Description: Journal 2012: The Rationals vs. the Irrationals is the 16th yearly journal written by San Francisco author Joseph Sutton. In this one year journal, Sutton writes about weight loss, self-publishing, politics, global warming, visiting Manhattan, and the differences between rational thinkers and irrational thinkers.
Monday, January 2, 2012 – The Kaiser Weight Loss Program
2011 was very tough year for millions of people, what with unemployment at a record high since the Great Depression of the 1930s. One person I know, his house was foreclosed. My good friend Alan Blum had to borrow money from the Royal Flush poker group to pay the rent on his apartment. Homeless people are on the streets. Many storefronts are boarded up. We are living in tough times. Joan and I and our two sons, Sol and Ray, are doing well, thank goodness. We’re very lucky we don’t have to worry about our finances right now, and I hope we never have to worry about them. Otherwise, I’d have to give up writing and get a job or help Joan run a Bed and Breakfast (we have two bedrooms in our basement that can be used for tourists).
But today I want to write about the diet I started eight months ago in May of 2011. I’ve been maintaining my weight pretty well, although last week I was six pounds over what I wanted to be. I made a vow to lose two pounds this week, and I believe I’m on track of meeting that goal by eating less and exercising (either water aerobics or walking) on a daily basis. The Holiday season is rough on people who want to maintain their weight.
While I was on my walk last night, I thought of what my two main points for losing weight are:
(1) My health is more important than my wealth. I told two incoming groups a few weeks ago that I am so glad to have taken the Kaiser program. Although it costs $4000, it has made me a new person, a person who is more productive (I’m about to self-publish my third book in eight months), a person who exercises every day, a person who after more than three decades of trying, trying, trying to lose weight, has lost 40 pounds and am still maintaining my weight at around 180. At the age of 71 I have more energy, I’m enjoying life more, and my disposition is positive. These are the things that the Kaiser weight-loss program has done for me. Therefore, my health is more important than my wealth. I’ve gotten rid of a belly, my heart is not working as hard when I exercise (it used to be 130 beats per minute after a brisk three-mile walk, now it won’t go over 100 beats per minute), and lastly, I’ll be healthier as I age and won’t be a burden to anyone in old age
(2) The mind is stronger than we think. Who would’ve thought I could lose 40 pounds? But that was my goal, and I did everything in my power with the products the Kaiser program provided: three powdered shakes, one powdered soup and two protein bars that equaled close to 1000 calories a day. Who can live on 1000 calories a day? Very few people can. It’s almost like a starvation diet. But the mind, the great mind that we humans have, said to me and others in the program who stuck it out (a bunch of people dropped out), “If you stick with these powdered products and two protein bars a day for four months, you’ll be well on your way to losing the weight you want to lose. I lost the 40 pounds I wanted to lose in three months and was slowly weaned back to eating real food over the following month, dropping one shake a day for a week, two shakes a day the second week, three shakes the third week and so on and so forth until I was completely back on real food. What I learned from this diet is that I can maintain my weight if I don’t go over a certain amount of calories and if I exercise at least five or six days a week. The mind is stronger than we think because we can talk ourselves into anything we want. Is it willpower or mind over matter? I don’t know, but if you set a goal for yourself, stick to it, and finally reach it, just like I do as a writer when I set a goal to finish a book, then it’s a sure sign of high self-esteem and confidence.
Sunday, January 8, 2012 – The Internet
I finally sit down to write instead of getting on the Internet. The Internet takes up so much time, although it’s one of the great inventions of all time. You can send an email to someone and it’ll get to that person in a few seconds. You can send copies of documents by email. You can find the answer to any question that arises in your mind on the Internet.
Saturday, January 14, 2012 – The 49ers Win
The San Francisco 49ers, in an historic NFC Divisional Game in San Francisco today, defeated the New Orleans Saints 36-32. The Niners scored a touchdown with nine seconds left, a 14-yard pass from Alex Smith to Vernon Davis that I’m going to call the “Dart to Davis.” I’m still feeling my oats even though the game ended almost five hours ago.
There were so many heroes today. It truly was a team effort. Coach Jim Harbaugh and staff should be very proud of how they performed.
Sunday, January 22, 2012 – The 49ers Lose
The 49ers lost the NFC Championship Game to the New York Giants. The Niners’ Kyle Williams fumbled a punt on his own 27-yard line in overtime and a few plays later the Giants kicked a field goal to win the game 20-17. A very sad, sad loss. Poor Kyle Williams, he fumbled two punts and a lateral during the game. I believe he was still feeling the effects of a concussion he sustained two weeks ago. [Note: The New York Giants and quarterback Eli Manning went on to defeat the New England Patriots and quarterback Tom Brady 21-17 in a very exciting Super Bowl game.]
Saturday, January 28, 2012 – Watching Your Home Team in a Big Sporting Event is Stressful
During the 49ers-Giants game last week, I ate and ate and ate. Bill Hellums and Matt Tonkin brought food over to watch the game with me, along with the food and drink I supplied. All junk food: chips, crackers, cheese, beer, wine, whiskey. I gained close to five pounds. Why did I eat so much? Because watching my team in an exciting game leads to stress and nervousness on my part. I weighed around 220 last year before I went on the Kaiser diet. This month I’ve weighed between 183 and 188. When I go over 180, an alarm should go off in my brain.
