Sue Katz: Consenting Adult

Wordsmith and Rebel

My books are available on Amazon here or for an inscribed copy, write to ConsentingAdultPress@hotmail.com. Enjoy all of my low-priced books:

A Raisin in My Cleavage: short & shorter stories

Lillian in Love (a novel)

Lillian's Last Affair and other stories.

I'm available for interviews, readings, visits to book clubs, being the entertainment at your party, talking about senior sex at your senior center, talking about love in senior housing, and any other creative ways to get the word out about my work.

Some of these stories are 5,000 words long, some of them are 100 words exactly. Some protagonists are old and some aren’t.  Several stories feature gay men or lesbians, while several do not. So what unifies this collection? It is the interplay of heart and smart, facing off against the dangers of a viral wedding smooch, a scary staircase, a runaway supermarket cart, a disastrous online date, and a stolen sausage. Of course, you'll also learn about the raisin that falls where it shouldn’t.

Lillian’s life at 84 is tumultuous. She is moving to Manor House to be near Sarah, abandoning the demands of her own home, which has been colonized by her children. How will she and Sarah deal with the reactions of relatives, ex’s, and neighbors to their romance? How do two old women negotiate new love? Will slow-dancing, vibrators, and pot brownies help smooth the way?

 

“If I’m going to go after one more affair of the heart at 84, I’d better get my ass in gear,” says Lillian, speaking for all the characters in these six stories.

Ruby has a run-in with a waterbed and Catherine tokes her first joint in the bathtub with Victor. Elegant Anna’s introduction to kinky sex is bittersweet. And then there’s the neighbor with the strange attachment to the grocery cart. Sue Katz’s hilarious, tender, and impeccably written stories confirm that age fails to erode our eccentricities or dull our ardor.

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100-Word Review: Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

I loved this contemporary Japanese novella about an oddball woman who prefers to “under-achieve” by working for decades as a clerk in a convenience store. She is pressured from all directions to marry and to make something of herself, but at 36 she recognizes that the convenience store is the place where she functions best. The rest of the world baffles her, but the store speaks to her. She mimics others to try to fit in outside the store. She tries living with a man – it’s awkward. I listened to this enthralling book in the car and found it fascinating.

Is This Karma or Clutter?

After my mother – a mean-spirited woman – died, my friend went through the jewelry she had accumulated throughout her life. Much was tacky mid-century plastic and gaudy Florida flea market stuff, but my friend did identify a few items with a bit of value: a gold chain, gold bracelets, a necklace with a diamond, some diamond earrings.

It was 2009, deep in the Recession, and selling/buying gold was big business. I contacted a gold-buying guy who had a big ad in a brochure featuring varied
Cape Cod businesses. He turned up with a tray, a special light, and one of those lenses (known as a monocular loupe) that screws into one eye and apparently lets jewelry experts see deep into the item. I was one of a bunch of such buying stops he was making that evening. It was his profession over many decades, but business had really picked up because of the Recession, he said with glee. If I recall, he gave me $250 cash for the lot and left. Two days later he called to say that he had screwed up on the assessment of one of the pieces and wanted to return to my house to take back $100. I said no.

After his call, I realized that I did not recollect what I did with the cash. I scoured my apartment but never found it. This loss has stayed in the back of my brain. My mother had treated me like crap all my life. Luckily I’m not superstitious or spiritual – or I might think she was messing with me from her grave.

Fast forward over a decade and I’m in the midst of a de-cluttering blitz. Among some very dusty papers, I found that Cape Cod business brochure. Inside was $350 cash. So it was more than I remembered and it was right where I had laid it over 10 years earlier. Now I have enough money to pay the woman I’ve hired to help me organize this attempt to tame the chaos of my tiny crowded apartment.

Headcase: LGBTQ Writers and Artists on Mental Health and Wellness

Headcase: LGBTQ Writers and Artists on Mental Health and Wellness

Editors: Stephanie Schroeder and Teresa Theophano

I know little about the subject of mental health and would have been unlikely to be aware of this remarkable book if I hadn’t already been familiar with the ground-breaking work of one of the co-editors, Stephanie Schroeder, who produced this anthology with co-editor Teresa Theophano for Oxford University Press.

