Life

Dr. R. U. Forereel Opens Up

Yeah, Another Blogger21 Comments

Regular readers of this publication might recall at least one or two of the articles in which I detail my encounters with my psychiatrist Dr. R. U. Forereel. For years and years I’ve been seeing Dr. Forereel on a monthly basis. She is a prickly sort, and rather unpredictable in her behavior, but I’m pleased with the improvements I’ve made under her guidance. When I began therapy with her those many moons ago, my happiness level, on a scale of 1 to 10, was 2, which is horrendously low. Due to the valuable insights and suggestions my doctor has given me, it now is at 4, which is pathetic but at least not horrendous. I don’t know about you, but I’ll take pathetic over horrendous any day. Hell, progress is progress! In my book, Dr. Forereel is a winner. And, not surprisingly, she surprised the heck out of me last month during my most recent session with her.

“Nice to see you, Neil,” she said groggily when I entered her office and eased myself into the patient’s chair. As I’m sure just about anyone would have, I regarded her face intently, because bags larger and darker than those in a box of Lipton tea hung below her eyes.

Taken aback by her appearance, I asked if everything was alright.

“Oh yes, Neil. Life is treating me just fine. But I got no sleep whatsoever overnight, which accounts for the pouches you’ve been unable to take your eyes off of. Didn’t anyone ever tell you that it’s rude to stare, young man? And I say young facetiously, of course. Neil, my temporary facial droopings are absolutely lovely compared to the permanent, deep and innumerable wrinkles etched into your aged puss.”

“Yes, doctor, I’m old, if not older, than dirt. Thank you so much for reminding me of this fact. But, getting back to your baggy eyes, what kept you up all night?”

“Well, I’d heard a lot about it, so I binge-watched Netflix’s new reality series, I’m Not Looking For Love, I’m Looking To Get Laid. Neil, this show is fantastic! In each episode, girls and guys in their 20s and 30s hook up quickly and get it on vigorously. These people are so real and honest, not only with themselves but also with each other. They are not the least bit reluctant to grab life by the horns and enjoy it to the max. If everyone were as well-adjusted and pretense-free as they are, therapists would be out of business. It’s a good thing for me that such is not the case. Neil, I urge you to watch this show. You could learn life lessons from it. There’s a real chance it would help raise your happiness level.”

“Doctor, based on what you’ve described, this series might raise more than my happiness level, if you know what I mean. The show sounds tremendously exciting. I imagine it could teach me a few tricks, no?”

“Indeed, Neil. That’s true for nearly everybody, seeing how graphic and unfiltered each episode is. It’s not true for me, though. I’m far more experienced than you would imagine. Neil, you must promise never to mention to anybody what I’m about to reveal to you. Okay?”

“Of course. My lips are tightly sealed.”

“Good. Now, I’m sure you know how monstrously high the costs of medical schooling are. I would have put myself deeply in debt had I not figured out a way to generate hefty income along the path to becoming a psychiatrist. So, I did. Neil, while in med school I acted in adult films. Scores of them. I was known as Miss Duzzitall, and do it all I truly did. Plus, I always wore a mask in the films. To this day, thank heavens, that mask has prevented Miss Duzzitall’s true identity from becoming public knowledge. Oh, I had such a marvelous time. My co-workers were hot and adventurous. As was I.”

“Doctor, I’m almost speechless. You’ve never struck me as the libidinous type at all.”

“Neil, I’ve learned to suppress that side of me. Which perhaps is a mistake. But I have no intention of jeopardizing my professional career. I’m an esteemed therapist, and I want to keep it that way.”

“Doctor Forereel, I’ve always admired you. And now you’ve grown bigger in my eyes than ever before. You are such a complex, fascinating individual.”

“Thank you, Neil. But enough about me. Which of your numerous problems should we focus on today?”

Readers, the remainder of that session was duller than dishwater. I won’t bother going into it. However, despite what I promised Dr. Forereel, there is no way I can keep quiet about the juicy details she spilled to me. Needless to say, I have full confidence in your discretion and good judgment. Meaning, I know you won’t tell a soul!

A Real Old Story

Yeah, Another Blogger163 Comments

As some of you know, my previous opus (it will pop up on your screen if you click here) examines the travel bug that bit me when I was a young adult, and highlights a few of the trips and destinations I’ve been most taken with over the course of my life. At the tippy top of the most–taken–with list is a three-week trek, in November 1982, through the Himalaya Mountains in Nepal. I’d never done anything as demanding or adventurous as that endeavor turned out to be. And I haven’t come close to equaling it. I think about the trek fairly often. It made a huge impression on me, bringing me nearly face-to-face with some of the world’s tallest peaks, including numero uno itself, Mount Everest.

