Weddings, Births, and Anniversaries

My wife and I had a Big Formal Wedding coming up in about six months. normally I forget about events until Sharon reminds me to bring my tux to the cleaners, but this one was different: she wanted to show off. She decided that we should dress up and dance at the BF Wedding – and by ‘dress up’ she meant wearing the clothes we wore to our son Seth’s Bar Mitzvah in 1987.

In 1987, when we were… younger. Oh, my.

There were two problems with her plans. First, I have always been a hopelessly inept dancer. I was born with a genetic disability: I am missing the gene that allows a man to dance and not look like a trained bear. (The good news is that I am allowed to use handicapped parking.)

The other, more obvious problem is that Sharon really wanted to wear clothing that fit us twenty years earlier. I weigh less now than then but a lot of poundage has shifted to my stomach. It’s another one of those genetic handicap/trained bear issues: my old pants may be tight but I could hibernate very successfully.

Regardless of the odds, when she decided we would dance I decided to lose some more weight. I already eat less than is reasonable for Man or Bear and had no interest in cutting my intake any further, so I decided to increase my exercise intensity. I changed a route I was taking about three times each week, from two miles on flat ground to three miles over some decent hills. And I always exercise my upper body as I walk. It’s a very intense workout for someone with all those ursine issues.

In the hot summer sun I like to take off my shirt and walk along in my gym shorts. No one is going to mistake me for, say, Leo DiCaprio but what do I care? Leo may be skinny but I can swim. For years it was easy. I walked along a quiet trail behind my house and rarely encountered anyone, and then I would simply ignore my usual modesty. I was having too much fun walking and sweating in the sun and besides, most of the people I passed didn’t look any better than I did.

However, changing my route changed a lot of things. The new route goes along a nature trail for about 1 mile, but for two miles it passes through a wealthy neighborhood. Houses in the $2 - $6 M range, a few worth more. Big lawns with circular driveways. Three and four-car garages with Italian sorts cars. It’s not a neighborhood that sees a lot of sweaty grandpas walking around with their shirts off, unless Gramps is the pool boy.

I guess it was only a matter of time before I got stopped. By a patrol car. This by itself is amazing. San Jose is the safest big city in the country and we have a tiny police force. Years can go by between the times I spot a patrol car, and then it is usually someone going home. But some cop saw me – perhaps on his way to arrest Paris Hilton – and he decided we should chat.

“Excuse me, sir; it’s illegal to walk in public without your shirt on.” Hmmm… I could see the problem if La Hilton was the person walking along topless, but not me. I played along.

“I didn’t know that, officer.”

“You’ve got to be covered up unless you’re at poolside.” What obscure police manuals has this cop been studying? And why wasn’t he studying something about actual criminals?

“I didn’t know that.”

“It’s a decency thing. Gotta do it.” Of course! I was indecent! Can you imagine the long-term emotional damage that could occur to some virginal sixteen-year old girl if, upon seeing a shirtless Grandpa, she fell into a swoon? And California is overrun with swoon-prone virginal sixteen-year olds.

You’ll be shocked to learn that the sight of my indecently exposed chest has never caused a single teenaged girl to swoon, or even to feel dizzy. It has caused several to giggle uncontrollably but I don’t think that counts. Regardless, the cop was babbling uncontrollably and he was not giggling and he was wearing a gun, so I put my shirt on. My raggy white droopy muscle shirt. A shirt I bought seven years ago because it provides maximum exposure to the air and allows me to avoid overheating while exercising. A shirt that exposes most of my chest, including the gray hair and the scar from open heart surgery. A shirt that often rides up over my grandpa-sized belly (which I tend to discuss far more often than is healthy.) A shirt so pathetic that if Leo DiCaprio saw me wearing it he would ask if I had just escaped from Darfur.

I said, “How’s that, officer?”

The cop said, “That’s better.”

Better than what? I started to say “You have low standards.” but then I decided not to push my luck. I didn’t have any money on me and Officer Krupke could have locked me up as an indigent. A topless indigent.

Five minutes later I realized that I would probably never see him again and that if I did all he could do was make me cover up a second time. I took off my droopy muscle shirt and looked for some 16-year old virgins to horrify. Never found any.

This happened almost a month ago and I’m still hoping to see that cop again. I want to try my Sharon Stone line on him: “What are you going to do? Arrest me for sweating?”

Anyway, by now you may have forgotten (I almost did) that the purpose of the intensified exercise campaign was to help me lose weight and fit into my ancient tuxedo pants for the Big Formal Wedding. But then two things happened. First, I tried on the ancient tuxedo pants and found that they fit perfectly. Apparently the combination of exercising and horrifying virgins worked. And then we received the invitation.

The ceremony was held in a dog park in San Francisco. We were all asked to bring our dogs. Our English Bulldog had a great time and I didn’t have to dance. Didn’t have to wear my old tuxedo, either. Instead, I wore my raggy white droopy muscle shirt.

The Liars

An old letter to a friend, still timely.

Nov. 2, 2004

It’s two days before the election and I cannot wait for it to be over. The problem, of course, is that it may not be over until early spring. The early voting has started and so have the abuses. CNN reports that Democratic polling place volunteers are helping confused voters to select Kerry, regardless of whom they really want to choose. The newspaper reports that Republican precinct captains are challenging great blocs of newly registered voters, guaranteeing that thousands of Democrats will be disenfranchised. This proves something I have believed for years: the most significant difference between Democratic politicians and Republican politicians is that this generation of Republicans has smarter thieves. Today’s Democrats are too inept even to steal intelligently.

The wholesale lying in this campaign had been annoying for months, until it soared past scandalous and reached blissful heights of hilarity. Democrats have spent four years calling Bush stupid, despite the inconvenient fact that he graduated from both Harvard and Yale, and brilliantly outfought the intellectually “superior” Al Gore. Republicans have spent months and tens of millions of dollars calling Kerry a coward and making fun of his war injuries despite the inconvenient fact that he was a war hero who bravely saved several men’s lives while under enemy fire. While George Bush was hiding

How did we reach a point where we will be forced to choose between such second-rate candidates? Kerry was a mediocre senator with nothing impressive to show for a 20-year run except some nicely tailored french suits. Bush was a bad governor in an imitation cowboy suit who became the most unsuccessful American president since Jefferson Davis. And if we don’t want to vote for either of them, we can always select Ralph Nader, a well-spoken lunatic in a Goodwill suit, who apparently lives in an abandoned van under a bridge.

And Nader, God help us, is the only honest guy in the race.

Lying seems to have become endemic in our society. Not the social white lies that we all tell occasionally, but gross distortions of truth that can gravely wound others. Bill Clinton looked into the camera and lied about sex and Democrats forgave him (I still forgive him. Can’t lie.) The Swift Boat Veterans looked in the camera and lied about John Kerry, and Republicans applauded them. And who are our most popular political commentators? Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Bill O’Reilly. A drug addict, a bully, and a pervert. Three chicken hawks who laugh off-camera about the lies they tell on-camera. And their conservative fans forgive them, just as Democrats forgave Clinton. Has the entire nation joined Joe McCarthy in having no sense of decency?

As you can guess, I’m a Kerry supporter. I held my nose when I voted last week (absentee) but I’ll take a solid mediocrity over a colossal failure any day. This year I voted straight Democratic for national offices and straight Republican for state offices, and for the same reason: California Democrats have governed as ineffectively and as dishonestly as have national Republicans.

I’ll guess that you are supporting Bush. Some of my best friends do. But please make me a promise: when you vote for Bush, please hold your nose. I promise you will feel better.

J