Len Gutman's Blog, page 3

Technology May Finally Be Passing Me By

This morning I was out walking when a driverless Waymo drove past me on the street. There was nobody in the car, front or back. At once it struck me that I may have reached the point in my life when I have far less time ahead of me than behind me and that society is moving full-steam ahead with or without me. I used to think I was on the cutting edge, but now I feel like the cutting edge is just beyond my reach. Or rather, my desirable reach.

My mother was afraid of computers. She said it was because she couldn’t type, but that had nothing to do with it. I know plenty of older folks who have embraced the modern age, but my mom was not one of them. We finally bought her a smart phone a few years ago, and she returned it to go back to a flip phone. I made fun of her, but this morning as that Waymo cruised past me I think I finally understood her. Unfortunately, she’s no longer with us so I can’t apologize for giving her a hard time about her technophobia.

I get now. It is overwhelming. Today we live in a world with powerful computers in our pockets (and on our wrists), cars driving themselves, every song ever recorded available at the touch of a button, drones fighting wars, and artificial intelligence about to change humankind forever. And while younger people embrace the latest advances, I simply don’t want to. Yes, I can’t live without Spotify and my Android phone, but what’s coming next sort of frightens me. And when I look to my future, given my previous health battles, it’d be a miracle if I get another 25-30 years on this planet. I’m starting to think I’d prefer to hunker down in my nice little bubble and ignore the future. Just give me enough books to read and music to listen to and that’s really all I want in life.

Artificial intelligence in particular is for the young. Don’t get me wrong, I expect to benefit from AI over the next few decades, but I don’t want to be in the AI business or come to rely on AI like I have with computers, smart phones, and streaming. I’d prefer to sit back and watch as the next generation struggles with how to stuff this genie back in the bottle.

If you’re not paying attention to AI, or the ways it has already changed our lives, you can be forgiven for not fully understanding the ramifications. The little civil war we just witnessed at OpenAI was not a small thing — it may very well have changed the course of human history forever. And I’m not being hyperbolic. The good guys did not win the OpenAI war. Maureen Dowd did as good a job of explaining it as anyone in her column in the New York Times yesterday. If the corporations are leading the AI charge, we’re fucked.

Maybe it was naive to think it’d turn out any other way. Money and power drive the world and placing the hopes and dreams of AI in the hands of a nonprofit was altruistic but untenable given the amount of computing power the organization needs to advance AI (in whatever direction it wants). You can continue to keep your head in the sand on AI, like so many people have with climate change. Climate change is going to be irrelevant in a world run by machines.

But this is not a blog post about AI. This is a blog post about how I’m going to react to it. And like my mother looking at computers as if they are supernatural, I don’t think I have it in me to worry about where AI is going to take us as a species. I just don’t have that much time left. Maybe that’s why my mom never cared to use a computer or even a smart phone. The future can be scary.

I feel for future generations. My kid doesn’t have a choice but to pay attention to self-driving cars, quantum computing, and artificial intelligence. At 26 years old, they have their whole life ahead of them. Of course they are worried about what that life is going to look like, and I bear some responsibility for having brought them into this world.

I think every generation reaches a moment in time when the world seems to be going at a pace that scares the pants off it. My parents lived at the start of the Information Age. My grandparents witnessed the birth of television, talking movies, international flights, and a man on the moon. My great grandparents left their little European shtetl and came to America at the dawn of the Industrial Age. Imagine what my great grandparents would have thought if you could go back to their time and you showed them a smart phone or Amazon Alexa?

This existential moment for me is probably a natural part of aging. It coincides with a time in my life in which my parents have died, my friends are getting older and fighting more health issues, and my peers are looking at retirement as something within reach. It’s part of the circle of life.

Is it wrong to think about slowing down versus speeding up? I’m not suggesting I should ignore ChatGPT or driving cars. But I am suggesting I’m not going to let the ramifications of new technology cause me to lose sleep. And believe me, if you spend any time digging into the ramifications of AI you’d lose sleep.

You might think it hypocritical that I’m writing this post at a coffee shop on my laptop which is connected to the internet via wi-fi and my bluetooth speakers are blasting music directly into my ears. But these technologies belong to my generation. I came of age in a time of personal computing and digital music. Just like my parents came of age during a time of microwave ovens and cable television. I’m not anti-progress. Far from it. I’ve been an early adopter of nearly every new technology that launched during my lifetime. Hell, I surfed the internet on a dial-up modem using Netscape Navigator and visited the World Wide Web using Mosaic. I love technology.

But I can’t get my head around what’s next. To me AI in particular is a slippery slope with nothing short of the future of our species hanging in the balance. It’s too much for my little brain to get my mind around. Sure, I’ll use ChatGPT to assist in my writing and maybe even help with daily tasks. But I don’t have the bandwidth to contemplate a future in which AI continues to advance at its current pace. I don’t want to know what Q-Star is. I don’t want to imagine where that level of self-awareness in a machine could take us.

I used to think it’d be great to live long enough to witness the singularity, when man and machine merge. I even thought I’d be cool with having my mind dowloaded in to a computer so I could effectively live forever. But then I watched more than a few episodes of Black Mirror and I changed my mind. Technology is not so black and white. Things can go right, but they can also go very wrong.

Seeing that Waymo this morning really got me thinking. And I think I want to stop thinking so much.

The Great Filter Project Continues

These days I find the media to be a cesspool of hate, fear, hyperbole, and star-fucking that provides little value while raising the amount of cortisol in my bloodstream to heretofore unseen levels. I simply do not have enough room in my brain to focus on the important things in my everyday life while at the same time reading and hearing about Elon Musk’s latest rant, Taylor Swift’s love life, or who will win an election between a pair of inept octogenarians. It’s all too much.

But news is ubiquitous, so it is nearly impossible to completely opt out. Nor should you have to opt out entirely to get the news you want. What’s a former news junkie to do?

Before I share what I’m doing, I want to be clear that I’m not suggesting that there are not important things happening in the world that we need to know, or of which we should be aware. The situation in Israel is horrific, but it’s important to stay informed. Climate change is indeed a crisis we need to monitor. The rise of fascism around the world is getting worse (I’m talking about you Argentina and Holland). So yeah, I’d like to keep that stuff coming but not 24 hours per day.

The great Indigo Girls song suggests the less I seek my source for some definitive the closer I am to fine. I say the same is true for news — the less I read and hear the better I feel. So these days I’m trying to balance the input to avoid negative output. Truthfully, the news makes me rage and you don’t want to be around me when I’m angry. I can be a real asshole. Here are some of the ways I’m limiting my news intake (and I’d love to hear how you’re doing the same):

I don’t watch national television news. The detail you get in a 30-minute broadcast on the major networks is not nearly enough for someone to understand what is going on. Meanwhile, the cable news outlets pontificate about the same story days on end to the point where there is more opinion and speculation than anything else. For fuck’s sake, I don’t want to hear about the tactics of the war in Israel from some fascist former general named “spider” who wouldn’t understand peace if it knocked him on his ass. And peace is really all I care about. How and when will we get there? As for the talking heads — while I may agree with the likes of Rachel Maddow and Erin Burnett and George Stephanopoulos I can’t listen to them day after day whining about the same old crap. Yeah, I get it, Trump is insane and congress is a circus.

Local TV news is nothing more than a crime report. It should go without saying nobody should watch it. I mean, you can get your sports and weather elsewhere whenever you want. I have no interest in car wrecks and shootings at Circle K.

I skim online news sites and only a handful. The Guardian. The New York Times. Washington Post (Bezos be damned). And I turned off notifications. The concept of urgent news has somehow shifted over the years to include anything the outlet wants to say they sent out first whether it’s truly urgent or not.

I subscribe to eNewsletters and daily headline services that feature the specific niches in which I am interested. That means sports, entertainment, climate, etc. I want the daily headlines from ESPN. I do not want the daily headlines from CNN.

I have found a few good services that summarize the important stories of the day in an easy-to-read detailed fashion without editorializing. I get a daily feed from Axios Phoenix and Morning Brew. These kinds of services give you just what you need and not much more — perfect.

I set Google Alerts for things I care about and get a once daily summary. I have alerts for Arsenal (my favorite soccer team), Casey Newton (tech news), Naomi Klein (climate writer), A.J. Cassavell (Padres beat writer) and Jewish Family & Children’s Service (my employer) for example. I let Google do the filtering for me and it is free.

I have started unsubscribing from darn near everything that comes into my email in-box unless it’s important to me. Why do we let companies spam us with sales pitches because we bought a pair of pants there once. This may be a bit OCD, but the cleaner my email in-box the less stress I feel. Plus, my interests have changed over the years so why keep getting e-blasts from organizations I don’t care about anymore?

