Getting Old (Lang Syne)

I mean, 'Should old acquaintance be forgot?' Does that mean that we should forget old acquaintances, or does it mean if we happened to forget them, we should remember them, which is not possible because we already forgot?

So said Harry, Billy Crystal, in the closing scene of “When Harry Met Sally” with Auld Lang Syne playing in the background. After years of acquaintance involving on and off animosity, chance meetings, friendship and once awkward sex, he and Sally finally discovered and expressed their love for each other. They are by no means the only couple to get together many years after meeting in their teens. No big deal, but still, I’ve been wondering. What is it that makes us in our later years want to get back together with friends and lovers from high school and college?

The impetus for my musing was a phone call that I received last month from Karin, a Swedish woman who 45 years ago spent a year with my family as our au pair. She called from Stockholm and said that she wanted to see us when she visited New York for Christmas. The call came out of the blue and caught me totally off guard. 45 years ago I was ten years old. She was 19. To me, she was a nice memory. She was cute with many boyfriends, strawberry blond hair and more energy in the dead of winter than I’d ever seen, but still, just one in a series of women who helped take care of me and my four brothers. For her, it must have been different. We were her formative year. She went from being a schoolgirl in a cold family in a cold country to an independent woman in a houseful of adoring boys in a land of freedom and opportunity. When she left us she became a Pan Am stewardess, flew the world, married, divorced, got ill, got better, wrote a book. Now she teaches yoga and writes a yoga-nutrition column. And for some reason, she wants to see us.

Should old acquaintance be forgot? For Karin, the answer is no. She had the courage to make a new life for herself at 19. The idea of getting together with us probably helped her see herself again as a young, beautiful, spirited woman. Romanticizing our youth, nostalgia, that’s one reason to rekindle a relationship “old long since” as auld lang syne translates to from Robert Burns’ Scottish.

“Psychology Today” describes what I’ll call the auld lang syne phenomenon as a reaction to our baby boomer lives in which we move from place to place and job to job in search of opportunity. They say at some point we “crave familiarity. Someone who laughs at the same jokes, understands the same quirks”. Someone who knew us when. Is that why divorced couples often remarry or why a high school reunion can reawaken a first love? Or is it more a reaction to getting old, feeling stuck, being unhappy? My guess is that at some age we get to feeling it’s now or never. For those not used to testing the waters, a familiar port is inviting and considerably less threatening than the open seas.

Hmmm…Now I’m not so sure. Maybe it would be better to let those old acquaintances stay in the past. Regression and infidelity hardly seem like good answers for unhappiness. As Burns wrote,

We two have paddled in the stream,

from morning sun till dine [dinner time] ;

But seas between us broad have roared

since auld lang syne.

What’s to say things would work out with an old flame? If things aren’t going well it makes better sense to concentrate on understanding and fixing what’s wrong in the present, not risking a tenuous present for a glorified past. What did we really know at 19 anyway? Not much, maybe, but everything sure was more intense.

The answer for Burns, one that we embrace in song every New Years Eve, is to share “a cup o’ kindness yet”. Kindness would be a euphemism for Scotch whiskey. I’m no Scot, but I’d say that he means more than just getting drunk together. With that drink we are to remember our past, recognize the “many a weary foot” we’ve wandered since and respect each other’s present life with a handshake, and no more, as a gesture of friendship.

Friends, if I have forgotten you over the past few years, please consider this an apology. I assure you, it was not willful and had nothing to do with Robert Burns or “Psychology Today”. Me and Billy, we should remember but we just forget. Blame it on advancing age and too much caffeine free Diet Coke. Those chemicals got to be bad for you. Call me and we can share a real cup o’ kindness, for auld lang syne.

Bow Wow Wow, You Pronounce It!

Do you remember how hard it was as a child to keep a secret?  I can't say that I do.  I do, however, remember my children filled with excitement, running and bouncing and ready to burst as the secret they were holding inside expanded and finally exploded from their smiling lips.  It's a beautiful thing to see.  I was reminded of this sheer excitement and joy not by my children.  The things that excite them these days are more likely to make me scratch my bald head in confusion or just bite my lip and hope for the best.  No, it wasn't the kids.  It was my mother.

She called me and my four brothers last month and said that she wanted to give a party on the Monday before Thanksgiving.  She explained that she chose the date because four out of the five brothers and their wives could attend.  She said that as we could not all see each other on Thanksgiving, a Monday dinner would allow us to celebrate the holiday, early, but at least together.  She insisted on hosting us at a local restaurant and called the dinner her "Thanksgiving surprise".

I accepted, of course.  I would miss seeing brother #five, his wife and two year old son who live in California, but would see my other brothers who usually spend this holiday with their wives' families.  An early Thanksgiving, fine, but what was this surprise?  I didn't ask.  From her voice I could tell that it was something good.  And something good from (sorry Mom) an 80+ year old, at least isn't something like a broken hip, or worse, the sort of surprise that I fear and almost expect.  My first thought was that she and her 90+ year old beau, after ten years of dating, were going to announce their engagement.  I kept this thought to myself and waited for the surprise day to come.

As it turns out, I didn't have to wait that long.  My mother, in her excitement, just couldn't keep her secret bottled up.  She told brother #5 who wasn't around to spill the beans.  But then she let it slip again to bro #3, I'm guessing because it felt so good the first time and, anyway, the cat was already out of the bag.  By the time she called me, she assumed I knew already that she had sold one of her cello bows and wanted to divide the quite generous proceeds among her five sons as a holiday gift.