I cherish my Himalayan memories. And I’ll never add to them, because it would be physically impossible for me to ascend high into the Himalayas at this point in my life. My legs would give out after two or three days on the trail, for sure. Or, far worse, my ticker might stop ticking before my legs cried uncle. Hell, the trek took place 43 and a half years ago. I was 35 at the time, fully feeling my oats. I’m 78 now. And though I’m extremely fortunate to be in decent shape, a whole lot of the oats I feel nowadays are literally oats. In the form of oatmeal, which I spoon into my mouth for breakfast about once a week. In other words, decent shape is relative, and I definitely ain’t what I used to be. Nobody in my age bracket is.

Seventy-eight? Are you shitting me? How is this possible? How did time flow by so quickly? Man, by just about anyone’s definition, I’m real old. That’s why, completely unsurprisingly, I now and then ponder my eventual demise. What will get me in the end? The possibilities are more than many. As with everything, time will tell.

The crazy thing about it, though, is that I can’t fully wrap my head around the fact that an expiration date is stamped in invisible ink somewhere on my body. (By the way, my guess is that it’s on my ass. On both cheeks, probably.) I mean, I still think of myself as being kind of immortal, just as I did decades ago. Basically, I want to keep going on and on and on, and for everyone of like mind on the subject to keep going on and on and on too. And, let me assure you, serious bodily ailments would be no more for those of us choosing non-ending sojourns on Planet Earth. Yeah, you better believe that a major restructuring of earthly realities would be instituted pronto if I were in charge. Vote for me! Damn straight I’d set matters straight!

In autumn 2025, my wife Sandy and I gathered with family in Hawaii to attend the bar mitzvah of one of our three great-nephews, as Hawaii is where the bar mitvah boy resides. We stayed with a bunch of other family members in a rented house for a week. On the grounds was a huge swimming pool. The pool was a magnet for the great-nephews, who at the time ranged in age from six to thirteen, and for most of the adults too.

One afternoon, Sandy and I were standing in the house with our sister-in-law Sara, who was regarding, through windows, the three youngsters splashing away in the pool. Sara turned to me and Sandy and said something to us that has stuck in my mind: “Our lives are ending and theirs are beginning.” Wistfulness and wonder were in her voice.

Well, Sara meant ending in a broader sense, not in the imminent sense. Nevertheless, she was right. She, Sandy and I are in our 70s. Even if we each hang in there for another 20 or more years, that won’t be all that much compared to the number of years we’ve already said goodbye to. On the other hand, the future is wide open for my great-nephews, and I hope it treats them well.

So, that’s life. We come and we go. And, hopefully, we live productively and lovingly during our stays. My wishful thinking described above isn’t about to change the way things roll here on our orb. Though I’d be delighted if it did.

Peace, Love And Understanding

Yeah, Another Blogger157 Comments

So, here we are at the start of another year. Perhaps 2026 will prove to be more agreeable for humankind than 2025 was. But that’s a major longshot, seeing that a propensity for violence is embedded in the genetic material of way too many people, males above all. Vladimir Putin is a perfect example of an individual filled with real nasty DNA. Male, and also a f*cking monster, he shows no inclination to end Russia’s attack on Ukraine. And let’s not forget Donald Trump. (Man, we can’t. He’s unforgettable! Right, Venezuela?) Like Putin, he is a hugely destabilizing figure. Duh! A megalomaniac, a bigot and a convicted felon, and contemptuous of all who dare to disagree with him, this guy is trying his damnedest to put a submission hold on democracy in the USA. I could cite dozens of other examples of horror shows being staged on our planet. But I’ll spare you the wordage.

As you might guess, based on the above paragraph, the negative aspects of the world’s state of affairs are on my mind a lot. They are in sharp contrast to teachings of the hippie movement of the 1960s, which shaped my outlook on life. Or maybe that outlook already was in place back then and merely wanted to be reinforced a bit. Whatever the case, I’m a sucker for peace, love and understanding, three key tenets of hippiedom. And for four of the others too: kindness, inclusion, fairness and open-mindedness. Alas, alas, alas, only in the dreamiest dreams will that septet become guiding principles of any nation, let alone all nations. There is far too much intolerance and greed throughout the world for that to happen. Still, it’s important to champion and manifest those virtues. The more inroads they make, the less unfortunate the future of our species, and of most other species on Earth, will be.