I have separate folders in my web browser for news sites and sites I call “Reading Pleasure.” More often than not we surf to what’s right in front of us, so I categorize so when I do spend time surfing it’s not totally random. So for example, the news folder includes The Guardian, AZ Central, CNN, etc. But the Reading Pleasure folder includes Esquire, Rolling Stone, the New York Times books section, Arts & Letters Daily, and The Verge.

On my phone and tablet, I use apps like Artifact (its algorithm figures out what you are interested in and feeds you that) and Google News which enables you to “follow” to various outlets like National Geographic, Wired, Consequence (music), Lifehacker, and other outlets and topics. I have tried RSS feeds and readers numerous times, but this technology seems to be fading out.

I subscribe to writers I like on services like Medium and Substack. So far I have yet to pay for a writer’s posts, but I could honestly see myself doing so for someone I really like such as Naomi Klein or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. I’m not sure the world is ready for us readers to pay additional fees for every writer we like, but if you used to subscribe to a bunch of newspapers and magazines what’s $5 a month to get the inside scoop on a subject you love from a writer you respect. Medium, at least, is a flat monthly fee or all paid content.

Lastly, while I am late to the game, I am using YouTube more. With YouTube you can watch videos that interest you on pretty much every topic you can imagine. It’s free, but many top YouTubers are asking folks to chip in for premium content using Patreon or something similar. That seems fair, and if I find myself watching a content provider I can’t seem to live without I’ll consider pitching in a few bucks. One thing I have really been enjoying with YouTube is the ability to really take a deep dive on topics you love. I watched a 20 part series on the history of the Jewish people from a secular humanist rabbi. I dig this YouTuber Geography by Geoff, I watch PBS Terra videos about climate, and I subscribe to several Arsenal shows. The other day I watched a 20 minute discussion about Pink Floyd’s The Wall from a guy who calls his channel Professor of Rock.

We all need to be informed and entertained. But we don’t have to let ourselves be force fed what corporate news overlords want us to watch or read. We have a choice. I for one have felt less anxiety about the world around me by making good choices about what I ingest.

My Favorite Albums of 2023

This year was something of an abnormal year in music for me. I can't remember a year with more releases that I was excited to hear -- more than 40 in fact. Yet when it came down to deciding on my 10 favorite of the year I struggled to get to 10 that I felt were worthy of my list. I eventually got there, but that means there were far more disappointments for me in 2023 than favorites. Some of the releases were awful, but the majority were just plain average. The mediocre included releases from artists I love -- Everything But The Girl, ZZ Ward, Blur, Natalie Merchant and The Pretenders to name a few. Then there were some I enjoyed but not enough to include them on my must-listen list -- Depeche Mode, Durand Jones, Boy & Bear, and The Struts. And there were a few that flirted with my top 10 but in the end didn't quite get there -- albums from The New Pornographers, Molly Burch, Jess Williamson, Hozier, and Bethany Cosentino could be called honorable mentions.

In the end, my list of 10 albums represent for me the very best of 2023. Some of these records I listed to a lot, and some came out later in the year so I'm still digging in. What I will say about 2023 is that for me there were two records that stood head and shoulders above the rest and that will be evident in my discussion of the top two. But there were 10 very good records, so here you go:

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10. Chronicles of a Diamond - Black Pumas. In October 2019 I went to see Black Pumas at a small club called the Rhythm Room on Indian School Rd. I went by myself, on the strength of a single song I'd heard called Black Moon Rising. I left knowing the next time I'd see them it would be at a huge venue because this neo soul band from Austin, Texas literally blew the doors off the legendary club. As it turned out, within a few months the Pumas were all over the radio and television with their huge hit Colors. The next time I saw them was in front of thousands of people at the Innings Festival at Tempe Town Lake. It took four years for the follow up to their self-titled debut album, and while it's not as epic as the first record, Chronicles of a Diamond is a fabulous psychedelic soul album that gets better with each listen. Just five years ago lead singer Eric Burton was busking at Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica and today he's one of the freshest voices in the genre.

9. Electrophonic Chronic - The Arcs. Dan Auerbach is prolific as fuck. When he's not making Black Keys records with Patrick Carney he's producing albums for Lana del Rey, Cage the Elephant, Grace Potter, and Ray LaMontagne. In between, he has found the time to front a second band in The Arcs. The Arcs first release in 2015 was wonderful and made my top 10 that year, but then we had to wait eight years for the next one. Electrophonic Chronic is blues rock with a psychedelic twist and it will fill the void in my soul until the next Black Keys record.

8. Strays II - Margo Price. She may look country, but don’t let the boots and hat fool you. Margo Price is a cornucopia of perfection. Country, Americana, Blues, Rock…whatever. It simply doesn’t matter when you put on Strays II and buckle in. The 40-year-old singer songwriter from Nashville received a Best New Artist Grammy nomination in 2018, and one magazine called her “country’s next star” but she doesn’t fit the mold. Do yourself a favor and listen to Strays — you won’t be disappointed.

7. Laugh Track - The National. When your favorite band of the past 20 years releases a surprise album just a few months after their previous record…well…you just say thank you and play them both. Laugh Track came out in September along with the release of first cut Alphabet City and while I was still basking in the glow of the band’s earlier 2023 release (see the top of this list) I tuned in and felt like I was given a bonus. Laugh Track is solid and includes a few great collaborations from band favorite Phoebe Bridgers and even Rosanne Cash. The band played a few songs off the release when I saw them live earlier this month, and the record is definitely good enough to make my year-end list on its own.

6. Pollen - Tennis. I’ve been a fan of this husband and wife due since my kid introduced me to them in 2017 and this is the third straight Tennis record to make my top 10 countdown. This year I also finally got to see them live after two misses because of the pandemic, and they were great — singer Alaina Moore was a tiny little ball of energy on stage. Tennis has a real 70s vibe but with a modern touch.

5. What Matters Most - Ben Folds. I love Ben Folds. And have going on 30 years, all the way back to the first time I heard One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces. I’ve seen Ben solo and with Ben Folds Five, and he’s one of those artists for me that never misses. What Matters Most is classic Ben and I saw him live a few months back and he was spectacular as always. I know not everyone likes their rock with a sense of humor but I definitely do. This song is a great example of Ben being Ben. “Some dude live tweeted as I ran half naked past a Cracker Barrel.”

4. Joy'all - Jenny Lewis. Few artists had a busier 2023 than Jenny Lewis. She released her fifth solo album since leaving Rilo Kiley, and then went on a whirlwind tour with The Postal Service to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the band’s only record Give Up. Hell, the only thing she didn’t do was make a triumphant return to Hollywood where as a child actress she once co-starred in such classics as Troop Beverly Hills, Webster, Growing Pains, Golden Girls and the hugely underrated Brooklyn Bridge. And while I first fell for young Jenny in Gary David Goldberg’s classic sitcom where she played Catholic schoolgirl Katie Monahan (ironic since Jenny is in fact Jewish in real life), it is her music that has made me a lifelong fan. Joy’all is a beautiful album top to bottom and I have had a hard time deciding which is my favorite track. For purposes of this blog post I guess I’ll go with:

3. i/o - Peter Gabriel. It has been 12 years since we’ve heard from Peter Gabriel, one of rock music’s most enigmatic artists. But let’s be honest, did anyone really notice 2011’s New Blood or 2010’s Scratch My Back? Not me, and I’m a huge Gabriel fan. You really have to go back to 1992’s Us to find something akin to a hit song with Digging in the Dirt and Steam. But something felt new and exciting again with i/o, despite the oddest release gimmick of all time. Gabriel’s 10th studio album was released song by song, beginning last fall, one per month, on the full moon. Oh Peter. And yes, i/o does mean “input/output” but it’s also the name of one of the moons of Jupiter. Still, the full album won’t officially be released until Dec. 1, 2023 but I just created a Spotify playlist for it and added each song as it came out. And one by one, song after song, is brilliant and pure Gabriel. i/o is his best work since 1986’s So, and that’s saying something given how brilliant that record was (and is). i/o has long dramatic rock anthems, soft moody ballads, and weird kafkaesque lyrics. So yeah, classic Gabriel. I’m not sure if we’re going to get real videos for the songs on this record, but it’s kind of a good thing because I am in no way prepared to pick a favorite song from i/o. The title song is up there, but Olive Tree is sort of separating itself for me. Let me know your favorite song from the record.

2. Weathervanes - Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit. Americana and roots rock is having a moment, and nobody is having a better time of it than Jason Isbell. In the past few years he has released some of the genre’s best music, he has won four Grammy awards and countless other awards, he gets to live and work with his lovely and super-talented wife Amanda Shires, and he has a budding acting career with recent roles in Billions, Deadwood, and Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon. He’s a got-damned Alabama Renaissance Man. But mostly, he’s just the best fucking songwriter in the world today. He’s a musical Raymond Carver.