The dinner was perfect and the gift will be well spent.  It's hard to imagine that a cello bow could be so valuable.  Yet, I would be happier if my mother could still hold that bow in her now arthritic hand and play her cello.  Some of you know the sound a cello makes in a concert hall but for me it was different.  I was weaned on its songs in the resonant enclosure of my parents' study.  I grew up listening to that sonorous alto voice every day of my childhood.  It is the voice of the depths of emotion, of sadness and tears.  Listen to any movie soundtrack and you'll find that whenever they want you to cry, they bring on the cellos.  Its lower register is the moan.  Its upper notes are the wail.  Bowed in long strokes it is Saint Saens' graceful "Swan" gliding down a still lake in France:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNbXuFBjncw&feature=related

Bowed in rapid bursts it is Rimsky-Korsakov's "The Flight of the Bumblebee":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5GkX70hrzo&feature=related

My mother was a professional musician.  She played in orchestras and taught college courses.  She played quartets in the house.  Rarely, she took on a student.  Mostly, she practiced.  And practiced and practiced.  She says that growing up she never had to be told to practice.  As the young wife of a physician, her hours alone with her instrument brought her comfort.  As the older mother of five sons they brought her peace.  Once a year she would bring her cello into my school classroom and put the Swan and Bumblebee on display.  Twenty years ago I saw a book lying on a table in my parent's den, "Learning to Bow".  I thought for sure that it was an esoteric tome about cello technique.  My mother got a good laugh when she explained that the book, by my brother's friend Bruce Feiler, was about his year teaching English in Japan and that in this case bow rhymed with wow.  Bowing either way is not so easy and does, in fact, take a life to master.

In this holiday season permit me to paraphrase Bing Crosby from Irving Berlin's "White Christmas":

     What can you do with a cellist
     When she stops being a cellist?
     Oh, what can you do with
     A cellist who retires?

What a silly question.  We're still following her wherever she wants to go... and doing our best to keep up!  Now that's something to be thankful for.

Dance 10, Looks 3

I was walking down Summer Street Wednesday evening and passed a series of downtown restaurants with patio seating. I got half way past the first one and did a bit of a double take as I became aware that at every table there were only women. Next patio, same demographic—20-40 year old women in twos, threes and fours, stylishly dressed, eating, drinking and talking with smiles and animation. It was as if dozens of Carries with their posses as in “Sex and the City” had moved to Stamford. I continued walking to Eos, the new Greek place, for takeout pitas and got to wondering, why all women and why Wednesday? Barbara met me at Eos, and as we waited for our sandwiches, the women kept coming. She noticed it too. Now, Wednesday was the day of the first Yankee playoff game against the Twins. That could account for the men not going out. And as, forgive me for generalizing, most women prefer female company to sitting in front of a TV watching baseball, we agreed that this Wednesday was a perfect date for a girl’s night out.

By now, I hope you’re wondering where I’m going with this. If I knew for sure, I’d have told you up front, but mostly, it’s that this women thing has been on my mind. It started last month when the New York Jets were criticized by the Association for Women in Sports Media for their lewd locker room remarks to Ines Sainz, a Spanish language female sportscaster. They wrote:

AWSM, the NFL and Jets have been in contact since Saturday evening regarding this situation. Both the NFL and Jets were responsive to our concerns and are investigating the matter. We are awaiting the results of the investigation and further action from the NFL and Jets. AWSM remains steadfast in its long-standing commitment to ensure all women in sports media are treated respectfully, equally and professionally while working in the locker room. We will remain on top of this situation.

The Blogosphere was all a-Twitter with talk of appropriate female dress in the workplace, sexual harassment, locker room behavior and mostly, Ms Sainz who really did look hot in her “painted on” blue jeans and lacy low-cut top. She defended herself by saying that she dressed the way she likes to dress and that her clothes were in her size. From her website pictures, it is clear that she is proud of her appearance, and as a TV personality, right or wrong, that appearance is an important asset. Val from “A Chorus Line” said it best:

Dance: ten; Looks; three.

And I'm still on unemployment,

Dancing for my own enjoyment.

That ain't it, kid. That ain't it, kid.

"Dance: ten; Looks; three,"

I’d like to die!

Left the theatre and

Called the doctor for

My appointment to buy...

Tits and ass.

Bought myself a fancy pair.

Tightened up the derriere.

Did the nose with it.

All that goes with it.

Tits and ass!

Had the bingo-bongos done.

Suddenly I'm getting nash'nal tours!

Tits and ass won't get you jobs

Unless they're yours.

Maybe not politically correct with the ASWM who would probably favor business suits and a brains 10, looks 3 attitude, but I’d say Ms Sainz and her bosses know their business and their audience well enough to make their own decisions. No one had ever heard of Sainz or TV Azteca before. Now they are, albeit fleetingly, front page news.

AWSM are hardly innocent in the Sainz affair. They, not Sainz, raised the stink and went after the Jets players and organization. They are also not above sexual innuendo with their outrageous concluding statement, “We will remain on top of this situation.” This form of aggressive feminism reminds me of the group of female students in my medical school class who sat together in the back row and hissed and booed whenever a professor offended their credo. They actually had a breast surgeon called to the dean’s office where he was forced to defend himself for his lecture in which he showed explicit pictures of breast pathology. The professor, like Sainz, was trying to be provocative. It’s hard to keep from being provoked, but the response to provocation is in our control and is a responsibility that we all share. It was right to remind the Jets how to behave in their locker room. A more gentle reminder would have been nice.

So back to Wednesday and Summer Street. Barbara asked if it bothered me to see all of those women out together without men. No it did not. I liked it. What’s not to like? Haven’t I mentioned in this column that I like women? And I like the idea of women getting together and enjoying each other’s company. It’s good. It’s healthy. We men sure aren’t solving any societal problems in front of our TVs or at the poker table. Maybe the women are figuring it out for us. No, not on their Wednesday night out. No matter. They looked happy and that’s enough. If we’re all a bit happier, Mars and Venus won’t seem so far apart.

Oh Boy, New Math!

