newsornotnews (noticiaononoticia)

Seventy-five year old man gets up in front of a small combo and sings old Frank Sinatra songs – could be the worst wedding entertainment ever, could be cocktail lounge hell but when it’s Bob Dylan and the Never Ending Tour band it’s a rock and roll show.  A real live rock and roll show with noise and vitality and screaming and everything. We tend to think of Bob as some kind of savant, an antenna picking up messages from the near future, but if you read Dylan’s Chronicles what comes through is what a shver arbiter he is (as they say in Hibbing), how each step and change in his music or his writing or his performance is deeply considered, the result of an amazing, amazing intelligence and I have no doubt this new crooning phase of his career is just as thoughtfully reached. The arrangements were precise but the band swung and uber-guitarist Charlie Sexton is back in the group and there was hardly a moment he didn’t fill with equally crooning leads. Bob danced, sat down and played some piano (no guitar), leaned into the mic stand like he was leading the Dorsey band and plaintively spread his arms like a brokenhearted angel. He said nothing to the audience but there was so much more contact than there was in the Paul Simon concert the week before.  There were some familiar, if barely recognizable, oldies (“Blowin’ in the Wind”had a little Stevie Wonder groove going) and a lot of songs from more recent albums which sounded like part of the canon played live. And, of course, the new crooning covers, with Bob putting his all into doing it right.

1. Things Have Changed
2. She Belongs to Me
3. Beyond Here Lies Nothin’
4. The Night We Called It a Day
   (Frank Sinatra cover)
5. Pay in Blood
6. Melancholy Mood
   (Frank Sinatra cover)
7. Duquesne Whistle
8. That Old Feeling
   (Shep Fields & His Rippling Rhythm Orchestra cover)
9. Tangled Up in Blue

   Set 2:

10. High Water (For Charley Patton)
11. Why Try to Change Me Now
    (Cy Coleman cover)
12. Early Roman Kings
13. I Could Have Told You
    (Frank Sinatra cover)
14. Spirit on the Water
15. Scarlet Town
16. All or Nothing at All
    (Frank Sinatra cover)
17. Long and Wasted Years
18. Autumn Leaves
    (Yves Montand cover)

    Encore:

19. Blowin’ in the Wind
20. Love Sick

 

Once you’ve been in a job for awhile, it’s like you’ve joined a secret society. There’s a particular lingo that you learn, a specific circle of colleagues and competitors you run into all the time. You’re in a group apart with special knowledge known only by other members of your group. And there are dozens of these specialized groups, hundreds, maybe thousands, intersecting with each other at strange arcs because anyone may be a member of more that one group. It’s a fantastic kaleidoscope bound together by commerce and social gravity. Me, I was born to be retired. All those years distracting myself with useless arcana are finally paying off. I became interesting. My work years were definitely warm-up for now. I do miss being a member of my group, the commercial real estate traders and lenders attorneys in New York City. I miss the gossip. I miss the belonging. In the latest issue of The Real Deal there’s an article entitled ‘Rentopoly: Who owns New York (http://therealdeal.com/issues_articles/rentopoly-who-owns-new-york/ ). All New Yorkers like to talk real estate, right? The authors have tried to create a methodology for determining which entities are the largest residential landlords in the city. There are some surprises. Several entries which wouldn’t have been there 20 years ago. Some you might expect are not there. Some are entities I’ve done deals with or worked for [Understand that I had practice but I wasn’t Ed Breger or even Jonathan Mechanic or Andy Albstein but I was a member of the club]. So I thought I’d talk about some of them. First on the list is Related which is run by Steve Ross. 

He’s become so ubiquitous so quickly. I’ve only been at the table with him once. He was buying a nursing home from my client which Related was going to tear down and use for a development site. I liked him. He’s a former lawyer, a little geeky but he’s got those problem-solving skills that good lawyers have and which clients rarely do. A couple of weeks after the closing, which was when the Time Warner Center was still brand new and hot, my father called him up and asked if Steve could get a reservation at Per Se for him that weekend (honestly, I don’t think my father knew what he was asking for). Steve was friendly, unruffled and graciously took care of it like he was the maitre d’. On a different matter, I personally am not a believer in the myth of Maurice LeFrak, French developer and bon vivant. I believe in Sam Lefrak, the ambitious dynamo who developed the buildings that bore his capital-less name. 

