Signs Point to Mother's Day

It is a tradition in the Schwartzberg household to make surprise signs for people on special occasions. Mostly this happens on birthdays, but Mother’s Day is also a big one for signs. (I once contemplated making signs for Groundhog’s Day, but here in the desert, the closest things we have to groundhogs are prairie dogs, and those things carry bubonic plague, so it didn’t seem appropriate.) In years past I have always helped my sons make the signs for Mother’s Day, but at ages 10 and 8 they are now perfectly old enough to make their own signs without my assistance. So, this morning, I told them to get the construction paper and markers and make signs while their mom slept. Then I left them to their own devices, which may or may not have been a wise choice.

The first sign, James, the 8-year-old, came up with is a variation on a classic. He could have just written “Happy Mother’s Day” and left it at that, but he wanted to make sure his mom knew that the opposite emotion was simply not an option today.

Then AJ, the 10-year-old, went with simple and heartfelt.

Then, James also went with simple, but rather than heartfelt he went with stomachfelt. (Note: This sign he intentionally hung from our stove range hood.)

Then things started getting really interesting. AJ dug deep for the next sign. He is an empathetic young lad and has recognized that he and his little brother can be a tad exhausting to their dear mom. When her eyes are drooping and she looks to be an hour past naptime, she’s still willing to help them with their homework, make them a snack, or mend a torn stuffed animal. I’m sure it was with this thought in mind that he created this sign.

Not to be outdone by his older brother, James decided to thank his mom for his very existence—from a biological perspective, of course.

James also made and hung a wordless sign, in which he illustrated a gleeful piranha about to eat a very glum smaller fish; because nothing says “Happy Mother’s Day” like cartoon images of predatory sea life.

When I first saw the signs the kids made, the serious, do-everything-by-the-book parent in me almost came out and told them not to hang the ridiculous ones. Fortunately, though, I caught myself before saying anything, because I realized that these signs showed my sons’ personalities better than generic one’s ever would, and my wife would enjoy and remember them for a much longer time. Sure enough, when she came out of the bedroom and started seeing the signs, she was cracking up and loving every sign she saw. Hmmm…maybe next year I will have the boys make signs for Groundhog’s Day. It could be a big pick-me-up if we find out there’s going to be six more weeks of winter.

Video Idiot: My Lame Gaming History

Sometime in the early 1980s, somewhere between 5^th and 7^th grades, I got the thing that every kid of my age wanted—an Atari video game system. I don’t remember now if I got it for my birthday, or for Hanukkah, or simply because my parents were sick and tired of my incessant begging and wanted to shut me up, but I got it and I loved it in the unhealthy, obsessive way that every boy loves his favorite toy.

Video games were a brand new frontier at this point in time; alien to my parent’s generation. Heck, it was even alien to my brothers who were 11 and 7 years older than me and immune to the allures of the console and the joystick. But for me and my peers, Atari was the Holy Grail. Games that you could play on your television??? What could be better than that?

The game system came with one game—Combat, which was just two small tanks slowly maneuvering around barricades firing at each other. I became adept at this game quickly, but was much more interested in the more popular games like Asteroids, Space Invaders, and eventually, Pac-Man. I spent countless hours playing these games and put a level of thought and dedication into mastering them that my 7^th grade Spanish teacher only wished I put into conjugating verbs.  The amount of time I spent outside decreased rapidly. Who needed to play football in the street when you could play football on your Atari and not risk bodily injury? (Not completely true—I suffered from joystick elbow, silently, for three solid years.)

Sometime in 9^th grade (1983-1984) Atari stopped making new game cartridges for the system I had and Nintendo became the flavor of the day. But also around this time my obsession started shifting from video games to girls. The time I had spent shooting at aliens was now being spent walking around in the mall and looking at girls from around corners. During my high school years I took out the Atari less and less and by college it was the furthest thing from my mind.

For most of my adult life, video games have not played a role. I know that many of my peers who were with me at the onset of the video game era have continued to be into gaming throughout their lives, but I’m not one of them. My interactive screen time eventually segued into AOL chatrooms and eventually Facebook. The only games I’ve played on screens regularly in adulthood are Scrabble and Scrabble variants. But hardcore gamers would probably argue that’s not really “gaming.”