Weathervanes is spectacular from start to finish. For me it’s his second best album ever, after 2020’s Reunions which topped my 2020 favorites list. Weathervanes has everything you want in a rock and roll record, from hard-rocking anthems to heart-wrenching love songs. It appeals to country fans, and rock fans, and Americana fans, and just plain music fans. Isbell is smart, and bold, and undeniably on the side of the everyman. Death Wish is a great song. I love Save the World. Cast Iron Skillet is superb. Every one of the album’s 13 songs is just brilliant. Brilliant.

King of Oklahoma is my favorite, a song about addiction and its impact on relationships. Isbell speaks on behalf of the part of America that struggles to make ends meet and feel left behind by the so-called American Dream. His background is rural and white, but his lyrics appeal to everyone in the working class. This song is devastating and real.

She used to wake me up with coffee every morning
And I'd hear her homemade house shoes slide across the floor
She used to make me feel like the king of Oklahoma
But nothing makes me feel like much of nothing anymore

1. First Two Pages of Frankenstein - The National. About 20 years ago I read about a new band from Brooklyn by way of Ohio and upon my first listen to their album Boxer, I knew I’d found something special. The driving drum beats and killer guitar licks combined with Matt Berninger’s deep soulful baritone voice hit me like a ton of bricks and Boxer quickly became one of my favorite albums. I know The National is not for everyone, and I’m okay with that. And yeah, over the years the band has grown a faithful audience of middle-aged white men and pioneered the genre disparagingly called dad rock. I don’t care if they’re not your cup of tea. They are most assuredly mine.

The National is my favorite band of the 21st century. I like every album the band has released and every song on each of those albums. I’ve seen them live twice now, and they give a hell of a show. There’s something about their music that penetrates my body and as I listen to them I get lost in the melodies and the lyrics. But mostly I feel Matt Berninger’s voice deep in my soul. Over the past 20 years no other band has come close for me.

I think it’s funny that even as Gen Z makes fun of The National and other dad rock artists, they have become something of a cult band among other popular artists. Bandmates and twin brothers Aaron and Bryce Dessner have become sought-after collaborators and producers for artists as wide ranging as Ed Sheeran, Local Natives, Sharon Van Etten, Bon Iver, Paul Simon, and many others. Aaron has produced or co-produced songs by none other than Taylor Swift. This week David Letterman appeared on the Late Show for the first time since his retirement and he asked The National to leave their tour and perform on the show that night (which they did).

First Two Pages of Frankenstein is the band’s ninth studio album and for me their best since Boxer. The album is 11 perfect songs, starting with the moody Once Upon a Poolside (featuring Sufjan Stevens) and closing with the love song Send For Me. In between there are two collaborations with Phoebe Bridgers, and one with the aforementioned Taylor Swift. Yes, T-Swizzle sings a beautiful piano-driven duet with Berninger called The Alcott that is one of the strongest songs on the record. I’m no Swiftie, but this song is beautiful.

I love every song on this album. Eucalyptus with its anger about a breakup (You should take it, 'cause I'm not gonna take it; You should take it, I'm only going to break it). New Order T-Shirt about looking back at a relationship through photos of good times (I keep what I can of you; Split-second glimpses and snapshots and sounds; You in my New Order t-shirt; Holdin' a cat and a glass of beer). Your Mind is Not Your Friend about navigating life during the pandemic (Don't you understand? Your mind is not your friend again. It takes you by the hand. And leaves you nowhere.)

While it’s impossible to find a favorite on this album, push come to shove I have to go with the upbeat Tropic Morning News. The melody is infectious and the lyrics are relatable as it speaks to the loneliness and fear we get from doom-scrolling the news and how it can affect our relationships. Tropic Morning News hit #1 on the Billboard Adult Alternative chart (is that what I am — adult alternative?).

Got up to seize the day
With my head in my hands, feeling strange
When all my thinking got mangled
And I caught myself talking myself off the ceiling

I have played this album so many times since it was released last April. I go back to it all the time, and with each listen it gets deeper and deeper inside me. I guess I’m a sad dad. But at least I’m not alone.

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You Get What You Give

I’ve spent a part of my life giving back to the community for as long as I can remember. I can remember as far back as high school and college volunteering for political causes and candidates, and as I’ve gotten older that has grown to include social causes too. Some of my long-term friends may also remember that in the early 2000s, I wrote a regular column in the Arizona Republic chronicling my volunteerism, which I turned into a book that I self published.

Then in 2012, following a major health scare, I left my job in corporate America and started working full time for the American Heart Association. Today I continue to work in the nonprofit sector at JFCS.

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Yet somehow I still find myself longing to do more in the community. I don’t think it’s purely about altruism. These days with the nest empty and my wife working longer hours I am often bored. There’s only so many shows to binge and soccer matches to watch and books to read, and while I love these hobbies they are all passive. I started looking into active hobbies — like golf and pickleball and kayaking — and while I am still going to explore these things (especially when the weather in Phoenix allows) I know that giving back is a powerful tonic.

“Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on Earth.” — Muhammad Ali

I did some research on the interwebs and landed on a handful of volunteer opportunities that peaked my curiosity. I downselected to a pair, and sent in requests for more information and now just a few weeks later I’m an official volunteer at two nonprofits whose missions resonate with me.

Unleashing My Inner Lester Holt

Sun Sounds of Arizona provides audio access to print information to people who cannot read or hold print material due to a disability. Sun Sounds broadcasts the reading of over 200 local and national publications 24/7 from its studios in Tempe, Flagstaff, and Tucson. All reading is done by hundreds of trained volunteers.

I love the idea of turning my passion for reading into a volunteer experience that can help people stay informed and entertained. Best of all, I can do this from home or the road as I like — or I can record at the organization’s studio in Tempe. Plus, I can record as much or as little as I want.

Getting started with Sun Sounds takes a little effort. After I applied, I was asked to attend a one-hour online orientation. Following that, I was required to submit a reading test over the phone. Finally, after being approved, I purchased a good microphone (a Logitech Snowball iCE) and a pop filter (Auphonix) to ensure my recordings are top notch.

I am planning to start recording over the Thanksgiving weekend and I’m really excited to see where this goes. Anyone can listen to the Sun Sounds “feed” at https://sunsounds.org/listen-live.

Helping Small Businesses and Nonprofits Thrive

I have nearly 40 years of experience in public relations, marketing, promotion, and fundraising. It simply makes sense for me to share my experience with those just starting out in a business venture, especially if it’s a business or nonprofit I can get behind. I have known about SCORE for a long time, but I assumed you had to be retired to volunteer as a mentor. The truth is, the Service Corps of Retired Executives is no longer just for retired business leaders. If you have experience and a desire to help others, you can get involved. So I did.

SCORE is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and a resource partner of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA). One thing that stood out for me with SCORE was that there are multiple ways to help. I do not feel qualified to be a mentor, which is someone who provides overall business coaching to mentees (I don’t know a balance sheet from a top sheet). But I sure as heck feel qualified to give advice on public relations, marketing, and fundraising. So I signed up to be a subject matter expert, which in SCORE parlance means I’m someone who has “deep knowledge and experience in a specific business topic.” I have already met with several SCORE clients to lend my expertise to their marketing and promotional needs. I am also working with nonprofits to help them think through their marketing and fundraising strategies.

In just the first few weeks as a SCORE subject matter expert I have felt like I’ve made an impact, which is really all you can ask from a volunteer experience. On top of that, the local score chapter leader has asked me for assistance helping the chapter with their own marketing needs.

One thing I like about both of these volunteer experiences is that I can work at my own pace, mostly from home. And in each case if I want to spend more time volunteering I can.

I learned from my work writing for the Arizona Republic that all volunteer opportunities are not alike. Back then I volunteered for a wide array of organizations across multiple disciplines, from stacking books for the Friends of the Library to working directly with homeless kids at a shelter. Statistics suggest there are more than 1.5 million nonprofits in the U.S. alone, which means there are at least that many ways to give back. And while it can be overwhelming to decide how to jump in, there are some great tools to help you narrow down the choices. I started at Volunteer Match, which has a tool to help you down select by cause category. Categories include: human rights; animals; children & youth; hunger; seniors; and many more.

If like me you find yourself looking for a way to better use your free time consider volunteering. Not only will it help others, it will provide you with much-needed satisfaction and gratefulness.

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Are You an ‘Active Adult Community’ Kind of Person?

As I’ve gotten older I’ve started to think a lot about retirement. Not yet, but eventually. I’m 57 years old and I’ve been working nonstop since I was in college and truthfully I don’t want to work too long into my golden years. I know retirement may not always be what it’s cracked up to be, and sometimes men in particular find it demoralizing to stop working. But I’m not worried about that — I want to stop working by my mid-60s.

