Rainbows over St. Francis

Days and days of rain ended here, temporarily, today just before sunset. The clouds, some dark grey, others white, parted here and there as shafts of sunlight sliced over the layered sky. As I crested around the edge of Bernal Hill, I saw the first rainbow, rising abruptly from the Bay and arcing halfway to the heavens.

Everything in view was crisp and sharp. Every building and every car, not to mention the shining eyes in every face I passed. The trees, many bare, some with their first pink blossoms of the spring glistened. I saw a bird nest in a large tree next to the street, and a plastic-sheathed newspaper that presumably had missed its mark -- the porch -- outside one Victorian -- and became lodged in a tree.

The Safeway mall was lit surrealistically. The signs of the various shops stood out in their neon-lit clarity like a paint palette. An amazingly intense chunk of rainbow, thick and supple, hung over Safeway like a guardian angel. The shopping carts were wet. People emerged from the shops and cars and held cell phones aloft -- intent on photographing the drama in the sky above us.

It was a magical moment, all of those hand-held devices held up toward heaven, trying to capture a snippet of the unknowable. Alas, it also is indescribable, this kind of natural beauty. It brought tears to my eyes.

***

Being this is a season of relentless rains, my tiny daughter and I spent most of the day inside, doing "art projects." She chatters happily when she's with me, sometimes I don't even have to answer. But then, suddenly, she becomes frustrated with her inability to execute a realistic enough rendition of some object or another, and my radar goes up.

This is a little girl who is extremely hard on herself, and despite her generally sunny moods, she can darken as suddenly as a summer squall overtaking a sailboat out in the Gulf of Mexico. She started tearing up her work, pouting, angry whereas seconds before she had been so seemingly carefree that my mind felt free to continue its normal restless roaming, somewhere far from the present scene.



Later, when the rain lightened to something more like a mist, we went out front to throw a soft football around. Used to be that every time the ball got close to her, rather than catch it, she went into a defensive position, holding her hands up for protection, closing her eyes, trying to avoid contact.

Then she would say, "I'm no good at catching."

This presented me with a parental dilemma. The solution I hit upon was to tell her to hold her hands behind her back. Then, when the ball was coming toward her, she would have to react instinctively to catch it.

This worked. She caught around 30 straight.

Anyway, back to our artistic quandary and how hard she was being on herself. I stumbled upon the idea that she was stuck on the idea that all art has to be representational, sort of an age-appropriate proclivity toward contemporary realism.



I could have pulled out my books on Rauschenberg, Pollack, Johns; or even the Impressionists, and tried to introduce the concepts of abstraction. But, that seemed a little high-octane for an 8-year-old who likes to chat a lot. So, I reminded her that she could concentrate her work on making a Valentine's Day card, since that (bizarre and over-hyped) holiday looms next week.

She thereupon devoted her drawing, writing, coloring and painting efforts to this concept, and we were again back to our previous state of ease. As she happily created what she called a "rainbow" effect on her card, I asked whom she was going to give it to.

She thought for a second, and then replied: "I'm just going to sign it, 'Love, from me.'" Then, maybe I can give it to everyone.



So, here, a bit early, with her blessing, is an early greeting from my tiny companion and me, to you. She and I love romantic movies and we both get sad when we hear of yet another couple that breaks up. (I had to tell her today that that has happened to one of her favorite adult friends.)

Rainbow hearts and rainbow skies over a rainbow city with a mayor in trouble. The day that Barack Obama announced for President. I don't know about you, but I seem to suffer from a kind of congenital optimism.

Maybe this world can heal itself after all. Maybe the greed and the cruelty will give way to a new human ecology that lives softly on the planet, a global Buddhism of happy vegetarians. Or maybe we will tear each other apart like hungry wolves lurking in a forest of monstrous proportions, say the Donald Trump National Preserve.



As for me, I go both ways, back and forth about what I think will happen. From the depths of hopelessness, envisioning nuclear winter and global warming, to the sudden warmth of a girlish hand in mine, or the slash of colors suddenly splashed over our common sky.




I also saw a jet sailing away into the night clouds. Escape.

That sounds like a good idea about now...


