Back Home(s)

Our little heat wave—temperatures in the 80’s— continued and off I went in shorts and short-sleeve shirt on a city walk with my wife Karen and Marlene, one of her oldest friends. A short segment in Golden Gate Park past Children’s Playground, through the tunnel and out on Haight Street, where some sidewalk-sitters looked look it was still 1973 when I first lived a block away on 410 Shrader Street. It was my first apartment in San Francisco, shared with Andy Lampone, someone I had met briefly at college. After I moved out, we lost touch and indeed, I’ve never seen him since. 

 

But here I was again on Haight Street, not looking or feeling too different than 50 years ago. It’s a street that refuses to be gentrified, even as there’s a great grocer’s (Gus’s), a bookstore (the Booksmith), a profusion of coffee shops, Mendel’s fabrics holding on amidst the head shops and places selling Tibetan statues and such. 

 

Up we went through Buena Vista Park and ran into Patty, the cook of 40 years at the school, who had come to my party yesterday with her 11-year-old grandson Abe. He was with her again, alongside 15-year-old Eli whom I had taught in preschool at ye ole San Francisco School. A fun conversation (never did get to talk to her yesterday) and on we went, past our old house on 1519 Masonic where Karen and I lived 1979-1982 and where our daughter Kerala was born. A few blocks away was the house at 247 Downey where I had lived with my sister and husband in 1974/75. For $125 a month split three ways with a view of the ocean. 

 

We passed a beautiful brick house on a corner that always goes all out with decorations on Halloween and Christmas. The theme was “Lost Souls Cemetery” and it had graves for all those we can’t wait to see filled— Elon Musk, J.D. Vance and their ilk. And of course, the Toddler-in-Chief who we hope to see featured when we comb through the obituaries and each day, are disappointed. Someday and how sad that the only way he can bring genuine joy to good-hearted people is to die.

Past the Randall Museum where I used to put on plays with the kids at school in their charming little theater. Watched some folks playing pickleball— miraculously, the first time I actually saw a game— and then winding on down to Castro Street. Where lo and behold, there was a huge street fair in progress, complete with some naked men casually strolling about. Past the Castro Theater, my sacred movie house that I was terrified would close permanently after the pandemic and it almost did. Now they do a combination of live shows and still occasional movies, though it’s been over six years since I’ve had the grand pleasure of returning to its hallowed halls. Finally made it to Cliff’s Hardware, where my wife and Marlene got some material for their punch-needle embroidery projects. 

 

Marlene and Karen turned back to bus home while I continued up Castro Street, past the house on 803 Castro where Karen and I first lived together from 1975-1978. Up to the peak of the hill and then down the other side to 24^th Street, where I had lunch at a sub shop on the corner. I asked the young clerk if she knew what store used to be there and she surprised me with the correct answer—Bud’s Ice Cream! (Which closed well before she was born in 1980!) However, neither she or the other clerk had ever heard of the movie Bullitt where in a spectacular chase scene, he races past Bud’s. 

 

On I walked up Clipper Street, past the Community Garden, past the School of the Arts and then up the road going to the top of Twin Peaks. Stopped at the top to savor the spectacular view, down into Cole Valley, back to Haight Street and stop in Amoeba Records and got a new Branford Marsalis with Dianna Reeves CD that follows the repertoire and feeling of the John Coltrane/ Johnny Hartmann CD from the 60’s. Back into Golden Gate Park and back home, with my phone health ap reading 9.4 miles and 20, 247 steps. Yeah! Grateful that this 75-year-old body can still walk some distances.

 

It was a lovely day by all counts— passing old homes, meeting old friends, running into the Castro Fair, enjoying the hot day (though some moments of the odd sensation of sweating in San Francisco) and reviving the body with good exercise that didn’t feel like “exercise.” Now an evening with Ted Lasso and Ludwig. Sometimes life is grand. Like today.

  

My Belated Birthday Bash

My belated birthday bash came and went and while not precisely glorious, it seems like a good time for all. 48 of the people invited where able to come, 47 were not, but still it was a nice blend of people who knew me as family and friends, students/ parents/ teachers at the San Francisco School, music teachers who had taken my Orff workshops/ courses and “other.” Some of the people who couldn’t make it included a few people I had gone to middle school, high school and college with and I was sorry to miss them. 