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In late 2006, my wife and I became the parents of a bouncing baby boy and in early 2009 another boy bounced into our lives. A little more than two years apart in age, they largely played with many of the same kinds of toys—initially stuffed animals and plastic blocks, then action figures and Hot Wheels, and eventually Legos…lots and lots of Legos. Since neither my wife nor I cared about video games, it was not something we introduced them to and we figured they would lead a satisfying life without them.

Then they started school.

It turns out that kids in the same school talk to each other and the thing they talk about most is their favorite toys. It also turns out that most kids start playing home video games at a really, really young age. Sometime in preschool our older son became aware of the existence of video games from a classmate and his interest was piqued. He asked about getting an X-Box and we said “no”—redirecting him back to his Legos. This worked well for a while, as he loved Legos. Once he entered Kindergarten he asked about getting a game system more often—not constantly, but more than the previous year. By first grade he was very into video games even though he had never actually played one. But from conversations with his friends he knew all of the lingo and it started to rub off on his little brother. They would have lengthy conversations about the mythology of Minecraft and Skylanders even though they had never played either game. They asked for action figures from these games and we got them some for birthdays; they asked for books about the games and we got some of those, too. Eventually they became experts on their favorite video games without ever having laid a finger on a controller. And while they did ask us from time to time about getting a game system, they didn’t really hound us.

One day in the spring semester of my sons’ 2^nd grade and Kindergarten years respectively, I was walking down the main hallway in our house and saw the boys at the end of it looking at the wall. I saw that they had taped some papers on the wall that they were drawing something on.

“What is that?” I asked.

“It’s Minecraft,” my older son answered.

My jaw dropped. I realized that in the absence of an actual video game system they had resorted to making believe they were playing by putting pictures on the wall to simulate a video game screen. It was sort of pathetic. That night my wife and I discussed finally breaking down and getting them a video game system that we would surprise them with on the last day of school. I bit the bullet a couple of weeks later and went to Best Buy. I bought a PS4 along with the Minecraft and Skylanders games. I also bought a 65-inch flat screen television to replace the 39-inch tube TV we had for the previous 12 years. There was no turning back now.

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On the last day of school in 2015 I took the day off from work. The Geek Squad showed up in the morning to haul out all of our old stuff and set up all of our new stuff. It took a couple of hours, but at the end it looked like someone else’s living room. Someone cooler than us.

At 2:00 pm my wife went to get the boys from school while I waited to film their reaction when they came through the door. About 20 minutes later I heard the garage and got into position at the far end of the living room. A few seconds after entering the house they noticed the giant screen from afar. Our older son said, “WHAT THE?” really loudly at the same time that our younger son said, “What is that?” really softly. The older boy stayed back, almost as though he was afraid of the enormous object in the living room in the same way that the chimps in 2001 feared the monolith. His little brother was more adventurous, taking tentative steps into the living room. When he got close enough he noticed the copies of Minecraft and Skylanders sitting on the new entertainment center. Confusion and excitement gripped him simultaneously. He ran to his brother, accidentally called him “Dad” and then brought him into the living room to look at the coveted objects with him. He seemed to be waiting for his 8-year-old brother to validate what his 6-year-old eyes were seeing. As soon as the older boy saw the two games he had mastered only in the abstract, sitting there in reality, he pumped his fist in the air and shouted “Yes!” Receiving this confirmation that he wasn’t hallucinating, the younger boy also shouted “YESSS!” several hundred decibels louder than his brother. Then he looked straight at the flat screen and said, “Where’s the TV?” Having only known a tube TV his whole life he had no concept of what this new object in front of him could possibly be. But, of course, he learned.

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Two years later my boys are to the PS4 what I once was to Atari. They are experts. They are ninjas. They are Zen masters. I, on the other hand, am not.

Every once in a rare while I’ll sit down and play video games with them—perhaps once every two or three months. But I’m not particularly adept at them. Or, more accurately, I suck at them. The main challenge is that the controller on the PS4 is much more complicated than the one on the Atari. What I grew up with was a stick and a button—that was pretty much it.  The controllers my kids use have multiple buttons, mini sticks you control with your thumbs, and various triggers, switches and other small objects I don’t even know what to call. Oftentimes when I play with them I just close my eyes, press everything at once and hope for the best.

