Men

 There aren’t enough soft men, soft in the way they snuggle their children and the way they talk to them.

There aren’t enough strong men, not strong in muscle, but strong in character.
There aren’t enough loving men, not mush loving or empty loving, but authentic loving.
There aren’t enough men who are there when they promised to be there.
There aren’t enough men who love women, with respect, as equals and as human beings.
There aren’t enough men who’ve thought hard about what it means to be a man.

80

 I am beginning my journey to become People Magazine’s sexiest 80-year-old. I am in the process of getting my chest hair dyed. My eyelid rejuvenation process is completed. Soon I will begin a kettle bell full-body fitness program with a daily Thigh Master regimen.

I am now on full-throttle keto, vegan, Mediterranean and Subterranean diets with protein shakes and lots of spinach with lots of edamame paste.
I will try different beard styles and shave my head.
This is what I am called to do in my 8th decade. Wish me luck.

Tis the season

 

Second

 O! Glorious Second Amendment! Republicans, the NRA and conservative Supreme Court Justices revere you above all else and pile the dead bodies at your feet. You are above all the gun violence, all the ruined lives, all the hurt and pain. We offer bullet-filled bodies in sacrifice to you. We praise you with a sacred weapon in the sacred hands of all who want one. Let the multitudinous bullets fly!

Glorious Second Amendment protect us!

Sex

 Sex is one of the few things evolution expects of us. Evolution constructed the mechanism for reproduction in human beings and pretty much let it do its work. But human beings layered onto sex all kinds of tasks, restrictions, taboos and rituals. Science, in its search to understand human sexuality, has shed a great deal of light on the subject, changing sexual behavior in significant ways. But society is not always ready to shed its musty ideas about sex.

A recent editorial in the New York Times suggested that we need to have more sex. Studies show that there has been a noticeable decrease in the frequency of sex throughout age groups and genders in American society, especially among men. Yet, sex is a natural, human experience that could heal the isolation and its consequences that we currently experience. Indeed, healthy sex brings intimacy, comfort, affirmation and pleasure, outside of any social or cultural controls put on it.

The writer is not talking about casual sex that comes from desperation or simply to satisfy the libido. The writer is advocating for sex as a part of beginning to know another as a human being. The focus is caring, tenderness, respect through a sexual encounter.

Sex is a human need that must be practiced in a healthy way, a way that is respectful, avoids harm and seeks understanding of love. Humans have to affirm sex that denies all the abuses of sex: rape, harassment, perversion, child abuse, control, manipulation and more.

What the editorial proposes is by no means easy to accomplish, but it is worthy of serious consideration for social healing.

Rubble

 Rubble seems too soft a word

For slabs that smothered them
Rubble doesn’t carry the sounds
Of the leveling bombs
Rubble crushes the memories
That lived generations in the house
Moral structures collapse
And we have no first responders
To the rubble we must navigate

We create the rubble
Of all our lives
How do we dispose of it
There is no plan, no architect
It’s only bumbling through life
But maybe a poem is the map
Or unearthing lost wisdom
Is love too soft

Excellence

 Excellence is elusive, especially in this age when everything is measured by hits, tics, polls and followers. Excellence is not an elitist thing because it emerges from anywhere. It’s not measured by outward expression, but by its heft as a cultural presence. It’s not always a product of talent, but it is always a product of discipline, hard, unwavering work and courage. Excellence never rests, never says, “I’ve made it, now I can stop.” The object, no matter its value, is really just the signifier of excellence.

The value of excellence is really in the way it reminds us of what we are capable of as human beings. Excellence may not be possible for all of us, but it demonstrates what can be accomplished by any of us with effort, discipline and motivation.

Creative

 Creative individuals, no matter their fields of expertise, are…

those who see only possibility in the world
those who are driven by what they believe in
those who don’t fear failure
those who see their creativity as part of their core
those who nurture a vision
those who have broad interests
those who don’t see walls
those who see the connections, not the things
those who have the courage to follow their beliefs

Mirror

 Look in the mirror and talk to yourself for 5 minutes.

If

 If I were writing a movie script, it would be about the life of a married couple. The story would take place entirely in bed from the wedding night to their death.

If I were choreographing a dance, it would include dancers of many ethnicities and genders. They would begin holding hands in pairs. The first part would be the pairs improvising a relationship story while still holding at least one hand. The second part would a choreographed sequence where all the pairs would gradually transition into the whole group holding hands.

If I were creating a new TV program, it would be a half-hour reality show where I would walk through the city interviewing ordinary folks who were living lives of love and courage.

If I were writing a novel, it would be about the secret lives of angels.

Guns

 “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people” is the cynical message of the NRA. The Republicans and the conservative majority on the Supreme Court depend on a twisted interpretation of the Second Amendment to thwart any efforts at robust legislation to attack the serious problem of gun violence in America. What they have failed to recognize is that guns have become the voice of the vengeful, angry, unbalanced and mentally ill.

We are at the point in America where mass murder is just business as usual.

Love poem

 A Valentine's Day poem for you from my book "Love Poems."