I’m an old guy, about one-quarter of the way through my 79th journey around the Sun, a reality I can’t fathom at all. How the hell did I become near-ancient? Anyway, I don’t know if it’s surprising or not, but I’ve always remained true to the societal and world views I held when I was in my 20s, a period during which I wouldn’t have guessed that, decades later, my face would decide to form more wrinkles than are found in a box of prunes. Political-spectrum-wise, I haven’t swung to the right, not even a little, and never will. And I’ll add, by the way, that I’m not a pacifist. Violence and warfare at times are just and necessary. And I’ll also add that I take comfort in the knowledge that a healthy number of readers of this publication have pretty much the same takes as me on the matters I touch upon in this article.

Nick Lowe, an astute British rocker, is the composer of the great song (What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding. He and the other members of his then-band Brinsley Schwarz recorded it and released it in 1974, with Lowe handling the lead vocals. Initially, it didn’t go anywhere at all. Since then, however, the song has gained an enormous amount of traction. Elvis Costello And The Attractions got the ball rolling with the version they put on wax in 1978. Many more artists subsequently covered it too. There’s no doubt in my mind that the composition’s popularity has mushroomed because its message is the truth. There’s nothing funny about peace, love and understanding. They are where it’s at.

Without further ado, I present to you the Brinsley Schwarz version of a song that has its heart in the right places. Get ready to be rocked and inspired.

You Gotta Have Fun: A Cannoli Story

Yeah, Another Blogger162 Comments

My wife Sandy and I go out to dinner most Friday and Saturday nights. We’ve been doing this for years, and know that we’re fortunate as hell to be able to indulge ourselves in this way. The majority of those meals take place in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, which isn’t surprising, since we reside in those burbs. And once or twice each month we head into Philadelphia, a city with many fine aspects, including a pulsating restaurant scene that, like the universe, keeps expanding. Each of our Philly visits includes dining in a restaurant or pub. The abundance of good eateries is one of the reasons why I’m a major fan of The City Of Brotherly Love.

Sandy and I consider dining out to be a form of entertainment. It’s fun. Two Fridays ago (November 7th), in the burbs, we chowed down at a restaurant we’ve been to a lot: Anthony’s Coal-Fired Pizza. The Italian salad we ordered was A-OK, and the pizza that followed it earned, on my scale, a 6.8 out of 10. That’s pretty high praise from me, because I’m a pizza snob.

The salad and pizza filled us up quite nicely. There was no room for dessert, certainly not for cannoli, a not-on-the-light-side Italian pastry, which Sandy, almost in passing, mentioned was on the dessert menu. Cannoli — crispy, tubular shells of dough stuffed with one variation or another of a ricotta cheese filling — can be scrumptious. When the word cannoli left Sandy’s mouth, my mind lit up, and I found myself reliving a sublime gastronomic experience. Namely, the cannoli I’d swooned over a year or so previously, for they were perfection, at Little Nonna’s, an Italian restaurant in downtown Philly that’s hard to get into unless you’ve reserved a table at least several days in advance. I hadn’t eaten any cannoli since then. But the signs were clear. It was imperative that I interact with Little Nonna’s cannoli again. And soon. Damn soon. The next night, in fact, would be ideal.

Thus, as we were preparing to pay the bill, I said to Sandy that, when we got home, I was going to see if Little Nonna’s, by some miracle, had a table available for the following evening. The odds were low, but miracles, I hear, have been known to occur. The cannoli gods were with me. Back at the house, I couldn’t believe my eyes when Litte Nonna’s online reservation service offered a table for 7:00 PM on Saturday. I nabbed it. Cannoli, here I come!

Little Nonna’s
Little Nonna’s

We arrived at Little Nonna’s from a Philadelphia movie theater, where we’d seen Blue Moon, a literate and really good drama about Lorenz Hart, the brilliant but troubled lyricist whose songwriting partner was the composer Richard Rodgers. Little Nonna’s is a cool place. Dimly lit, casual and full of life. Sandy and I enjoyed the heck out of the salad we shared. Ditto for our entrees. The chefs there know what they’re doing.

Cannoli at Little Nonna’s

One hour into the meal, the long-anticipated moment was at hand, as a plate holding two cannoli was placed before us. They were a vision and also deelish. The hazelnut bits, chocolate sauce and powdered sugar saw to that. But were the cannoli fully as good as those on the previous occasion? You better believe it! My idea to revisit Little Nonna’s was one of the best I’d had in a long while.

