My New Year's Resolutions

• Stop walking into people’s houses and gauging how safe they would be in the event of a zombie attack.
• Stop listening to the 60s channel on Sirius-XM Radio until the programmers agree to never ever play any more records by Gary Puckett or Tommy James.
• Stop cursing loudly every time the person in the car in front of you fails to signal.
• In a similar vein, give up hoping that bikers will brake at that stop sign or red light, because most won’t, and if you scream at them they will either a) give you the finger or b) flash a smug look because they’re more virtuous than you in your car, or c) totally ignore you because you’re old and look like you are only two years away from Del Boca Vista.
• Stop telling your wife you’d rather watch that silent Lon Chaney movie on TCM than attend another Bay Area dinner party where you have to direct a million questions to the genius next to you—but said genius never has to show any interest in you, including asking your name.
• Never promise to read any book someone’s book club thought was “awesome” (and here I must plug Joe Queenan’s excellent “One for the Books,” a must for serious readers).
• Stop looking at The New York Times Sunday Book Review bestseller pages, and just accept the fact that many people enjoy reading about shape-shifting vampires who’ve gone to heaven during tonsillectomies and have chatted with God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost—and said Trinity looks and talks exactly like the figures touted by Christian snake-oil salesmen for hundreds of years.
• Stop buying books. You have more than 2,500—and at least 30 percent of those remain unread; given an average reading-rate of 40 a year . . . well, do the math . . . better yet, don’t . . . too depressing given the actuarial odds.
• Keep rooting that Philip Roth will win the Nobel Prize. He’s way overdue.
• Give up on all cable news channels because you’ve never heard of most of their pundits and experts--and ask yourself why they’re on TV and not the tall, scraggly man who’s walked around Berkeley for years, chatting with himself; these so-called experts rarely have anything new or insightful to say, having read the same newspapers and web sites as you.
• Accept the fact that frozen White Castles don’t even come close to the real item, which unfortunately is not available west of the Mississippi.
• Never again stop for a fish dinner in a joint with the word “GROTTO” in its name.
• If in the coming year the word “brilliant’ pops up in an article or on TV describing a politician or actor or moviemaker or financier or novelist or really anybody, remember this: Albert Einstein was brilliant. Lloyd Blankfein not so much, no matter what his childhood rabbi might think.
• Appreciate family, friends and all dogs—just don’t get sappy about it.
• Never forget what you learned as a newly minted reporter: question everything, assume nothing. That includes what people write for their New Year’s resolutions.
• Bonne année.

Repeal the Second Amendment

Two-hundred-and–twenty-one years ago today, on December 15, 1791, the Bill of Rights—the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution—was ratified by three-fourths of the states.
It’s now time to start a movement to repeal the second of those amendments. There’s no reason to list the recent mass shootings—or the daily, singular killings that so often go unreported. Most of us, I hope, remember at least the more horrific. There’s no reason to detail the culpability of the NRA and other lobbyists, or Congress or, yes, the President—these people should be ashamed of themselves and should need no reminders.
The Second Amendment can be replaced by a Twenty-eighth Amendment that would more stringently regulate the sale and possession of guns. Semi-automatic weapons should be banned, limited to people in law enforcement and the military. Someone who wants to buy a gun should be investigated—thoroughly. Gun stores and Internet providers should be scrutinized each year, again thoroughly. Illegal possession of such weapons should be punished with serious sentences.
Do I think this will put an end to these obscene attacks? Unlikely. But a new amendment might just make it harder for these weapons to fall into the wrong hands, might decrease the number of these tragedies. Do nothing and nothing will change.
We have an obvious precedent for repealing a Constitutional amendment. Just think of Prohibition, begun with the Eighteenth Amendment in 1920, repealed in 1933 by the Twenty-first. It took thirteen years. Repealing the Second would take decades.
But how many more people, how many more children, will die by guns before this country comes to its senses?

Dave Brubeck, 1920-2012

Two years ago shy a day, I wrote a short appreciation of Dave Brubeck, the great jazz pianist and composer--and, by all accounts, a wonderful man. I've shed more than a few tears this morning, but there's comfort knowing there are all those wonderful albums; right now I'm listening to "Blue Rondo A La Turk," the Quartet's great version recorded at Carnegie Hall on February 22, 1963--in the middle of a long newspaper strike. At concert's end, Brubeck graciously thanks the sold-out audience and confesses he worried no one would show up. A fan yells "NEVER!"
For the next five decades, the audience was always there. Here's what I wrote in 2010:
Today is Dave Brubeck’s 90th birthday, and if that means nothing to you, may I suggest you settle in front of the TV and hope there’s a repeat of Bristol Palin attempting to trip the light fantastic on “Dancing With the (Third-Rate) Stars.”
When I graduated from grammar school in 1965, my parents gave me my own record-player, a Westinghouse portable about the size of a large briefcase. Immediately, I filled out a coupon in a magazine and joined the Columbia Record Club, meaning you got four albums for the price of shipping and handling (what the hell was a handling charge, anyway, other than a rip-off—even Amazon has the good sense not to charge for handling). One of the four albums was “The Dave Brubeck Quartet At Carnegie Hall,” a legendary jazz recording of the group’s incredible—and unedited-- 1963 concert to a sold-out audience who appeared as if by magic in the middle of one of the longest newspaper strikes in New York history (farewell New York Mirror, hello New York Review of Books).
I listened to that two-disc album so much during high school that by my senior year the records were so scratched you could only listen to them by sitting nearby and moving the needle whenever it got stuck in a battered groove. At some point, I bought a replacement, but ten minutes ago I put the original on the turntable (yep, still have one), hoping for a miracle. Alas, it sounded like an early experiment by Thomas Edison. Now, of course, I can listen to the concert via my iPod—no scratches, but no memories, either.
I was a huge fan of the quartet: Brubeck on piano, the witty Paul Desmond on alto sax (he once said he wanted to sound like a dry martini--and he did) Eugene Wright on bass, and Joe Morello on drums.
When some friends and I were old enough to travel by ourselves on the subway, I saw the quartet perform at Carnegie Hall, Lewisohn Stadium on the CCNY campus (where Duke Ellington appeared on the same bill), and the Singer Bowl in Queens (the same concert where I heard Louis Armstrong). The music has meant so much to me over these many years that I was really pleased when TCM aired a lovely new documentary this evening about Dave, his family, and the quartet. He may be 90, but he’s still touring.
Happy Birthday, Dave—may you play many, many more sweet notes in whatever time signature you choose.