It is a rare collection in which each piece meets, in its own unique way, an extraordinarily high standard. The first sentence of the Foreword by Kai Cheng Thom draws the reader straight into real life: “I am several months behind deadline on writing this foreword: first, there were the implications of a mental health crisis of my own, then...”

Each contributor has an intimacy with the issues of mental health that has turned them into self-aware experts on their own conditions. And each has something illuminating to say about what the co-editors call “the evolution of queer identity as it interfaces with mental health.” Because the complications of being queer and needing help are so “downright crazymaking,” they say, they have reclaimed the word Headcase – a term as strong as the writing and the fight for health we go on to read about.

Through personal essays, professional approaches, graphic illustrations, photos, and poetry, we gain an insight into their worlds, not the least the inadequacies of the healthcare system and the often extended but life-saving search for the right medicines. Stephanie Schroeder discusses these both in her essay “Crowdsourcing my Antipsychotic” – a tale that gallops along like a fast-paced thriller, as she fights past a nauseating array of obstacles in her attempt to find and to fund the drug that can save her, despite the indifference of Big Pharma. Such difficulties in getting what is necessary turn up in many of the book’s pieces. J. R. Sullivan Voss’s emotional graphic story “Sisyphus (Or: Rocks Fall and Everyone Dies)” takes us into mental hospitals where torturous over-medication is the rule.

This is not a collection of dense academics nor is it dripping with jargon. It is a showcase of talented, gripping work. Eliza Gauger’s six complex “Problem Glyphs” are personalized illustrations called sigils that play the role, she says, of “a sort of occult advice column.” Some pieces are written by lovers, friends, and relatives of those struggling to gain their mental health. In “Erasure,” Gabriella M. Belfiglio briefly but potently narrates the experience of visiting her precious sister in what sounds like a high security mental hospital. She tells us: “Cell by cell, I’ve been watching her die for more than two-thirds of my life.” Juan Antonio Trujillo in a half a page describes his own mental acrobatics as he talks with delicacy to a fragile friend, in “Border / Lines.”

For many of the contributors, gaining control of their mental health leads to valuable achievements. I was transfixed by an amazing story of intertwined feminist and lesbian self-discovery by a mother and daughter in “Not Our Fault” by Chana Wilson. Co-editor Teresa Theophano speaks with full candor in a section called Stories of Survival. She tells us in “The Family Legacy Ends Here” that “surviving trauma has freed me.” Later she writes, “Emerging from those years of darkness has enabled me to participate more fully and with much more confidence in the organizing and community-building work that is my passion – especially now…”

Against my initial expectations, Headcase is an energizing read, full of pain and wit and joy. I have kept it by my bed and dipped in every evening, to learn, to be awed, and to be grateful. I have asked my local public library to order it and I suggest you do the same. I have one warning however – and it is a problem I see in many books put out by University presses. To save on the expense (i.e. number of pages), the font is miniscule and demanded my strongest reading glasses. The rewards, though, are humongous.

Review in 100 words: Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am

Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am

Review in exactly 100 words

Combine Toni Morrison’s fascinating life and fulsome talent with an elegant documentarian, Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, and you get that rare film that is both comely and edifying. Add in talking heads who love Morrison – from Angela Davis to Oprah to Walter Mosley to Fran Lebowitz – and you have a wondrous film. The racism and sexism she faced in her eventual journey to the Nobel Prize were countered by the 48 black writers who signed a statement deploring the lack of establishment recognition for her. Greenfield-Sanders showcases not only Morrison’s personal beauty, but also the soothing Hudson River view from her home.

 

Sharing My Dad’s Feet

I had a sweet dad and a dreadful mother. Saul didn’t protect me from her, but he stood up for me in other ways. He drove me to my black boyfriend’s house and then drove us around when Pittsburgh was too segregated for us, at 15 or so, to be open about being together, and he let us kiss in the backseat. Unlike my mother, he accepted my girl lover the next year and my lesbianism the rest of his life. In fact, we used to armchair cruise the passing women when we were hanging out together somewhere public. He was a brilliant dancer and in later years we used to lead the women at the elders’ tea dances side by side.

