In January, I was in Costa Rica with my lovely fiancée while massive fires were burning down whole sections of Los Angeles. By the time we returned, the smoke had cleared. The growing impact of climate change made me appreciate Costa Rica’s strong environmental protections all the more. Were it not for my addiction to theatre (and other cultural addictions), I could see living in Costa Rica — or perhaps buying a second home some day. The people were friendly and welcoming, the food spectacular, the costs low, and the beaches and jungle and ATV-riding and zip-lining and coffee-making, and sloth-spotting and so much more were purely delightful.

A definite highlight:  helping a client win a major battle in a public forum against a much larger opponent, in a case that pitted real stalwarts of the community against well-funded and much larger carpetbagger. Sometimes, the good guys and the right people win. That I accidentally got the closing public comment and improvised a new insight that helped to nail the argument just made it more delicious.

Well, losing David Thomas of Pere Ubu while I was at a resort in the Bahamas in April certainly put a damper on the trip. It would’ve been far more convenient if he’d died in, oh, never. Honestly, I think about him almost every day since. But at least there’s a new (final?) Pere Ubu album coming out in 2026, and a documentary.

My cousin Rick (“Ricky,” even at age 70-something) died this month down in Texas. I’m not sure I ever met him, he being the age of my older siblings and they having palled around a bit while growing up and while these elders siblings were visiting Johnstown, PA, where my mother’s family was from. But his dying gave me a jolt of insight about something:  Because I’m the youngest of the youngest, my mother having been the youngest surviving child of her father’s 12 children*, and because I’m significantly younger than my siblings, I will likely be the last surviving family member of my cohort. That was an odd insight. I’ve not been much for staying in touch, which hit home when at first I thought I had just one cousin left, then realized I had another, then added up at least six (one farther north in California, one in Texas, three I think still in Johnstown, and one in a midwestern state like Minnesota or Wisconsin). It was my eldest brother who did the family tree, and that well-documented draft ended with the birth of my first child. In the 30+ years since then, I’ve had two more children and gotten a divorce, our mother has died as have the final aunts and uncles, plus many more changes, of course. One knows these things intellectually, but it’s different seeing them on paper — or having it occur to you while you’re driving across town and you’re wondering why the death of a cousin you’d never met keeps rustling around in your mind; because: it’s hit you that whole branches of the tree are falling to the ground, and at some point it’ll be the one you’re standing on.

And, of course, my friend Ken died.

When I was 11, my mother insisted to my father that we move someplace where I could have friends, there being no friends where we were living out on a highway, and commuting to school by car. Suddenly, I had friends:  the boy on the corner, and the boy next door, and the boy across the street. A few weeks ago, the mother of the boy across the street died. Suddenly, I take it. I was sorry to see it. When I was 12 or 13 or so, I was innocently in love with her. At least once, I went over there when I knew that my friend wouldn’t be home, and hung out in the kitchen with her until finally she gently let me know he wasn’t coming home soon and maybe I should go home, which I did, dejectedly. I don’t know what I thought would happen, but whatever it was, I was sure hoping for it. Ten years ago, she reached out to me to say hi, to say that she was a reader of my blog, and that my kids looked very much like me and very “Wochner,” and that she was 83 and might be saying too much because she was on her second glass of wine and please excuse the typos. So: just as charming as she was when I was a kid. After that, we started commenting on each others’ posts, and emailing now and then, and I’m glad we stayed in touch. I really liked her, and a long time ago, I really really liked her. And I still like her sons (haven’t seen the daughters in more than 40 years).

In November I finished draft five (or six?) of my latest full-length play, a play so full-length that a director who read it for me suggested that I cut 30 or so pages. I started to do that… then stopped. Maybe I need some distance. Sometimes I finish writing a play straight through, sometimes I finish a draft (or six) and set it aside and write another one and then come back. Worst case:  Five or 10 years ago, I wrote a play, then completely rewrote it (setting aside the original draft), then rewrote it again. Now all three versions just sit on my laptop (and backed up in the cloud). Other times, I’ve dusted one off and wrapped it up and sent it out and gotten it produced. We’ll see what happens with this one. But:  I finished it. It’s good to finish things.

