Trip to Austin......Part 5

We decided on this particular weekend in Austin because Slaid Cleaves was going to be playing at the Cactus Cafe, a small venue on the UT campus.  I discovered him when Felicia and I decided to drive to Stony Brook last October to celebrate our "anniversary of meeting."  She said "It looks like some guy named Slaid Cleaves is playing on campus."  She said she googled him and he's a singer/songwriter, who she thought she heard once on WFUV.  I said "That's enough info for me.  Get tickets and don't tell me any more about him.  Whatever it is, it is."

It is from such things that obsessions are born.  Slaid Cleaves is a singer/songwriter from Maine, who has settled in Austin.  He writes poignant, heart-felt songs.  He plays guitar and sings, and is usually accompanied by another guitar, or a fiddler, or a mandolin.  I'd say he combines elements of folk, country and rock.  I found an interview where he describes his style as "Americana".  I'll go with that.

When we saw him at Stony Brook there were about 80 people in the room.  Quite a few of them knew all the songs.  Two women sitting in front of us were crying during his song "Lydia".  Hearing it for the first time, I understood why.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PGGlepa-_U&feature=related   On first hearing, almost ALL his songs got into my head.  When that happens, all you can say is "This guy is good."  At that show in Stony Brook we bought his CD, listened to it on the way home, and were hooked.

I should add, that while it has no impact on ME, Felicia points out that "he is a really good looking guy."

We had tickets for the four of us, and my friend Phil, plus Rebecca's friend Eliza (who lives in Austin) and her Mom Debbie (who LOVES Slaid Cleaves).  We deviated from our "Tex-Mex for dinner" routine and had a great dinner of salad, gazpacho (made with fresh vegetable from Phil's garden) and pizza at Phil's house.  It was great fun for us all to get to know each other.  

I was a little surprised there was an opening act, a singer song-writer named Anthony DaCosta.  He was pretty good   http://anthonydacosta.com/  Between sets he was in the lobby selling his CD's and talking to people.  We were all trying to figure out how old he was.  I guessed he was about 30.  I suggested to Rebecca that she go talk to him, and buy a CD if she wanted to.  She did both, then came back and told us he was a 21 year old student at Columbia!!  

The Cactus Cafe was full (200 I would guess) with enthusiastic Slaid Cleaves fans.  He did not disappoint.  He was accompanied by a guy named ShoJo Jacques on fiddle and mandolin.  Here are a few youtube videos showing what he does....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNfvSIHL20s  Drinkin Days
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfmkGgqQhq0  Horseshoe Lounge
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TXSklbFBpU  Broke Down

Broke Down is a pretty impressive song.  Here are the lyrics....

Sherry had a pawn shop band of gold
A sink full of dishes and a love grown cold
Along came a boy, pretty as the devil
She took his hand, the whole thing unravelled

There's no turnin' round, it's broke down

Billy took the ring, jammed it in his pocket
Drove down town and tried to hock it
Down at the bottom of Lake Ponchartrain
There's a love not carved inside a wedding ring

Broke down, cracked and shattered
Left in pieces like it never even mattered
Broke down, torn and frayed, ain't nothin' left you could give away
There's no turnin' round, it's broke down

Ain't no tellin where love goes
Maybe down where the black river flows
Won't be comin' back round, it's broke down[ Lyrics from: http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/s/slaid_cleaves/broke_down.html ]
Baby in the back seat, and another on the way
Sherry thinks of Billy at the end of every day
Spends her nights waiting for real life to start
Listening to the sound of her double crossed heart

Broke down, cracked and shattered
Left in pieces like it never even mattered
There's no turnin' round, it's broke down

On the other side of town, two lovers lie still
Cigarette smokin' on a window sill
There's a picture locked up in an old suitcase
Billy closes his eyes but he still sees her face

Broke down, cracked and shattered
Left in pieces like it never even mattered
Broke down, torn and frayed, ain't nothin' left you could give away
There's no turnin' round, it's broke down, broke down



Slaid played all the songs we wanted to hear, plus a few new ones that were pretty darn good too.  After the show he was in the lobby and we spent some time talking with him.

Yes, I AM wearing a Slaid Cleaves T-shirt.  I mean, if not there, WHEN???

After the show we went with Phil and Eliza and Debbie to some funky ice cream/gelato place near Phil's house.  We sat outside in the pleasant night air.  

So, Whole Foods, Barton Springs, salad and pizza, Slaid Cleaves, gelato with friends.  What a day!!!!

Trip to Austin......Part 4

Saturday promised to be a busy day.  The agenda was "picnic lunch at Barton Springs" in the afternoon, then dinner at Phil Durst's house, then we were all going to the Slaid Cleaves concert.

We had passed a gigantic Whole Foods a few times.  I kind of remembered that Whole Foods originated in Austin, and a little research proved this correct.  I love doing "a little research" while on a trip.  Sometimes the cell phone can get the job done, but if not, you can't beat "internet on the computer in the hotel".  How did we ever survive in the primitive past?

