DOMESTICATING THE DOG

Here’s a fact: anthropologists claim that man domesticated the dog around 30,000 years ago.
Here’s a second fact: zoologists say that every breed of domesticated dog in the world today are descendants of the grey wolf.

The second fact makes the first sound crazy.

Because 30,000 years ago, Man lived in cracks in a cliff, in cave openings. Man 30,000 years ago was gathered in small clans of twelve to eighteen individuals. And they all lived in the same cave. I know that they were not as bright as we are today, but this much I am sure of; they were not stupid enough to bring a wolf into the cave.

Let me tell you about my cave. For sixteen years we had a cat, the same cat. Her name was Irving. In our home we have a belief that regardless of species or sex all pets should be named after old Jewish men.

Irving died, and our oldest child was so distraught that it was years before we could even think about getting a new pet. One Sunday, we went out as a family to buy a new cat. We came home with a Shih Tzu, Sidney. Those first few months, everything was great…until Sidney began to hump our son’s leg. The next day, my wife announced:

“I have booked the neutering. You need to drop him at the vets at 8:00 am Thursday morning.”

“Why?”

“Because we cannot have him trying to mate with our son.”

“No, not why the neutering. I get that. Why do I have to bring him?”

“Because you are the man.”

“Since when?”


So that Thursday, I dropped Sidney off at the vet. My wife left work early to pick him up. That night, when I got home, the poor guy was—-as you might expect—-a whimpering heap. He was lying on the sofa, crying softly. My wife sat next to him trying to be a comfort, her eyes were filled with tears. I sat across the room clutching my genital out of fear that it might fall off.

The next day, Sid was back to his playful self. But everything had changed; my wife and Sidney had formed a bond. She was his mother now, he was her baby and I was the bastard who had taken him to the vet. This is how it has remained for years. If I sit down he just stares at me, watching every move I make. If my wife sits down he goes, sits next to her, and just stares at me, watching every move I make. Occasionally he looks from me to her and I know he is thinking, “She can do better than him.”

One night, I walked in to the house and was greeted by my wife’s voice. She said,
“You are so nice to come home to. You are so wonderful. I love to look into your beautiful brown eyes.”

Really sweet, right? It would have been sweeter still had she been talking to me. This is when I realized that my wife and dog were having conversations. And let me make this point very clear. My dog doesn’t talk.

Another day, again I thought that I was the one being addressed:
“Who has a warm Tum-Tum?
I should have known. It would have been me had she asked, “Who has a fat Tum-Tum?”

Then things started to change. I overheard this while she fed him one morning.
“I want to get you the healthy food; he only wants to buy the cheap stuff.”
I am not going to deny that. But let’s be honest; Sid would eat his own crap if we let him. The cheap food is a step up.

The final straw was one evening, as I chased my wife around the house. Not in anger, but in the other way. As we ran past Sid the first time, she shouted,
“Protect me from this dirty man.” The second time around, she said, “Protect me from this beastly man.”

I stopped chasing her, then started thinking. I spoke to friends, all of whom had the same story. Man’s best friend was a backstabber. I thought, “How did this happen? How did we come to point where we allowed a carnivorous, love-stealing beast in to our homes?” This made me think about those guys in the cave.

One afternoon, right around dinner time, the clan was in the cave, sitting around waiting for the mammoth to be cooked. All of a sudden, at the cave entrance there was a grey wolf. They all screamed in unison, “Holy shit! There’s a wolf in here!”
Someone close to the fire pit picked up a piece of mammoth and threw it out of the cave. The wolf ran out, grabbed it and left.

The next afternoon, same thing. Lucky there was mammoth cooking. You can serve mammoth for several days. It was a big animal. Someone picked up a piece, tossed it out of the cave…goodbye, wolf.

Now it rained hard on the third day and the wolf was sitting under a tree, trying to stay dry. And he thought to himself, “Well, I’m going there for dinner anyway, I’ll just go early so I can get out of the rain.”

On this day when he walked into the cave, they clan hadn’t started cooking. Everyone looked to the empty fire pit and watched in horror as the wolf walked directly toward the hairy, smelly children. When he got there, he curled up into a ball and went to sleep.

