The Frank Sinatra Song

It's not just a song. It's not just a singer. It's not just an era.

It's an everything that's almost impossible to explain. And the explanation is likely different for every Frank Sinatra Song listener. I can only try. Try to tell you what it means to me. What it does to me. How it can rearrange brain molecules. Turn me from one road to another (invariably to a better road). How it can bring back my physiology from 40 years ago -- from 50 years ago (yes, I go back that far). How it brings back my Dad.

My Dad was a Sinatra listener. It's how I ever heard him to begin with. My mother was a listener, too. She went to the Paramount shows. She sat through 2 films to see the stage show of big band plus Frank Sinatra. She stayed through it more than once. They took her bag lunch from her before she entered just to avoid such a thing. Missing lunch didn't stop my mom and her friend Rosemarie (my future godmother) from staying as long as possible. Every Saturday a big pile of brown-bagged lunches towered in the Paramount lobby. Then she went back at night with her aunt and uncle.

But my Dad. My Dad's not here anymore. So says the official word on all the physical things that says a person is on earth or not. But my Dad is everywhere still. Thank god for that. There can't really be a right world without him.

And when Frank Sinatra's singing he's here the most. 

I learned later that it was really Dean Martin that was my Dad's favorite.

No matter. The very tenor of Sinatra's voice sounds like my Dad's smile. The swing of the Nelson Riddle arrangements will always be the tempo at which my Dad danced. The open-hearted, ever-smiling wise guy attitude of Sinatra brings back my Dad's big laughs and wisecracks. The uplift of Sinatra's mood, how it can pull you up from the floor to the top of your favorite game -- that is all Dad. He did that without thinking. He did that with a look, a shake of his head, how he could cut through any mean mood and shake it down into just plain silliness.

Sinatra's heart-pouring ballads are Dad's easy tears, not sad tears, but tears that felt the earth, and the people, and the love. Tears that recognized life and how full it really is. Dad saw that. Sinatra sings it.

And as much as Sinatra carries my Dad's essence, and how my Mom owns Sinatra's music, it is so much mine, too. A child of the Beatles, I listen to Sinatra and feel: this is mine. This is me. This is what I am made of, too.

I guess because I'm made of my Dad. I'm made of my Mom. And, gosh darn jeepers, I'm lucky as hell. Ring-a-ding-ding.

When A Man Loves A Worm Moon

It's March. And the full moon that satellited around us on March 11th is known as the Worm Moon. You gotta love a worm moon. Just the two words together warms the heart. Worm and Moon. 

Now the reason they call it a worm moon (i'll bet you already know this) is because we've got spring sneaking up on us and that's when the worms start squirming around in the dirt again so that air and water can squiggle into the ground. The worm poop known as castings gives the soil a perfect nutrient-rich fertilizer. And a lot of it. 'Cause there are a lot of worms out there.

I'm talking earthworms. Kinda the building blocks of the plant world, which is, you may have noticed our world.

Which makes that "lowly worm" talk seem silly. Nothing lowly about them except their height.

Did you know that an earthworm has no lungs? They use oxygen but it goes in and out of their skin. No lungs, but FIVE hearts. Oh, yeah. And all those hearts makes for some mighty fine romance. Earthworms have all the equipment they need to make their own babies but, no, they'd rather rendezvous with another earthworm and take advantage of the "it takes two to tango" theory.

You see, it goes like this. The two worms (both of which have male and female reproductive organs) sidle up to each other and flatten out against each other perfectly. Then there's an exchange of the life-giving juice known as sperm (sometimes known as glue). Each of them gives the other some sperm. Then off they go on their own while their bodies choreograph an elaborate system of moving the sperm from section to section until it reaches the egg section. Once the eggs are fertilized they break off into a cocoon. Making more of these love-bugs.

Yes, the lowly earthworm. Dancing to the beat of its own drummer under the Worm Moon, which just may be the most romantic moon of the year. 

What's up with colonialism?

Yesterday marked the anniversary of Tibet's failed uprising against the Chinese. 

1959-2009. 50 years.

What's the point of taking over Tibet? The Chinese say they've modernized their world, set up a needed infrastructure, and dismantled the Dalai Lama's feudal system. Feudal system as in monk disciples? If anyone knows anything about the Dalai Lama, feudal lord is the last label on earth that could possibly fit.

So now that the Chinese have made things "better" in Tibet, the Tibetan way of life has almost disappeared (along with thousands of killed Tibetans). And now the Chinese live there, too. So the betterment was to make it hospitable for new settlers.

Sound familiar?

The West Bank, 

India,

Roman Empire,

"America,"

thousands more.

dictionary: "Colonialism is a practice of domination, which involves the subjugation of one people to another."

Pretty pushy, isn't it? Why would one people want to be subjugated by another? (They don't.) More puzzling: why does one people want to subjugate another? (To conquer, to subdue.)

