|
Gary Moore For The Staten Island AdvanceThe Staten Island Advance |
The eclipse. An astrological event one part awe, one part terror of permanent retinal damage. My friend Glenn had the best advice. I watched it on TV....
Joan and I had dinner with our friends Al, Carl and Linda recently. Al and Carl had been members of our band Allergic To B’s before Joan and I...
“Everything is copy.” - Nora Ephron Recently quoted by Taylor Swift, this idea from the American writer Nora Ephron stopped me for a moment to...
It started last year, when I was diagnosed with Barrett’s Esophagus, a pre-cancerous disease if left untreated. It killed my friend Phil. Then, my...
The meme reads as follows: “Not every woman who is nice to you is flirting with you. De-sexualize kindness.”Well, sure. When a man is kind to me,...
Boomers get blamed for a lot of stuff that has gone wrong over the past few decades. I often feel compelled to defend my generation. We used to be the...
WHAT? I had to re-read the email from MoveForward a couple of times to make sure I was reading it right. It was asking me to sign a petition to...
Joan has been telling me for a long time that I have a hearing loss. She got hearing aids at Costco about two years ago and suggested I have a hearing...
I’m getting a bit fed up with all the talk about the ages of the current front runner nominees for president. It used to be that you wanted a more...
I learned so much doing the recent Sea View Playwrights Theatre production of “Bill W. And Dr. Bob”, written by Samuel Shem and Janet Surrey about...
I am not the biggest Taylor Swift fan in the room. I saw her special about the music she recorded with two musicians during the pandemic and was...
The meme began: “We think we want sex. It’s intimacy we want.” It went on to define intimacy as being touched, admired, looked at, smiled at. In...
It’s not good news. People are experiencing more bouts with COVID and each one leaves your immune system weaker and susceptible to a whole range of...
It doesn’t really surprise me that two of the greatest, most cherished monster movies came from the minds of two gay men: James Whale...
What exactly is a “Christian nationalist”? I asked Google. It said: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_nationalism The...
My disdain for the Belt Parkway is well-documented. This article will extend that documentation. During the month of November, while we were caring...
I’m getting sick and tired of folks from all sides taking swipes at public education. I taught special education (mostly middle school) for 28 years...
I didn’t finish the story about surviving COVID. Four days after I was clear of it, Joan tested positive. This followed a round of trying to get her...
I hereby proclaim 2023 ATDF…A Total Dumpster Fire! 2023 nearly killed me and it did kill some people I really loved. That’s unfair. The year...
On Nov. 2, 2023, I was sitting in our kitchen with Joan, tuned to WFUV, and listening to “Now And Then,” the newest and apparently last release...
I want to tell you about my mother-in-law, Ethel Kirsch, whom it has been my privilege to call “Mom” in the 19 years since my own mother passed....
I had my first mammogram in October. I had complained of a sensitivity around my right breast to my doctor. He first ordered a chest x-ray, which...
I had an early morning phone conversation with our son recently and I came away with a startling realization: We had raised a younger version of Jack...
A while back, I came across a post from someone who doesn’t seem to be a fan of older people. Let’s call them the Influencer. In a tweet that a...
I’ve been musing lately on a quote from the great American humorist Groucho Marx: “I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.”...
I believe this is only the second time that I have written two installments in a row that were connected. In a way, they all are. This time, I wanted...
I had a shouting match with a younger friend of mine one night over triggers and traumas. Here’s my side of the story. Every generation suffers some...
I want to tread very carefully here. The violence we all witnessed during October was terrifying. My friend, Tom Wrobleski, wrote more factually and...