The Jewish Name Game

Ace feature writer Lenore Skenazy kindly quoted me in an article in the new issue of the Forward titled, "When a Name Screams 'I'm Jewish!'" I finally made it into the fabled Forward, which has printed my acerbic letters on stories before, but this is the first time I cracked its editorial pages. Skenazy writes,

But then there are those who wouldn’t give up the identifying moniker for anything. “I enjoy having a Jewish last name because it much better identifies me as a Jew than does my first name,” said Van Wallach, a proposal writer at an accounting firm. His dad was crazy about racecars, so he was named for a British car from the 1950s, the Vanwall. (His brother Cooper was also named for a car.) “If I was a girl,” Wallach added, “I would have been Jaguar.”

The part of the article that amused me the most were the quotes from one woman (I won't say which) whom I had met on Jdate in the mid-2000s. We haven't had any contact in years, but if I can dig up her email address I'll drop her a line and say, "Hey, we'll always be connected through Lenore's Jewish-names article in the Forward. Small world, isn't it?"

Read more: http://forward.com/articles/181152/when-a-name-screams-im-jewish/?p=all#ixzz2aOclvETC

The Bobby Pickles Podcast

Podcaster extraordinaire and t-shirt design maven Robert Piccirillo, a/k/a Bobby Pickles, interviewed me on the steps of the New York Public Library recently for his podcast program. This marked the first interview I've done in a public setting and it went well. Bobby had the questions, the technology and the knack for connecting that makes for a fun give-and-take.  Give it a listen -- it's one of the best (and unlike my last interviewers, some radio shock jocks, no Holocaust jokes!).
Who the heck is Bobby Pickles? I'll let him explain:

Robert Piccirillo, better known by his nom de plum, Bobby Pickles, is a professional podcaster/tee shirt peddler. Pickles began his rise to prominence in 2013 when he appeared on the TLC reality series "America's Worst Tattoos". Bobby is Co-Founder and CEO of FAT ENZO, a brand of satirical graphic tee shirts depicting people of history, literature and pop culture, which he peddles at Union Square in New York City. He is the host of The Bobby Pickles Podcast, which can be downloaded for free on iTunes. And he has a BA in English from the University of Florida.

So give my interview a listen, check out his other programs, and if you want to be really fashion forward, buy some of his t-shirts. Support Staten Island entrepreneurship.

An Imagined Meeting of Two Very Old Men, and One Forever 29

One of my favorite mental exercises is arranging meetings among people who were in proximity at some point in their lives, people who would have compelling conversations. Here is one example of three men who covered some of the same life territory. Who are they?

Louis Zamperini. One of the greatest books I’ve ever read was Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand. It tells the story of Louis Zamperini, an Olympic runner from Southern California who was shot down over the Pacific in World War II and survived seven weeks at sea, only to be captured and tortured by the Japanese for two years. Masterfully researched and written, Unbroken renewed my faith in the power of the written word. Zamperini is still alive at the ripe age of 96.

Scotty Bowers. This morning I finished a rather different book, Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Sex Lives of the Stars, by Scotty Bowers. Published last year, Bowers’ book slides through his early years on an Illinois farm, a move to Chicago during the Depression, enlisting in the Marines and combat on Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima, and his post-war move to Los Angeles as a gas-station attendant, hustler, bartender and no-fee arranger of sexual liaisons for the rich, powerful and famous. Bowers is still alive at the ripe age of 89, soon turning 90.

John Basilone. I learned the story of John Basilone through watching the HBO mini-series “The Pacific,” about the Marines in World War II, told through the experiences of several actual soldiers. Basilone won the Medal of Honor for his actions on Guadalcanal, holding off 3,000 Japanese troops with a squad of 15 men. Only two survived, along with Basilone. He toured the U.S. selling war bonds, married a member of the Marines Women’s Reserve. He requested a return to combat and after several tries was granted that request. He was killed on the first day of the Battle of Iwo Jima. Also killed on Iwo Jima: Bowers’ brother Don.

I knew about Zamperini and Basilone, but I needed Bowers to spark the imaginary discussion of two very old men and one who is forever 29. Bowers’ book, which had a thundering wave of publicity and a counterwave of questions about his veracity and lack of self-insight, interested me for reasons different from those who wanted to dish the dirt on secretly closeted celebrities and royalty. What I found most compelling was the early section on his wartime experiences. He glides over them, with some real tears shed for his brother and others killed, then gets back to the serious business of sex.

Bowers rides through life on the surface, bouncing along on waves with seemingly no harm done by anything in life. But combat in the Pacific is a very different experience from sex in the mansions of Hollywood. How did the war change him, what did he experience? Could his path have crossed with that of John Basilone, as they both fought on Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima?