I’m keeping up a good exercise regimen. I either go to my water aerobics class at the YMCA or I walk along the Great Highway. I work out in the pool 60 minutes three or four days a week, and walk 50-60 minutes three or four days a week. I have so much energy nowadays, mainly from losing weight. Before I lost the weight I would work out only three days a week.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012 – How Things Always Seem to Work Out
I’m sitting and writing in a coffeehouse called Coffee to the People, located in the Haight-Ashbury District, the first district I lived in when I moved to San Francisco in 1977. I lived on Frederick and Shrader Streets with two roommates, Vaughn Hogikian and Kevin Strong. Rent was very affordable back then, with each of us paying $65 a month. Today my son Ray and his two roommates are paying $233 each for a house they’re renting in the outer Sunset District.
In 1977 I made the move down from Portland, after living there for 2 1/2 years. Previous to Portland, I lived with Sharon Murphy in Berkeley, Eugene, and back to Berkeley in a four-year span. We suddenly split one night when she didn’t come home from work and didn’t call to let me know what was happening. She had gone out to dinner with the man she’s married to today. The next day, after a huge argument, I left the house in a huff, because at that moment, I realized she had given up on our relationship. She didn’t say or mention it, I just sensed it. Oh, I tried to get back with her after that dismal day, but looking back on it, it was probably the best thing that happened to both of us. She’s still married to the same man and is living in Puget Sound, Washington, and here I am, living with my wife of 32 years, Joan Bransten Sutton. I have a stepson Sol Sender, who’s married to Chi-Jang Yin; they live in Chicago, both doing very well in their professions, and are expecting their first baby in June. Sol is 41. And then there’s my pride and joy, Joan’s and my son, Ray, who will be 31 on February 7.
Joan and I are living very comfortably in a house in the West Portal District. Last year we finished paying off our mortgage. We’re set for life. But who really knows what the future holds. My hope is that I can keep on writing and producing books to the very end, and that Joan can keep studying Latin and ancient Greek and teaching ancient Greek myths at Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.
Just think, in another 15-30 years, Joan and I won’t be alive. We will have been cremated and our ashes buried somewhere on our property.
So why am I writing about my life from the day I found a place to live in San Francisco 35 years ago? It’s to show how things always seems to work out, but it’s mainly about how lucky our little family is to be alive and thriving.
Saturday, February 11, 2012 – The Rationals vs the Irrationals and Tony Kutner
Ray and I drove down to Los Angeles to visit with my brother Albert, who flew in from Israel a few days ago. The three of us are staying at my cousin Vic’s house in the Hollywood hills.
My son and I talked about liberals and conservatives while driving down to Los Angeles. It has recently entered my thought processes that the world will forever be in a clash between liberals and conservatives, or what I call the rationals vs. the irrationals. There will always be a conflict between those who think and those who don’t think. I know the rationals are not always correct in their views, but it’s the irrationals, those who deny climate change, those who are extremely orthodox in their religious beliefs, those who are racists, those who treat women as inferiors, those who think only of the present and not the future of all life on this planet—it’s those people who bug the hell out of me because they’re so close-minded. It is they who are the destructive forces on Earth. The clash between the rationals and irrationals will never end. It will always be that way as long as the human race exists.
I had a hard time sleeping last night. My head was cold because I slept under a window on a very cold night in my cousin’s house. I forgot to cover my head with a T-shirt, something that Tony Kutner taught me some 25 years ago.
Tony Kutner. We had a complete fallout because he threatened me for not paying him enough money for editing a book of mine about the writing process. I asked him how much he wanted for his services, and he said, “I’ll leave that up to you, Joe.” Well, I thought I paid him fair and square, but the next day, after I handed him a check, he left a message on my answering machine threatening me with a lawsuit. That ended our friendship—forever. All he wanted me to do with my book that I published last year was to “cut, cut, cut.” “Cut “is the word that will stick in my mind from Tony “Cut Man” Kutner. My Writing Year is a 100-page softcover book now. Tony wanted me to cut it down to maybe 15 pages.
Sunday, February 19, 2012 – My Busy Wife Joan
It was exactly 35 years ago, plus one day, that I met my future wife Joan Bransten for the first time on a Sunday afternoon at a party thrown by my friend Stan Lipkin and his partner Gay Smith. Joan and I talked for a short while at the party and that is when I noticed those vibrant, dazzling, blue eyes of hers. She came to the party for only 30 minutes before leaving. I didn’t think much of our meeting until Stan called me two days later and said she would be interested in going out with me. So I called her and the first day we could settle on for a date was 35 days in the future, which turned out to be April Fool’s Day 1977. Joan was a very busy woman back then and is still very busy. She was a single mother of six-year-old Sol, a secretary at the San Francisco Jewish Community Center, and she wrote, produced, and performed in a weekly radio show on KALW-FM called Apples and Honey. We kept the date and it turned out to be a smashing success. After we married a couple of years later, and after our son Ray was born, Joan became a children’s storyteller. Years later, she turned to studying Latin and ancient Greek. She is now teaching ancient Greek myths at Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI), which is affiliated with San Francisco State University.
