August 2021

Family

We all experience it differently.

I have unique feelings and relations with each of my children, my partner, my brother, nieces/nephews, my support structure, and cousins, etc.

I would guess that you’re the same. And it doesn’t have to do with “LOVE,” or signing off a conversation with “I love you.” Cuz each of those “I-love-yous” has a different vibe.

I see my only local first cousin, Amy a few times a year.  She’s eight years younger and we share a birthdate. She and Harvey invited me, my kids and grandchildren for a get-together today, August 1, with them and their two sons and their grandchildren.

We’re getting together on her and my shared grandfather’s birthday. (Grampa Louie, born 1870, died 1952.)

When Eleanor and I went to Seattle the end of June to celebrate brother John’s and sister-in-law Sherry’s 80^th birthdays, it was the first time in decades that I had been with them, their kids and grandchildren for a week.  It was something special… we were family.  It was a positive bonding experience.  Of course, in many families, more familiarity breeds more rifts. Nearly every one of my friends, their siblings, kids, grandchildren and cousins has a decidedly unique one-on-one relationship.  Proximity and chemistry are a big part of it.  When I see rifts and separations in families, I realize how fortunate I/we are.

My cousin Amy asked a question and answered it: “What matters more than family? Nothing.”

And it increases as we get older as we become the only ones left who remember prior generations.  Blood bonds have the commonality of original roots. Nobody could ever know the same stuff except family, regardless of how close they stay over the years.

Then there’s families we make with our friends (and their families) that in many cases are a strong as the bonds of blood.  These, too increasingly impact us as we get old, maybe because it’ s a constant reminder of the flow of generations and becoming the low-lying fruit on the family tree.

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The New Family Business

For the past seven months, my son Jesse, Eleanor and I with our little band of media renegades have been concentrating on creating a new digital video platform with intentionally selected unique short videos you don’t usually see on TV.  We want to expand awareness by creating media that’s universally available worldwide with a couple clicks. 

Working together, we’re building a new wing on our family structure.  It’s a radically new world and digital media environment than when I started. Almost everything has changed but the creative process is still as challenging as ever. 

Adding the family dynamic to it can be complex, but it also provides a new opportunity for Jesse and me.  We each bring our experience, beliefs and generational context to the process.

We’re together on the goals: We want to find new ways to present video and media to attract and define a new audience.  We see it as a way for communities to share ideas and sensibilities, with video as the glue.  Our common interest is to challenge assumptions of existing mainstream media and bring together like -minded collaborators all over the world to express their unique points of view. 

Whatever the outcome, it’s still a family effort that will be valuable. We’re still in development, but you can get a preview on Instagram.  

It’s @imageuniontv.

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Quick Quiz

Only one of the kings in a deck of cards does NOT have a mustache.

 Hint: it’s not the one with one eye.

(answer at the end of this edition)

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Heaven’s to Murgatroyd? 

My friend Jimmy Golding is a serial emailer.  Since the pandemic began , he generally sends multiple emails daily that he culls from internet sources. Many are threes-liners; some are long jokes or examples of nostalgia, (but not usually neuritis or neuralgia;) I read lots of them.  My guess is that he has sent close to 2000 emails to friends and family since COVID-19 locked him in with his computer and germed him out of his travelling businessman lifestyle.  Here’s a sample he passed along recently:

Do you remember that word, murgatroyd?
Would you believe the spell-checker did not recognize the word, Murgatroyd?

The other day a not so elderly (I say 75) lady said something to her son about driving a Jalopy; and he looked at her quizzically and said, “What the heck is a Jalopy?”  He had never heard of the word jalopy!  She knew she was old … But not that old.

About a month ago, I wrote some expressions that have become obsolete because of the inexorable march of technology…  like, Don’t touch that dial; Carbon copy; You sound like a broken record; and Hung out to dry.     

Then there are long-gone exclamations:
Straighten up and fly right.       
Heavens to Betsy!        
Gee  whillikers!            
Jumping Jehoshaphat!        
“This is a fine kettle of fish!”  