Bowers wrote with maddening lack of detail about Guadalcanal,

We Marines shared a camaraderie that is unique in America’s fighting forces. We went through so much together that watertight bonds were formed. We thought of each other as brothers, and those deaths affected us all on a very personal level . . . I was fortunate to still be alive and unhurt. I was one of the lucky ones.”

For all his sexual libertinism, Bowers was a confirmed teetotaler, never touching a drop. Zamperini, however, back in Southern California after the war and drifting, became a serious alcoholic. Unbroken details the terrible impact of alcoholism on his relationships and marriage. A turning point came when he attended a crusade held by evangelist Billy Graham in late 1949 and became a dedicated Christian who walked away from the drinking. The conversion led to a career as an inspirational speaker and manager of a camp for troubled youth. He still lives in Hollywood, and can’t be far from Bowers on Kew Drive in Los Angeles. So for almost 70 years, Zamperini and Bowers have practically been neighbors, the Christian and the hustler, two men who did their duty and then pursued very different paths in life. What would they talk about? Their health, maybe, their experiences in the 1940s. From reading about them, I doubt either has regrets in life.

They would provide good company to John Basilone, winner of the Medal of Honor, who left a safe position stateside and a loving wife to be with the Marines in Iwo Jima, including brothers Don and Scotty Bowers. He will be forever 29. Perhaps a day in the company of men in their 90s would be enjoyable, three old soldiers sitting in the sunshine above the California hills, putting aside any differences to share their bonds and respect. While Zamperini and Basilone might have some qualms about Bowers’ career decisions, I could see them agreeing with Bowers’ reflection on the troop ship home in April 1945. Let’s give him the last word:

During the entire voyage I could think of little else but the desire to play as hard as I could. Needless to say, that included getting as much sex as possible. I wanted to do anything and everything I could to put the horrors and miseries of battle behind me. Like just about every other soul on board that ship I needed to purge myself of all that had happened. Every single of us was impatient to go ashore. Life took on a new dimension, becoming more precious than ever. The war had taught me an incalculably valuable lesson. After I had seen all those young guys stacked up dead or blown to pieces in that vicious conflict I realized that one of the most important things of all was to stay alive and to rejoice in the gift of every single day.

Whatever Bowers did in the rest of his life, those thoughts show a human touch that could connect him to his fellow soldiers, enjoying the sun.

Gov. Rick Perry, Live and Civilized

You can take the reporter out of journalism, but you can't take the reporter out of the boy, or something like that. This evening I donned my camera and notepad and trekked to the Ferguson Library in Stamford, CT, to hear Texas Governor Rick Perry speak as part of his economic development swing through the Northeast. Tax- and regulation-plagued Connecticut businesses (especially the ancient gun trade) are prime targets for Perry's appeal, so I wanted to hear him.

Perry visited Stamford with another agenda. He spoke as part of a series on "Civility in America," with his topic being civility on the campaign trail. He reflected on his 2012 run for the Republican nomination for President, but also slipped in some tangy reminders of Texas' success at attracting businesses and creating jobs.

"I thought I'd take a break from poaching all your jobs to talk about civility," he said.
Perry pointed to the 24-hour news cycle, technology and the permanent campaign for higher office as factors behind the "coarsening" of public discourse, but said, "civility is a choice." Asked about how a candidate can reinforce a message of civility in his campaign, Perry said the candidate's conduct in public and private, with a "pleasant, decent and civil approach." He pointed to Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush as presidents with that approach. Democratic politicians that impress him include Gov. Jerry Brown of California, Gov. John Hickenlooper of Colorado, Connecticut's own Gov. Dannel Malloy and California Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom.

On the GOP side, Perry mentioned Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Gov. Rick Scott of Florida, adding that Scott "very competitive" in representing Florida's interests.

Warming to his theme of states and economic development, Perry said that governors' key role is to "create a climate" where businesses will want to invest. He favors competition among states for business, and would like to see more power devolving to states for decision making.

"I'm here to help stimulate a conversation about policies to make Connecticut and the United States more successfully economically," said Perry.

He also touched on Texas education topics, including the $10,000 college degree and -- bringing back my memories of junior high school—the year that seventh graders in the Lone Star State spending studying Texas history. I remember it well and it must have stayed with me, because here I am writing about Texas 40 years later.

Throwing in the Towel

I'm throwing in the towel. Literally. I've had enough. In fact, last night my son and I threw in the towels and took baskets of wet laundry to a Norwalk laundromat to dry the clothes. After over 3 years of steady service for the two apartments in my building (me and the downstairs neighbors), the LG dryer is giving up the ghost. For weeks the dry function has performed worse and worse. I tinkered with the settings to try the manual setting and that worked for a while, but no longer.