Last year, I was elected to the board of the Hollywood Community Foundation, and this year we started giving away more money. I was beyond thrilled when we initiated a new granting project and, among the new grantees, we decided to give money to two theatre initiatives, that I joined in advocating for. This is the second foundation board I’ve served on, and after decades of asking for money for various nonprofits, it’s been nice to be on the side of the table where we’re giving money away.

Finally, Moving Arts, for which I was founding artistic director in 1992, had a banner year. When a lot of theatres in Los Angeles were cutting back due to slumping attendance and rising costs, our management team, with support from our board and a lot of partners and supporters, found a way to do more than before. We did I think six productions, initiated a couple of new programs, and created the Arts Hero Award, bestowing the first such award to someone very deserving indeed. And we had a lot of fun getting together for opening nights and whatnot.  It’s been a challenging year for nonprofits, but some are taking a fresh look at how they’re doing things and succeeding with new ways of operating, because they understand that 2025 was not like 2019, and 2019 is not coming back.

There were 365 days in 2025, and so, far more experiences than these eight that just came to mind. I’m sure once I post this and head downstairs to make dinner one after another thing I should’ve mentioned will come to me. In the meantime, I wish the best for you and your loved ones in 2026.

I just got a fundraising appeal from a university. Here’s how it goes:

Dear Lee, 

This holiday season, we hope you will spread the joy of giving by supporting [name] in your year-end contributions. There are so many ways to support [name] students while maximizing your tax benefits.  
  

Donations must be received before December 31 to be recorded as a 2025 gift.  
  

Credit Card   

You can give by credit or debit card on our secure website [this was a link to donate] through 11:59 p.m. on December 31 for the donation to be counted as a 2025 gift. 
  

Appreciated stocks/securities – Initiate one week prior  

Your donation of appreciated stocks or securities should be initiated at least one week prior to December 31 to be counted as a 2025 gift. For more information, contact [name] or call [us].
  

Check  

Gifts made by check should be postmarked or delivered in person by December 31 to be recorded as 2025 gifts. Please mail checks to: 
  

[name and address of the institution]
  

 Note: [name’s] Tax ID is [tax ID number]. 

There’s a bluntness to this that reflects much of the tenor of 2025: No, we’re not making the case for this, we’re just doing it. Here’s how to send us money, and even though we don’t know you and you don’t know us, and we have nothing to do with each other, you should send it. We’re wasting no time explaining how it benefits students or the area we’re in or the cause of higher education or, even, YOU — just send us the money. We want it. And you will experience joy by sending it to us.

My friend Ken Ahearn died in August and the local newspaper has finally run his obit. Here it is. He was 97.

As my parents’ generation would have said, Ken was a real character. He had the warm and casually funny ways of an adored uncle — which no doubt came in handy as a spy for the Central Intelligence Agency, which Ken had been earlier in life. In that capacity, he was stationed in Vienna, Austria in the 1950s and 60s, when he focused on recruitment:  trying to get well-placed Soviet agents to switch sides at the same time as the Soviets tried to get their American equivalents to do the same. He told one story of scanning a sports stadium with binoculars to see who he could recruit until coming across a Russian all the way across him doing the same to our side with binoculars and looking directly at Ken.

Ken had other great stories from his time in the CIA, most of which could have been scenes from movies starring Don Knotts, but here’s the one he retold the most, to charming effect. Over lunch, he and a fellow agent made an offer to a Soviet officer, but made the mistake of putting it into writing. The Soviet grabbed up the printed sheet, which detailed a nice payment, security, U.S. residency and other benefits, and ran off with it, with Ken and his colleague in hot pursuit. They couldn’t catch him, and then were horrified to see their offer put on the front page of Pravda and circulated around Vienna — which then led them to drive around and pick up every copy they could find and trash it, but clearly they couldn’t get them all. But here’s the twist:  The offer turned out to be so generous that now all sorts of Russians started showing up on Ken’s doorway looking to switch sides — making his job far easier.

