Yes, You SHOULD Remember Those "Auld" Friends This New Year!

For some reason, my husband and I have always made friends with people older than us.  A LOT older than us.  Back when we were newlyweds (in our early twenties), our two best friends were a couple in their early sixties. My husband was a grad student then, and he met Nadia and Julian every single morning at "Galaxy Donuts," for coffee and hour-long conversations.  Julian was Polish and Nadia was German and, although Christians, they were both in work camps during World War II. They eventually immigrated to Canada and had a lot of stories to tell.

Mostly they talked politics or world history.  My husband nicknamed them "The Prophets" because they often watched TV shows of the apocalypse! Sometimes we'd rent old black and white movies and watch them at each other's apartments.  Or we'd have Polish food at Polonez, our favorite neighborhood restaurant.  But four years later, my husband and I moved to a different part of town, far away from the Polish area, and since none of us had driver's licenses or cars (you didn't need them in the "big city"), we never saw The Prophets again.

I'd like to think that Nadia and Julian are still kicking around somewhere, healthy and happy, together in the "old folks home."  When you don't know what happened to someone you once knew, it's best to imagine them as they were when you knew them, and of course, to never forget them.

My other "old" friend was my former piano teacher, Helen.  I'd known her my whole life.  She was my next door neighbor who began giving me lessons when I was six.  Every Tuesday, for the next ten years, I sat in the first floor sitting room outside the small room she gave lessons in, as I waited for her to finish with the student who studied before I did.  I never had to ring the doorbell.  Because I was her friend, I could just let myself in and wait for my lesson to start.

I never lost touch with Helen and had even spoken to her on the phone a week before she passed away peacefully at the age of 86.  Some of my favorite memories as a child were the nights before our annual weekend of piano recitals when Helen would invite my best friend, Ania, and I to sample some of the cookies that Helen baked every year for the recitals.  My favorites were the delicious powdered sugar and walnut crescent ones. Ania and I would be bubbling with anticipation.  We were nervous and excited at the same time for our weekend's performances where we played solos but also duets together.  Right up until the year that Helen passed away, she still lamented at how one of her biggest regrets was that she never got Ania and me on videotape playing at the recitals.  She had gotten her later students, but she hadn't been tech-savvy enough to have a video camera during Ania's and my heyday.  She was a dear and caring woman and, to this day, still one of the best friends I've ever had.

New Year's is a time to remember all our dear friends, and to cherish the ones we are still blessed with. Happy New Year to all my friends, both old, young and in-between!

Why Believing In Santa Claus Is Essential To Your Health

When it came to believing in Santa Claus, I was one of the last holdouts.  There was nothing more exciting than going to bed on Christmas Eve and waking up to find a bunch of wrapped presents under my tree that were delivered by Santa Claus and his reindeer in the middle of the night.  On the big night, we had a tradition in my family where one of my parents or my older brother would read "The Night Before Christmas" as my bedtime story.  The book had a big colorful illustration of Santa right on the cover.  Little did I know that out of the four of us, I was the only one who still actually believed that Santa really would be visiting our house in just a matter of hours exactly as the book said.

When I was in first grade, one of my classmates, Scott, told me that there wasn't any such thing as Santa Claus.  I still remember his exact words:  "You REALLY think that a fat man wearing a red suit who has a long, white beard slides down your chimney in the middle of the night to deliver you presents every Christmas? You REALLY think such a thing is possible?"  It was the middle of December, and I knew that Scott had already been getting one gift every day for several days, all leading up to the big present he would receive on Hanukkah, which didn't seem like a bad deal to me, so obviously, he didn't need to believe in Santa Claus!  He celebrated Hanukkah, and I celebrated Christmas.  Of COURSE there was such a thing as Santa Claus!

When you're a kid, you have many dreams and fantasies of how your life is going to be when you grow up, and there are many things you can believe in if you let your imagination run wild.  When I was a kid, I thought for sure I'd be a famous actress by now, living in a mansion in Hollywood.  Seems like my dream was a near impossible one, but it reminds me of that quote from "Alice in Wonderland's Through The Looking Glass" where Alice laughs at the White Queen, and says, "There's no use trying...one can't believe impossible things." The White Queen disagrees and responds: "I daresay you haven't had much practice...When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."  Even though I no longer desire to be a Hollywood actress, I would like to believe that I got so much practice believing in things when I was a child, that I still haven't completely lost my ability to believe in impossible things.

My friend, Tara, once told me that people who are severely depressed have often lost their ability to fantasize and dream and are no longer able to lose themselves in their imagination, and that this is what ultimately leads many of them into feelings of hopelessness and despair.  It makes sense to me because when things get tough, you need to escape into an imaginary world to allow yourself some much-needed respite. If someone has lost his or her ability to escape, then the world and its problems become too much, and he or she can never escape reality or the pain of unpleasant things.  As we get older and more realistic, it becomes even more important to never lose that ability to fantasize and to believe in "impossible things."