It's hard to describe how big and how nice the Austin Whole Foods was.  Here's a link about it
http://restaurants.uptake.com/blog/whole-foods-grocery-store-austin-texas.html

Felicia said "This Whole Foods makes Fairway look like a bodega!"

We loaded up a fine assortment of appetizers, salads, sandwiches, cheeses, chips, and bottled water, and drove to Barton Springs.  This is a famous place in Austin, but I know many of my New York friends have never heard of it.  It's basically a natural spring that has been made into a gigantic swimming pool, in a huge beautiful park, with a big hill for sunbathing and hanging out, five or ten minutes from downtown.  I will admit, we were the oldest people there, and thinking about that, I say "GOOD".  You will sometimes see topless women there too.  (Not usually the ones you'd want to see, but hey, topless is topless).  Here's a cool link about Barton Springs from the City of Austin website.  http://austintexas.gov/department/barton-springs-pool

We sat in the picnic area and ate our Whole Foods grub.

Then we found a shady spot on a hill and hung out.  It was about 95 degrees, but not too bad in the shade.

I did go swimming.  It was VERY cold, but cooled me off.  Swimming is secondary to hanging out at Barton Springs.

Another great afternoon in Austin.   Then it was back to the hotel to shower and get ready to see Slaid Cleaves.  I KNOW.....WHO????  More on that in Part 5.

Trip to Austin.....Part 3

We decided to see a well known Austin attraction, the "bats who live in the Congress Avenue Bridge and fly out every night at sunset".  I did some online research and found out that 1,000,000 (yup, a million!!) bats sleep all day in the Congress Avenue Bridge, and every night at sunset they "fly out to feed".   I'm not sure why I wanted to see this, but I wanted to see it.  In fact, my whole family agreed that we wanted to see this.  Part of my thinking was....."if it doesn't measure up as a tourist attraction we will have still spent a nice sunset at the shore, and then we can go for Tex-Mex".  Everyone knew this was the plan, and were cool with it.  Here's a link about it

http://www.videocityguide.com/austin/listings/congress-bridge-bats

Like most things in Austin, the Congress Avenue Bridge was five minutes from our hotel.  The concierge (yup, he knew about the bats!) told us the Austin American Statesman (THE Austin newspaper) allowed bat watchers to park in their parking lot.  Sure enough.....

There were quite a few people waiting for the bats, and a lot of posted info about the bats.  We learned all about the natural phenomena that caused one MILLION bats to live in the bridge, sleep all day, and come out at night to feed.  There was even a bat expert walking around and answering people's bat questions.  She did point out that we were not at the height of the bat season, which is right after hundreds of thousands of bat mom's give birth, then leave their young to hunt for insects. Supposedly the bats consumed thousands of pounds of insects every night.

Looking at the bridge in still light twilight, I waxed poetic and thought, "This is all a bunch of bullshit.  I mean, a MILLION bats?"  "Did someone actually take a census?"  "A million is a lot, I don't think you could fit a million marbles under the bridge, much less living creatures."  I also wondered "Where does all the bat guano go?"

I was also a little worried about one million blind bats flying around, right where we were standing.  The expert lady assured us they were blind, but their sonar tracking was highly sophisticated and they might come close but would never hit us.  I was skeptical, I mean, my GPS is pretty sophisticated but sometimes it sends me on stupid routes.

We had some time, so we took some pictures....

Here's a picture from early in the bat waiting process....

As it got darker, more people congregated....

Then, it started to get dark, and you could kind of see shadows of bats flying around.  There was never an "oooooh, ahhhhh", moment.  It was mostly "Was that a bat?  Did you see any bats?".  At a certain point I realized that if a bat got close enough for me to actually see it, that was way too close.  If there are a million bats in there, they were either hibernating or watching something on cable.  Maybe they were waiting for the tourists to leave when it got REALLY dark.  Maybe they weren't so hungry that they had to come out the moment the sun went down....maybe they would just come out later for a nosh.  So, we saw some bats.  For all I know, we may have seen thousands of bats.  But a million?!?!?!

Still in all, for a free attraction, I felt we got our money's worth.  It was only 9 o'clock, so we embarked on our evening plan, dinner in South Austin.  The Congress Avenue Bridge crosses Town Lake.  On one side Congress Avenue is a downtown street, leading directly to the Capitol building.  On the other side of Town Lake, Congress Avenue becomes South Congress.  This is a pretty cool part of Austin, with lots of restaurants, and food trucks, and bars with music, and college students.  We cruised up and down checking things out, then hunger won out and we went to one of the restaurants on our list, Guero's Tacos.  http://www.guerostacobar.com/  Pretty dang good!!!!

After dinner we had to walk it off.  We stumbled upon Amy's Ice Cream.  Fantastic.  I did some research later and found out Amy's is an Austin tradition.  Here's a posting from a Foodie blog about Amy's.  http://www.followmefoodie.com/2010/08/austin-texas-amys-ice-cream-2/

When we got back to our hotel, we took a walk on 6th Street, which was closed to traffic due to 40,000 bikers being in Austin, on 6th Street, all at the same time.  Certainly more bikers on 6th Street than bats at the bridge.  We walked around in the insanity for an hour or so, then called it a night.

