1961: The Great Awakening 

                                               Part One

There is nothing like a journey home to get the writing spirits to shift from emotional exhaustion and physical confusion to a vivid re- connection with the past. Although I’m currently visiting Massachusetts where I was born and lived for 30 years, my mind inevitably drifts back to the year I was eleven, and my family took a road trip through the Deep South on our way to our final destination, the St. Petersburg area on the west coast of the state to spend time with my mother’s cousin Sam from the North End of Boston. He had done the unthinkable back then….married a beautiful white woman named Ursula who’d been raised in the Deep South and was NOT Italian American. Ursula was a Southern Belle of legend in fact. Sam had been snared by her beauty and manners and remained with her to raise their children while never returning to his clan in the North. It was heresy and a deep loss for my mother’s extended family and the matriarch who ruled it with an iron fist. But even though I was curious about the handsome man I called Cousin Sammy, it was not that leg of the trip that left on me an indelible mark that would shape my adult life in unpredictable and startling ways.

Most of the trip through the South in our beautiful 4 door blue and white 1958 Chevy Bel Air was benign. I was happy to be alive and thrilled to have been pulled from my fifth grade class in the middle of a late New England autumn to leave for an entire month. I knew instantly by that single unexpected action that this was not just a trip. It was an adventure. There was, however, one incident on the initial leg of the trip that had a major impact on everything I would believe about my country, about people who looked like me and those who didn’t. It was before we reached Florida with its relentless sunshine and splashy tourist enticements that we passed through the state of Georgia.

My father John loved Claxton Fruit Cake made in Claxton, Georgia where it is still baked and shipped to all 50 states. Remember, this is 1961, capitalism still had controls, people were thrilled to receive such a gift made in a part of the country that was legendary for its plantations, beautiful women, unusual pronunciations, genteel greetings and cotton. Georgia was not really an actual place for many Northerners unless they'd been there. It was simply Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler in a film everyone...at least who I knew... loved. But dad insisted we purchase some bars of fruitcake "gold" and bring them to his friends back home, direct from the factory. So we sidestepped the usual highway into Florida and took some back roads. After about 45 minutes, what I can only describe as a drop in my blood sugar brought about a spate of annoying whining and right on cue my sister Georgianna on one side and my brother Jack on the other side, began to poke and tickle me. And so the torment began. After 10 minutes of this, my mother demanded we have something to eat at the first roadside diner she spotted. My father grudgingly complied and parked the Bel Air on the opposite side of the diner. That car spoke not of great wealth as much as working class aspirations to be middle class.  (note: the car back then had cost my father two thousand dollars brand new - today these classic cars sell for up to 70,000 dollars depending on the condition. ( Capitalism is only as impressive as we consumers make it.) Anyway we had lunch, I calmed down and we didn't dawdle because the four of us were very uncomfortable with the stares we were getting. Everything about us, especially our speech, screamed Northerners. I remember a man coming to our table asking where we were from and my father making a funny remark....to which no one laughed. It was a quick lunch and as we left I recall hearing in an exaggerated Southern drawl, "Y'all come back now, ya hear" exactly like in the movies. And like the movies I watched relentlessly even then, it was just as fake. 

Back inside the Bel Air, satiated by the mediocre burgers and too sweet drinks, we eventually found Claxton. My father was happy with his "steal" at factory prices and we continued on, looking for signs to the highway. Somewhere in that time period, we drove by some shacks in our shiny new car and my father slowed down. We looked at the dilapidated constructions and realized each at the same time that people were living in these shacks. My mother made a slight gasping noise and the car slowed down even more. And in that moment as my father's car came to a stop and we watched a beautiful young Black mother weaving together baskets at a makeshift stand with the saddest face I had ever seen in my life, I noticed my mother trembling. It was very still inside the Bel Air and then my mother opened the door and walked over to the woman weaving. I ran after her and watched. My mother said a very soft hello and complimented the young mother on her weaving skills. And then their eyes met. I was terrified. There were no Black people in my New England town and the only ones I had ever seen up close were from Roxbury and on a television screen. It was a moment and an image that day that was seared into my brain like none since. The recognition of actual dirt poor people living in demeaning circumstances making beautiful artistic and useful objects with their bare hands was the most astounding thing I had ever witnessed. It shook my world to the core. It was the human spirit to survive and my mother's empathy and show of dignity and respect in discussing with this craftswoman the language of creation. She purchased some baskets and gave one to me and another to my sister. And the repercussions of that moment in time reverberated again and again within me as I tried to discover the work that I would do in life and the person I would become.  All within a capitalist system that would lead to pain and suffering again and again for so many of us.  