My ninth book, a paperback novel I’ve just self-published, Highway Sailor: A Rollicking American Journey, came out last week. I’m now working on a book about my son Ray and me that I’m calling Father and Son: Thirty Years of Growing Up Together.
Saturday, March 17, 2012 – Government and the Beatles
Plato and Aristotle. Plato believed a city-state should be run by the few, such as those bred to lead, namely philosopher-kings. Aristotle wrote that democracy would be the best form of government. In other words, Aristotle had more trust in the people than Plato. Mind you now, those two men experienced a democracy in Athens in the 5th and 4th Centuries B.C.E. where only male landowners could vote. I’m experiencing American democracy in the 21st Century C.E. where any man or woman 18 years and older can vote. The thing is, only about 60% of the eligible voters actually vote. We’re faced with two choices for president this year. The Democratic incumbent Barack Obama and the Republican candidate who everyone thinks Obama will face, Mitt Romney. There is a difference between the Democrats and Republicans, from my point of view, but who really knows, because money influences elections. “You want this?” says big money, “then give me that.” Obama is surely going to collect most of his money from the middle class, whereas Romney is going to get most of his from the wealthy. So who is my choice? Obama, of course.
We the People can be duped by our government at times. We were duped, for instance, by the Bush2 administration into going to war with Iraq in 2002. We were made to believe that Iraq’s dictator, Saddam Hussein, was the devil and had weapons of mass destruction, which turned out to be totally false.
And now my thoughts turn to the Beatles, that wonderful, joyous, buoyant group who influenced me with their music and actions. They were on top of the world, and then they split, John going one way with Yoko Ono, and then Paul, George, and Ringo going their separate ways. They opened my mind, for sure. They brought about change in me. They were always changing, especially John Lennon, who was shot dead at the age of 40 in 1980 outside his condominium in Manhattan. The man was on the same wavelength as me when he recorded “Imagine.” “Imagine there’s no heaven/It’s easy if you try/No hell below us/Above us only sky/Imagine all the people living for today/Imagine there’s no countries/It isn’t hard to do/Nothing to kill or die for/And no religion too/Imagine all the people living life in peace/You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one/I hope someday you’ll join us/And the world will be as one.”
The man was speaking for me.
The Beatles influenced my thinking in the years they reached the height of their fame, from the mid-1960s into the early ’70s. I was teaching at the time in L.A. and it opened my mind to new ways of thinking as a teacher: I empowered my students to teach.
Sunday, March 18, 2012 – Don Ellis and Alan Blum
What would I do without Don Ellis, who gives me ideas for new book projects, who helps me organize my work, who edits my work, who encourages me to produce, produce, produce? I owe that man my life because he’s awakened the potential in me. For instance, in the past 11 months I’ve published three books and I’m finishing off Father and Son: Thirty Years of Growing Up Together.
And then there’s Alan Blum. We don’t communicate much anymore because if we did I’d have to hear about all his money problems and his Parkinson’s. You see, Alan, 71, never thought of the future. He made good money in his life and although I can’t prove it, I believe he gambled most of it away. So what do I do, as a friend who’s loaned him big sums a couple of times in the past, what do I do with a gambler of the lottery who’s completely broke and has Parkinson’s? What do I do?
Monday, March 19, 2012 – Music
Joan and I danced in the kitchen this morning to the song “April Showers.” “Oh April showers may come your way, they bring the flowers that bloom in May, so if it’s raining, have no regrets, because it isn’t raining rain, you know it’s raining violets.” Great song. Great poetry.
Whose music has influenced me the most. I’d say the Beatles and Dylan. Also the songs I grew up with in the 1940s, songs like “April Showers,” “Blue Skies,” (“Blue skies, Smilin’ at me, Nothin’ but blue skies do I see”), “Don’t Fence Me In,” (“Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies above, Don’t fence me in”), and “I’ll Be Seeing You,” (“I’ll be seeing you in all the old familiar places that this heart of mine embraces all day through”). And in the ’50s, my teen years, I listened mostly to Sinatra and Johnny Mathis albums.
Thursday, May 10, 2012 – Pursuit of Happiness
President Obama came out yesterday for same-sex marriage. It’s the big talk now. Will it help or hinder his re-election bid? I’m sure he and his administration thought about it long and hard. They took a bold step and did the right thing. It’s about time that homosexuals have a right to the pursuit of happiness and to be treated as human beings rather than less than human.
Sunday, May 20, 2012 – Loyalty
Last night I took BART to Berkeley to see my good friend Gary Turchin perform in his one-man show, The Healthiest Man on Earth, about his life with Parkinson’s. He did splendidly. Very inspirational. He made a story out of contracting Parkinson’s and living with it, with all the damn drugs a “Parky” has to take to be mobile.