I remember how we managed wet laundry growing up in Texas 50 years ago -- a clothesline and clothes pins! The heat and dry air did just fine. But in Connecticut, that approach doesn't work so well, especially without a backyard with plenty of sunshine access.

In a fit of creative, multi-track problem solving, my son and I went to the laundromat. To our pleasure 32 minutes of drying in two machines (a quarter for eight minutes) did the trick. I had forgot the simple pleasure of fresh, dry laundry. At the same time, I called a well-regarded local repair service to pay a house call and try to find the problem—most likely a faulty sensor. The LG spins fine, it just doesn't generate heat. If it can be fixed, great, if not, then it's back to the laundromat we go.

I'd like a simple clothesline, but that'll have to wait for global warming to accelerate.

Mom, the War Years

In going through old family photos recently, I found a a profile about my late mother that looks like it appeared in the late 1940s in the McAllen Monitor or Mission Times, both papers in far South Texas, where my mother grew up. Here's this look at the family history:

She Talks Army, Navy Lingo

Shirley Lissner admits she isn't bi-lingual. But she can converse in the languages of two services—the Army and Navy.

For Shirley, now with the Mission Citrus Growers Union, is a veteran of both branches—an experience few men and far fewer women can lay claim to.

Firs she joined the WAACS. After that service was incorporated into the Regular Army, she resigned, then enlisted in the Navy's WAVES a year later.

Shirley, a native of San Antonio, came here with her family in 1926. Previously they'd lived in Gonzales, "but I still can't speak Spanish," she complained.

Joining the WAACS, says Shirley, seemed an interesting thing to do back in 1942, so she signed up and was sent to Nacogdoches, Texas, for basic training.

"Later, at Camp Polk, La., I got mixed up with a company going overseas," Shirley laughed, "and when I found out where we were going I got out in a hurry. You had a choice then."

The Brooklyn Port of Embarkation was Shirley's next base. She worked there as a cryptographer operating, encoding and decoding messages.

"Forget everything you know; they told me when I left there," Shirley commented. "I can't tell you much about my work because I did just that—forgot it."

Eight months after arriving in Brooklyn, or in 1943, the WACS went into the Regular Army, so Shirley left them. "I'd been through the first sergeants school at Des Moines but they discharged me as a Pfc anyway," quipped Shirley.

During the next year Shirley worked at Moore Field as a teletype operator. Then—"it was the uniform, I guess," Shirley said -- she enlisted in the WAVES in October, 1944.

Now quite experienced in communications, she was assigned to the Navy's communications office in Washington, D.C.

"Our office was down the hall from the then Secretary of the Navy, [James] Forrestal," Shirley remembered. "I was there six months before I started saluting him; I didn't know who he was."

Discharged in March, 1946, Shirley fared better in rank with her second service, having been made a T 3/C."And I liked navy blue better than O.D., too," she commented.

Shirley worked in San Antonio a year before returning here, where she's a secretary with the Mission Citrus Growers Union.

She isn't entertaining any ideas just now about any more enlistments. But . . . if another war comes . .  there's always the Air Force, Shirley's thoughts might be as she speculatively scans the sky!

This Is Not a Picture of Jesus. It May Not Even Be a Picture.

ACLU and the Freedom From Religion Foundation are all aflutter about an alleged painting of Jesus hanging in Jackson Middle School in Ohio. The painting was donated by students and has been quietly corrupting secular values since 1947, according to this story.

The constitutional arguments and response from the Liberty Institute, defending the school district, are predictable. What would not be predictable would be my suggestion for a response from the school district.

The argument would be: This is not a picture of Jesus. It is a picture of President Obama. After all, Obama's a calm, forward-looking, confidence-inspiring person who inspires messianic hopes among some acolytes, such as Newsweek and Foreign Policy.  Or it could be a picture of Jesús, a hardworking undocumented proletarian, struggling to survive in the fascist hellhole that is Amerikkka. It could be a chair. This could be a painting of ANYTHING. That's the beauty of post-modernist theory.

The argument would be based on the firm, tested concepts of post-modernist literary theory. Essentially, art of any kind is simply a starting "text" that the subjective individual interprets according to his own frameworks as colored by race, gender, economic inequality or assorted victimological modalities. Objectivity does not exist -- it's a myth of western rational imperialist hegemonistic oppression. But don't take my word for it! This explains the issue nicely, and here's a key excerpt:

Postmodernism takes the relativistic position that there is no absolute truth or objective reality, that what we experience as reality is a social construct (solely constructed by individual human minds), that it consists only of our interpretations of what the world means to us individually, and that individual responses to a given cultural product comprise the whole reality of that product.