As inept as I am at the PS4, my wife is even more so. This is no knock on her skills, generally. Nobody is better than her at card making, cooking, or identifying the names of obscure one-hit wonder bands from the 80s. But when it comes to PS4 gaming, her skills are highly suspect. This is directly related to the fact that in the two years we have had the PS4 she has only played once—last week.

While we have four controllers for the PS4, and we happen to have four people in our family, the extra controllers were actually meant for when friends come over. But this past Wednesday, as a reward for our kids’ good behavior, we offered to have a family game of Minecraft. The boys were an odd combination of excited and dubious about this.

We played the game for about 30 minutes, of which, a good 20 minutes were spent with the boys trying to correct the various problems that my wife and I were running into. She kept on getting lost in a swamp and I kept on getting stuck on a rock. At one point I spent five minutes trying to dismount a horse. Finally, my older son just took the controller out of my hand and dismounted the horse for me in a nanosecond. When we were finally done with the game, I felt a sense of relief from all four of us.

About ten minutes later I overheard my younger son say to his brother, “Once your parents get to be over 40, it’s impossible to teach them Minecraft.” Maybe so, but I bet I could teach them a thing or two about Space Invaders. 

Dr. Schwartzberg's Wonder Emporium

If my dad were alive he would have turned 83 today. That is difficult to wrap my mind around since he never made it to his 53^rd birthday. I have written some general reminiscences about my dad before, most notably on Father’s Day 2014. If you have not seen that post and are interested, please click this link.

Today’s post is inspired by something my wife did a few months ago. She came across an artifact from my dad’s work life and decided to put it in a small frame and display it in our living room. Being the stereotypical oblivious husband that I am, I didn’t notice this sweet gesture for weeks. But once I noticed it, I couldn’t stop looking at it. And now I look at it every day. I am, of course, talking about the eyeglass cloth pictured above. It is a seemingly simple object, but it does not bring with it, simple memories.

My dad was an optometrist and for years he had his own private practice.  His office location moved around a bit, but the eyeglass cloth pictured here is from the office I remember, as it is from the last office of his own, before he closed up shop and went to work as the optometrist for a local vision center. As a child my dad’s optometry office, located on 17^th Avenue and 85^th Street in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, was a place of mystery and wonder and I always felt a thrill when I visited there.

I will admit that at 47, my memory is not what it once was, so my recollection of my dad’s office is spotty at best, considering it closed down sometime in the early 1980s. But this is what I remember…

When you entered my dad’s office there was a lobby. To the left of the lobby was a small examination room and to the right was a large magician’s shop. At least it seemed to me like a magician’s shop, though in reality it was my dad’s optometry workshop, where he made and repaired eyeglasses. This workshop was enormous and off limits to patients. I, of course, was allowed in, which is part of the reason it was special to me as a kid. I got to go where the public could not! There were a variety of unusual looking tools in this shop—clearly not the kind you would find in a hardware store. I can’t tell you what most of these tools did, but that added to the wonder and the impression that my dad was some kind of wizard.

Actually, there was one tool that my dad used in his shop that I was very familiar with—it was a very tiny screwdriver that he used to work on eyeglass frames. My dad was incredibly adept at using this tool and I would often marvel at the dexterity with which he drove those miniscule screws into the frame with his meaty hands. As I think back upon my dad’s impressive skill decades later, I find it somewhat ironic, since outside of his optometry shop he was one of the least handy guys in Brooklyn. Indeed, I have no memories of him ever holding a regular-sized screwdriver.

At this point in my life, my early memories are essentially a bunch of still photos floating around in my brain. I have a specific image of what my dad’s office looked like from the outside—the brick exterior with a grey, metal door; the last business before a row of residential houses. Interestingly, because of the miracle of Google Street View, I was able to see what my dad’s old office looks like from the outside today and it pretty much matched my memory perfectly—except now the door has a red awning above it and houses the offices of a newspaper called “Russian Bazaar.” But other than that, it’s just like the still photo in my mind.

Of course, I’ll never be able to see the interior of my dad’s office again. All the mysterious tools are gone now, but I do still have the eyeglass cloth. It has yellowed with age and at the bottom there is a reminder to “HAVE YOUR EYES EXAMINED REGULARLY.” I do not. I have not set foot in an optometrist’s office since the early 1980s.