I’ve only done one deal that involved Richard. I was representing a potential purchaser of a package of buildings in Brooklyn and Queens. Most of the contract was done with some third-generation Lefrak who kept saying,”I want to hear all of your comments before I respond,” but made disapproving noises after everything I said. It ended up that our mortgage broker couldn’t guarantee us the last $10m so we chose to walk. That’s a bad feeling. It feels like a failure of nerve and often is. If Ed was on the deal would we have taken the risk? In any case, Richard came out after everything, very distinguished, sat with us for a few minutes, we all shook hands and that was that.  The wild performance of the evening came from the broker, D’arcy Stacom, who shrieked out a third rate Sue Mengers impersonation with, “You’re never going to get deals again!” Shook me up. Man, I could just go on and on but there are two more items I’d like to cover for sure. Down towards the bottom of the list is Solil Management where I worked as a managing agent before law school. The principals are the heirs of the late great Sol Goldman, the closest thing to a mentor I ever had. 

Based on the methodology described in the article, I don’t think the authors included rental units in buildings subject to net leases. Mr. G liked to buy those fee positions so I think Solil is probably underrepresented on the list. Finally, a blind item: which of the listed entities has a single principal who is the most arrogant, nasty and unpleasant person alive. He started off with his charming then-partner buying crappy Bronx buildings with wraparound mortgages and he was a jerk then. When I would get paid by him (as I was lender’s counsel) he’d cut my bills and then complain to my client to cut me even more. He and a couple of friends/colleagues were going to buy a house to develop and live in on the upper east side but it went nowhere because they each realized what a dick he is. Gotta hand it to him, he made it all himself. And lost most of it too. Only in New York, kiddies, only in New York.  

“You should write about this.” I had every intention, Mom. Helen, my Mother, is a fantastically energetic and generous woman and on most of the days that I was in the hospital she would call Jimmy, her driver of choice, and she would shlep her 86 year old body to Lenox Hill or NYU Hospital, depending on where I was residing, to be there, either as company or, given my frequent periods of unconciousness, just to keep vigil and be of support to Jolean. She gives and she gives without complaint or comment. Mostly. For the most part, that is. What I mean to say is she is willing to sacrifice endlessly but she also gets tremendous satisfaction by having her sacrifice noted and, if you’ve dropped the ball momentarily, she’ll prompt you. “You know how old i’ll be on my next birthday?” Yes Mom, 87. “You think there are many 87 year old woman who can do what i do?” No Mom. “Before, it starts raining, can i get you anything? Some soup? I don’t want to get caught in the rain.” Just sit Mom. I don’t need anything. “You didn’t buy tickets to Paul Simon at the Tennis Stadium, did you?” No. Why? “Well, Joy and the other ladies bought tickets to see him but i couldn’t really commit because of you being in the hospital.” Sorry Mom. “You were in High School together right, just a few years apart?” I graduated in 1972. i think he was something like 1957. “That’s not that far.” I try to explain that for music fans my age, Forest Hills is the undisputed birthplace of punk music and those guys, the Ramones, were my contemporaries. “Who are they? The Ramones?” The Hymans, Mom. They lived on 67th by 110th street, same block as the Slevins and the Borns. “Well, I don’t know but i like Paul Simon.” And now, i’d like to name all the rock concerts Helen has attended in her life. And now, i have completed the naming of her rock concert attending history (we’ve been to the Philharmonic together many times and she’s a much more avid theater attendee than I but, as will surprise absolutely no one who knows her, no rock concerts). Then it was, “Everyone is so excited, everyone is talking about it, Paul Simon coming back to Forest Hills.” Really? “You know, i couldn’t get tickets with Joy and the others. It’s a shame.” I don’t know if my Mother is acquainted with Stubhub but I surely am. So what did i do? Was there anything else to do? “Mom, I bought Paul Simon tickets.” Front row tickets too, so she’d have a story for her friends. Samara, Jolean and I took the subway to Continental Avenue and got there maybe ten past five. The plan was to get there early so as to have time to explore the Forest Hills Gardens before meeting my mother at the Forest Hills Inn at 6:00. The Gardens, as it’s referred to by locals like me, is a planned neighborhood funded and developed between 1909 and 1922 by the Russell Sage Foundation, a well funded group of utopians. It was meant to be a model suburban community for working families designed by architectFrederick Law Olmsted. The aim was to demonstrate the economic and social viability of an intelligently planned suburban community, though it is today as expensive a residential neighborhood as there is in NYC. It’s a mix of free standing homes, connected houses and mid-rise apartment buildings, all in a charming elfin tudor style. 