 

(to be continued in Part Two)

This Spinning Miracle

      

                                             

This morning my dog Brando was very much out of it: disoriented, frightened, breathing strangely. (He had been under anesthesia most of yesterday) I fed him fresh salmon and some rice and then went to the downstairs area of my house, opened the back doors and he came down the stairs gingerly. 

He walked out onto the deck, freshly wet from the rain and took a few sniffs. I observed him closely...his ears perking up at wild sounds, watched him taking in the scents I could not even hope to pick up. He shifted slightly, his body twitching a bit and then my little white dog spotted a squirrel running up the redwood and took off after him. All his senses were alive again. He ran like the wind. 

 I cried not so much that Brando had returned to the world (although that matters to me in ways I can not explain) but because this is what the natural world accomplishes for every living thing. But especially now for human beings. We will perish without it being alive and thriving and available to everyone all the time. It is not for the wealthy alone to be engaged in the world around us. We must stop the exploiters and elite dead in their tracks. This world is not just for rich humans but for all species on this planet. 

Brando and I will go for a short walk today and I will feel gratitude for the air that costs nothing and the sky that costs nothing and for the trees that cost nothing. In the end, your environment, the NATURAL world, is all we really have. And it must be free to everyone. Such beauty and wisdom in trees, and sky, and ground and all living creatures. That's the only "political" platform that will matter at some point. How well we were stewards of this earth. 

This spinning miracle.

 

The Boogey Man Virus and The Pestilence of Americans

It's Tuesday 7:53 in Berkeley. I wake up with a stuffy nose and a headache. For the past two weeks, I've endured the effects of stress, lack of sleep and a dull constant fear. Outside Trader Joe's yesterday, the faces of strangers were mask-like, their downward glances as afraid of me as I of them. We didn't smile and say hello. We didn't make eye contact. We are not the same place we have been for decades. We are in the midst of a pandemic. And there is no place to hide.

Schools are beginning to shut down. The University of California just announced all classes will be taught at a distance - electronically.  Except, of course, for the performing arts. Those classes will meet.  The arts are as insignificant as ever here in 2020 America. The welfare of a few theatre students apparently doesn't matter much. Or perhaps there's not as much of a threat to the health and safety as the media sources would have us believe. It's hard to say.   

Self expression, the radical, resistance to the current aesthetic of Apocalyptic streaming shows has become even more of a clear and present danger to the regimentation of the masses now that we have a Boogey Man virus. End times. It's everywhere. The desire for the end of the way things have been. To begin anew.

It's in our human natures when we have ruined any relationship to want a second chance. A third chance. A last chance. If a virus infestation starting with the Chinese can get us there, all the better. The Chinese are often the Boogeymen in the American consciousness. Like the Japanese once were until they became more like us. Like those damnable Russians. Or Iranians. All dirty rotten scoundrels according to American made movies and shows.

It is critical we know the enemy. The real enemy. But who is that in the days of pestilence and Corona? It can not possibly be us. We are the innocents.

There will be cuts in public education once again until eventually any radical ideas of multiculturalism are erased forever. There will be cuts in Medicare and Social Security. There will be further degradation of our environment. We will cut down too many trees and build too many high rises. We will have more detention camps.

Our local and national government is ineffective at dealing with a pandemic. We will find a new use for the military besides invasion of other countries. We will invade our own country. 

We already have.

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You Gotta Have Friends, Right?

I woke up on the morning of April 18th after having had a whirlwind trip to Los Angeles from the Bay Area, flying into and out of Burbank in one day. Was I nuts? I’m struggling with a heart condition, borderline diabetes and the last thing I should be doing is stressing myself out with the annoyance of airports, rental cars and grumpy people on an 80 degree afternoon in April. But I’m a Leo so loyalty is all. And my good friend and colleague was having one of her fine playwriting pieces performed at the Stella Adler Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard. I promised I would go. The show was terrific, filled with pain and humor. In short, real.  And I got to hang with new and old friends, applaud my buddy’s  funny, incisive piece and witness the passion of an African American theatre company exploring why Black lives really do matter. All good.