-30-

One Life

As I've been launching a major spring cleaning initiative around here lately, I'm unearthing all kinds of books, letters, documents, photos, bottle cap collections, coin collections, and God knows what else tucked away in the corners of this surprisingly accommodating flat.

The first image is of my Mom and Dad meeting my fourth child soon after his birth. I now realize this moment as the pivotal event in my life that it was. It had been 13 years since I had become the parent of a new person.

This little man had a different Mom, of course. I'd fallen totally in love with her, which was not hard to do, because she was charming, beautiful, talented and much more emotionally available than anyone I had ever encountered by that stage of my life.

It also was love at first sight for me; I remember the moment to this day. I was ~36 and already the father of three kids, and quite happily married, so of course I did not act on my impulse. She was 28 at the time, and surrounded by (count them) no less than three male admirers in our office when I first caught sight of her.

I never acted on my attraction, nor did I confess it. Instead, I denied it, and if I felt it popping up into my consciousness in subsequent years, as we worked together, I immediately suppressed this illicit attraction, and did my best to maintain a sustainable state of denial.

But, five+ years later I finally broke down, and kissed her for the first time -- in Paris, of all places, since that is where she was living at the time. It's quite a romantic story, really, but tonight I'll leave it at that, and move on to the next photo.



There now, I'm coming hazily into view. The year is 1994 and the season is fall. This lovely little boy has been born in the midst of much drama in my professional life. (Have I mentioned that in my own quiet way, I am quite the drama queen?)

Well, some back-story may be in order, then. I had been passed over by the board of directors of Mother Jones for the position of Editor in Chief in 1992, a year after I joined their staff and soon after I'd gotten remarried. I learned of this news via a voice message left on my home phone while I was on my honeymoon in the Sierra with the future mother of this beautiful baby.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. When I heard this news, by checking my voicemail, something deep inside me broke, and a sense of hope that had always sustained me shattered. For the one and only time in my life that I can recall, I became physically violent. After my bride and I had drank more than was our custom, enough so my pain should have been salved, I recall punching walls, throwing furniture, and breaking stuff.

Not exactly exemplary behavior for a "distinguished" journalist at the age of 47, and I am not proud to mention it. I had worn my wedding suit to the MoJo Board meeting in Chicago, just a few weeks after this lovely lady and I sealed our deal; plus I had taken my precious 11-year-old son, who endured long periods of waiting while the board had their way with me.

I had assumed the job was mine. After all, the only reason I had joined the magazine when I did was that the then-Editor in Chief confided to me he would be leaving in a year's time (which he did) and the position would therefore be mine.

At that point in what people would call my "career," but I call my distraction, anything less than the top job anywhere would have been an insult. But, as it turned out, another journalist had the inside track for the MoJo job, unknown to me. Afterwards, a mutual friend whom I had listed as a reference confessed that he didn't know how to differentiate between the two of us, and felt that he had helped in the process of undermining me, unwittingly, by not taking a stand.

I was later informed that I lost the job by one vote on the divided board.

After I calmed down, and left some money for the mountain hotel to pay for repairs, I returned to San Francisco and agreed to stay with the magazine. The board had been so seriously split that they wished to explore the concept of a "dream team" of editors -- their first choice and me. Of course, he would be in charge.

Always the sucker for these kinds of appeals, I agreed, partly because a hefty raise was involved in the deal. Plus, despite our unfortunate competition for the top job, I kind of liked this guy, his vision, and his willingness to try new things.

I lasted exactly one year in that job, which was a combination of Managing Editor/Investigative Editor. By the end of that period, I felt betrayed, undermined, devalued and blamed for things beyond my control. Worst of all, I found myself unable to even convince my colleagues of the merits of an investigative story I'd commissioned that documented how "socially conscious" clothing companies were exploiting workers in sweatshops in the Third World to create their fancy clothes for progressive consumers here in the Land of the Free.

This was, to me, a classic investigative piece, challenging our assumptions, and one that any honest journalist would die for. The reporter had done her homework; the cases were well documented, and there was no valid reason, editorially, to spike the story.