Another great day in Austin....

Next, Part 4....Barton Springs!!

Trip to Austin.....Part 2

From the moment I booked the trip, I knew our first breakfast in Austin would be at Cisco's.  When I was in law school I once ate breakfast there 58 days in a row.  Cisco's is a bakery with a restaurant in the back, located in the "bad" part of town (now gentrified and hipster of course). They are known for their "migas" (scrambled eggs with corn chips mixed in, served with beans, sausage, salsa, and tortillas or biscuits).

Besides the food, I liked Cisco's because it had a political history.....MANY famous politicians have eaten there over the years, and there were photos and other mementos on the walls.  Also, everyone who worked there was always very nice.

Cisco's did not disappoint.  Great food, friendly service, and excellent coffee (very important).

After breakfast Rebecca spoke to her friend in Austin, whose family is close friends with my law school friend Phil Durst, who lives in Austin.  I don't want to say too much about Phil because he is modest.  OK, I'll say a little.  We became friends in law school because although he grew up in Texas, he has New York roots.  He was funny, friendly, nice, and brilliant.  And still is.  Here's a link to his law firm website  http://www.ddollaw.com/philip-durst/    Rebecca's friend mentioned something about Phil's artwork being in an Austin gallery.  I had not known anything about Phil's art, so of course I googled it, located the gallery, and put this on our agenda.  http://www.philipdurst.com/index2.php

After the gallery we took a tour of the State Capitol building.  It was a cool tour, given by a "real Texan".

OK, we didn't take the picture above, but that's how it looked from the outside, and I might add, we parked right there on the street and walked right in.  We took only one picture, from the lobby looking up at the dome....

After the tour we went back to the hotel pool to rest up for the evening's activities, including "waiting for the bats to come out at the Congress Avenue Bridge".....More on this in Trip to Austin Part 3.

Trip to Austin (Part 1)

Last month we took a 5 day family trip to Austin, Texas.  I got to know Austin from going to law school at UT in the late 70's.  Not only is Austin not like the rest of Texas, it's not like anywhere else.

Some of the things I remembered, and wanted to experience again, were........
Great restaurants.
Nice, friendly people, everywhere.
Nice countryside and unique natural phenomena.
Every kind of music, abundantly.
Lots of health food, yoga, and all things groovy (Heck, I live with that, so visiting a society where that is "normal" had potential).
Good friends.
Huge campus and State Capitol which are big parts of the City, but by no means define the City.
A sense that there are ALWAYS things going on, and always fun things to do.

It's challenging to plan family trips as a family evolves.  When I suggested the Austin trip, Rebecca told me a good friend she had met in the dorm at Wesleyan was from Austin.   This promising news got even better when I emailed my friend Phil (who I had met in law school and stayed in touch with), and told him we were coming to Austin.  I gave him our basic itinerary, and told him about Rebecca's Wesleyan friend from Austin.  It turns out she and her family are great friends of Phil and his family, and it was agreed we would all get together.  Small world, and a great pre-start to the trip.

We looked at all our schedules and narrowed it down to some "Thursday through Monday" in June or July.  I suggested we narrow the search by "seeing if Slaid Cleaves was playing in Austin".  He is a singer/songwriter who Felicia and I became obsessed with, after seeing him perform a few months ago at Stony Brook.  www.slaid.com/   He is originally from Maine, but he is based in Austin.  When we saw he was playing in the Cactus Cafe (a venue on the UT campus) in June, we decided THAT was the weekend to go.

Another plus with Austin is that Jet Blue has direct flights from JFK to Austin.  I don't travel enough to have my opinion really count here, but I LOVE Jet Blue.  I know they occasionally have a freaked out flight attendant or leave passengers on the tarmac, but I always do well with them.  Their website is easy to navigate and book on, the prices are fair, and they have cable TV in every seat.

I'm also a big fan of Enterprise Rental Cars.  Nothing against the bigger, more famous companies, but I just love the customer service at Enterprise.  I think it's because when I used to have my cars stolen during the Dinkin's administration, my insurance company always sent me to Enterprise.  They were consistently nice, and they still are.

We did so well with the airline and car that we decided to splurge on the hotel, and booked a nice Hilton in downtown Austin, right off 6th Street.  This is the big live music section of Austin, pretty well known in the music world as the site of the annual South by Southwest festival http://sxsw.com/.

After a nice flight we checked at the Hilton.  Pretty spiffy.  We had a great view of Austin and 6th Street.. In the first pic you can see the Capitol, and "The Tower" and the Longhorns football stadium.

In the next pic you can see motorcycles parked on 6th Street.  We did not realize that we had booked our trip during the Republic of Texas motorcycle weekend, also known as the "ROT Rally".  There were 40,000 bikers in Austin the whole weekend.  They were EVERYWHERE, but as one of the hotel workers said to me "These are mostly doctor and lawyer bikers, so it's not too bad".

