TV or Not TV – The Question

I don’t ordinarily watch TV except to view the weather report.

The question is to watch TV or not watch TV during the the two weeks before the coming election.

Do any of us really want to have our ears and eyes assaulted with noxious negative campaign ads?

In an anti-Max Rose TV ad, a woman using the bleeped-out word motherf**ker protested how Rose turned his back on police officers. This made me only want to vote for Max Rose instead of Nicole Malliotakis.

The fact that most white people see nothing wrong with cops using chokeholds alarms me. Max Rose cosponsored a bill against the use of chokeholds.

Am I the only person who thinks there’s something wrong in America when Black individuals don’t have the freedom to walk down the street unharmed?

Max Rose is not the biggest clown that has emerged from the clown car of our elected leaders’ circus.

He represents parts of Brooklyn and Staten Island in the U.S. Congress. He is an Army veteran. In the campaign ads in which he talks to viewers he comes across (IMHO) as aggressive yet accomplished if you can believe his claims.

Max Rose wears a beige sweater in his TV ads.

His opponent Nicole Malliotakis has sunk to a new low by allowing a toilet-mouthed talking head to represent her in the TV ad. The woman shouting obscenities against Max Rose was openly against Black Lives Matter.

Is someone who calls a leader of our government a motherf**ker a credible character witness? People who live on Staten Island should be ashamed that this wonky woman represents them.

I was told Max Rose won the election the first time because he was military. He toppled decades of Republican rule in that district.

Ordinarily I have voted for the Green Party candidate.

Is this what America has come to—people with their hatred of social justice talking loud and proud invading my living room when I want to watch the weather report?

I’m terrified to turn on the TV.

I don’t want a gutter gal with delusions of grandeur parroting hate speech on my TV screen.

Sadly, a political committee pixilated with power could afford to buy air time.

Money equals might in America–and this is the ultimate injustice.

Downtown Train

green coat

This is the coat that proves my point that fashion isn’t frivolous.

Wherever I go people compliment me on the coat. Even a homeless guy (I kid you not) told me: “That’s an attractive coat.”

It’s from J.Crew and was touted as peacock green. I used a 25 percent off coupon code to buy it.

The coat seems to put others in a good mood when I wear it.

I boarded the downtown train. Clutched the pole near the door because it was standing room only.

After two stops I felt a hand on my sleeve. I turned around thinking it was someone who knew me wanting to say hello.

A guy standing nearby motioned to a newly empty seat. “Thank you.” I sat down.

As soon as I arrived home I installed the Tom Waits song “Downtown Train” in my iTunes library. Waits’ gravelly voice is like no other.

I was touched that a stranger didn’t take the empty seat for himself. Such acts of human kindness restore my faith in the inherent goodness of people.

Is hate learned? I don’t think people are born hating. It comes from seeing others as competition. I talked about the American pie metaphor years ago in this blog: how everyone’s grabbing not just for their fair share, but bigger and bigger slices at the expense of allowing others to have their slices.

The scarcity mindset (Brene Brown wrote about it in one of her books) is alive and well. This mindset is reinforced when citizens are allowed to go hungry. When others are told they must compete to get into elite colleges. When any number of prerequisites are imposed for obtaining success.

There’s a better way. There’s a way out of the fear of not having enough or being enough.

It starts with practicing gratitude. It continues with having compassion.

As we head into the holidays I want to give some insight in this blog that I think can empower readers.

A quote goes like this: gratitude is when what you have is enough.

Especially at this time of year a lot of us can be depressed. My goal is to help readers feel good.

It comes down to slowing down and stopping to smell the American beauties of life.

Seeing the beauty in yourself and others is a way to feel merry and bright. Good people are out there. Kind people are out there.

In the next blog entry I’ll quote a star athlete who riffs on feeling good in the guest column she wrote in the New York Times this week.

Write Where You Are

I’m not a Hipster. I don’t follow trends.

What I write about might not make the bestseller list like James Patterson. It’s called a bestseller list for a reason–those books sell millions of copies.

Yet I’ve always been a Visionary in thinking that you can have your own version of a full and robust life living in recovery.

