Lenny Bruce was not afraid.

For those of you who are now humming, "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)," you're welcome. For those of you who know the lyrics because you:

• Owned the REM cassette tape, Document.
• Sat in bed with nothing more than your notebook, pencil, Walkman, and teenage angst, pressing Play, Pause, Rewind, Play over-and-over and-over until you captured each and every word...

Well done. For those of you who did it any other way (even because you were born after 1987 and have never heard of a company called Memorex), you're a poseur (you know who you are).  All jokes aside, ironically enough, this post has NOTHING to do with that song. It's actually about Lenny Bruce.  

If you don’t know much about him, you should Google him. If you love him, then you already know that he inspired almost every comedian since then, and – if he didn’t inspire them, at the very least he set the precedent which protected them from being arrested for using obscenities on stage. That’s right, if you like George Carlin, Margaret Cho, Louis CK, Eddie Murphy, Richard Pryor, Rita Rudner, Chris Rock, Adam Sandler, Robin Williams, or anyone else who ever told a dirty joke – you should thank Lenny Bruce.

Now, at the risk of only giving you the Reader’s Digest condensed version of history, the story goes something like this… He was arrested in 1961 for using the term, “Schmuck,” on stage. Then he was arrested again in 1962 and twice more in 1964 on similar charges… by undercover cops who were in the audience documenting every word that came out of his mouth. At his trial in 1964, free thinkers like Woody Allen, Bob Dylan, Allen Ginsberg, Norman Mailer, and others testified that it was a violation of free speech, which is guaranteed by the First Amendment. Regardless, he was convicted, sentenced, and died during the Appeal process. He later received a full posthumous gubernatorial pardon, the first and only in New York history. 

You know, they say no one reads the retraction on page five, but Lenny Bruce may be the exception to that rule. His pardon said, “If you are an adult and you bought a ticket, you consented to the content. If you don’t like it, leave. He didn’t come to your house and hold you hostage. You paid to watch him perform. ” Amen Lenny, Amen.

That said… he went too far. Unfortunately, the process bankrupted him, and I mean that in every sense of the word – financially, spiritually, and comedically. Initially, no one would book his show because they feared the police would be in the audience and everyone would get busted. Then, no one booked his act because he stopped being funny. He was so disgusted and depleted by the lack of protection from that kind of brutality that at times he would simply sit on stage and read the First Amendment into the microphone. 

Please don’t ever let me become so bitter that I’m more consumed by anger than laughter. Please don’t let me go down a slippery slope where I become that person. You know who I’m talking about… that crazy lady on the block who mumbles and hands out feral kittens on Halloween. The woman who opens the door dressed like Miss Havisham from Great Expectations, and you’re like, “Nice costume.” And she says, “What are you talking about? I just got home from work.” And even the kids are like, “Thanks for the rabid cat and the chewing gum, ma’am” but are actually thinking, “She’s fucking insane. Can we please leave?” And because this is about Lenny Bruce, don’t be angry about that joke. Those kids learned that word from their parents – not the crazy woman who answered the door. But I digress. What I’m trying to say is… please don’t let that happen to me - where one day you’re fine, then the next day you drive to work in a dirty wedding dress and people refuse to make eye contact with you. 

That shit happens (or so I’m told). 

Anyway… the POINT of this post is to apologize for the recent lack of humor in my other ones. Life has been hard lately, very hard, but whose isn’t? Besides, Lenny’s legacy wasn’t simply fighting for what’s right. It was his brilliant sense of timing and an uncanny, unfiltered, uncensored ability to laugh and make us laugh – at him, at life, and at ourselves. 

With that, all I have to say to you is this, “LEONARD BERNSTEIN!” Well, that and talk to you later.   

To quote Mumford & Sons, “I’m a cad but I’m not a fraud.”

Last month, on Real Time with Bill Maher, California Lieutenant Governor, Gavin Newsom, said something that resonated with me, “Stand on principles, then lean in.” Now, if you know me, then you know that I don’t know anything about baseball or boxing, but I understand the point… Be ready. Put your back into it and your full weight behind it. It’s going to hurt like Hell either way and Eleanor Roosevelt said it best, “Do what you feel in your heart to be right. You’ll be criticized regardless.”

