Old School

One of the classic Dad stories my Mom used to repeat to us when we were kids was the one about the hammock in the hurricane.

Back in the sixties, my folks were the leaders of our church's "Youth Group." That made them about the coolest parents around. We'd have these parties with coke in the little bottles and popcorn and Simon & Garfunkle and Beatles records playing on the stereo. And the teens from the youth group would hang out and talk about important issues like civil rights and Vietnam and stuff.

That's definitely where my concept of the ideal woman was born. All those cute youth group chicks with the bell-bottom jeans and the long straight hair. No makeup. No pretense. Idealistic, political, but still a lot of fun. Swaying to Creedence or shimmying to the Doors. Captured indelibly in time-lapse perfection by the flash of the strobe light...

But I digress.

Each summer the youth group would leave the suburbs of Louisville to spend a few weeks engaging in volunteer work in places like an indian reservation in Hugo, Oklahoma or a depressed rural community on Edisto Island South Carolina. My parents, of course, would go with them.

Now, as luck would have it, Edisto Island South Carolina is smack dab in the path of just about every hurricane that comes up the Atlantic coast. And summer, as you know, is hurricane season.

The kids were camped out at some kind of run-down community center or something when the word came in the that a hurricane was blowing its way north and would soon be upon them. They began packing up their belongings and carrying everything into the nearest shelter. By the time the rain started, they had just about everything stowed away except on thing: the hammock. People were now running for cover as the rain began lashing down. The wind became a furious howl. Everyone was huddled together praying for the storm to blow over quickly. Except my Dad. He was taking down the hammock.

Now it wasn't like anyone was going to use the hammock that night, but leaving it to be ripped apart by the hurricane just wasn't practical. So Dad decided to take it down and bring it in. Problem was, whoever put it up was clearly not the Boy Scout my Dad was and had tied about two-hundred granny-knots in each end. The rain is now coming down in buckets, the wind is whipping the hammock around like crazy. People are calling for my Dad to come inside -- forget the damn hammock for God's sake Warren! But Dad just kept on untying each one of those four-hundred granny knots, deliberately and methodically, one by one.

Another man might have simply taken a knife and cut through those four-hundred knots. But not my Dad. Patience. No need to panic. One thing at a time. Everything has its place. Who tied all of these Goddamn knots anyway?

He stood his ground, my Dad, hurricane be damned, and he untied that hammock and brought it in to safety. The storm indeed blew over without major damage and the hammock was put back up to provide comfort and solace to many a weary teen.

My Mom loved telling us this story, partly I think to make fun of Dad, but also to show us how he was cut from a different cloth than the rest of us. He was of the old school -- the real old school not the MTV kind. The school where you learned to do things right because any other way is just a waste of time. The school where you stick to your guns and shoot straight. The school where your word is your bond. And truth is not an abstract concept, it's a way of life. I haven't met too many other people from that school, and that's too bad.

The other story I love to tell is the one about the guy in the tollbooth. Years later after my parents moved back to Connecticut, Dad used to drive almost an hour each way to Bridgeport and back to get to work at GE. At the time they still had the toll booths along I-95. Dad always had his tokens at the ready and could never understand those people who would pull up to the booth and begin searching their pockets, ashtray, seat cushions, floorboards, etc. for loose change to pay the toll. Why can't they have their money ready? It's the same amount every day at every booth. Same as it was yesterday. Same as the last booth. They even have signs along the road telling you that the toll is up ahead and what the amount is. But invariably, my Dad would get behind the one idiot who got into the exact change lane without the exact change and would hold up a long line of angry, horn-honking commuters while he searched for pennies under the floormats of his car.

One day my Dad was waiting behind one of these morons and he just couldn't bear the agony any more. So he got out of his car, walked up to the toll booth, tossed in a token, turned to the hapless driver and said "Go." Then Dad got back in his car and continued his commute.