As we all know all too well, our lives zoom by. That’s why it’s important to have fun on at least a fairly regular basis. Anything less than that means we’re not in the best of shape. If I hadn’t followed through on my goofy cannoli-related impulse, I’d have missed out on a fun-filled mini adventure. Which would have been a shame. For most of my adult life, I’ve been a frequent fun-pursuer and a usually successful fun-attainer. I have no plans to change.

Puzzles

Yeah, Another Blogger156 Comments

I get about six hours of sleep daily, less than the majority of folks. This means I have 18 hours to fill, which is a lot. Overall, I do a fairly decent job with that, I guess. Some combination of the following occupies me pretty well most days: family life; household chores and duties; social life; volunteer work; reading; listening to music; watching TV; dining out; long walks; pecking away at my computer’s keyboard to produce content for the dodgy publication you’re now staring at.  And I’d be remiss not to mention scratching my balls while belting out the melodies of my favorite Gregorian chants. Yes indeed, I love doing that very much. It’s just about my only activity that isn’t on the mild side.

But wait, there’s more! After attending to personal hygiene matters and downing hot coffee, I kick off most every day by tackling one or two sudoku puzzles online, via the Brainbashers website. Man, I’m addicted to sudoku, a logic-based game involving the correct placement of numbers in a grid. I quickly became hooked when, in 2011, I researched and deciphered sudoku’s inner workings. I’ve interacted with thousands of sudoku puzzles since then.

After satisfying my sudoku jones and then eating breakfast, I retrieve the copy of The Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper that has been tossed onto our driveway by my family’s paper-delivery guy. I postpone reading any of its articles and head straight to the crossword puzzle, for sudoku is not the only puzzle genre I’m addicted to. Settled comfortably upon the living room sofa or at the dining room table, I do my best to fill in the crossword’s blank spaces accurately.

All told, I devote an average of roughly 90 minutes daily to puzzles. That’s nearly 8.5% of my waking hours, a significant figure. I’ve often wondered if I should cut back. Addictions, needless to say, can be seriously unhealthy. And so, several weeks ago, at my most recent session with my psychiatrist Dr. R. U. Forereel, I brought up the subject.

“What? You do puzzles for 10 or more hours each week? What in the world is wrong with you, Neil?” Dr. Forereel commented.

“But, sudoku and crossword puzzles relax me. And they help to keep the old brain cells in shape.”

“Old is right, Neil,” my doctor said, after glancing at my chart. “You’re soon to turn 78, I see. Neil, you’re ancient, and should be doing your utmost to live life to its fullest at this point. After all, who knows how many more tomorrows you have left? Stop squandering time on puzzles. Do something exciting instead. Take up rock climbing, for instance. Or Formula One race car driving. I could give many more suggestions. The possibilities are almost endless.”

“Dr. Forereel, are you trying to get me killed?” I asked her. “I’m not a daredevil. I’m not sure what I am, actually, but built-for-thrills sure doesn’t fit my description.”

“Neil, where oh where have I gone wrong? You’ve been my patient for years and years, and yet, despite my strongest efforts to build it up, your self-confidence remains at the meh level. Sometimes I question my efficacy as a physician.”

“Efficacy is such a wonderful word, Dr. Forereel, one I haven’t heard in ages. For that alone, I consider today’s session to be valuable. But, getting back to puzzles, have I truly been on the wrong track by giving substantial amounts of time to them?”

“Of course you have, Neil. Puzzles are frivolous. If I’d wasted time on such nonsense, I’d never have become the respected healer that I am.”

“Doctor, I’ll follow your sage advice. You’ve convinced me that I absolutely need to amp up my life. Nothing I’m involved with right now pushes the envelope.”

“That‘s the spirit, Neil. It seems I’ve underestimated you. Well, the clock on the wall tells me that today’s session has reached its end. Go get ’em, tiger!”

Over the next few days, my vision of how I might better allocate my time began to crystalize. There are so many paths, I realized, that would lead me to becoming a more-daring version of myself. Alas, I’m sorry to report that things have remained unchanged. My gas pedal is stuck. Dr. Forereel will be hugely disappointed.

What can you say? Life’s a bit of a puzzle, isn‘t it?