Where has that gone? How has the truth become what’s decided by polling the masses? To bring it back to Bill Maher, “This is the fallacy of argumentum ad numerum, the idea that something is true because great numbers believe it, as in "Eat shit. Twenty trillion flies can't be wrong." Don’t misunderstand me. I agree in compromise. I don’t even see it as, “Neither one of us got what we wanted.” I believe, “We both gave up something and we met in the middle. I respected your input, values and perspective, and I appreciate that you respected mine. We saw it differently but true diversity of thought produces real solutions.” Where has that gone?

Or am I simply now that middle-aged cliché, who sits there and says, “Well, when I was younger…” 

I don’t know. Thomas Jefferson wrote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident…” and there are certain facts that are simply facts. Again, maybe I’m now simply “of that generation,” who thinks, “Hmmm – you don’t get to make up lies and debate me with them. You don’t get to sidestep facts because they are inconvenient or you don’t like them. And SIMPLY because you say something over and over and over doesn’t make it real.” For the record, it makes it annoying. I just don’t know…

Maybe I’m having an existential crisis because I cannot stop myself from mentally meandering down this rabbit hole. I mean it. Lately, if you were to see me in my car at a stop-light, you would be JUST as likely to catch me bringing it like Madonna during the Superbowl as you would be to witness me giving a person with Tourette’s Syndrome a run for their money over something I heard on the news.

As they say in Vegas, it’s a crap-shoot. 

And I don’t know why it makes me angry, but it does. Actually, scratch that. It infuriates me. Maybe it’s because I hate wondering whether or not I’m an idiot for playing by the rules and being honest. Or maybe it’s because I resent the fact that the status-quo forces me wonder about this AT ALL. Seriously, in 2013, shouldn’t we be far enough along as a species to say, “Yes, that’s a fact. Let’s collectively move forward and tackle another problem.” 

No, instead I find myself wondering if I should suspend my humanity and jump down to the low road to fight it out. Too bad my mother is right, “If you put your integrity on the table, someone will take it. Accept that. And, more importantly, never argue with an idiot. You’ll stoop to their level only to have them beat you out of experience alone… each and every time.” As a result, because I cannot lie, I have to accept the truth… often times I lose… and there is little solace in that but in the end – I am only responsible for my behavior. 

I guess I could take comfort in what John Adams said, “Always stand on principle....even if you stand alone.” I could try to find peace in his Holiness, the Dalai Lama’s, advice, “In any struggle, truth is the only weapon we possess." Or I could go big picture, and I mean that literally… I could take advice from the movie, “People like Us,” and live according to the following Six Rules of Life:

1. Don't like something just because you think other people will like it... because they won't.

2. What you think is important isn’t. What you think is unimportant is.

3. Lean into it.

4. Don't shit where you eat.

5. Most doors are closed - so if you want them to open, you need a cool knock.

6. Don't sleep with people who have more problems than you do.

It might not be eloquent, but it works for me. Like I said, I’m a cad but I’m not a fraud. Talk to you later.

I don’t mind straight people. I just wish they’d act gay in public.

Warning: This post requires me to pull out my soapbox and preach. I apologize in advance if it offends anyone. That truly isn't my intention. With that...

This week, the Supreme Court of the United States heard arguments for two incredibly important pieces of Civil Rights legislation:

• Proposition 8, the California ballot referendum (which passed) that banned same-sex marriage, reversing the state’s Supreme Court decision to already recognize marriage equality.
• The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), a federal law which recognizes only those unions that are comprised of a man and a woman.

Now, outside of the obvious, moral question, "should equality and fairness be extended to all US citizens," why is the highest court in our land adjudicating their legality? By overturning Prop 8, the Justices are saying that same-sex couples have the right to marry and that such a right should be extended to all states, making same-sex marriage a federal constitutional right… And why is that relevant? Because if they also overturn DOMA, the 1100 references to marriage contained in federal laws and regulations will also be applied to gay married couples... and it's about time. Actually, scratch that. It's not just an idea whose time has come. It's an idea that is long over-due.

I make it no secret that I advocate equality… equality regardless of gender, equality regardless of race, equality regardless of religion, and yes – equality regardless of sexual orientation. I’m the reason that gay men had prom dates in high school AND still have lunch dates today. And you will never convince me that the Federal government or any state has the right to deny someone the ability to marry someone they love. Because, let’s be honest… if heterosexuals like Rush Limbaugh and Karl Rove can get divorced and re-married as many as four times, don’t you think that gay couples should get the right to marry at least once? If felons who have committed heinous acts of violence can marry (from prison no less), shouldn’t two people who have never broken the law but happen to be the same gender be allowed to legally express their love? If the federal right already extends to interracial and interfaith marriages, why is this different? It’s not. 

