Author Archives: Zachary Klein

BITTERSWEET BALLGAMES

Posted on by
6

This past Monday and Thursday my son Jake and I went to watch Jah Energy play and win its semi-final series.  The team played all around solid softball with few mistakes and a stout defense.  Jah’s pitching was superb.  Batters kept the bases busy during the first game and played long ball the second.  It made both of us happy to see the team we had played for earn the chance to win the championship.

But for me the operant words in that last sentence were “had played.”  Past tense–with little future action other than a symbolic inning next year before I officially retire.

This season was the first in twenty-five years that I hadn’t played, coached, or managed.  The first season when, until last week, I hadn’t attended a game or practice.  I told myself I didn’t go to the games because my shoulder surgery kept me from driving.  Eventually I realized I stayed away because it was too weird and painful to feel there was no real place for me on the field.

Once Jah came in first and started the play-offs, however, I couldn’t resist.  You can bet I’ll cheer them on during the championship series–wholehearted enthusiasm mixed with a really difficult goodbye.

I knew how I was going to feel when I first got to the field and saw all of the team’s new faces.  I immediately remembered the early years when Ruben, Jah’s founder, rebuilt the team damn near from scratch each spring because of the turnover.   We actually recruited folks we met in the park and hoped they knew the game.   Every season worrying about having enough players or too many players, enough women or not enough women.   Going through a ton of team iterations throughout those twenty-five years and enjoying every one of them.

Sitting there, remembering all those years of playing in the cold, dank days of Boston’s April. Coming out early on Sundays before practice to work with people who wanted to improve–myself included.  Staring directly into the sun  during the summer, hoping my glove was in the right position to catch the ball I couldn’t see.  Dealing with the push/pull tension of competitiveness versus just having fun.  Also recalling coming home after play-off games and writing them up and sending the stories to my teammates.   Now that was a pleasure–especially if we won.

Faces from the past kept popping into my mind and Jake and I would talk about them.  How Q. would always manage to piss the other team off with his trash talk.  Hell, some of us would bet on which inning it would be before someone blew up.  How Jonathan used to club the ball farther than anyone we had ever seen, though Rone, who still plays for Jah, is the best athlete the league ever had.

I remember Tom who played shortstop and loved to heave the ball over my head.  (My first base mantra was if you were gonna miss, miss low.  Those I could pick.  But over my head?  Not with about three inches of air under my feet when I was at my best.)

I sat there watching John who created the league and has worked as an umpire every single year from the league’s inception.  Remembering the managers I played for and the lifelong friends I’ve made.

Face after face after face from the league that I’ll carry around with me for the rest of my life.

And of course thinking about being on the field with my older son Matt–then in later years with Jake, my nephew Lee, and niece Julia.  That was probably more satisfying than the set of championships Jah won during my tenure.

So this is gonna be it.  I can’t play anymore (except for that token appearance next season), our manager Sara is a much better manager than I was, and I don’t think coaching third would do it for me.

Truth is, it’s time.  Not merely because of my shoulder either.  I held on too long.  I knew it when I no longer wanted the ball hit to me.  Knew it when I couldn’t cover enough ground to make a routine play.  Knew it when I tried to switch positions and become a left-handed catcher but couldn’t buy a base hit.  But knowing it’s time to go and going ain’t the same.  It took the shoulder blowout to drive it home.

So there we were sitting in our chairs chatting about the past, the great plays we’d seen over the years, and all the people.  It would be nice if a future someone watching a Jah play-off game in a lawn chair had my face pop into mind.

I SAW A TOILET LEAK

Posted on by
8

“But I did not shoot the Deputy!”

Over the past two months one of our cats has been pissing in the house.  Though she finally stopped after two difficult-to-administer doses of Prozac, we’ve been on guard.  So, when I noticed a small puddle behind the toilet I approached gingerly.

Hmmm, during the last little while I’ve gotten used to identifying that cat smell at ten paces.  This was odd.  No odor.  Over the last several years of watching the multiple versions of CSI.  I feel I too have become a “spatter” expert.  And this spatter did not seem to constitute a crime.  But where is Grissom when you need him?

I moved in closer.  Still no odor.  With a Jewish sigh, I plodded to the kitchen for paper towels.  With a deeper one, I dropped to my knees and dried the floor.  Still no odor.  Then I noticed the pipe between the toilet and the wall had a turning knob on it.

Now those who don’t know me gotta be thinking who is this idiot?  Those who do might still be shaking their heads in wonderment, but understand that I am perfectly capable of walking past broken cabinets, handleless drawers, closet doors that won’t shut, and metal blinds twisted into grotesque modern sculptures without even seeing any of it.

Hell, the bottom wooden step leading to our house had lost a two slats (that someone kindly placed onto the porch) but it never occurred to me to do anything about them.  Drove my friend Bill so crazy he came over with an electric something (drill?) and screwed the planks in with the correct nails.  (Screws?)  Not really sure.