Back in the olden days, life used to be swell, but when’s the last time anything was swell? Swell went the way of beehives, pageboys and the D.A.; of spats, knickers, fedoras, poodle skirts, saddle shoes, and pedal pushers.

Kilroy was here, but he isn’t anymore.    

Plenty of others that have vanished:  
Pshaw!
The milkman did it. 
Hey! It’s your nickel. 
Don’t forget to pull the chain.
Don’t take any wooden nickels

And what about: 
More than Carter has liver pills. (Carter’s Little Liver Pills are gone too!)    

Nowadays, where Superman find a phone booth?

Yeah, just like all of us, words and expressions become obsolete.

Common phrases now are “Let me jump in” or “Reach out to her,” perhaps inspired by the long gone phone company ad, “Reach out and touch someone.,” a phrase that probably couldn’t work in the #Me Too and Zoom-relationships world. 

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What Do You Do?

When certain people ask that difficult question, I tell them “I’m a writer.” I know it will satisfy some and they’ll just nod favorably and not pursue it. In certain ways, I AM a writer.  It’s true that I’ve written a few hours almost every day for dozens of years.  But, compared to REAL WRITERS, I’m not a writer. Yes, my book of chronicles was published and I’ve been trying to finish my magnum opus for 50 years or so (really!)  But, I don’t think of myself as a REAL writer.  

Are emails writing?” Or two-line seques in TV shows? Or journal-type notes to try to understand myself or the progress of what I and others are doing?

The task of writers is not to solve the problem, but to state he problem succinctly.

-Anton Chekhov, 1860-1904

Now, HE was a writer.  And I must admit I’ve never read anything he or Euripides or Herman Hesse or millions of others wrote.

I have shelves full of books, primarily nonfiction.  As for the fiction books, I probably haven’t read more than half cover-to-cover.  I’m a writer who hasn’t read more than a few of the 100 greatest novels of all time.

I’ve spent wayyyy more time in front of TV and computer screens than I have reading books. I ain’t so book-smart.  

So, what’s it all mean?  For one thing, I think to be a writer, you must read books, lots of them.  I’ve spent far less time reading books than both of my parents…especially before we got the first television in 1947.  

Back to answering “What do I really do?” 

I get up every morning and spend many of the waking hours doing things I hadn’t planned on when I went to bed.

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Impact of Hollywood Trailers/Previews

Lately, I’ve been looking at trailers for old movies.  They reveal the feel and context of their times. Watching them helps reveal the superficial (but absolutely intentional) ways Hollywood movies have portrayed life.

Here’s one from the 1963 Elvis movie, It Happened at the World’s Fair in Seattle at the 1962 Century 21 Exposition.  It shows so much about the fabric of life and hype then. The 2-minute trailer is at https://www.tcm.com/video/2934/it-happened-at-the-worlds-fair-original-trailer.

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Baseball is Not Apple Pie

Baseball has been a constant in my life for more than 70 years.  My moods are keyed to the fate of the Chicago White Sox.  For decades, the players were mostly the same from year to year.  Nowadays, they come and go like racoons in the garbage.   I still love watching it, but when the teams shuffle players around the way we used to trade baseball cards as kids, it loses a certain connectiveness for the fans.

The Major League trading deadline was this past week.  Players weren’t traded primarily for their worth as ball players to join a new team so much as their value as multi-million dollar investments for the owners. That takes something away from us who spend hundreds of hours following our teams.  I’m not ready to turn that into a nonfiction book, but I couldn’t let it happen without a mention.

The Cubs traded their four best players in 48 hours.  It reminded me of the Yankee-Kansas City shuffle in the late 1950’s when the then-Athletics traded so many of their best players to the Yankees.  Like many other realities of life today, it’s not momentous, just a shift that doesn’t feel entirely comfortable.

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This edition started out with family and ends with them.  

And here are the new Chicagoans.

Here’s hoping you and your family have a fun and healthy August. 

See you in September,

Answer: It’s the king of hearts.  I have no idea why.  Do you?