I met Ken in 2006 when a handful of us, fed up with the predations of Bush/Cheney, set about founding a local Democratic Club; it wasn’t much, but it was doing something. Ken was in that first meeting, and became our founding Treasurer (not President, as the obit states). I met him in that first roundup of interested parties and, soon thereafter, his beautiful and charming wife Gloria, who had worked for the state department. (As Ken would note, the two of them worked both ends of undeclared combat:  espionage and diplomacy.) Ken was a liberal from a time when probably most of the U.S. government was liberal (and: effective). We got to be very close, and especially after Gloria died unexpectedly, I started picking up Ken and taking him around to movies and restaurants and over to my house to play games with my family and our friends. Ken was always a hit:  a funny older guy who told great stories. Everyone loved him, from the adults to the kids to the dogs. New friends would come to my house and meet Ken and inevitably spend hours talking with him.

One year, I threw a Halloween costume party and before the guests started to arrive, I took the dogs for a walk. Anyone with dogs knows that it’s good to take them to stretch their legs before company comes. As I approached the house, through the open curtains I saw a shadowy figure wearing dark glasses, a hat, and a trench coat and looking very shady indeed sitting inside at my kitchen table with my kids. All of the protective hairs on my neck jumped to attention and I ran to the door. It was Ken, of course, who had come to the party as a stereotyped secret agent.

I would say I’ll miss Ken, and I do, but I’ve already been missing him. About two years ago, his children had a farewell party of sorts for him on his birthday because they were concerned that he may have been slipping a bit into forgetfulness. My friends and I who attended didn’t see any of that, and I would occasionally call and leave a phone message and would always send a card on his birthday. Every time I’d have people over, I’d think about Ken and miss him being there.

Five years ago, when Ken was a mere 92 and still driving and seeming very spry indeed, I took him to lunch for his birthday and asked him about death. He told me, “The body dies, but ‘you’ just move over.” (Which is what I believe as well.) And then I asked him what kept him seeming so young. He said, “What keeps me young is that I’m always curious, and I always wonder.”

Ageless wisdom indeed.

I pop a lot of popcorn, and I do it the way God intended: at home, in a big pot, with oil, and then dressed with warm butter and plenty of salt. Once people taste my popcorn, they forget all about the store-bought prepackaged kind, or movie theatre popcorn, or potato chips, or other readily gotten salty snacks.

Part of my secret is buying this Orville Redenbacher gourmet popcorn. I don’t know how “gourmet” it is, and I don’t care, because it excels at its job.

Last night, having almost emptied my latest 8-lb. container of it, I quickly fired up the Amazon app to order more, and found a sale of sorts that might interest you.

Here’s the 8-lb. container.

It’s currently* priced at the amazing bargain price of $13.28 as of this posting, and, I can attest, worth every penny of it. *”Currently” is asterisked because Amazon uses dynamic pricing, meaning that the price can change at any moment, and probably will. So get it while it’s available at this price, kids!

Or, if you’re concerned about Jeff Bezos, you have another way to buy this while still supporting this lifestyle. And you might consider doing that. Just six years ago, he forked over an estimated $38 billion in a divorce settlement, and he just got remarried in a wedding that alone cost an estimated $50 million or more for just the event itself. Various websites now peg his net worth as down to about $250 billion. This is no way to live, especially when compared with his archrival, the soon-to-be trillionaire Elon Musk.

So, if you’re concerned about Mr. Bezos’ financial health, consider ordering the 5-lb. container of the glorious Redenbacher gourmet popcorn. Because, while it offers a third less popcorn… it costs twice as much.

My friend Dan Stumpf is otherwise known as the author Daniel Boyd — which raises the question of “Why have a nom de plume if you’re going to tell everyone about it? I’m sad to see that he’s discovered what some of us already knew about online tech companies: No, there is no way to get help from anyone there.

These companies are predicated on YOU doing everything for them; how can you afford a megayacht if you’re actually paying people to answer inquiries and complaints? Just try getting a human on the phone, or any customer service.

Well, Dan did. It didn’t go well.

When you attain a certain age, you think you know things.

For most of us, that age is 10.

Or, certainly, 13-21. At those ages, we all know everything. Until learning as our 20s and absolutely our 30s roll along, that we don’t know the half of what we don’t know. And, worse:  It starts to look like our parents were right about things.

Truly awful.

Some time after that, a new age dawns, one in which we actually do know some things. When we actually have attained some wisdom. Our hair is falling out, our ability to recall people’s names is shot, it’s a struggle to roll out of bed let alone bench press a bikini-clad girl on the beach, and there is never again any desire to party hardy, or, if there is, there is a public fumble of what that play looks like. I say this having witnessed Hugh Hefner more than once late in his life out in public in his formerly grand style. He was mostly propelled by his bodyguards and his three blonde girlfriends, before dozing away in his seat.

