“We have traditions to help with difficult transitions” — Harold Shapiro (I think)
2023 was equal parts outstanding and upsetting, a base of joy and revelry mixed through with ribbons of grief and existential questions.
Surrender to the Flow: Live music was a big part of the year, with only 5 Phish shows but entering the orbit of the Grateful Dead splinter bands with Oteil & Friends, Phil Lesh’s birthday party, and Dead and Company. I saw Goose for the first time and have dug into their catalog. Peter Gabriel (with Tony Levin on bass) was a treat, completing a musical journey that started 40 years ago and I took my father to see Trey Anastasio Band in Asbury Park, his first concert on the Boardwalk since seeing Bill Haley in 1955. Music keeps us young and singing.
Comings: Our son got married and we have a wonderful new daughter in our family. We attended two cousin’s weddings and two weddings of our kids’ generation. We got to celebrate different cultures, traditions and foods while dancing in three of the four US time zones. I saw as many concerts with my son as with my father, the two largest musical influences in my listening.
Goings: The year started poorly for me with the passing of Evan Marcus, my co-worker, friend, web site and football betting peer, and co-author. Writing a book with someone lets you see them in the most bare, personal way as you edit each other’s thoughts and phrasing. You’re picking on each other’s brains and thought processes, and Evan was the most gracious co-author when the editing got difficult. He was also the most dad of the dad jokes. I’ve never met anyone who could make professional editors groan or smile, sometimes at the same time. August brought the death James Casey, saxophonist and singer for the Trey Anastasio Band, to colon cancer. His loss resonated profoundly and deeply for me – he was my father’s sometime saxophone teacher, a solid and caring friend to my music teacher, a remarkable talent, incredibly funny but humble in inverse proportion to his talent and caring nature. I marked the five year anniversaries of the passing of my father in law and my adult friend George. Reading Geddy Lee’s autobiography “My Effin’ Life” helped supremely in processing the grief, and focusing on memory; Steve Rosen’s “Tonechaser” biography of Eddie Van Halen explored adult friendships through their main sequence and implosion to also add context to the last year.
Phase Shifts: I officially retired from a decade of coaching ice hockey, and found my players from my first years coaching showing up in the news feeds as accomplished high school athletes and champions of social good. The return on hundreds of cold hours and a half dozen knee injuries is beyond value, and will bring smiles until I consider other retirements. The portfolio of ideas to keep me busy once I conclude the day job – including this newsletter – grows and expands and challenges me to learn and prepare. I spent some time investing in my post-work work with friends who have fully or partially retired, and it was affirming rather than terrifying.
Red Shifts: A few obtuse longevity records: 4 ¼ years in my current role ties my longest tenure in any previous job (previous record holder: leading Sun Microsystems’ Global Systems Engineering team); 18 years in our current house sneaks past my childhood home in Freehold, NJ; I stuck with an exercise plan for two years and have new muscles and relatively few aches as a receipt.
A Tale of Mental Tangle: I picked up simple crossword puzzles in an attempt to stop over-thinking or missing simple clues. Puzzle books, reading (see previous newsletter item), and small arts and crafts projects won; bass playing, language study and electronics projects slipped more than I would have liked. I discovered Rally Rd (fractional ownership from fast cars to famous places) and Fable (book club app for sharing reading plans and growth). Most challenging, and most rewarding, was finally having a TED talk accepted at TEDxRutgers in February, and talking about all of these things as both symptoms and antidotes for my long-running anxiety. I was able to channel Cory Doctorow’s early story on our need to collect, Geddy Lee’s “completist” collecting passion as a driver for his fascination with baseball and wine, and my own sense of “otherness” and how creativity has weighed in as a counterbalance. Personally, it opened up many other conversations during the year. The events of October 7 fueled more existential anxiety for me and many in my circles, and have also challenged my relationships to long-lived institutions and their moral and action grounding.
Watching The Body Clock
There is no bad luck except for bad health - Dolly Brunson
I’m squarely in the last period of play – it feels better than “the last quarter” – but 80-90 years is an average life span and I’m in either the end of the four day weekend or the Sunday of the hockey tournament, depending upon how you mark time. I learned that EMOM and AMRAP are not mathcore bands that may have opened for Intervals or Animals as Leaders; I discovered much more about body chemistry and how my blood approaches the (bad) properties of ketchup at times. Rowing, walking, healthier eating, intentional management of stress and anxiety, creative outlets (thank you for reading this far) have helped. I have a long-standing dislike of exercise that I have (finally) attributed to anxiety – if I’m exercising, I’m not doing “something more important.” This year, “more important” became an investment in my longer-term health, and the gamification of rowing via my Hydrow and Total Row Livingston (thank you team) has been a huge help. Instead of counting down the minutes, as I did in high school classes that weren’t math or science, I’m counting up towards badges, personal bests, consistent effort and accomplishment.
The title is a reference to Kathryn Bertine’s first book “All The Sundays Yet To Come” about her short career as a professional ice show skater, and how she choose personal and mental wellness over Sunday weigh-ins and external governance of her body image, creativity and happiness.
I’m writing this as my knees throb from standing, walking, dancing and posing for pictures for the better part of 9 hours on New Year’s Eve, having seen Phish at Madison Square Garden perform the entirety of the “Gamehenge” story as a full-scale Broadway production. Several years ago, before seeing Phish at Fenway Park, I wrote that seeing four friends perform music for so long gives you faith and hope that everything will be alright, and perhaps the Dow Jones would reach 30,000 (badge unlocked). I’m hoping the trend continues.
With this newsletter, and above mentioned portfolio of things, I’m going to shift to more subscribers-only and paid-subscriber only content. It is part of my plan to make 2024 the year where we minimize bad luck through personal action, unlock the good through creativity and joy, and find peace on every level.
Happy New Year Hal, thanks for sharing
Always a joy to read your writing, Hal. Thank you for sharing.