51 Musings About Super Bowl LI

Now that the Super Bowl is yesterday’s news, here are a few musings from one of the more than 100,000,000 viewers. Well, more than a few musings—51 to be exact…

1. Former President George H.W. Bush sure likes to smile. Honestly, if I could open my eyes, let alone smile at age 92, I’d be satisfied.

2. Coins are really a relic of the past. I think they should flip a debit card from now on.

3. Before the game started I noticed that Matt Ryan had a big red mark on his forehead, presumably from his helmet. He might want to talk to the equipment manager about getting better padding on the helmet, or to the trainer about getting a cream he could rub on his head, because it looks unsightly.

4. Note to FOX: Considering the costume Scarlett Johansson wears in the movie Ghost in the Shell essentially makes her look naked, you might want to consider putting that trailer on at the END of the Super Bowl after kids have gone to bed, as opposed to at the very beginning, when their young little minds are attentive and ready for warping.

5. The Falcons running backs are FAST! Or at least they are for about two-and-a-half quarters.

6. Tom Brady has very impressive teeth.

7. I very much enjoyed watching Tom Brady get sacked repeatedly.

8. I like the fact that Arthur Blank, who gives off the vibe of being a sweet older gentleman, dresses up like a 1920s gangster.

9. Two pizzas, three family-sized bags of potato chips, a bag of tortilla chips, a jar of salsa, a relish tray, 20 cocktail shrimp, six chocolate cream puffs and a box of chocolate-covered pretzels is overkill for a family of four.

10. My favorite commercial was the talking celebrity yearbook photos, but if you told me before the game I would really enjoy a commercial with talking celebrity yearbook photos, I would have thought you belonged in a loony bin.

11. Robert Alford seemed so casual by the end of his 82-yard interception return, I thought he was going to lie down at the one yard line and take a quick nap before going into the end zone.

12. No matter the game situation, Bill Belichick always looks like he has gas pains.

13. The way he’s able to keep his toes inbounds on every ridiculously difficult sideline catch, I think Julio Jones may have a career in ballet when he’s done with this whole football thing.

14.  I think Rob Gronkowski and Stephen Gostkowski should open up a law firm together. I’d call every day just to see how the receptionist answers the phone.

15. When Julian Edelman kept on not quite getting to those passes in the first half I wondered if his giant bushy beard was slowing him down.

16. My 7-year-old son is a bit of a frontrunner. Before the game started he said he was going to root for the Patriots. When it became 21 – 0 he said, “I’m going to start rooting for the Falcons now.” That didn’t turn out so well for him.

17. I’m torn between finding that whole Terry Bradshaw shirt stain gimmick incredibly amusing or incredibly annoying.

18. It turns out that if you shut off your television at halftime, you mercifully don’t have to sit through Lady Gaga’s show.

19. My favorite moment of the game by far was seeing Dwight Freeney and Martellus Bennett’s helmets stuck together like two reindeer locking antlers.

20. At the point at which the score was 28 – 3 in the third quarter, and the outcome seemed like a foregone conclusion, I briefly considered turning off the game and watching Netflix instead, but then I thought it would be fun seeing the Falcons’ reaction to their first ever Super Bowl win, so I kept it on.

21. I wish I’d turned off the game when it was 28 – 3 in the third quarter and watched Netflix instead.

22. I don’t know much about Falcons coach, Dan Quinn, but he sure looks like he would be fun at parties. I might invite him to this year’s seder.

23. At the point at which Stephen Gostkowski booted the extra point off the upright to keep the score at 28 – 9 instead of 28 – 10, I thought, “Ha, ha! They can’t do anything right, today!”

24. The five-second The Walking Dead ad showing Negan’s barbed wire bat thudding to the ground got me more pumped up than any play in the entire game.

25. Speaking of The Walking Dead, it seems appropriate that that show is filmed in Atlanta, because I’m sure the day after the Super Bowl most of its residents were walking around like zombies.

26. I’m pretty sure the catch Julian Edelman made with the ball bobbling around one inch off the ground was all CGI. I mean that’s not possible, is it?

27. It wasn’t until the score became 28 – 20 that I suddenly said, “Oh crap.”

28. It’s always nice seeing Jon Lovitz, even if it is only subliminally.

29. We had salsa, but I really wish we had guacamole.

30. As the Patriots methodically made their comeback it suddenly occurred to me that spotting the Falcons 25 points to give them a false sense of security might actually have been Belichick’s game plan.