A Cloudy Walk And A Rousing Novel

Yeah, Another Blogger136 Comments

A half hour shy of noon a few weeks ago, in need of some exercise, I raised my bony ass off the living room sofa, exited my house and took a walk around my suburban neighborhood. It was a hot and humid summer day, the type that normally causes me to spew sweat like a volcano. I guess the dermatology gods took pity on me, though, for my wrinkled skin became only mildly moist during the stroll.

I usually don’t spend a lot of time looking upward when I’m outside, not in daylight nor when the skies are black. Pretty foolish of me, because, obviously, the heavens are incredible. But, on the day in question I decided to alter that orientation by examining the clouds filling much of the sky. They were of two sorts, some of them bright and friendly and perfect partners for the sky’s blue areas, the others darkened and signaling that rain, which ultimately never arrived, might be a-comin’.

And I also had my eyes on trees, which are fairly abundant in my neighborhood (I live a few miles outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA). It would be cool, I decided, to snap some photos in which cloud-filled skies and trees appeared. But only cloud-filled skies and trees. This turned out to be harder than I thought it would be. I shouldn’t have been surprised, of course, since my neighborhood is jam-packed with houses, utility poles and overhead-utility lines, nearly all of which not only were in the way, but also cursed me out when I told them I wouldn’t include them in the photos. What a bunch of obnoxious bastards! Persevering, I found a fair number of vantage points that allowed me to meet my criteria. I tell you, the life of an amateur photographer ain’t a breeze. On the other hand, just about nobody’s life is a breeze. Hell, that’s life.

Two photos from my mini expedition adorn this essay. I regard them as semi-abstract compositions, the amorphous clouds offset by the tight structure of treetops. I bow before Mother Nature. Her variety of creations is dazzling and just about infinite, yet limited and uncomplicated displays of her wares, such as these, have no trouble awing me. There’s a whole lot to be said for simplicity.

Getting back to life, this month I was swept away by a novel that tells the tale of one David Granger, a 68-year-old American whose adult life has been the opposite of a breeze. Months and months of violent combat in Vietnam jungles in the late 1960s saw to that, not only while he was fighting the Viet Cong, but also every year since then, a decades-long period during which war-induced nightmares have bedeviled his bedtime hours. Granger is the narrator of The Reason You’re Alive, the madcap, profane and humane book by Matthew Quick published in 2017. (Matthew Quick’s best-known novel is The Silver Linings Playbook, which was turned into a movie starring Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper.)

David Granger is a piece of work, an over-the-top character who wears his lengthy list of opinions on his sleeve. A widower, he has an uneasy relationship with his one child (an adult son named Hank), and adores his young granddaughter, Ella. His friendships are pretty plentiful and also profound. And although he possesses a conservative, America-first outlook, he does not meet the definition of a Trumpster, because he is completely accepting of, and admires, the USA’s racial and sexual minorities. A complicated guy, Granger feels compelled to put his story down on paper before it might be too late, seeing that he recently went under the knife for brain cancer, a disease he believes was induced by heavy exposure in Vietnam to the poisonous chemical Agent Orange. Post-surgery, Granger gets it into his head that he should return a valuable object that, under shameful circumstances, he stole from a fellow soldier during the war.

I don’t want to spill too many beans about the plotlines, so I’ll say little more. I will add, however, that the sentences in The Reason You’re Alive barrel along like a high-speed train and pack a punch. Here’s a sample paragraph from the book:

Doctors had sawed through my skull. They had cut out part of my brain. I was still freeballing it in a lime-green fairy gown. I was in a fucking hospital bed, for Christ’s sake, and Hank’s machine-gunning me with entire belts of words just because I didn’t tell him about the surgery until after it was over. I figured, why worry him? We hadn’t been speaking since summer anyway. Ever since we had a blowout at the Phillies game.

See what I mean? Matthew Quick can write. I unhesitatingly recommend The Reason You’re Alive.

I Am Extremely Fortunate

Yeah, Another Blogger180 Comments

Last Monday, the first day of the second half of rapidly disappearing 2025, found me at the medical office building where I’ve volunteered for 13 years, manning its information desk. The part-time gig keeps me on my toes. Many patients arrive without knowing which suite their doctor works in, for instance. It’s my job to point them in the right direction. And sometimes I come to peoples’ “rescue,” such as when I aid those who, their medical appointments completed, can’t remember where in the nearby parking garage they deposited their cars. Off I go with them to that multi-level structure to solve the problem.

I like the job, which occupies me for four hours each week. Without it, I’d have a relative paucity of human interactions, seeing that I spend a hefty percentage of my time resting my aged, bony ass upon the living room sofa. Plus, helping people out boosts my spirits. Basically, I need to feel as though I’ve still got something to offer society.