While walking to Gary’s show, there was a homeless man and woman sitting outside a boarded storefront holding up a sign that read, “FUCK YOU.” This crazy fellow started yelling at me because I walked past them without giving them any money. He yelled, “Fuck you, motherfucker. You know what’s wrong with you, blah, blah, fuck you…” I just kept on walking without reacting or looking back, because holding a sign with “FUCK YOU” on it isn’t the best way to ask people for money.
Alan Blum called me this morning. He told me he was going to be evicted from his apartment this coming Wednesday. I offered to loan him $2000, although I swore to myself that I’d never loan him money again because of his addiction to the Lottery, but I did, because the man was about to be evicted with no place to go.
I have to answer Nate Wirt’s e-mail. Nate is my longtime friend who is a born-again Christian. He has so much hatred for gay people even though in his e-mail he said it’s not up to him to judge gay people, but I could sense the venom coming out of him. Why am I a friend of an unthinking fool? His right-wing politics and religion are the complete opposite of mine. But I’ve known Nate since we were 12. He has always been weird, but since he moved to Texas in the late-1970s to teach biology at a chiropractic college and to take classes to become a chiropractor, he’s turned from being a Democrat into a Republican and has become a fanatic about Christ.
And then there’s Stan Lipkin who I’ve known since high school. Stan is the one who introduced me to Joan. He lives in Thailand with his wife, a Thai woman named Tui, but is interested in men who dress like women. We had a little falling out the last time he was here and I told him, “Joan and I don’t want total strangers in our house, especially people you find on Craigslist to have sex with. He didn’t like my saying that and didn’t even thank us for staying with us for three weeks. I swore to myself that he wouldn’t be welcome in this house again after he didn’t answer any of my e-mails. But then he wrote an e-mail yesterday saying his son Randy committed suicide by taking drugs, getting naked, and that he drowned in the Pacific Ocean near Long Beach. Stan wants to stay a week at our house. Should I tell him no strangers are allowed in this house or is that understood by now?
I go back on my word with my crazy friends. One is totally broke and about to be evicted, one is a born-again Christian fanatic, and one likes cross-dressed men. What the hell is wrong with me that these longtime friends are out of their wits? Loyalty is maybe the word. I lean too much toward loyalty.
Wednesday, June 20, 2012 – Writing is Good for My Soul
I’m at a coffeehouse right now, where I automatically feel like writing. It’s a pleasure for me to sit with a cup of coffee in one hand and a pen in the other. I love it. It’s being me. I don’t have to look at people to listen in to their conversations. I don’t have to stare out the window. I don’t have to read anything. I sometimes write about people in coffeehouses who disturb me. All I need to be happy in life is to hold a pen and to be using it to write down my thoughts and feelings, my insights and blunders. I’m not writing to impress anyone, nor am I writing because there’s nothing else to do. I’m writing because I’m creating something out of nothing.
What I’m finding out is that I want to do things that make me happy. Whatever I do, I want it to be a positive experience. Writing is positive, as is reading. It’s a blessing to write in my journal. It’s good for my soul.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012 – My Mom and Dad and Charles
I came from a family of six boys. We all had to share in keeping a healthy household going, and to be truthful, we were a healthy household. My father, Raymond Sutton, shared. He brought home the means for us to survive. He had a small retail linen store in downtown Los Angeles, 7th and Hill Streets to be exact, where he sold handkerchiefs, scarves, table clothes, pillowcases, and aprons. He and Mom, Jeannette Sutton, reared us, fed us, taught us the way to make a household work. Mom shopping, cooking, cleaning. Dad giving her the means to run the house. A great team. Both were tireless workers. They loved and argued and taught and cared and did everything within their power to run a smooth working household of eight people.
Eight of us lived in a four-bedroom house at 1632 North Fairfax Avenue, three houses below Hollywood Boulevard. Before we moved to Fairfax Avenue, we lived at 6505 Homewood Avenue, right in the middle of Hollywood, where the police station, fire station, emergency hospital, and Department of Motor Vehicles were located. And there was our house (which isn’t there anymore), right in the middle of all that was going on in Hollywood from 1944 to 1949. I grew up right there, right in the heart of Hollywood. My oldest brother Charles was stationed at West Point as a chemist during the Second World War. After the war, he came home and attended UCLA on the G.I. Bill where he found his calling in life as a journalist on the Daily Bruin. Charles worked his whole adult life as a journalist until he passed away at the age of 63 in 1991 of a massive heart attack as he was chasing after a thief. I cried for my brother when I heard of his sudden passing. He was my first mentor outside of my mom and dad. He was my teacher who taught me about books and writing and politics and caring.
Friday, August 17, 2012 – The Giants’ Melky Cabrera and a Walk with My Two Buddies
The Giants’ Melky Cabrera was suspended for the rest of the season for taking a steroid. The whole town couldn’t believe that a modern-day baseball player would do such a stupid thing, knowing that he was going to be tested three times during the season. He got caught and I was surely distraught, as were the Giants and their fans. Melky was my favorite Giant. He could hit, field, run, and throw. He had all the tools, plus he was batting .346. He was first or second in six hitting categories. He was a very reliable left fielder, making some important plays on defense. He was what I would have liked to have been in my playing days—a complete ball player. But it wasn’t to be for Melky. He got caught red-handed. Will the Giants bounce back with 45 games left to play in the regular season? It’ll be interesting to find out.