I’d like to continue the theme from my last blog about comedians and their role in bringing us the news, albeit with a certain slant. But first humor me with a brief departure, still in the realm of popular culture, to this season’s premier of TV’s Mad Men. In this episode the creative director of a new, breakaway advertising firm blows an opportunity to promote his company in a magazine interview. When he defends himself before his board by saying that his work speaks for itself, he is told, “turning creative success into business is your work and you failed”. I took this harsh criticism personally and wondered if by writing a blog “with no agenda”, I am in essence failing. Samuel Johnson, a great writer and a man of many quotes said, “No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money”. To me, unlike to admen and pundits, it’s not that black and white. Admen love to force us into clear cut choices, their brand or brand X. One of the best ad campaigns ever, the one in the 70s for Miller Lite, took two choices and pointed them both to their product: “Tastes great…Less filling”. It was a heads I win, tails you lose angle that caught on and led to America’s acceptance of light beer. Interestingly, the advertising firm responsible for the campaign, McCann Erickson, was also the firm that, in Mad Men, made the hostile takeover at the end of last season. No takeovers here. I plan to keep writing without monetizing or expecting anything in return except your (mostly) kind comments.

In 1964 David Frost imported a comic news hour from England, That Was The Week That Was. Despite a solid core group of comics plus guests such as Woody Allen, Steve Allen, Bill Cosby, Mike Nichols and Elaine May, the show only lasted one year. Instead of using skits as SNL would later do, TW3, as it was called, used songs to comment on current events. The main songwriter was a Harvard graduate and math instructor, Tom Lehrer. He got his start as an undergraduate where he wrote “Fight Fiercely, Harvard”. He entertained classmates, performed at clubs, eventually recorded an LP and had 300 made for sale around Harvard. (This was just like Bert and I at Yale. See 11/09 blog, Cay-ent Get They-uh From He-uh.) In 1955 he was drafted and served two years at the NSA. His big contribution to army cryptography was the invention of Jell-o shots. He continued his songwriting and performing but never gave up his day job. His songs were clever, in the vein of Cole Porter or Yip Harburg. When he heard that TW3 was looking for songs he wrote one for National Brotherhood Week:

     Oh, the white folks hate the black folks,

     And the black folks hate the white folks.

     To hate all but the right folks

     Is an old established rule.

The TW3 regulars performed this song and 8 others including his best known "New Math":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNCUuh8_VhE

When TW3 ended, Lehrer was left with enough proven songs to make a second album, That Was The Year that Was. This was released by a major label, promoted nationwide including appearances on the Tonight Show, and made it into the Benjamin household where it joined Allan Shermans’ My Son The Folk Singer and Nut in our collection of comedy albums.

Though both Lehrer and Sherman sang funny songs, they were very different. While Lehrer was clever and precise, Sherman was Hamish and a bit of a slob. He was an LA TV producer who wrote humorous lyrics to popular tunes and performed them for his friends. He lived next door to Harpo Marx, whose friend George Burns heard Sherman’s songs and got him a record contract. His themes were those of 1960s American Jewry. His first album, My Son The Folk Singer, parodied our imperfect assimilation into American society where we retained our old world speech patterns, strong family ties, boorish manners and thrifty ways:

     Shake hands with your Uncle Max, my boy

     And here is your sister Shirl

     And here is your cousin Isabel

     That's Irving's oldest girl

     And you remember the Tishman twins

     Gerald and Jerome

     We all came out to greet you

     And to wish you welcome home

The juxtaposition of these lyrics and Sherman’s accent with the melody of an old Irish tune was hysterical. It was pure side splitting shtick when he replaced “Meet Branigan, Fannigan, Milligan, Gilligan,Duffy, McCuffy, Malachy, Mahone,” etc. with

     Meet…

     Merowitz, Berowitz, Handelman, Schandelman

     Sperber and Gerber and Steiner and Stone

     Boskowitz, Lubowitz, Aaronson, Baronson,

     Kleinman and Feinman and Freidman and Cohen.

His next album, with its hit song "Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh" made him a star. Even JFK went around singing his songs. Sadly, he died at the age of 48, having too well assimilated into a life of overeating, smoking and booze.

So, what was it for me as a kid, Lehrer or Sherman? Yankees or Mets? Flintstones or Jetsons? Tastes Great or Less Filling? Vicki’s Manhattan or Marty’s Brooklyn? The answer? “Oh, Boy!” I liked them all. That was the real new math, “So very simple, That only a child can do it!”

You Can't Beat That

Chevy Chase spoke last week at a 25th anniversary screening of his movie Fletch. During the movie, he sat with the audience, squirmed in his seat, made uncomfortable faces and tried his best to show his discomfort with the attention and exaggerated adulation given by the Avon Theater’s pretentious artsy audience. After the screening he owned up to not being an actor in the vein of Sean Penn or Robert DeNiro, and said that he just tried to be himself in his films, making wise cracks, improvising, falling down, basically doing the same things he had done from Elementary School to Saturday Night Live to get laughs. When an audience member stood up, mike in hand, and took five minutes to comment and finally ask a question, one whose only point was to show how knowledgeable and perceptive he was, Chevy was brilliant. He rolled his eyes, stuck his finger down his throat, hanged himself with his tie, and when the question finally came, answered it with a quick quip and moved on to the next question. It was a merciless strike at pomposity that made us all smile. It reminded me first of Woody Allen’s coup with Marshall McLuhan in Annie Hall:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBtXfBdEXEs

It reminded me second of why I like Chevy Chase. It’s not because he’s a great actor. In every one of his movies, all lightweight comedies, someone else was always funnier. Sure, he’s a comedian, but more for falling down (his classic SNL parody of Gerald Ford) and smirking than for quickness and wit. Though many thought he’d inherit Johnny Carson’s job as host on the Tonight Show, Johnny said of Chase, "He couldn't ad lib a fart at a baked bean dinner". Johnny missed the point. Chevy was surrounded by the best ad libbers ever. He was hired as SNL’s head writer for the likes of John Belushi, Gilda Radner and Bill Murray. He played straight man for Richard Pryor in a racially charged skit that included the N word and ended with a bug-eyed, boiling over Pryor hissing, “Dead Honky”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bl9I7IUFKu4&feature=related

YouTube won’t even show the original.  It’s too hot. Chevy never had to be the funniest guy on stage and never could. And he never tried to be. We liked him because he was willing to be the tag along, second fiddle, prat-falling straight guy. His line, “I’m Chevy Chase and you’re not” wasn’t directed at Belushi, it was aimed straight at us. He was the dumb schmuck lucky enough to be up there on stage with greatness. He was one of us. While Belushi and Pryor have crashed and burned, Chase has grayed, gained some weight and rolled back onto TV for NBC in some sit-com that I’ll likely never see.

If Chevy was great in any comedic role, it was as host of SNL’s Weekend Update. In the tradition of Laugh-In’s Look at the News, he satirized the week’s news stories. Even better, Update introduced editorial comments from the likes of Roseanne Roseannadanna, Emily Litella (“Never mind.”), John Belushi (”But nooooo...”) and many other cast members and guests. When Jane Curtin took over Chevy’s role in 1976, she added Point/Counterpoint which immortalized her as everyone’s favorite “ignorant slut”.

News today is even worse than in 1976 and it is not surprising that most of our 16 to 30 year olds get it from Jon Stewart’s Daily Show. Despite being a comedian, Stewart has been voted our most admired and trusted news anchor. He has a keen nose for political hypocrisy and probably invented the technique of using video clips to catch politicians making blatantly contradictory statements. He, like Chevy, says nothing and instead, rolls his eyes to make his point. He lacks Chevy’s physical presence. He is short, slim and a bit of a Nebbish. Of course, it follows that he is a Mets fan. While Chevy is a New York blue blood, descended from the Mayflower, Stewart, nee Leibowitz, grew up in New Jersey, proposed to his wife in a crossword puzzle, at times sucks up to guests and has socialist leanings. His gift, more than his razor sharp wit or his willingness to let his righteous anger show on stage, is his heart. After 9/11 he showed that heart at a time when he knew we were not ready for comedy:

The view... from my apartment... was the World Trade Center... and now it's gone, and they attacked it. This symbol of American ingenuity, and strength, and labor, and imagination and commerce, and it is gone. But you know what the view is now? The Statue of Liberty. The view from the South of Manhattan is now the Statue of Liberty. You can't beat that.

No argument here. I’m happy my kids get their news from Stewart. As Chevy would say, “Good night and have a pleasant tomorrow”.

Amazing Grace

Armando Galarraga, a fourth year pitcher for baseball’s Detroit Tigers, was robbed of a perfect game last week by an umpire’s bad call at first base. Galarraga was one out away from being only the 21st pitcher in baseball history to pitch to and get out 27 batters in a row when the umpire called a man safe at first. Instant replay, not allowed under these circumstances in Major League Baseball, clearly showed the batter to be out. The umpire later admitted that he had made a terrible call. In the heat of the moment, Galarraga, a 28 year old Venezuelan, smiled, waited for his manager’s confrontation with the umpire to end, went back to the pitcher’s mound and calmly got the last out. In post-game interviews, he said that he held no animosity toward the umpire because umpires are human and like us all, make mistakes.

In the hundreds of media commentaries that followed this imperfect perfect game, the word most often used to describe Galarraga was grace. The word seemed to fit, but the more I thought about it, the more I wasn’t sure exactly what it meant. I understand graceful. That’s a big reason why I like watching sports…the play of a shortstop can be as beautiful, graceful as the moves of a ballerina. But grace is not graceful. Grace carries with it strong Christian overtones that I, as a Jew, just did not have ingrained in me as part of my upbringing. As Alexander Pope said, “To err is human; to forgive divine”. Were baseball’s pundits comparing Galarraga to God?

I went to the dictionary and looked up grace:

1. elegance or beauty of form, manner, motion, or action.
2. a pleasing or attractive quality or endowment.
3. favor or good will.
4. a manifestation of favor, esp. by a superior: It was only through the dean's grace that I wasn't expelled from school.
5. mercy; clemency; pardon: an act of grace.
6. favor shown in granting a delay or temporary immunity.
7. an allowance of time after a debt or bill has become payable granted to the debtor before suit can be brought against him or her or a penalty applied: The life insurance premium is due today, but we have 31 days' grace before the policy lapses. Compare grace period.
8. Theology.
• the freely given, unmerited favor and love of god.
• the influence or spirit of God operating in humans to regenerate or strengthen them.
• a virtue or excellence of divine origin: the Christian graces.
• Also called state of grace. the condition of being in God's favor or one of the elect.
9. moral strength: the grace to perform a duty.
10. a short prayer before or after a meal, in which a blessing is asked and thanks are given.
11. (usually initial capital letter) a formal title used in addressing or mentioning a duke, duchess, or archbishop, and formerly also a sovereign (usually prec. by your, his, etc.).
12. Graces, Classical Mythology. the goddesses of beauty, daughters of Zeus and Eurynome, worshiped in Greece as the Charities and in Rome as the Gratiae.
13. Music. grace note.