Except the trip had taken its toll and the next day, I was a wreck. I had tightness in my chest, kept popping baby aspirins to make sure I didn’t have a stroke and then ended up with indigestion and weakness. At 2 PM I remembered suddenly I had a 3 PM appointment with an endocrinologist to get the results of important blood tests. I was still in my PJ’s, old make up caked on my face, hair matted, with no time for a much needed shower if I hoped to make it by 3 PM.

I scrubbed my face with a  facecloth, grabbed my little black backpack that was surprisingly light, jumped in my red Prius, and speeded like a lunatic down the street as city workers digging a trench cursed me for nearly hitting them. Did I mention that the endocrinologist charges 500 dollars for a missed appointment?  Confident I could make it in time, I managed to get lost once I turned on Ashby Avenue because my mind was back in my home office messing around on Facebook. It was about 2:45 so I decided to regroup, trying desperately to remember where the hell Colby Street was in Berkeley. And then it hit me: it was the one going in the other direction, a mile back. I did a U Turn (illegally? who knows?) and finally reached Colby, turned right and ended up staring at the only parking lot in the complex and a big red and white sign: FULL.

 Okay.  Think. I knew there was no readily available street parking so I decided I’d just wait there until someone exited and then there’d be a space. Logical, right? It was now 2:55. At exactly 3 PM (according to my I Fit), someone drove through to pay their parking fee and I waved at the woman in the booth who ignored me. I jumped out of the car and pleaded with her to let me in. She stared right through me and mumbled, “Fine. And good luck”. The gate rose, I zoomed up the ramp. And up… and up and up (no spaces) until I reached the top level where there were still no spaces anywhere. It was now 3:06. I spotted a sign: concierge parking only. I jumped from my car and hollered to the parking attendant, “Here! Me!” He sauntered over (how dare he!) and said, “Sorry, lady. No spaces.” I begged him, telling him I had 5 minutes to get to the doctor’s office or it would cost me 500 dollars for a missed appointment. I was crying. (That always works but I added “heart condition” for insurance). He took my keys, handed me a ticket, as I grabbed my surprisingly light weight backpack…hmmm.. and ran like the wind to… the wrong building.

It was now 3:10. I was so screwed, I could have been a cork in a bottle of Chardonnay. As I’m running to the right building, it suddenly occurred to me that my backpack was light because it had NOTHING in it! Dear god I had forgot to switch the contents from my traveling on airplanes backpack to my going to the doctor’s backpack. I had no money, no license, no health care card, no proof of identity, no PHONE and I was pretty certain my Chase account was now 500 bucks lighter. But worst of all I had no way to pay for parking and no way to call anyone. This moment of realization that I was now a bag person on the streets of Berkeley with a lot of other bag people was a huge wake up call. Would I have to beg? Would I have to say, “I have no bus fare? Can you help me out?”  What I thought was: I will deal with this later. In that moment of  recognition that the universe is not arranged according to the needs of me,  panic left me. I told myself it would be okay. I waited for my appointment. Thirty five minutes passed. I told myself that the doctor could not possibly charge me five hundred dollars now and that the receptionist would only charge me an extra fifteen bucks because I could not pay my co payment in cash or credit card. I could live with all that. And I was pretty certain that someone in the waiting room would lend me a couple of bucks to get my car out of parking , right? So I swallowed my pride and asked. “Sorry, that’s just inappropriate.” “Not much I can do.” “Oh that’s funny.” “Poor you. Better be more careful next time.”  Shit.

After the very unsatisfactory and inconclusive results of the blood tests, I left the smarmy Dr. "Wish I could help but all I have is American Express” office vowing to switch over once and for all to Kaiser where they had compassionate doctors and a more efficient system and walked back to the parking garage one hour and fifteen minutes later. Which meant I would need at least 5 bucks and some change to get my car and drive home. Hmmm. What exactly was I going to do? Walk 12 miles home in the heat and call Lyft?  I stood at the entrance of the parking garage, frozen in indecision.

And then I heard it. Jingling.. coming from …wait…was the sound coming from my backpack? Yes! I reached inside and found a little red velvet bag of quarters. The bag of quarters I was supposed to bring with me to Los Angeles but had accidentally left home (okay, I’m a senior…I forget a lot of stuff) in my “going to the doctor’s” backpack. Salvation! Relief! But how much exactly was in this little red bag? Was there enough? I sat on the curb and counted, like a greedy addict hoping to score a cheap bottle of gin. Fifty cents, a dollar, a dollar fifty.  I was short by about three bucks. Would the tears and heart condition excuse work again?