I went for a walk today with my two high school buddies, Charles Lewman and Lou Berman, on Tennessee Valley Road in Mill Valley that leads to the ocean. The three of us went to Fairfax High in Los Angeles and played football together. It was a beautiful day, the sky blue, a few clouds, a mild wind, not cold, not hot. I was in heaven with my friends as we talked about sports, health, politics, the U.S. economy, and the proliferation of guns.
Friday, September 21, 2012 – Lost Keys
I want to write about what happened after the poker game last night when Don Ellis dropped me off at shopping center parking lot next to Trader Joe’s in Emeryville at 11:30 p.m.
I reached into my left pocket where I keep my keys and found that they weren’t there. This is a bad dream, I thought, this can’t be happening. I searched all my pockets before I realized that I should hail Don down before he drives off, except he had already driven off. As a consequence, I was stuck in an almost empty parking lot across the Bay from where I live.
What to do? I called Triple A. But the dispatcher said I’d have to wait until 12:30 or so before a truck would arrive to open my car door where I was hoping my keys would be, because they weren’t in the ignition. It was 11:00 p.m.
Where could I have left those keys? Maybe in Don’s car. I called him from my cell a few times but he wasn’t answering. I left a message for him. I called Don Leaman’s house where we played poker and luckily Don answered. He checked in the two places where I sat, but didn’t see my keys.
While waiting for Triple A to arrive, I searched under my car and around it. Nothing. Where could I have left those goddamn keys? It was either at Don Leaman’s place, outside maybe, or inside, but he looked for them and couldn’t find them; or it fell out of my pocket in Don Ellis’ car; or they were somewhere in my car.
I called Don Ellis four more times and no answer.
I waited and waited and waited. Midnight. 12:15 a.m. I saw two men working at the back of Trader Joe’s and went up to one of them and told him I couldn’t find my keys. One of them went inside and brought out a bottle of water. It was the only way he could show his compassion for me. I asked him, “Do they tow cars late at night around here?” “Don’t worry,” he said, “they usually tow a day or two later.”
That was a relief to know.
The Triple A truck driver arrived at 12:45 a.m. He opened my car door and we checked around inside. Nothing. I asked him if he could drop me off at the Ashby BART station and he gladly consented.
He dropped me off around 1:15 and the station attendant said the last train of the night would arrive in 10 minutes. Whew! that was a close call. The night air was chilly. Luckily I was wearing my hooded sweatshirt, otherwise I would’ve froze.
After I got off BART at Embarcadero, I asked the station attendant, who was closing up for the night, if any MUNI trains were running. “No,” she said, “but you can catch a bus on Market Street. I took the escalator up to Market Street and waited for the L-Taraval Owl that runs from 1:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m., thank goodness. The bus dropped me off two blocks from my house.
The next hurdle to clear was to wake up Joan. I had called her from the Ashby BART station in Berkeley four times, but she didn’t hear the phone ring or my pleading messages.
I rang the bell and woke her up. She first asked from behind the door who it was, opened the door, listened to my ordeal, felt so sorry of what I had to go through, and then around 2:30 a.m. we went to bed.
I made a note to call Don Ellis in the morning, hoping and praying that the keys were in his car. But how could the keys come out of my front pocket? How? I was doubting that he had the keys. I made another note to call Trader Joe’s, too, if someone might have found and left the keys with them.
I slept sparingly.
At 8:15 a.m. I called Don, my last hope. He said he’d call me back. Five minutes later he called and said, “I found them.”
Pure relief.
I told him I was taking BART over and asked him if he could drive me to Trader Joe’s in Emeryville. “Of course, you poor fellow. I feel so sorry for you.”
At noon I caught a MUNI streetcar and transferred to BART. Don picked me up at 1:00 p.m. at the El Cerrito Plaza station and drove me to Emeryville.
When we arrived, there was a yellow warning sign on my windshield. They were going to tow my car away at 3:00 p.m. WHEW!!! I made it just in time.
Thursday, September 27, 2012 – A Lucky Man
What should I write to show the world how lucky I am to be alive? For losing weight? For having friends? For having a car I can trust? For the city I live in? For the wife I live with? For the son I cherish? For the sports teams I follow? For the freeways, buses and rail cars to get me to my destinations? I’m a very lucky man. We’re going to New York in a month and a half with to visit Sol, Jang and our four-month old grandson, Oliver Benjamin Sender.
Wednesday, November 7, 2012 – Obama
Barack Obama was victorious over Mitt Romney. It’s always a good feeling when a Democrat wins the presidency. Obama won the popular vote 66-61 million. He won the Electoral College 332-206.
