Candy from Strangers

The snake-oil-salesman, the scammer, the con artist, the used-car dealer, the door-to-door Jehovah Witnesses, the hustler. These people have always been with us. They make for interesting characters in films—The Music Man, Paper Moon, The Sting, Tin Men, Catch Me If You Can, The Wolf of Wall Street and more and we even find ourselves rooting for them. Until they show up at our door. 

 

And now they’ve arrived in droves, armed with the nuclear arsenal of e-mails, texts, AI generated letters and images and yet more. Every day our inbox is swamped with baited hooks awaiting our bite and the sophistication needed to detect them is every day more difficult to understand. Just last week, I went to renew my passport with the first thing that showed up online and almost-too-late realized it was a mild scam ready to double the price of what it costs when I actually do it with the government office. The fine print is smaller and smaller and this is nothing compared to the story I heard yesterday of someone’s friend scammed out of $500,000 because she was a widowed woman seduce online by such a caring man who kept promising to meet her soon, but meanwhile…

 

My first thought is, “What the hell is wrong with you people?!!!! How can you sleep at night knowing your job entails preying on vulnerable, lonely people? Or capitalizing on people’s fantasies for getting rich quick? Are you proud of yourselves? What would your mother say? Or your first-grade teacher?”

 

Of course, this has been going on forever and far beyond simply selling defective goods or tricking people into signing up for something against their own best interest. Witness religious missionaries, TV evangelists, even New Age spiritual leaders or motivational speakers like Deeprak Chopra now revealed as complicit with Jeffrey Epstein. And of course, the biggest scam artist of all time, our current not-to-be-named President. The sheer volume of con artists, the increased vulnerability of gullible people looking for quick ways to earn money, protect their privilege, shape an identity based on the illusion that they’re in the club, alongside the tsunami of electronic bombardment, is so much harder to deal with then politely telling the vacuum salesman at your door that you’re not interested, thank you very much.

 

One of the most maddening things about the phenomena is the cynical (but increasingly real) message that you shouldn’t assume goodwill in the people you meet and treat everyone as if they’re out to get you. Which self-fulfills its own prophecy and drags us down into the worst versions of ourselves. Is there another possibility?

 

Every workshop I give, there’s a moment in my opening shtick in which we are all connected in a circle, arms grasped behind our back and leaning back and held together by this human chain. It’s a typical exercise physically showing the need for trust. Hard to describe, but the next step in my shtick involves slapping my neighbors’ hand, who quickly realizes that they have to pull their hand away when they see it coming. So now the message is, “Trust…but not too much. Be alert and know when to pull your hand away.” 

 

Alongside creating a culture of kindness and character, we need to train the children and ourselves to cultivate a kind of radar, a crap detector that can sniff out the real from the fake. To begin in good faith in every encounter, but keep that radar turned on and notice the signs. This is increasingly difficult as the electronic disguises get more sophisticated, but after you get fooled a few times (hopefully not with the Nigerian princes or friends robbed on vacation in the Philippines who need you to send money), it’s worth learning how to spot these things. Certain signs in e-mail addresses, being asked to share dubious information, a reliable tech person who you can ask to help you spot what’s real or fake. The simple truth of warning children to “not take candy from strangers” now has a thousand new faces, but at root is the same. 

 

Meanwhile, two unprintable words to all you scammers and con artists who have refused kindness, character and an authentic life. One syllable each and the second one is “you.” If you can’t guess it and want to know, send me $500,000 in bitcoin and the secret is yours.

Echoes of Eco

In my most recent podcast, “T Is for Truth,” I spoke about the erosion of truth in public discourse, news, politics, advertising and more. The day after posting, I saw this piece about author Umberto Eco’s warnings about the same issues, all echoing my own concerns. I’ve put some particularly eloquent and spot-on comments in bold. As follows:

 

In 2015, Umberto Eco, an eighty-three-year old Italian philosopher described, with unsettling accuracy, what would unravel rational conversation. We now live inside the world he warned about. As a medieval scholar, a semiotician who studied signs and symbols, and the author of The Name of the Rose, an intellectual mystery that reached readers around the world, he understood how ideas spread, how language shapes what we accept as real, and how societies decide what counts as truth. So when social media began to dominate public life, Eco watched with increasing concern.