But spiked it was, and do you want to know why? Because a certain prominent leftist writer and friend of Mother Jones found out about the piece and complained that it would embarrass a major backer of the non-profit magazine, and therefore should not be done.

This opponent of investigative reporting later became the dean of a prestigious journalism school.

In an extremely improbable turn of events, the very same friend who had lured me into the Lion's Pit at Mother Jones soon became this new dean's right-hand man.

And I quite suddenly lost my long-running adjunct lecturer position teaching investigative reporting at said illustrious university, a job I had been doing for over ten years. No explanation from either of them was ever forthcoming; my course was simply reassigned to others, which objectively was not necessarily a bad thing to do. But, under the circumstances, the clear conclusion for me to draw was that I was being shafted.

Also, the timing, for me and my family, hurt, because my subsequent job at Wired Digital suddenly evaporated as the first step in a takeover of the company by unfriendly investors, who eliminated dozens of people, including ultimately, founders Louis Rossetto and Jane Metcalfe.

So, this was one of the difficult transitions in my "career;" lots of emotional damage was done in the process.

But I fear I have gotten seriously ahead of myself here, because I never finished the story of how I quit Mother Jones. That was truly one of the lowest moments of a long, lonely career as a writer and editor.

I was so shocked at the overt hostility directed my way by someone I had considered a friend -- a colleague who on the day in question turned against me, and trashed my intention to publish the aforementioned sweatshop article, criticizing me as not bringing in the right kind of investigative articles.

The editorial meeting that day was a long one, and when we adjourned for a break, I walked out of the office, never to return, as an employee, again. I walked a mile or so to my home on Bernal Heights. My wife was not home. Then, I walked back to my office, grabbed my car, and started driving north.

I drove and I drove, much as any person trying to escape a nightmare tries to do.
I was way up north when I finally stopped for a dinner in a roadside cafe. After I ate the food, which I think was a patty melt with fries, I considered my options, and slowly turned myself around to head south.

After all, I had nowhere to escape to, and I had to come to grips with explaining to my still-new wife that I was quitting the job that provided our only reliable monthly income, just at the point where she had entered a creative writing program, seeking her MFA. I knew the news would frighten her, which is one reason I had tried to flee reality that night.

Of course, you can run but you can't hide. At the point when I was turning my car around, and rebounding home, to the Bay Area, I remembered that my oldest daughter (then in high school) would need a ride to school the next morning, 20 miles south in San Francisco. Somehow, in my horrible haze of ineffable sadness, I made it back down to near her Mom's house in Mill Valley, and got a few minutes of fitful sleep in the chilly hours before dawn.

As it turned out, my daughter, worried, had called my new wife to ask where I was, and the answer she received was "I don't know. I think your Dad may be in some trouble."

Within minutes of that call, I was pulling up outside of her mother's house on Northern Avenue in the old Tam Valley section of Mill Valley, and then I drove her to school at Lowell, where she was a superstar academically.

After that, I retreated home to our bungalow on Elsie Street and broke down in my wife's arms. So many failures! So many disappointments!

It would take a long, long time before I could begin to appreciate these experiences for what they are...just part of the natural thousands of sadnesses and the thousands of joys that populate our living years.



I love this last photo, showing my parents with my (then) four kids. Regardless of all the noise swirling through of the above stories, they occurred contemporaneously with my efforts to create a second nuclear family, and I never lost sight of what and whom I truly cared about.

Honestly, I am glad the MoJo board chose that other guy. He was the right guy at the right time. And, for the dean position, the university can have that guy, too.

Because at the end of it all, I remained untamed. I identified closely with those wild animals that trainers try to present as acceptable to their visitors.

Unlike most good men, I don't believe we have the luxury to debate what to do about global warming, say, or reconstructing the Gulf Coast after Katrina. I don't think we have time to debate the fine points of these crises.

Thus, I speak out, and in the process, become expendable.

That is the true story of my life as a journalist.


Oh, by the way, there was a postscript about that story that was spiked. It was published finally by The Nation and won an award.

-30-

The new content boom

Those ever-clever innovators at TODO Monthly now have launched eTODO, amonthly email newsletter with the same smart writing, beautiful images, and useful tips to life in my favorite city. They're holding their "heavy petting party" tonight; although I cannot attend, I wish them my best.