So even if you don't believe in Santa Claus anymore and have decided against "crazy" goals such as moving to Hollywood to become a famous actress, it is still important to believe in some near impossible things, for instance, ideas that you can become "The Thinking Man's Danielle Steel" or that someday you MAY even be able to retire!  Scott will definitely be able to retire.  He is a very successful corporate attorney.  But for his sake and sanity, I REALLY hope he hasn't lost his ability to fantasize.

My Life With Marilyn

Now that "Dancing With The Stars" is over, and we know that the "Keeping Up With The Kardashians" show is a fake, what TV event can we look forward to next?  The Oscars!  Well, maybe I'm getting ahead of myself here.  But my current obsession is that I really want to see the movie "My Week With Marilyn" starring Michelle Williams!  Michelle Williams should get the Oscar.  From the clips I've seen of "My Week With Marilyn," it is the real Marilyn Monroe that Michelle Williams plays, not the icon. She studied Marilyn extensively to play this part and even tied a belt around her knees to get Marilyn's "wiggle walk" down. She watched all her films and read up on her on the Internet. It's been said that a man who worked on the original film, "The Prince and The Showgirl" (the film that Marilyn was working on during the "week" she befriended the stage assistant who wrote the book that the current movie is based on) was on the set of "My Week With Marilyn,"  and  apparently, as soon as Michelle Williams came onto the set, he grabbed the person next to him in disbelief and exclaimed, "That's Marilyn!"   If Michelle Williams doesn't at least get an Oscar nomination this February, I will be extremely disappointed!

I actually knew who Marilyn Monroe was before I knew who George Washington was.  We had a huge mirror of her in my parents' bedroom because my dad used to collect Marilyn Monroe memorabilia.  My parents were on a date when they heard the news of Marilyn's death on the car radio.  My mom said they were shocked, but my dad was particularly heartbroken. I used to ask my dad who he loved more, Marilyn or my mom.  To his credit, he always said he loved my mom more, but I was never really sure if I believed him.

Marilyn Monroe was an intelligent woman.  Most agree that comedy is often harder to play than drama.   After many "dumb blond" roles, Marilyn wanted to be known as a serious actress so she moved to New York City to study acting at the famed "Actors Studio." Marilyn always tried to improve herself and was merely playing up her "dumb blond" image, speaking in that high, breathy voice whenever she acted or was being filmed for interviews. One day I heard a tape recording of her speaking in her real voice. It was deeper and didn't contain any of those silly inflections that people identify her with. It really surprised me because she sounded like a completely different person. That's because she was a different person than the general public believed her to be.

Another misconception of her was that she committed suicide. My dad used to say that Marilyn died because of Robert Kennedy.  He read extensively on Marilyn, so I believe he knew. 

Other than "growing up" with Marilyn, I don't know what it is about this film that makes me want to see it so much.  I like movies that show the real side of celebrity.  One of my all-time favorite movie lines is in the movie "Notting Hill" where Julia Roberts plays a famous actress who travels to England and meets bookseller, Hugh Grant, and they befriend each other even though he's initially blinded by her celebrity.  At one point she says something like: "You know, this fame thing,  it isn't real."  That's what I feel this Marilyn movie shows -- a real woman who was not just an image but an actual person with feelings and a very high sensitivity.  With all the fakeness around me, the Kardashians, and ALL the reality TV shows, it is refreshing to finally see something REAL.

Top Ten Reasons You Know You're Getting Older

10. You turn on Classic Rock radio and they're playing music from the 1980's.

9.   It doesn't frighten you to use your cell phone for talking rather than texting.

8.   If you ever lived in a "Real World" house, they'd put you in jail for murder by the end of the season.

7.  You mention "The Brady Bunch" and "Three's Company," and your co-workers have no idea what you're talking about.

6.   The only way you can have a flat stomach is to suck it in.

5.  You find that having a wire constantly sticking out of your ear is strange and rather uncomfortable.

4.  You can remember a time when sex tapes ruined celebrities' careers rather that furthered them.

3.  You used to be hired as an office temp because the company needed temporary help, but now it's because they prefer permanent help from someone who isn't entitled to benefits.

2.  You can in all honesty say you learned to cook from your mother and grandmother not from Rachael Ray and Lidia.

1.  You no longer look at people older than you and say,"I know I will never live like them. Nope, that'll never be me."

The Real Reason Why Halloween Is The Best Holiday

Halloween has gone through many changes since I was a kid.  Each year, we'd go to K-Mart and pick out a costume that came in a box with a see-through cellophane cover that showed the mask inside.  Mostly, the masks were of characters from TV -- Bugs Bunny, Huckleberry Hound, Cinderella.  Also inside the box was a long, sheet-like costume made of silky polyester that you wore over your clothes.  If you didn't wear a costume that came from a box, it was assumed your parents couldn't afford one.  In that case, if you were a girl, you'd put on a dress, some of your mom's gaudy jewelry, and you'd go as a gypsy.  If you were a boy, you'd wear some ripped clothes and smear black make-up on your face and go as a bum. 