With the help of dictionary.com, especially the second and third bullets under 8 above, it becomes clear that when a human is severely wronged and is able to smile, remain calm, not attack his offender, finish the job at hand and then forgive, many of us see the inner beauty as coming from God. Maybe it does. Aren’t we all made in God’s image? If so, image is not enough. Go ask Serena, John McEnroe or that Pakistani squash player from my February “Schwing!” blog. They showed anything but grace in their outrageous court behaviors. Galarraga not only had grace, he had grace under fire. For some, like Gandhi or Martin Luther King, that quality did come from a spiritual strength. I know nothing about Galarraga’s faith. To me, he just seems like a happy guy. For some reason, Venezuelans are, by World Value Survey, among the happiest people in the world. I think that one cannot have grace under fire without an inner peace, whether from religion, spirituality, a Caribbean “don’t worry, be happy” mentality or even Prozac. No matter…Galarraga’s perfect game with its asterisk is more perfect than any other because of his grace. 

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong.” Gandhi 

"We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love." Martin Luther King, Jr. 

“When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realized that the Lord doesn't work that way so I stole one and asked Him to forgive me.” Emo Philips

A Parent's Blessing

Graduation season is upon us in the Benjamin family. It’s a season full of so many thoughts and emotions, it’s hard to sort them all out, let alone make any sense of them. And that’s just for me, a proud parent, one slowly, reluctantly, resignedly further loosening the ties and hoping the prodigal daughter will find her way in life.

Dustin Hoffman was The Graduate, and coincidently, was also a Benjamin. The idea for this blog post came to me last month as I watched The Graduate on television. Hoffman’s Benjamin character, in the movie’s defining moment, burst out of his car and ran in the drenching rain away from Mrs. Robinson, to her daughter Elaine to tell her about his affair with her mother. As Benjamin leaves the screaming and hysterical Elaine, Mrs. Robinson, physically diminished, cowering in the hallway with dripping hair and running mascara verbally rises to put the knife into his emotional wounds with a cruel, victorious “Goodbye Benjamin”.

I wasn’t afraid for Benjamin. I’ve seen the movie at least 20 times and know that he recovers from this trauma, finally sees a future for himself, goes for it and gets the girl in the end. Like any parent, I did give a thought or two about how the graduate got himself into such a mess. On a completely different level, I recognized the brilliance of Mike Nichols, specifically the movie’s water imagery. The cleansing rain, the womb-like depths of Benjamin’s suburban swimming pool, the naked exposure of the opening scene’s fish in their tank. No doubt about it, The Graduate is a great movie, one of the best ever. When my mind stopped wandering, I was left with one thought: What is it to be a Benjamin?

Clearly, you can’t dismiss us with a “Goodbye”. We’ll take that as a challenge and end up with the girl and the last laugh. Is our attitude that it’s All About the Benjamins? I don’t think so (though some wives and in-laws may disagree). I never even saw that movie. Having a couple Benjamins in your pocket is a good thing, but for us, it’s not about the money. We are a tribe, descended from the youngest son of Jacob and his most beloved wife Rachel.

Benjamin was originally named Ben-oni, “the son of my sorrow” as Rachel died giving birth to him. Jacob renamed him “the son of the right” which most interpret as meaning strong and virtuous, as in right hand man. Benjamin was a full brother to Joseph who’s other brothers sold him into slavery and who went on to be advisor to the king of Egypt. Benjamin was held captive by Joseph and used to trick Jacob into coming to Egypt. When Jacob died he blessed each of his sons. His blessing for Benjamin was, “Benjamin is a ravening wolf, in the morning he devours the prey, in the evening he snatches a share of the spoil” (Genesis 49:27). This was a blessing, not a curse. Benjamin went on to live a life that was so blessed that it is said he was one of only four men in eternity to die without sin. There’s good in being strong, self-sufficient, self-sustaining and grabbing for what you feel is rightly yours. Yeah, that sounds like a Benjamin.

Wolves are not always loners, and as I said above, we are members of a tribe. The tribal mentality carries with it the connotation of fierce loyalty. The tribe of Benjamin was attacked and almost completely wiped out by the other eleven tribes in Biblical times when they refused to surrender a group of rapists and murderers to justice. 600 Benjamins survived and took wives from the other tribes. They went on to give birth to the first king of Israel, Saul, who was a Benjamin. Mordachi and Esther were Benjamins. In the Bible it says we taught our sons to fight left handed in order to have an edge in battle. We are strong, selfish, clever, insanely loyal and enduring.

So, graduate Benjamins, in conclusion, I leave you with a word. No, it’s not “Plastics”. Had Benjamin taken that advice he’d only have had a job. I said it already. It’s not about the money. The word is family. We gave birth to you. We raised you. We taught you tricks to get ahead. We are in your DNA. We will fiercely defend you. We will let go and know you will sustain yourself and grab for your share. Go with our blessing. Find out what makes you laugh out loud like Benjamin and Elaine in the back of that city bus. Your happiness is our happiness. That is family.

A Doctor's Week

I had a good week at work this past week. In the world of medicine, that’s a rarity these days. Not that I don’t feel good about what I do. As a physician, not a day goes by when I don’t help someone. I earn a good income and feel good about providing well for my family. I exercise my mind with diagnostic challenges and do endoscopic procedures that, like any good video game, are still fun after 25 years. Sadly, the meddling of insurance companies and government and the poor state of our economy have combined to ruin the doctor patient relationship. When caring and trust are replaced by indifference and mutual mistrust, practicing medicine is like any unpleasant job where you are just happy to have the week end.