I used to look just like my dad – I have his beautiful eyes – and I loved that. But as I age, I look more and more like my nasty mother and that freaks me out. I see my hands and arms turning into hers – despite how much I loved my dad’s muscular forearms and veined hands.

For the last year I have been having terrible trouble with my feet and ankles. The result is that I can walk less and less and in fact at this point even a block or two does me in. I can’t stand in one place for more than a couple of minutes, which generally prevents me from attending dance lessons. I’ve seen six medical people, received six diagnoses, and been subjected to six failed treatments. Only one of these people has ever followed up to see how I’m doing after their failures. Combine that with a knee they say needs replacing, but which I can’t replace until a solution to my feet problem works, and you can understand why I am now the owner of two canes and one disability parking placard for my car. I am learning how to stay in the game of my beloved West Coast Swing, by perfecting a way to lead without really dancing, without really moving.

My dad died in 2004 and my mother three years later. I had three days in Pittsburgh to clear out their apartment and I took big garbage bags and emptied their file cabinets into the bags and threw them out. I had a charity come get all the other stuff. I made up two boxes of papers I noticed while dumping the rest that I thought I’d want and I sent those boxes home to Boston, where they have remained unopened.

This week I opened one of the boxes. First, I found a folder of interesting papers from my dad’s service during WWII. Underneath that was a manila envelope full of funeral stuff and obits. And then an astonishing two-page official-looking letter from 1996 turned up. It was from a vascular specialist physician to another physician, apparently my dad’s primary care person. It is titled “Saul Katz” and it describes him as a 78-year-old dancer with mysterious feet and ankle problems (the doctor calls them “interesting symptoms”) that the original doctor couldn’t figure out. The Dr. describes Saul as “overweight, awake, alert, and oriented” – which fits me too.

The vascular specialist did a complicated work-up on my dad but could not figure out the problem. He observes that the pain comes from walking or standing but that Saul, like me, is pretty much without pain while sitting. He writes: “I don’t have a perfect handle on this,” and goes on to make multiple speculations. In the end he says, “I’m sorry that I can’t give a definitive answer.” Nor have any of the six medical people I’ve seen. What a disappointment that medicine does not seem to have progressed around feet since the 90s.

I always thought that my love of dance was a reflection of my dad’s influence – and my commitment to leading exclusively as well. I am freaked that I have inherited this mystery disability as part of the genetic package. I am my father in so many ways, but at least I haven’t gone bald. Yet.

I write this at night, just as Father’s Day is ending.

Review: Legal Tender: Women & The Secret Life of Money by Christian McEwen

I fell in love with this book the first moment I held it in my hand. It’s petite – just 4 1/2” x 6” and has just 142 little pages. It fits into the back pocket of my jeans. And it is filled with the most riveting “confessions” by all sorts of women about money.

I found myself dipping into this pearl of a book, reluctant to finish it. Each woman speaks with the kind of candor that it is rare to hear on this subject. I remember my own mother’s fierce sense of privacy about money – a subject she thought it was rude to bring up. Even when I was applying for college scholarships, she wouldn’t let me see the financial forms she filled in. “It’s none of your business.” My only hint came when my brother, after they had put him through a few college degrees, got his first job. “He pays more in taxes than I make in a year,” my dad said, half with pride, half with resentment.

Money. I was happy to hear other women own up to hiding $5 in every coat pocket, every backpack, every drawer – I do this. I call it my Holocaust syndrome – my “just in case” stash.

Some women talk about how growing up poor impacted their attitude towards money. But remarkably, McEwen even gets people to talk about inherited wealth. Lydia Richardson Pratt, a millionaire from an old money family, complained (boo hoo) that “coming out as lesbian was way easier than coming out as rich.” She brags about how much she adores being affluent.

I liked the bartender who tossed all her change into a big container. “But when I’m really panicky, I’ll sit down and roll my change… You know, I’ve paid my taxes through change I’ve rolled by hand!

A gambler introduces her comments this way: “Most people would rather tell you about blow-jobs they gave to strangers on the highway than talk about money honestly.” She admits that, because of her addiction, “Every day was like torture. I woke up every day and was completely freaked out.”