To this end I’ve formed a business and I’m set to publish a second nonfiction book.

That’s what it’s like to be a writer of left of the dial topics:

You’re not Danielle Steele. You won’t live in a building on Central Park West.

You prefer the hidden streets and neighborhoods that no one else wants to explore.

You toil away every day on your writing. If you’re lucky, there’s no writer’s block.

You have something to tell the world so you say it loud and clear.

You create a blog when the New York Times won’t publish you.

You won’t quit in your goal of championing recovery for everyone.

Here’s the scoop:

The writing life is not for everyone. It’s for those of us with an artist’s temperament.

It helps if you have a head for business too so that you can sell tons of copies of your books.

Having a mission for what you want to accomplish by writing a book is imperative.

My goal is to help mental health peers succeed at going to school and finding and keeping a job they love.

In a perverse way, this would satisfy the Republicans and Conservatives who would like to see that no one uses up “entitlements.”

Yet riddle me this: isn’t the mortgage tax deduction on an income tax form a kind of entitlement?

My goal is to help mental health peers live full and robust lives.

A J.D. is not required to have this kind of life.

Living Life

You’re supposed to use photos in blogs so that Google ranks you higher.

I say: as hard as it can be: get out of your apartment or your house.

There’s really no benefit in ruminating on what’s not working or on being jealous of others who seem to have it all. Most people bluff rather than admit that they’re not doing well. No one is going to tell you that they feel like they’ve fallen down.

Just think this: life isn’t easy for any of us not even people who seem to have it all.

If you’re idolizing Kim Kardashian that just might be the dilemma: you have too much time on your hands and aren’t doing things of your own to bolster your self-esteem.

Living life–in recovery from whatever you’re in recovery from–involves taking risks. You will not always be in the mood to go out the front door.

Yet this is exactly how a woman I know met her future husband–they were innocently set up after a friend needled her into going to a pub.

A guy at the pub had his friend come over to meet her. They started talking and the rest was history. She had originally resisted going out and was pulled dragging her high heels into the pub.

I’m revising and editing my second book that I want to publish within two years. In it I’ll talk about how to thrive in your life in recovery.

Really–should we be aspiring to to emulate the Kardashians? Should we be buying their products and making them rich?

The CUNY Graduate Center journalism Masters’ program has an admissions test. You’re supposed to define what the people listed on the exam are famous for. I kid you not one of the people listed was Kim Kardashian.

I don’t admire anyone who is famous for being rich and beautiful.

Not even as a form of mindless escape watching a TV show. The sad reality is that more people adore Kim Kardashian than Michelle Obama. I greatly respect and admire all that Michelle Obama has done.

Has Kim Kardashian done anything to help save the planet or try to cure childhood obesity? I rest my case. Now turn off the TV and go to the pub.

You don’t have to drink alcohol when you go out either. Just go out and have a good time.

I tore out of an Oprah magazine a page with a photo of a huge yellow flower with the words Have Fun in black on the top of the page.

That is what we should all do:

Have fun.

A Sense of Place

I’m giving a talk on employment on Saturday, November 12 from 5:40 to 6:40 p.m. at the 2016 NAMI-New York State Educational Conference.

In employment as in housing environment makes all the difference. Finding the job you love is imperative. Finding a home to call your own is imperative too.

I’ll talk here about a sense of place. Living in a city or town you love makes all the difference. I’ve lived on Staten Island. I’ve lived in Brooklyn: boroughs of New York City.

I’m not a fan of moving into neighborhoods and gentrifying them. I’m proud that I wasn’t ever guilty of gentrifying a neighborhood.

Where you live and where you work can sustain you emotionally not just physically or financially. Making money by making art–what’s not to love if you’re a quirky or creative person?

Staten Island was all white all the time when I lived there years ago. It’s where a cop killed Eric Garner in a choke hold.

Sometimes where you start out in life is not where you have to remain. A lot of times you have to leave that place to have a better life.

Everyone needs to live and work in a place where they feel they belong.

I’ll be talking at the educational conference about how I coach peers and others in writing resumes and finding a suitable career.

The info about the conference will be posted on my website on the author appearance page so you can click on that link for more details.