I actually have a plan for retirement, both financially and in terms of what I’d like to do with my time. Leslie is a financial planner so the money part is situated. I’ve also created a written plan for what I want out of my retirement. It includes things such as having a few active hobbies, volunteering in the community, vacationing, attending baseball games, having a nice place to go on walks, and watching soccer on television. Nothing too complicated…just spending my time enjoying life and giving back.

Recently though Leslie and I have had a few discussions about retirement lifestyle and I’m not sure we agree on one thing — where we will live. I’m not talking about geography, since we agree on that. But Leslie sees herself living in an “active adult community” and I’m not so sure how I feel about that.

I guess I never saw myself living in a place like Sun City or Leisure World. I think I get the appeal of being around others in your age bracket with built-in opportunities for friendships and activities. Yet something about the concept makes me squeamish even though I want friendships and activities. Leslie recently told me she thinks she is an “active adult community” kind of person, though she’s still at least 10 years away from retirement herself.

My parents moved to a 55+ community in Nevada when they got older, and for a while, they really loved the lifestyle, until they started to run out of money and needed to make alternative arrangements. In their last few years, I could tell they regretted leaving the active adult community but as I said their decision was financial. When I think back to their years in the 55+ community I think of them as already old, even though I’m creeping up on the age they were when they moved into that community. Maybe I’m less worried about living in an active adult community and more worried about getting old?

One of my arguments against a 55+ community is that you can live among younger people and still find ways to engage with people in your age bracket. You can join a gym or a community center. You can sign up for Meetups designed for older adults. You can make age-appropriate friends anywhere. I think I’m worried that if I live around seniors, and play with seniors, I’ll feel old rather than young. I’m not really sure I see myself signing up for pottery classes at the clubhouse or taking the short bus to the mall. I told Leslie today that rather than take the bus to the beach I’d prefer to hop on a Vespa or electric bike. She said I’ll be too old for that and will probably fall off and break a hip. I mean, she’s right that my body isn’t what it used to be. Sometimes I already feel like a 57-year-old in a 77-year-old body.

Active adult communities are everywhere here in Arizona. In fact, seniors are everywhere here as well. The thing is, I make fun of the snowbirds and blue hairs — I can’t be one of them!

If you’re getting up in years too, have you given any thought to how you will live? What do you think about the active adult lifestyle? Should I embrace my golden years and lean in, or keep fighting to maintain some semblance of what I think of as respectability? I’m truly interested in your opinion on the matter.

Celebrating the Life of Steve Gutman

It has been a few weeks now since my father, Steve Gutman, died from heart failure just shy of his 81st birthday. I have been struggling with the loss, and finding myself thinking of him at the oddest moments — lying in bed trying to fall asleep, or while watching an episode of Seinfeld, or just the other day when I was flipping through Facebook. I feel like his life can’t really be over, and the fact that I’ll never get to talk to him again is heartbreaking. He was a really amazing father.

One of the ways I cope is by writing, and recently I thought it might be nice (and therapeutic for me) to jot down my thoughts about the man we called Big G. If you’ll indulge me…and if you have some free time on your hands…feel free to read along if you like. Honestly, even if nobody ever reads this, it’ll be nice to know it’s out there in cyberspace for all eternity.

Steven Bruce Gutman was born in Brooklyn, New York on May 30, 1942 to Gertrude and Sol Gutman. He grew up in a row house in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn where he lived with his parents and older sister Sheila. His early life was filled with candy stores and stickball and stoopball and egg creams and bagels with lox and matzo brei. He was a second-generation Brooklyn jew who loved sports and food (with a heavy emphasis on food). He was an overweight kid who was the spitting image of Spanky from the Our Gang show. His friends called him Gutty Gutman.

Despite his weight (which he would battle his entire life) he was a great athlete who won the Brooklyn Boys League Softball Batting title as a 17-year-old. Sports meant everything to him, and in fact, he grew up going to Ebbets Field to watch his beloved Brooklyn Dodgers. He told me often that my grandmother took him to games on Saturdays during the summers when it was “ladies’ day” and she’d get a ticket for just 10 cents. When my dad couldn’t afford a ticket he’d join the other members of the famous knothole gang and watch the game through a hole in the fence. He worshiped Duke Snider, Roy Campanella, Gil Hodges, Pee Wee Reese, Jackie Robinson, and of course Brooklyn-born fellow member of the tribe Sandy Koufax. Baseball would remain a part of him throughout his life, a love he passed down to me.

My favorite Dodgers story from those days took place on October 3, 1951 when the Dodgers faced their rival New York Giants in game three of a three-game playoff to determine the winner of that year’s National League pennant. The Dodgers took a 4-1 lead into the ninth inning, and it was 4-2 when Giants third baseman Bobby Thomson came to the plate with two runners on.

Gutman family lore says it was at this moment my father decided to utter the fateful words (and I paraphrase): we’re going to win as long as Thomson doesn’t hit a home run.

Of course, baseball fans know that Thomson proceeded to launch one into the lower-deck stands near the left field foul line for a game-ending, three-run home run (known as The Shot Heard ‘Round the World). While Giants announcer Russ Hodges yelled the famous call “The Giants win the pennant, the Giants win the pennant” over and over again, legend has it my grandmother grabbed the closest weapon she could find, in this case, a frying pan, and chased my father down Herzl St. in Brooklyn vowing to kill him. Many years later my aunt met Thomson and relayed this story to him and the next time they saw each other she brought a frying pan for him to sign. I inherited that pan, which includes Thomson’s signature and the line: “Hi Steve, thanks for putting the jinx on the Dodgers.”

Perhaps the most important story from my dad’s teen years in Brooklyn, however, revolves around his time attending sleepaway camp in upstate New York. Like most New York Jews, my father attended summer camp in the Catskills. When he was around 17, he became a junior counselor at the camp and it was that summer he met a 14-year-old camper and aspiring dancer from East Meadow, Long Island named Lynne Brody. She would become the love of his life, and his wife for nearly 60 years. Of course, this is important because had he not met Lynne at camp I would never have been born. In fact, family legend has it I was named in part after that camp — called Camp Lenni-Len-A-Pe.

I don’t know much about my parent’s courtship, but I do know my father graduated from high school in 1960 and with designs on becoming a physical education teacher headed off to college at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Fla. That said, he certainly had a lot of reasons to keep his mind in New York between my mother still in school at East Meadow High and his family and friends back in Brooklyn. Ultimately, while I don’t know all the details surrounding the decision, my father dropped out of Miami and went back to New York where he enrolled in Brooklyn College and eventually married my mother while she was still just 17 years old. Again, family lore suggests the decision was driven in part by the Vietnam War and my dad’s desire not to get drafted since married men were ineligible for the draft at that time. Regardless, Lynne and Steve got hitched sometime in January 1964 in a civil ceremony and later did the whole thing again with friends and family in attendance at a synagogue in Brooklyn on Halloween night 1964. Why did they get married in a civil ceremony first? They likely did so to keep my dad from getting drafted to Vietnam so they held a civil wedding and then planned the “real” one for later in the year. Ultimately, the marriage deferment ended in August 1965 and after that, you needed to have a kid to get a deferment — not coincidentally, given my date of birth of June 21, 1966, I was likely conceived in October 1965 only a few weeks after Johnson’s announcement. Clearly, my father was determined not to go to war.

By 1966 my parents were living in an apartment in the Canarsie section of Brooklyn, and my dad was working for my grandfather at his shoe stores. I was born in June of that year, and not long after we moved to Valley Stream on Long Island. Valley Stream was an easy ride into Brooklyn for my dad, though often the 20-mile drive could take an hour or more. I wish I knew if my father was happy, working as a shoe salesman vs being a gym teacher, but he never talked about it. Frankly, he didn’t talk about his feelings much at all until he was an old man. I have few memories from Valley Stream aside from playing in the woods nearby and attending preschool at a local synagogue. In 1969 my little sister Jodi was born and I guess the house in Valley Stream was too small for a family of four so soon we moved to a large house in North Bellmore, further out on Long Island but still in Nassau County. The house in Bellmore must have seemed like the American dream to a kid from Brooklyn like my dad. We had a large backyard, a huge basement, and safe streets in the neighborhood in which we kids could play. My dad’s commute was longer, and even though the distance was still only about 30 miles the drive could take 90 minutes or more, especially if there was snow. My memories of Bellmore are pretty idyllic. We were close to Jones Beach, we often visited major parks, school was within walking distance, and the neighborhood was full of middle-class New Yorkers who had escaped the city. It was our own little version of The Wonder Years.