And there lies the problem.  Even if I actually see that something is broken, the only equipment I know how to use is duct tape.  Actually, it’s not pretty but perfect for many fixes–upholstery, holding things in place, and patching, but wouldn’t really work on steps.  As Sue all too often puts it, I’m a “Jew with tools.”

See, my idea of tools are mechanical pencils and I struggle to reload them.  Never know whether to refill from the top or shove the lead  (assuming I chose the correct mm) up the bottom.  There’ve been times  when I was certain of success only to have the damn lead fall out when I  went to use the fucker.  Much to my dismay, a lotta times.

Which means when given a hammer as a kid I begged for books.  Of course, growing up no one ever needed a hammer.  We rented.  And when I left home I continued to rent.  Right up until Sue suggested buying a house in the late 70s and I fought tooth and nail against it since the idea of fixing anything was as foreign to me as Istanbul.  Praise the lord I lost the argument since the house has allowed us multiple career changes, but it was clear I wasn’t going to be what anyone could call handy.

Now I know “Jews with tools” is a horrible stereotype.  My brother-in-law is a contractor and builder, the Jewish friend who plays piano in my ensemble is the same.  Even my own son is an electrician apprentice.  But that “horrible” stereotype fits me like a high-priced, custom tailored suit.  If I do manage to spot a household problem, here’s my solution.  Yell at the top of my lungs, “SUE!!!  We (you’ve) got a problem here!”

Now let me make it clear–I’m not a total numbnut around the house.  I can fill a dishwasher with the best of ’em.  Until my shoulder problems, I religiously made the bed every morning and regularly did the laundry.  I will again, once I can move my arm into certain positions without risking the operation.  (As the surgeon said, no do-over on this one.)

And I can pick up clutter like nobody’s business, despite the rebuke that “picking up isn’t cleaning.”  It sure as hell is when everyone who lives here drops everything into the first room they land.

I also find everyone’s keys on an almost daily basis.

Which all leads back to the bathroom find and fix.  Down there on the bathroom floor, I didn’t panic.  I held my crouch and stared at that damn pipe.  I didn’t yell for Sue (who wasn’t home anyway, though that never stopped me before).  I assessed the situation and slowly, carefully, tightened up that knob on the pipe.  Then I placed a bowl under my best guess as to where the water was dribbling from.

I call this a breakthrough.  Though still without any tools.  Unless you count the bowl.

PLAYIN’ HOOKY

Posted on by
6

When you’ve spent almost your entire life working out of your house, days merge.  So much so that I often have no idea which day of the week it is.  And am slightly jarred when I hear someone say they can’t wait for the weekend.  For me, there’s not much difference between Thursday and Monday or Saturday and Sunday because I’m usually in my office every day.

Even when I worked in law, if I wasn’t at trial, my work life was the same.  Upstairs in my office editing briefs, writing voir dire questions for the next jury, on the phone planning trial or legal strategies, practicing the sax.

This week was different.  Sue had run into a friend, a photography curator at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston with a current exhibit of Edward Weston pictures that were commissioned for a special edition of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass.  After Sue’s shameless request for a personal tour (she had done this for us for a major Ansel Adams show), K. invited us to come on Thursday.

Now I’ve been to different exhibitions at different museums with terrific docents (am thinking especially of one at The Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida) who taught me a ton about what I was looking at.  But that’s nothing compared to learning about an artist’s work from a curator.  Not only did she know what was special about each of Weston’s pictures, K. could tell us about every leg of the ten-month road trip across America that he took with his wife, Charis, to gather the shots for the book.

Which was a pretty incredible story since the publisher initially demanded that Weston’s pictures were to illustrate Whitman’s words pretty literally.  Something Weston was loathe to do so he decided to shoot what he wanted and, as he sent his pictures back to the increasingly anxious publisher, he (or usually his wife, Charis) would explain how each specific shot related to Whitman’s words, sometimes quoting “chapter and verse.”

An interesting aside.  Although these “special editions” sound like rare collector items (which they are now), in their time, they were a somewhat higher class version of a Book of the Month Club type arrangement.  Another tidbit was how much Weston hated the book’s graphic design after it was published.

The room’s photo arrangement replicated their trip’s route.  (Weston didn’t drive so his wife had that on her shoulders.  He wasn’t particularly social so if he wanted to photograph someone, it was often Charis who made it happen and made the person comfortable.  In fact, as driver she often was the one who stopped at a “Weston” image.)  Although amazingly beautiful pictures came out of that trip, so did a divorce.  Not simply due to the stress of traveling, she was also thirty years his junior and wanted children. (If you’re interested in knowing a little more about Charis, as I was when I got home, here’s a link to a short interview:

The stories were great but the real payoff was the curator’s knowledge of each individual picture and what made it special.  She showed us how his use of darkness was like a moment of silence in music.  Or, how certain pictures seemed to shimmer, and why that was so.  We also began to understand what Weston was seeing in Whitman and how Weston saw America.  Wasn’t like riding in the back seat but it was a hell of a lot more comfortable.  This was a great experience from a great teacher about a great photographer I had known little about.