 

The party began with some jazz by my “Pentatonics group” and then we gathered in a circle and I did a 40-minute “Orff workshop” with people who had known me both recently and forever, but never participated in this part of my life. I loved it! A folk dance where each person in groups of 7 got to make up their own motion that others copied, the Miss Mary Mack partner-clapping game that ended in a hilarious double-circle where people played with partners that changed every 8-beats (a la folk dance mixer), clapping with each with their eyes closed! 

 

People then stayed with their last partner and introduced themselves. Part of my hopes for the party where bringing together people from different parts of my life and that was a good way to mix it up socially and get to know a few people. Then the two had to share a story about me and five or so shared back with the big group. That worked pretty well and of course, the stories were fun and funny. 

 

Then the band launched into a swingin’ New Orleans tune while daughter Talia called out different categories and people who matched went into the center of the circle and danced. Amongst the categories were (as mentioned above): 

• School people. 

• Orff people. 

• Friends and family.

• Fellow musicians

• People 75 or older. (Big group!)

• People who met me after 2010; between 2000 and 2010; in the 90’s; 

In the 80’s: in the 70’s: in the 60’s (just my brother-in-law); in the 50’s:

(just my sister, who did a remarkable solo dance that took all of our breath away—well, that was her career as a modern dancer, but her energy and technique at 77 years old was really impressive!)

 

Then daughter Talia added a few more categories:

• People who had read my books.

• People who had seen my movie.

• People who had seen my cry. 

 

Of course, at the end, all came to the center to dance a bit more. Then back to the chairs in the semi-circle and I sang two songs with them, both rounds in 4-parts that got people connected with their groups while making a harmonious all-group sound. 

 

In hindsight, that would have been the time to just socialize for 30 minutes or so and then gather back before cake for a few words, a song and then more eating. 

 

But of course, I was greedy and determined to use the opportunity to share some of my poetry and have the band play again with more attentive listening. To my credit, I cut the number of poems in half, but still about 15 or so. After which, there was clearly little time nor energy for the band to formally play. So we got over to the cake and then people stayed another 30 minutes plus to keep socializing and they all seemed to be genuinely enjoying themselves. 

 

So the moral of this otherwise perhaps boring tale is that the things I do in Orff workshops are also great for birthday parties or other gatherings. They instantly get people connected, engage people just at the edge of their comfort zone, but without embarrassment, bring fun and frolic into the event and set the tone for the informal socializing to come after the formal connections.

 

And note to self: Some cliché’s are meant to be taken seriously. More is less. Find another time to just read poetry or just give a concert. Maybe my 80^th!

 

The Joys of Competition

Last night, I had the grand pleasure of hearing jazz pianist Hiromi perform a solo piano concert. I had seen her play solo last year and was mightily impressed, but this was another universe altogether. The blend of extraordinary virtuosic technique with exquisite dynamic control, her physical engagement that could be seen as showmanship but instead was wholly authentic and engaging, her playfulness with the music and the audience, setting up our expectation for certain notes and then fooling us, the remarkable range of style that was impossible to classify in any one genre, the use of every single note on the keyboard from the lowest to the highest, including reaching into the piano for other sonic effects damping or plucking string. I could go on. Of course, none of this conveys the experience of being there and the good news is it’s likely she’ll play in your part of the world someday. I think I was in Spain some years back when I passed a small jazz club and she was scheduled to play!

 

In her run at SF Jazz, she played duet the night before with a tap dancer (!) and tonight she plays in a trio. I would love to see her and Yuja Wang play a duet concert, though you’d have to have the fire department standing by as the sparks would be flying! Worth noticing that it’s a Chinese woman wholly mastering a European classical repertoire and a Japanese woman wholly mastering an American jazz repertoire and both playing a little bit (at least) of the other genre.Yet further proof that we all are part of a shared collective unconscious that defies geography, ethnicity, gender and more. 