Someone got the mammoth cooking, and when it was ready they woke up the wolf, waved the mammoth under his nose, and threw it out of the cave.
The wolf got up, went out, picked up the mammoth, came back inside and laid down next to the kids and ate his dinner. And that is where he has stayed.

You see, the anthropologists were-half right. It was 30,000 years ago, but it was the dog that domesticated man, taught us how to feed and care for him. We do this all in an effort to stop him from attacking us. We fool ourselves in believing that we are his master. In my cave, I know my place.

PLUS YO! AND OTHER CHANTS FOR THE FUTURE

“I ruined my hat!”
The speaker was my daughter Lauren. The hat was her graduation cap.
“And I burned my leg!”

This was Thursday night; we would be leaving for her college graduation in twelve hours. She was sitting crossed legged on her bed finishing off the application of letters to the top of her cap. She was using her curling iron as the source of heat.

There were so many things wrong with this picture that I did not know where to start. The look on her face told me to say as little as possible. I choose,
“Let me see it.”

And this is what I saw.



Now maybe it was the placement of the button, but all I could focus on was the word “URE.” I kept staring at this half quote half math problem and I was unable to get past “URE.” As the night progressed and Lauren’s siblings and friends converged for dinner I was shown I had missed the boat.
“Plus Yo! It is the Plus Yo, that makes it art.”

The plus sign had been used in place of the word and or an ampersand. She had used from her education the earliest interpretation of the plus sign.

The quote is from Theodore Roosevelt, “Believe you can and you’re halfway there.” An understanding that a positive attitude was the foundation for success. Positive.

It made me think about this girl, this daughter, this woman. She had single handedly financed her education attending two colleges in three states all the while maintaining the goal of graduating in four years. She had believed she could and she succeeded.

I considered how during these years she had been a positive force for every company that had employed her, an addition to all the families that had embraced her as babysitter, confident and friend. How she had been a plus in all of our lives.

She had not ruined her hat. She had made herself the perfect graduation cap.

We sat as a family at the IZOD center watching, waiting to see her in the procession. Her bright eyes and brilliant smile signaled that she had seen us.

Unplanned and unrehearsed we all yelled “PLUS YO!” She couldn’t hear the shouting, it was for us. To serve as a reminder of how lucky we are to know her.

“Are these vampire teeth real?”

For the last three nights leading up to Halloween, I worked at a costume center. As my wife had been the prime procurer of our children’s holiday wear, this locale was new to me.

It was fun.
It was crazy.
It was odd.

Oddity broke new ground when a man in his forties approached me and asked,

“Are these male or female vampire fangs?”

“I’m sorry?”

“These fangs look feminine; do you sell men’s fangs?”

“We have adult and child, but not male or female.”

“Really, because they look like ladies’ fangs, don’t they.”

“No, I think a fang is a fang. Besides I think Anne Rice would tell you a vampire is androgynous.”

“What?”

“Those fangs are good, sir.”

I went back to the world of wigs and masks, no real questions other than, “Can I see that?” When another man this one in his thirties asked, “Are these vampire teeth real?”

“Yes, they are a hard type.”

“No, I mean are they authentic?”

At this point I was speechless. I have never been speechless in my life. I talk in my sleep… finally after staring into the man’s eyes looking for the hidden camera, I asked,

“How can I help you sir?”

“Are these teeth like the real vampire’s teeth?”

All I could muster was a weak, “Yes.”


Then this morning, as if the god of the undead had seen my plight, an article appeared in the Sunday paper. It was an interview with the aforementioned Anne Rice. To a question about people’s concerns over the portrayal of vampires in works such as Twilight and True Blood, she responded,

“I say, ‘Are you kidding? Vampires aren’t real. Keep that in mind.’”

Thanks Anne, I think from time to time it is important to remember this: Vampires are not real. Now, on the other hand, werewolves…

The Facebook Communication Generation Gap

In the 1960s, when the concept of the “generation gap” gained prominence, my parents straddled the line between their parents’ generation and their own. Married at 18 and 20, my mother and father held many of the same social and moral beliefs as my grandparents. Still, a quick marriage and fast family (two kids in the first four years of marriage) suggested a freewheeling live-your-own-life philosophy towards which the youth of America was moving. By the early '70s, television shows like “All in the Family” helped draw the line between the generations with the constant battle between Archie and his hippie son-in-law, Mike "Meathead" Stivic . My parents recognized Archie as a stereotype of their parents, but had no idea who Mike was supposed to represent. It certainly was not them.