A freelancer speaks for all of us who write or act or draw or drive for our living: “I think that anyone who works in the freelance world has an inner bag lady who is ready to haunt her.”

Christian McEwen is a writer I have admired since her days in the UK when she was producing very early lesbian anthologies, including Naming the Waves and, with Sue O'Sullivan, Out the Other Side, a book I nearly wore out reading. This little volume Legal Tender from Bauhan Publishing is an utter delight, condensed from 50 interviews, and presented like a gift. Order it here http://www.christianmcewen.com/shop/.

 

Film Review: Amazing Grace: Aretha Franklin

Do you want to take a break? Do you want music that lifts you up, talent that brings tears, and comfort all around.

Go see the movie of Aretha Franklin: Amazing Grace, made in 1972 when she was already a massive star. I fell in love with her brilliant, warm mentor James Cleveland and was moved by his Southern California Community Choir. Most of all, I was transfixed by Aretha Franklin's transcendent voice, which is a crucial part of the soundtrack of my life – and that of several generations.

The film was shot during the making of "Amazing Grace, which was both Aretha’s biggest selling album and – to this day – the best-selling live gospel album ever. Sydney Pollack, who was directing for Warner Brothers, made a terrible technical error, which left the audio out of sync. Producer Alan Elliott devoted decades to saving the film, but faced a lot of resistance, including from Aretha herself. A new technical fix and Aretha’s death allowed him to bring it to us now.

It is raw and real and sweaty and full of bloopers, such as the film crew stepping in front of the camera by accident or turning up behind Aretha messing with wires. Interesting guests dot the audience – from her father (oddly invited last minute) to Mick Jagger, hanging out in the back of the room. The vast majority of the audience is members of a Los Angeles Baptist church where they filmed over two nights.

It's simply wonderful. “Don’t bother with tissues. Bring a towel,” said The New York Times.

A Two-Stop Day-Trip from Boston: Wachusett Dam & Reservoir plus Tower Hill Botanic Garden

With so little to celebrate in this world, a warm Spring day is sufficient motivation to turn off the news, leave the computer, put down the protest banner, and go see the explosion of greens, as the flora awakens around us.

We head to Clinton, Massachusetts (less than an hour from Boston) for the Wachusett Dam, constructed between 1897 to 1905, and still the largest stone dam built by hand. It creates the magnificent Wachusett Reservoir, which supplies part of Boston’s needs. At nearly 7 square miles, it is the second largest body of water in Massachusetts. For those willing to descend a gazillion steps, one can tour the very base of the dam where the landscaping includes a handsome water fountain. But I found it plenty gorgeous from atop the dam as well.

From there it was a quick 5-mile drive to the Tower Hill Botanic Garden. Our state park pass got us in without paying the $11 senior entrance fee. Founded in 1986, the gorgeous visitor center is surrounded on all sides by assorted gardens, all of which thrive in New England’s variable weather – the Garden is only closed in January. Among the one dozen gardens are the Systematic Garden, Winter Garden, Cottage Garden, and Vegetable Garden. On this visit, the plethora of tulips – white and ruby – were a highlight of our visit.We were lucky to visit during the enthralling, mesmerizing exhibition of large stainless steel wind sculptures scattered throughout. Titled “Wind, Waves & Light: Art in Motion,” they are the work of George Sherwood, an engineer/artist who lives in Ipswich, Massachusetts. A 40-second video clip of the work is below.

The Tower Hill Botanic Garden center has a cool garden shop, a café (already closed when we arrived), impressive event rooms (where, for example, UMass Medical School holds its graduation), a library, and clean bathrooms. Tours are offered. Best of all, there are benches all over the place for relaxing amidst the different plants.

One of the charms of this one-day trip is that it can be as accessible, physically non-challenging as you want, while people with kids and energy can run up and down the steps of the Dam and to the furthest reaches of the 171 acres of Tower Hill. 

 

An Interview with author Stephanie Schroeder, co-editor of Headcase: LGBTQ Writers & Artists on Mental Health and Wellness

Stephanie Schroeder – writer and peer advocate – and her co-editor Teresa Theophano – writer and social worker – have brought together 38 important pieces of writing on the topic of LGBTQ mental health today in their anthology Headcase: LGBTQ Writers & Artists on Mental Health and Wellness. Stephanie is known for her hard-hitting socially-aware journalism and one other book, her moving memoir.