These days, it's the opposite.  Homemade costumes are expected, and they are often very elaborate.  If you wear a store-bought costume today, it means you didn't go through the effort to buy the material, sew it yourself, and then shop for all the accessories that go with your costume, eventually  becoming both time-consuming and pricey!

But the biggest change of all that has happened to Halloween is not the costumes but the fact that somewhere along the way adults have claimed the holiday for themselves!  I spent my first few years of adulthood not celebrating Halloween at all until one year, a friend asked me what I was going to be  for Halloween! "Be? I don't go Trick-or-Treating anymore," I answered.  "No, not for Trick-or-Treating, which party are you going to and what are you going to dress up as?" Suddenly, there was this pressure to find a costume again!

My friend Lauren and I did dress up for a college Halloween party one year.  She was a movie star and I was punk opera diva Nina Hagen.  While Lauren did our make-up, she told me that Halloween was actually her favorite holiday because it was the only holiday where she could just go out and have fun and not miss her mom.  Lauren and I had the common bond of losing a parent as a teenager, and it was true that every other holiday consisted of family gatherings and dinners, and every other holiday was tainted with the sadness of us being aware of our missing family member: Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter are all geared towards eating and gathering with family but no one has ever had a big Halloween dinner for their family (not yet anyway!).  After college, Lauren and I began the tradition of sending each other Halloween cards every year with only the two of us knowing the special reason behind it.  This is why Halloween is the best holiday. 

Lauren and I have not sent each other Halloween cards for the past several years because, just like Halloween, our lives are constantly evolving.  This year, instead, I'll be sure to send her a special "Happy Halloween" E-Mail or a Spooky Facebook Message!

Bedtime Stories

In the latest Vanity Fair issue, Courtney Love says she thinks one of the reasons her 19 year-old daughter is estranged from her is because she never read to her as a child.  It surprises me that Courtney didn't read to her daughter because usually artistic people like books.  It's important to read to your kids as part of their bedtime routine.  Nowadays, a lot of kids have TVs in their bedrooms and use that to get themselves to sleep.  We have a "No TV In The Bedrooms" rule in our house.  That's not to say we don't watch TV.  The TV is pretty much on all day, every day.  I remember a friend of mine telling me that she recently read about a  family who had the TV on for more than 8 hours a day!  "Oh, we do that," I said.  "It's not that we just sit there and watch it all day, but it's on all day."  It was the same when I was a kid.  But I didn't have a TV in my bedroom back then either. My parents read to me every night.

First my mom would come in, and I'd get to pick one of my books from my bookshelf.  Then my dad would come in, but he preferred to make up his own stories or to tell me condensed kid-friendly versions of  his personal favorites.  Considering that his two favorite books were Joyce's "Ulysses" and Melville's "Moby Dick," I guess "The Runaway Pancake" was not really entertaining enough for him.

This has become part of my family history. My dad's cousin, Terry, often tells me about the night she was was visiting and took his place in my bedtime routine while my dad was involved in one of their super-competitive Monopoly games.  I told her then that since she was taking my dad's place, she couldn't read me a story, she had to make one up!  She said she thought, "Make one up?  You have to really work hard for this kid!"

First, he'd ask me to tell him the names of some of the kids in my class, and then he'd make up the story.  I remember one story had a bunch of us in a house that was on fire, but one of the kids got a hose, and we were all running around, but we managed to put out the fire in time.  One night he told me about Steinbeck's "The Pearl," the story of a poor fisherman whose son gets bit by a scorpion, but he can't afford to pay the doctor until he finds a giant pearl that seems to solve all his problems. Of course, it just makes his life worse because he becomes greedy, and the novella teaches us a lesson concerning good vs. evil.  My father's stories usually ended in a lesson of some sort, probably due to the fact that he was a teacher! 

Another night, he told me about Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter."  He said that the lady in the book was being accused of adultery and had to wear the letter "A" on the outside of her dress, over her heart.  Nobody knew which man in town she was unfaithful with.  But of course the man knew, and because of this, he had his own letter "A," but it was on the inside of his heart. Eventually, this caused his heart to die because he kept his secret and all of his feelings of guilt and shame inside of him.  My dad said that everyone always thought the woman had it worse because she had to stand outside being taunted in front of the whole town wearing that big letter "A," but it was really the man who had it worse all along.  I often think of the message of that story when situations come up in my own life. That it's better to let your feelings out than to hide them. I doubt that Dora could give me as good of a lesson as that!

