Corey Booker: meeting the NJ Senator in LA

Back in 2005 I watched a documentary called Street Fight. It followed this young guy getting his figurative nose bloody in a race to be mayor of Newark New Jersey. He lost.

Of course that race was back 2002 and today no one remembers who the mayor of Newark was back then. A lot more people know Corey Booker.

In 2012 Mr. Booker, who by this time was mayor, made national news by running into a burning building to save a woman. The cynics thought it quite the stunt. I didn’t. This guy has been living in this sort of stunt since 1998.

You see, back in ’98 this guy had just graduated Yale Law. This after getting his BA in Poly Sci from Stanford (where he played football and was elected student body president)and studying as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. With this resume he skipped the penthouse and moved into the projects. He lived in the now demolished brick towers, Newark’s projects. How is that for downward mobility?

I didn’t meet Corey in the projects, I met him at a fund raiser in a home that another attendee joked could be purchased for a measly 1/4 of our countries national debt.

There were maybe 100 folks there in total. I knew none of them.

In the hour or two preceding Corey’s remarks I met a couple real estate investors, a wealth manager, a VP of a very well known online entertainment provider, a couple professors, a stay at home mom, and a guy in a yarmulke spent twenty minutes teaching me Yiddish words that I have regrettably since forgotten.

We ate caviar. They drank wine. At one point the man with whom I was chatting and I accepted some delicious looking sliders from the hors d’ouvre tray. before digging in my companion noticed a strip of bacon beneath the burger. he twisted his lips and looked disappointed. We looked around for a trash can, a utilitarian item that apparently didn’t fit the decor, and being the stand-up guy that I am, I volunteered to “dispose” of the offending food item. He thanked me and promised to return the favor should I find myself in possession of a glass of wine.

Senator Booker talked for about an hour and then answered questions.

In his remarks he covered his desire to have more people in elected positions coming out of the business world because they have had to “run something”. He talked about the need to make data driven decisions. He spoke of collaborating with all parties in order to solve problems. He recounted parables from the Talmud. He talked about reforming education and debt reduction.

He did not demonize. I have been to other political events that were nothing but demonizing and this was not that. Now make no mistake there was plenty of asking for money. Very direct requests for money. It was open, urgent, and in this place, location, and crowd that oozed privilege and dollars, there was a remarkable lack of sleaze.

Passionately rational and moral. That is how I would sum him up.

I won’t be voting for him. at least not any time soon. I won’t be donating either. Not because I don’t want to, I am simply unable on both counts. But should you be in New Jersey, or in possession of disposable income, I would encourage you to do either or both.

 

That slider was fantastic.

Graduation at Redlands: buncha bulldogs

Commencement ceremonies are a bit different when you are sitting on the stage. You are expected to behave.

Graduations are inherently good. Goals accomplished and progress made toward dreams, or jobs, or student loan repayment plans.

I like the stories of grown up graduates. The ones who came back to clean up unfinished business. The ones who went to class at night, went to a job in the day, and care for their kids in between. Those kinds of grads make me happy.

It pleases me to be in a position to watch this happen on a regular basis. I get a front row seat to second chances. Beats living in a van that’s for sure.

 

 

 

 

Och Tamale!

 

Childhood Wonder: Dana Point, CA

When you are small the world is bigger. When you are young everything is new.

Everything being big and new can be both wonderful and terrifying.

That’s what being a kid is, terrifyingly wonderful. Dana Point was wonderful.

 

We only went to the beach as an afterthought. Our main intent was to visit the Ocean Institute. That was “our” intent, my intent was to see the tall ships. To me tall ships are wonderful. They stoke within me a primal wanderlust that I am finding increasingly hard to placate. But the institute and the two tall ships it operates, are not for me.

Its all for them.

And they love it.

I love that.

On weekends it is open to the public and the weekend we went they made us feel welcome. I love to observe others doing things they love and the Ocean Institute appeared full of people doing what they love. What they do there is teach oceanography to kids.

A grey haired man walked us around a whale skeleton, another showed us how they practice driving underwater robots. A young woman showed us the tank where she was raising a colony of young jellyfish and another woman helped my kindergartner dissect a squid.

Make no mistake, this isn’t an aquarium or a museum. They don’t just show things here they facilitate doing things. It isn’t just to help people do things, its to teach kids how to do things. Big, new, terrifying, and wonderful things.

We as a generation would do better if we dedicated ourselves more to teaching our kids to do big new terrifying wonderful things.