Joy Ride

Stumble,

Fall on your face

For love.

Get up and fight for it.

Arm yourself

With patience and honesty.

Don’t look in the mirror.

It’s not about you.

Look out the window

Onto a world

That’s frightened and bewildered,

But where love belongs.

Relentless and sturdy

And always forgiving.

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Hidden World News

 Hidden World News

The United States has offered Kim-Il-Yung a lifetime subscription to a weight loss plan of his choice if he will give up his nuclear program. He is considering this if he can have Kentucky Fried Chicken once a week.

Vladimir Putin has a white stallion available to him at the Kremlin at any time of the day or night in case he needs a testosterone boost with a shirtless ride.

Bashar al-Assad is the ruler of a devastated country with a devastated populace. He claims he hasn’t noticed.

Nicolas Maduro never takes off his presidential sash. Not even playing golf, cleaning his assault rifles or having sex. He has a special waterproof one for the shower.

Xi and all the members of the Chinese Communist leadership wear the same suit, the same tie, the same shirt and the same shoes. What’s little known is that they all wear red jockey underwear with a suitably placed yellow star.

Children

 We love the children

But not enough to save them
From our selfish ends

We love the children
But still their small stomachs growl
Inside the cold tents

We love the children
But lock them up in their schools
Still the bullets come

We love the children
Seem to love the black ones less
Everybody’s shame

We love the children
At least until they are born
Then they’re on their own

We love the children
But we love our weapons more
Barricade their schools

We love the children
But teaching love eludes us
They live rudderless

* billion

You are a complicated puzzle, and not all the pieces fit. You are a human being emerging out of your family and culture, trying to figure out how you fit in the big picture. You are one person trying to make sense of all the contradictory human passions.

Now multiply that by 8 billion and you have the world trying to hang onto itself. 

People

 There are people who believe in honesty and live it.

There are people who believe in integrity and live it.
There are people who believe in service and live it.
There are people who believe in compassion and live it.
These are the people who are not regularly brought before us by the news.
These are the people who are not regularly celebrated.
These are the people who are passed over by the noise and spectacle of popular culture.
These people don’t entertain us. They are the people who call us to be better human beings.

Reasonable

It seems reasonable that we would elect our legislators based on competence, experience, integrity and the desire to serve. How often does this happen?

It seems reasonable that we would build and fund an educational system that creates a solid and productive citizenry. How often does this happen?

It seems reasonable that the individuals who teach us, protect us and tend to our health would be paid adequately and fairly in relationship to celebrities and athletes. How often does this happen?

It seems reasonable that religion should help us to be good, loving beings. How often does this happen?

Is this the best humanity can do? How do we dig ourselves out of this hole? 

National Enquirer

 Headlines from the National Enquirer

Melania Hosts Afternoon Tea for Donald’s Mistresses
“Why not? We’ve all been photographed posing nude.”

Harry Uses Money from His New Book to Buy England
“When it’s mine, I’ll be King.”

Kevin McCarthy Gives Up His Office to Become Speaker
“I can still lead from the broom closet.”

George W. Bush’s Bathroom Painting Sells for One Million at Christie’s
“I guess I’m a better painter than I was a President.”

Style

 Style comes out of art. Art doesn’t come out of style.

AI

 The first thing to recognize about AI is the A. We humans have the “I” of intelligence and the “I” of imagination. That’s where AI came from. AI is a product of our time, a time in which we’ve created expansive technology to do our human work. We want speed and efficiency to give us more leisure and more time for ourselves. AI, like all technology, will intrude into lives in unexpected ways.

What we forget is that the right kind of work gives us discipline. And the more the work involves hand, eye and mind, the more fully we develop ourselves. So, for example, students who pay top dollar for a college education, then use AI to write their essays, are depriving themselves of the very exercises that develop writing and critical thinking.

I want the work I do to represent my own effort, ideas, thinking and imagination. We can’t be seduced into letting technology deprive us of the things that make us human—imagination, hard work, failure, pride in accomplishment.

Dickheads

 

Don't fear

 Don’t fear death

It’s the one inevitability of life

Rather
Fear a life not lived
Fear casual and empty love
Fear the human poisons
Fear the delusion that the answer is in things
Fear the unattended soul
Fear the pace that has no time for beauty
Fear never having offered yourself
Fear never having known yourself
Fear never having experienced
That fleeting moment of eternity
That is always there

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Guys

 How about this? In entertainment and marketing…

we replace the good looking guy, one foot on the wall, cigarette in his mouth with the ordinary looking guy with a pen in his hand, writing a note to his mother.
replace the muscled dude with an assault rifle with a guy holding his child
replace an angry man throwing a glass with an angry man sitting down to calm himself
replace a man drowning his problems in drink with a man taking responsible hold of his life
replace the easy one-nighter with a tender courtship
replace the married man who needs a lover with a man who sits down and talk out his problems
replace a destructive car chase with a by-the-book arrest

There’s probably more examples, but these visual tropes stick with us more deeply than we realize and don’t do society any good.