I Am NOT Felicity

The problem with publishing a novel in first-person narrative is that everyone thinks your lead character is YOU.  Felicity is the lead character of my book, Bliss, Bliss, Bliss, and she is a singer-songwriter who lives in Ocean City.  True, I have studied singing, and I have written several songs, but the seed of my story about Felicity was actually planted after a conversation I had with my best college buddy, Lauren.

Lauren is also a singer-songwriter, and she often sings in the types of piano bars that Felicity performs in.  One day, Lauren was lamenting about how she has no problem earning a living playing music during the summer in her resort town near the ocean, but by the end of the summer, all the tourists go home, and she finds it hard to earn her living during the winter doing only music.  She says her town gets really empty, and it is depressing.  That gave me an idea:  What if you put an already-depressed woman inside of a deserted town like that to struggle financially and face yet another cold and lonely winter?  Does this mean my friend, Lauren, is Felicity?  No.  It means that I took her situation, created a character, mixed some of my own personality traits in, then pretty much let her loose inside a story where she'd have to face her own experiences, relationships and dilemmas that I myself have never had to deal with, and I let HER make the decisions. 

Some of the decisions Felicity has made, I do not like.  During the writing of my novel, I remember telling my friend, Tara, over lunch one day that I REALLY didn't like what my character, Felicity, did that day before.  She was wrong to do it, and she wasn't supposed to do it, but hey, Felicity is not me, and if she decides to do something, just because I myself would not do it, doesn't mean that I should step in and be the moral majority and interfere.  I am NOT Felicity, and I have to let her make her own mistakes on her own journey of self-discovery.  I have never had the relationships she has with the three main male characters in my book.  I have never carried a torch for someone who already has a girlfriend, I've never dated a yuppie, and I've never hung out with a former rock star!  But it's fun to watch Felicity do these things, and I don't even have to pick up the pieces when her life begins to fall apart.

As I've said before, I did give Felicity some of my character traits.  Mostly, it comes out in the dialog.  A lot of her viewpoints are my viewpoints, I will admit to that. She can be a little neurotic sometimes, and so can I. One thing I am NOT neurotic about that Felicity is concerns her issues with food: "Eating could be such a nuisance sometimes," she says. She constantly worries about being too thin and the fact that she never knows what to eat and never feels like stopping to eat it.  I get a real kick out of those sections.  The first thing I usually think about when I wake up in the morning is what delicious food I can have that day! Sometimes, it goes something like this:  I'm going shopping today, I can't wait to buy my block of cheddar cheese or Today I get to eat that big plate of vegetable lasagna at that restaurant near work!  In this way, Felicity is my opposite!

The father issues Felicity has are actually based in truth.  I too lost my father as a teenager.  Felicity's two female friends, Edie and Coco, also have father issues.  Coco lost her father as a child, and Edie's father abandoned the family when she was a child too. Edie and Coco are actually based on two women I have been friends with.  I don't know if anyone reading the book could guess who they are.  It's not something I choose to reveal, but hey, if you happen to read the book and can guess it, I will admit whether your guess is correct or not.

Bottom line is that Felicity is a work of fiction. She is not me, but she has some of my traits and knows what it is like to lose her father.  She works in the same capacity as my friend, Lauren.  She has two best friends who are extremely similar to two friends I have had.  But I am NOT Felicity, and yes, I still do love her!

Are You a Larry or a Betty?

Lately, I've come to the conclusion that most of us are either Larrys or Bettys. For instance, I am definitely a Larry.  I'm loud, speak my mind, and focus on things the average person would never focus on, i.e., how many pieces of shrimp are put into my Kung Pao Shrimp, and I'd notice if one day there were fewer than usual.  Betty Draper is soft-spoken, only speaks up when near nervous breakdown, and is focused on one thing and one thing only:  how to keep the "perfect image" of herself glimmering in everyone else's eyes.

I'm sure we all fall into both categories at different times.  Sometimes (although rarely), I do have a quiet day  (most likely because I'm just tired).  But it really does seem when I look around that I primarily see Larrys or Bettys.   Larry David is the same in every episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm."  He has no boundaries, and what you see is pretty much what you always get.  On this season's "Social Assassin" episode, Larry's friends use these traits to their advantage:  They are afraid to tell their loved ones to stop doing the annoying little habits that drive them crazy (like the wife who drives her husband crazy by saying "LOL" whenever she thinks something is funny rather than actually laughing or the mother who drives her daughter crazy by smacking her lips and saying "Ahhhh" every time she takes a sip from a drink she really enjoys) so they simply ask Larry to do it.  Of course, there is some blackmailing involved, but personally, I don't think it would have been all that hard to convince Larry to just "tell it like it is" even without the blackmailing! He's a Larry, he loves the truth and welcomes conflict if it means standing up for something he believes in.