He wasn't quite the same guy who stood in the rain untying granny-knots, but I still love the way he addressed the situation. He didn't honk his horn. He didn't raise a fuss. He just paid the man's toll and sent him on his way. God knows there would be plenty of other idiots to contend with further down the road. But at least for now there's one less. We'll deal with the others in turn. One at a time. No need to rush.

Be patient.

Use your head.

The car is not a toy.

Think!

Rites of Spring

Sometimes it seems like having a job is more trouble than it's worth. What really is the purpose of having a job? Isn't it supposed to improve the quality of your life and allow you to accomplish the objectives you have set out for yourself? And yet in reality it just sucks your lifeblood and leaves you with no time and no energy to pursue your dreams. Instead of working for yourself, you give your heart and soul to the pursuit of abstractions and solving other people's problems and you end up sidetracked from your true path. Then again, every once in a while you catch a break.

I've been working on a case that was fast-tracked to trial and the past month has been pretty grueling. There are a thousand things to prepare before trial and a thousand things for which you can't prepare. And just when things were getting heated, I had an East Coast wedding to attend. I had already asked for the time off, but when the actual day came to remind my boss that I leaving for a long weekend, he said "I'm not going to tell you not to go. But I'm not going to forget this either." Sounded like a threat to me.

Threat or no threat, nothing was going to keep me from seeing Brian Nesin marry Romy Smith. Brian was my roommate back in Brooklyn before going off to Harvard to become an architect. After Harvard, Brian moved to L.A. where some architects actually find jobs. When I decide to move out here, Brian was one of the people who made it feel like I wasn't so far from home. Our weekly hikes together grew into the legendary "Hike Club," a dedicated group of adventurers who roamed the canyons of L.A. county in search of the perfect trail.

Brian met Romy through the Continental Network of Jewish Mothers (Romy's mom knew someone who knew Brian's mom) and soon Romy and her dog Sasha were Hike Club regulars too. Even after the once mighty Hike Club faded into misty memory, Romy, Brian, Sasha and I carried on the proud tradition on our own. In fact it was on a hiking trip that Brian proposed to Romy ­ (I wasn't along for that one.) After they got engaged, they moved to Brooklyn, back to the same neighborhood where Brian and I once lived.

The wedding was in Washington D.C., another of my old haunts. Most of the wedding guests stayed in a lovely old hotel downtown and were treated to an excellent dinner on Friday night. I sat with a group of architects from LA whom I'd met when Brian was in town. The ceremony itself was held at the Ronald Reagan Building in the heart of Federal Triangle. It was very moving, with the Rabbi recounting nearly the whole story of Brian and Romy's courtship. The bride looked stunning and surprised everyone a the reception by serenading the groom with a beautiful love song. Brian, never the most effusive guy in the world, wore the biggest smile I've ever seen and truly looked like the happiest man on earth. He's a lucky guy.

Being in D.C. provided me with a bonus opportunity to stop in and visit with the incomparably hospitable David and Shellie Todd, their amazing son Avery, and their weekend houseguests Dan and Rachael Haar. Rachael is Dan's seven-year-old daughter and she completely stole my heart. Hard to believe that a stubborn, cantankerous grouch like Dan Haar could have produced such wonderfully charming offspring, even when taking in to account the many fine qualities of Rachael's mother. Nevertheless, everything that is good and honorable in Dan has been magnified and highlighted in his daughter and it she does him nothing but credit by sheer association. We spent a glorious day touring the sights of our nation's capital which was the perfect corollary to the wedding celebration.

When I got back I walked right into a shitstorm. For the next three weeks I dealt with crisis after crisis, worked late every night and through the weekends. Everything was urgent, last minute and problematic. People kept repeating the phrase "Someone needs to..." or the variation "Someone should have..." and every time that poor someone would turn out to be me.

The night before trial I was told I needed to prepare a set of exhibit notebooks for opposing counsel. Unfortunately we had only just designated the exhibits that day and there were no copies. I stayed until 1:30 a.m. putting the damn notebooks together, drove home for four hours sleep and then drove back to be ready for trial at 8:30 the next morning. I was running around preparing the judge's and witnesses notebooks when the call came in from my boss. The case had settled.