Wednesday, November 14, 2012 – The Big Apple
Joan and I flew into JFK Airport at 3:40 p.m. and got to Sol and Jang’s place at 7 p.m. last night. Traffic, traffic, traffic. Impossible to get into Manhattan and impossible after the shuttle let us off at Grand Central Station. I swear, we moved very slowly, maybe a block or two in 10 minutes, in both the shuttle and cab ride to our destinations. The cost of the shuttle was $25 for two, plus a $5 tip, and the taxi, to go two or three miles was $17 and a $4 tip. That’s $51 to get to our destination on Riverside Boulevard and 66th Street—Trump Place. Sol’s company is paying for the apartment for six months instead of him flying from Chicago to New York and back two or three times a week.
And so here I am, at the Magnolia Bakery on Columbus Avenue, drinking coffee, after strolling through a small part of Central Park near Heckscher Ballfields and having a Chinese lunch on Columbus Avenue and 69th.
I notice the streets are clean and the 1 1/2 million people who live in Manhattan are getting along well and are wrapped up in their winter clothing. I notice, though, that the trash bins for the garbage trucks to pick up are not separated for recycling. It’s sad to see, in the most populous city in the U.S., that they are oblivious to recycling bottles, plastic, paper, and compost. Very sad.
Sol and Jang were extremely nice to give Joan and me their bedroom. They’re sleeping on a convertible bed in the living room. And then there’s five-month old Olby (that’s what they call him instead of his birth-certificate name of Oliver). The boy’s demeanor is very upbeat at this age. I haven’t heard him cry once, except when waking up. He only has smiles on his face.
Saturday, November 17, 2012 – The Guggenheim, Dogs, Babies, and Olby
Here I sit, across the street from Trump Place, where Sol, Jang, Olby, and Hannah the dog live. Joan and I have been here since Tuesday evening. My sleep has been sporadic, good one night, poor another. It was pretty good last night. The weather’s been nice since we arrived. It hasn’t rained once, and from reading today’s paper, it won’t rain for the remainder of our stay, Saturday the 24th.
Yesterday Joan and I walked to the Guggenheim Museum (designed by Frank Lloyd Wright) and it’s circular-shaped climb to around six or seven stories high. The show was all Picasso and his mainly cubism paintings, which got tiring after seeing dozens of them of two or three women in his life.
This morning I took Hannah on a long walk to a dog park where she used up a lot of energy running around with dogs of all sizes, shapes, and colors. By the way, this town has a hell of a lot of dogs in it. Also babies. That’s two things I’ve noticed—a lot of dogs and baby carriages in the Upper West Side.
Olby has to be one of the cutest babies in the world. I call him Smilin’ Jack. He rarely cries when he’s awake. He keeps himself busy with all the toys he has at his disposal. Joan can’t wait for him to wake up in the morning around 6:00 a.m. and after his naps during the day. Everyone loves the little tyke very much.
Monday, November 19, 2012 – No More Beating Around the Bush
Philip Roth has given up writing in his early 80s. As for me, I’ve given up writing fiction, for there are more important things in this world than showing, and that is telling. “Don’t tell, show,” is what I heard in my early years as a fiction writer. Well, those days are over. It’s time for me to tell the world the facts of life. And the main fact is the survival of all life on planet Earth.
We are on a collision course with millions of people dying or migrating to different areas of the world due to flooding, droughts, famines, hurricanes, rising sea levels, and wildfires.
Joan, Jang, and I saw a film today at Lincoln Center called Chasing Ice. We see in the film the actual melting of glaciers in the Arctic in time-lapse photography by James Balog and his crew. We see giant icebergs the size of a third of Manhattan collapsing into the ocean in minutes.
My eyes started to tear as I watched Balog’s crew film glaciers taller than all the tall buildings in the world crash into the Arctic Ocean.
What has caused this crumbling of glaciers? Climate change. What has caused climate change? Carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere. What puts carbon dioxide into the atmosphere? Gas, oil, and coal. How do we heat or cool our houses, run our cars, and make the electrical grid work? Gas, oil, and coal. We’re committing suicide on this beautiful Earth of ours. It’s happening with bigger and more powerful hurricanes, larger wildfires, and more cars on the road. We’re all contributing to future generations that will find it hard to survive when storms, droughts, and famines hit.
We’ve just experienced Hurricane Sandy this year, Irene a year ago, and Katrina in 2005. And there’s been a rise in forest fires and droughts. We’re seeing it, experiencing it and there are still those who deny it’s happening, vehement deniers who must be paid by the oil and coal industries, people like Senator James Inhofe, TV talk show hosts like Sean Hannity, and radio talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh. These people, as my wife says, should go to jail for spouting their totally insane anti-climate change stances—those anti-human asses.
That’s why I’ve given up writing fiction. I don’t want to beat around the bush anymore, I want to hit readers straight between the eyes to tell them that all life on this planet is threatened if we don’t do something about it.
Saturday, November 24, 2012 – Flying Home
We spent 11 days in NY and are now on our way back on a semi-bumpy flight going against a strong air current.
I went for a walk every day I was in the big city. A few days ago I walked from 66th Street to 34th Street and Madison Avenue to visit my cousin Charles Judah Sutton at his souvenir store across the street from the Empire State Building. Charles is 81 now. I met one of his two sons—Henry. We talked a little. Henry is 39 and still living with his parents, as is his older brother Judah, 45. Henry is very heavy. I gathered from our conversation that he would like to have a family someday. He talked about privacy in the Syrian Jewish community. He wished he had more of it. He also said he doesn’t go to the synagogue to socialize but to pray.