Not long after we moved to Bellmore my mom’s parents left Long Island for San Diego, California where many of my grandmother’s relatives had settled after World War II. I suspect this left a huge void in my mom’s life, but little did I know their move would lead to a major decision by my mom and dad that proved to be life-changing for all of us. We visited my grandparents in San Diego and it must have seemed like paradise to my parents. By 1974 my dad’s father had died and my father was running the shoe store along with his cousin Evan. The commute was taking a lot out of him, New York was cold and crime-ridden (my dad’s store had been robbed more than once), and with my mom’s parents in California, the long-term future in New York must have seemed difficult if not impossible.

Looking back, it seems like an easy decision to me, but what my mom and dad decided in 1976 must have felt like a hell of a risk despite the possibilities. My father sold the shoe store to his cousin, sold the house in Bellmore, and we packed up and moved to San Diego. 3,000 miles might have well have been 30,000 given the difference in culture between Long Island and California, but some of my parent’s friends made a similar decision around the same time.

My father moved his family to San Diego with no job, no prospects for work, and no place to live. It was a leap of faith that I am still thankful for today nearly 50 years later. Honestly, it was heroic. We settled into cramped quarters in my grandparent’s apartment on Trojan Ave. near 54th St. and El Cajon Blvd. and my sister and I were enrolled at the nearby elementary school. My dad set out each day to find a job, and before long he landed one selling shoes at Streicher’s Shoe Store in Mission Valley. It must have been hard for him to go from owning two shoe stores to working at the mall like some pre-Married with Children Al Bundy. Nevertheless, it was what he had to do to provide for the family in this new golden paradise.

We moved out of my grandparent’s apartment into our own at Lake Murray Terrace (The LMTs) at the intersection of Lake Murray Blvd. and Navajo Rd. in San Carlos. My dad sold shoes, and my mom stayed home and did her best Peg Bundy impression (crazy clothes, high-heeled shoes, cigarettes, and all). We were living the California dream.

It’s hard to overstate how much moving to California changed our lives. San Diego was, and still is, a great place to live with the best weather in the country and so many outdoor activities to explore. I took advantage of everything the city had to offer, from skateboarding to swimming at the beach to exploring nearby lakes and mountains. I loved the pace of life in California and quickly adapted to my new surroundings.

My father worked in the shoe business for the next few years and was quickly promoted from retail salesman to regional buyer for the chain’s many stores across California. He seemed to enjoy the freedom of driving around Southern California from store to store and meeting with distributors, and this lifestyle enabled him to always be there for my activities. I remember my father showing up at my Little League practices to hit fielding practice, and he made pretty much every game I had whether on a weeknight or weekend.

We eventually bought a house in San Diego, but my folks never cared much for yard work or taking care of a big house and we eventually ended up in a condo in La Mesa. By the time I reached late high school, however, the economy toughened up and I think my father felt empty in his job at Streichers and had moved into selling home improvement products (I think the first job was selling textured coating, a spray-on product to refinish the outside of a stucco home backed by Sears). My parents never spoke about money around my sister and me, but they must have been struggling because, by the time I entered my senior year of high school in 1983, my father made another fateful life decision that at first appeared to be the second biggest move of our lives.

My dad couldn’t find a job that suited him, but a friend of his from New York offered him a job at his roofing company in New York City. My parents made the difficult decision to separate until I graduated high school with my father moving back to New York and the rest of us staying in San Diego. I can only remember witnessing my father cry three times in his life, and the first was on the day I drove my father to the Amtrak station in San Diego to put him on a train back to New York. My father, who was afraid to fly most of his life (or at least until he discovered Xanax), must have felt like a failure getting on that train because as he said goodbye to me on the train platform he hugged me long and hard and began to cry. Those four days on the train were probably very difficult for him, but not nearly as difficult as climbing up a ladder on a New York City skyscraper to inspect the roof — not the best career choice for a man terrified of heights. His friend had assured him the inspections would be easy, but he definitely didn’t count on my father’s severe acrophobia. A few days after “moving” back to New York my father returned to San Diego, ostensibly with his tail between his legs and now unemployed.

Had the job in New York worked out, I may have ended up at college back east and my sister would have gone to high school somewhere in New York. I can’t imagine what that would have been like, because after almost a decade in California, I couldn’t imagine fitting in back in New York. I ended up going to college in Northern California and my sister finished high school in San Diego and ended up at San Diego State University. If you ask me today, I’ll tell you I am much more of a West Coast person than an East Coast person. I may have been born in Brooklyn, but I’m all laid back San Diegan.

Meanwhile, my father was in a career crisis. He couldn’t go back to selling shoes, but he was certainly a born salesman. My father always had a friendly and outgoing disposition that immediately put others at ease. Truthfully, he was a born salesman. Looking back I believe he truly cared for people, which is why he was such a great salesman. I watched my dad close a deal and I don’t think the people that bought from him ever felt like they were being “sold” anything. His personality was his gift, and if you knew him you’d surely agree. Everyone liked my dad.

Through some friends (I think maybe folks my mom met at one of the many poker rooms in San Diego where she played cards on a daily basis before the tribal casinos came to the forefront), my father was offered another sales position — this time selling room additions. The job enabled him to set his own hours, and he’d go out on leads six or seven days a week. Eventually, this morphed into a position selling re-stucco products for San Diego Stucco, the job that I’ll always associate him with. San Diego Stucco refinished homes with trowled-on stucco vs spray-on paint with rocks mixed in like what he sold at Sears. The product was very good, and my dad flourished as a salesman. San Diego Stucco became a part of his persona, though always cautious of anti-semitism, he used a pseudonym so customers wouldn’t know he was Jewish just by his name. San Diego Stucco had a salesman already, and his name was Steve also, so my father became Bill Hunter. It was not unusual for a Jewish person to change their name to avoid antisemitism (famously, Mel Kaminsky became Mel Brooks, Issur Danielovitch Demsky became Kirk Douglas, Winona Horowitz changed her name to Winona Ryder when she started acting, and Rodney Dangerfield grew up as Jacob Cohen for example). But it still took us a long time to get used to answering the phone to someone asking to speak to Bill. One time my father went on a lead that turned out to be at the home of my high school English teacher. He had to pretend he was my uncle. Oy.

My father was very successful at San Diego Stucco. My folks started to put away some money, and eventually they realized their dream to move to Las Vegas. I honestly don’t know what the appeal of Las Vegas was to my folks, but they sure enjoyed the Vegas lifestyle. As a kid my parents would take us to Las Vegas, hand my sister and me $20 each, and drop us off at Circus Circus for the day, returning later to pick us up for dinner. When they weren’t in Las Vegas, they’d drive to Lake Elsinore to play cards at the casino there. Or they’d go to one of the seedy card rooms on El Cajon Boulevard. At one point in time, my mother became a part owner of a card room, and I also remember her bringing home “strays” who needed a place to stay. Years later, as the local tribes built full-fledged casinos, my parents spent much of their free time gambling at Sycuan, or Veijas, or Barona.

So it wasn’t a surprise that my parents wanted to move to Las Vegas after my sister and I flew the nest. I remember one day my parents simply announced they had purchased a condo in Las Vegas to use as a home away from home when they went to Las Vegas. A few years after that, they announced they had sold that condo and purchased a small house in an active adult community just north of the Strip. The house in Sienna was their dream home, and they made a decision to move to Las Vegas full-time. Looking back, it was probably premature, but a dream is a dream. My parents loved that house, which was in a gated community on one of the region’s best public golf courses. They enjoyed going out to eat, hanging out by the luxurious pool with the other mishpocha, went out to shows with friends, and of course spent time gambling. My dad played golf at Sienna every chance he had.

During the early years in Las Vegas, my dad continued to work for San Diego Stucco. The man who wouldn’t fly began commuting by plane to San Diego, flying in on Thursday mornings, running leads all weekend, and returning on Saturday or Sunday night depending on how busy he was. He stayed with friends in San Diego, and probably enjoyed his time away from my mom. The crews at the Southwest Airlines counter at McCarren Airport and Lindbergh Field began to know my dad by name. As I said, he was a people person, and his ability to relate to people of every stripe was a gift.

This jet-setting lifestyle got old after a few years, so my father looked for a sales job in Las Vegas. I don’t remember which came first, but at separate times he sold patio covers and replacement windows. If it was for a home, my old man could sell it. Every lead was a Glengarry lead when my dad went on a sales call.