I want what you have, get lost. I don't want to hear your complaining, stifle. I don't like how you do your thing, conform.

Of course, you can't do this kind of thing unless you've got an army. And guns. Weapons, etc. 

And then they put bows and ribbons on it and say it's for everyone's best interest.

Any cosmic relief in here? It's a hard one.

Reversals. They happen. They have happened. Somehow the weaker prevail. Somehow the stronger lose their wind. Sometimes with enough opposition, the bullies back off. 

When someone more powerful yells: "Hey you! Cut that out!"

And the more powerful can be the small, but collected. 

All the small ones saying at once: "Hey you! Cut that out!"

Critical mass becoming a fierce Tibetan deity ferocious enough to incite terror in evil spirits.

It's an ocean of grief. With a world halted like a ship without a sea.

Crappuccino

That's right, crappuccino. The other day I had a crappuccino. (I won't say where.) That's the "cappuccino" you get 99.9 per cent of the time in the United States. It has 2 inches of "foam" thick enough to hold up your spoon like a soldier at attention. I heard someone actually order extra foam. The makers of crappuccino think foam is good. They think it's authentic.They think that's Italian. They think that's the way it's supposed to be.

That's not the way it's supposed to be. That's not Italian.

Okay. So does crappuccino qualify as cosmic relief? No. But cappuccino does.

I've been to Italy enough times not to know how many times I've been to Italy. And every time I return to the States I cannot order a cappuccino (read: crappuccino) for at least six months. The memory of the real thing is too strong. Too wonderful. The taste of the perfect balance between steamed milk and excellent espresso lingers on long enough to launch me into Italian reveries for several minutes of every day. The cobblestone streets, the way-too-bright sun, the Italian voices chattering, the crusty brown buildings, the surprise splash of fountain 'round a corner.

Why is it so hard to get right here? They have the equipment. Those large hunks of machinery sparkle behind the counters here like they do behind the bars over there. Is it the American bigger and better syndrome? More cream, thicker foam, bigger drink? Filling a 16 ounce paper cup! Oiy! Italians would probably spit before it to get the evil eye out of their way.

When you get handed a cup of cappuccino you should be able to see the coffee color within the foam or rather let's call it cream...as in "crema." 

In Rome, they tell you to go to Sant'Eustachio near the Pantheon for coffee. And yes, you should go there. Coffee extraordinaire. But a typical non-celebrated bar in Rome will give you the authentic product, too. When they hand you your cappuccino (which you know should be a breakfast drink, not an after-dinner coffee) you can see the coffee delicately mixed with the cream on top. 

There is a bar in NYC called Macchiato near Grand Central Station. I almost fell down when the barista handed me a cappuccino. It was exactly -- I mean exactly -- like the best of Italy. The top had that beautiful pattern like a coffee and milk feather. I asked him where he learned his barista skills. He said Israel.

So you see, all you crappuccino makers. You don't even have to go to Italy to get it right. It may be learnable anywhere.

And when you do figure it out, you'll give the world outside of Italy some very necessary cosmic relief. Especially me.

Poor Pluto

Today's the anniversary of the discovery of Pluto. As in the planet. As in-- these days -- the planet NOT. The Un-Planet. But back in 1930 Clyde Tombaugh found Pluto in the skies just past Neptune. And suddenly we had Nine Planets in the Solar System.

I remember in the latter days of the 20th century (like the 90's) our great leader explaining in great detail why Pluto is no longer a planet. He didn't mind bursting our bubble. In fact, he seemed to kinda enjoy it. Like saying there's no Tooth Fairy, no Easter Bunny, no Santa Claus (not a Sanity Clause either). 

Before we go into the whys and wherefores you may be wondering just who is our leader? Why it's Neil DeGrasse Tyson, the head of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Not only is he a topnotch top-gun astrophysicist he knows how to tell you about what's up there, too. I took two classes from him. One: Space Science: An Introduction. The other: Astrophysics Roundtable. He'd get up on the auditorium stage and pace about as he spoke, writing things on the board, making diagrams, answering questions, all with such happy passion, it made you think that wallowing in the cosmos all day and night was a lot better than grocery shopping and worrying about the latest crimes and scandals on the news. Imagine always looking at the BIG picture.

I actually understood things like kelvins and energy production formulas and nucleons and inverse time and cosmological constants and equations for thermonuclear fusion. I'm not even a science person. But he made it all clear. Until I left the auditorium. Then it became a jumble in my head and rapidly dissolved into anti-matter. But the time in the class was precious. The whole universe sparkled with clarity.

Why is Neil our leader? (All of his students are supposed to call him simply Neil.) Because when the aliens land and inevitably say: "Take me to your leader," this is the guy we should take them to.