I approached the woman at the booth. She slid open the window and said, in her beautiful Haitian lilt, “What do you want, crazy lady?” And I proceeded to tell her my story. Her reaction was nonplussed. She looked at me and I could hear her thoughts. “You Americans. All spoiled irresponsible children. You know what a revolution is like? No water, no food. Living in a dirty hut?” At least that’s what my guilty liberal East Bay mind was imagining as I stared at the pavement. But given I had no other choice, I offered the red velvet bag to her. She looked at me and laughed. “Give me your ticket. Go get your car”.

I drove up to her window 10 minutes later, waiting as she helped another driver and then it was my turn. She said to me with a smirk, shaking her head, “Go. Oh and here. You have change,” and handed me back the red velvet bag. Change? Had I counted wrong? I thanked her profusely and proceeded to drive home very carefully, looking out for police cars until I had made my way back to safety and my credit cards, thinking how easily we all could be slipping into destitution with only equally destitute friends, family and neighbors to rely on. Who had said: I have always relied on the kindness of strangers? Another crazy middle aged white lady named Blanche. 

When I was inside the safety and security of my cozy cottage, I opened the red velvet bag to count my change. I didn’t see anything at all. At least not at first and then I spotted it. At the very bottom was a shiny new penny that I’m pretty certain had not been there before. And it hit me that maybe having enough money in my backpack, enough money in my bank account and enough money in a 401 K was really not as important as they tell us. Maybe knowing there were folks out there like the parking garage lady who’d seen a lot more hardship than I ever will and were willing to lend a hand to anyone in trouble was the real security in America. And maybe you have to lose everything and be reduced to begging before you can see the kindness of strangers so you can find it in yourself.  I’m pretty sure the next time someone approaches me on the street asking for bus fare, I won’t turn away.  With that realization I was completely at peace, knowing that there are still generous and kind souls in this world and now just maybe I had become one of them. We’ll see.

The Heart Opens In The Most Unexpected Ways

Despite how well preserved we think we are or how great we look, eventually the aging process takes over and the body begins to break down. You can't stop it from happening but you can learn to appreciate what time you have remaining whether it is 5 hours, 5 years or 15 years. I have become very aware lately of the finite nature of my own life. A friend told me to just enjoy every day which I try to do now by staying close to what comforts and nurtures me, what supports and sustains me. It is a challenge because Americans in massive numbers are now uneasy at best and terrified at worst over what has happened since 9/11 to their country. They are like this for both political and personal reasons. Death sweeps down and takes a spouse without warning; a husband you thought you would grow old with decides he needs someone more this or that (a euphemism for younger usually); a wife tells you that you don't earn enough money and divorces you. We are left at 50 plus with a shorter, smaller life, many of us and the trick is not to run from it. The trick, the challenge and the discipline is to make of it something different and unexpected; to push yourself well past your comfort zone even though comfort is exactly what an aging body most desires. This is the conundrum that must be faced if you really want to stay conscious of everything around you, much of which may be ugly, ill or terrifying. Life is what life is; no one gets out of here alive. So on July 4th, 2015, just a few hours from now, my life sets sail, flies unanchored, goes where it shall go and I have no idea where that is and, most remarkably, no desire to control it either. No preconceptions on where or how love will find me or what love will look like. Today while entering Berkeley Bowl, a long line in front of me, I was stalled in the entrance to the parking lot for a bit. A grey haired man in a zippy convertible was coming out of the parking lot. Our eyes met. For some unknown reason, he grinned at me. I blushed like a school girl. I looked away like a bride. And then I looked directly at him and grinned back. He laughed. I laughed. We had a wild intimate moment and he threw me a kiss like in an old Italian movie. And surprise to even me, I threw him a kiss back. I knew then as he pulled away and I pulled in...my eyes filled with tears, my smile wide and full, that this old heart, broken again and again, healed innumerable times, was finally and forever open. Cut and fade to black. Happy 4th of July.

Nostalgia: A Bitter Brew

I woke up this morning with my tongue in cheek. It happens every now and then. 

I was thinking of those days when America was still the envy of the world. It seemed we had more of everything then, didn't it? And not just more, but life was somehow richer and shinier. Darn close to perfection actually. 