Congratulations, Kiri Henderson, designer Rhonda Rubinstein, editor Michael Phillips Moskowitz and team!







You can subscribe to this FREE newsletter at info@todomonthly.com .

PLUS, I am thrilled to see TODO is promoting my other favorite San Francisco content startup -- Weekend Sherpa .





My friend and I had the pleasure of a nice lunch at the Fairmount on this rainy Thursday with Founder Brad Day and marketing genius Holly Kulak. This extremely low-key little gem of a FREE newsletter arrives in my inbox every Thursday morning. It contains three or four brief, lively tips for things to do on the upcoming weekend.

Weekend Sherpa has the inestimable Don George onboard as a senior editorial consultant. Besides being one of the best travel editors in the business, as anyone in travel writing will testify, Don was always one of my favorite people back in our mutual Salon days.

I miss our lunches at Eddie Rickenbacker's!

***

Lest all of this seem like some sort of marketing blather, let me explain. Launching new magazines, newsletters and websites has long been my passion. But rarely have I had the courage or the resources to start anything of my own. Sure, I've been part of lots of startups at or near their launches.

But the idea was always someone else's, not mine.

SunDance magazine was the brainchild of two wacky journalists, Ken Kelley and Craig Pyes. Pacific News Service was Sandy Close's baby. Salon.com was all David Talbot. Wired was Louis Rossetto. 7x7 belongs to Tom Hartle. Mother Jones had a trio of grandfathers. Stanford was the brainchild of Leland Stanford.

You get the drift.

The company where I work now is run by its founder and CEO. We are all trying to help him achieve his dream for a content play.

***

As I consider applying for AARP, mainly so I can get the discounts that come with age, I remain frustrated with a career that in other people's eyes, probably looks just fine. Maybe this blog is as good as it gets.

After all, this is 100% me, probably way more than most people would want on any but an occasional basis. But, if I turn a bit promotional from time to time, it is not simply the media launches that attract me, or even the people behind them. It is their dreams.

Nobody pays me for these promotions. Sharing others' dreams is all the compensation I really need. That, and the occasional message encouraging me to continue this modest attempt to pursue my own.
-30-

Language, Rising

So, here is a question for you:

What do these four common entries mean? "b4," "ur," "2" and "wata."

Okay, if you got them right, what about these? wit, da and dat (*)

If this is Greek to you (as it is to me), welcome to the world of text messaging. This form of communication is sweeping societies around the world (Japan, China, Europe, the U.S.) among young people raised in the age of the ubiquitous cell phone.

Never before in history has a communications technology like this one penetrated human societies so rapidly. While older folks are still getting the hang of email, or IM, these phrases from the compulsive IMers and text messagers are creeping into every day language.

If Shakespeare were alive today, he would be hard at work documenting these linguistic developments, and integrating them into his writings.

All too soon, I suspect, we in the west will find ourselves abandoning capital letters and spacing to indicate our names. Thus, I will be davidweir, for example, and you'll be whatever your given name may be, such as yomamafahatsalot. Whatever.

It was nice bumping into Tanya this morning and exchanging warm hugs. She told me she is struck by how sped up life has become just in the past few years. Friends send her a text message and get anxious if she doesn't answer quickly.

But she has a real job (teaching first and second graders) so she often cannot get to her friends' messages until after school ends for the day.

Another friend, Christine, tells me that she thinks IMing with your S.O. is dangerous, because it all too easily can degenerate into a fight.

After all, the biggest fallacy from our childhood was that old rhyme: "Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me!"

Bullshit. Words are like daggers. "You look fat." How much blood has that phrase drawn, here in the land of the idealism of anorexia?

Yes, a new language is emerging, yet many of our contemporaries will remain helplessly oblivious. But I'm sure of this much: The spellcheck program I try to always remember to run over my blog posts before you, dear reader, are subjected to them, will one day have to be overhauled to recognize the new "words" that will be as common as ants.

LOL!

(*)used in place of with, the and that.

