Los Angeles – Don't Gel Too Soon

FORTY YEARS AGO IN 1968: BOBBY KENNEDY AND WHAT CAME AFTER

By the time Robert Kennedy decided to run for President, in March of 1968, just days after Eugene McCarthy’s great New Hampshire primary showing demonstrated President Lyndon Johnson’s weakness and the real unpopularity of the Vietnam war, I was already neck-deep in McCarthy’s campaign. I’d been involved since the summer before, in what, before McCarthy agreed to run, we called Dump Johnson. When Allard Lowenstein (himself assassinated in 2000), recruited us for it at the 1967 National Student Association (NSA) meeting, he’d say "You can’t beat somebody (LBJ) with nobody." So he had worked very hard to get Bobby to run, but he refused.

It was Gene McCarthy who agreed to stand for all of us against the Johnson administration and the war. After NSA I organized the Smith campus. We were among the first students to go each weekend to New Hampshire to work for McCarthy and against the war. So when Kennedy announced, just days after our great New Hampshire triumph, that he would also run, we were devastated, and angry.

Over the months of campaigning though, I came to have enormous respect for Senator Kennedy and his campaign. There was no way to watch him without feeling the power of his connection with all kinds of Americans and his compassion, poetry and sense of justice. This moment, just as an inner city Indianapolis neighborhood learned of the death of Martin Luther King, is typical of him at his best:

By June the campaign was tense; such an important issue and the two Senators were running against one another as well as (and sometimes, it seemed, instead of) the war. Kennedy won Indiana. McCarthy won Oregon. We moved south to Los Angeles(one of many places I saw for the first time from a campaign bus) criss-crossing the state from Chico to San Francisco and back to LA. Just before the midnight after the primary, as June 4, 1968, election day, became June 5, we knew we’d lost, so we went to Senator’s concession in the ballroom of the Beverly Hilton and then back upstairs to mourn. We weren’t even watching the rest of coverage. Suddenly, running through the halls of the staff floor of the hotel, one of McCarthy’s closest advisors shouted "Turn on the TV! They’ve done it again!"

Continue reading FORTY YEARS AGO IN 1968: BOBBY KENNEDY AND WHAT CAME AFTER

SNOW — TOTO WE AREN’T IN LA ANY MORE!

Last week I took you to see this tree outside my office. It was just lovely. Then I went to LA and, as this storm was preparing to arrive, worked outside by the pool all afternoon. Never have I been so aware of the good side of the left coast – where I lived so unhappily but have come to appreciate.

Back home tonight, which is Wednesday, it looks like this. I seem to be on a real tear about seasons and changes. I left a fiery display of falling leaves and returned just in time to welcome the magical silence that is my favorite part of an all-day snowfall.

I’m posting this on Friday, just before Shabbat. Ending the week.
Thanking God. Wishing I knew an angel named Earl. Remembering snowy
night time walks down Broadway with my kids. And snow days. And ski
lifts.

And back again to that old circle thing. There isn’t much in life that doesn’t come in cycles, and if you observe the Sabbath, it begins at 4:30 in the depth of winter and 9:30 at the height of summer. Jewish holidays too are built around harvest and planting, the moon and its cycles; it’s far more connected to the earth and its processes than I ever understood until we began living this observant life. I wonder sometimes if, given my pleasure in the cycles and their passage, that pleasure isn’t yet another reason we ended up here.

Shabbat Shalom.

I LOVE LA — NO, REALLY

I’m sitting right here – next to the pool, at the Mosaic Hotel in Beverly Hills, where we’ve been coming for years. What a treat to be writing outside in December. The whole time I lived here I complained – about the lack of "intellectual rigor", about the meanness of Hollywood (which, by the way, makes Washington politicians look like amateurs), about the lack of autumn foliage, about the spoiled kids and on and on. I guess I still think a lot of those things, but when we drive in from the airport, passing all the pastel buildings, the sun shining, the air balmy and gentle – I remember the good things. Maybe our East Coast weather builds character and a grounding in reality but this really is lovely. At least for visiting.

It’s also different to come to LA as an observant Jew. Orthodox Jews are a parallel universe – something like Harry Potter compared to the Muggles. It’s a culture with, by necessity, many of its own institutions, the strengths of which are determined largely by the size of the community. LA has lots of observant and formally Orthodox Jews so there’s a spectrum of services — and standards. Yeshiva girls in sweatshirts and leggings, every kind of kosher restaurant, schools, and of course, shuls. Here’s little bit of what we’ve seen in the couple of hours we’ve been here on this trip.

This is B’nai David Judea, a modern Orthodox congregation on Pico near Robertson, in the heart of the Orthodox community. We’ve been to services there a couple of times on Shabbat – it’s a lovely community and a beautiful sanctuary – and the congregation is young, hip, and in many cases, Hollywood.

Just a block away there are several kosher groceries and delis. Here’s one.

And these guys – they’re the backbone of Jeff’s Gourmet Kosher sausage. We’re taking lots home to our friends – there’s nothing like it near us.

And this — this is a real, live, kosher Subway! Not too shabby.

There’s more to LA than the stereotypes that were our reality when we lived here. Lots that’s nice. Sadly, the ugliness and banality conceals much of it; only after a long absence (and perhaps the added perspective of a religious community) that I, at least, have been able to see both sides. So bring it on Randy Newman — it’s a great song.