Betty Draper of "Mad Men" is Larry's polar opposite.  An episode of "The Mountain King" illustrates the essence of Betty the best:  In this episode, Betty and her friend Sarah Beth both lust after a man named Arthur Case.  He horseback rides at the same stables that Betty and Sarah Beth do.  He's engaged, Betty's married to Don Draper, and Sarah Beth has a husband too, although lately Sarah Beth has been confiding in Betty that her marriage is on the rocks. One day, when Sarah Beth is not at the stables, Betty takes the opportunity to set a lunch date for herself, Arthur, and Sarah Beth.  When the date and time arrive, Arthur and Sarah Beth meet for lunch, but Betty purposely cancels at the last minute so that Arthur and Sarah Beth are left alone together. Some days later, Sarah Beth calls Betty on the phone and tells her how distraught she is because she and Arthur have been having an affair! Betty must know deep inside that she has had a hand in making this affair happen.  Does she feel guilty? It's hard to say when you're dealing with a Betty. Sarah Beth hysterically tells Betty something to the effect of: "Well, you liked him too!"  Betty answers:  "Liking someone and having an affair with them are two different things entirely!"  Beneath the quiet, demure exterior lies a cobra waiting to strike! 

But still, no one ever suspects such behavior from a Betty.  Even Sarah Beth has no idea at all that Betty had a hand in her downfall with Arthur Case. Bettys are quiet and soft, and Larrys are loud and brazen. It's obvious that the Larrys annoy the Bettys, but what the Bettys don't realize is that the Bettys bother the Larrys every bit as much.   Bettys' voices may be quieter, but when they scheme out in public on their cell phones with their confidantes, those of us with good hearing can still hear them!  The fact that the Bettys are underhanded bothers the Larrys simply because they themselves don't operate this way.  Larrys don't like sneakiness.  Of course, Bettys would never really categorize themselves as sneaky.  Bettys just carefully choose the words they speak.  Also, because Larrys speak at face value, the Bettys think the Larrys will take THEM at face value.  What they don't know is that Larrys are always reading between the lines when speaking to Bettys. They don't take the Bettys' words at face value (although the Larrys let the Bettys believe they do).           

Keeping all these Larry and Betty traits straight can be confusing. But the most confusing of all (which is also the most satisfying) is to find a cross between the two.  It is not found very often, and is very rare indeed, but I can think of one Larry/Betty cross and this is yet another character on Mad Men -- none other than Betty's husband, Don Draper.

Most people think of Don as a womanizing business executive who assumed a dead soldier's identity in order to get to the top.  This much is true, but despite that, Don still inhabits just as many Larry traits as he does Betty traits!  My favorite example of this is when he writes and publishes an ad in the New York Times entitled, "Why I'm Quitting Tobacco."  What happens is that one of Don's agency's most important and longest-standing clients,  Lucky Strike, maker of cigarettes, quits the agency in order to consolidate their company with another agency.  It had been months in the making behind Don's agency's back.  Don finds out about it through the grapevine, and although everyone else at his agency worries that losing Lucky Strike will make their agency go under and/or damage their reputation, Don decides to take matters into his own hands.   He turns the tables on Lucky Strike by publishing the article which makes it sound like their severed relationship ended amicably because Don no longer had the conscience to promote something that was bad for people's health.  This is ingenious! Everyone at the agency is appalled.  How could Don have made such a bold move without consulting anyone first? How could he have had the guts to have done something so public?  Lucky Strike was sneaky in conspiring behind Don's agency's back knowing full well that their move might cause the agency to go under.  Don is sneaky too, but he also lays things out in the open and no longer behind anyone's back.  At the end of his article he proudly states that his agency "welcomes all business" because he and his agency believe that "our best work is still ahead of us."  Lucky Strike now no longer has the opportunity to make Don's agency look bad. I think Don's move proves he embodies the perfect "marriage" between a Larry and a Betty! 

I do believe that there is room in this world for Larrys, Bettys and the Don Draper Combo.  The important thing is that WE know which one we are because most people seem to be in denial.  I know I am a Larry, but it doesn't mean I don't like Bettys.  After all, I do have, and proudly display, my very own  Mad Men Betty Draper Doll!

I Should Have Gone to the Fame School

It seems like every teenager wants to be an entertainer these days.  Some are happy just chasing fame, but others want to do it the right way by actually learning how to sing, dance, act or play an instrument.  When I was a teen, my passion was singing and songwriting. There was no "New Directions Glee Club" at my high school, and even though I grew up in New York City, it never occurred to me to audition for the "High School for Performing Arts," made famous by the "Fame" movie and TV show, both popular at that time.  Though it would have been nice to have had a bunch of friends I could feel connected to who also wanted to be performers, I thought the only option for me was to go it alone.