I tend to do absolutely nothing on my days off but reminisce. Like the women in Mad Men in the late 1950's and early 1960's. Spending hours at the beauty salon getting their nails polished, their hair permed, their eyebrows plucked. Then tossing down two or three slow gin fizzes with their little white pills before dinner while their dapper hubbies with their slicked back Don Draper hair chatted about golf scores.  I wish we could go back to that time, don't you?

It seemed like every household could afford a maid then too. Those lovely Negro women who quietly slipped a coaster under each cocktail glass.  I don't ever remember them complaining. They just seemed, well, so grateful and content. God, what a picture perfect time to be alive. 

People understood and accepted their place in the social structure back then as well. They knew the value of a job. Any job.  Sadly, today you hear too much griping by folks demanding a fair wage. Shouldn't it be up to the employer to determine what fair is?  Isn't that just common sense?  Refugees and immigrants are so lucky to just be here. I think it's a bit presumptuous of them to ask for health care and education. Their getting sick and being ignorant is really not my problem. 

Thinking back I have certain images that pop into my mind. Like Schwinn bikes and Pez containers and going to the drive-in with mom and dad.  The bluish glow of flashing images coming from the giant screen as we navigated into our spot. The barely discernible chatting coming from the speaker boxes. The pesky gnats and mosquitos that left me with little red marks all over my hands and legs. 

My older sister had two good friends in high school back then. Ronny Johnson and Allison Lipschitz. One night from the back seat of our Ford station wagon, I noticed Allison's head moving up and down behind the steering wheel in Ronny's car. Ronny had a big smile on his face. And then a few minutes later Ronnie was jumping up and down on Allison. My sister turned to look at me and when she noticed what I was seeing, she whacked me so hard on the back of my head, I literally saw stars. Any way Allison wasn't chosen prom queen that year like everyone thought she would. She had to take some time off from school, and when she came back, she was pale and sick looking. People in my neighborhood were all whispering about her nasty "infection" and how she almost died. I guess she'd lost a lot of weight at the "fat farm" which made it okay. 

Then, of course, there was my East Coast neighborhood where I grew up about 25 miles south of Boston. And the cast of characters that were what everyone likes to call "salt of the earth" folks. Mr. Wiley with his Confederate flag hanging from his truck.  Mom thought it was "quaint and regional". He was originally from Tennessee and she said people from the South had a rich history and it was hard for them to let it go.  

Our next door neighbors were a couple named Al and Theresa Colangelo.  At neighborhood barbecues Mr. Wiley would sneer and call them Dagos (I guess Wop was kind of insulting back then.)  Now we have to call Dagos "European Americans" because of the PC Patrol. I think that's a bit much. I was brought up to call a spade a spade and a redskin a redskin.  Everyone's just too sensitive.

Mr. Colangelo was an officer of the law by the way. And a real - what you might call - entrepreneur.  Late at night I'd see men dumping boxes of radios and TV's, toasters and stereos on his front lawn.  Mr. C.  never seemed to remember them being dropped off though. I asked him about it one day when I was ten. He smiled, pointed his big old gun at me and said, "Don't you worry about anything, missie." Just like we were in a John Wayne movie. I love those memories.

                                                                

Today people get pissed off at officers of the law when they beat the crap out of special education folks or dark skinned kids with hoodies. But the truth is they're just doing their jobs, protecting the rest of us from what could be a clear and present danger. 

I have fond memories of  Theresa too. She was a gas. (That was an expression we used back then) In Theresa's case she really was 250 pounds of the stinkiest methane you could imagine. Not sure what she was eating for breakfast every day but you always knew when Theresa was in our house. Mom warned us never to light matches when she was around. She had that terrible disease where your skin slowly turns white. She looked like a cumulonimbus cloud floating through the neighborhood.  (Theresa inspired my love of metaphor incidentally. She's why I became a poet.)  

Theresa was a very good mother too. Mom said she was "extra attentive" to her 7 year old son, Tommy. She always hollered the same thing every night before sunset. "Get in here now you little son of a bitch before I split your head open." Then we'd all laugh throughout the village - that nervous kind of laughter.  She was the Jackie Gleason of F Street. Today Theresa would probably be put in jail for "child abuse". I guess there's no more cutting anyone some slack.  Yes, Tommy had a few bruises.  What kid didn't? You can't even twist your kid's arm today without some watch group harassing you.  

Don't get me started on animal rights. Cows have feelings? You've got to be kidding.