Here's how that looked at night on 6th Street.

After some driving around, and lunch in an off-beat, friendly place (which pretty much describes every place you go in Austin), Emilie and I swam in the hotel pool while Felicia and Rebecca took a nap.  This is very different than our usual family dynamic, where I fall asleep and everybody else goes out.  After they woke up we looked at our list of restaurant suggestions and research, and decided to go for Tex-Mex (funny, we reached that decision pretty much every night).  Night 1 we went to a place called "Z-Tejas"  http://ztejas.com/locations/#!/texas/austin-6th-street/  We sat out on the deck and enjoyed the first of many excellent meals.

Next...........Trip to Austin Part 2

Ethics is Easy

At a Mother's Day dinner with friends, someone told a story about a colleague who did the following.....

He had booked a vacation through a small airline (I will omit names and incriminating details to protect the "innocent").  When he needed to change his itinerary the airline wanted to charge $600.  So this person did a little research about the CEO of the company.  Things like where he went to college, what frat he was in, what interests he had, and who some of his friends were.  He then used this information to call people in the reservations department, impersonated an old friend of the CEO, and got the company to waive the $600 fee.

Upon hearing the story my reaction was essentially, "What an a-hole," and I said so.  I was not met with uniform agreement, and one person said, "I think what he did was wonderful, and I don't see why you have a problem with it."  I was flustered, and could only say, "It just seems wrong, it's....unethical."  To which this person responded, "Yeah, well, you are just so ETHICAL."   As if there were something wrong with it.

This led to a long discussion of right, wrong, ethics, criminality, and the whole gamut of "sin being in the eye of the beholder."  Disturbing on many levels, but if nothing else, thought provoking.

The next day when I left work I noticed that my car (a 2002 Saturn about which I had been agonizing over whether I should sell and graduate to a fancier car, or keep it because it ran well and I don't really care much about cars) had a note on the windshield.  As Maimonides once said, "A note on the windshield is rarely a good thing."  (he said a lot of cool things btw)
http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/194459.Maimonides

The note said "Check your left rear fender."  The note also had a man's name and phone #.  Had he not left the note, I would not have noticed that the left rear bumper was dented.  When I walked around to the other side of the car, I saw that the right rear tire had been pushed into the curb and that the rim was dented pretty bad.  I also noticed that the trunk was slightly askew.  The car sounded a little funny, but I was able to drive it home.

I called the note-writer and identified myself as the blue Saturn owner and note recipient.  He told me he was really sorry, that he had made a mistake and hit my car and it was his fault.  He said he would call his insurance company and if it was OK with me, he would call me back and give me the claim number.   I thanked him and then said the next thing that came to mind:  "What you are doing is so.....ETHICAL."

He called me back with the claim number and I called his insurance company the next morning.  The adjustor told me that they would accept 100% responsibility, set me up with a rental car if I needed it, and that I should let them know if I had a body shop so they could evaluate the car there.  I asked the adjustor how often people in this situation leave a note, and he said, "About 10%."

Bottom line:  The insurance considered my Saturn a total and paid me $5000 for it.  MUCH more than I would have sold or traded it for.  I used the rental car while I shopped for new cars, found a great deal, and am now driving a nice new car.

I admit it, I've gotten a lot of mileage out of this story.

Some observations:  More than one person told me that they have experienced people who hit a parked car, go through the motions of leaving a note (because people saw them), but leave phony information. Oy vey.

Some people thought that the story of the airline impersonator was pretty ingenious, though it was hard to imagine someone spending the time and effort to do that.  I add this comment to the mix:  "If you did that, would you brag about it, or would you be embarrassed to tell anyone?"

I think if I hit a parked car I would be in the 10% and leave a note.  That being said, my instinct would also be to look around and see if anyone saw, and I imagine I would at least think it over.

A bit of backstory about my 2002 Saturn:  On the day before Mother's Day I was at home, thinking about whether to look at new cars and sell my Saturn.  At the precise moment I firmly decided to stick with my old car, the Neil Young song "Long May You Run" came on the radio.  I used to think this song was an ode to an old friend, but further research indicates it's about HIS CAR!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nszR0tfp4Es

Long May You Run (Lyrics)

We've been through
Some things together
With trunks of memories
Still to come
We found things to do
In stormy weather
Long may you run.

Long may you run.
Long may you run.
Although these changes
Have come
With your chrome heart shining
In the sun
Long may you run.

Well, it was
Back in Blind River in 1962
When I last saw you alive
But we missed that shift
On the long decline
Long may you run.

Long may you run.
Long may you run.
Although these changes
Have come
With your chrome heart shining
In the sun
Long may you run.

Maybe The Beach Boys
Have got you now
With those waves
Singing "Caroline No"
Rollin' down
That empty ocean road
Gettin' to the surf on time.

Long may you run.
Long may you run.
Although these changes
Have come
With your chrome heart shining
In the sun
Long may you run.