 

I’m about to play with my band today for my party and it’s tempting to react the way jazz pianists did when they heard Art Tatum play. “Why bother?” they sighed and changed their careers to go into accounting. Or knowing that she has climbed Mt. Everest and the best I can do is walk up a few San Francisco hills, take the “comparisons are odious” route and just play as well as I can, connecting to whatever I’m playing, be it simple or complex, as deeply as I can and connecting to any listeners as well as I can. As I did yesterday at the Jewish Home for the Aged, lifting us up with my Tea for Two shtick and embracing us all in the comfort of Schubert’s Ave Maria. 

 

I saw a movie about Isaac Stern in China and he was watching an extraordinary gymnast do his routine and then quipped, “Yeah, but can he play Mozart?” So I could say to Hiromi, “Yeah, but can she teach three-year-olds?” Actually, she’d probably be great, as she wholly embodied the playful 3-year-old spirit. 

 

But it's not a competition. Or rather, it is a competition in the root sense of that word.  “Com” meaning “with, “petition” meaning to offer supplication to a particular person, office or more profoundly, a deity. When two jazz players are trading 8’s or two experts playing tennis, they are both together petitioning the gods of jazz and tennis. They are doing so with each other, not against each other. Each spurring the other on to greater heights of accomplishment and expression. At the end, you can see that as the best musicians and athletes hug each other in thanks for raising them higher in their craft. 

 

So thanks to Hiromi for kickin’ my butt to kingdom come and back to work—and play—I go.

Balls in the Air

I have never once been, nor aspired to be, a farmer. And yet I’m not only indebted to them for the food on my table, but I admire the great variety of daily chores any farm demands. Feed the chickens, stack the hay, milk the cow, plow the field, plant the garden, mend the fence, harvest the corn, pick the berries, gather the eggs, fix the tractor and so much more. A lot of balls in the air to keep track of and expertly juggle so they don’t crash on your head.

 

In my life, growing food for the soul through writing, playing music, teaching and such, my days are also filled with a sometimes dizzying array of things to keep track of. Like now. Preparing for my “belated birthday bash” this Saturday that I decided to organize, I’m feeling that “too many balls in the air for my juggling skills” feeling. I’m practicing the music I want to share, gathering the poems I’ve written over the years that I want to read, shopping for the food we need amidst keeping up with my Podcast, writing, teaching, travels soon to come. In the past few days alone, I’ve connected with people on the Nunya Academy (in Ghana) board, the SF Orff Course board, the SF School Alumni Council, the AOSA Conference Chair, a new editor for my books, my Pentatonics Jazz Band, my kids and grandkids, etc. etc. Today I have a Men’s Group meeting and a standing piano playing at the Jewish Home. 

 

Blah blah blah. No one cares about another’s busyness/ business nor should they. I’m just saying it out loud thinking that it might help me juggle it all. But you deserve something more interesting. So having looked back at over a 100 poems I’ve written over the years that I never share—except once read out loud at my 60^th birthday party— I’ll choose one to include here and then get on with my day. As should you, knowing all the things that you have to juggle.

The one I’m choosing makes no sense to share now—better to wait until Spring—and will be more meaningful for Orff music teachers than the general reader. But I had forgotten I had written it and got a kick out of it, so here it is:

 

Spring Concert (Dedicated to music teachers everywhere and with apologies to William Shakespeare):

 

That time of year thou mayest in me behold

When all that hath been silver, 

Must now change into gold.

When that which hath been mere sound, 

Must change to pleasing tone,

And played with two swift mallets

Upon the xylophone.

When children casually tinkering,

Must now show what they feel.

Express their deep emotion,

Upon the glockenspiel.

 

Now merrily the bells doth ring,

With well-shaped mouths, the children sing.

The teachers tense, some close to rage,

Moving hordes of children upon the concert stage.

How shall they enter, go off, which way?

And who knows why Johnny,

Isn’t here today?

Why are all these recorders,

So dreadfully out of tune?

Maybe we can just skip May, 

And go straight to June. 

 

Yes, that time of year indeed has come,

To join together bell and drum.

To take off bars, then put them on.

(And just where has that F# gone?)

Make sure each movement’s choreographed.

Precise and joyful, with room for laughs,

 

Spring Concert’s here, oh, fun! Fun! Fun!