But still I stare at those tall ships…

Monkey Suit: because its summer

My niece is getting married this summer. I’ve never met the guy. She’s a smart girl so I’m sure he’s great but I’m not so sure about all of this. I am however sure that he has nothing to do with the point of this post so right at the beginning, I’ve already digressed. Typical.

The point is that the reception is outside. Summer wedding outside; what to wear?

My family is not a formal bunch by anyone’s measure. We may be a little better put together than those with whom we associated coming up, but that bar can’t get any lower. So really, the only one who will care at all what I wear- is me. But I do care. I think we have gone over this before. I may be digressing again.

It must be a suit. I know it’s summer and outside, but it’s a wedding for heaven’s sake. And yes, wear the jacket. The fact that I even felt I had to justify that statement shows just how low that bar is set.

My closet is always just a tad deficient, and I may not be in a position to fix that right now, but in the spirit of weddings and love, allow me to dream just a little.

I said a “little” so I’m not going to go all bespoke here, but there is still room for reaching without reaching all the way to the stars. I’d be happy to reach for the laptop and order a suit from Bonobos.

Yup, the pants guys make suits.

I don’t just want a suit. I want a cotton/linen blend, lightweight, light colored, summer suit.

I also want a light colored, slightly playful, but not too much, pocket square to add a little flair. Bonobos makes those too.

I actually made some myself out of a pair of Bonobos pants I owned that met an untimely demise due to rambunctious behavior and a can of paint.

I suggest you order them as pocket squares rather than pants. Cheaper that way. Less work too.

The rational side of me knows that as a Californian, such a suit could be worn year round. That adds value right?

Just remember, especially when wearing light colored suits; your tie should always be darker than your shirt, and it’s probably best to stick to light colored shirts the pocket square should not exactly match your tie. It can match your shirt, but not your tie.

Come to think of it… 50 bucks says half of the guys won’t be wearing suits but will wear ties. So I think I’ll wear a suit but not a tie. Unless I wear it in my pocket as a pocket square.

New rule: your pocket square can match your tie if it is in fact, your tie.

Pow Wow in Redlands

You don’t get events like this one back east. At least not very often.

 

We arrived at a point in the program when nothing was going on. Lunch slash break I suppose. Folks with long braids, bells on their legs, and t- shirts lounged around on lawn chairs. We wandered through booths selling beads, feathers, and kitsch.

I’m not sure if anyone at the pow wow was Navajo or not, but my little one had never experienced a Navajo taco. She has now. I’m pretty sure my middle school had no Navajos but we had Navajo tacos on the cafeteria menu at least once a week. I’m paying it forward.

I like being in a place like this. Well, maybe not a place exactly- an event. An event where the sounds and sights aren’t the same as every other day or place.

If you spend enough time going places and doing things you don’t normally go and do, then normal sort of shifts. If normality is displaced life gets interesting. I like interesting.

When the dancing started, when the grand entrance began, it was other worldly. The sounds, the movements, and the colors surrounded everything. There was a pounding constant beat driving below with a high pitched chanting up above and in the middle was colorful swirling motion.

This isn’t history but it is tradition. It was very much a now and not a then event. There is so much of native life that is dead, that is then, that it was nice to be in the middle of something that was now. It was alive. It is good to see things stay alive.

Lake Arrowhead

 

It struck me as the sort of place where on would say “out-of-doors”. The weather didn’t really let us spend much time outside but it did feel out of doors. Maybe “outdoorsy”, but anyone who reads Outside Magazine, or climbs mountains, or kayaks great distances, or wears Gore-Tex, would probably not call it outdoors.

There was little to no dirt involved. In this instance I was happy about that.

Lake Arrowhead is tucked up in the mountains near Big Bear and also near about a bazillion people down in L.A. It is also at the top of some incredibly winding roads that are propped up against cliffs by stilts which encourages most of those bazillion people to stay home.

Their loss.

We only stayed a couple nights. It was cold outside. It rained. It was wonderful.

The wood paneled boats of yesteryear’s luxury movie shoots were all tucked somewhere else waiting for the summer. The tourists were doing the same. But the chef, the filet, and the stuffed portabello mushrooms with balsamic glaze were there. Until I got there and now those things are happily gone.

Happy for me at least.

The surrounding shops smack of 1950’s kitsch, complete with cartoon bears wearing suspenders. I’m not sure why, but here, I didn’t mind. It worked. I hate that stuff, but, it worked. Weird.

Its called the Lake Arrowhead Resort and Spa. It is also called gorgeous.