While I’m not yet in my dotage — not by a long shot, you hear me! — I do think I’ve reached a period of wisdom. Or at least, I like to think so. And I choose to believe people who tell me I have. If I seem eager to claim it, and you’re not yet at this stage of life, at some point, you’ll understand.

What prompted this was a video call I had with a friend the other day. We serve together on a nonprofit board, and I passed along a general observation, and he said, “Wait, I’m writing that down.” This was the second time he’d done this recently. He’s about 15 years younger than me, so this exchange fits the pattern:  Not only can he recognize wisdom, he can appreciate it.

So then I thought, I should write down some of these pearls of wisdom rather than just let them clatter onto the floor unstrung, rolling around and slipping away. I’m going to start doing that here on this blog. This, here, that you’re reading? This is just the setup. The intro. Think of it as the introduction to a book I’ll almost assuredly never write, having so far, for over five decades, written none of them.

I may even swipe one or two pearls of wisdom from other people I know — but always with attribution. Well, mostly with attribution. We’ll see how it goes.

While we can’t all have a Boswell, if you think I’ve said something witty and incisive, I wish you’d please let me know. Because I’ve just embarked on this voyage, and as I’m writing this, I have to say that I can think of only two observations I’ve made, and one of them actually came from my mother, who was shrewdly observant. I guess, then, that I have just one, one bit of wisdom to share in the coming days. Which will make this a very short series indeed.

You see why I’m really counting on you.

It’s been two months since I last posted on this blog.

Two Months.

I launched this blog in 2006, and never before have gone two months without posting. A few days, or a couple weeks, once in a great while a month, but two months? Never before.

So now I’m here reexamining where that time went. Was the time spent not writing here well-spent elsewise?

The end of September, I was in a play. That was quite an undertaking. What had started as a lark a full year before (“Hey, we’re workshopping this play, just doing a scene once a month in a kind of salon thing, would you like to be involved?”) turned into an actual full-blown production that I thought long and hard before committing to, first of all because, and I had thought this might be a crucial factor:  I’m not an actor.

Oh, I performed in plays in high school and in college, and I’ve done readings since then, script in hand, and I read roles some weeks in my weekly playwriting workshop. But being in the production of a play? I hadn’t been in one of those in… I counted the years… I think 42 years.

Anyway, I committed to doing the play because 1) I thought it’d be fun (turned out it wasn’t) and 2) because as a practicing Stoic (emphasis on practicing, because I’ll never get there) I know I’ll die some day relatively soon and I want to do new things and make the most of every dollop of time I have while I’m here. Now, a month later, I can say I did that. And now I know that I don’t want to do it again. Kind of like the marathon I ran about 15 years ago:  I can say I did it, and now I don’t want to do it again. But there’s one difference:  With the marathon, I knew I wasn’t a professional runner — those were those people who’d be many miles and hours ahead of me in the race, and whom I had absolutely no hope of catching, let alone competing against. But, see, with the play production I was confronted with amateurs, and I was the professional. I’ve written, directed, and/or produced literally hundreds of plays, events, readings, happenings, whatever, and I’ve learned all sorts of things the hard way — including how to avoid trouble, how to help make it a pleasant experience for the audience and the actors and the production people, how to be courteous and supportive and uplifting when needed and how to be the sadly necessary unpleasant producer person when needed. In this particular production, the actors were treated like packing peanuts, just something poured into the box as needed. In the course of a rehearsal process that started, in a way, a full year beforehand, how many times before opening did I get to rehearse my major scene with the other cast members? The answer is: Never. Not once. On opening night, just before the audience was let in, we were asked to run it quickly in the space of about 20 minutes. Beautiful. 

But I don’t want to complain about this more (I could go on), because I did get to work with a bunch of good actors and make some new friends, and a group of us enjoyed bitching about it one night at the local bar, so I feel I’ve already closed the book on it.