First, I enrolled in group singing lessons in a building that also housed our local DMV.  There, we practiced the most bizarre vocal exercises I'd ever encountered in my life (both before and since).  There were "Ya-EEs" and "EE-Yeh-EE's."  One girl's voice was so high and screechy that as she went higher and higher up the vocal register, it was hard not to plug our ears.  I can't even write the syllables "Ya-EE" without thinking of her!  The next year, I quit the "Ya-EE" group and joined a singing workshop for adults.  I was the youngest member since I was only 16, and the man who ran the group promptly distributed his original 45-record to us.  It was enclosed inside of a sleeve that had a picture of him where he looked just like Tom Jones -- curly-headed, shirt open, gold chain, holding the microphone in full Tom Jones stance!

Needless to say, I was getting frustrated. At the rate I was going, not only was I not learning how to sing,  I also had no hope of getting the handful of pop songs I had just written recorded on my own 45-record or at least onto a taped demo! My dad's best friend, Hans, who was working as a playwright/filmmaker at the time, told me that if I was really serious about singing, I should answer an ad in "Back Stage" magazine which was THE magazine for out-of-work actors and musicians in New York City in the '80's.  I found an ad where you could work with both a vocal teacher AND with a record producer, kind of like a "two for the price of one" deal. I quickly called the phone number on the ad, and a man with an Italian accent answered.  He said his name was Victor, and I told him I was interested in taking singing lessons with the teacher and also in working with the producer on my original songs.  He said that we could start with singing lessons and later make some rough sheet music arrangements to give to the producer so that I could record my demo.  He gave me directions to his studio in Manhattan.  "Right next to The Gustino," he said.

Being a cautious 16 year-old girl, there was NO WAY I was taking the subway and going to some strange man's studio in 1980's New York City, so I dragged my forever indefatigable best friend, Ania, to come along.  When we got off the subway at Columbus Circle/59th Street, we looked for a building labeled "The Gustino," but we couldn't find one.  "Maybe," Ania began, "he meant the grocery store, D'Agostino.  There's one right over there."  "Yes, that's it."  We found the address and took the the elevator up, but when we got off of our floor, it looked like a regular apartment hallway where people lived.  There was no large door that opened up to a studio!  We found the door to his "studio," and I almost ditched the whole idea.  "Should we knock or just go?"  I asked Ania.  "No," she said.  "Let's try it out." Indefatigable or insane? You decide.  A gray-haired man who looked like he was in his sixties opened the door and introduced himself.  "You can call me Victor," he said.

I studied singing with Victor every Saturday for several weeks.  He accompanied me on vocal exercises that were not nearly as crazy as the ones from my group lessons with the screechy singer.  He let me bring in whatever songs I wanted to learn, mostly by singers like Sheena Easton or by groups like the Bangles and whoever else was popular at the time.  Victor LOVED to talk, and as I became more familiar to him, he'd often stop playing, mid-song, and turn to me and tell me all the things that were on his mind, i.e., "This song was obviously copied from the Beatles.  But you know, the Beatles didn't write their own music anyway. No, not at all.  Their producer, George Martin, wrote all their songs for them.  Bet you didn't know that, huh?"  Another time I brought in "Live To Tell" by Madonna, and Victor again took his hands off the piano keys, turned to me while I was in mid "singing" sentence, and said,  "You know, Madonna, she's really popular now.  But she's not going to be around in another few years.  Yeah, that's right.  A few years from now, no one is even going to remember Madonna!"

But still, I always tried to be polite.  One time, Victor wore two pairs of eyeglasses stuck on top of each other, both hanging down the bridge of his nose, scotch taped heavily.  He began the lesson and played the piano as I practiced my vocal exercises, only to suddenly stop playing and start laughing uproariously.  "You didn't notice!" he exclaimed.  "I broke my bifocals!  I had to do SOMETHING so I could see during your lesson!" 

It was around this time that I thought I should mention the record producer.  "Oh, yes, the producer," Victor said.  "Let's get your best three songs written out on sheet music, and then you can set up a meeting with Mike to see if he'll record those songs for you in his studio."  Finally, I thought.  The three songs we chose were "Lemon Meringue," "Rainbow Ice," and "Cinnamon Wishes," -- remember, this was the 80's!  Once Victor got the three songs arranged on paper, he played them for me and I sang along.  I sounded like Cyndi Lauper being accompanied by Liberace, but still, I felt I was ready to meet the producer.