That was just the break I needed, because I was scheduled to fly the red-eye to Burlington Vermont that weekend to see my niece Annie graduate from UVM. Instead I was able to fly standby and arrive in Burlington Friday evening. I spent the next two days with my family enjoying one of the most beautiful weekends in the history of Vermont. Annie was totally cool and gets more beautiful every time I see her. We lunched attended receptions, and had a fancy dinner party with Annie's roommate's family. It was so great to be rid of the burden of trial and have the chance to just hang out and relax.

On Sunday we all went to the big graduation ceremony together and then another smaller ceremony just for Annie's college. I had to cut out early to make my flight home, but I'll get to see Annie again very soon. She's coming out to LA for the summer. I'm really looking forward to spending some time with her while she's here. It makes all the work and stress and other people's problems seem pretty unimportant. As long as you can stay connected to the people you love, all the other stuff doesn't really matter. It was good to be reminded of that.

No plans right now for any more trips, but there are lots of people here in town I need to catch up with. Maybe this weekend I'll go visit some of them.
Hope everyone is doing well. I miss you.
Love, Rich

Reality TV

I've been watching a lot of TV lately. I never really got into reality shows before, but there's this new one that really has me hooked. It's got everything -- action, drama, suspense, mystery and propaganda. And it runs 24 hours a day so you can tune in whenever you want and there's always something interesting to watch. Here's how it works:

First, they pick a country that nobody really likes. Then they come up a reason why this country poses a threat to national security. That part is kind of like the Tom Cruise movie Minority Report. See, they can't actually wait for a country to do something overt like attack us or even threaten to attack us. That would take too long. So, using a team of psychics employed by the Rand Corporation, they find a country that they know is going to attack us in the future. Then they invade that country in order to prevent them from attacking us. It's pretty brilliant. Except they don't call it an invasion, because that would be bad for ratings. Instead they call it a liberation.

The invasion, I mean... liberation, occurs in three parts. Part One is the "Air Campaign." That's where they strategically bomb all of the "bad" areas of the country, like royal palaces, television stations and restaurants and leave the "good" areas like oil refineries and Hilton Hotels relatively unscathed. Part One and is pretty much like a giant fireworks show, except that hundreds of innocent people are killed and maimed. The whole thing with the killing innocent people is kind of a drag, but since it's in support of the cause of establishing worldwide Capitalism, I mean... Democracy, you kind of have to look on the bright side.

Anyway, Part Two is where most of the real action is, the "Ground Assault." That's where they get a bunch of journalists, arm them with video phones, strap them onto tanks and send them into battle. The journalists compete to see who can go the longest without sleeping or bathing while filing as many stories as possible about what it's like to be a journalist riding on the back of a tank without sleeping or bathing for two weeks. Plus they also get shot at.

Lots of people get killed in Part Two, but fortunately most of them are foreigners and so we don't have to hear about them. Toward the end of Part Two, there was a bit of a lull where it seemed like the liberation wasn't going according to the programming schedule. They started coming up with all of these stories about how it wasn't well planned or properly budgeted or they didn't have enough journalists on the front lines. But I think that was all just part of the dramatic build up to the final act.

Part Three is the "Final Showdown." That's where all of the tanks and journalists surround the capital city and start filing reports about how the liberation is a big success and the people are finally rid the evil oppressive tyrant who they never really liked. Now they will be free to elect an oppressive tyrant of their own choosing just like we do here in the good old USA. Then they tear down a big statue of the oppressive tyrant and everyone cheers and there is much rejoicing and dancing in the streets and a whole lot of looting.

This show was so enthralling that I was kind of bummed out when it finally ended. But I cheered up as soon as I learned that it got such good ratings that they're already planning the next installment. In fact, they've already picked out the country and everything. And even though it may mean that thousands of innocent people will die, it sure makes for some damn good television.

Love, Hollywood Dick