The enthusiastic reception of Headcase is reflected in its reviews where comments call it “ground-breaking,” “poignant,” “terrific and essential,” and “a diverse democracy of voices.” I spoke to Stephanie Schroeder about the process of putting together such a pioneering work.

 

Question: How did you and your co-editor meet and decide to work together on this project?

Stephanie Schroeder: When Teresa read my memoir Beautiful Wreck: Sex, Lies & Suicide, it resonated with her. She had originated the idea of Headcase and then reached out to me. We hadn’t met before. We’ve been working on Headcase since 2014 and it has been a dream collaboration. We agreed on everything, from the vision to the submission guidelines to the final choices out of hundreds of submissions.

 

Question: Now that the book is out and you have just finished a national book tour, are you still friends?

Stephanie Schroeder (on left in black shirt): Yes! Not only have we stayed friends, we also plan to co-write another book focusing on LGBTQ suicide.

 

Question: How did you decide what to include in Headcase?

Stephanie Schroeder: We chose selections on the strength of their writing and content. We ensured a broad demographic around age, race & ethnicity, sexual orientation & gender identity, socio-economic status, geography, and diverse viewpoints. Some are grounded in an anti-psychiatry position while others are from a more conventional treatment viewpoint. We included essays, poetry, fiction, visual artwork, and a 13-panel comic written by a young transperson who documented their days in the hospital for mental health issues.

 

Question: Why is this anthology necessary?

Stephanie Schroeder: Because LGBTQ peers and consumers of mental health services are under-represented in the literature. Most books are written by professionals for professionals or clinicians for clinicians. We believe that LGBTQ peers are experts about our own care. And in fact nothing like this book has ever existed before. It is truly a vanguard work in the field of mental health literature.

 

To learn more, check out the Headcase anthology online and on Facebook:

www.headcaseanthology.com

Facebook: Headcaseanthology

One Day Mid-Cape Cod Loop without Walking Much

It’s hard to be on vacation when your bad knee conspires with your tendinitis-afflicted feet to keep you from walking more than a block or so at a time. What to do?

We started out from the exceedingly comfortable Hyannis Harbor Motel, and walked one block along the Harbor to fuel up with a fulsome brunch at the Black Cat Tavern. Besides the classic breakfast, the hamburgers are stupendous. A conversation with the knowledgeable manager, Paul Crosby, who was born and bred in the area, led to him sketching out the perfect car trip for us.

We first headed for the Chatham Lighthouse (above) where there is an exquisite look-out parking area overlooking a white sand beach. We had luck: the sky was blue and the sun was shining, so only some sand bars separated the identically sparkling azure water and sky.

Next, Paul had told us, put Brewster Sea Camps into your GPS, but once you get to the Camp’s entrance, plug in Scargo Tower. That worked perfectly, except that we ran into a locked gate at the entrance of the road to Scargo Tower, and we so couldn’t mount to the top. Instead we wound around the residential lanes to share the views of the lucky locals.

We headed to the next suggested stop: Millway Beach (left) on Barnstable Harbor. By then the fog was settling in and the view of the long stretch was dimmed and delicate. Standing there, the world felt calm and subdued and lovely.

The final destination was Sandy Neck Beach in Sandwich. This was convenient, because my favorite source of real scones, clotted cream, and jam – and elegant lunch – is the Dunbar Tea House. It may be a bit pricey, but it’s cheaper than flying to London.

For those with mobility issues, this is a loop that provided a perfect day’s drive. It is always best to ask local folks, especially those who deal with tourists all the time. Thanks to Paul Crosby and to the Atlantic Ocean for a fine time.

P.S. For a day when you are able to walk a bit, try the splendid Bass Hole Boardwalk at Gray’s Beach in Yarmouth Port. Parts of it were washed away in a flood in the winter of 2018, but it’s all fixed up again. We went on a drizzly day at low tide and the marshes were a strange but gorgeous sight, strongly reminding me for some reason of the lava fields of Iceland.