When I wasn’t rehearsing the play (with some of the cast scheduled and available), I was also wrapping up the fourth, or was it fifth, draft of my own new play. I spent a good amount of time in October on that. I wanted to hit some submission deadlines with it, and could have, but I had an aching feeling it was missing something, so I sent my previous play, which had a run in the Hollywood Fringe a few years back but hasn’t had a full production. And then, recently, while driving around and not-thinking about my play, it hit me what it’s missing, so that’s going to be part of my focus in November-December:  supplying the missing part, aka draft five or six.

And I spent a lot of time with my beautiful fiancée. This was time well-spent indeed. She is a joy in my life — sometimes the joy — and is part of the reason I wake up every morning with gratitude. Seriously.

And of course I spent a lot lot lot of my time working on my business, Counterintuity. Clients count on us, and therefore on me, and most organizations of all sorts are under duress right now unless they’re headed by one of those 12 lucky rapacious sorts who own mega-yachts and do “business” with a certain tumescent boil in human form.

And I’ve spent about 30 minutes every day (for a year and a half now) learning French on DuoLingo. In the Dungeons & Dragons nomenclature, I’d say I’m a Level 62 French Dilletante.

And I’ve mourned more friends who have died.

What didn’t I spend any time doing in the past two months, let alone the past four months? Playing Skyrim, a game on the PS4 that I enjoy. I know I didn’t because when I logged in yesterday to play for just a bit I discovered that my last saved position was from August, with no memory of how to get out of this particular maze.

So:  I’ve been doing some rehearsing and some acting, some restaurant-going and card-playing and hanging out with my adored woman, and the quotidian chores of living:  doing laundry, washing dishes, walking dogs, buying groceries.

And right now I’m having a little bourbon and a wonderful Zino Platinum Grand Master cigar and writing this and enjoying all of it.

I’ll see you here again soon.

When I found while working out at the gym that I was still thinking about the way my 22-year-old son had dropped his schedule and, to some degree, his concomitant responsibilities onto me, I decided it was time for action.

“When you get home at 4:30,” I texted him from the StairMaster, “I’d like to have a discussion.”

“Sounds ominous!” my fiancée offered when I related this to her. “Purposely,” I said.

My son quickly texted back a blank “Ok.”

Let me be clear:  D. is a terrific guy. He’s what you want in a responsible, good-hearted, caring, good-natured, young man. He’s got a nice girlfriend that I feel he’s earned by way of being a good catch, so nice that for my birthday she wrote a very nice birthday card saying how good a person I must be to have raised such a thoughtful, good, kind, generous, smart young man… and so, yes, I said to D, “This is more of a card for YOU!” But I digress.

What I was not caring for was his recent general slippage in some areas, but what in particular had set me off was his texted assumption earlier that day that I could work around the immediate plans of his that he’d just shared with me and that would entail the next 24 hours — and not for the first time. Even if I were sporting enough to let him lad around town while I grind away at what makes all this possible, we have two dogs, and they require some maintenance:  walking, feeding, letting out, tending to, appreciating in the way they demand, and so forth. If both of the humans are out, well, that won’t do. It’ll be like I’m paying the mortgage simply for the dogs. Much as I like them, it seems inequitable to me; if they were working stars and paying their keep, like Lassie or Air Bud, I would feel differently. But they’re not. And so I want humans to sleep in the costly house I’m maintaining.

When D came home and asked, “So what did you want to talk about?” as casually as he could, I said, “Finish what you’re doing, and then come sit here and we can talk about it.” Setting the tone, as it were.

I went over scheduling and explained that, like it or not, I’m extremely scheduled, and so we need to work together in advance to figure out who’s not going to be home on any given night so that someone is here, and, well, I do like to visit my lady love too. Fair’s fair.

Moving on, I then talked about me having to rummage through his dirty dishes and silverware in the sink, which makes no sense when a dishwasher is not two feet away that could be loaded with such implements. 

For topic number three, I noted that clutter creates stress and anxiety, and while realizing that I’m part of the clutter problem (if it were possible to go reverse-engineer paper, I could repopulate a forest with all the scripts and papers and books and magazines and comic books and notes and writing pads and journals I’ve generated or accumulated), I will do my part in doing better, and need him to join me in that, and please witness this newly bare table and counter we’re viewing right now.

Finally, a short demand:  Don’t leave your washed and dried clothes lingering for a day or two or more in the dryer.