31. The deer-in-the-headlights expression on Tom Brady’s face in the first half, gradually switched over to Matt Ryan’s face in the second half. Someone should do a cool time-lapse photography series to document this.

32. I’m generally into sci-fi and horror TV shows, but the ad for this new series Legion that showed the baby with the freaky blue glowing eyes did not appeal to me—it just gave me the heebie-jeebies.

33. The way that Tevin Coleman was laying on the ground after he injured his ankle, I thought they were going to have to put a chalk outline around the poor man.

34. If you had told me before the game that James White would score three touchdowns, a two-point conversion, get 139 total yards and set the Super Bowl record for receptions with 14, I would likely have said, “Which team does he play for?”

35. At some point either Troy Aikman or Joe Buck (I couldn’t tell which) tried to make a lame joke about the Falcons epic collapse by saying “Houston, we have a problem.” I almost got the sense that some “clever” producer handed him that line because of the half-hearted way in which he mumbled it.

36. When Danny Amendola scored the two-point conversion to tie the game at 28 with 57 seconds left in the game, I knew there was no way in hell the Falcons were going to win at that point.

37. Despite the agony of watching Amendola make that conversion, I have to admit I like saying, “Amendola.” Sort of rolls right off the tongue.

38. When the Falcons got the ball back with less than a minute to go, I suddenly wished it was the Packers in this situation, because you know Aaron Rodgers would have hauled off a 60-yard Hail Mary to win the game as time expired.

39. I thought it was interesting that for the overtime coin toss three Patriots came out, but only Matt Ryan came out for the Falcons. Were the rest of his teammates weeping on the sidelines?

40. And when the Falcons lost the toss, I really think Ryan should have asked the ref if they could do best two out of three.

41. Watching Tom Brady operate in overtime was like watching a skilled neurosurgeon slice into a brain—completely nauseating.

42. By the end of the game Brady had thrown the ball a record 62 times! To put that in perspective, in Super Bowl VII in 1974, Bob Griese threw the ball a grand total of 7 times in his Dolphins 24 – 7 win over the Vikings. Oh how times have changed.

43. Chris Myers’ feeble attempt at getting an interview with Brady in the crush of reporters right after the game made me realize he would not be very good in a mosh pit.

44. I noticed during the celebration that the confetti was shaped Lombardi Trophy. Must have taken somebody a long time to cut all of those out.

45. As they showed the Falcons players walking off the field, it occurred to me that their team doctor better place an order for several metric tons of Prozac.

46. Scrolling through Twitter I noticed lots of people calling Brady a GOAT, which made no sense to me until the next morning when I suddenly realized this was an acronym for Greatest Of All Time.

47. And after his performance, Brady may indeed be the GOAT. In fact, I’d argue that they should just put him in the Hall of Fame right now and waive the whole wait for five years after your retirement routine.

48. My 10-year-old son was mortified by all the communicable disease possibilities presented by all those guys kissing the same trophy.

49. Did anyone else notice how Roger Goodell practically sprinted off the stage the moment he handed Robert Craft the Super Bowl trophy? Guess the comish wasn’t invited to the Pat’s after party.

50. Speaking of after parties I’d be curious to see how Bill Belichick is at one of those. Does he sit in a corner taking notes the whole time or does he drop his pants and dance on the bar like no one’s watching?

51. Early prediction for Super Bowl LII: Cleveland Browns 6, Chicago Bears 3.

Sleep Running: A Late Night Adventure

Last night, around 11:45 PM, I was folding laundry. (I know, I lead a very exciting life.) As I sorted through the load of towels I unexpectedly came across my 7-year-old son, James’s, karate pants. (See, that was kind of exciting.) I folded the pants and quietly entered my son’s room to put them away. James was lying on his bed, wrapped up in a swirl of Lego Movie and Mickey Mouse blankets, gently snoring away. He was out like a light. I noticed my son’s sketchbook on the floor and ever so silently opened it to see his latest creation. There was an illustration of one of our cats juggling three balls and another of our other cat jumping off a high dive into a bucket of water. At the top of the page it read “Cat Circus.” I smiled, looked at my little tyke snoozing away and soundlessly left the room.