Review: ayiti by Roxane Gay

Gay’s short stories – some very short, some traditional – are compact, hard-hitting, spare, and strong. This debut collection ayiti is quickly read, but stays with you, clinging to your nerves and your heart. Written from the perspective of a woman in the Haitian diaspora, it introduced me to an intimate glimpse of Haitian life. One of the longer and more formidable tales, “Of Ghosts and Shadows,” reminded me painfully of my own experience of teenage girl love. I only knew of Gay’s essay collection Bad Feminist and her social commentary, but now I am going to consume all of her fiction and memoir.

"Alleged Lesbian Activities" - a review

The New Orleans-based ensemble Last Call brought Alleged Lesbian Activities to Boston thanks to our incomparable The Theatre Offensive. This production asks: What happened to all the lesbian bars? And examines what our lives were like back when the underground bars – sleazy, criminal, and too often raided – were the only venues where we could gather.

Alleged Lesbian Activities drew sell-out crowds for five performances at Jacques Cabaret, a dive bar in what used to be known as Boston’s Combat Zone when it was surrounded by other queer bars, topless joints, and the sex trade in the ‘50s and ‘60s. I remember it well because I ‘grew up’ as a baby dyke in Jacques from the late ‘60s. At age 22, I met one of the great loves of my life in that bar, after secretly slipping her a copy of Lavender Vision, one of the first gay liberation publications of the new movement, put out by my collective. I haven’t been back there since the 1970s.

For the show, the place is renamed as Franki’s. We are introduced to a cast of seven lesbians – from the bartender for whom the bar is named (played brilliantly by co-director/creator indee mitchell) to the brash cabaret MC Privacy (played by Hannah Pepper-Cunningham who dramatically greeted audience members as we found our seats) to the predatory teacher Karen who brings her young students to the bar (played lustfully by Rebecca Elizabeth Hollingsworth) to the suave keyboard musician Slim (played by the talented Kei Slaughter.) Together they all try to navigate the reality of being squeezed into this one oasis. As there are no other options in town, they must sort out their issues around race, class, butch and femme. The economic realities of running a lesbian bar (while paying off the cops) is underpinned by the cluelessness of some of the white women, the threat of a raid at any moment, and the complicated inter-personals.

With talent galore, the members of Last Call sing, act, and invite in the recorded voices of old New Orleans dykes who talk about life in those bars. “The bars saved me. The clubs let you be who you were, not like the outside,” says one. “The bar was my safe haven,” says another. Says one black lesbian about the bar she frequented, “I never went there by myself: it just wasn’t comfortable. I didn’t want to be the only one.” Says another, “It not just about keeping the bar open: it’s about keeping it black.”

Last Call clearly listened to the women they interviewed, as they seamlessly touch on confusions about butch/femme identity in the days when it was illegal not to wear three pieces of “appropriate” gendered clothing; as they talk about exclusions from churches and the need to find a substitute community in the bars; and as Franki tries to impress on her patrons the proper codes of conduct when cruising in the bar.

I was amazed to read on the inside cover of the program the story of the first Gay Pride March in Boston in June of 1971 (lesbian liberation marched in Boston the year before), including the list of demands to Jacques that my friends and I constructed back then. These included a women-only space upstairs, unlocked fire escapes, and cleaner bathrooms (for after all, we made the acquaintance of many of our girlfriends in the line to the toilets).

Kudos to The Theatre Offensive for bringing us Last Call’s Alleged Lesbian Activities – for me it was an unexpected stroll down memory lane and for the friend I went with who is in her 20s, it was a peek into the life of generations past.

Mueller: A Successful Distraction

How did the Repuglicans most benefit from the Muller Report? The whole country sat and waited – dazzled by the promise that we’d be saved by this one “righteous, principled” white man, the former head of the FBI, for fuck’s sake. Mueller choked - but his whole remit was so narrowly focused on the Russian bit that tRump has been allowed these two years to destroy everything else. Meanwhile the country, including the Resistance, awaited the report about this sliver of the big picture. I said this many times over the last two years: Mueller was a successful diversion and pacifier.

London just had between 1 and 2 million protesters on the street in a country of 56 million (England). We, in contrast, have been awaiting a solution from the former director of the FBI, a body with the shadiest of pedigrees. Of course there have been many groups that have kept up their protests and expressed their outrage on the streets and through words, but too many have sat back awaiting the report of this savior who has spent his life supporting the Repuglican law & order agenda.