My cousin Charles told me he now has ten employees. It used to be just him and his father Judah (my father’s brother) when I last saw them way back in 1974 when I was traveling around the country in my VW bus. I wrote a novel about that trip—Highway Sailor.
I walked Hannah almost every day to dog parks where she could run around and chase after balls and bring them back. Good old Hannah, she stuck around me every time I went into the kitchen because she knew I would give her a tidbit of something, whether it was a piece of meat, fruit, or pie.
Jang and Sol were extremely nice to have given Joan and me their bedroom and bathroom. It really made it much easier for us. We ate 99% of our meals at their apartment, which meant there were always a lot of dishes to put in the dishwasher. I was the dishwasher.
Jang doesn’t have to report to work because she’s a full-time mother now. She’ll get back to teaching media arts at DePaul University in March. Sol is a partner at VSA Partners, a branding company that helps with websites, logos, and advertising. His main client is IBM. I have no idea what he does except he’s a leader of a team of people at IBM.
And then our son Ray flew in a day before Thanksgiving and we all shared in cooking and cleaning the whole time. A tremendous team effort of taking care of Olby, shopping, cooking, setting up, and cleaning up. No one complained and no one slacked off. Teamwork was what it was without anyone telling anyone what to do.
We’re flying over Colorado and the Rockies now. I’m happy to be going home. I have five important things to do. (1) Get Father and Son on the Internet. (2) Talk to Don Ellis about this year’s Giants team winning their second World Series in three years. (3) Finish off a third draft of my Weight Loss book. (4) Write in this journal. (5) Exercise seven days a week, either going to my water aerobics class at the Y or going for an hour walk.
I have plenty to do in the 10, 20, or 25 years left in my life. All I want is to be “healthy” and active till the very end and not suffer like my dad or Joan’s parents did.
Sunday, November 25, 2012 – My Personal Message to the Middle East
Why are the Palestinians and the Israeli’s fighting one another? I’m of Arab and Jewish descent and it bugs me that both of my cultures are always retaliating tit-for-tat instead of living in peace with one another. Both sides are so block-headed.
Why, Israel, are you building more settlements in the West Bank, when doing so only makes you more of an enemy of the Palestinians? And Palestinians, why try ousting the Israelis from Israel and decimate your culture with constant war when you could be forming a nation of your own and educating your children to become doctors, teachers, and philosophers instead of haters?
What good is it doing you to fight all the time? I’m talking to both sides. Use your brains. Why waste your time warring against one another?
Tourists would flock to the Middle East if both sides would call an end to war. How can you say Israel can’t exist, Palestinians? Israel is already there and they aren’t going to move. But in the West Bank, Israel, to have peace, you’re going to have to relinquish your settlements back to the Palestinians.
And all of you, haven’t you found out that religion in government doesn’t work? It just doesn’t work. Period.
New thinking is necessary in the Middle East. Don’t war, educate. Have non-religious governments. Don’t retaliate, educate. Peace, no hatred. No Jewish settlements in the West Bank. It’s so simple. Palestine, build your country with schools, playgrounds, hospitals, public transit, and retail stores instead of smuggling weapons into your territories. Do you think you can conquer the nation of Israel? Come on, dear cousins, get real. You’re wasting your energy. Why keep butting your heads against a stone wall? Why do you think you can drive Israel into the sea? It’s not going to happen. Build your own country, don’t destroy.
I would love to visit the home of my ancestors but I don’t like the atmosphere in the Middle East. If and when there’s peace, I’d be the first to visit the Holy Land of the three major religions of the world. All believe in one God, all have different ways of being with their God. Why is it always “My way or the highway”?
Monday, November 26, 2012 – My Creative Wife Joan
I’m about to leave the house to be at Joan’s “Close Encounters with the Greek Gods” class at the Westfield Center in downtown San Francisco. This is the fourth course I’ve taken from a great, great teacher that my wife Joan is. She’s a perfectionist when it comes to her PowerPoint presentations, mixing music, art, film, slides, and her knowledge of ancient Greek. Her presentations are unique and extremely creative.
Wednesday, December 5, 2012 – World Series Champions Again
Who woulda thunk that the Giants would win their second World Series in three years? They almost didn’t get to the 2012 World Series. They were down 2 games to 0 against Cincinnati in the National League Division Series, about to be eliminated, when they won three games in a row to advance to the National League Championship Series against St. Louis. They were down 3 games to 1 against the Cardinals, and again the Giants, against all odds, came back to win three straight games to meet the favored Detroit Tigers in the World Series.
And then, in the World Series, I was afraid to make a bet with a Detroit Tigers fan because Detroit had swept the Yankees in four games, whereas the Giants barely squeaked by to get into the World Series. I was afraid of Detroit’s power and pitching. I didn’t have confidence that this year’s Giants would win, but they won by sweeping the Tigers in four games. Incredible. Simply incredible.