Timeless

The exquisite pains and beauties of being alive churn inside me tonight. My eyes are hurting, and whole body is aching from the constant abuse I subject it to -- or maybe it was those two strenuous basketball games against the kids on Sunday. My 12-year-old can beat me hands-down at any version of 1:1 basketball I care to try. Who ever heard of a kid who can nail 50% of his shots beyond the 3-point line, which in our yard, means shooting from way back where the old 1880's privy used to reside.

(That patch of ground remains mysteriously devoid of clover or sour grass this winter, whilst the rest of the yard blooms like a tropical rainforest. I suspect the ghosts we unearthed to gather those old bottles unleashed some unhappy spirits, or at least, their excretions. "Don't go messin' with my shit," they probably are saying.)

Nonetheless, time waits for none of us, not even our ghosts. Thus, a few tiny, fearless clovers are seeding the refilled excavation square, and I bet by next winter (our greenest season here in the desert that is San Francisco), all traces of our intrusion into the history of this place will be invisible to the naked eye.

I'm happy to note that traffic to this pathetic little blog is up today, no doubt in response to my heart-felt post in homage to oral sex. While I'm on the subject, let me say I am a big fan of every type of pleasure people can give each other, and I do not quite understand why many pleasures are characterized as "fetishes."

Those Puritans back in the day really f'd this culture up. It is striking to be in Japan or China, or to date people from those cultures, and to see how unrepressed about sex they are. For that matter, even the British are less repressed than Americans, in my experience.

***

I hate it when that happens. I get distracted. I have other things to say tonight. First, life is short, and time races on. Already, do you realize, more than 10% of 2007 is over! And, what, exactly, have we accomplished? I was working by request earlier today on an acquaintance's tribute to her brother, who died prematurely and suddenly, recently.

Her advice in her tribute to anyone listening is to never miss an opportunity to tell those closest to you what they mean to you. This may sound like a cultural cliché, but it is sound advice. No matter how strained your relations may be with your close people, do not remain silent for long.

Otherwise, the echoes of your own lonely voice, mouthing phrases never uttered "in the living years" will continue to wash over you like soft, unforgiving waves on the edge of an ocean that never ceases to attack the sand you stand on.

***

I heard from my cousin Dan tonight, one of Gordon's big brothers, in the form of a comment on my post titled "Only the Lonely." Dan and I were the same age, so in our growing up years, we shared the most among all the Anderson cousins. I have always admired him greatly, even though we chose separate paths in life. My respect for him and his choices remains intact. He's a strong, dependable, decent man whose values, at the end of the day, remain consistent with my own, though we might quibble a bit over the details. :-)

***

So, time waits on no man and no woman. You know what I enjoy? Watching a lovely woman enjoy her food. Eating is so incredibly sensuous, and due to the irrational pressure on women to be as slender as an exclamation mark, I notice how much pressure my female friends feel under re: food.

Thus, whenever I enjoy the company of someone who savors, say, her Brussels sprouts or her Beijing Duck, my heart feels happy. I truly enjoy the way my own kids, all of whom sport hearty appetites, react when I order Indian food from Spicy Bite or Chinese food from Yum Yum, or Mexican food from El Matate.

Tonight, worrying about the large question of Time, I have lost sight of the small question of time, which includes an obligation to make myself dinner. Hmmm, where shall we begin?

-30-

He's got my vote!

So our mayor, here in San Francisco, had a brief affair a year and a half ago, while he was going through his divorce. Now, he has said he is an alcoholic, and he's going to seek treatment.

I can't speak for other residents of Barbary Coast Village, but these revelations only increase my loyalty to my mayor. To be truthful, I didn't vote for him in the last election; instead, I supported the upstart, Matt Gonzalez.

I fell for the anti-Pac Heights rhetoric the Left was hurling at him. But I should have known better. I'd met him the year before, spent some time with him, in the owner's box at Candlestick Park during a 49ers game, and I liked him. He was impossible not to like. He's sincere, funny, self-deprecating -- nice to be around, although perhaps not if he's your boss.

But I got swept up in the passionate movement behind Gonzalez, who seemed to be leading a populist uprising against the downtown business interests who'd held sway throughout Willie Brown's reign.