Last Monday was a typical day at work. I answered questions from, and helped unravel somewhat-knotty situations for, approximately 50 individuals. However, during my shift something struck me more than it usually does: I clearly realized that a whole lot of visitors to the building were using and relying on canes, walkers and wheelchairs. And nowhere near all of those folks were senior citizens. This was a sobering observation. It brought to the surface a piece of self-knowledge that normally resides in the bottom reaches of my subconscious. Namely, I am extremely fortunate. Here I am, pushing age 80, and I get around on my legs just fine. I can walk for five or more miles, no problem. And though it would be foolhardy of me to attempt an all-out sprint, trotting remains within my powers. Yeah, anything might yet happen, but I’ve retained more than decent mobility.

And my good fortune extends way beyond my legs. My health in general, according to medical tests and my physicians, is solid. I’ve had one very dangerous health situation in my life. Thanks to modern medicine and just plain positive luck, it appears to be permanently confined to the rearview mirror. Of course, nobody knows that for certain, but the odds are in my favor.

What’s more, I have plenty to eat, and my country (the USA), though in the hands of a freedoms-suppressing megalomaniac, is not a war zone. I almost feel guilty about my good fortune, considering how difficult so many people have it in the States and all around the world. Poor health, poor healthcare availability, and inadequate food intake are some of the injustices plaguing hundreds of millions of individuals. And armed conflicts make life a living hell, or close to it, for so, so many. Not just in Ukraine and Gaza, but in violence-beset nations that don’t receive much media attention. Haiti and Sudan, to name two, and Myanmar and Yemen, to name two more.

Yes, the human condition, in certain respects, is horrible. Always has been. Always will be.

Considerate guy that I occasionally am, I’ll leave you on a sunny note: My good fortune expanded at the tail end of last year when I discovered Abigail Lapell. She’s a fine Canadian singer-songwriter who isn’t too well known outside her home country. Her latest album, Anniversary, came out 16 months ago. I’m in love with one of its songs, Flowers In My Hair, which is the first song in many a moon that I can’t (and don’t want to) get out of my head.  A meditation on going with the flow while letting love reign over you, it is dominated by angelic vocals and by mesmerizing percussion provided via handclaps and foot stomps. Flowers In My Hair, to me, is sweet as a peach and free as a bird. Give it a listen.

A Story And A Song For My Father

Yeah, Another Blogger178 Comments

As many of us know, Sly Stone left this mortal coil early this month, and two days later Brian Wilson joined him in the Great Rock Band In The Sky. Two superb musical minds, and revered figures, gone, just like that. At least they made it into their 80s. Their passings would have been harder to take had they left us while in their primes.

As the masterminds, respectively, of Sly And The Family Stone and The Beach Boys, Sly and Brian helped turn the 1960s into a music wonderland. During that decade, music was vibrantly alive with love and hope and power and innovation. No decade before or since, to my way of thinking, was or has been as sonically diverse and dynamic. I came of age during the 1960s, becoming, among other things, a music junkie, a description that still fits me, though not to the extent it did back then. Those were the days.

I could go on and on about Sly Stone and Brian Wilson, but I don’t mean to focus on them. The idea to meld them into this story, though, came to me on Sunday, June 19, which was Father’s Day in my nation, the USA. They, and their music, were on my mind, as had been the case for a number of days. My father, of course, was on my mind too. Very much so. Many memories about him played in my head, including music-related ones. I’m sure the latter would not have surfaced had I not been thinking about Sly and Brian.

My dad, Hyman Scheinin, lived to the ripe old age of 96, breathing his last on September 1, 2005. He spent the final six and a half years of his life with me and my wife Sandy, and became a dialysis patient about one year after moving in with us. Dialysis is a hard road for anybody to travel, let alone someone in their 90s. But my father bore the burden pretty well, emotionally and physically. Over time, however, his body began to wear out from the strain of three-times-per-week dialysis sessions, and from infections. He died in a hospital bed, with my wife, my brother Richard and myself beside him. It was a sad day, one I thought about a lot on Father’s Day.

Sandy and I did our best to care for my father, and to try and keep his spirits up. Everyone deserves to experience positive things in life, it goes without saying, so we made it a point to get him out of the house for more than his dialysis sessions and his numerous other medical appointments. He went with us to restaurants and art shows, to name two activities. And I would take him on casual drives, just to see what we would see. He almost always had a good time.