It doesn’t get any better than that.  Except that it did.  Friends had given me four birthday tickets so we could all go out to dinner and hear jazz.  Our Thursday wasn’t over.

Casablanca, a famous Harvard Square restaurant, is closing after 40-some years so we decided to say goodbye.  Always thought they made the best burgers in town and after supper still did.  They aren’t closing until the end of August so you still have time if you’re in the Boston/Cambridge area.

If you check out this link and click on the album cover it explains the project that musicians Paul Lieberman and Joel Martin have been working on.  Believing that jazz has two branches that emerged from their African musical roots-one here, one in Brazil, they create a vibrant Brazilian sound to American music, and a swing/bop intensity to Brazilian standards.  (There is something mind blowing listening to a multi-national band trade fours on a South American tune that had been transformed into hard bop.)  I’m not a big fan of avant garde jazz (I’ve been accused of not liking any jazz after the early 60s) but Lieberman and co-composer Martin were also able to fashion an upside down mix of both “branches” to create a unique third sound.  Excellent musicians making new music.

Now, I could say our entire Thursday was a long and interesting learning moment, but the day and night were just too much fun to call it anything but playin’ hooky.

We judge an artist in his lifetime by batting average; afterward, only by home runs.

A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME…

Posted on by
4

would be a thorn in my side–if its first name was Charlie.

I’m well aware that Charlie Rose interviews interesting and often brilliant people.  We’re not talking Dr. Phil here.  Or even Oprah.  Rose invites really intelligent people who deal with matters that don’t necessarily make the headlines.  True, he also does his fair amount of headline hunting.  But even there he chooses people and perspectives that the major networks often ignore.

This realization makes it harder to hate him.  And more difficult to flip the channel.  But I just can’t stand Charlie’s interview style.

That, I really, really hate.  Rather than dig into his guests’ knowledge of their specialty, Rose insists on showing how much he understands about that subject.  I know he’s learned a lot over the years, that his researchers do a fine job, and that it’s his program.  Still, it’s the guests I’m interested in, not his know-it-all pretentiousness.

Charlie often won’t let a guest finish his or her thought or sentence before breaking in and finishing it for them.  I guess the risk you take when you invite really bright people onto your television show is their desire to speak for themselves.

And interruptions aren’t the worst of it.  All too many times, Rose won’t even bother with a question but simply asserts (often emphatically) what he believes to be in his guests’ minds.  Recently I watched an interview with the winner of The Masters Golf Tournament.  Apparently the player was behind heading into the final nine holes.  Charlie leans across his plain round table, arm outstretched, and pushes his horse face into the middle of the screen while telling the guy (and I paraphrase) But you knew you would nail all those birdies on the back nine.  You knew it, you had to!

A puzzled look crossed the golfer’s face and you could almost see him getting ready to say huh?– but then he simply responded, (again I paraphrase) I had no idea at all about what was going to happen.  I just tried to play one hole at a time.

If this had been an exception rather than the rule, I probably wouldn’t have even noticed.  Only I find this two-part crime, especially annoying.  First, stealing the punch line of a guest’s story is remarkably ungenerous.  And I just don’t believe in clairvoyance.  Over and over.  You always know what Charlie believes is in his invitee’s mind.  Or what the guest plans to do, or what he knows about his or her field of expertise.  I guess it ain’t called The Charlie Rose Show for nothing.

And woe to those who participate in a panel discussion on the program.  I may not be the best facilitator on the planet, but the golden rule is to give people an opportunity to participate.  And, if they are reluctant to do that themselves, it’s the moderator’s job to include them.

No golden rule for Rose.  I’ve seen discussions where he’ll let one person remain silent for the entire conversation until, as an afterthought, Charlie will ask a quick question to that person, then switch to another before his afterthought even finishes answering.  I’m sure it’s his producers who create the gathering, but I’m equally sure that Rose okays them.  He clearly has a hierarchy of people he’s interested in during his group presentations–or this form of rude is his payback to all the mean kids in high school who used to ignore him.

From where I sit, if you invite someone onto your television program you really ought to talk to them.  Not Rose.  Even Bill Maher, a snotty snoid if there ever was one, makes sure to let all his guests speak.  Even those who actually have nothing to say.