So Neil said there ain't no planet called Pluto. He says Pluto has peculiar written all over it. He says it's a leftover comet. It's too small to be a planet. It's made of a lot of ice. Its orbit isn't planetary like the rest of our planetary planets. Its tipped and not really following our solar system rules. Now it's called a Kuiper belt object (talk about a demotion!).

But, it's cute. And it's terribly hard to give up on an old friend. Especially one named for a cartoon character.

I suppose if we accept the rule-players and stick with the nice neat number of 8 planets, we'll have our solar system all tied up prettily in a bow. But for those of you (I'm not necessarily saying me. Remember I was in Our Leader's class) who are more comfortable with letting the marginalized IN, you can call Pluto to dinner when Jup, Sat, Merc, Mars, Ear, Ura, Nep, and Venus come over. You can let Pluto sit by the fire to warm up. Tell him he's not really an object at all. Except an object of your affection.

Secret Code

Did you ever drive down the street and for a second, or a moment, see with your other non-driving attention how wild it is that all these individually driven vehicles are actually not bumping into each other?

Oh, they do. Bump into each other. But for the most part, they don't. Each person behind the wheel has a different, unique personality. Each one has a head filled with different thoughts. Some want to go fast, some want to go slow, some are barely watching the road, others are gripping the wheel with vigilance. Twirling the radio dial, balancing CD changes, fussing with a telephone, spacing out. And yet all the challenges of staying within the "lines," turning corners, accelerating onto highways, passing giant trucks, maneuvering through packed parking lots, parallel parking, we somehow stay out of each other's way.

How do we do it?

It's almost as if underneath the buzz of traffic on the road, we've all made a secret pact to keep our distance, to behave, to slow down when the guy in front of us slows down, to stop when he does, to move over when someone is trying to speed behind us.

Okay. There is road rage. There are accidents. There are people intent on letting their brights glare in your eyes, or try to hook onto your back bumper, and, of course, we're protecting ourselves. But from a bird's eye view we're all a part of that big traffic pattern. We're like those coordinated dancer/marchers that take over a football field at halftime and make designs in the grass. Or like an Esther Williams-like swim team plunging and surfacing in and out of pool water in lovely synchronization.

We should congratulate ourselves.

We didn't even rehearse.

We kinda make up the dance as we go along.

And if we're lucky, we won't find ourselves on the wrong side of the routine. Hopelessly out of rhythm. Discarded by the side of the road for not obeying the time signature. Or even worse. For being in the wrong place at the wrong time when someone else jumps the code.

Driving: a demonstration of free will...on a leash.

"The Makers of Things"

And they said President Obama's inaugural speech had no sound bites.

It's been a long time since any politician has mentioned "the makers of things." President Obama put "the makers of things" on the plus side, in the constructive column, flagged as the good guys.

The makers of things -- as in not the paper-pushers, the number crunchers, the sales people, the MBA's, but the people who actually create something. 

The people who add to the world, who transform nothing into something, who put something before you that wasn't there before.

The makers of things imagine something and work it into reality. Maybe it's made in a factory, or a farm field; a theatre or a canvas. Maybe it's made of paper or steel. Maybe you can hold it or stand on it or sing it or read it.

More than piling up money. More valuable than money. Taking the invisible from the inside and making it a contribution to the outside.

"The Makers of Things." It's a perfect sound bite.

Starling Salon

They love the leftover water in my gutter and squish in together to get wet. In the early morning from my bed I watch my window speak like a ventriloquist. Starling squeaks and squeals mingle with their rumbling skinny feet. I'm too drowsy and sleep-eyed to get out of bed to look and can only smile at the window seeing in my mind's eye the pointy-beaked speckled comedians making a vaudevillian fuss over a puddle.

The Dark and the Light of It

I heard recently that astronauts train (used to train?) deep down in caves. Caves present that extraordinary phenomenon of complete blackness. They call it TCD: Total Cave Darkness. It's the kind of darkness astronauts encounter in outer space. Inner Earth. Outer Space. They have the same lighting, or no-lighting. When we close our eyes we see black, too. But usually not all black. I see light patterns, sometimes moving shapes, and one persistent design that has followed me my whole closed-eye life - a perfect 35mm frame of an amoeba burning in a stuck film projector. Sometimes faces fade in and out. Faces of no one I know. Sometimes carnival-like with exaggerated features. Not very friendly folk. Who are these people?

We don't usually like the dark. Maybe for sleeping. When you can't see you don't know where you are. But even so, you're right there. Being blind is not disappearing. What the blind see is the inside. Inside the cave. And outside. As large as Outer Space.

Makes you wonder where light comes from and why it decides to barge in on darkness. Is light the extrovert, dark the introvert? Light loud, dark dumb. Dusk, twilight, dawn. The wedding of the two. The romantic blending of extremes. The much more personable "grey."