And then there were the Friday night jazz concerts at the Philadelphia Museum Of Art, a series populated by established and up-and-coming musicians from the States and elsewhere. The series ran for about 15 years and ended maybe 10 years ago. Being a jazz head, I miss it. My father attended 19 of those shows with us (Sandy and I also went to shows at the museum without him), and felt completely in his element there, probably to his surprise and certainly to ours. We’d arrive early, so as to be able to grab one of the cocktail tables close to the stage area. Out on the town and in a magnificent setting (the museum’s Great Hall), my father was happy as a clam from the moment he sat down.

Growing up, I didn’t think of my father as a music appreciator. He didn’t listen to songs on the radio, didn’t play albums on the family phonograph. And I had little reason to change my viewpoint until those many decades later. I think, now, that the thrill of just being at the museum concerts opened up my father’s ears, made him hungry to truly experience music. And truly experience it he did. His involvement reached a peak in January 2003 at a performance by the quartet led by the then-new-on-the-scene alto saxophonist Miguel Zenón. Zenón is a wonderful musician, adept at various approaches to jazz. He can play softly and melodically, for instance. And, while soloing, he can be ferocious.

In the middle of the show, following a lengthy and intense Zenón solo, the damndest thing happened. Sandy and I couldn’t believe our eyes when my father leaped from his chair, clapping madly in appreciation of Zenón’s mighty efforts. Normally a mild-mannered sort, he was revealing just how deeply into music he could dive. I was duly impressed. No one at the show was enjoying themselves more than the nonagenarian a few feet away from me and Sandy.

It’s fitting for me to conclude this musical story with the title song from Miguel Zenón’s first album, Looking Forward, because the album came out a mere smattering of months before his appearance at the art museum. Undoubtedly, then, he played tunes from it at the concert. Perhaps this song is the one that made my father applaud like there was no tomorrow. Whether it is or not, I tip my hat to Zenón for having brought joy to my father, and to Sly Stone and Brian Wilson for nudging me to write the words on this page.

Three Pics That Blow My Mind

Yeah, Another Blogger156 Comments

I couldn’t live without my smart phone. Well, that’s an exaggeration. But I’d be a moping and disgruntled geezer were it taken away from me for more than a few days. Man, thinking about that gives me shivers. I’d nearly prefer to contemplate the Apocalypse, which might not be too far off, sad to say, what with far-right-wing motherf*ckers proliferating like rabbits all over the globe.

Okay, back to my phone: I don’t use it as much, or at all, in some of the ways that are crucial to many people. For instance, I send (and receive) text messages, but not to the point that they are coming out of my ears. And I never watch movies or TV shows on the tiny screen. When it comes to surfing the internet, however, I’m addicted and a champ, as I read one thing or another on the phone for two or more hours just about every day. For this activity alone, my phone is essential to me.

And I’m totally in love with the magical device’s camera, a valuable ally. On vacations, I snap away like a mad dog. And I often document gatherings with friends or relatives, and other fun occasions, with a picture or two or more. Hell, just about everybody does all of that, I imagine. It’s a good way to keep memories at hand and to have a running record of the enjoyable parts of our lives.

The publication you’re staring at right now — Yeah, Another Blogger — often is on or not far from my mind when I aim and shoot, for I include photos in quite a few of the pieces I publish. I think of myself as an amateur photographer, I suppose, and get a kick from sharing images with whomever is good enough to read my stories. Seventeen of the approximately 300 photos I’ve taken so far this year have graced Yeah, Another Blogger’s pages already. And three more now are about to make an appearance. I tip my hat to my smart phone for making this possible. Modern technology blows my mind.

Photo was taken in February 2025 in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania

Speaking of which, I chose these three pics because they too blow my mind. They are undoctored photographs of what struck me as almost-hallucinatory scenes. I took the above picture on a cold, grey winter’s day this past February, a couple of blocks from my house in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, USA. Have tree limbs and branches ever seemed more complex and wiser? I had a feeling they understand the underlying nature of the universe and were trying to find a way to express this knowledge. If they clue me in one day, I’ll let you know, believe me.

Cellar Dog Philadelphia
(Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. April 2025)

Cellar Dog Philadelphia, a cool-as-can-be venue that opened not long ago in downtown Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is the setting for photo number two. Cellar Dog is a bar cum jazz club cum non-electronic games joint (billiards, table shuffleboard and foosball are among the games you can play). My wife Sandy and I were there in April with our pals Cindy and Gene. The jazz quartet we heard that night pleased each of us a lot. And the looks of the place put me in mind of Salvador Dali paintings. To me, the shuffleboard tables appeared to be hanging on for dear life, praying that the bold floor tiles and the dazzling wall wouldn’t decide to catapult them into the heavens.