 

In June 2015, during an interview in Italy, he was asked about the internet’s effect on society. His answer was direct and provocative. Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community. Back then, they were quickly ignored. Now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. He called it the invasion of the idiots.

 

The reaction was immediate. Critics accused him of arrogance, of wanting to silence ordinary people, of being an out-of-touch intellectual who misunderstood democracy. That missed his point.

 

Eco was not arguing against free speech. He was warning about what happens when expertise is stripped of value, when years of study and evidence are treated as equal to a stranger’s instinct or opinion.

 

For centuries, public discourse had filters. Newspapers had editors. Publishers relied on fact checking. Universities used peer review. These systems were imperfect and often excluded voices that deserved to be heard, while protecting entrenched power.

 

But they also enforced responsibility. If you wanted to publish a medical claim, you needed proof. If you wanted to shape public opinion, you needed credibility. If you spread falsehoods, there were consequences. The internet erased those barriers.

 

Suddenly, anyone could reach millions. A teenager posting from a bedroom had the same platform as a seasoned academic. A conspiracy theorist could attract as much attention as a journalist who had spent months verifying facts. And the most extreme voices traveled fastest.

 

Social media platforms do not reward accuracy. They reward engagement. Anger, fear, and absolute certainty spread better than nuance. A careful post explaining that an issue is complex and deserves thoughtful consideration rarely goes far. A post shouting that everyone is being lied to explodes across feeds.

 

Eco watched this unfold as flat earth believers found each other and organized. As anti-vaccine myths moved faster than public health guidance. As political falsehoods that could be disproven almost instantly became widely accepted alternative narratives. He watched respect for expertise erode.

 

Climate scientists with decades of research were challenged by bloggers with no training. Doctors were dismissed in favor of influencers selling wellness products. Historians were drowned out by people who claimed to have done their own research. That phrase became shorthand for rejecting knowledge in favor of whatever confirmed existing beliefs.

 

Eco understood a critical distinction. Giving everyone a voice is a beautiful ideal. Treating every voice as equally authoritative is dangerous. A relative’s social media post about vaccines is not equivalent to a peer reviewed medical study. A viral claim of election fraud is not the same as official voting data. An influencer’s opinion on climate change does not carry the same weight as scientific consensus from NASA.

 

Yet online, they appear identical. They sit side by side in feeds with the same design, the same emphasis, the same algorithmic push. Platforms do not tell users which information comes from experts and which comes from people with no relevant knowledge. They simply present everything and leave the audience to sort it out.

 

This is what Eco meant by the invasion of the idiots. Not that ordinary people lack intelligence, but that systems amplify the loudest and most confident voices regardless of whether they know what they are talking about. Confidence spreads more easily than accuracy.

 

Nine months after that interview, in February 2016, Umberto Eco died at eighty four. He did not live to see how completely his warning would be confirmed. He did not witness a global pandemic where misinformation traveled faster than the disease, leading people to trust social media posts over doctors, with deadly consequences. He did not see millions convinced that elections were stolen based on viral claims disproven again and again. He did not see artificial intelligence making realistic fake videos possible, or automated accounts flooding platforms with propaganda.

 

But he identified the central danger. When every opinion is treated as equally valid, truth becomes just another opinion. Eco was not calling for censorship. He was calling for a renewed respect for expertise, for evidence, for the labor required to actually understand complex realities. He was reminding us that while everyone has the right to speak, not every claim deserves belief. That a doctorate in epidemiology matters. That peer reviewed research matters. That journalistic standards matter. And that seeing something on social media should never be the endpoint of critical thinking.

We are living in the world he feared. The problem was never that foolish voices appeared. They were always present. The problem is that they are now amplified while expertise is dismissed. Eco left us with a simple question.

 

What are we going to do about it?

 

My response? Train the children to distinguish between crap and the real deal. That’s the theme of my “T Is for Truth: Part II,” some of which I’ll share in the next blogpost. Stay tuned.  

Wearing the World

“There is no bad weather, only bad clothes” say the Swedes and ain’t that the truth. Went off snowshoeing in this Winter Wonderland just outside of Yosemite and I was well-prepared. Sturdy boots, rain pants, thick wool sweater, home-knitted hat, thick gloves and after a mile of hiking, I was hot! 