Judging by my experience with Victor, I should have known that Mike the Producer would probably turn out to be somewhat similar to Victor since they both advertised in "Back Stage" as a pair.  Sure enough, when my mom and I sat down in the studio to have our meeting with Mike, he was also gray-haired, in his 60's, and was more interested in telling us all about this new girl he was recording than discussing the arrangements of the songs I'd brought him.  He told us that she was a teenager around my age who sang country-western music. He played us the demo he had just recorded for her that he was trying to shop around to record companies.   "I don't know what to do," he said.  "She's a really talented singer, and I know her music could sell. It's just a matter of getting her to the RIGHT record company."  I know the feeling, I thought to myself.  It's also just a matter of getting me to the RIGHT vocal teacher!  I should have gone to the Fame School!

Do People Still Read Books?

People now spend so much time on Twitter and Facebook reading short blurbs (or else they are on their cell phones texting friends) that I sometimes wonder whether we still have the patience and attention span to read something actually book-length.  I was so excited a couple of years ago when the first "Twilight" movie came out because my friends told me that the movie was based on several Young Adult novels written by Stefanie Meyer and that everyone was reading them -- teenage girls, adult women, even men -- everyone was getting hooked on these books!  In fact, when I saw the first commercial advertising the "Twilight" movie, announcing that the movie was based on the "popular series," I assumed they were talking about a teen television series I hadn't heard about, not a BOOK!

Even the story behind Stefanie Meyer's creation of the "Twilight" series is an exciting one.  She wasn't a magazine editor or journalist who had concocted a book idea that she thought was going to make her a lot of money.  She was a mom of three who woke up one morning from a dream she had of two teenagers, one a girl and one a boy, who were hanging out in a field, and the boy's skin was glittering in the sun because he was a vampire! Meyer became fascinated by this "dream couple" that she just HAD to write about them.  When she finished the first novel in the series, she sent out about ten query letters to agents and got rejection letters back from all of them except for one, and that particular agent got her the publishing deal to release her "Twilight" Series.  The huge market success of both the books and the movies showed me that indeed people of all ages could become excited about reading again, and that they were indeed still reading books. 

But Meyer's books are about vampires, and vampires are hugely popular in our culture.  The recent success of the HBO Series "True Blood" can attest to that fact.  What about literary novels?  Books that are about regular people having regular problems but in made-up scenarios, with fake backgrounds and made-up friends?  With the average television viewer being more obsessed with Reality TV than with dramas and comedies that require writers to give life to made-up characters, is anyone interested in reading books that can't be placed into a particular genre? 

It reminds me of the lead character, Miles, in that huge sleeper hit movie "Sideways" that came out a few years ago.  Miles is a fiction writer of a literary novel that his agent gets really close to selling to a major publisher.  He is so excited about FINALLY getting published after toiling over this manuscript for years, only to have his agent call him up and tell him that she has to give up on the sale of his book.  She tells him that it doesn't matter how well-written a book is anymore, the only thing that matters to the publisher is how they can market the book in their advertising campaign.  She tells Miles that they need to know how to label his book, and they just don't know what category to put his book in.  It is a book about a made-up character who goes through all sorts of scenarios, but it is something that any of us could have gone through.  So his agent rejects him.  Miles is devastated.  Someone in the movie asks him what he is going to do now, and Miles responds, "It's back to the old drawing board. I guess."

"Sideways" ends without us knowing what Miles will do with his manuscript next.  Maybe he decides to self-publish it.  He'll be in good company if he does: James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Anais Nin, and even John Grisham all self-published their own novels early in their careers.  So even though the publishing industry has obviously been hit as hard by the downturn in our economy as every other industry has, good books will always still be published either by traditional publishing companies or by the authors themselves.  But the question still remains:  Will people read them?  My question was recently answered on my way home from work the other day.  I happened to open my eyes from my usual nap, and it seemed that almost every person around me was reading.  They weren't reading the daily newspaper or a glossy magazine, they were reading their KINDLES!  The new electronic device that stores thousands upon thousands of book-length novels digitally.  You can pick a new book to read or an old book, but there are tons of books that you can access with your Kindle, and people are reading them.  So it is true, people are still reading books, and not all of these books are about sparkly vampires!

Dad and American Idol

My Dad died in 1984.  I often wonder what it would be like if he could suddenly be transported into our time, even if just for one day, to see what it is like to live in our present time.  What would someone whose last earthly memories were of the year 1984 think of our time today?  He would have to get used to personal computers, cell phones, CDs, the Internet, Reality TV.  One show I know he'd love for sure is "American Idol."  I personally refuse to watch the show.  Based on the clips I've seen, I can totally picture the producers auditioning these really bad singers and buttering them up, telling them what great voices they have, only to have them sing for Simon and immediately have their dreams crushed in front of millions of people.  All of us, growing up, have sang alone in our bedrooms to records we've loved and thought that our voices sounded amazing, and the producers prey on this fact of human nature. I don't have any proof of this, but the stunned expressions on the contestants' faces after he tells them how much they suck is all I need to know that they didn't get a spot on the show knowing that the producers warned them ahead of time that they were taking a risk by singing on TV and embarrassing themselves on live television.