Zen and the Art of Silent Golf

Golf presents me with a dilemma. I really should retire from "competitive" sports like basketball and even softball, since the serious injury question is not "if" but "when and how bad". The problem with golf is that I play pretty poorly and haven't improved much in the last 20 years. I can forgive myself somewhat, having only started to play in my 30's, and also because improving at golf takes learning the fundamentals and then practice and playing, and all of these take TIME.

I can't really play golf instead of working, and I don't want to regularly spend 5-7 hours on a weekend away from family and personal commitments. The only way to play more is to expand my day.

For me, this translates to "Back nine at Forest Park".

Some background about golf is in order (Note - If you are a golfer, you probably know most of these things. If you are not, please think of this as an anthropological study of a culture containing unique customs and rituals, existing right in your midst)

There are public courses and private courses. I am not a member of a country club, so I play at public courses. I have played at private courses as a guest, and at golf outings. Private courses are nicer.....everything is better groomed, the players are aware of courtesy and etiquette, and you don't have to wait around too much because everyone has some idea how to play the game. Just like in regular life.

A lot of people don't know this, but there are twelve public golf courses in the City of New York. I'm not talking miniature golf here, these are all 18 hole REAL golf courses. There are four in Queens (Forest Park, Kissena, Douglaston and Clearview), two in Brooklyn (Marine Park and Dycker), three in the Bronx (Pelham, Split Rock, and Van Cortlandt) and three in Staten Island (Silver Lake, La Tourette and South Shore). I have played all of these except Split Rock (I heard it had a lot of mosquitoes, so why take a chance).

On private courses they require you to use a motorized cart. These are provided as part of your membership. You hit your ball, you drive to it, you hit it again. The cart carries your bag of clubs, and your drinks and your snacks and other stuff. Sometimes they have a special GPS for golf. The GPS has the course layout, and can tell you how far from the hole you are, what hazards lie ahead, etc. (I know, you think I'm kidding, but it's true). Fancier private clubs require you to use a caddy (a person who carries your bag of clubs and gives you golf advice). Like in Caddyshack.

On public courses you can use a cart, and many people do. You pay extra for this, and it's not expensive ($20 - $30 for a round, and you usually split it with someone). You can also use a pull cart (you can rent these for about $5, but people who use them usually have their own). I have my own pull cart. You can also simply carry your own bag, which some people do.

All the public courses now have pretty good reservation systems. You can call, or make reservations online. Golfers go around the course in groups of four. However, it is very common for people to have a group of two or three, or to arrive as a single. When you do this, the "starter" turns the various groups into foursomes. I have no problem going as a single, and getting matched with a threesome (or a twosome plus another single). Sometimes it's one of the nicest things about golf. You meet some strangers, walk and play the course together, and talk while you play. Over the years I have played the NYC public courses with all kinds of nice people. I have played with firemen, retirees (male and female), fathers and sons, schoolteachers, lawyers who I didn't know, teenagers, and every racial/ethnic group.

A playing option I like is playing the "back nine only". To do this you show up early in the morning, and you can start on hole #10, and play holes 10 - 18. This is first come, first serve, but at 6 AM it's not usually crowded. The cut-off time for this is 8 AM (the time when the earliest golfers who are playing 18 holes would get to #10). It's busier for the back nine between 7 and 8, and you risk being shut out, so I like to go early. Playing when it's not crowded, one can play nine holes in two to two 1/2 hours. Starting at 6 has me done by 8:30. It feels good to get home at 9 AM, having already done something I really enjoy. The price is not bad either. I paid $19.25 to walk the back nine at Forest Park, plus $2.75 for parking.

My recent Forest Park back nine experiences have been a little different. I still go as a single, but I do not play with the variety of folks I used to. Now the answer to the question "Who did you play with today?" is always the same. "Three Koreans".

Last Fall, one morning after I had paid and walked over to the starter on the 10th hole, he said to me, "I hope you like silent golf". When I asked what he meant, he said "You see the people waiting to play? They won't be talking to you. I hope you can handle that". I looked at the people waiting and saw they were all Asian. I hadn't noticed before. I asked the starter if he was serious. He assured me he was, and I said I was there to play, so send me out.

I did not care for silent golf the first time I experienced it. It's not that my playing partners didn't speak, they just didn't speak to ME. They talked quite a lot, to each other, in Korean. Sometimes they also did this while I was getting ready to hit the ball, or to putt, which is a big breach of etiquette. A few times I stopped and stared when they did this, and they got the message. I made a few jokes to myself as I walked and played, but as that first morning of silent golf wore on, I must admit, I became upset. At the last hole, when the last putt dropped, I did what one is supposed to do, I shook hands with each member of the foursome. This is universal, and they were doing it too. Usually you say something like "Nice playing with you, or thanks for the round, or whatever......"All I could think to say was "Thanks for nothing". Not surprisingly, there was no reaction to my comment. After that day I didn't play for quite awhile.