 

Returning to the cabin, I began to peel the layers away and paused at each one. The sweater was gifted to me in Iceland in 1995 and as noted in the last post, I rarely have the occasion the wear it in temperate San Francisco and it sits dormant in my closet. My colleague Sofia was given the same gift at the end of our first Orff course we ever taught together and we still laugh remembering how we took a walk to a hill overlooking Reykavic and looking out over the red-tiled roofs and charming architecture, I turned to Sofia and said “I like Europe.” There was a long pause of silence and a confused look on her face and then she finally said, “What did you say? “ “I like Europe,” I repeated and she looked relieved and confessed, “Oh, I thought you said, ‘I like your rib.’”

As for our lovely Icelandic hosts, we’re still somewhat in touch with Kristine, Elfa and Nanna and happily so.

 

Taking off the rain pants and boots, I remembered buying them for the six weeks in 2003 I first taught the Special Course at the Orff Institut. I lived in the nearby village of Anif and bicycled the 20-minutes through the beautiful landscape— and in all kinds of weather. Because it was March and April, I biked regardless of rain, wind, or snow— and was well-prepared with my boots, and rain pants. It was one of the most marvelous times of my life— immersed in beauty every day, the excitement of living on my own in a new place, teaching what I love in the historic center of the Orff Schulwerk, working with 16 people from some 10 different countries— Spain, Italy, Thailand, Taiwan, Japan, Greece, Turkey, Finland, Iceland, the U.S., many of whom I’m still in touch with. 

 

My undershirt while snowshoeing was from Australia with a logo of the National Conference I taught at in 1994. Another memorable time, not only my first time in Australia, but a time of rampant bush fires and people being evacuated. My work was well-received, I met a lovely group of people and just had a reunion with some 15 of them last year on a return trip to Australia. My host back in ’94 was Margie Moore and I have had the grand pleasure of keeping touch with her throughout the years, most recently with her and her husband serving as tour guides last May on our trip to Oxford. 

 

Amongst many memorable stories from that first Australia trip was a woman participating in a folk dance I taught carrying a big purse. I was mildly irritated, feeling like she should know she needed her hands free. So I walked over and offered to put it off to the side for her. She reluctantly handed it over and thank goodness I didn’t just toss it to the side. Because when I sat at her table for lunch, I noticed she seemed to me nursing something with a bottle—and it was a joey! A baby kangaroo who had lost its mother, so her purse was acting as a pouch and that’s why she carried it with her into the dance!

As for the hat, my Orff student/colleague Laura Ruppert, knits them and this past Fall, at the end of a memorable visit to Seattle staying at her, she gifted one to me. Keeping your head warm is one of the prime strategies for warming the whole body and this was does the trick admirably. Besides many memorable moments we shared in workshops and courses, Laura came to sing with me at the Jewish Home for couple of years, alternating between singing jazz standards and then dipping into an Opera repertoire that was her training. She moved to Seattle a couple of years ago and the Home residents miss her dearly, as do I when I go there to play. But now I have her hat as a reminder! 

 

And so the clothes I wore today warmed me twice. Once keeping my body temperature regulated and once kindling the fires of warm memories recalling when I first wore each item and what I was doing and who was with me. We are our stories and it’s an interesting notion that everyday, we wear some of our history and literally carry it with us. 

 

And what are you wearing today?

 

 

New Tricks

 

In defiance of the “old dogs and new tricks” adage, the trip up toward Yosemite with my wife Karen and daughter Talia is filled with surprises. The three to four feet snowdrifts out the window make it remarkable to remember that a mere two weeks ago, I was swimming in tropical temperatures in Bangkok. Our first night here, we walked barefoot through snow in our bathing suits to soak in an outdoor hot tub with open umbrellas over our head as the snow kept falling. That was a first. As was playing pool (the kind with a table, sticks and balls) with my wife— our first game ever in 52 years together—and she was good! She also joined Talia and I putting together a jigsaw puzzle (she never does them) and Talia and I joined her with a glass of wine (likewise, something we never do). In the spirit of surprising each other, Talia suggested I knit a few rows and Karen showed me how. So yes, you can teach an old Doug new tricks.

 

Awoke this morning to a clear day and the snowfall on hold. Thinking about snowshoeing, something we did a little of decades ago and this is clearly the time to try it again. We walked a bit yesterday, but cleared trails were few and though I was warm enough in my Icelandic Sweater gifted to me while teaching in Iceland back in 1995 and mostly sitting dormant in my closet, the wind on our faces was enough to keep the walk short— and that’s when we found the indoor pool table.