But my Dad would have been willing to overlook this.  He was a singer himself.  He was the type of singer that only had to study for a year or so then just opened his mouth and out came melodies sung as beautiful and effortlessly as a bird.  He was very critical of other singers, so he would have loved a show like "American Idol."  I can't imagine him watching any other Reality TV.  He always enjoyed scripted shows like "All in the Family" and "Soap." If he really did come back to life in our present time, I believe he would still be watching those shows in syndication.  He was a creature of habit and not particularly technologically-minded.  I remember when VCRs came out, I BEGGED my parents to get one so I could tape my favorite shows and watch them over and over again.  My Dad thought VCRs were silly and was completely against the idea of us getting one. My Mom finally talked him into renting one.  Believe it or not, back in the 80's, if you didn't want to make a "commitment" to getting a VCR, you could just rent one for a while, then give it back. 

After we had our rented VCR for several months, my Dad warmed up to the idea.  He even wanted me to teach him how to program his shows so he wouldn't miss them while he was out.  Programming VCRs in the 80's practically required a special course, and I was the only one in the family who bothered to learn how to do it. You couldn't just enter "7:59 to 9:01," because measurements of time were not labeled in numbers but rather in sections of a pie chart, i.e., half-moon for 30 minutes, three quarters of the pie chart for 45, etc.  But he wanted me to teach him so I did.  I don't remember him ever actually programming anything though.  Like I said, he wasn't really excited about advances in technology, he could either take it or leave it. If he did come back today, he would find absolutely no need for cell phones, computers or the Internet.  And don't even get me started on Auto-Tune!

Why I Love Social Networking

When I was a kid, my grandfather had an AM/FM radio that had a button you could turn in order to tune in with actual CB radio frequencies.  You couldn't send any signals to CB radios yourself, but you could listen in on truck drivers or anyone who was communicating with someone else through CB radios.  My friends and I would often sit at the picnic table in my backyard and listen in on whatever conversations we could actually tap into.  It was hard to get the frequency, and most of the time, you could only get bits and pieces of peoples' conversations and hardly anything cohesive.

One hot summer afternoon, we actually hit upon a teenage girl and a couple of teenage boys who were planning to meet each other at the synagogue that was up the street from us.  She described herself to them, saying, "I'll be wearing a Bugs Bunny T-Shirt."  Of course, since the synagogue was just up the street from us, my friends and I decided to walk to the synagogue and hide in some bushes to see if what we had just heard could really transpire!  Seconds later, we did see the girl with the Bugs Bunny T-Shirt and two teenage boys.  We couldn't believe our eyes, but we chickened out and didn't stay hidden in the bushes for fear that they would see us! We were so innocent, we had no idea why they were planning to meet.  Now, in my jaded adulthood, I'll bet they were dealing drugs.  Smart of us to not stick around.

When I wasn't tuning into my grandfather's CB radio receiver, I was sitting on the top of my swing set, which enabled me to have a clear view of at least three backyards across from ours.  One time, I saw a preteen girl around my age get thrown into her friend's pool!  She was fully dressed, but didn't seem to mind the joke. For some reason, this horrified me, and I worried that my grandfather's brother whom I'd never met before but was coming to visit us that weekend would do the same thing to me! My mom assured me that Uncle Petie just wasn't that type.  It makes me laugh now how I could ever imagine that mild-mannered old man pushing me into our swimming pool for no reason!  Another time, I was swimming in my pool with my best friend, Ania, and something about the neighbors swimming in their kidney-shaped pool got my attention.  I don't remember why it was I was looking at them.  They were young adult women, and Ania and I were preteens, and the next thing I knew, one of the women said, "Why don't you stop watching us and look in your OWN pool!"  I turned around quickly and didn't say a word, but I was shaken to the bone.  I was horrified, and I felt that I was being yelled at.  I felt I had done something really wrong.  All of my "spying" had finally caught up with me.  I felt that my spying days may be coming to an end.

That evening, I told my mom what my neighbor had said and to this day, I believe my mom's reaction is what determined whether I would continue to spy or whether I would from now on just continue to "look into my own pool."  She said, "Well, how could she even know you were watching her if she wasn't watching you too?"  Yes, I thought.  It's true!  I wasn't a bad person.  She had been spying on me too!

This is why I love social networking.  Because I have always been interested in what other people are thinking and doing and what they are saying to each other.  Social networking makes spying OK.  Everyone who shares a networking site is interested in what you're thinking, doing and saying too.  And if they don't want to know your business, they don't have to be part of a social networking site.  They may as well just get themselves out of the pool!