Don’t get me wrong, it's not always easy to take the high-road. I have a very dear gay friend who loves to go to lunch together and act like we’re a straight couple. He says, “If I can’t take my husband on a date, you’re the next best thing.” And honestly… that infuriates me for three reasons:

• I have NO idea how I’ve become an “affection surrogate” for a gay man, when I'm happily married and so is he... just not to each other.
• I agree that, barring homosexuals, no other group in recent history has been subjected to popular referenda that take away rights which have already been given (as in Prop 8) or exclude those rights in general (as in DOMA).
• PEOPLE THINK WE’RE A COUPLE. No, really. People look at us and think, “WOW… look at that poor woman, she is SO clueless that she has NO idea her 'date' is gay.” I’m like Michele Bachmann (minus the great hair and crazy eyes).  

Also, the personal IS the political, and just a few weeks ago, at my step-son’s Chess tournament, I was sitting with my husband’s ex-wife (CL), whom I love. She is great with me and I honestly consider her part of the package I married into. That’s right, I got an amazing spouse, two beautiful step-kids, and her – a really great person and friend – out-of-the deal… but I digress. The point is that we were sitting there, passing her adorable new baby back-and-forth, laughing and chatting, when the coach came up to us and started talking.

Thinking nothing of it, CL said, “Do you know my son’s step-mother, mkromd?” He shook my hand, we finished chatting, and he walked away. Within seconds, I turned to my dear friend and said, “OH MY GOD… HE THINKS WE’RE LESBIAN PARTNERS.” After twenty minutes of laughing until we ached, I added, “And because you’re this gorgeous, fit, all-natural yoga teacher with an infant… you know he thinks I’m the soft-ball playing one in the relationship.” We didn’t know how to explain it to my husband/her ex-husband, so we just let him stare at us from the other side of the room. Poor DB, he looked like a deer caught in headlights.

Ahhh... good times.

At any rate, let me say this… the Supreme Court is set to rule in July. Let’s hope that, while Justice is a half-naked woman who is blind-folded and carrying a scale that’s far too heavy for her, she weighs the facts and sees the truth. Hatred is not a family value, at least not one that I care to practice.

Steamboat: I want to go to there

Before I can tell you that part of the story, I have to tell you this part first:

• The opposite of Progress is Congress, as in the US House of Representatives.
• No TV show will ever be as funny as 30ROCK, and I speak for every woman when I say, “I love you Tina Fey. Thank God life gives you Lemons sometimes.”
• Just because someone LOOKS like they’re tweaking out on meth… doesn’t mean they are, so don’t judge a book by its cover.

With that, once again – my travel karma was… par for the course. Half of our party couldn’t go; we flew in during a white-out; we flew back the day that Sequestration was scheduled to take effect; and - as usual, my face got so wind and sun burnt that it swelled, freckled and peeled. No, you read that right. My skin was actually flaking off.  

Seriously, if the journey of a hundred trillion cells begins with a single nibble, Hannibal Lector or someone on bath salts would have looked at me like a Tootsie-Roll pop and pondered exactly how many licks it would take to get to the center of me. Also…

I had to explain to someone that I was not on meth.

And, as there’s no polite or tactful way to explain what happened, I’m just going to say it. On the way home from Denver, I was at the airport, in the bathroom, near the sink area, BY MYSELF, when my cheeks and chin honestly felt like they were on fire. And I don’t mean a little itch. I mean the kind of itch that you should only scratch at home. Armed with nothing more than Chapstick, brown paper-towels and the sleeve of my Polar Fleece, I began a rub-fest that would send a Labrador Retriever to Nirvana. 

It went something like this:

• I rinsed my face with cold water.
• Dried it with the sleeve of my silky, soft Burton ski shell.
• Put Chapstick on a brown paper towel and proceeded to wax myself like a car.

Now, when you’re in said moment, you don’t pay attention to your surroundings. In fact, I would argue you’re so lost in total and complete bliss that you have absolutely no idea people are watching you. 