I wrote about the 2012 year just like I wrote about the 2010 World Series year. I’ve combined both years into one book so Giants fans can have a history of the two World Series seasons. The first book was called The Year the Giants Won the Series. The second book is called The YEARS the Giants Won the Series.
Both seasons were improbable. In 2010 a bunch of small trades were made, making up a ragtag bunch of ballplayers under the magic wand of manager Bruce Bochy. They made it to the World Series and won it in five games against the Texas Rangers. Then, in 2012, on the brink of elimination in both the Division and Championship series, they won the World Series in four games against a team I was afraid to bet against.
In 2010, after winning the Division against a strong San Diego Padres team, they had to play the Atlanta Braves and barely won that Division Series. And then the Philadelphia Phillies, winners of the 2009 World Series, were next on the Giants’ agenda. The Giants won that Series against a heavily favored Phillies team 4 games to 2.
Both championship teams were completely different—except for the glue of both teams: Buster Posey. If Buster didn’t get injured early on in the 2011 season, maybe they might have won three years in a row. Buster finally got his due in 2012 when he was named the National League MVP. The man is a franchise player. He’s the symbol of the Giants. Who knows how many more World Series teams the Giants will have with Buster leading the way. [Note: They won their third World Series in 2014 against the Kansas City Royals.]
Monday, December 17, 2012 – The Second Amendment
Last week Joan, her brother Jim, and I went to see Steven Spielberg’s great movie, Lincoln. Watching the film, I came to the realization that my thoughts and Lincoln’s thoughts on racial equality were the same.
Ever since the mass shooting of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, three days ago, this country is talking guns. We’re finding out, for the thousandth time, how powerful the National Rifle Association is and how they own so many politicians, mainly Republicans. It’s incredible that so much influence is wielded by the NRA. “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people,” is their motto. But they refuse to see that guns are the quickest, most detached way of killing people.
The true believers in the Second Amendment believe they have a Constitutional right to own weapons without any restrictions or regulations. “It’s in the Constitution,” they say. I don’t go along with that thinking. The meaning of the Second Amendment, to me, says only “a well-regulated militia” can keep and bear arms. But the true believers, they believe weapons are the only means to have peace in a community. They believe more guns will create less violence. Do logically thinking people believe weapons are the answer to less violence and criminality? Hell no. Just the opposite, guns make for more killings, suicides, and crime. There definitely has to be a compromise with restrictions and regulations. No civilian should own automatic weapons. The only purpose for an automatic weapon is to wage war. The Second Amendment needs to be revised with another amendment added to the Constitution.
Tuesday, December 25, 2012 – Guns
I’m finally writing. I’ve been so busy doing other things related to writing except writing itself, such as putting my latest book Father and Son on the Internet; researching and revising my second Giants book; and revising my weight loss book. It’s all busy work. Nothing to do with creating or writing. I have so much to do. So much. But I finally decided to WRITE today because I haven’t done it in a long time. I wonder what my next project will be after I finish my second Giants book. Will it be to work on new short stories? Or will it be something completely different that will enter my mind or Don Ellis’ mind, since he’s given me great ideas to write about in the past?
My thoughts, like that of the country, have been on guns and automatic weapons. A young, troubled man of 20, Adam Lanza, shot his mother, a gun enthusiast who owned a collection of guns and rifles, and then her son Adam went to Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and shot 20 first graders and six adults, made up of teachers and administrators. He killed all those people before he shot himself. Now the NRA wants more guns in schools to arm teachers. What a preposterous idea from such evil minds. Just this past week I talked to a young man at the Y who goes along with that kind of thinking. “If people have guns,” he argued, “then crazies like Adam Lanza can and will be stopped.” That’s how a lot of people think. What is it with people who buy automatic weapons that can hold 30 bullets in a magazine clip? What are they thinking? Do they think that to own an automatic weapon will prevent our government from taking advantage of its people? Is it fear? Paranoia? Is it being a macho gun owner? What the fuck goes through such minds about automatic weapons? It’s beyond me that this country is so goddamn gun-loving. “Oh,” they argue, “that’s how we overthrew the British in the Revolutionary War. We might have to overthrow our government someday if it takes advantage of us.” That’s bunk. They have the same type of minds of the Southerners who started the Civil War. Those minds are against abortion, they are racists, they believe if you can’t make it in this society, then to hell with you, and meanwhile they call themselves religious. To top it off, they don’t believe global warming is happening. The bottom line is, the Irrationals are a detriment to our society and civilization. And guess what?—those type of minds will never go away. There will always be backward thinkers who will be influenced by evil-minded people to go against their own interests.
*****
Biography
Joseph Sutton was born in Brooklyn and raised in Los Angeles. He went to Fairfax High School in Hollywood. He played football at the University of Oregon where he received his B.A. in Philosophy. He earned a teaching credential and a degree in history at Cal State University Los Angeles. He taught history and English in the public high schools of Los Angeles, Portland, and San Francisco. Sutton has been writing fiction and non-fiction since 1969 and has published over a dozen books. His essays and short stories have appeared in numerous national magazines and journals. He lives in San Francisco with his wife Joan.
Contact
[email protected]
www.joesutt.com