My week ended with a funeral. I don’t normally attend patients’ funerals. As a specialist, I don’t usually form close, long-term relationships with my patients. I see them once and maybe again 5-10 years later. Also, if there’s a funeral, someone, including me, is going to think that if the patient’s dead, the doctor is somehow to blame. When I was ready to back out on attending this funeral, Barbara reminded me that even though I only knew the woman for one month, I have known the family for many years. She says funerals are for the family. I went to high school with one of her sons in law and have stayed friends over the years. I have seen his family grow, and have gotten to know and like his wife and her family in a hello at poolside kind of way. I never met her mother until she arrived from Florida and ended up in the Stamford Hospital ER with GI bleeding. I was consulted to diagnose and treat the bleeding, but once I read the medical reports the family brought up from Florida, I knew that the bleeding was only one manifestation of a widespread, rapidly growing and soon to be fatal malignancy. Over the next month I helped the patient, a retired nurse, and her family anticipate, understand and deal with issues such as nutrition and pain control. When other physicians promoted aggressive therapies, I made sure the patient and family stayed focused on realistic expectations and goals. When I made a house call last week I sensed a calm sadness in the patient that was mirrored in her two daughters. I was not surprised that she passed a few days later. I was surprised, though, to receive the news in a tearful bedside phone call from her daughters and husband. They called to thank me for my medical expertise and human kindness. They thanked me again at the funeral, the husband with a very public bear hug and a card that he put in my pocket. It was good to see a family so full of love, to know that I helped them and to be recognized and thanked for what I do.

Usually there’s no love and no thanks. It’s up to me to know I do it well and do it right. Earlier this week I did not give into pressure from a hospital internist and oncologist and refused to surgically put a feeding tube into the stomach of a terminal esophageal cancer patient. His problem wasn’t that he couldn’t eat; his esophagus was kept open by a stent. He was just in too much pain from a spine that had been replaced by tumor. I felt good about recommending high dose pain medication and Hospice care.

Midweek I refused to prescribe a new medication over the phone to a patient who I hadn’t seen in a year, who had stiffed me for her copay, who said she was out of work and couldn’t afford to see me, whose insurance wouldn’t pay for her old medication and who needed medication “now!” because she was going on vacation. I got her to come into the office, pay her year old copay and make an appointment. In return, my secretary gave her samples of her old medication to last her a week. I’ll likely never see her again, but got a kick out of her chutzpah and 20 bucks to boot.

At the end of the week I performed a difficult colonoscopy on a bleeding 73 year old, located and stopped his bleeding and saved him from having half of his colon removed. Despite being a working professional, he had little insight before or after as to the significance of his bleeding. He expressed no gratitude afterwards, only irritation that I had him admitted to the hospital for observation. Still, I know that I did good.

Some career choice, huh? And that’s what I call a good week! No regrets. I like what I do. So, can someone out there tell me how we got into this healthcare mess? Let’s talk about it sometime, say over a game of tennis. I like the weekends too.

Schwing!

The Vancouver Olympics end today after the men’s ice hockey finals this afternoon between Canada and the US. It’s been a wonderful two weeks for me with TV coverage on three different networks that I recorded on DVR, scanned at super fast forward and either viewed or erased. No ads, minimal fluff, no 10,000 K cross country skiing, but some amazing individual and team performances. To the credit of NBC, they kept the jingoism down, and though they are probably obliged to highlight the accomplishments of the US athletes, they gave plenty of time and credit to the host nation, Canada. There were two bits of fluff that I actually liked. The first told the story of Gander, the small town in Newfoundland that on 9/11/2001 took in all of the passengers from US bound flights that were diverted to eastern Canada when US airspace was closed down. The 10,000 citizens of Gander took in 7,000 passengers and crew, housed them, fed them, gave them emotional support and accepted no money in return.

The second was a piece on Canada’s many outstanding comedians. There’s Mike Myers, John Candy, Jim Carrey, the first for me; Dan Aykroyd, and loads more. Some say that the long Canadian winters induce a form of insanity that produces comedians. Others theorize that it’s the authoritative society that creates rebels that fight back with humor. I don’t buy that one. How many really funny people come out of Switzerland? Part of the answer, at least since 1977, is Lorne Michaels, the founder and producer of Saturday Night Live. He is from Toronto and no doubt sought to promote the careers of fellow Canadians. He didn’t make Rick Moranis and Eugene Levy funny but he did give them a forum for the development and broadcasting of their talents.

Despite the Olympics and all the hype surrounding it, the biggest sports story for me in the past two weeks came right out of New Haven, CT. The US collegiate team squash finals took place in a match between Trinity College and Yale. Trinity, the number 1 team in the US for the past 12 years, was led by senior, Baset Chaudhry, a 6’5’’ player from Lahore, Pakistan. Yale’s top player was a 5’8” freshman from Singapore, Kenneth Chan. Chaudhry has been the best player in the US for the past three years. He was undefeated this year and beat Chan handily in their previous meeting. According to his coach, he is an excellent student and a popular figure on campus. His parents came from Pakistan and were in New Haven to see his last team match. At the end of the match, which Chaudhry won in straight sets, he had a Serena-esque meltdown in which he physically confronted and verbally attacked his defeated opponent. The outburst was caught on tape and featured on ESPN’s Sports Center:

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=4949438

The ESPN piece was presented by Merril Hoge, an ex-NFL running back, cancer survivor and motivational speaker. Hoge presented the frightening incident with a smirk and joked about the towering Chaudhry’s intimidation of Chan. As his co-commentators chuckled in the background, he quickly and condescendingly explained away the game of squash, and then went on to talk about buttocks seals and verbal spraying. The only reason the sport of squash received any national coverage was because one of its top players acted badly, one might say like a football player. Whereas antisocial behaviors such as fighting and trash talking are condoned or encouraged in many sports, they are not a part of squash which actually has Ethics Guidelines. To his credit, Chaudhry, once past the heat of battle, apologized to every team and coach in collegiate squash and ultimately punished himself by withdrawing from the national individual tournament, giving up his last chance to defend his two time championship. ESPN did not report this in follow-up.

Merril Hoge may see himself as a motivator who can help us “Find a Way” in life, but he and ESPN missed the boat on this one. We need to decide as a nation if the way to success includes behaviors that injure others and whether such behaviors such as drug use, bullying, trash talking, robbery, rape and murder are excusable in those who have achieved great success. Maybe we should just be a bit Canadian, include good deeds in our definition of success and learn to tell a good joke. Schwing!

