Orel Family

The Frankel Jewish Academy put on "The Wizard of Oz" as its Fall show this year, and as part of the cast invited children ages 7-14 to try out for parts as Munchkins and Flying Monkeys. Elianna was all in, of course. Saturday night, on the way to dropping her off to prepare for the 2nd of the 3 performances, we had the following dialogue: Elianna: "Have you ever worn lipstick?" Dad: "Yes" Elianna: "When?!?" Dad: "I was in plays once." Elianna: "What parts were you?" Dad: "I don't remember!!" Elianna: "Then you didn't have any big parts." All in. Sunday was the final performance, a matinee. But Elianna also had Martial Arts testing, scheduled at noon. Made it through. She'll get her belt -- GREEN -- the next time she goes, but she passed. Then, on to FJA, and the last go-round as a munchkin, member of the Lollypop Guild, and a Flying Monkey. She gets to keep the Munchkin and Flying Monkey hat...

On Monday, I went to a lecture titled, "The Dirty Politics of Ancient Israel." The lecturer made various points, not least of which is that modern politics have nothing on the ancients. The key example: The greatest king of them all, King David. David rose to power by ruthlessly having all his political opponents -- real and imagined -- killed. At least, that was the thesis. There is a story in 2 Samuel 21: "Then there was a famine in the days of David three years, year after year; and David enquired of the Lord. And the Lord answered, It is for Saul, and for his bloody house, because he slew the Gibeonites." Never mind who the Gibeonites might have been, or whether David was actually talking to God. But... There was a crisis!!! Do something!! The story continues: "and David said unto the Gibeonites: 'What shall I do for you? and how shall I make atonement?" The answer? "Let seven men of [Saul's] sons be delivered unto us, and we ...

Sometimes, you might just need a fix. That was the first of Bruce Springsteen's two shows with Joe Grushecky here in Pittsburgh. Other times... other times, you might hope for something more than just a fix. You don't quite know what it is, just that you'll know it when it happens. And when it does, you just say, this is what I came for. That was the second of Bruce Springsteen's two shows with Joe Grushecky in Pittsburgh. Last night, Bruce Springsteen went to a dark and mysterious place, and drew forth something truly stunning. That he was "on" for this performance was evident right from the start, when he guested with the opening act, The Composure, for a hard driving version of "Dancing in the Dark." Unlike the first night, this time the auditorium was mostly full for the guest show. And, as we soon found out, he was just barely warming up. The show structure was nominally the same as the first night: Guest with the warmup act, short acou...

After a year of no Springsteen concerts, coming to Pittsburgh to see him play with Joe Grushecky and the Houserockers was a bit akin to getting a fix. Everything seemed exciting coming in. The Pennsylvania hills were as beautiful as any landscape painting I've ever seen, and of course the Sailor and Soldiers Hall in Pittsburgh is a gem. Having seen Bruce play with Grushecky 3 times previously over the past 16 years, I pretty much knew what to expect: Bruce taking lead on most songs, plenty of guitar work and good fun, a bunch of hits, mostly Bruce's, with occasional Grushecky favorites thrown in and perhaps a surprise or two. That, of course, was precisely what the show delivered. The good news in the show was Bruce's form. His voice was clear and strong, and he shared it happily. I had to remind myself a couple of times that he has passed his 62nd birthday. His guitar work was even better. He took extended solos over and over again. And over again. And then some m...

One month ago, it appeared as if the most interesting thing likely to happen on the last day of the season might be Adam Dunn's pursuit of history . The pennant races were dull, with clear leaders in every race. Little did anyone know... On September 9, the St. Louis hosted the Atlanta Braves in the first of a 3-game series. The Braves led in the wild card race by 7.5 games. Going in to the bottom of the ninth, the Braves were ahead in the game, 3-1. Their sensational rookie closer, Craig Kimbrel , took the mound. A win would improve the Braves record to 85-60 -- a .586 winning percentage -- and reduce the Braves magic number for a playoff spot to 10, with 17 games remaining. A .586 winning percentage equates to 9.97 wins per 17 games. With two outs, the Cardinals had a runner on first base. Rafael Furcal , hitting .217, came to the plate. Kimbrel prepared to close out the game, but then something strange happened: He went wild. He walked Furcal on 4 pitches. Then he wa...

A record was set tonight in Major League Baseball. It's a bit of a big record, though I'm supposing that the record-holder would just as soon not have it. And you wouldn't know it from that picture, either (that was a home run). In Chicago, the Designated Hitter -- and if ever there was a more ironic title, I'd like to know it -- Adam Dunn went 0-for-2 with a walk. For the year now, he has 66 hits and 75 walks. Not many players get more walks than hits in a season, though some of those players are very, very good. That list includes Rickey Henderson and Barry Bonds . But this in not about Dunn's ability to draw walks. Dunn has also amassed 174 strikeouts this season. That's 108 more strikeouts than hits; the record is 112, set just last year by Mark Reynolds , then of the Arizona Diamondbacks. The ratio of strikeouts to hits, 2.64, is a record for someone with as many hits as Dunn. But this is not about Dunn's impressive ability to miss the baseb...

In recent years, I have used this blog less and less frequently... but sometimes there are things, little things, I just want to remember. And if I just put it on facebook, I may never find it again. Tonight, I got home very late from work. Elianna was waiting for me. "Guess what?," she said. "Remember that spelling test I took??" "Did you get it back?" I knew she hadn't studied for it, because she lost the study sheet. The day of her test, I thought I had found it on her bed. There was a big yellow sheet of paper there, and in big letters, in her handwriting, it said, "SPELL WORDS." It had a lot of words on it, all scribbled down in her writing. So I had said, "Here are your spelling words! OK, now, accio?? " and at that point I gave up trying to help her for her test. But I digress. "I get to re-take my test!!" That was a prelude to, "I was close, I only missed that one by one letter!" Later, as...