The sky was forbidding but the rain was holding as we walked the crescent streets, with beautifully overgrown stone walls at the sidewalks, the gentle kind of groomed meets ungroomed fairy-tale setting Olmsted created for Belvedere Castle in Central Park. It was a very pleasant way to spend a half hour, all the while watching the sky become more threatening. By the time we returned to the Station Square and The Forest Hills Inn, there was a light rain starting, putting a practical kibosh on the plan to meet Helen at one of the service tables outside the asian restaurant that occupies the first floor of the Inn so we went inside hoping Mom would find us there, which she did. It was a noisy, singly place, the kind of place where you get your own drink in a plastic cup at the bar and find a piece of banquette to squeeze your ass onto. I didn’t have the spilkes to last ten minutes there so, there we are, about a quarter past six, concert due to start 7:30, light rain outside, I suggest we walk the half mile or so to the stadium entrance, get an early shot at the concessions for dinner which we’ll eat at our seats. We begin our walk but I first draw everyone’s to the mural painted under the train tracks. “Mom, you see those four guys standing there? Those are The Ramones. Forest Hills High School pop music makes three main stops – Burt Bachrach, Paul Simon and The Ramones and, compared to The Ramones, Paul Simon is just an artful folk singer/songwriter.” “What are their songs?” “Beat on the Brat; Sheena is a Punk Rocker; The Blitzkreig Bop.” “What are those songs? They’re not ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water'” We walked along, tennis courts to our left, LIRR train tracks to our right. It’s not very crowded yet. Not many people are pursuing our “Early Arrival” strategy although it looked like we were making the right call as we looked over the broad, empty grounds, a batalion of food vending booths arched along the perimeter. After a spirited discussion that Mom participated in, we decide on the lobster rolls purveyed by the owners of the late, lamented “Danny Browns Wine Bar”. “Sami, lobster roll? Chips?” “And water.” “And water. Jolean?” “The same.” “Okay, the same. Mom?” “Nothing for me.” “What do you mean, nothing for me?” “Nothing for me.” “Is there something else you want? Should we go to a different booth?” “No, I just had enough to eat earlier. I had enough at home.” “Don’t do that. It’s going to get late. You’ll be hungry. Eat.” “Just let me have some of your water.” I brought her her own bottle. And a T-shirt. The Stadium is pretty empty and I lead my little group further and further down the aisle to the very front row. Helen is close to dumbstruck though, of course, not.”I don’t believe it. You bought these tickets two days ago? I’m not even going to ask about the price. How much were they? You are really something. I like the way you live. No, really, how did you get them?” The same way Sol bought buildings – I paid more than anybody else would.

While Jolean, Sami and i were eating, Helen was doing what she does – starting conversations with everyone around her. She was energized. “It’s a happening. Everyone’s excited. Is it always like this?” Pretty much Mom. That’s why I love to go to concerts. Then the rains came and they were torrential. Mind you, this was at 7:45 for a concert scheduled for 7:30 so much of the audience began chanting for the show to get started, the earlier we’d be able to get out of the rain but, having gone to more than one Paul Simon concert before told an angry Jolean, “He’s not going to come out early and play for the crowd. He’s going to wait until everything is set up, he’ll come out with the band and they’ll do exactly the same set they did last night which is exactly the same set he does every night.” Each of us had our own strategies for dealing with onslaught.