 

With another storm on the way, we were leaning to leaving today a day early, but a downed tree and a stranded chipper truck has us captive here for a while more. We may have no choice but to stay one more night and take our chances on an exit tomorrow. 

 

That’s the news, such as it is, from the Evergreen Lodge near Hetch Hetchy. 

 

At Your Service

On Tuesday, I took my granddaughter to the SF Airport to complete her return home from Portland, parked in the lot and sat at the gate with her. Then reeling with jet-lag, I went to my old school to sub for my old colleague Sofia, who was home sick. 

 

On Wednesday, Sofia had not improved, so I went into school again, accompanied by my jet lag, to teach 1^st graders and 4-year-olds. 

 

On Thursday, I met with James and Sofia to accept people into our Orff Summer Training Course. 

 

On Friday, I went to the Jewish Home and sang love songs with the elders for an hour. 

 

On Saturday, I drove up to Santa Rosa to see my nephew Damion perform as Romeo in a production of Romeo and Juliet. The play ended at 11:00 pm, got home around 12:15 am. (He was excellent!)

 

Today, Sunday, I led another Valentine’s sing at The Redwoods Assisted Living Home in Marin and spent some time with my freshly-widowed friend Heidi—talks, tears and hugs. 

 

Tomorrow, I’m heading up to Yosemite with my wife and daughter Talia, a trip initiated by Talia because she has a week off and boyfriend Matt doesn’t. Never say no to a daughter’s invitation to spend time with you, even if it means heading up into what looks to be a monster snowstorm and you were hoping to enjoy the plum-blossom/ daffodils signs of Spring coming into San Francisco. 

 

In short, though I consider myself a self-directed adult with plenty on my plate, I seem to be happy to be of service to anyone who asks for something within my schedule and skillset. I’d be happy to know that someone at a future Memorial Service (please note future, hopefully paired with “far–“) will testify that in spite of all that can could be interpreted as self-serving, arrogant, egotistical, that they noticed I’m also reliable, dependable, generous, and willing to be of service at the drop of a hat. And if nobody noticed, I guess I’m giving them a hint here. Ha ha!

 

Anyone need a ride to the airport? I’m your man!

Little Man Clapping

Back in 2018, I wrote a poem for each member of the Men’s Group that had been meeting since 1990. The eldest in our group was Bernie Weiner and at that time, at 78 years old, he had just gotten diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. Here’s how I talked about it in my poem:

 

FOR BERNIE

 

We’re all suffering the diminishment 

              

 of our once strong and vibrant faculties, 

 

but now yours has a name. 

 

Yes, we all are biking towards our own mortality, 

 

                 but you got given an electric bike 

                            

                                 with that extra push each turn of the pedal. 

 

Not what you needed and hoped for.  Not what any of us 

 

                                   would need or hope for. 

 

 

But the Crisis Paper author has weathered many a crisis,

 

               kept a steadfast loyalty and commitment to the effort 

 

                                    that’s needed to both endure 

                                                                                    

and thrive. 

 

Poem after poem, 

 

                         Play after play

 

                                           Photo after photo

 

And now step after step to brake the accelerating velocity

 

                of what slows you down. 

 

in company with the many who will adjust their pace 

 

                                    to stay by your side.

 

May the remedies prevail!

 

 

They didn’t. This morning, one week after his 86^th birthday, Bernie passed away. In an hour, I’m going to the Redwoods, his Assisted Living home in Marin County, to play piano for and sing songs with the residents, a date I long had on my calendar. Knowing he was on the way out, I was hoping to see him one more time. Missed him by some five hours. But I’ll dedicate a song to him and hope the music will help him fly off into the next world wrapped in love and beauty. 

 

I first met Bernie as the father of his two sons, Erik and Mark, who I taught at The San Francisco School, starting in the 1980’s. Bernie was a local legend, the drama critic of the San Francisco Chronicle. He retired at 50 years old and I went to his retirement/ birthday bash at Club Fugazi, where many Bay Area actors and actresses gathered to both celebrate and roast him. It was an impressive affair. He was a major force in supporting San Francisco’s experimental theater scene in the 70’s and 80’s. (The “Little Man Clapping” was the icon used in theater and movie reviews as a shorthand—off the seat and clapping was “fantastic!”, sitting up an clapping “Fine,” sleeping “Not so good” and the empty chair “Don’t bother.”

