"Introducing..."

Here’s the story… all in one place.  From my own personal perspective.  (As it is the only perspective I’ve got.)  (And it is so seductively dominant it smothers my ability to write from any other perspective.)

It began last Father’s Day.  I had been angling for an electric razor, hinting, annoyingly frequently, “I’d like an electric razor for Father’s Day.”  No beating around the bush.  Otherwise, I’d wind up with socks.

Father’s Day arrives.  We have a family gathering in our basement.  Before we eat, Anna insists we all assemble on the couch so she can present me with my Father’s Day present.  (I wonder what it is.)

She instructs me to read the card first.  Turns out, it’s a multi-pager.

The first page says,

“”Happy Father’s Day!!!  We got you an electric razor which wasn’t a surprise at all (since you asked for it several times), but we thought father’s day isn’t complete without a surprise…

I flip to the second page, which reads,

“This page is for suspence (sic).”

I then curiously turn to the third page, which stunningly announces:

“We’re having a baby!!”

On the bottom of that page is a sonogram of the blessed Baby Girl in utero.

Including her projected “Due Date”:

January 20^th, 2018. 

FLASH FORWARD:  SEVEN-AND-A-HALF MONTHS LABOR – HA – I MEAN LATER.”  

SATURDAY DECEMBER 2^nd, 2017.  

The awaited Baby Girl in utero is not due for another seven weeks.  With time to spare, I head off to Rancho La Puerta, because my pants don’t fit, except for my Levi’s “Stretchy Jeans”, and even they’re going, “We are not miracle workers!”  I am scheduled for a trip to Toronto the following week and, being winter, I felt it unwise to show up there without pants.  I wisely went to the Ranch to drop a few.  Pounds, not pantalones.

TUESDAY DECEMBER 5^th, 2017. 

I get a call from Los Angeles.  Anna’s just had a sonogram.  The seven-month

Baby Girl in utero, although otherwise healthy, is experiencing nourishment difficulties.  As a result, the projected “delivery” has been advanced from January 20^th 2018 to sometime before New Year’s.  The six-and-change-week “Due Date” has now contracted (to pun intended, honest) to three. 

Cause for worry, but not serious concern.  (Although the two feel anxiously interchangeable.)

FRIDAY DECEMBER 8^th 2017.

The evening before I am to return home, I receive another phone call, informing me that Anna is now in the hospital.  A follow-up precautionary sonogram prescribes “round-the-clock” monitored surveillance.

Barring further unexpectednesses, the baby girl is now scheduled to arrive in two days.

I feel like I am selfishly in the wrong place.  A once seven-week “Due Date” has shrunk to “The day after tomorrow.”  And I’m having fun at the Ranch. 

SATURDAY DECEMBER 9^th, 2017.

I am departing Rancho La Puerta, somewhat wobbly, and vulnerably alone.  The sacred mountain’s invisible Mariachi band bolster my spirits with me a stirring, encouraging composition:

“She’s on her way!

 They’re gonna have a little baby

 They’re gonna call her Golda, maybe…”

I am determined to remain positive.  But being me, the darker alternate lyric,

“She’s gone away…”

looms shatteringly on the periphery.   

I get home.  I quickly jettison my luggage and head immediately for the hospital.  The medical staff seems upbeat.  I am not certain if they actually are or it’s how they are taught to be in medical school.  I put on a “brave” face.   But despite my most determined efforts, the face beneath it occasionally breaks through.

Sunday December 10^th, 2017.

We come back the next morning.  The procedure – a “C-section” – takes achingly longer than we were told it would take.

May I stop for a Steven Wright joke?

Thank you.

“I was ‘Caesarian’ born.  Can’t really tell, although whenever I leave a house, I go out through the window.”

The baby finally arrives.  Healthy.  And fully functioning.

Though weighing 3 pounds, fifteen ounces.

You can buy lobsters bigger than that.

Anna and Baby Girl “Preemie” remain in the hospital.  I depart for Toronto.  I come back with a cold.  (Later diagnosed as a virus and a bacterial infection.  I do not know how anyone in Canada is still alive.) 

Awaiting their new house to be completed, Anna and Colby and the growing (surging to five pounds) Baby Girl “Preemie” are staying with us.  Harboring lingering symptoms of my illnesses, when visiting her room, I am instructed to don a protective mask, and keep my distance from my new granddaughter. 

A highly disorienting week. 

Which seems to have turned out okay.

