Lao Tzu famously wrote that the journey of a thousand miles starts with one step, which despite its face value, “yeah, no shit” philosophy, tells me that even the greatest achievements and distances are realized in the smallest of increments, and that paramount to all, is that there is a start. One must simply start, as small a step as it may be, in order to get from here to […]
I grew up in a half white, half Mexican neighborhood in Roseville, CA. My best friend was Hally (Angelica) Rodriguez. Her parents were Mexican immigrants. Her older brother was a cholo and sold drugs from her house. He was a dick. Her older sister was tough and foul-mouthed and her bangs stuck straight up in a great wall of a tidal wave above her forehead. She was so cool, I […]
The New Year comes like a new baby: unavoidable, headlong, and full of promise. We can worry that the amount of promise the new year brings is entirely up to us (and that is certainly one way to look at it), but as with a new baby, the new year will most likely thrive and bring us all the joy and fullness we could hope for, if only we approach […]
“An ounce of gold will not buy an inch of time” – Chinese Proverb “If I could turn back time…then maybe maybe maybe…” – Cher I’m standing over the wash sink at my twin’s and my cafe, speeding through a mountain of dirty coffee mugs and breakfast dishes because we are running out and there is a steady stream of people waiting to order more food and coffee, when my cousin, Liz, […]
Nobody seems to know who said it, but some wise rhyming person once said, “What is bad for the heart is good for the art.” Is anything more true? I write songs. I didn’t start writing them until I was thirty years old when I finally figured out, after eight years of dinking around on the instrument, how to play the piano without having to read notes (which I did […]
If you Google “work relationships,” you will find, among a very long list of articles on the subject, a surprising number of seminars and workshops which, for a cool $200, promise to teach you in one day how to not only maximize your effectiveness in the workplace, but how to get along with almost any personality type found in your office. I call bullshit, but I’m going to try to […]
It has been many years since I traveled to places unknown, but as the details of what I have seen and done in my many journeys begin to fade, it is the feelings I have experienced in those places which remain clear in my memory. As the Danish writer, Peter Hoeg says, “traveling tends to magnify all human emotions.” I don’t remember the name of the castle I was looking […]
“What really matters is what you like, not what you are like. Books, records, films – these things matter. Call me shallow, but it’s the fucking truth.” -Rob Gordon in High Fidelity It’s advice I often give to my friends when they are considering the pros and cons of a partner or potential partner while stumbling through the minefield that is dating. It becomes especially true when viewed as encompassing […]
Are any of us really good at relationships? I think it is easier for some people to find a partner and even to be in a relationship, but “easier” is terribly relative. Even the best is still fumbling in the dark when it comes to navigating the needs and desires and reciprocal fumblings of another person. Three out of ten achieve happy longevity with their partner… that’s how much we […]
Two words: Love and Community. Where do the two meet? It strikes me that without love, there is no community, in the most fundamental sense. Love (of the romantic variety) gives way to partnership and children and growing families to extended families to villages to towns to commerce to cities to countries and so forth. Then there are all the little communities within a community: the churches, the retirement homes, the neighborhood […]