Yesterday I really wanted to play. So I decided to try another Forest Park back nine, and if it turned out to be silent, so be it. I went one mental step further. While I did not assume it would be silent golf, if it turned out to be, I was going to enjoy it.

When I walked to the 10th hole at 6 AM, there were about ten people waiting. However, when the starter saw I was a single he said "A threesome is next, you can join them". I walked over to my three Korean playing partners and said "Good morning, I'm Barry". One said "I'm Choi". The other two were silent. Until I got ready to make my first shot, at which time they all started jabbering in Korean. I just laughed and hit my drive.

I saw that my playing partners were pretty good players. Actually, they were great off the tee, and all had the same swing. They probably all learned from the same pro, and probably spent hours at the driving range. They were not nearly as good on the short game and putting. I had plenty of time to analyze their games and talk to myself about it. They had an opportunity to observe my game too. I don't drive the ball very far, and I slice too much, but I am pretty good on the short game and putting. On the 14th hole I hit a drive that was not great, but better than I had done so far. At this point they all said "Guh-sha", which I know is Korenglish for "good shot". Of course, I also know that this really means "Good shot....for YOU." I just laughed and said thank you.

On the 16th hole, after my drive, Choi said to me "You slicey too much, should close stance to hit straighter". I said thank you, I'll try that. The last two holes my drives were better. I felt great after my rewarding nine holes of silent golf. I went home, had a great breakfast, and started thinking about my new stance.

College Selection Process

It's about time I dusted off the keyboard and got back to blogging. It's tempting to say that the "college selection process" absorbed so much of my mental energy that I could not blog. The process DID engender much thought, energy and emotion. Might as well break the ice by talking about it.

I want to make some observations about the process, knowing that every family dynamic is different and every student is unique. Here we go:

1. The process could turn into a "life and death" or "be all and end all" situation. It is the parents' job to make it NOT this way. In reality, it's a process that ends with a result....your child is going to the college that is the result of the process, and the result is you collectively make a great decision.

2. Taking trips to visit colleges, or taking trips to visit cities that have a lot of colleges (like Boston) can be a great time. It should be approached that way. Not only does it help the decision making process, but it makes for nice mini-vacations.

3. There is a vast amount of information available. This is good and bad. Avail yourself, but don't go insane about it. If you are new to the process, two sites we used a lot were www.collegeprowler.com and www.collegeconfidential.com I admit that I did look at "rankings" in various publications, but unless "status" is what you're all about, these don't help much.

4. College is expensive, but there is a ton of financial aid available. I'm talking grants and aid here, not loans. Almost all schools use the "FAFSA," a long financial disclosure form. Many schools also use additional financial applications. These are really detailed, require backup info, and have deadlines. We used a professional person to assist us with this part of it. It turned out to be well worth the investment (of time and money) to do this part right.

5. There are several parts of the process that elicit family discussions on a mature level. This can be difficult at first, but I found that once we started having these discussions, new levels of mutual respect were attained. This was well worth the effort.

The most interesting of these discussions were about "affirmative action" and admissions criteria. Schools all emphasize how committed they are to "diversity." This flies in the face of the types of achievement most high school students have been pursuing. It is a shock to have high grades, high SAT scores, high AP scores and "extracurriculars" trumped by diversity.
Diversity does not mean simply "racial" diversity, though it becomes quite clear that some ethnic groups are evaluated by a different set of criteria regarding grades, SAT's and the like. It's one thing to learn about this in social studies, but feeling that you have lost a spot to a "less qualified" competitor is a real dose of real life. I didn't like it when it happened to me, and I said so, but I also pointed out that in the end, you go where you go and whether it works is up to YOU.

I think the other types of "diversity" bothered Rebecca more. The other diversity preferences are for athletes, foreign students, legacies, and geography. Bottom line -- being white, Jewish and from New York does not help.....unless you are applying outside the northeast. That may help for some, but if you want to be up here, you are in an uphill fight with the diversity boogie man. For what it's worth, I was accepted to (and attended) The University of Texas Law School back in the late 70's. It was, and still is, one of the best schools in the country, and at that time took only 10% from out of State. I didn't get into a bunch of comparable east coast law schools. How did I get into UT Law? Diversity.

Other maturity provoking discussions were about "what kind of career might you want," "what is important in a school," "what kind of college lifestyle do you prefer," and the like. This is a big step up the maturity ladder.

We also had discussions about family finances, something that had never been openly discussed before. As we were discussing this, we realized that when a child does not know or learn about finances, their maturity level will not develop as it should.

6. The process involves a lot of DECISIONS. What schools to apply to? What mix of "safe" and "target" and "reaches?" I can't speak for other families, but I can say that we had about 20 schools "in play" at various times. We made charts, and had talks about the schools. Schools were added, some were dropped, some came back on the list. At a certain point we got it down to 12, with a mixture of safes, targets and reaches.

7. Before the next round of decisions, there is something that some students have never faced before.....DISAPPOINTMENT. We had some of this; that's why some schools are "reaches." What can you say when a classmate who was not academically in your child's league (on any objective measure) gets into your child's first choice, for no other reason than "diversity." Well, you say "Fuck you, Brown" (Rebecca's quote, not mine, though I was proud of her for saying it), and you make your decision from the more worthy schools on your list.