A few minutes later, I finished dealing with the laundry and was about to put the basket away when I heard a door open down the hallway, which meant one of my two sons was suddenly leaving their room close to midnight. I started to walk down the hallway to see which of their doors had opened up, when James went sprinting past me toward the living room. As he went past I said, “James, what’s the matter,” but got no response in return. I watched as he ran into the living room, launched himself onto our couch, and curled up into a fetal position. I quickly went over.

“James, are you okay?” I asked, my hand on his shoulder. Nothing

“Is something wrong?” I asked, shaking him gently. Nothing.

“What are you doing out here?” I asked, shaking him a little less gently. Nothing.

His eyes were closed and he was snoring in the same manner I had heard five minutes earlier when I was in his room. This boy was asleep! And I quickly surmised that when he ran past me he was asleep, too. I had heard about sleepwalking before (and had seen it in a few horror movies I didn’t want to think about at that moment), but I had never heard of sleep running. Leave it to my kid to go over the top with his first bout of somnambulism.

After a few more failed attempts at getting him to wake up so he could go back to his room, I got my wife, who my kids actually listen to. She came into the living room and was as flummoxed by the situation as me. She tried many of the same tactics I did, to no avail. She even told him to wake up because he was sleepwalking—although technically, at that point, he was just plain sleeping, though in the wrong part of the house. Finally, after much coaxing, she managed to get him onto his feet and gently guided him back to his room, although I’m sure he slept through that entire 30-foot march.

What possessed my son to suddenly go on his quick sleep run, I have no idea. I wondered if my having been in his room a few minutes earlier may have triggered some subconscious fear that there was an intruder in his midst and he needed to get away. Or maybe it was just a coincidence and he would have gone on his run had I been in there or not. Perhaps he just didn’t get enough exercise during the day and his body decided to do some nocturnal aerobics. (I know that’s the only way I would ever get exercise, because I’m sure as heck not going to do it while I’m awake.)

Whatever the reason for my son’s little sleep-time adventure, it will be interesting to see if it was an isolated incident or if he will do it again. While the practical side of me realizes that it would be safer if this was a one-time thing, part of me wonders if we could get him to do other things besides run in his sleep—like wash the dishes or clean out the cat’s litterbox.  Or laundry, for that matter! After all it was his karate pants that may have triggered this whole incident in the first place. 

My Eight Desert Island Songs

Recently, a friend of mine posted the following question in an online rock music forum that we participate in: What are your eight Desert Island songs? Of course we’ve heard this question—and a variety of variants of this question—many times before. In this hypothetical scenario, we somehow end up on a deserted island and the mysterious all-powerful entity that placed us there allows us to choose eight, and only eight, songs to listen to over and over again. It’s unclear how we’re listening to these songs—mp3 player, CD, mixed tape, Victrola—but, the point is we can hear nothing else but these songs for the rest of eternity, so we better make some wise choices.

As a point of interest, my friend posted this question because he came across an article in which Bruce Springsteen was posed this query. Bruce’s choices were: Elvis Presley – “Hound Dog;” The Beatles – “I Want to Hold Your Hand;” The Rolling Stones – “It’s All Over Now;” Van Morrison – “Madame George;” Marvin Gaye – “What’s Going On;” James Brown – “Out of Sight;” The Four Tops – “Baby I Need Your Loving;” and Bob Dylan – “Like a Rolling Stone.” A respectable list, to say the least.

Clearly, the song choices of Springsteen, one of the most successful solo artists in the history of rock, will be of more interest to most than that of Schwartzberg, whose musical career consisted of four months of piano lessons as a child followed by an occasional drunken karaoke session in his 20s. But alas, seeing as how I write this blog, I’m going to share Schwartzberg’s list of eight desert island songs anyway, and nobody—not even The Boss, can stop me.

Be aware that the list below is in no special order, other than the order in which I happened to think of the songs. So, without further ado, here are the eight songs I would listen to over and over again throughout eternity, and the rationale behind each.

“Born to Run” – Bruce Springsteen
No, it’s not just because this list was inspired by Springsteen’s list that I picked this song. It’s because he’s far and away my favorite solo artist and this song introduced me to him. And every time I hear this song, I drop everything and give it my full attention. There is an urgency about this song—a driving force that sucks me in and gets my heart pounding and my temperature rising. I know this song has gotten endless airplay, but to me it can never be overplayed. It is passionate, alive and immediate. When I’m on my desert island and I need a sure shot of pure adrenaline, this will be my go to song.