The preceding narrative is a thumbnail summary of recent events, for those who inquired about it.  And also those who did not.  (A recent addition to the family has not exonerated me from “the spectrum.”)    

And now, it is with bursting enthusiasm that I introduce to you, and to the world…

Golda Lee Buddelmeyer. 

“She’s here to stay!

 Oh what a lovely little baby

 They’re gonna let me hold her, maybe

 Hip, hip, hooray.”

"No Offencs, Eh?"

We are going through “Security” at the L.A. airport, our “Paperce” surrendered to an official-looking female “Gate Keeper”, when I twinklingly remark to my accompanying family,

“She looks tough, doesn’t she?”

And she gets (at least mock) annoyed.

“‘She looks tough’?  Hmph!  Why didn’t you say, ‘She looks ravishing’?”

My stammering response is in the vicinity of,

“That goes without saying.”

But it was too late.  I mean, geez, I had never even imagined her suggestion, sticking instead to a minimal level of potential personal offence, because, yeah…

In this (overdue) era of harassment sensitivity, I’m going to tell some anonymous Authority Figure she looks “ravishing”?

How exactly would that be received?

This isn’t about that, though it reflects similar dynamics as “an opportunity for (possibly) offence.”  Like all demonstrable grievances, there are legitimate ones worthy of serious response, and there are,

“It’s six-thirty A.M. at the airport and he’s traveling with children.  I’m letting this go.”

Again, not saying – to be totally clear – there are not times to go,

“Hey!”

But adult people have to – sorry, “have to” just slipped out, but, you know, we’re grownups.  We can make reasonable distinctions.

Right? 

That’s a “soft” right, even though I gave it its own line.  Communicational clarity becomes trickier without modulating inflection.

So here – ‘cause I’m in Canada – is a Canadian story along those potential umbrage-inducing lines.  You decide if harboring insult in this particular example is appropriate, and, if selected, an acceptable counter-response is “Keep your shirt on, eh?”  (A sartorial allusion which itself could create difficulties.)

Here’s the story.  An, admittedly, cherry-picked example, but I am assuming the blogger’s recognized “Cherry-Picking Prerogative.”

The iconic SCTV, produced in Alberta, Canada.  With a Canadian overseeing producer.

They are performing this sketch, wherein the scene’s blowhard “Wise Guy” character delivers this disparaging put-down:

“Where’re you from, Cleveland?

The director calls “Cut!”  The “creatives” are satisfied, but the producer has the determining say.  Will it be  “Moving on” or “Try it again”?

The producer has a troubling “concern.”  Though SCTV is meant for multi-national distribution, why this American reference to “Cleveland”?  Could they not instead select a Canadian reference?

The “creatives” shruggingly defer, making the requested adjustment.  The scene is reshot.

Relevant Comedy Note:  Words with the hard “K” sound are demonstrably funny.  “Pickle” is funny.  “Cucumber” is funny.  “Celery” is not funny.  Okay, it’s a little funny, especially the wilty kind.  But it is not as reliable as “Pumpernickel.”

They have replaced the “intruding” American reference with a Canadian locale, sharing the dependable hard “K.”  In the revised version, where they had before said,

“Where’re you from, Cleveland?”

They now instead say,

“Where’re you from, Monckton?”

The director calls “Cut!”  The “creatives” are happy.  They have bowed to the producer without jeopardizing the “funny.”

The producer approaches, all are convinced, to “Green light” the move forward.  But instead, the first words out of his mouth are,

“What have you got against Monckton?”

So there’s that.

You select the appropriate word for the “funny” and inadvertently catch heck.  For selecting any place.  In Canada.  For selective disparagement.

I am supportively on board with gender and cultural sensitivity.  I just don’t always know where the line is.  And when someone preemptively draws that line for me…

I don’t know. 

Does that bug anyone else?

Or is it, once again, just me?

"Writer In The Sky - The (Occasional) Continuing Story"

“Writer in the sky

 Making time go by

 Keeping out the thought

 That we are really high.”

“Congratulations, Earlo.  You wrote an entire “Airplane Song” without mentioning the word ‘die’.”

Thanks for reminding me.

“No problem.  Enjoy the flight,”

We are traveling to my hometown for a family Bar Mitzvah.  Current temperature in Toronto:

A shoe size. 

(If you’re a “Nine.”)

I’m a terrible (expatriate) Canadian.  Every year, I resolve to watch “The Grey Cup”  (Canadian football’s Super Bowl) on TV, and every year, I forget.  They announce the results on ESPN and I go, “Oh, man!  I missed it again! ”  And apparently the Toronto Argonauts won this year!  I would have really enjoyed that. 