And so life went on for my parents in Las Vegas, but as the 2000s emerged things were about to get hard. The first hit turned out to be a heart attack for my father when he was 59. Again, I don’t know all the details, but it was serious. I recall a hospitalist telling my mom and dad that his heart was really damaged and that there was nothing they could do. My parents threw the poor guy out of the room and told him not to come back. They reached my dad’s regular cardiologist, according to family lore while he was on a ski vacation in Colorado, and he supposedly cut his vacation short to return to Las Vegas to treat my father. He said the hospitalist didn’t know what he was talking about, and while it was risky, he could patch my dad up. He was one of the only interventional cardiologists in the country at the time that was doing bypass surgery on patients without putting the patient on a heart/lung bypass machine which was very risky. He performed the quintuple bypass on my dad’s beating heart. The next day my father was sitting up in a chair with a new lease on life. Unlike his father, and his father before him, my father survived because of advances in medical science. My grandfather died of a heart attack at age 58. My great grandfather at 53. My dad would eventually outlive his own father by almost 22 years thanks to science.

My father was a smoker when he was younger, though he gave it up in his early 40s. He was also overweight most of his life and battled diabetes. His heart attack may have been inevitable, but it did not slow him down. After a while he was back on the golf course, and back to enjoying life. But his health would continue to challenge him for the rest of his life.

My father really wanted to retire after his heart surgery, but despite having worked his whole life my folks didn’t do a great job of saving for retirement. Like many Americans, they lived at their means rather than below them and never saved much. They owned the house in Las Vegas, and had some money in retirement, but their lifestyle in Las Vegas was quite lavish given their means. Nevertheless, my father wanted to stop working.

I think what my parents did next was the beginning of the end of their truly happy times. Hindsight is a bitch, but looking back they should have concocted a different plan. Instead, they sold their dream house in Sienna and moved in with my sister in Arizona. And while the following two decades were filled with quality time in Arizona seeing my sister and me, plus three grandkids, they always looked back at what they had in Las Vegas with sadness having given it up. They also thought they could save enough money living with my sister to ensure their golden years, and that being away from the Vegas casinos would help them stop gambling. They were wrong on both counts — my mother was unable to quit smoking and that had been a promise to my sister as a condition of living with her, and the draw of tribal casinos in and around the Phoenix area was too difficult to ignore (maybe they were addicted to gambling…maybe not. But they sure loved it).

My parents rented a house in Sun City, not too far from my sister’s house and close enough for me to visit often. A few years later though my brother-in-law got laid off from his job and ended up taking a job 100 miles away in Tucson. He commuted for a while, but eventually my sister put in for a transfer with her state job and they moved to Tucson permanently. My parents didn’t confer with me about it, but they decided to move to Tucson as well. They rented an apartment and settled into life in the Old Pueblo as it’s called. Soon after, my mom’s younger sister and her husband moved to Tucson as well, and they lived next door to each other in a nice apartment complex near the (mostly dry) river.

Without going into too much detail, the next few years were difficult. My father suffered from severe peripheral artery disease, complicated by diabetes. My mother, who never stopped smoking until her last days, developed COPD. My father had a severe stroke, which we thought was going to be the end of him. But he continued to fight. He had to have two toes amputated from his peripheral artery disease. He started to suffer from occasional confusion likely a result of the stroke and was diagnosed with vascular dementia. Then in 2022 he had what we thought was another stroke but turned out to be a seizure which put him in a come-like state for three days — three days in which we thought he might never recover.

I’ll say this about my father: he was a fighter. You can trace it throughout his whole life. He wanted a better life for his family, so he moved us to California with not much more than the clothes on our backs. He came back from a major heart attack and bypass surgery. He got a new hip. He came back from a stroke. He played golf even after losing two toes. But the seizure really took the spark out of him. and with my mom deteriorating, and his dementia progressing, and his kidneys and heart failing, things didn’t look good. On top of all this, my folks had also quite literally run out of money. Until they died earlier this year, my sister and I were trying to get them approved for Medicaid so they could live out their days in an assisted-living home paid for by the government.

But when my mother died in March of complications from COPD that resulted in her going into septic shock, it was too much for my father to handle. He always said that if my mom died he’d follow her shortly, and he reminded us of that right after she died. A few weeks after her death, something may have happened to his already failing heart, and 42 days after my mom died my father followed her into the dark.

He was everything you wanted in a dad. I still don’t believe he’s gone. But I’ll leave you with some factoids and anecdotes:

He was, like me, a generational “tweener” born at the end of the Greatest generation but before the Baby Boomer generation. He never fit into either category.He was a gentle, kind-hearted man who despite sometimes putting on a tough New Yorker mask was always a soft-spoken friend of all kinds of people.He was a lifelong Democrat.His superpower was being able to discern what famous actor or actress was the narrator of any particular television commercial.He hardly ever drank. I maybe saw him drink six beers in his whole life. Yet he kept a stocked liquor cabinet for friends.He once chaperoned a trip to a Padres game for my entire Little League team. At least a dozen of us piled into his work cargo van, with no seats. On the way home after the game, probably due to all the junk food we ate, one of us upchucked in the back of the van. The stench started a chain reaction and more kids puked. My dad simply pulled over at a gas station, hosed out the van, and we went on our way.He loved gangster films the most.Between sales calls, he could often be found at a nearby mall sitting on a bench watching women go by, or if he was close enough, at the beach doing the same.He believed in God, and even though he didn’t practice he remained a proud Jewish man his whole life. He wore a necklace with a chai on the end and it never failed to start conversations with fellow members of the tribe and attracted many close friends over the years.He was working at his shoe store in Brooklyn when he heard they were shooting an Al Pacino film nearby. He walked over on a break and found himself in a crowd of people behind a police barricade yelling Attica. Attica. though we never really knew if that particular cut made the film. Nevertheless, he always watched Dog Day Afternoon if it was on TV.He loved Chinese food. I can’t tell you the name he called it because it was racist. But he wasn’t racist. In fact, he could relate to anyone of any station in life.Among his childhood friends from the old neighborhood were members of the band Jay & the Americans. He was so proud of the connection and loved their music.He claims one night at a New York Rangers hockey game he was sitting behind the goal at Madison Square Garden and he reached up to catch the puck after an errant shot and his watch went flying off his wrist. He never got it back.He was a Seinfeld fanatic who always had a knack for quoting the perfect Seinfeld line at the perfect time. Not that there’s anything wrong with it.At sleepaway camp he was close friends with Ron Rothstein, who grew up to play basketball at Rhode Island and later was the first-ever head coach of the Miami Heat and coached for a variety of NBA teams. He followed Ron’s career his whole life.His favorite song was I Am…I Said by Neil Diamond because it was about a guy who left New York for California. Well I’m New York City born and raised, but nowadays I’m lost between two shoresHe was living proof that you could take the kid out of Brooklyn but you could never take Brooklyn out of the kid. In his later years, he connected to old Brooklyn pals on Facebook. He never lost his New York accent. He repped his Brooklyn Dodgers with hats, jackets, t-shirts, and online passwords all his days.

Here’s a video I made for his 80th Birthday in 2022. If you attended the party in person or on Zoom you’ve already seen this, but if you haven’t I think it tells a nice story about his life.

ASU Failing Students by Limiting Exposure to Differing Viewpoints

If you believe one of the purposes of college is to create critical thinkers, as I do, then the recent decision by the faculty to protest a right-wing event because in their words the college in effect endorsed hate speech was not only wrong but short-sighted. I deplore the speakers present — Robert Kiyosaki, Dennis Prager, and Charlie Kirk — but if you fancy yourself an American and favor free speech why would you teach students to deny it?

More than 600 people attended the event back in February, even after more than 30 active Barrett faculty signed a petition protesting the event arguing the speakers were “purveyors of hate.” The faculty members said they didn’t have a problem with the event being held on campus, instead, they didn’t like that the event was endorsed by the college. Never mind the event was in fact put on as part of the T.W. Lewis Center for Personal Development at ASU’s Barrett School where they teach. Of course it was endorsed by the college — it was a program of the college.

For the record, local developer Tom Lewis has donated millions of dollars to ASU over the past 20 years and the center in question is named for him. Its mission is to:

Prepare students for the challenges and opportunities of life. To accomplish this objective, the Lewis Center provides innovative courses, workshops, and an engaging speaker series focused on self-awareness (behaviors, values, strengths), personal values and character development, leadership and entrepreneurship, decision-making and risk-taking, career planning, success, and happiness.

Following the event, the center’s executive director Ann Atkinson, an ASU grad who has worked in commercial real estate and development for almost two decades, said she was fired for bringing the conservative voices to campus. ASU argues she was let go because Tom Lewis pulled funding for the center and her job was funded by the donations. The fact is Lewis didn’t like the way the faculty reacted to the appearances of conservative voices and he pulled his funding as he has the right to do. And frankly, I don’t blame him.

Dennis Prager, Charlie Kirk and Robert Kiyosaki at ASU o Feb. 8. Beware, listening to hate speech might make you become a hater according to Barrett faculty. I say, let these idiots spout their drivel and then take them to task for their words in a public forum.

