg comes to visit us on our own turf - maybe once per decade. You can't count the other miscellaneous visits that occur in between which take place at painful family pow-wows while I'm under considerable duress, being forced to eat desserts laced with Splenda and being drowned in syrupy small talk. It's so hard to get down to brass tacks when you're surrounded by a bunch of hyper kindergarten teachers, peanut-butter fudge, ladies in light blue polyester leisure suits and no alcohol.

Cousin G-Dawg flies planes and helicopters for Customs and Border Protection, a department under Homeland Security, and has done so for the last 9 years. He attends an annual three-day helicopter training in nearby Orange County, and that was the reason for the visit. He's Biscuit's only good-looking relative. He gets paid to shoot guns, fly planes and lift weights. He's possibly the most self-actualized person I've ever known, next to Oprah. He's a fine mixture of Bill Clinton and Forrest Gump: a smooth operator disguised as country pie. He was, of course, a high school football star in his backwoods Louisiana town, along with being an altar boy (more on the Catholicism later). His good looks are of the all-American-Varsity-Top-Gun variety. Plus, he's got the heavy duty Southern accent and is so polite that he opens the car door for the (female) driver in even the tightest of parking spaces. It really threw me off when we were both walking to the driver's side door with a mission. He wears a snug-fitting gold chain (which I've always been a sucker for) with a St. Mary pendant. Today, he donned an LSU ball cap, a polo shirt and some almost trendy jeans with a wide enough boot-cut leg to accommodate the Glock strapped to his ankle. His year-round tan is part of the job description, I'm sure.
Sexually, he's as screwed up as can be. At Bisq's bachelor party, he was throwing C-spots at the strippers so that they would expose Bisq's weenie. That's kinda...different. Mix that with the Catholicism and you've got yourself one twasted dude - so twasted that he goes to confession only at churches where he won't know a soul. When he confesses to his own priest, he'll say something like, "Well, I have been swearing an awful lot." He saves the good stuff for anonymous priests in far-away towns. There's a very real possibility that he'll be headed to a strange confessional in Costa Mesa before he catches his 6AM plane out of John Wayne Airport tomorrow. More on this later.

Shortly after his arrival, we went out to lunch and listened to all the tales of hot single gun-slinging southern pilots with badges. Good stuff. Much debate has ensued between the husband and I as to whether or not G-Dawg is a virgin. Remember, he is a devoutly guilt-ridden Catholic and has made allusions in recent years to holding out for the future Mrs. G. Dawg. And, as if he wasn't already crazy as a bag of mice, they have this uncle...let's call him Uncle Hugh, who is constantly dangling prosti...I mean escorts and wads of casino cash in front of him. The word on the street is that G.Dawg will do "everything BUT."
After lunch, I took him on an outing to Trader Joe's. I have to admit that being with G-Dawg makes me want someone to start some shit. On his badge, it states that its bearer is entitled to make arrests, conduct seizures, shoot your ass - whatever he's up for. While shopping for groceries, we had a buggy disappear with a few items in it that we had not yet purchased. I told G-Dawg about this and basically the two of us divided the store in half in order to chase down the outlaw with our cart. We were on a mission, and I saw that LSU cap bobbing down the supplements aisle out of the corner of my good eye. I felt like I was taking part in my first sting operation. Of course, I wasn't armed with anything more than some double-Ds and my keyless entry unit for my Altima. I figured G-Dawg would catch the "criminal" and conduct some border patrol-style seizure or shake-down. About 8 years ago, I had him handcuff me in my kitchen in Santa Fe. He could only get better with time. He's got moves.
Long story short, I found the buggy. No harm, no foul. G-Dawg found another buggy which he thought was ours and began to lay claim to it. It all ended with an "Aw man, mah baaad." I think he tries to conserve the searches and seizures for the border. It's tough being the guy with the guns, the badge and heart of gold!

At 6 PM he joined us on our evening walk to Bellevue Park and an idea came to me - wouldn't it be fun to watch G-Dawg go bonkers for my saucy red-headed upstairs neighbor? She's single, wears platform shoes and lives to Tango. At first, I thought she wouldn't go for him. She's somewhat artsy, part of that breed that goes to Argentina. Some grouches might view G-Dawg as a highly-paid, trigger-happy aviation cop from a small town. How hot is it to work for Homeland Security? Turns out, she's no grouch.
We waltzed upstairs only to find her and a few of her horny girlfriends lounging on pillows on the roof-top deck, uncorking bottles of everything from Champagne to Riesling. I had G-Dawg holding the baby as part of the plot to see if the girls were interested in more company. Within less than 20 minutes, he'd infiltrated the system, in spite of kicking over 2 wineglasses. My saucy neighbor was charmed by his country-ham accent and his faint resemblance to Matthew McConaughey. The girls were busy talking about sexy things in front of him whilst he slapped his knee and laughed goofily, flashing those pretty white teeth. This is his signature move. I was onto him, but the girls were eating it up; so much so that I left him up there to fend for himself. A little later, he came downstairs to tell us of the supreme pickle he was in: his plane back to Louisiana was leaving from Orange County at 6:00 AM. How would he manage partying all night with these 2 horny chicks and still make it home? "Maaann, it's fixin' to get ugly," he kept moaning. I believed it. This one roof-top chick, Felicity, mentioned the word "threesome,"which really got G-Dawg pumped up. I encouraged him to find a way to make it work. After all, flying down the interstate at 3:00 AM can't be much harder than shooting down a plane over the Gulf of Mexico.