Finding something good and intellectually engaging on television is hard enough.  Most of the people Charlie invites are never on the tube anywhere else.  Where else can you hear world renowned physicists discuss the Higgs boson particle discovery?  Or modern architecture?  Or unusual museum exhibitions?  Or any non-pop culture phenomena that’s actually interesting to people with curiosity and want to expand their knowledge.  If Charlie lets them.  The one interview show that doesn’t cater to Kardashian followers and it gets smothered by an out-of-control ego.

Back in the day, I always believed that Dick Cavett’s best interview would have been with a mirror.  Certainly the one that he’d be most interested in.  Today I’d rather watch Cavett and Rose interview each other at the same time.

Shame on me for blood lust.

There are those that are wise. Then there are those that are otherwise. ~ Arushi Nayar

THINNING THE HOARD

Posted on by
6

Not talking about war, illness, or old age. Not even talking about our callous disregard for those who we let starve. Much, much more mundane.

This is about cleaning my office, which, this time, includes deciding what books to keep and what to give away. I’m not a pack-rat, but I find letting go of books to be an painful task, despite not being much of a re-reader. As I mentioned in my last post, I didn’t even re-read my own books until forced to. Still, this is a job I’d avoid, but with a cellar that ruins everything that wanders near it, I have no choice. Ouch.

Some decisions are easy. Long before I began to write the Matt Jacob novels I spent years tracking down little known mystery authors like Bart Spicer, Brad Soloman, Max Byrd, and others. Loved ’em. Keepers. Also easy is the decision to cling to my role models–Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Ross Macdonald, and James Crumley.

But what about the few one book knock-offs I own like Murder One by Dorothy Kilgallen? Or the mystery novels that Gore Vidal wrote under the pseudonym of Edgar Box? Or Earl Stanley Gardner’s A.A. Fair books? All tough calls because they were a bitch to find and were very different than what these authors usually wrote. The idea of owning them also amuses me.

Then there are the series that are good, but not great. I have a ton. Loren D. Estleman’s Amos Walker books come to mind. Is it enough that his stories take place in Detroit, Sue’s hometown which she feels deeply about? Those are in the “maybe” pile. The others, out the door.

All this angst despite my decision to stop reading mysteries once I began writing them. I didn’t want to unconsciously glom onto someone else’s work. What’s funny is that during all the years I was on writing hiatus, I still avoided reading them. Sometimes consciousness is the last stop of information. Somewhere inside I guess I knew that Matt Jacob was still alive.

The non-mystery shelves aren’t easy either. Charles Bukowski, Harry Crews, Doris Lessing, and Christopher Isherwood are safe. But do I want to go through another round of depression by revisiting Bernard Malamud, Phillip Roth, Saul Bellows, and John Updike? I doubt it, but I’m not sure I want to say goodbye to old friends either. Friends who kept me company throughout my own years of depression. Misery loved that company. And it might be tempting fate to say I had moved beyond them. Should I commit this act of faith?

Luckily not every shelf or decision involves this much self-examination. William Gibson’s Neuromancer is a brilliant book. His others-not so much. Keep the great, give away the rest. I’m extending this rule to other favorite authors: Norman Mailer, Truman Capote, John Le Carre. The clunkers are gently laid down instead of dropped in the giveaway pile as a tribute to their best work.

Where does this sifting end? The classics? Dime bags to expensive ounces, I won’t re-read Faulkner or Fitzgerald or even Hemingway. But can a modern writer really pitch the bulwarks of American literature? Especially after watching and loving a seven-hour play where the actors read and acted every line of The Great Gatsby? They stay, but it’s a close call.

Speaking of plays, what should I do with the bookcase full of them? Especially since a part of me has always been interested in writing for the theater. At the same time, I’m no spring chicken and Matt Jacob comes first, so really, what are the odds of me actually writing a play? Don’t bet rent, but they too are probably keepers.

I haven’t even mentioned nonfiction or modern fiction writers like Richard Russo and Richard Ford, but the point isn’t the decisions, as difficult as they may be. It’s really about the times of my life that each book or group of books represent–including my Hardy Boys and Nancy Drews.

It’s hard not to feel like I’m giving away a piece of myself with each book I box. I know that it isn’t really true–I am who I am, was who I was, and that can’t be donated to charity. But somehow each giveaway feels like one of those thousand cuts.

On another level, I find it passing strange to identify different aspects and eras of my life with inanimate objects. It’s a lot easier to understand the emergence of these feelings when people I care about move or pass away; this connection to things is less comprehensible though not surprising given our culture. At least there aren’t too many other objects that would raise similar feelings. My Bakelite radios, my saxophones, for sure. Definitely all the music I’ve collected–except the collections I bought during stoned stupers deep in the night for $19.95 plus shipping and handling. I really have no need for Yanni or Zamfir no matter how good they sounded at the time.

But one thing is absolutely certain. I’ll be hanging on to every single draft of all the Matt Jacob books no matter how much space they take or how few times I read them.