Because I’m such a big fan. 

I can tell because of the genuine anguish I feel when I go, 

“Was that yesterday?”

It was on Channel six hundred and two.  How could I have missed it?

Okay, here it comes.  An opinion I have mentioned before for which I’ve received zero blogatoriral backing, which is this:

Canadian football is better than American football.  

Come on!  Who’s with me?

I am not saying the Canadian football players are better.  They are, I readily acknowledge slower and smaller.  (And hence, consequently, worse.) 

The homegrown participants previously played at Canadian universities, against student attorneys and eye doctors seeking a break from their onerous studies.  They may scratch a footballatory itch for a couple of years, but it’s a whimsical “Holding Pattern”, before lifetimes of contracts and cataract surgery.

I shall not re-litigate the reasons Canadian football is better than American football.  (See:  For easy recovery, “Why Canadian Football Is Better Than American football.”  You’re welcome for the convenience,)

Okay, one reason.

The end-zone in Canadian football is, like, 25 yards deep.  In stupid American football, it’s 10 yards.  Leaving American football teams no room to maneuver when they get close to the goal line.

A Canadian quarterback can say, “Go deep!” and loft a scoring spiral into the back of the end-zone.  The same pass in American football would wind up in “Row W.”

Overall, I am cutting way down watching football.  (Which is quite easy with Canadian football, as I keep forgetting when it’s on.)  As with Law & Order SVU, which I gave up because I can no longer accept dramatized sex crimes as entertainment, I can similarly no longer ignore the serious serious injuries in football.

It’s like the Coliseum out there, the participants continually carted away on stretchers.  (Giving an encouraging “Thumbs Up” as they depart, to reassure the crowd and because their two thumbs are the only demonstrable body parts that are still functioning.) 

I once saw two major injuries on one play.  The two injured players were on the same team.  I bet there was a lot of yelling back in the dressing room.”

“You are supposed to hit them!”

I know nobody makes people play football.  In the Coliseum they had no choice.  The gladiator-slaves could not say, “I would prefer to work in the kitchen.”  They could not even choose, “Beasts or people.”  It was whatever came out of the tunnel.

The thing that – now in random snatches rather than entire games – magnetically entices me back to football is that, between the huddles, the time-outs, the tedious “Replays” and eyeballing “First Down” measurements,

There is inevitably explosive action.

The surrounded quarterback running for his life, “threading the needle” to the waiting receiver.  The spectacular kick return.  The breakaway run amid onrushing tacklers.

There is no similar sustained rush of excitement in baseball, a game I generally prefer.  It can happen in hockey, but if you’re watching on television, you are unable to see it.  (Imagine football, covered with one camera.  That’s televised hockey.)

That’s the one hold that football still has on me – those electric occurrences. 

Oh my God!  (As others proclaim, but infrequently me.)  You know what that just now reminds me of?

It reminds me of me and my brother.

From a comedy performance perspective, that is exactly the way we are:  He’s football – randomly explosive – and I’m baseball – steady and strategic.

Did I mention I prefer baseball?

Look at that – an illuminating insight in the air.

Seems like a suitable place for an ending.

Although there are still three hours to go.

"New Year Wishes"

Maybe just one.

We were sitting in the “Communal Area” at Los Angeles’s Cedars Sinai Hospital, awaiting the imminent arrival of our new granddaughter. 

A female “Senior Volunteer” is puttering around, straightening the magazines, and chores of equal peripheral consequence.

There is a flat-screen TV on the wall.  As we put in our time, nervously continually checking the clock, we take notice of what’s on.

It is a Fox News broadcast.

The words “Fox News” may have exited out mouths, not entirely without judgment.

To which the overhearing “Senior Hospital Volunteer” observed,

“It is the only place they tell the truth.”  

That agonizing pronouncement would be disturbing at any time.  But it felt even more so under the circumstances.  Though I cannot entirely explain why.  It may involve welcoming a new life into this poisonous atmosphere.

My measured response to the woman’s unearned pronouncement about Fox:

“We don’t want to talk about that right now.”

Which leads to my one New Year’s Day wish:

That the real truth – not necessarily my truth, just a truth without demonstrable falsehood – experiences a comeback.

Is that really too much to ask?

I hope not.

Anyway…

Happy New Year, everyone.

And may we find our way back to the light.

Too “heavy” for a holiday posting?

Drink something.

Or if that’s bad for you…

Don’t.