Fast forward 40 years: My parents are now older than the Archie Bunker character, and my oldest is the age of Mike. The generation gap is now more about language then ideals. The Internet has made communication between the age groups easier. There is no question that my parents know more about my kids and their daily lives than my grandparents knew about my brothers and I.

Much of that knowledge has been supplied by Facebook. My mother is “friends” with both of my college-aged daughters. She will often make a comment like, “How come you didn’t tell me Beulah got that internship?”

“I didn’t know, Mom.”
For the record, I do not have a daughter named Beulah.

This is how the generations now communicate. A bit of information that domino-effects into a conversation.

The wildcard in this story is my wife. A modern woman, of the corporate managerial type: stockings,
heels,
glasses…sorry.

My wife spends all day on the computer, so when she is home she tries to stay screen-free. Subsequently, to the best of my knowledge, she has never read this blog…actually I’m not sure she even knows I write a blog…
it is over two years,
you would think she’d show a little interest…sorry.

So when my mother called my wife in a semi-hysterical state and yasked (i.e. yelled as she asked a question): “Beulah is sick?!” (See above)

My wife said, “I don’t think so.”

“Well, she posted it on her wall.”

“What wall?’

“Her Facebook wall.”

When my daughter got home, my wife asked, “Are you sick?”

“No.”

“Your grandmother said you posted that you were sick on Facebook."

“No, mom. ‘Sick’…it means ‘cool.’”

“Sick means cool?"


Now, to my credit, I knew that “sick” meant cool. But neither my wife nor my mother did.

This Facebook communication generation gap is making translators out of my generation. It forces us to answer questions from our parents that we were able to avoid when we were younger. “Who is the boy in that picture?”
“Who is the girl in that picture?”
“Is that a boy or a girl in that picture?”

My solution: Facebook should have a quiz that must be completed by both parties before a friendship can be made. Or if not an intergenerational compatibility exam, then how about an age range for friendship? A generation used to represent twenty-five years. I feel the Facebook Communication Generation should have a span of five years for friendship. If I am the only one who has had this issue, then there is one more thing I would like to suggest:

Girls, please de-friend your Grandma!

"It's great to be back here at Macy's"

I had a rough week.

Then yesterday, I walked in to Macy's with Mrs. Green Thumb and the oldest ping pong ball. Music was blasting. At first, it seemed that the system that piped the music into the store was broken, because IT WAS BLASTING. The song that was playing was Elvis Presley singing "Can't Help Falling In Love With You." My oldest turned to me and asked, "Can you do something about this?"

I had to think for a second. Was there a reason why she thought I worked at Macy's?
No, she was expressing her displeasure, and I was in the line of fire.

With no ability to stop or even lower the music, I did the only thing in my power. I started to sing along. That's when I heard Mrs. Green Thumb say, "Someone is singing over there."

My heartbeat quickened as I worked my way through the ladies casual section toward what could only be an...

Elvis Impersonator...
Elvis Evoker....
Elvis!

The King was in between Handbags and Juniors. He was wearing a powder blue jumpsuit, his belt riddled with rhinestones. I made my way directly in front of a speaker, my favorite place at any concert. He introduced his next number, "My Way," as a song that both Frank Sinatra and Elvis had recorded. I loved the fact that he spoke about himself in the third person.



He sang "Jailhouse Rock" and customers and Macy's employees alike danced. As Elvis sang, I thought about all the speculation about his life and death. I considered how thin he had gotten. He looked more like Screech from "Saved by the Bell" with a pompadour. And then Elvis spoke again, and he gave us the long awaited answer.

"It's great to be back here at Macy's"

He hadn't died, he hadn't been abducted by aliens; we had been looking for him in Vegas, in Graceland, in every kitchen in the land. But all this time, he had been at Macy's, and he liked it there.

When he finished and was available for pictures, I went to find my loved ones. I was reenergized. No longer did I feel like a Hound Dog. The King, he revived me.

Later in the afternoon, I thought about something I had known since I was very young: music is magical.

Thanks Macy's. Thanks Elvis.