Newsom got to me when he took his stand in support of gay marriage. Then, he solidified my support by his constant attention to kids in some of the city's most dangerous housing projects. He sealed the deal when he joined striking hotel workers on the picket line -- against those same downtown business types I'd imagined as his allies.

Clearly, this guy has a reckless streak, much like most great politicians -- JFK, Clinton, maybe Obama.

I just feel better toward him knowing he can admit to some of the same mistakes almost every living, breathing person makes. Since when do our politicians have to be different from the rest of us?

I enjoyed watching Newsom work the room at the big Democratic Party fundraiser just before last November's election. He exuded charisma, and attracted every bit as much attention as did Nancy Pelosi, soon to be Speaker of the House.

Clinton, on the other hand, is in a whole different category: He's a rock star.

Gavin could learn a few things from Bill. Or, he could be like Dubya and become an evangelist for the ex-drinker community -- an ever-growing constituency all across the nation.

But if he listens to Bill, maybe he can figure out a way to (sorry, cliché-haters) have his wine and drink it too. Either way, he's such a hunk that attracting the ladies will never be an issue for him.

Nor will attracting votes, at least in San Francisco. I can't speak for the rest of the state or the union. Given that we have a trash-talking groper at Governor, and an outright idiot as President, I'm not sure which "family values" exactly these Republicans represent.

Nope, Gavin's my guy. And p.s., Mr. Mayor, thank you for that thank you note you sent me after I met you. This post is my way of writing back, hopefully at a moment when you can use some support.

-30-

Oral Sex is Great but Reality Just Sucks

Many times, I am so overwhelmed by the various information resources that have come to my attention recently that I don't even know where to start.

But, tonight, I want to alert readers to:

* a great story list about post-Katrina Louisiana and Mississippi.
* an incredible watchdog site on the trial in Washington, D.C., that could bring down the Bush administration.
* an informed person's guide to oral sex.

***

Okay, I am kidding about the third one. But, you have to admit it's a pretty good keyword phrase (oral sex), which is one of the ways websites attract audiences from the vast, restless audience out there searching for...something or another.

You know, I think I owe those who may follow these keywords some insights. So, I'll do my best. My only sexual experiences are heterosexual, so I suppose I am no use to gay men. But for those (men or women) who want to service their girlfriends or wives in this way better, I do have a few suggestions.

First, the environment matters. If you know your woman, you'll know that she feels safest letting go in either the dark (likely) or the light, outside or inside (probably), with music on (likely) or in the quiet. Maybe drugs or alcohol or maybe not. Maybe naked (probably) or maybe with clothes simply rearranged. Maybe whispering fantasies or maybe keeping utterly quiet (likely).

Whatever her preferences are, remember this, tweaking a woman's nipples is closely related to the birth-like contractions that approximate orgasms, so do not neglect these places as you lick, bite, blow, and otherwise stimulate her most private places.

As for men, we're easy, right? I don't pretend to speak for my brothers, but for me, I also have to feel safe to enjoy getting a nice blowjob. In fact, it can take me a long time to climax, because my background convinced me women don't really like to do this. It appears this has changed recently, but I wouldn't know too much about that, since I try to date women only within my own demographic, i.e., the Baby Boom, rather generously interpreted.

So if you are a woman and you want to please your man, learning how to take as much of him in is a really good idea. Think about it. Men enter and thrust, but whatever is left outside the warm, wet environment we are seeking is rather, how to say, unattended.

It must be very hard to deep-throat a man, because you have to suppress any gagging impulse. But this can be done, and I have the experience to prove it. In fact, according to my partner on that memorable occasion, my shot went straight down her throat without her even feeling it! Maybe that was our greatest moment, as a couple? We were in Greenwich Village, a place where such things have often, no doubt, occurred.



***

I do apologize for the digression. Maybe that was my bold reach for new readers, or maybe I just have a tendency now and again to issue TMI. Whatever, it's done now. (Oral Sex searchers can depart now. Have a nice night.)

Meanwhile, to return to my main purpose tonight, there is an excellent collection of good articles about the post-Katrina Gulf coast here: New Yorker archive .