I’ll Bring the Kleenex

I hope you readers took the time to view the last YouTube clip in my “What a Dog” blog. It showed the ingénue, Cameron Diaz, in the role of a nightclub performer who dropped men’s jaws and induced howls and whistles. An actress only gets to be an ingénue once, and Cameron made the most of it. I tried to divert your attention from her clinging, shimmering gold sequined dress to the sexily dubbed singing voice, but once she let her fingers play down the right side of that dress, who could notice the voice? Perhaps ingénue is not the correct word as it implies naiveté and innocence more than newness to acting. Lauren Bacall, 50 years earlier, was a similarly sultry ingénue in her first role as Slim in “To Have and Have Not”. She even taught her man, Humphrey Bogart, how to whistle:

You know you don't have to act with me, Steve. You don't have to say anything, and you don't have to do anything. Not a thing. Oh, maybe just whistle. You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and... blow.

Diaz and Miss Bacall had similar beginnings. Cameron left the beaches of Southern California at the age of 16, signed on with an agency and spent the next five years as an international model. Bacall began modeling in New York City at the age of 17. She appeared on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar, was noticed by director Howard Hawk’s wife Nancy, was invited to Hollywood for a screen test and the rest is history. Nancy Hawk helped her develop her style in clothes and her trademark seductively low voice. Miss Bacall lured Humphrey Bogart from his wife all on her own.

Cameron went from temptress in The Mask to angel in the Charlie’s Angels movies. She played a ditzy blond on screen and began to play the potty mouthed bad girl off screen and in the Tabloids. I’m sure for her it seemed the right move, but can a woman who used Ben Stiller’s semen as hair mousse (Something About Mary) ever be taken as a serious actress? To her credit, when she doesn’t have to appear in a film, she does a great job. She is a perfect Princess Fiona in the Shrek movies. Sweetness with an edge, and a tolerance for us donkeys.

In my house, Cameron Diaz is best known for one of her lines from Charlie’s Angels, “I love tickets”, which she delivered in response to a potential suitor’s line, “I’ll get tickets”. Though endlessly repeating movie lines is a decidedly male annoyance, even the women in my family will almost smile when I respond, “I love tickets”. And I do, both repeat the line and love tickets. Have you noticed that many of my blogs make references to movies?

Some of my love of the movies is genetic. My father grew up in the pre-TV era and would spend all afternoon Saturdays at the movies for a quarter. The Brooklyn theaters would have serials, Flash Gordon and the like, newsreels, a double feature and contests with prizes for the kids. My maternal grandfather, Julius Davis, loved movies and would laugh and weep audibly, a strange sight for a ten year old me to witness in a public Manhattan theater. My grandmother Florence, who was a very controlling and in control woman, explained that he cried because he had strong emotions that just came out at the movies. Their's was an old world marriage. He practiced medicine, sat in his chair and read newspapers and journals. She managed the home, help, children, social calendar, vacations…basically everything and everyone else. She was always very protective of him. We had to be quiet during his daily nap. We couldn’t sit in his chair. My aunt Dorothy wouldn’t eat lox because my grandparents threatened to put locks on the door if she kept going into my grandfather’s office. After his second heart attack Florence stayed home with him for three months. When she finally thought he was well enough to be home without her, she went out to join her sisters for their weekly card game. He was not home when she returned. A panic followed. The police found him that night in a city hospital morgue. He had been found dead in the back row of a Broadway movie theater. We’ll never know the whole story. No doubt he took advantage of my grandmother’s afternoon out to take a walk on a beautiful summer day. One possible scenario: he developed chest pain and ducked into an air conditioned movie theater to sit down and rest. A second scenario: he liked movies but the one he chose was too much for his weak heart. Either way, he died in a place where his feelings could be freely and openly expressed. I express mine there too. Join me sometime. You can buy the popcorn. I’ll bring the Kleenex.

What a Dog

Have I mentioned that I like to sing in the shower? Perhaps not. It’s not something I tell everyone. It used to embarrass my kids. They’d insist that there be at least 3 closed doors between my shower and their ears. A lot of good that did—they both know my whole repertoire, down to the third verses. Shower acoustics make all of our voices echo with a resonance that most of us can’t create with our limited breath support and vocal skills. The humidity helps too, along with the hot water that relaxes tense muscles, and the privacy and nudity that disinhibit and free us to experiment and let loose. So what, you say. We all sing in the shower. Granted, but you don’t sing what I sing, and I’d like to share some of that music with you. Relax; I am not extending 6:30 AM invites to anyone. You don’t have to listen to me either. Just take some time to check out the real singers on YouTube using the links below. Smiles and surprises, I promise.

Miss Peggy Lee was born in 1920 in North Dakota. From small town radio to Hollywood clubs, she made it to Benny Goodman’s big band as his featured vocalist. She acted, wrote music and lyrics and continued to perform into her 70s. She has been compared to The Great Gatsby’s Daily Buchanan; “she brings others close to her with the softness of her voice. There’s a creamy warmth to the tone of her voice that gives it a sensually conspiratorial quality”. (Discovering Great Singers of Classic Pop By Roy Hemming and David Hajdu; Newmarket Press, 1991). For me, her voice is cream, honey and sex. Everyone has covered her seminal Fever, including me in the shower. I like to deliver the line, “Julie, baby, you’re my flame”, in a voice that’s a mix of Charlie the Tuna and Andrew Dyce Clay. He’s a Tramp from Disney’s Lady and the Tramp is another of my Peggy Lee songs. She wrote the lyrics and was the voice of that bushy tailed junkyard vixen who made all the male dogs howl (don’t miss the link below). I change “He’s” to She’s and “rover” to big tease. It works for me. She also wrote the Siamese Cat song and was the voice of both cats. I don’t do that one. I’m more of a dog guy.