 

Right at the same time, the Men’s Group began, so I got to know him a bit more beyond our school contacts. Then his family and ours and two others began going to the Sierras every year on an annual snow trip, then to Calistoga Spa for an annual Spring vacation and later, changed out the Sierras for the West Point Inn on Mt. Tamalpais. Our kids grew up together over all these years, I came to readings of some plays he was always working on, he came to my music performances and I also took part in a concert of music set to his poetry, contributing two pieces. I was the officiant at his son Erik’s wedding and also helped lead the memorial service when his sister Roberta passed away. In short, a lot of shared life together. 

 

Bernie self-published several books of his own poetry, co-founded an online political blog called The Crisis Papers during the Bush years and beyond, took up photography and won some acclaim at local shows. He finally finished his autobiography in 2020, titled “Little Man Clapping: A Critic's Search for Authenticity in Art, Love and Life.” It is an impressive portrait of this life as a Renaissance Man, joining poetry, plays, photography, fatherhood, friendship, family, and more. 

 

And now he is with us no more. A long, rich life to be celebrated and remembered, but always the sadness of disappearance. R.I.P., Bernie—happy we got to be together for so much of the wild ride. 

Winter Wisteria

The bare branches of the wisteria are grey and twisted and jagged. Somehow they speak to the state of my Soul at the moment. It may just be jet lag, so not the best time for a reckoning. But the fact is that it takes a toll on the psyche to be constantly defending against the onslaught of evil, the mathematics of mortality, the sheer weight of a human existence. Saying it all out loud often helps lighten the burden, so bear with me here for a moment if my usual dalliance with hope and happiness takes a back seat for a moment. 

 

If I lay out the facts, it all seems understandably justifiable. One of my friends in the men’s group passed his 86^th birthday deciding not to eat or drink anything more, giving up on his 10-year battle with Parkinsons. He will be the first of the nine of us who have been together for 36 years to die of “old age” and with five of us now arrived at 80+, it’s simply coming attractions. 

 

Just on the cusp of celebrating the release of The Humanitarian Musician (my 11^th book), my books have disappeared from online sellers because a distributor dropped me, the printer who stored my books for free will now charge and the publishers of Jazz, Joy & Justice also are dropping me. God forbid the world support my efforts to bring some music hand-in-hand with joy, justice, humanitarianism and dedication to children. 

 

The numbers are down for our International Summer Orff Course because people are either now blocked from entering our country or the Visa requirements are much stricter or they have the good sense to stay away from a place leaning toward fascism. And don’t get me started with Pam Bondi.

 

In short, more than enough reasons to slide down into despair. The reunion playing and singing love songs (Valentine’s Day) at the Jewish Home helped, but not enough. I’ve said often enough, “Don’t let the bastards get you down!” because then they win, but a slogan alone is not enough to heal a battered emotional body. 

 

And yet. I know that beautiful blossoms are lying dormant inside those jagged wintry branches of the wisteria, patiently awaiting their moment to bloom. It’s the moment to listen to Tony Bennett, accompanied by Bill Evans, singing Michel LeGrand’s song “You Must Believe in Spring.” So I’ll end with hope back on the horizon and we’ll see what tomorrow brings. (The words below are poetic enough, but I highly recommend listening to the above version of the song.)

 

[Verse 1]
When lonely feelings chill
The meadows of your mind
Just think if winter comes
Can spring be far behind?
Beneath the deepest snows
The secret of a rose
Is merely that it knows
You must believe in spring

[Verse 2]
Just as a tree is sure
Its leaves will reappear
It knows its emptiness
Is just the time of year
The frozen mountain dreams
Of April's melting streams
How crystal clear it seems
You must believe in spring

[Verse 3]
When angry voices drown
The music of the spheres
And children face a world
That's far beyond their years
Above the darkest sky
The full horizons lie
With all the reasons why
You must believe in spring

 

(Verse 4)

You must believe in love
And trust it's on its way
Just as the sleeping rose
Awaits the kiss of May
So in a world of snow
Of things that come and go
Where what you think you know
You can't be certain of
You must believe in spring and love