By the time Paul came out at 8:45 the rain had ended. I’ve attached a setlist below (He finished with “American Tune” the night but “Bridge Over Troubled Water” our night). There are so many great songs, there’s no point in resisting. The band was filled with real virtuosi and was tighter than a tick. If it’s precise, though, it’s also a little hermetic. There’s not much going on between performer and crowd, no reference to the hometown nature of the show. The few stories Paul told were just elaborate lead-ins to songs. As Helen said post-show, “he’s got no personality.” In fact, I asked Mom what is it that she wants me to write about? “One that were there three generations going out together. That is special. Second, I went to my first rock concert at 86 years old, stayed all through the rain and had a terrific time. Third, he’s got no personality. I loved the music but he has no stage presence. He doesn’t add anything.” Okay Mom, I think I’ve got it.

Proof

The Boy in the Bubble

 

 

 

It’s 2:30am on my third night home from the hospital. Adjusting to survival is turning out to be a challenge. The struggle of my life has always been struggling with my life or, perhaps my more generous friends would say, getting out of my own way or maybe they’d just say that I’ve been nuts. I don’t know what I’m being shy about. The hardest part of my life up until now has been depression. I spent more than thirty years in therapy with the same psychiatrist [BTW, if any reader is familiar with what’s doing with Dr. Lawrence Bloom in Montclair, NJ, I’m very curious about how he and his family are doing]. Depression feels like a funny name for the emotional cocoon I was wrapped in for all those years, out of date, like referring to Klaatu’s ship as the cutting edge of space travel. A lot that has changed over time would have changed without my doing. I had a very disapproving father who passed a few years ago, taking much of his disapproval with him and leaving a very generous estate in its place. It was a lucky exchange. The antidepressant medications available now make the tricyclates I started off with years ago feel like a boilermaker with a pickled egg on the side. I’m in a very happy marriage and my mother is alive and my daughter is doing well. What could be depressing? Yet Sunday, following a visit from the Grubmans and from Birdie, I exploded into hysterical tears like I can not remember occurring after boyhood. [I of course was undyingly sad after Dorit’s death but I was too much the manager, too much in the center of things to give in to bawling – the one time I remember I gave up to sobbing uncontrollably was when I received a malpractice award concerning her medical miscare and the injustice of me being the surviving one was too overwhelming too move on]. And there on the 17th floor of NYU, I couldn’t stop weeping. I had come so close. It was so frightening. I looked down and saw the scars, the trail of my disease made flesh. So that’s how it started Sunday. Monday, around midday at the hospital, I was waiting for my turn to go back into the endoscopy lab when one of the GI residents came in and told me they had decided I didn’t need anything else before being discharged, that I could get ready to leave. I thought about the many nights many years ago I had kept my father company at the hospital, bringing in Chinese food to share as he slid from aphasia to full dementia, my uncle Bill, who was on NYU’s architectural review board, managing his care and I thought of Bill’s own final visits to the hospital, events I was protected from knowledge of as I was recovering from my lymphoma at the time and I thought “I’m the only one who gets to walk out. In the only one who healed.” And again, I could not control my tears. And as I waited to leave, I read a FB post by Marc Nathan lamenting his distance, in Nashville, from friends who needed him and I had the hubris to think I was one of them and that, yes, it would have been better if he was around. You can see, I’m very tender at this point but I’m also completely alive. I’m letting my yea be yea. It’s all coming through to me in a way that’s inconsistent with being depressed and though I was celebrating, you couldn’t call it happy. So Jolean and I get a cab home. We make camp in the bedroom and I start posting favorite songs on FB, each a tearjerker, or at least designed to jerk my tears. And as I’m doing this, I discover something – just about every Bruce Springsteen concert I attended from 1974 until 1980 is available for streaming online. I think about this. 42 years of me and Bruce, sharing our eyes, our thoughts, our changes and favorite covers. And I think about Jeff Peters, Shelley Abramowitz’s friend when Shelley, Ken, Larry and I were roommates on Cummings Road in Boston. Jeff pulled us to that first show Springsteen show at the Academy, he begged us to go, we had to see this guy. Of course I still remember the show, the still unreleased “Jungleland”with the violin, the cover of “Cupid”. Of course, I remember Jeff who Shelley told me, when I saw him two years ago, is also gone. I’m not sure I can quite describe the insight I’m going for here. Yes, it’s a wonderful world. Yes, there’s beauty and sweetness and tragedy to be sifted from the ether, to be netted like a butterfly and then released to fly again. That’s not what I mean. I mean the miasma these all float in, the stuff of perception itself, is a kind of madness. Or maybe I mean there’s all kinds of madness and sometimes it blinds you and sometimes it’s as essential as clarity in mediating the world. Our maybe it’s just thrilling to survive. I don’t think I can continue to live on this edge I’m on right now too much longer but there’s nothing you can do that’ll make me willingly step back.