“Roundabout” – Yes
This is the song I’ve cited as my favorite song for close to 30 years, now, and with good reason, I believe. This is 8 minutes and 29 seconds of the greatest, mind-bogglingly complex musicianship you will ever hear on a rock song. Rick Wakeman on keyboards, Steve Howe on guitar, Chris Squire on bass, Bill Bruford on drums, and Jon Anderson on vocals are unparalleled in their craft and each blows my mind at different points in the song. Actually, in some cases they blow my mind at the same point in the song. You know how they say if pregnant women play classical music while their baby is in the womb it will increase their baby’s intelligence? My theory is that if a pregnant woman ever decided to put “Roundabout” on constant rotation for the entire duration of her pregnancy, the being that she would birth would end up making Stephen Hawking look like Pauly Shore. And on a desert island, I would need all the intelligence I could muster.

“Subdivisions” – Rush
Just as Springsteen is far and away my favorite solo artist, Rush is far and away my favorite band, and “Subdivisions” is the song that introduced me to them. While the song is great musically and lyrically (it’s about being a loner in a suburban world of conformity) it is actually not my favorite Rush song. But, because this song turned me on to the band that would go on to make up such a core part of my psyche from age 16 onward, its significance cannot be denied. Being without this song would be like being without a limb, and if I were on a desert island, I would definitely need all my limbs intact.

“Birdhouse in Your Soul” – They Might Be Giants
If you are living by yourself on a deserted island, I would imagine despair might be a pretty major issue, so it occurred to me that I would need at least one song guaranteed to lift my spirits, and this was the obvious choice for me. To my mind, there is no band more fun than They Might Be Giants and no song of theirs more joyous than “Birdhouse in Your Soul.” The lyrics are somewhere between whimsical and nonsensical (“Blue canary in the outlet by the light switch/Who watches over you/Make a little birdhouse in your soul”) and its matched with music that is peppy and uplifting. Ever since I discovered this song in the early 1990s it has been my go to song when I needed cheering up. Indeed, it’s like musical Prozac and on my desert island I would take a daily dose.

“Hello” – Lionel Richie
Okay, stop snickering. The truth is, I was a huge Lionel Richie fan in junior high school when he was at the peak of his popularity. And when this song was released in early 1984, as ninth grade was coming to an end, I had a massive crush on a girl named Elizabeth. I played this song endlessly as I pined after this girl and the song has come to represent yearning for something that cannot be obtained. Of course, nothing ever happened between Elizabeth and I, and once 10^th grade started she was long forgotten when a new crush surfaced. But the song “Hello” is part of the fiber of my being and I would play it on my desert island when wistfulness and longing were the order of the day.

“Dance With You” – Live
For me, this song is the antidote to “Hello.” Instead of unrequited love, it represents pure, mutual love.  It is the theme song to the early days of my relationship with my wife and was the first dance at our wedding. Live is a band that my wife and I both loved prior to meeting, so when we started dating and found we had a mutual admiration for their music, it became “our band” together. Less than three months after we started dating, Live released the album The Distance to Here and “Dance With You” was the final track. It’s a song about how two people wrestling with inner demons find peace in their love for one another. It was, and is, our song. So, if I were alone on a desert island, I would need to have the musical representation of my wife with me, and that’s what this song is.

“Because the Night” – 10,000 Maniacs
After thinking about how my wife would be represented in my musical selections it suddenly occurred to me that I had no women’s voices in any of the songs I had picked. How horrible it would be to go through the rest of life without ever hearing a female voice ever again. And as soon as I had that thought I knew that the voice I would have to hear would be Natalie Merchant’s, as she is my favorite female vocalist by a very wide margin. At first I pondered her solo career, which has produced so many songs I love, and then I thought about her time with 10,000 Maniacs, which likewise, has dozens of great tracks. But then I remembered this song—a Bruce Springsteen cover, which the 10,000 Maniacs played on MTV Unplugged in 1993. I already liked this song, but their take on it is hauntingly beautiful and it quickly became one of my favorites. But I’m also picking this song because it is from a live album and there is applause at the beginning and end of the track, so if, while on my island, I want to feel like there are others with me, this is a great track to play.