In a mere three days, they’ll be done! Done! Done!

 

 

  

Watch Your Step

October 1^st has arrived and I greeted it with all my little quirky rituals. Which included turning the paper calendars in the house and reading the one with a message: 

 

Lovely photo and sage advice that I can attest to. Can’t we all? We jump from one stone to another and hope we don’t fall in the water. If we do, to paraphrase the song that Fred Astaire sang in Swingtime and  “pick ourselves up, dry ourselves off and start all over again.”

 

My daughter Talia is a fearless stone-jumper, not only in her daily work as a bold and adventurous 5^thgrade teacher, but in her weekend-life running marathons, snow camping, jumping into mountain lakes. And so the irony of her simply running with her cross-country team and mis-stepping on concrete and fracturing her foot. It’s not a happy prognosis— 2 months on crutches and 4 months before she can run again the first-draft first opinion and for someone as active as her, that will be like a prison sentence. Not to mention negotiating the stairs to her classroom and her house with a crutch. Aargh!

 

This news hit me in my heart’s core. And that’s the problem with empathy. The capacity to feel other’s pain can be a heavy burden to carry and if opened ourselves fully to it, the weight would be unbearable. Walking past the homeless, listening to the news, hearing stories from friends, on top of bearing up under your own challenges of physical, mental, emotional health. So we let in what we can and necessarily deflect the rest. Whatever choice do we have? Certainly not the one far too many take of refusing all empathy and creating the narrative that others deserve it so they can sleep at night. 

 

My wife and I called Talia while shopping (at Costco, of all places!) for food for my “belated birthday bash” this Saturday, my hope to get so many of the people I care about in one room with me still in it, alive and breathing. I will play music with my band, lead a little Orff workshop with old friends and neighbors who have never been in one with me as well as those who have and most exciting of all, read some of my poems written over the last 50 years, but rarely shared. Alongside the informal party socializing.  I’ve set aside three hours for it all and it already feels too short. 

 

But back to Talia. Talking to her, she felt resigned to it all and aware that she has cheated accidents like this for years. And we all concurred that this is going to heal and given the long list of potential health disasters, we should be grateful it’s not worse. And we are. 

 

But I guess she won’t be dancing at my party with the others. So it goes. 

 

Happy October! And watch where you step!

  

Advice to My Children

46 years ago, in the midst of a San Francisco heat wave, my first daughter Kerala was born at our home on 1519 Masonic. The midwife who helped birth her turned to us and said simply, “She’s perfect. “ A year later, my wife and I ran into the midwife out in the world and she asked, “Is she still perfect?” Without hesitation, we both answered, “Yes!”

 

On the occasion of her birthday, I believe that answer holds! “Perfect” meaning perfectly herself. At the beginning, it was an effortless achievement, but this version of “perfect” came from difficult struggle, many wrong turns on a path filled with both thorns and roses and a hard-won determination to wholly claim herself. 

 

Four years after Kerala’s birth, Talia graced us with her presence and her own particular form of perfection. I count myself lucky to have fathered two such loving and inspiring children and yet luckier to be continuing our time together watching each other evolve into the people we were meant to be.

 

On the occasion of Kerala’s college graduation and Talia’s high school graduation happening at almost the same time, I wrote a poem to them both. I’m happy to report that 24 years later, they both have pretty much taken my advice! 

 

ADVICE TO MY CHILDREN 

 

Don't hide your intelligence under a flag,

Don't cover your heart with religion.

Don't damage your spirit by shopping too much.

Hold fast to harmonious vision.

 

Do a kindness each day, lest the chance slip away,

To help someone who is in need.

Like a bird song in May, the piper may pay,

With a tune that has sprung from that seed.

 

The world I bequeath, both above and beneath,

And hope that you'll try where I've failed.

To set your sights high and don't fear to try,

To sail where no others have sailed.

 

Steer towards your dreams, but keep one eye on earth,

Have your vision serve you and the village.

Too many do scheme (most privileged by birth),

To gain profit by plunder and pillage.

 

So I bid you go forth, south, east, west and north,

And capture the world with your beauty.