First Encounter Beach
(Eastham, Cape Cod, Massachusetts. April 2025)

Later in April, Sandy and I, while vacationing on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, found ourselves at Eastham township’s First Encounter Beach. There, we walked upon the wet, rippled sands (known as tidal flats) left exposed by the receding waters of Cape Cod Bay. It was low tide, indeed, and the sky was beginning to turn colors as the Sun dropped toward the horizon. The scene was one of head-spinning beauty, for much of the bay’s waters, via the Moon’s gravitational forces, had been pulled incredibly far from shore. Both Sandy and I felt exhilarated. We were in the right place at the right time.

In conclusion, let me say I wouldn’t want to have my mind blown crazily often. I don’t have the constitution for that. Does anybody? But, for all of my adult life I’ve needed, and have experienced, a steady, slow stream of far-out-ish encounters. That’s the way I’m built. They’ve made my life better.

It’s An Old Story

Yeah, Another Blogger158 Comments

I know I’ve written about old age and mortality any number of times before, but I just can’t keep myself from visiting those topics once again. When you’re old as dirt, like me, it’s hard not to contemplate, at least now and then, how much time you’ve got left. I’m 77, for crying out loud, which stuns me. How can this be? Where the hell did the years go? As with most matters, I have no f*cking idea. One thing for sure is that the express train keeps barreling along. We’re here, and then — poof! — we’re gone. That’s life. If it were up to me, though, each individual creature, human and not, would carry on, and thrive, unto eternity. Yeah, sometimes I’m a hopeless dreamer.

My status as an ancient has been made crystal clear to me by information I’ve obtained from the website of The French Institute For Demographic Studies. One of its online calculators shows that I am older than 97% of the human beings on our planet, an extremely sobering statistic. Most truths don’t hurt, but this one does. And I’m having a heck of a hard time wrapping my head around it. (If you’d like to see where you fit on the global population scale, click here to open the website. Once there, click on Let’s go and, on the subsequent page, enter your age on the horizontal bar.)

Still, naively, and probably out of fear, I find myself not quite believing that I have an expiration date. It almost doesn’t seem possible to me that I do. I mean, I’m still nicely functional, still pretty much an ace at stumbling gracefully through life. Why should all of this come to an end? I sure would like to make it into my 90s, though. I’ll have been cheated, I feel, by anything less than that. But any way you look at it, time is running out. There are far, far more grains of sand at the bottom of my hourglass than at the top.

So, what’s to be done? Well, we all know the answers. To the best of our abilities, everybody — not just me and my fellow oldsters — should aim to do the right things. Such as: maintaining, and trying to expand, close relationships; pursuing activities that put smiles on our faces; and working hard to make society and the natural environment healthier. Anyone who does a good bit or more of all that is a valuable member of the human race.

Music has been my main interest for most of my life. I can barely carry a tune, and I’d be up shit’s creek if I attempted to plunk out Chopsticks on the piano. But I’m an expert when it comes to listening to music. And I pay a lot of attention to what musicians have to say. A recent article in The Guardian caught my attention and got me feeling better about being a geezer. The story takes a look at up-there-in-age musicians who have lost little, if any, of their life force. For instance, Bonnie Raitt, who is two years my junior, remarks, “I’m not slowing down and I’m not going to stop until I can’t do it any more.” And Graham Nash, six years my senior, has these thoughts about seeing the late master guitarist Andrés Segovia when Segovia was 92: “And he knocked me on my ass with the energy and brilliance of his performance. So I think: ‘Why not me?’”

I like the way Raitt and Nash look at things.

I’ll bring this opus to a proper conclusion by leaving you with a tune composed by Bob Dylan, who, at 83, remains a very active musician. The song in question, Forever Young, appears on his album Planet Waves, which came out in 1974. Dylan recorded the album in collaboration with his pals from The Band (Rick Danko, Richard Manuel, Garth Hudson, Robbie Robertson and Levon Helm).

While working on this story I listened to Forever Young for the first time in eons. Man, I think I’d never realized how direct and heartfelt the song is. It addresses some of the themes I’ve presented herein, but with a different slant, for Dylan had one of his youngsters in mind when he wrote the lyrics. The song’s sentiments, though, apply to folks of any age. Hope you enjoy it.