I wrote this post, or, at least, began writing this post, about a week ago.  As I feared, my ordeal was not over and, in fact, would become substantially worse. I wish I could lay it out in detail but I can only remember drips and drabs – vomiting congealed blood like pieces of liver stands out. Apparently, somewhere along the line, I was transferred to NYU Hospital where the ulceration was found and clipped. We think. I’m being scoped again in the morning and that should confirm the success. Or not. As I reread what I had written, I’m struck by the triviality of what I cared about so maybe that’s the payoff here – Maybe you need to be smacked real hard to get to the next level where jello and duvets and chicken soup don’t mean as much as just staying alive. I really want to stay alive. I love being alive. I’ll try to make sense of it in the next few days but here’s a little missive from what now feels like a very naive moment. This weekend was my first at home after two weeks in the hospital and I feel like crying with gratitude for having had it and I feel very afraid about needing to go back since, after 14 days, the blood leak that caused my anemia wasn’t found, never mind treated. The only thing I came home with that I didn’t have when I left was a surgical wound on my belly. It’s grotesque. I’m also afraid of the anemia returning. The last time I had it, the incident that provoked the hospital visit, I didn’t have the strength necessary to get off the bed. I went to the emergency clinic by ambulance. The worse things about being in the hospital are the loss of autonomy, the pain of the many, many needles you must endure, nurses and doctors are free to come and go at any moment and the ugliness of your surroundings. When I arrived home, the bed was covered by a duvet we had just bought, kind of a deep Mandarin red with gold paisley, and it looked so comforting and inviting and big, big enough to lie down next to my wife, which reminds me of something of another effect of the hospital – the loneliness, because even if you are, like me, lucky enough to have your best friends and closest relatives visiting you at all hours, they’re leaving and you cannot leave with them and just that fact reminds you of your isolation. All you seem to talk about is your illness, which is really all you’re thinking about because, what else is there, and that makes the visit bittersweet. So does the knowledge that they’re there for you, to help take care of you and you hate to do that to them. Or you’re thinking about food, where will the next meal come from or even whether you’ll be allowed a next meal, since, for the bulk of my time there I was limited to clear liquids. I would eat the hospital’s jello and Jolean would go down to The Pastrami Queen and bring back quarts of chicken soup. Missing your wife at night and knowing that, when she arrives, you will have a list of foraging for her (which she will cheerfully take care of) as opposed to home, where you can hold her and love her and for a while forget that you’re the one being taken care of. All your stuff is home and the anchoring quality of being among your stuff is not to be undervalued. There’s my guitar. There is a pile of books. There is the footboard of the big brass bed.

Paul Ryan has an envelope. It sits atop his desk. He likes to sit and look at it. Inside it are all the laws he wants to pass, laws he has always, always wished for. It has his budget. It has a plan to privatize Social Security. It has low, low, low taxes and it has a repeal of Obamacare. Paul’s been waiting a long time, eight years at least, for a call to come to open the envelope. On TV is Donald Trump. Paul hates Donald.Donald says stupid things. He is stupid. Not like Paul. And yet, Paul wants Donald to be president because maybe, just maybe, if Donald is president, he’ll call up Paul and say, “Now. Now’s the time. I don’t know how to govern and I need you to open your envelope.”  Paul knows he will never ever get that that call if Hillary is president. So he sits and watches Donald on TV and waits and waits. He hates him so much.