My tongue just switched positions incidentally.  It's hard to hold it in one place for long.  

I suppose nostalgia is like that. But I can tell you when I see those men and women in Congress working so diligently to turn back the clock and bring us back to the 1950's and 60's before all the you know what hit the fan, it makes me proud to be an American. 

A few more years like the last 20 and we won't need a time machine.

Segregation, back alley abortions, police corruption, obesity, child and animal abuse. Nuclear threat. They have fancy names now for what we just believed back then were things that should not be named.

Older Men, Older Women: The Same Page At Last?

My very first Huffington Blog almost a year ago back in May 2013 started off with: A gent of 75 is in love with a woman of 25. The article received a lot of attention with 228 comments and five times that many hits. It was my most successful yet in terms of number of readers. 

I suppose it may have elicited such an engaged response because there were a lot of older guys out there who'd been unsuccessful in their attempts at relationships with women their own age and were happier with younger and less experienced, less war-weary women. 

And second, based on the actual written responses that were posted, there were quite a few women who wanted to publicly declare their disappointment and sadness over the somewhat dismal dating scene in contemporary America and to proclaim loud and clear that there was nothing wrong with older women and men 20 or 30 years younger hooking up.

Fair enough. I wrapped myself around the latter notion over the next year, struggling with did I or did I not want to be with a younger guy. I can't speak for anyone else but for me the final answer was only under very special circumstances and certainly never more than 10 years younger. I'm not saying I was not seriously tempted with the very few opportunities that came my way.

It would have been fun no doubt. It certainly would have been an ego boost. And I would have learned some things about myself I might never have learned otherwise. But ultimately it was just not for me, mainly because the balance of power did not feel comfortable. It did not feel just (as in equitable and fair) for him or for me. There was something in the whole notion that made me think we were each taking advantage of the others' weakness rather than helping build the other's strength. At a certain point in life you really want the structure to stand by itself without any need to prop it up, rebuild the foundation or install drainage pipes around the property line.

Loneliness is a terrible thing. Loneliness, the gut wrenching kind that creeps in at 2:00 a.m. and wakes you up because there are no sounds except the prattle of mice or a raccoon wreaking havoc on your about to ripen tomatoes. That kind of loneliness, that emptiness eats away at your spirit in infinitesimal ways. It begins to destroy your self-esteem and makes you desperate for companionship, any companionship including the kind that puts you at risk. To some extent this kind of loneliness is self-imposed punishment, a kind of agoraphobia of the psyche that stops you from taking the chance of being hurt yet again. It takes a lot of deep healing to repair a broken heart and by the time you hit 50, unless you are one of those very rare spirits blessed with good genes, great upbringing and brilliant luck, you have scar tissue. And only you can begin to peel away the dead skin so some new healthy dermis will grow.

On the dating circuit now in 2014 it's evident there are a lot of single men hitting their 60s. They are either recently divorced or widowed with substantial wisdom and experience to offer a companion. There are also those who are sad and desperate and have been probably all their lives. There are men with no source of income due to America's ageism and the exporting of so many American jobs overseas. And there are folks just really freaked out over the idea they may die alone. You meet them all and you can learn something from each and every one.

I've found the best approach is to be kind and compassionate to everyone, be as honest as possible and take something positive away from every new experience. Just remember not to give away the kitchen sink because you don't like the sound of water dripping at 2:00 a.m. 

Being alone is not the same as loneliness after all. Being alone can be exhilarating for getting to know yourself and all the wounded parts you hide from others as well as the jubilant realizations that come from figuring out what you truly want in this last part of your life.

Wolfie, that gent of 75, finally gave up his desire for Lola in South America. But I don't think he learned as much as he needed to because now he's searching for young women here in Los Angeles. More power to him. It's his fantasy, not mine or yours. If I were to wager a bet, however, eternal youth which is what he really covets is a losing battle even in the City of Angels.

I see a desire to hold back the clock everywhere here. More so than I have ever seen it in any other city. It's sad actually. The simple truth is no matter how often you work out, how many hormone supplements you take, how much filler you get injected into your face and how many lifts stretching your skin into eternity, humans are meant to be mortal. It's how we learn, how we grow, how we truly love. Yes, let me repeat that truism: we learn to love by letting go, not by desperately clinging to anything. Older men and older women over 50? Give each other another chance. We've all learned a lot over the last 30 years. At least I hope so.