This is the binding tie

If I am forbidden from burning my leaves…


If I am required to send them to an eco-friendly natural waste site…


If I am forced to buy and use biodegradable paper bags to dispose of the leaves…


Why are the companies that manufacture those bags permitted to bind them together with a non-recyclable plastic strip?

Sad But True

Today, my mother had an exploratory procedure at a central Jersey hospital. After a day in the OR and recovery, my baby brother and I helped our parents into their car before we headed back north. Mom turned to us and said, “Thanks…”

Wait, I forgot the first part.

A year ago, Dad had a quintuple bypass. It was by far the most intense, scary surgery anyone in our family had ever had. That morning, my middle brother and I met our parents outside the hospital. Both looked nervous and frightened out of their wits. My brother and I went into care mode. During the pre-op time one of us would stay with Mom while the other stayed with Dad.

That’s when the fighting started. Neither one of us wanted Mom. During the entire time Dad was completing the registration process, my brother and I were carrying on like…well, us. When my parents went into the prep room and we had said our goodbyes, a very stern looking nurse approached us and said:

“Follow me please.”

Halfway down a hallway, she unlocked a door and asked us to go in. As she walked away, she turned and said, “Please don’t close the door.”

Once she had left, I asked my brother: “Are we in trouble?”

He simply answered, “This may be a record for us.”

Two minutes later, a woman ten times sterner appeared at the door. She asked, “Do we have a problem?”

She may have asked this based on information that stern #1 had given her. Or perhaps it was that, in only two minutes, I had built a house of cards using prostate care pamphlets, while my brother had started an inappropriate relationship with a vibrating armchair.

I stood to answer partly because I am the oldest, but also because I was the only brother in the room not having sex with a piece of furniture.

“No problem, we’re sorry. Our Dad is having bypass surgery and we’re very nervous. If you want we can go to the waiting room.”

She answered quickly, “No, thank you, there are people in there. Please do not leave this room until your father has been brought to the OR. You can then go to the main waiting area.”

“I’m sorry, I will have to step out when I get a text, our brother will not be able to find us in here.”

All color ran from her face as she asked: “There‘s a third?!”

My brother, who by now was sharing a cigarette with the La-Z-Boy, looked up at her and said with not a note of whimsy in his voice, “Yeah. And he’s the crazy one.”

As she left, he turned to me and asked, “Are we in hospital jail?”

Five hours later, Dad was in recovery, as everyone breathed a sigh of relief. We shared with the family the reason for the armed escort leading us from one waiting room to the other earlier.

Mom was not amused. Baby brother relished the fact that he had not been involved and the middle and I blamed each other.

So back to today…

Today my mother had an exploratory procedure at a central Jersey hospital. After a day in the OR and recovery, my baby brother and I helped our parents into their car before we headed back north. Mom turned to us and said “Thanks. Thanks for being here, and thanks for not being arrested.”

Sure, Mom. Anytime.

Zen and the Art of Garage Cleaning

For fifteen years, I have wanted to build a Zen rock garden behind our house. My wife has said she would support this decision, but only after I clean the garage.

This seemed to me a reasonable request. So one Sunday morning, in the spring of 1995, I went into the garage with the intent of cleaning, organizing and sweeping the space. I figured I would be done by lunchtime. Then, off to the garden center to pick out the rocks that would be the base for my outdoor meditation room.

Fall of 2010, our backyard is still void of any river stones. I am still in the garage.

The Zen garden, the "dry landscape"--like its creator--is never complete. It is ever-moving and ever-changing. For me, it was to be a place to discover. Discover my thoughts, my visions, and ultimately the edge of my limits.

After fifteen years in the garage and nearly twenty-five years of marriage, I have awoken. The blinders have fallen from my eyes. I can see clearly now that my wife is my Zen master. Though she would deny the very idea, I know she sent me into the garage because it was to be my Zen garden. Never finished, always changing, forever making me redesign and rethink how I can use that space.

I am now content. No longer will I hide my face as the neighbors ask, "Still cleaning?"

My wife, on the other hand, will not be happy at this realization. For now, when she asks the same question she has asked for fifteen years: "When will you be done?"

I will be able to answer in the only way a student of Zen should...

“Never.”

Here is my Eddie Fisher Story

Yes, I have an Eddie Fisher story.