My wrap-up included the phrase, “As my tenant, you can see where I’m coming from.”

He agreed to it all, and has been remarkably solicitous and helpful in the two days since — just as he has always been, but for the recent slippage. I even found this note he wrote to himself, which I think shows him for the person he is. 

The next night, I was over at my fiancée K’s house and remarking upon how well this had all gone. She volunteered that I’m a good dad, which I appreciated. Then the George Harrison song “My Sweet Lord” came on over Pandora.

“Oh, I’ve always loved this song,” I said. I get the desire behind it, and I love both George’s guitar work and his voice. In fact, I like most of his music.

Listening to that, and prompted by the discussion we’d just had, got me to thinking of George Harrison and of an interview his son Dhani gave a bit after George died.

“When George Harrison died, an interviewer asked his son what he was like,” I offered. “You know what he said?”

“What?” K asked.

“’Cranky.’”

I just passed my first anniversary of studying French on the DuoLingo app. According to DuoLingo, I’m now a Level 50 — just short of a judomaster in French — and I’m:

“Learning content aligned with the A2 level of CEFR. In real life this means you can handle simple conversations about daily topics.”

Well, non. 

I can read simple French now — although, please God, pas de temps de verbe étranges, s’il vous plait — just keep it in good ol’ present tense and I’ll puzzle it out. That past imperfect tense or whatever does indeed make me tense.

But “simple conversations?” Uh uh. DuoLingo has a snotty little AI goth girl who pops up and wants to converse with me and while I can mostly understand what she’s saying, I haven’t a clue what to say back to her.

Meaning that, for only the second time in my life, I’m actually speechless.

(The first time I was 12 years old and found myself dumbstruck when meeting comics god Jack Kirby in person. I couldn’t even bear to look at him straight on.) 

I should note that when I was at CarMax in April selling my previous car and awaiting paperwork, I met a woman of about my age studying French on the same app, and so I excitedly started to pick my way through some small talk with her, deploying my embarrassing hesitant Andy-Kaufman-Foreign-Man-level French language skills until she stopped me cold, saying, “I can’t speak any French.” So at least I could beat her. And she was a level 75!

I started taking up French last year because I was supposed to go to Montreal on a business trip, and by the time I didn’t go, I was already into the studies. It’s certainly brought something nicely quotidien to every morning and every evening, and on Sundays especially, as I race to ensure I’m not demoted (!) in the highly competitive ranks of learners. One week I didn’t pay enough attention to this app, and did find myself thrown down an escalier to a lower rank; it took me three weeks to climb back up to where I was. Duo is a cruel mistress.

I would have more to say about this, but it’s approaching midnight and, well, I have to tend to the app lest I get sent down again to the pit of l’enfer. After that, maybe I’ll read some Asterix comics in the original… well… vous savez.

“Being a writer is like having homework every night for the rest of your life.” Lawrence Kasdan

Last night around 9, I finished draft four of my new play. And then I felt pretty good.

Before that, all day in the non-writing part of the day, I hadn’t felt pretty good. In fact, I’d felt caught up in notwriting it, and feeling that I should be writing it, but not really wanting to, but feeling deeply that I should be writing it. At some point, writing it had indeed felt like the homework you don’t want to do.

Except: Once you start it, you see that it’s actually easy and kind of fun.

Which elicits this quote, from Dorothy Parker:  “I hate writing, but I love having written.”

Me: “I love writing, I just hate getting started.”

For me, the gym works the same way. I know that once I get there and start working out, I’ll love it. (I always do.) But no, I never want to go there — I just somehow want to magically be there and already be on a mat on the floor, or lifting, or on the beloved Stairmaster. I know for a fact that I do 45 minutes on the Stairmaster, which tracks the time. I estimate that I do hours of putting it off. Three to four times a week, getting over to that gym is a matter of dogged determination — and managing my schedule by brute force.

I’ve been assured by other people that they play these mental games with themselves too. But that doesn’t do anything to help my situation.

The play is done for now. Yes, I’m going to move two scenes that I wrote as addenda into the framework of the play where they belong, but that’ll take about an hour. 

But until I have to steel myself for that, sometime in the next night or two, I think I’m going to play “Skyrim” for a while (yes, I took it back up last night, when I felt I just could read or write any more).