When did it become okay to stifle free speech on college campuses? I know many comedians have stopped peforming at colleges because of what they call “cancel culture” and it’s certainly not my intention to endorse non-woke sentiments, but ASU is a public college that serves students of all political persuasions — whether or not you agree with everyone’s opinion is not the point.

I would argue that we learn from hearing all sides of an issue before formaulating an opinion and trying to stifle unpopular opinions is antithetical to education on principal. I am a purist on this issue because I believe in the U.S. Constitution. It’s the same reason I believe the ACLU is right to defend white supremecists even if their beliefs are horrific. Conservatives spout on and on about the “free market” regulating issues and while I think the idea is bunk when it comes to economics I think it’s spot on when it comes to free speech.

The way to handle speech you don’t like is to picket, protest, and offer counter programming. If that’s in fact what the Barrett faculty thought they were doing by protesting this event they were complaining about the wrong issue — they should have complained to ASU leadership for taking Mr. Lewis’ money in the first place. You can’t make a deal with the devil and expect him to not want to make things hot.

But even that would be a fool’s errand because a public university has the right, and need, to bring in funding from all reputable sources. ASU is home to many programs funded by conservatives (we live in Arizona after all). The School of Engineering, for example, is named for donor Ira Fulton, a member of the Church of Latter Day Saints. Think he’s a liberal? Ever wonder who the heck W.P. Carey of the W. P. Carey School of Business is? He’s a real estate developer who donated $50 million to have the school bear his name. Not a lot of liberals out there who can throw around that kind of cheese.

I’m tired of my fellow liberals playing directly into the hands of conservatives with stupid stunts like this. Now the Arizona State legislature is investigating the school’s disrespect of the Constitution. Don’t give them shit like this on a silver platter.

The best way to undermine conservative voices is to let them speak. They undermine themselves everytime they open their mouths.

ASU Barrett Honors Failing Students by Limiting Exposure to Differing Viewpoints

If you believe one of the purposes of college is to create critical thinkers, as I do, then the recent decision by the faculty to protest a right-wing event because in their words the college in effect endorsed hate speech was not only wrong but short-sighted. I deplore the speakers present — Robert Kiyosaki, Dennis Prager, and Charlie Kirk — but if you fancy yourself an American and favor free speech why would you teach students to deny it?

More than 600 people attended the event back in February, even after more than 30 active Barrett faculty signed a petition protesting the event arguing the speakers were “purveyors of hate.” The faculty members said they didn’t have a problem with the event being held on campus, instead, they didn’t like that the event was endorsed by the college. Never mind the event was in fact put on as part of the T.W. Lewis Center for Personal Development at ASU’s Barrett School where they teach. Of course it was endorsed by the college — it was a program of the college.

For the record, local developer Tom Lewis has donated millions of dollars to ASU over the past 20 years and the center in question is named for him. Its mission is to:

Prepare students for the challenges and opportunities of life. To accomplish this objective, the Lewis Center provides innovative courses, workshops, and an engaging speaker series focused on self-awareness (behaviors, values, strengths), personal values and character development, leadership and entrepreneurship, decision-making and risk-taking, career planning, success, and happiness.

Following the event, the center’s executive director Ann Atkinson, an ASU grad who has worked in commercial real estate and development for almost two decades, said she was fired for bringing the conservative voices to campus. ASU argues she was let go because Tom Lewis pulled funding for the center and her job was funded by the donations. The fact is Lewis didn’t like the way the faculty reacted to the appearances of conservative voices and he pulled his funding as he has the right to do. And frankly, I don’t blame him.

Dennis Prager, Charlie Kirk and Robert Kiyosaki at ASU o Feb. 8. Beware, listening to hate speech might make you become a hater according to Barrett faculty. I say, let these idiots spout their drivel and then take them to task for their words in a public forum.

When did it become okay to stifle free speech on college campuses? I know many comedians have stopped peforming at colleges because of what they call “cancel culture” and it’s certainly not my intention to endorse non-woke sentiments, but ASU is a public college that serves students of all political persuasions — whether or not you agree with everyone’s opinion is not the point.

I would argue that we learn from hearing all sides of an issue before formaulating an opinion and trying to stifle unpopular opinions is antithetical to education on principal. I am a purist on this issue because I believe in the U.S. Constitution. It’s the same reason I believe the ACLU is right to defend white supremecists even if their beliefs are horrific. Conservatives spout on and on about the “free market” regulating issues and while I think the idea is bunk when it comes to economics I think it’s spot on when it comes to free speech.

The way to handle speech you don’t like is to picket, protest, and offer counter programming. If that’s in fact what the Barrett faculty thought they were doing by protesting this event they were complaining about the wrong issue — they should have complained to ASU leadership for taking Mr. Lewis’ money in the first place. You can’t make a deal with the devil and expect him to not want to make things hot.

But even that would be a fool’s errand because a public university has the right, and need, to bring in funding from all reputable sources. ASU is home to many programs funded by conservatives (we live in Arizona after all). The School of Engineering, for example, is named for donor Ira Fulton, a member of the Church of Latter Day Saints. Think he’s a liberal? Ever wonder who the heck W.P. Carey of the W. P. Carey School of Business is? He’s a real estate developer who donated $50 million to have the school bear his name. Not a lot of liberals out there who can throw around that kind of cheese.

I’m tired of my fellow liberals playing directly into the hands of conservatives with stupid stunts like this. Now the Arizona State legislature is investigating the school’s disrespect of the Constitution. Don’t give them shit like this on a silver platter.

The best way to undermine conservative voices is to let them speak. They undermine themselves everytime they open their mouths.

The Search for Great Gas Station Coffee

Coffee culture long ago reached peak trendiness in the U.S. with brands like Starbucks, Caribou and Peets leading the explosive second wave beginning in the 1990s. This movement was followed by the third wave beginning around the turn of the century, featuring smaller shops roasting single origin and/or fair trade beans sold by highlighting flavor notes and regional appeal and using unique brewing techniques like pour overs and french presses. I can’t imagine what the next wave might entail…perhaps coffee brewed to match your individual genetic profile?

The thing is, many of us simply want a good cup of hot coffee and the only flavor note we care about is, well, coffee flavor! And while I enjoy a premium roast as much as the next guy, what if you’re not in a coffee city and instead travelling along the interstate and you simply want a good old fashioned cup of joe? Not surprisingly, even gas stations now offer “premium” coffee so unless you’re making a cup of Folgers at home, first wave (think the coffee your parents drank) coffee is probably a thing of the past.

I’m simply not a coffee snob. Yes, I can probably tell the difference between a third wave brew from Costa Rica vs Sumatra, but I don’t want to have to do that all the time. At the same time, I refuse to drink swill from the local Circle K or Chevron station, or heaven-forbid McDonald’s. So I’ve decided to go out of my way over the next few months to try some gas station coffee in case I’m halfway between Phoenix and Tucson or in the middle of nowhere in a red state and need to put some pep in my step.

I had to drive to Tucson for work this morning so I decided to begin this quest by driving past Starbucks and Dutch Bros to a truck stop for a cuppa dirt. I read online that Flying J/Pilot was a favorite of long haulers so I pulled off Interstate 10 south of Eloy and marched into the store after filling up my gas tank. I noticed right away that Flying J was not going to make my choice easy. I’d read they were among the first truck stops to put in those fancy brewing machines that grind your beans and brew your coffee all at once. Fancy indeed for a truck stop. But much to my chagrin, and maybe it shouldn’t have been a surprise, both of the machines this truck stop had installed were out of order. Even still, I was faced with a couple of choices — on my left the shop had freshly Bunn brewed coffee from the same brand as the fancy machines, and on my right was a selection of freshly brewed Dunkin Donuts coffee machines. I am among those who believe the hype around Dunkin Donuts coffee has more due to the fact that they typically serve it with lots of cream an sugar, and since I drink my coffee black with no sweetener I’ve never cared for Dunkin Donuts coffee and think its popularity is more about nostalgia than good coffee. So I opted for a cup of Pilot House medium blend (self-proclaimed best coffee on the interstate).

The coffee was too hot to drink, which is fine, so I let it cool off a bit and headed back out on the highway. After a few minutes, I took my first pull of “the best coffee on the interstate” and it was…basic. That’s about the best thing I could say. It was coffee. It had flavor notes of, well, coffee. No “citrus” or “chocolate” or “nutty” undertones. It was just basic coffee.

But it wasn’t bad. It was hot. It was drinkable. It filled my need for a jitter juice. It was serviceable. For you hipsters, I’d describe it as solid first wave java. Not Denny’s good…but way better than Circle K or Texaco.

If I’m ever out on the interstate again and simply need a hot cuppa to get me going down the highway, I’d stop at a Flying J or Pilot in a heartbeat. That said, I was super disappointed that the premium blend machine wasn’t working. I would have really liked to try the “limited release” Machu Picchu roast which according to the sign offered flavor notes including chocolaty, sweet, and floral.