Turns out, one man’s heaven can be another man’s hell. Who knew?

Between the vigorous buffing I was doing and the low moan sounds I was making, the women who, unbeknownst to me, began flooding the bathroom, seemed to have one-of-two reactions:

• Don’t make eye contact with the Junkie at sink two, or
• I’ll have what she’s having.

Now, because I hate awkward and I always feel the need to explain myself, I turned to the person staring at me and said, “I swear I’m not scratching my face off because I’m on meth. I have a really bad sunburn and my DNA has been flaking off everywhere all day. You would NOT want to see this sink under a black light.” Sometimes I wish I would actually listen to the little voice in my head that says, “Please stop talking.” 

The GOOD news is that Steamboat was amazing. It was awesome spring skiing at its best. And, though I usually love doing different resorts every year, I may have lost my heart to Steamboat. To quote Tina Fey in 30ROCK, “I want to go to there.” Talk to you later.

The world breaks everyone...

Although I’m named after a character from my mother’s favorite Hemingway novel, I’ve never been a big fan of his. I never liked how punctuated his sentences were… or his thoughts for that matter. My mom, however, believes that everyone, writers and readers alike, could take a lesson from the old boy. So it’s no wonder that, last month, when she called to give me advice, her speech went something like this, “Look, we both know that I hate doing these things and that the whole ‘pep-talk’ part of parenting was really your father’s domain, but since he’s dead… I guess I have to do it.” To which I could only reply, “For future reference, when you say, ‘I guess I have to do it’ because ‘your dad is dead,’ it isn’t really a pep-talk.”

You cannot wonder how I became this person… 

But I digress, the point is that her honesty, though brutal, was well-warranted, well-timed and well-received. You see my mother is a big fan of stimulus-response. In fact, I cannot think of a time when she did not allow the natural consequences of my actions to occur – good and bad. Nor can I muster a single memory where that woman let me off the hook – big or small. 

Please allow me to elucidate….

I was a good kid. I got good grades. I didn’t party. I was responsible. I was… a nerd. But even nerds go rogue every now-and-then, including yours truly, and one time, I skipped school. Unfortunately, the Principal called her office and that night, at dinner, my mom asked how school was. Thinking I’d gotten away with it, I lied and said, “It was fine.” To which she immediately replied, “Really… because they said you weren’t there today. Don’t worry. I told them you wouldn’t be there tomorrow either.” 

Now… I don’t always read facial cues and for about three seconds I truly didn’t know whether to be scared shitless or tickled pink. Lucky for me, she clarified, and the next morning, when our long-time family friend/nanny/cleaning person/caregiver showed up for work, she said, “Your mom is paying me to watch you do my job. Here’s your list. Get started.” In a ten-thousand square-foot home, I scrubbed every floor, cleaned every bathroom, washed every dish, did every piece of laundry, and weeded EVERY.SINGLE.FLOWER.BED.IN.A.FOUR.ACRE.YARD. 

To this day, I’m convinced it’s the reason that I hate gardening… viscerally. 

At any rate, that night, my mom came home from work and asked me if I wanted to skip school again. Without an iota of dignity or pause I said, “No, no I don’t. Please let me go to school!” At that moment, she looked me in the face and said, “Child, if you think an education isn’t important, you can spend every day of your life doing exactly what you did today.” For the record, it worked. I never skipped school again… not even in college… not even when I was sick... and last month, as I was sobbing to my mother about how complicated my life has been for the last four months and how exhausted and depleted I am because of it, she finally told me about the fight she had with my father to discipline me that day. According to her, he said, “That’s pretty harsh. She’s a good kid. She just made a mistake. She doesn’t deserve to be treated like an indentured servant because of it.” 

But that’s not the important part, my mother’s reply to him is. Though they rarely fought, she told him, “I’m doing this because she’s a good kid. She is better than she is behaving. And if I let her off the hook, it tells her that I do not expect excellence from her because either I don’t see it in her or I believe she can’t deliver it… and we both know that child has it in her to make the right choice each and every time she has a choice to make. Besides… no one ever grew up to say ‘WOW I hate my parents for making me a successful human being.”   