Another Peggy Lee classic that I don’t do is Why Don't You Do Right (see link). As a guy, there are some songs that just don’t cross over, unless you’re willing to go Outrageous! (classic flick) and do the drag thing. I admit, I do sing Johnny Mathis’ When Sunny Gets Blue and Misty, but I still prefer Jessica Rabbit’s shape to Roger’s. Jessica, by the way, covered Why Don’t You Do Right (see link) vamping to a gape-jawed Bob Hoskins. My jaw dropped too when I discovered who gave Jessica her voice. Believe it or not, it was Amy Irving. She was, you may remember, the girl in Carrie, Yentyl, and Crossing Delancy. She also happened to be married to Steven Spielberg in 1988 when Who Framed Roger Rabbit was released. Spielberg founded Amblin Entertainment. Amblin made Roger Rabbit. I don’t think it was a coincidence that she got the job. And I am absolutely sure that Amy Irving sang in the shower. Not good enough, though. They divorced in 1989.

The last link is for those of you who prefer the real thing to cartoon characters. Cameron Diaz knocked everyone’s socks off in her film debut, The Mask. The body and moves are hers, but the voice belongs to Susan Boyd, a journeywoman singer and actor who you can see in reruns of Happy Days. The wolf in the audience is Jim Carrey who is a cartoon character with or without the celluloid.

Enough words. It’s time for you to get a taste of the Indomitable Miss Peggy Lee and Jessica/Amy/Cameron/Susan doing their thing. Then, if you really want to laugh, picture yours truly singing Miss Lee in the shower. “Fever ‘till you sizzle. What a lovely way to burn”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cO3hrVaVzP0&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdqvX-n25gs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yy5THitqPBw&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfjuZVG4wGM&feature=related

With A Capital T

I volunteered to give a Grand Rounds talk to the Stamford Hospital Medical Staff on a topic that is hot in Gastroenterology and has been bugging every GI doc in the US for the past year. The topic is the use of anti-acid Proton Pump Inhibitor medications (Prilosec, Nexium, Protonix, etc.) along with Plavix, a blood thinner that is used, among other things, to prevent clotting of coronary artery stents. Last year a French study said that PPIs could interfere with the anti-platelet effect of Plavix and possibly cause coronary stents to clot off leading to heart attacks and death. That single study, which was done in test tubes, not lab animals or people, was publicized by the news media, embraced by cardiologists and pharmacists, and has caused many doctors to have their patients stop taking PPIs. It has also caused many patients to stop taking PPIs on their own or at least question their Internist, Cardiologist and/or Gastroenterologist. Last November the FDA got into the act and now recommends against the use of both Prilosec and Nexium with Plavix.

I am in the process of deciding how to approach my talk and hope to use you, my readers and friends, as a sounding board to help me focus and organize my thoughts. Let me jump to the bottom line first. Although some PPIs do interfere with the activation of Plavix in the test tube, in real life prospective studies published in the past year, done on people, there has been no increase in heart attacks or death in those co-treated with PPIs and Plavix. The only increase in morbidity (bad stuff happening short of death) or mortality has been secondary to GI bleeding from stopping the PPI. PPIs have been proven to heal ulcers and protect against GI bleeding. If someone has an ulcer or some other GI lesion that could bleed, drugs like Plavix make the bleeding much more severe and difficult to stop. America’s foremost Cardiologist, Eugene Braunwald, the Harvard guy who writes the foremost Cardiology textbook, wrote a paper saying that we should not stop PPIs in our patients who are taking Plavix but rather get back to thinking about preventing GI bleeding. Still, I get calls daily about my patients being taken off PPIs because they have been told the whole class of drugs will cause them to have a stroke, heart attack or die.

Am I the only doctor reading the literature? No, I’m not. I’m going to try not to let my anger or frustration get in the way during my talk. The studies are out there and I’ll present them. That, however, is not enough for me. I’d like to open a discussion on how we doctors do or should respond to new medical studies, all of which these days appear in newspapers, TV news, talk shows and the like. Do we give in to mass hysteria? Do we wait for corroboration or expert opinion? Do we act based on how it affects our income?

Last spring I gave another Grand Rounds, along with a panel that included a cardiologist and hematologist, on the use of blood thinners in patients having GI endoscopic procedures. The PPI/Plavix issue had just started and I was asked for my opinion. What I said was that more study of the topic was needed, as in fact was recommended by the original study’s authors. In the interim, because of the serious question of stents clotting off, heart attacks and death, I said that it would be prudent to use another anti-acid medication if possible and to make sure if a PPI was to be used along with Plavix, that it was being used for a strong indication. Now, a year later I’d like to practice evidence based medicine and tell my patients not to stop their PPI even if they get a new stent and are put on Plavix. Unfortunately, with Cardiologists and Pharmacists, not to mention the FDA, still saying to stop the PPI, I can’t, without creating discord and setting myself up for potential litigation if a bad outcome would occur. I’m facing a tail wags the dog situation where the established untruth trumps evidence and expert opinion. That’s what I’d really like to talk about.

There are billions of healthcare dollars being spent on unproven procedures and treatments. Even when expert guidelines and recommendations exist (remember my mammography blog?), public opinion and inertia and fear and greed rule. I wonder how popular a theme that would be for grand rounds? Better, I guess, to be a team player, give the public what they want and let me and my colleagues keep selling you stuff you don’t understand and can't use—to use a Music Man analogy, expensive musical instruments that you teach yourselves to play by concentrating, Professor Harold Hill’s think system. Friends, we got trouble right here in River City. That’s Trouble with a capital T that rhymes with P and that stands for PPIs and Plavix.

Harold Hill: A man can't turn tail and run just because a little personal risk is involved. What did Shakespeare say? "Cowards die a thousand deaths, the brave man... only 500"?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s60hOgqLFGg