***

Have you been following the perjury trial of "Scooter" Libby in Washington, D.C. Some incredible evidence has been introduced into the record. Here are a couple explosive exhibits:




To fully appreciate what these hand-written notes by Dick Cheney mean, please follow this link: Truthout. org. (Thanks, Kelsey.)

***

What, say you, does this serious political commentary have to do with oral sex? I ask you, dear reader, to think back one President, and you'll see what I am suggesting. Who's worse, a brilliant and well-meaning man who succumbs to sexual temptation; or a rich guy over his head, "morally" pure but very possibly a war criminal in history, should any of those who have brought us to this juncture ever be brought before the World Court.

-30-

Being Super

Where do I start? That is always the hardest decision. Maybe, tonight, I'll start with books, even as music is pounding in my head.

Books are brain food; music is heart food. Art, your own art, is soul food.

One of the nice parts of living in San Francisco is the opportunity to get to know many artists. In the early '70s, a cultural revolution was raging in this town. Psychedelic posters, political photographs, plus primordial products proactively penetrated practically, potentially, potently popular places, positively.

Where was I? I hate it when this happens. Alliteration slips out of my lips, or my fingertips, and there's no way for me to stop it. I think I was looking for a synonym for "market."

Back then, leftists activists like me considered market economics to be the enemy of all we held dear. We looked to Che Guevara, Mao Tse Tung, V. I. Lenin, and many others to lead us in a different direction, a much more utopian vision, one based, quite frankly on our hearts, even if it ostensibly was intellectual.

Nope, it was emotional. The intellectual integrity of Communism turned out to be deeply flawed. But it was a nice try.

Anyway, in the '60s, the old Commies were still active, more or less like beneficent uncles guarding their wayward nephews and nieces -- those of us on what was termed the "New Left."

No doubt about it, I was there at the center of the New Left. Somehow, I obtained an original copy of the Port Huron Statement that launched SDS (Students for a Democratic Society), and I've kept it to this day.

Its key author, Tom Hayden, and the leftist professor Staughton Lynd wrote books about American imperialism in Vietnam that influenced me greatly. As a high school contemporary of my big sister's in Royal Oak, he and I happened to share some history that I did not discover until many years later.

But I was lucky to edit some of Tom's excellent essays about the Vietnam War in Rolling Stone, and later, to work on a film with him and Jane Fonda, called Rollover.

These days, Tom and I are both members of the Editorial Board of The Nation magazine in New York. Headed there again soon.

***

Tomorrow is my grandson James's one-month birthday! He is smiling now, alert, and, according to his mom, anxious to be able to get moving and explore his world. I'll go back up to see him very soon.

***

My 12-year-old has entered puberty. He also is growing like Jack's Beanstalk. He is already about 5'2", and looking down on his friends' heads for the first time ever. He also has developed such an amazingly active jump shot in basketball that watching him play is a pleasure others, not just his doting father, are commenting on.

He is growing so fast, with his 8.5 shoe size anchoring his height, I wonder of he will not overtake his oldest sister when she marries this summer? After all, she is only 5'3".

***

We had some friends over today for a Super Bowl party, just like Americans did all over the country. But our party might be a bit Left Coast for mainstream taste. I served pickles, olives, baby carrots, chips, cucumber, fresh basil, red pepper, cherry tomatoes, lettuce with a dressing of Ume Plum Vinegar/Olive Oil/Garlic Powder/Balsamic Vinegar.

It was, shall we say, redolent.

Just to safe, we also had pizza and diet Coke.

***
My serious rearranging of my flat continues unabated. All sorts of memories are being resurfaced around here. My eight-year-old daughter rediscovered her favorite reading books today, and the boys found lost toys.

As for me, I found some old photographs of my parents with their new little grandson, some 12+ years ago, now the emerging basketball star. Both have since died, but if I choose the two people I would most love to talk to about his athleticism, it would be them, my mom and my dad.

They look so nice in this photo, and they were nice. I have no idea how they ever put up with the likes of me -- a mutant, of sorts, as I (and my generation) challenged everything they held dear.

Well, not everything. We connected again as loving parents, doting grandparents, and survivors of life storms. Blood runs thicker than ideology, and may it always be so!

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