There are no saviors. Only we can do it for ourselves. For context, watch Stephen Colbert’s monologue from last night.

 

 

Confessions of a Young@Heart Groupie

Confession time. I am a groupie. I cannot resist a Young@Heart performance, even when it generally means driving 2+ hours to Northampton or, as was the case Tuesday night, all the way to Providence, RI, where they had been invited to the previously (to me) unknown Rhode Island College by the College's choir leader.

They gave a huge show, with two full halves, and the College Choir joining in for their signature song, Forever Young. To my mind, the College choir leader was trying to show them how a chorus can create an entire show full of costume changes, brilliant solos, strong group bonds, terrific staging, amazing conducting, all with a live band.

But during the intermission, in the line in the women’s bathroom (so much of my life has passed in such lines), I was behind one of the college girls who was about to perform with Young@Heart. I asked her what she thought of the show so far and she squealed, “They’re so cute!” We’re talking here about people in their 70s and 80s and 90s, many of whom have been singing for half a century or more. Cute? Then someone asked her if she’d be on stage with them and she answered with a giggle, “Yes, of course. And they’re such a sweet little bunch.”

I’m afraid her condescension, her stark ageism, and her inability to recognize talent and professionalism right before her eyes kinda dulled the second half for me. Young@Heart works their asses off to maintain the standards they have established in their 37 years of performing. They travel abroad. The 10-year-old documentary made of them is one of the 50 top docus of all time. They do new material constantly. What more does that little fool want?

Anyway, I’ve seen Young@Heart at least dozen times and I will continue to be a devoted fan. I started out as a journalist reviewing them. Once. Twice. Thrice. And then I had to admit it. I hunger for my twice yearly dose of their talent and their community. I’m a groupie.

Here's one of my favorite clips:

 

 

Rear-Ended by an Entitled Driver – Again

I was just a few blocks from my home last night, stopped at a red light, when I was rear-ended. (I'm okay so far.) It had happened to me once before, a dozen years ago, with dire consequences: wretched whiplash problems that keep me in the permanent care of a chiropractor. Then it was a privileged young man driving his father’s huge Volvo station wagon. He told me: “I didn’t notice you.” I drive a Toyota Corolla, not a miniature toy. I spent many months in physical therapy trying to reclaim some measure of health and many, many years in litigation trying to reclaim justice.

The 24-year-old women who hit me last night jumped out of her car immediately. First, she looked closely at the bumper of her own car. Then she glanced at the bumper of mine. Then she climbed back into her own driver’s seat and seemed to be waiting for me to get on with my drive. I put on my hazard lights and slowly drove over next to the curb. She understood that she was to do the same.

I got out of my car and in a minute or so she got out of hers, puzzled as to my problem. “Human beings first, property second,” I said to her, ire in my voice. Still she was clueless. “You rear-ended me,” I stated the obvious.

“But I didn’t have any damage to my car so I didn’t think anything of it.”

“Why did you hit me?”

“I guess I may not have pressed my brakes as hard as I thought.”

“Give me your paperwork, please,” I said.

“What paperwork?”

I took a photo of her license plate, which seemed to scare her. I asked and received her driver’s license and she only had a photo of her insurance on her phone, and I photographed that. I asked for her email address as well. At this point she realized that there could be consequences, a concept with which she seemed to have only the slightest familiarity.

“I never rear-ended anyone before,” she said, as if that settled the matter. I did not respond that in 55 years of driving, I have never rear-ended anyone – or hit another car at all, although I have been hit numerous times.

Only as I was returning to my car did she finally say, “Oh, I’m sorry.” It took her 10 or 15 minutes for that insincere coin to drop.

Later, talking to my friend Barry, I still could not understand her behavior. “It could have been her parents’ car,” he suggested, “and all she was thinking about was getting in trouble at home.”

There are a lot of issues here –about her training as a driver, about her abysmal lack of concern for me, about her ignorance of procedure after an accident. Perhaps there is a singular explanation: It seems her sense of entitlement places her at the shielded center of the universe.