8. When the smoke clears, you look at the acceptances, and DECIDE. This makes it sound like it happened quickly. For us, this was the hard part. We had it down to three. All were visited, all had strong points. We all researched, we all got input from many sources. We talked among ourselves. We contemplated on our own. Felicia and I agreed that while we would work together, ultimately Rebecca would make the decision.

It came down to Cornell, Wesleyan and Vassar.

I will never forget the process.

I am proud of her decision.

Wesleyan, Class of 2015

Primary Election - Post Mortem

I put a lot of effort (physical, intellectual and emotional) into supporting my friend Joe Fox in his bid to unseat the incumbent, Andrew Hevesi, in the recent Democratic primary for the 28th Assembly District here in New York.


We were fighting long odds, considering that New York has the highest percentage of incumbency re-election in the country. We were fighting an incumbent with a known name. A tainted name to be sure, but known nevertheless. The turnout was low, about 12%. This was not unexpected. It meant that in a district of approx 36,000 eligible Democratic voters, it would take about 3000 votes to win.


Fighting an incumbent in a primary presents some entrenched problems. An experienced local politician pointed out to me that in a local primary, the incumbent starts out with a 1000-0 lead. This is because ALL the people who work at the polls....those elderly women who sit at the tables, ALL vote for the incumbent because they perceive that their paid poll worker jobs come from the incumbent. Between those poll workers, and supervisors, and staff, and people who are active in local politics, you have 1000 people, and the one thing they ALL do is vote.


So, Joe Fox got 40% of the vote and was defeated by Andrew Hevesi. Andrew will be on the ballot in November, against an unknown Republican candidate and an unknown independent candidate. He will probably win, despite the fact that his father, former New York Comptroller Alan Hevesi, just plead guilty to ANOTHER felony involving corruption while in office, and despite the fact that Andrew is implicated in it and Alan obviously plead guilty to protect him. http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/07/hevesi-is-set-to-plead-guilty-to-felony/


I could say a lot about the Hevesi's, and the reasons Joe Fox would have made a great representative (while Andrew will continue to be a disgraceful embarrassment), but I'll save that for a future post.


I want to make some observations about the experience of participating in the Joe Fox campaign:


1. I decided to get involved because I was disgusted with Andrew Hevesi and the local political scene, and respected that Joe wanted to actually DO something about it. I admit it, I secretly wanted to run for the seat from the moment I learned that the local politicos had rigged a special election to install Andrew back in 2005. I couldn't and didn't do it, but Joe had a burning desire to make this run. I knew that I knew enough people, and had enough political savvy, to at least help him in a meaningful way. I appreciated having input in a lot of the behind the scenes decisions in the campaign. There was a stretch of time when I had some fear that if Joe lost, my involvement would "come back to haunt me"......politically, in court, or in some way. That fear left me over time, and now I'll say it for any of the local politicos to see......I helped Joe Fox, I'm proud of it, and I'd do it again.


2. Hindsight is 20-20, and analyzing the campaign, there may have been a few things we could have done to change the results and pull off a major upset. I will not list them here, because if Joe runs again, surely he will use what was learned. I will say this though.....if Andrew is reelected, ends up running again in two years, and remains as ineffectual as he has been, he can and will be beaten.


3. Felicia and I were official "poll watchers" at PS 139. I was present at 6 AM when the doors opened, so I got to witness the poll workers dealing with the new voting machines for the first time. There was some confusion at first, but the system was up and functioning by 7 AM. I thought the system worked well for the most part. People are often resistant to change, but I did not encounter anyone who could not figure out how to vote. The only thing I did not like was a lack of privacy for the voters. I observed situations where people were being "helped" to vote, and this was all out in the open.

4. I spent most of my day on the corner of 63rd Drive and Wetherole Street, attempting to talk to "voters" on their way to and from work. I say attempting because the vast majority of people would not talk to me. There seemed to be a few main reasons......
- Many did not speak a word of English. Living in Rego Park, this was not a big surprise.
- Many were non-citizens, and proud of it. Also not a big surprise.
- Many were entranced in I-Pod isolation. Probably listening to last years American Idol winners, or "rap" (as if it were music).
- Some proudly told me they never vote.
- A few told me they were voting for Hevesi, because his father had been railroaded and "all he did was use State money to take his wife to the doctor".
- A few offered memorable excuses, such as "I already voted" (this was at 7 AM). Another said "I am going to vote....tomorrow."


5. During primary day, I split my time between campaigning out on the street, and poll watching inside the school. This was permitted, as long as I did not campaign inside the school or wear anything that would indicate I was campaigning. This simply meant when I went inside, I had to take off my Joe Fox name tag. I got involved in some poll watching excitement when I noticed Andrew Hevesi campaigning right in front of the school, in the area where you are clearly not supposed to do that. I was outside at the time, and walked right past him on my way inside to report him. I said hello to him, and he said hi back, since he did not know who I was (which REALLY pissed me off). I then did what a poll watcher is supposed to do....I told the policeman on duty and the local election supervisor that Andrew Hevesi was electioneering in the restricted area. I then watched them confront him, watched him argue back, and then leave the area in disgust. Andrew, in case you are wondering how that happened....it was ME.