Since individual responses tend to differ from one another and change over time, postmodernist thought is skeptical of explanations that claim to be valid for all human groups, cultures, or times. Instead, it encourages the exploration and comparison of individuals' subjective responses to a given poem, painting, or other cultural product. It examines the role that language, power, and motivation play in the formation of ideas and beliefs.

This sets up a clear defense for the school, if it wants to take a bracingly non-traditional approach and set aside generations of assumed meaning for the painting. Simply argue this is not actually a picture of Jesus, but a text/representation open to multiple, conflicting meanings based on the frames employed by the subjective viewer. Surely the ACLU and Freed From Religion Foundation understand the critical role of free enquiry and the value of post-modernism.

Getting Quoted by Match.com

One of the fun aspects of publishing the book has been leveraging it into some press exposure, either through radio interviews or contributions to articles. Here's an article, "Stop Dating the Wrong Person," that quoted me, part of a longer comment. The author did a good job pulling the substance out of what I told her without including some of the more gruesome details of my adventures dating women that were attractive but just not good matches for me. Well, this is for the Match.com magazine, so talking about matches makes sense.

Here's the relevant part:

How to break the habit: Resist the urge to “fix” another person

Having an “ah-ha” moment of clarity can strike at any time, but you can speed up the process by acknowledging your issue and taking steps to change things going forward. “I often went 
for needy, sexy women who were struggling with emotional, family or financial issues, and then I’d set
 myself up as a kind of ‘white knight’ who could ‘solve’ all their problems,” says author Van Wallach. “The relationship would revolve around the
woman’s issues… rather than an equal partnership.” After dating a woman with massive, relationship-dominating issues (including an ailing parent and job difficulties), Wallach finally decided that enough was enough. He’s now in a more balanced relationship that’s been going strong for almost five years.

Django at 40 is a Lonely Hunter

Think about these for movie concepts: introduce an energetic, driven black man to a white man from another culture who literally speaks another language. That's one idea from Django Unchained from Quentin Tarantino.

Then take this idea: a budding teenage girl struggles to navigate adolescence, family conflict and economic troubles in a depressed era. That's one idea from This is 40 from Judd Apatow.

Now, what if you smashed the two ideas together in one epic book that became a movie -- with an amazing performance by an actor who, 45 years later, could win an Oscar nomination for his brilliant work in Argo?

The book and movie in question is The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, published in 1940 when author Carson McCullers was only 23 years old. It tells the story deaf-mute John Singer and his impact on people in a Southern mill town in the late 1930s. One of them is a black doctor, Dr. Benedict Copeland, who must deal with the impact of segregation and racial oppression. The book completely sweeps up the layers of cultures and social ferment of its time and greatly impressed me through its artistry and McCullers' vision. It's one book I'd nominate for the mythical Great American Novel.

In the Django comparison, Singer would be Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz), the dentist-bounty hunter who frees and befriends Django (Jamie Foxx). Singer speaks in sign language and gestures; Schultz speaks German and English. Django's opposite would be Dr. Copeland, who stayed with his own values in the book and movie. Suspicious of Singer at first, the men form a friendship.

Released in 1968, the movie version of Lonely Hunter had a stellar cast. Canadian actor Percy Rodriguez played Dr. Copeland with stubbornness and compassion. Alan Arkin, who in his mid-30s, played Singer and was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor in a role where he did not speak a single word, yet delivered a deeply empathetic and varied performance. He didn't win the Oscar, but he won for Best Supporting Actor for 2005's Little Miss Sunshine. Now, four decades later, he has his fourth Oscar nomination for his turn as film mogul Lester Siegel in Argo.

Not to stretch the analogy too far, Lonely Hunter explored territory later picked up in Django, of men working together in a relentlessly hostile society.

This is 40 connects to the family and economic issues of Lonely Hunter. Teen Mick Kelly was played by Sondra Locke, who won a Best Supporting Actress nomination. She deals with a bitter mother and a disabled father, plus bratty younger brothers. She dreams of better things -- culture, romance -- but financial struggles drive her in another direction. The book is much grimmer than the movie, as I recall, on Mick's prospects. Her opposite number in This is 40 would be Sadie, the 13-year-old daughter of the main characters, played by Maude Apatow.

Granted, the pampered life of Los Angeles is a long way from Georgia in the 1930s (1960s in the movie) but the dynamics of family discord and adolescent anger are similar. While the outside packaging changes, the present of life remains about the same from generation to generation. We're all lonely hunters.