I'm not much for attending major political events, or going to see big-name politicians. When I was at grad school at USC in 1984, I saw two campaign appearances. At the first one, Walter Mondale had to answer some particularly obnoxious hecklers by bellowing, "You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. This is the school that produced Donald Segretti! " No, they didn't throw tomatoes, as Susan Estrich has recalled, or if they did, their aim was bad enough so I didn't notice. Then again, they probably didn't know who Segretti was, anyway. It was a great put-down, but the jecklers just kept on shouting, "Reagan Country!" Later that same fall, I saw a campaign appearance for the Republicans. Vice President Bush spoke. The USC mascot, Traveler , paraded around with its rider --presumably Richard Saukko -- in full regalia. The introduction was by Moses himself, Charlton Heston . It was all very... regal and distant. Politicians -- good polit...

During concerts on the Darkness On The Edge of Town tour, during "Growin' Up" Bruce Springsteen would tell a story about being sent by his priest to talk to God. It would go something like this: "... so I walk home, and try to figure out where I’m gonna find this God, you know, it’s like I don’t go to church... you know, I can’t go back there, I don’t know... said 'I know what I’ll do, I’ll go over to Clarence’s house ‘cause Clarence, he knows everybody.' So I go over there, I knock on the door, I say ‘Clarence, I’m in this fix. I gotta see God right away, can’t wait.' He said ‘Listen, no problem, I know just where he is.'" I remember how the story sometimes continued: "... so I figured I gotta go see God and all I have to go see Him in was my mother's Rambler, was all beat up, all smashed up, paint scraped off the side... He says, Well, you can't go in that car! 'So what do you mean I can't go in this, it's the...

For much of the last month, my commute companion has been Stewart Francke's new album, Heartless World. "Heartless World" was funded in part by a kickstarter campaign, in which fans who ponied up small amounts of money were promised an advance copy of the CD, and those who ponied up especially large sums were promised, "name it, we'll do it." I don't have much history contributing to things that don't have "501 (c)" next to them, and this definitely wasn't one of those. But then, I've also heard Stew's past releases. As Stew wrote in his kickstarter announcement, "These are exciting times for independent artists, musicians, and music business entrepreneurs." It was a no-brainer. More than 200 people chipped in, and happily, the album was fully funded. Happily, because this is the best album I have heard in a long, long time. Over repeated listening during my daily commute to downtown Detroit, I never once co...

Time was, seeing Neil Young was a very special event. Oh, I was never a Neil Young fanatic the way I am for Bruce, but I have many fond memories of seeing him live. He was one of the few major acts I saw while in college, back when he was touring behind Trans. That was nobody's idea of a great album, but it did yield a super-weird version of "Mr. Soul." Since then, I have seen Neil in several incarnations. There was the show at the Fox, in Detroit, in support of the then still-unreleased Harvest Moon that was pure magic, with Neil going back and forth between instruments and themes all evening long. And the show at Pine Knob with Booker T. and the MGs. And even the Greendale show, even if I can no longer remember any of its songs or much about its supposed message -- except I think it had something to do with being green and having dancers on the stage and a grandpa. Since then, though, I haven't paid all that much attention. Still, when my friend Judi came a...

Last week, we took a family trip in to New Jersey for the first time in more than a year. Being more of a last minute planner by the year, this time we did virtually no planning. But there we were, last Thursday, on a last minute power drive from West Bloomfield to Millburn. This led, by no means inevitably, to a pair of trips in the Manhattan on a very nice Friday. First, to catch up with Dave Marsh at Sirius/XM, and later, to see the Broadway show, Baby It's You. The Sirius/XM thing came together so suddenly that I'm still a bit surprised it happened at all. Dave has a live radio show on Friday mornings called "Live From E Street Nation" on E Street Radio and I had determined that if I was ever in town on a Friday, I'd at least call. The show started at 10:30, and somehow we made it up to the 36th floor of the McGraw HIll Building at about 10:29, going right past a room that I recognized from pictures as having hosted a Bruce Springsteen interview a ...

A few days ago, an espn.com front page headline caught my eye. Under a big photo of Dale Earnhardt, was a caption announcing that it had been 10 years since his death. Ten years!! I’ll note that I’m not much of a auto racing fan, and to the extent I watched it, it was typically Indy Car, not NASCAR. I didn’t watch the race that day. But I remember that weekend. On February 16, 2001, we flew to California for a cousin’s bar mitzvah and an 8-day vacation. We, being me, Lori, and Aaron. Aaron was a few days shy of his 4th birthday, and Lori was becoming very large with our 2nd child. She needed a doctor’s clearance to fly. I have looked through my 16,000+ pictures and can find no evidence that she was ever that large, but it’s true. I remember it. But 10 years ago, I had no digital camera – I had tried out an HP prototype in 1998 but it would be another 2 years before we’d buy one – so I was still paying to develop pictures. When we stepped off the airplane at SFO, we were gree...

Last month, we (finally) upgraded our family cell phones to new feature phones that include keyboards, with plans that include texting. The following is Elianna's first text conversation, from the ski area we were at, back to Lori. She had asked to email, but I figured texts would be faster.