Beauty of thought, beauty of deed,

Born from your joy and your duty.

 

Set your compass by love, and follow the dove,

Unfurl your sails billowed with art.

Wherever you go, this must you know.

That I carry you both in my heart.

Frontal Lobes

I’ve had two most delightful days with my 11-year-old grandson Malik, but the honeymoon hit a snafu, as it usually does, when he remembers that he’s only 11 and hasn’t fully developed his frontal lobes. This time was a variation on other recent times when he claims he’s “embarrassed” if I come to do something in his class as I did when he was younger— like sing with the kids, who are completely happy to have that kind of time with me. But in his aging pre-teen self, he worries that since no other kids’ grandpas do anything like that, that his peers will make fun of him. Last time I offered him $10 if any kid made a snide comment afterwards and he honestly admitted I didn’t owe him any money. 

 

So this time around, I had no intention of replaying that drama and didn’t offer to come and sing. But I did want to either drop him off at school or pick him up and meet his teacher. He vehemently negated the drop off, but agreed to the pick-up on the yard where his teacher would be outside and not in the classroom. However, though I got to the yard with the other parents five minutes early, I apparently was watching for him to come out the wrong door. When he never appeared, another teacher confirmed that the 5^th grade used the other door. Still Malik should have seen me standing there and made sure that I got to meet his teacher as agreed. 

 

While trying to figure out where he is, he called me from his home, confused that he was locked out and where was I, anyway?? When I walked back to his house (only a short 10-minute walk), I tried to sort out what happened and finally he confessed (but not sheepishly or apologetically) that he forgot about it. When I told him I’d just walk with him tomorrow morning and meet his teacher then before going to the airport, he freaked out in his 11-year-old -low-frontal-lobe-capacity way. 

 

I wisely just suggested we discuss it later and walked off to the supermarket to shop for tonight’s dinner. While dreaming up strategies to have a fruitful discussion. In-between reverting to old-time parenting— “Because I said so! Deal with it! —and New-Age parenting— “Tell me more about your feelings. I can see why this might feel upsetting, my poor dear”— I was looking for a middle-ground that made clear that as the adult in the matter, I’m very clear about why it’s not okay for him to treat me like I’m a leper he has to hide from his classmates. But I want him to understand why it’s not okay. 

 

My thought was to have him step literally inside my shoes and explain the metaphor of trying to see someone else’s point of view. But my shoes are way too big for him. Just like my frontal lobes are far more developed than his and that’s normal. But my job is to help his to grow. I can see that at his age, peer approval means everything and he might be worried that a classmate might tease him for having his grandpa visit when no other kids do that. But here’s why, I told him, that’s not okay:

 

1)   I asked him to remember the bet we made last time. I suspected the anxiety of what might happen was more in his head and not something that was worthy of worry.

2)   If a kid did make a comment like that, it is 100% that kid’s problem that he/she has no understanding of what it means to welcome family members and respect elders. And therefore, not worth paying attention to. If it was someone who was a friend, perhaps they’re not worthy of his friendship.

3)   I’m not coming in to sing songs or say hi to all the kids. I simply want one-minute to meet the teacher, introduce myself and thank him (privately) for teaching my grandson. And all the kids. 

 

So that was my plan to neither blindly override nor give in to my grandson’s demands. What actually happened? 

 

When I came back from the store, Malik was practicing wheelies on this bike in front of his house and shouted, 

“Hey, Pop-pop, watch this!!” 

I asked, “Why do you want me to watch this?” 

“Because it’s cool!” 

“But why should I care about what you can do?” 

“Because you’re my Pop-pop and you’re supposed to care about me.” 

“Exactly!!” I pounced. “I do care about you and what you’re doing and who you’re doing it with and that’s why I want to meet your teacher. Just a simple way to find out more about your life, to hear that he likes you and you like him. So I’m reaching out as an act of caring and you’re turning into something ugly by how you’ve reacted to it. That feels hurtful to me.

 

"So are we cool now? The plan is on? I go to school, check into the office, find the classroom before all the kids get there and have a moment with the teacher?”

“Okay.” And we shook hands.

 

I’ll let you know how it goes tomorrow.