“Help!” – The Beatles
I knew from the beginning of this exercise that one of my eight songs was going to have to be a Beatles song. There was no way I was going to commit to never hearing a Beatles song again. So when I got through my first seven and still hadn’t picked a song from the Fab Four, I refocused my energy on their catalog. I quickly realized that this task was nearly impossible. No band has more great songs than the Beatles, so how was I going to narrow it down to just one? But then, like a lightning bolt, it suddenly occurred to me what song I would have to pick. It was so obvious. Not only was it a great song, but the title was the one word phrase I would likely utter most often while trapped on a desert island—“Help!” Sometimes the answer just stares you in the face.

Everything is NOT as it Seems

November of 2016 has been nothing if not surreal. Up is down. Black is white. Night is day. Llama is dromedary. Well, maybe the last example isn’t the greatest, but you get the point. Things just don’t feel right.

It is difficult to separate lies from the truth. Everywhere you look you are presented with two different versions of reality. Sometimes you’re not sure what to believe, who to trust, or where to go for good, solid information. With so many different sources, each seemingly with its own agenda, discerning fact from fiction often feels overwhelming.

So what is one to do in this climate of perpetual deception? I believe the trick is to take baby steps. If you try to sift through every topic of importance every day, you will quickly go down a rabbit hole and run the risk of losing your mind, or at the very least, turning your ankle. Get grounded and start slow.

Indeed, I have followed my own advice and uncovered the truth behind an age-old lie. It may not seem like that big of a deal, but as I said, the trick is to start slow. It took meticulous research and hours of hands-on exploration, but in the end I feel confident with the truth I am about to reveal. And the truth is that “Everything Bagels” are nothing more than a lie. Admittedly they are a delicious lie, but they are a lie nonetheless.

When you go into a bagel shop or a store that sells lots of other stuff including bagels, you are often presented with a plethora of options. You can get a plain bagel, a sesame bagel, a poppy seed bagel, a cinnamon raisin bagel, an onion bagel, a blueberry bagel, a sunflower seed bagel, an egg bagel, a chocolate chip bagel, a garlic bagel, a whole wheat bagel, and of course, an everything bagel.

I have always taken the name “Everything Bagel” for granted because, let’s face it, they taste great. When something is amazing, you generally don’t worry yourself with what it is called. But what if what it is called is a lie? Should you stand by idly and let it go unnoticed?

A few months ago while at the grocery store I purchased a package of Everything Bagels. They were sitting next to the packages of cinnamon raisin bagels, which I also happen to enjoy. The next morning as I munched on my Everything Bagel it suddenly dawned on me that I was not tasting cinnamon or raisin. Clearly this bagel did not contain everything that might be on a bagel and yet the word “everything” was in its title. I read the ingredients.

An Everything Bagel contains the following: ENRICHED WHEAT FLOUR [FLOUR, MALTED BARLEY FLOUR, REDUCED IRON, NIACIN, THIAMIN MONONITRATE (VITAMIN B1), RIBOFLAVIN (VITAMIN B2), FOLIC ACID], WATER, SUGAR, YEAST, SUNFLOWER SEEDS, WHEAT GLUTEN, SESAME SEEDS, DEHYDRATED ONION, SALT, CORNMEAL, CALCIUM PROPIONATE AND SORBIC ACID (TO PRESERVE FRESHNESS), POPPY SEEDS, MONO- AND DIGLYCERIDES, GARLIC, CELLULOSE GUM, CITRIC ACID, MALTODEXTRIN, XANTHAN GUM, CORNSTARCH, ALGIN, SOY LECITHIN.

In the list above I bolded the five ingredients that might be in its own bagel. (You’ll note that there are a lot of ingredients listed that would not constitute their own bagel. For example, I’ve never ordered a Xanthan Gum or Folic Acid bagel.) While we see bagel mainstays like garlic, onion, sesame seeds, poppy seeds and sunflower seeds, conspicuously absent from the ingredients list are cinnamon, raisin, blueberry, and chocolate chips, all of which are popular bagel ingredients. If one is being honest, an “Everything Bagel” does not contain everything.

So, clearly, the moniker “Everything Bagel” is nothing more than a blatant lie perpetrated by savvy, yet deceitful marketing types. Delicious though they may be, the “Everything Bagel” would be more aptly named the “Manythings Bagel” or, debatably, the “Mostthings Bagel.” But “Everything Bagel?” I think not.

Take a breath. Start slow. And you, too, can unearth the truth in this cockeyed world.