In 1989, I was asked to stage manage a fundraising show. The event benefitted a beautiful old church in the New York suburbs that both time and the diocese had forgotten. There were holes in the roof, and on rainy days there were puddles in front of the altar and down the center aisle.

I was asked by a friend to help pull off the event. He had called everyone he knew to ask them to reach out to anyone even remotely connected to anyone of note who might volunteer their talents. This call to charity was answered by radio, TV and film entertainers. Most had a connection with the area or a friend who did. One of the people who said, “Yes, how can I help?” was Eddie Fisher.

This show differed from your typical theatrical performance in many ways, the first of which was its staging before the altar of a needy church. More importantly, there was no rehearsal at all.

That evening, I met the entertainers upon their arrival, walked them to the “stage" and asked them about their needs, “Podium? Music stand? Microphone?” When I met Mr. Fisher, I introduced myself and took him though the paces. The "microphone" question was answered with a response that suggested he thought I was insane. “Yes, of course I want a microphone.”

Once the show began, I stayed off to the side. In between acts, when the lights went down, I would move whatever equipment the previous entertainer used while setting up for the next performer as each found their mark on stage in the dark.

Mr. Fisher was scheduled to sing "Ave Maria." The performer before him, a former Miss America, was to sing "God Bless America."

Her rendition of the song that Kate Smith made famous was stirring. No microphone, no accompaniment--only her voice filling the church. The audience, as well as those waiting to perform, had tears in their eyes. When she finished and the lights went down, I moved in the dark to the center of the stage to set up the microphone at the height that was prearranged for Mr. Fisher, who then met me frantically screaming in a whisper, “Get it out, take it off, take it off!”

I stopped dead in my tracks and turned, still holding the microphone stand, and moved back to where I began. Even in the eye-adusting half-light, it surely looked comical because there was a slight chuckle from the audience. The last face I saw as I moved out of view was my wife's, as she mouthed to me the question on everyone’s mind: “What are you doing?!”

Mr. Fisher sang and the rest of the show concluded without a hitch. The performers exited down the aisle to applause, followed by the audience. They were going into the first of two post-performance receptions. I was the last to leave the church.

I was anxious to find my wife and explain what happened. As I turned the corner to enter the reception, I was grabbed by the shoulders and turned to find an apologetic Eddie Fisher. “You have to forgive me, that was so unprofessional. I cannot believe I put you in that position, I am so sorry. But how could I use a microphone following that girl? I would have just looked stupid. Instead, I embarrassed you. I’m sorry.”

We shook hands. “Don’t worry about it, thanks for coming tonight,” I told him as we walked into the reception together.

When I heard about his passing, I thought it was time to add this tale to my story book.

Reading by Flashlight

Once again I find myself wanting to add a chapter to this story book.

Our local art museum opened an exhibit entitled "The Wyeths: Three Generations." Mr. Moose, Mrs. Green Thumb and the youngest ping pong ball all have an appreciation for the works of Andrew Wyeth. Andrew, the second of the aforementioned three generations, was an accomplished realist painter. Andrew died on January 16th of this year. One of his best known works, "Christina's World," is part of the permanent collection at Museum of Modern Art in New York.

The third Wyeth, Jamie, the son of Andrew, is still creating art today and has had a long successful career that began in his teens.

N. C. Wyeth, the patriarch, specialized in illustrations.

The exhibit holds a great blend of the three artists. It shows the individuality of these men, while the juxtaposition of works showed a commonality of themes, of palates and of views.

For my part, the illumination of this exhibit was the work of N.C. Wyeth. Newell Convers Wyeth created 3,000 paintings and illustrated112 books. Many of the books were on display next to the paintings they inspired.

These works: a title page from King Arthur (1917) and a scene from Treasure Island (1911), show the clarity and strength of image this illustrator used when transfering word to picture.

Each new example transported me back to the books I read as a child. Those volumes were never fully illustrated, so you were forced to turn back every few pages to catch a glimpse of the hero; the less-is-more approach that still left room for the imagination.

All this must sound hypocritical coming from a person who takes pride in the volume of television he watches. But long before 300 channels and 24-hour programing, I had a copy of Treasure Island and a flashlight next to my bed. I can still see the ten illustration plates. They weren't Wyeth, but they were magical.