6. When the polls closed, as poll watcher I got to see the results come off the machines, and was responsible for calling the results in to headquarters. It took awhile for the officials to figure out how to get the results off the machines and post them. After working from 6 AM to 9 PM I was anxious to see the results. Now I know that when they say on election night that "x% of precincts are reporting", they are talking about poll-watchers like me. I was pretty disappointed, though not shocked, when I saw that Joe got about 40% at PS 139. I called it in to headquarters and asked whether this was consistent with results from other polling places. They said it was, and I knew right there we had lost. I was angry for about 10 minutes. My rant was along these lines....."how could people be so stupid? how could people be so apathetic? People get what they deserve....etc" Then, I was concerned about how Joe would take it. When I drove over to headquarters and saw that Joe accepted things like the uber-mensch he is, I began to feel great pride at what we had done.


7. Prior to the campaign, I knew Joe for about 30 years, but I'd say we were casual friends at most, and I knew his family enough to say hello, but that was about it. I now consider Joe and his family my good friends. So, in addition to the actual campaign experience, the personal aspect was enough to make the whole experience worthwhile.

So, the primaries are over and the election season is on.

I foresee some changes and shifts coming, across the State and nationally, and personally I think it is needed.

But here in the 28th A.D., it will be "same old, same old". What a shame.

Joe Fox for NYS Assembly

Dear Friends -

Next Tuesday, September 14th, there is a primary. In many ways, it’s not an exciting Democratic primary, as the Governor’s nomination is uncontested and the Attorney General race has a non-descript field of five. However, for those of us in the 28th Assembly District, this may be the most important Democratic primary in many years. That is because my good friend Joe Fox has taken a courageous action by challenging the incumbent, Andrew Hevesi. I have never been involved in a local political campaign before, but I am strongly supporting Joe Fox in this primary. For the reasons stated below, I am asking you to support Joe as well.

Approximately five years ago, our Assemblyman Michael Cohen abruptly resigned, under mysterious circumstances. Shortly thereafter, it was announced that 31 year old Andrew Hevesi would be nominated for the seat, and would be on the ballot in a “special election”. This was an orchestrated political maneuver, which essentially gave our Assembly seat to an inexperienced paralegal, whose only “qualifications” for the job were being the son of criminally convicted political figure Alan Hevesi.

Andrew Hevesi has never had to actually RUN for his seat. He was re-elected in exactly the same way he initially came to his office, being put on the ballot without challenge. Up until this year, nobody has had the courage or the support or the qualifications to contest the “powers that be” for this seat.Had Andrew Hevesi taken this seat and actually done something useful with it, I would support him, notwithstanding the undemocratic way he obtained the seat. But the fact is, he has done NOTHING with this opportunity, other than continue to be part of the problem in Albany. We have a disgraceful State legislature, which perpetuates every bad aspect of cronyism and corrupt politics. Our Assemblyman has not taken a leadership position on ANY meaningful issue or legislation during his five years in office. He speaks through “spokespeople”, and takes his lead from the “higher ups” on every important issue.

If my interest were strictly “anti-incumbent, I would not be writing. I want to place this primary in a positive light, by telling you about Joe Fox…………..I know Joe personally for over 30 years. He is a successful attorney in private practice, concentrating primarily in real estate, business transactions and bankruptcy law. He knows what it means to start and grow a business, and he knows what it means to help businesses and individuals who have REAL problems. He is down to earth, approachable, and effective in everything he does…………He is a homeowner in Forest Hills, and with his wife Helaine has raised two great children who are in their early twenties. He knows about the issues facing our schools, about the costs of higher education and its impact on families, and about employment issues facing our community………….He has been active in MANY local community issues, and it was never with an eye on politics, it was always because he wanted to use his skills to HELP…………He is not a political neophyte, as he was involved in economic development during the Koch administration. He left the political arena at that time, to pursue private law practice.

To say that he is NOT a professional politician is actually high praise, and at the same time, he is not some kid who is going to take marching orders from others. He will look out for US, first and foremost. He has decided that NOW is the time for him to give back, and to return to the political arena, precisely because he has something worthwhile to offer. HE IS WELL QUALIFIED and HE WANTS TO SERVE.This is the criteria which should be used to evaluate a candidate. Our Assembly seat should not be “given” to someone who is not qualified and doesn’t seem to want to serve.In a local primary race, the turnout is likely to be small. I live and work in this district, and my sense is this election will be very close. EVERY vote will count!!! If you have any questions about this letter, or about Joe Fox’s candidacy, please call me at the number above, or on my cell phone 718-216-5663. Please vote in this important election.

Sincerely,

Barry Seidel