My Life as a Watch Man

Photos of me from 30 years ago show a young man dressed about as I am now — blue jeans, button-down cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled up. The glasses changed from the aviator style to something more classical (less 1980s, that is) and I augmented the thinning hair with beards and goatees until I finally settled on my current look a decade ago. So while I've never been a fashionista,  a close observer would notice some attention to detail, within the rigid limits of straight male style.

Here's an example.

Coming home on the train yesterday, I noticed a man with a tie that caught my attention. Its swirls and blue-green tones looked exactly like something I would ear. He had a grizzled look, prep-school baseball cap turned backwards, probably a coach or aging jock, approximately my age. We stood by the door, both leaving at the same station. I decided to break through the thick silence among suburban male commuters and remarked, "I really like that tie," I told him, as a third man, whom I recognized from the regular slog to New York, looked on.

"Yeah, it's a Jerry Garcia tie," he said.

That explained the magnetic attraction — I have two Jerry Garcia ties, beloved gifts from my marriage, and they are essential to my personal style on those rare occasions when I wear a tie to the office.

"I've got two of them myself," I said. "I love the design." After at least 15 years of steady use, they still look great.

The man standing with us chimed in with a comment about the Grateful Dead. Suddenly, we three strangers had a bond to tie us together. The first man, Grizzled Jock, had met Garcia several times while a college student.

"He keeps making money even after he died," he mused.

The doors opened and we went our separate ways. The talk inspired a New Year's resolution — wear more ties. I have a lifetime collection, enough to keep me in fashion in the most formal of work environments. My closet includes two orange-and-black ties, purchased at the Princeton University Store, required wear for any alumni events I attend (as well as the occasional corporate event at the Harvard Club in New York). I've got plenty of plain blue, yellow and pink shirts perfectly ready to be worn with my black and dark-blue khakis and brightened with ties from J. Garcia and other purveyors of men's style, often with an Art Deco motif.

Besides ties, the urge for ornamentation exists primarily on my right wrist. I've always enjoyed watches. As a teen I gravitated to the trendiest 70s look with leather bands sporting multiple buckles. When I graduated from college, my father gave me an inscribed TAG Heuer watch with both digital and analog displays. It constantly broke down and multiple repairs couldn't keep it running. I soldiered along with forgettable watches until I experienced a time-keeping epiphany at a flea market on New York's Upper West Side in the late 1980s. A watch dealer displayed an incredible Art Deco watch with a rectangular face and a sleek gold-toned band. I had to have it and I bought it immediately. For decades it was THE classiest watch I had, the perfect detail for swanky nights on the town and serious job interviews. This was nicknamed the Deco watch.

My stable of watches grew over the years. Each purchase remains a sharply etched memory. As a student of Russian history, I jumped at the opportunity to buy Russian watches newly available in the West after Mikhail Gorbachev became the last General Secretary of the USSR. in September 1989, while on my honeymoon in Italy, I bought a Raketa watch with an intriguing design; it included an adjustable monthly calendar, beginning in 1981 and concluding in the inconceivably distant year of 1999. Its blue face and cyrillic lettering gave it an exotic air. This is the Honeymoon watch.

In the 1990s, I inherited a Greenwood watch — thick square crystal, chunky metal-link band, from my friend Rena Frank,. whom I had known since 1980 through Project Dorot, which connects the Jewish elderly with visiting volunteers. Before she died in 1994, Rena, a Berlin native who escaped to London in 1938 and then on to New York in 1952, gave me the watch, which belonged to her brother. The watch had deep meaning as it came from this treasured friendship, and its connection to a vanished European world.  I call it the Rena watch.

Over a decade later, at a display stand at the long-vanished International Pavilion at the corner of 42nd Street and 5th Avenue, I celebrated the start of a new job by buying two more Russian watches. One had a dark-green face and the name "Kommandirsky," in script cyrillic letters. The other, truly awesome, piece was the Poljot brand (Russian for "Flight") watch. This had stopwatch functions and remains the thickest watch I'd ever seen, so massive and unyielding I nicknamed it the Soviet Bloc watch.

For years, these watches satisfied my fashion needs. They ranged from the understated and elegant Gruen and Greenwood to the show-stopping novelty of the three Russian watches. They became the signature of my personal style, to the extent a man can break out of the the dictates of officewear. I'm content to follow the khaki and button-down look. Indeed, I joke that I could pull clothes out of my closet blindfolded and they would inevitably go together. And if I happened to pull down a plain blue shirt, then any tie would also look good.