The big question is, where will I stop on the way home tomorrow? Love’s Travel Stop? JA’s? Bowlin’s Picacho Plaza? Stay tuned.

Everything But the Girl: Origins of a Love Affair

Sometimes I think love is so elusive because it comes to you in unusual ways and often when you least expect it. Such is the case for my now nearly 40-year love affair with the sound of U.K. band Everything But the Girl. These days Tracey Thorn’s voice is as familiar to me as my own, though nobody should ever be forced to hear me sing.

It was the early 1980s and I was studying journalism at San Jose State University and working nights at a record store. One of the perks of the job was that we were allowed to take home any record in the store under the guise of “research” to be a more informed clerk. We could have any five records checked out at any given time, and the store manager would return the used vinyl to the manufacturer as defective. One day I was sorting the bins and I ran across an album cover that caught my eye.

I’d never heard of the band, but the two kids peeing in the puddle made me laugh and since it cost me nothing to give it a spin I took it home. The moment I heard the first few notes of the first track I felt that unmistakable twinge of familiarity — I knew this woman’s voice. I racked my brain for a while, and then it hit me. The voice on this album was the same voice that sings lead on The Paris Match from the Style Council’s 1984 debut record Cafe Blue.

I’d been a longtime fan of Paul Weller from his days in The Jam and when he joined forces with Mick Talbot of Dexy’s Midnight Runners to form the Style Council I was hooked. The Style Council was a huge departure from The Jam’s punk sound. Instead, it was soul-infused pop. But The Paris Match was different even from the rest of Cafe Blue. It was a torch song that could have been written and performed in the 1940s, and the sultry voice on lead vocals was haunting. But apparently not haunting enough for me to check out the liner notes on Cafe Blue to learn that the singer was Tracey Thorn, and even if I had I had no idea who Tracey Thorn was…until the moment I put Everything But the Girl onto my turntable and touched the needle down.

Love Not Money turned out to be the second studio album by British band Everything But The Girl, a duo made up of friends and sometimes lovers Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt. The pair met as students at the University of Hull and by 1984 had recorded and released their first record, Eden. Thorn had previously been a member of a band called Marine Girls, but she and Ben were destined to be together. Eden sparked a minor hit with the song Each and Every One, gained critical acclaim, and obviously caught the ear of Paul Weller which ultimately led her to feature on Cafe Blue.

I played Love Not Money over and over, and even found a promotional poster at work that ended up on my dorm room wall. The band wasn’t getting played on radio stations in the U.S., though it likely got some play on college radio. In fact, the band never built any momentum in the U.S. despite its popularity in England until 1994 and that was unintentional (more on that in a bit).

Over the succeeding years, my appreciation for the band grew even as Tracey and Ben morphed the band’s sound. In 1986 the pair released their third album, Baby, The Stars Shine Bright and it opened my ears for the first time to what I naively call mid-century country. The album consisted of ballads and torch songs backed by lush horn and string sections. It was unlike anything I’d ever listened to before and I honestly think it opened my mind for the first time to country-like music. I’m not saying I ran out and bought a Patsy Cline record, but it did lead me to artists I still love today like k.d. lang and Lyle Lovett. Baby, The Stars Shine Bright was a gateway drug to alt-country.

The band followed that album up with 1988’s Idlewild which is my favorite EBTG album. For my money it’s a damn near perfect album with spectacular songs from start to finish, including my all-time favorite song by the band, I Always Was Your Girl. Idlewild peaked at #14 on the U.K. charts but the band remained unknown in the U.S. Still, at least one song off the record turned some ears as Apron Strings was featured in the film She’s Having A Baby starring Kevin Bacon and Elizabeth McGovern.

1990 brought another new record, The Language of Life. This album marked a bit of a turning point again for EBTG as it was the band’s most highly produced record to date as Tracey and Ben brought in Grammy award-winning music producer Tommy LiPuma to give the record a polished feel versus the smoke-filled small club feel of the band’s earlier records. LiPuma worked with a lot of mature-sounding artists like Al Jarreau, Anita Baker, George Benson, and Barbra Streisand. The result was a gorgeous pop album with songs designed to be hit singles like Driving, Me and Bobby D, and Imaging America. The album featured a sensational list of guest artists like Kirk Whalum on sax, Russell Ferrante on piano, Omar Hakim on drums as well as Stan Getz, Joe Sample, Michael Brecker, and more. Still, American success did not come despite the band’s growing success and influence in Europe. The album went gold in the U.K. and reached the top 10 on the U.K. album charts.

It was around this time I got my first taste of EBTG in concert. The band toured America promoting The Language of Life and I saw them at The Warfield Theater in San Francisco. It’s a day I’ll never forget because the theater was open seating so my girlfriend and I decided to camp out all day in line to be among the first fans let in. When we arrived in the city we took our seats on the sidewalk in front of the theater as the first two people in line. By midday, hundreds of EBTG fans lined up behind us. We ended up in the front row for the concert and seeing Tracey and Ben live was a treat I’ll never forget. But I’ll also not forget what took place on the street and sidewalk in front of the Warfield that day. It turns out the city’s famous gay and lesbian pride parade was on the same day. As we sat on the sidewalk we watched the whole parade go by, from the Dykes on Bikes to topless trans men showcasing their buxom boobs to full-on half-naked makeout sessions right in front of us. But the thing I remember most is that more than once a gay man or couple stopped in front of the Warfield to see what we were up to, looked up at the marquee that read Tonight Only: Everything But The Girl, nodded, and said yeah, that’s about right.

By the time I moved to Phoenix EBTG put out a few more wonderful albums, including a really fun covers album called Acoustic. In 1994 the band released Amplified Heart, for me their second-best record after Idlewild. When the band toured that year we scored front-row seats to the show at what was then called the Red River Opry (now san seats and called The Marquee). But the highlight of that day was the in-store appearance by Tracey and Ben at Borders prior to the concert. Leslie and I showed up and got what turned out to be damn near a private acoustic set by the band as only a few people found out about the appearance.

Amplified Heart sounds like most previous EBTG records, but something unexpected happened not long after its release that propelled the band to international fame and launched its first U.S. hit. The album’s second single, Missing, was remixed by American deejay Todd Terry as an electronic dance song and it skyrocketed up the charts, eventually reaching as high as #2 on the Billboard Hot 100. The hit pushed Amplified Heart to gold status in both the U.K. and U.S. and introduced Tracey and Ben to a whole new audience. Striking while the iron was hot, EBTG went back to the studio and in 1996 released Walking Wounded, an album that took full advantage of the new audience and turned into the band’s highest charting album ever in the U.S. peaking at #37 in the U.S. (it landed at #4 in the U.K.). Walking Wounded is an electronic dance record, but no matter what the music sounds like it still benefits from the magical voice of Tracey Thorn.

I have to admit Walking Wounded isn’t my favorite EBTG album, mostly because I’m not much of an EDM person. But I can’t fault Ben and Tracey for cashing in while they had the chance and for folks who like EDM it certainly resonated. The band doubled down on EDM with its 10th studio album in 1999 called Temperamental which also charted in the U.S. but not as high.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Everything But The Girl these days because the band is back this month after a 22-year hiatus with the release of its 11th studio album, Fuse. Over the past 22 years, Ben and Tracey have lived quietly together in North London and in 2009 the longtime collaborators tied the knot. They have three children together. Each released solo work in the time between 1999 and now, and in truth, I’ve really liked Tracey’s solo albums, especially 2018’s Record.

But I’m nervous about Fuse because the first few tracks I’ve heard are electronic, and I much prefer the older acoustic and natural-sounding stuff. I’ve read Fuse will contain some of both, which is smart I guess as they may be able to appeal to both old and new fans. Here’s a taste.

All this is to say, Everything But The Girl is one of my all-time favorite artists, and the story of how I found them is typical of how I stumble across artists I like. Some people have asked me how I stay abreast of new music when it’d be so easy to just stick to what I know and love. I love the chase. I love the rabbit holes. I’ll hear a voice on a song and explore it. I especially like it when an artist I like brings in a guest vocalist that I don’t know because it gives me the chance to research the artist and take a listen. This is exactly how I came to like Noah Cyrus — she was a guest vocalist on a Jake Bugg song that I loved (Waiting off Hearts That Strain).

For me, music really is the soundtrack of my life. I remember bits and details of my life, but those details are made more memorable by the music I was listening to at the time. And I love to share the music I love, which is why I write this blog and why I’m constantly posting about music on social media.

I hope you enjoyed my deep dive into Everything But The Girl, but even more I hope that if you’ve never listened to them you’ll go back to the start and give them a shot. And I won’t even hold it against you if you prefer the EDM stuff!