Well, at forty-one, I finally understand why, shortly after that event, she gave my grandmother’s book of poetry to me. In a beautifully bound anthology of published prose, there is also a hand-written poem that her mother copied as a girl, and the poet she quoted is the one writer whom my mother and I love equally… Rudyard Kipling. The poem is If, and on the off-chance that you haven’t read it, you should. Not just because it’s well written but because it’s just good advice. And mother, because you’re reading this, I am so grateful that you made those words mean something to me just like grandma made them mean something to you.  

Also, for the record, you’re right. I can force my heart and nerve and sinew to do their jobs, no matter how broken, frayed and exhausted they are. And I know how to hold on in a storm when there is absolutely nothing in me except the will-power to do it. What's more, I can fill that God-forsaken, unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth of pure distance run. I can - and not because dad coddled me - but because you didn’t. So thank you.

By the way, at the risk of sounding like Nietzsche's Guide to Grief, you’re also right about Hemingway. He did say, “The world breaks everyone. Those that will not break… it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave… and it kills them impartially. If you are none of these, you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.” It's sad but it's true. That said, it's equally true that whether or not you stay broken is completely within your control.

OK, I’m off to Steamboat for a desperately needed reality break. I mean seriously… how bad could it be?

Chasing Amy… A comedy that tells it like it feels.

Happy 2013! I’m pleased to announce that during this year’s Hooray for Heifer Drive, thanks to your comments, I:

• Met a bunch of wonderful people all over the world and got to read their blogs.
• Learned that there is a LOT of passion out there for goats… but not in an odd or hot way.
• Was able to donate $35.00 to a really great organization.

So thank you… all of you. After the chaos of 2012, humanity needed a little push in the right direction, and – to quote one of my favorite songs of all times, I Still Believe, by Frank Turner, maybe “something so simple could save us all.”

With that, I have some other good news to share. Earlier this month, I got an e-mail from a friend who said that she had just gotten published and that her book is now available on Amazon. And, although I genuinely want to tell you to go buy it, I can’t, because, if you knew her name, it’d be too easy to get mine. And – in case you hadn’t noticed, I’m a huge fan of anonymity. I mean sure, while most of the people who read mkromd know me, some of you don’t. Some of you are visitors. And, to quote the lovely and talented actor, writer, and director, Kevin Smith, “I'm a big fan of anonymous visitors… especially the kind that makes coffee in the morning before they leave!” But I digress.

The point is that, all jokes aside, I began to wonder if I’ll ever become a real writer. Don’t get me wrong. I think Woody Allen is right, “I like writing. It keeps my mind off grim subjects. It's therapeutic in the same way a patient in an institution is given finger-paints.” But it’d be great to do it for a living, too. Also, for the record, don’t judge. I fully understand that focusing on my own agenda instead of celebrating my friend’s success makes me a bad person, but I think we’ve already established that I’m as shallow and competitive as a drag queen. I’m just not as fierce or as focused. If I were, I’d already be published.

Anyway… disclaimers disclaimed, my New Year’s Resolution is to give it a go. I’ve found a writing coach and am sending my manuscript to her for a full review. When I asked her to be gentle but firm, she said she’d “treat me like a proctologist who has abnormally large fingers.” Yes. Really. At the risk of over-sharing, I have to be honest, the second I read that I knew she was the right coach for me.

She also made me do some research to make sure that I really understood what this would entail… because if I didn’t, it would be nothing more than, “an expensive, time-consuming exercise in futility which was bound to end in nothing but misery and disappointment for every party involved.” Did I mention that her Pollyannaism is extremely contagious? Cause it is. At any rate,  as I started looking for information online, I stumbled across article after article about Amy Einhorn, who has published books like “The Help” and “Let’s Pretend this Never Happened.” They she has an “almost mystical editorial instinct,” and – in the spirit of full disclosure, I’ve read several of the writers she’s discovered. The people who say that about her are right. Each one of those books was excellent. Note: It should also be said that, after finishing the hundredth or so article, I felt the need to clean my Internet history… just in case somebody steals my laptop, goes through it, and thinks I’m some crazy stalker-chick. You laugh, but years ago, at another company, I left my PC in a conference room and someone hit the Back button in my Browser toolbar. No lie, it went to the home page for Guinness beer. Then they clicked it again, and it went to the homepage for Dunkin Doughnuts. Within minutes, a colleague called and said, “mkromd, did you lose your computer?” Yup.

Wish me luck, and once again – thanks for all of the wonderful comments. Happy New Year and go Heifer.