Now it's Saturday and time for me to put this story to rest. I saw my red-headed neighbor this morning who told me that I could fix her up anytime. She spoke of the Dawg's sweetness and the smooches they exchanged around 1:30 AM. A perfect gentleman, she said. He didn't even try anything. Just a few minutes ago, when G-Dawg called to say thanks, he started the phone call off with a "HO-LEE COW!" and defined last night as a "wild time." The kissin' bandit does it again! I forgot to ask if he made it to a confessional this morning. After all, he claims that priests out here in California hear it all. No doubt, maaannn.

Big Blonde Hair, Highlights and Frost Jobs

I spent a few years as a blonde. I've taken the journey from brassy to platinum, streaked to frosted. Some actually thought that I was a natural blonde - gosh, I'm flattered. The times that I had my blonde variations, my mom was so proud; our family is terribly deficient in blondes. She always dreamed of having a pug-nosed Aryan daughter. Genetically, this was close to impossible. But, the dye job brought me a lot closer to this ideal. She still displays a photo of me from 1996 that we affectionately refer to as the "Lady Di." When I look at my wedding pictures from February 2002, I really do look like a Jewish Barbie Doll, which is a bit of an oxymoron, I realize. Biscuit has certainly had his share of bowl cuts, shags and spikey up-do's and could write his own hair annals, since his notorious looks deserve their own column. Look for that in August.

Let me explain something about my longest stretch as a blonde - once you move to Atlanta, GA, you feel it incumbent upon yourself to do away with dark hair. You start with a few highlights (right Roach?), then move on to blonde panels, until finally you say "what the fuck" and let the Roach dunk your head in a vat of bleach. For those who don't keep up with our impressive roster of stylists, Roach was and still is an influential hairdresser in the pricey Buckhead neighborhood of Atlanta. She styles everyone from sorority sisters to lesbians with mullets to straight men who look like middle-aged women and lots in between. Over the course of our 5 years in Roach's often inebriated hands, we were regularly morphed into any of these archetypes.
Our chance encounter with Roach occured at an Inman Park porch party back in 2001, shortly after 9/11. At this point in history, the world needed more blondes. It was no time to look drab with untreated dark hair and unpainted toe nails. Look like that: the terrorists win. Back at the party, it was difficult not to notice a wildly intoxicated bodacious blonde in the crowd. Bisq actually recognized her from some topless toga party pics he had randomly seen a few months before at a friends' house. Fate brought us together, one might say. So began a 5-year friendship which involved many a drunken haircut and loads of other activities that could only be shared with someone as twasted and fun-loving as the Roach.

Back in Santa Fe, we had Bob D., a gay Texan cowboy who lived on Coke (the soft drink, not the powder) and Creatine supplements and also taught us Body Pump. Once, while teaching Body Pump, Bob informed the class that he was wearing a thong and requested that we not gaze up his shorts during the abs routine. Love it. Mix a West Texas son of a regional soft drink distributor with a lot of International Male garments, a few missing teeth and a keen interest in beautifying Santa Feans and you get Bob. He had some incredible erotic art in his townhouse, which was littered with empty Coke cans with cigarette butts floating in them. Bob started me off with a few highlights framing the face - a pretty conservative look. Mostly we liked having breakfast with him at Harry's Roadhouse after Body Pump class where he treated a whole table full of female fans...and Biscuit.
I remember showing Bob my engagement ring at his salon. Like a good gay man, he called everyone in the salon over to have a tearful gasp. He looked me in the eye and said, "Oh dorlin..." And he meant it. Before we moved to Atlanta, he taught Bisq how to do my highlights out on his porch, so we wouldn't have to suffer once we got to Atlanta.

For some reason, we've gotten into the habit of befriending and socializing with most of our hairdressers. Actually, it all started back in 1996 with a dude named Henry Falcon. We met him through my fashion-forward grandmother, Amma. Amma was pissed at her hair salon and decided to have Henry come to her house to get her weekly coif.
Henry, as you can see, was a skinny, chain-smoking, foul-mouthed stylist who resided on the West Bank (New Orleans, not Israel). Henry liked to hang out with my grandmother who could have also been described the same way about 40 years ago, except she never lived on the West Bank and she never cut hair. Henry had a crush on Biscuit, but I have yet to meet a gay guy who doesn't. He was so surly that it didn't really matter. In fact, if I've ever called any of you "saster," it was Henry who taught me how. It was a fun relationship which resulted in some twasted hairdos. Last I heard, Henry had married some older wealthy dude in Asheville, NC. Every time I've been in Asheville, I've looked him up in the phone book - but to no avail.

I have to give a quick shout-out to Blake's ex, Rachel Milham, who briefly styled my hair at Gerogie's salon in Kenner, LA. She introduced me to Velcro rollers, which I used for a few months to give me that just-got-back-from-the-prom look. I felt like JonBenet! It's worth mentioning that "Milham" is a respected surname in New Orleans. Her dad, Dan Milham, is the trusted weatherman on Channel 6. I was definitely impressed at Blake's score: less than five years in New Orleans and slapping skins with a Milham. Not only that, she had a tongue ring, drove a white Mitsubishi Eclipse and had a best friend named Hottsey. That's the stuff of legends in Kenner. Kudos, Binki.

Of all of the relationships one might forge over a lifetime, I do think it's worthwhile to get tight with a stylist. It's always served me and Bisq. Although, after looking over these glamour shots...you be the judge.