Today is three years since my mother died. I had just arrived New Orleans five days prior to be with my son for a month, when I got the call about my mom. She had a stroke and was put on life support. Basically, her worst-case death scenario was playing out: Having a stroke and being put on a respirator totally out of control. It was gruesome. For her, and for those of us who had to watch her suffering. Years before, my mother had given my brother the responsibility of doing what was needed should she be unable to […]

I’m a sentimental fool. Sentimental and contradictory. I love ceremony and tradition, yet I’m compelled to add my own shine to anything I do. In the family I grew up in, Thanksgiving included all the standard American traditions, but the holiday was meh, just something for my Italian mother to get through on the way to the “real” holiday of Christmas. Yet in the family that I raised, I loved Thanksgiving the most. My spin on the holiday was to invite all the strays who had no place else to go, sitting 25 guests around my extra-long folding table. In […]

Civil rights. Woman’s rights. Assassinations. War. Protests. Music. Peace. Love. Real talk. Tree-hugging. Spirituality. Alternative medicine. You-are-what-you-eat. Baby Boomers. A collective who created a most drastic change, in one short decade. We mobilized, raised our voices, got shot for doing so, became outcastes for envisioning a better world. Beautiful leaders, like Martin Luther King, Jr., Robert Kennedy, and Malcolm X were gunned down for standing up for what was right. A tired, working woman was arrested for sitting down on a bus. Elementary school children were terrorized for wanting an education. Four students at Kent State were killed on campus […]

When is the world going to stop crashing and burning? Last month, I received a call from my publicist who had just received horrible news regarding his health. It seems all last summer he’d been dealing with what he was told was a minor health condition, and the ailment had just turned into something major. I could sense his devastation, so I didn’t ask questions as I’d normally do, just did my best to console and offer a positive viewpoint. I doubt I helped. So, just letting you know what this means for the 2nd book in C’mon Funk Series. […]

More Dead People. Funk and I went to see the “Grateful Dead” last weekend. We chose a show in Connecticut because the venue was close to the gravesite of my grandparents on the Squitiro side. A few weeks before the trip, I was really excited at the thought that I’d be standing within six feet of the grandfather that I’d never met. Believe it or not, I was more excited about visiting his grave than I was about seeing a Dead show. A few days before we left, something told me I had to greet my grandmother first. Such are […]

The birthday boy abusing his birth day. Dragging me off to New York City, in the rain, in the cold, to a museum, when he knows I hate museums! Um, Happy Birthday, big guy?!!

  THE best show!! The “Grateful Dead” were super-charged! Good night. Sweet dreams. xo