Considering what a miserable time I had in my Boston University days, I sure like music that takes me back there. This was the big 70’s set this morning: “Come Monday'” Jimmy Buffett (this one takes me closer to Max’s than Kenmore Square); “So Fine (It’s Frightening),” Andy Pratt; “Avenging Annie,” Andy Pratt; “Dream On,” Aerosmith; “Please Please,” Stories; “Do Ya,” The Move. I also liked the smell of burning hair very much. Any songs that fit that anyone would like to add?

 

 

Now that a week has passed, it’s time to think about whether and how we are complicit in the Orlando killings or, rather, what opportunities to reduce gun violence have we missed that would have made the massacre much less likely? Let’s start with the two bills currently pending before the US Senate. Neither would have prevented the Orlando shooter from obtaining the arms he used. One limits the ability of persons on the no-fly list from purchasing a firearm, which is a feel-good but minimal extension of current restrictions, and one is eliminating the private sale exception to the due diligence requirements imposed on commercial sellers, which would be a significant change in the law. Neither is likely to be passed. So, if we are powerless to reduce the availability of guns through our representatives legislating, what leverage do we have to make an impact at all? Electing a president who will appoint Supreme Court justices likely to overturn District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008) is a good idea [Brief review – For 200 years the Supreme Court ruled that the right to own weapons granted by the Second Amendment (“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”) attached to the militia, not to the individual, which is to say, there had to be some nexus between militia use and personal use for an individual to assert his Second Amendment right. The Heller decision, in complete contravention of earlier precedent, just sort of ignored the “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State” clause in order to bestow a constitutional right to own firearms to the individual].

Here’s an article from the nyt:

 

Pretty awful, huh? The gun trade is very profitable and it’s fair to assume that if we can make the sale of weapons less lucrative, then we can compel manufacturers to modify the device or it’s marketing in order to avoid liability and protect profitability. And it’s not so crazy an assumption. I can think of two products where the producers significantly changed the design and availability of their inherently dangerous products initially in response to nongovernmental actions – cars and cigarettes. Both are much safer than they used to be, both are marketed very differently than they were in the past, both were initially (and remain) resistant to legislative curtailment. The first strategy was for consumers to sue the crap out of the unsafe cars and cigarette producers – impose liability based on the producers foreknowledge and failure to act upon the inherent dangers of their products. And those suits were fantastically productive. Once plaintiffs got access to the manufacturers files through discovery in the actions, all hell broke loose. There was so much research they chose to ignore. Now, there are two factors in the case of guns that make such a course of action much more difficult, maybe impossible. In the cases of cars and cigarettes, the Surgeons General and the CDC had collected reams of analysis on just how hazardous the products were (thank you, Dr. C. Everett Koop) which were essential in proving damages (not just the quantum, but that there actually were damages) in the civil litigation. In the case of firearms, the Surgeon General and the CDC are, by act of Congress, not permitted to spend a single penny on researching guns as a health hazard. Accordingly, there are no good numbers out there as to who and how many people are being injured in gun violence. There’s been some journalism that attempts to compile local statistics but there is no central repository of information concerning the damage that guns do. The second factor is that Congress has granted the firearms business immunity from liability actions arising from the misuse of their products (you should still be able to collect damages if your pistol blows up in your hand). Think of those class action suits brought against tobacco’s producers and think of all corporate secrets that came out. Think of Russell Crowe. So unless that law is changed by the congress or struck down by the courts, those kind of litigations are impossible against the gun companies. Overturning those laws is a better goal for the Senate than the ones they’re currently pursuing. There’s another way to tame gunmaker corporations and that’s to go directly at their source of funding, their stock price. That happened with the tobacco industry (and, of course, the famous example of South Africa). Shareholders, pensioners, municipal funds didn’t like holding interests in corporations like Lorillard or Phillip Morris or Reynolds in their portfolios. It became, somehow, sordid. It wasn’t good for their reputations. Today, some of those corporations have dissolved or consolidated or, at the very least, changed their names. And also they started changing their wicked ways, complying with new industry guidelines in order to halt further erosion of their bottom lines. By divestiture, we can punish the gun producers where it hurts most –  in the bottom line. The “Campaign to Unload”, an organization dedicated to divestiture of gunmaker stock, puts it like this: “to encourage the gun industry to adopt common-sense, publicly-backed reforms, such as universal background checks and smart gun technology.” So, if you own gun stock, sell it. If you have a 401k or shares in a stock fund, contact your fund manager and tell them you don’t want to hold any firearms stock. And if you’re not sure whether you do now or not, here is a list of publicly traded gun producer stocks:

 

Vista Outdoor Inc. (VSTO) (Sporting ammunition and firearms; outdoor accessories; golf rangefinders, performance eyewear)

National Presto Industries, Inc. (NPK) (Housewares; ammunition)

Smith & Wesson Holding Corporation (SWHC) (Firearms and related products)

Sturm, Ruger & Company, Inc. (RGR) (Commercial sporting market)

TASER International, Inc. (TASR)

You’ll feel good for doing it, I promise. You’ll feel like you’ve done something and you will have.

That’s right, it’s our friend, the small bowel. I know what you’re thinking but no, despite the slight resemblance, it’s not me (even with almost daily requests, I’ve never done any modelling). Bringing you up to date, last Friday I collapsed from weakness brought on by a recurrence of anemia which was, in turn, caused by an occasional bleed of unknown origin, and only occasionally, coming out of my ass. Jolean called 911, the ambulance took me to the Lenox Hill emergency clinic at the site of the old Saint Vincent’s, the Lenox Hill ambulance took us uptown to the mothership where I was admitted and transfused and waited until Tuesday upon which day i received a “push” colonoscopy (which goes four inches or so further than the typical) with the hope it would reach an ulceration that had been spotted the previous week by the pillcam. Still with me? The push detected nothing but, then again, it really didn’t provide high resolution of the target area. Accordingly, surgery was indicated.

I was initially informed we were on for  Wednesday but tight scheduling resulted in a delay until Thursday afternoon, though not before I had stopped eating Tuesday night (Pig Heaven: superior dumplings). So Dr. Sergei and his team sliced me the hell open and I’m sure you can all guess what they found: gornischt (bupkis, nada, nischt, rien, zippity doo-dah and the rest). After some time, I woke up in the recovery room with a painful bandaged wound and a catheter in my winkie.

That was last night. I didn’t sleep. This morning they removed the catheter and every four hours the inject me with one of those fashionable opioids everybody seems to be doing. It still hurts. Pretty bad too.

They tell me I’ll be up on my feet by end of day and that I’ll be fit enough to go home in a couple of days. But I won’t. I’ll transfer to NYU Hospital where there is a gastrointerologist who is trained to perform the nouveau procedure, Double Balloon Endoscopy, which will give us a good look at the upper portion of the small bowel which is still unseen through this date, and the opportunity to correct it right then and there and which may be as unsuccessful as everything else has been so far. And, of course, “the pain, the pain.”

Is it a bad idea? Minnesota is a solidly blue state in national elections so he doesn’t have the advantage of bringing a contested state with him. He’s old – at 64, you’re not creating a path for the next generation of democratic leader. He’s not black or Spanish, two constituencies you’d like to motivate to turn out in big numbers. He’s not Elizabeth Warren. Is it a good idea? Minnesota went strongly for Bernie. Franken won Minnesota by a wide margin – he assures the Bros will come out for Hillary. The election is likely to be fought in the rustbelt states and Franken comes from one – he knows those issues. Minnesota has a Democratic governor and will appoint a Democratic senator to replace Franken. He would be an effective attack dog – subtle, pointed and deadly. He would be the first Jewish vice president which doesn’t necessarily add a voting constituency but might attract contributions from the AIPAC wing not lined up with the Adelson-type Israel supporters. Franken has strong progressive support. He’s funny – it’ll definitely liven up the election. He’s good enough, he’s smart enough and, doggone it, people like him.