Tales of the Cocktail 2009

And so it begins again. The New Orleans mid-summer convention dedicated to spirits kicks off today. The Tales of the Cocktail is featuring the Mint Julep this year much as they did the Sazerac last year. In short it is the premiere spirits event in the country. Now in their seventh year, Ann and Paul Tueneman hold court over this incredible event that attracts hundreds, if not thousands of attendees, from all over the world. For the next several days New Orleans is the epicenter of the spirits universe with seminars, lectures, parties and dinners being presented in support of this major event. You will see many different venues offered for world class dinners tomorrow night as well as a plethora of varying seminars on all kinds of spirits. If you want to know more about libations and potent potables, this is the place to be. New Orleans has always made itself evident as one of the great centers of drinking, although the aptly-named Bourbon Street does not lend itself toward greatness in mixology. Nevertheless, if you want to experience the science of drinking, this event is a must-see. I applaud all of Ann and Paul's staff for their cordiality and professionalism. It will be a great event and one not to be missed.

A Scouter goes home

I received a call just prior to the July 4 holiday weekend that my longtime Scouting friend, Jerrold Lockshin, was in an accident at home, was rushed to the hospital and had been put on life support. He was not expected to survive. Indeed, a few hours later, I was notified that he did pass away by an e-mail from his son's office. Jerrold, whom most people on the National Jewish Committe on Scouting knew affectionately as Jerry, was my mentor. He was directly responsible for me taking on the challenges inherent with being a local Jewish Committee on Scouting chairman and he and his wife of 58 years, Phyllis, had become quite close to me over the course of several years of national meetings and pleasure trips to Cleveland. Following the Hurricane Katrina flooding that forced me to take refuge in nearby Cleveland, they had me to their home and invited me to the two Oster family reunions in 2005 and 2006 held in Canton that were organized with Phyllis with Jerry's help. I was made to feel a part of their family and I was concerned when both of them had health issues that prevented one or the other from attending several Scouting events. As a matter of fact, I had planned to room with Jerry at the last National Annual Meeting in Orlando at the end of May. He was forced to cancel at the last minute due to health issues involving him and his wife. The last time I talked to Jerry, he was angry about a matter and I advised him I would take care of it, whereupon he hung up. No goodbye. No thank you. That was Jerry. At times he was like a steamroller - a tour de force that left nothing standing in his wake. His brusqueness notwithstanding, Jerry could be a real sweetheart and his love for his family was expressed in thousands of ways. He enjoyed a stiff glass of Scotch and, until a few years ago, also favored a good cigar. Jerry enjoyed life to its maximum, traveling frequently with his wife to Israel and to Australia in recent years to visit his older son's family, who had relocated to Sydney. Aside from his dedication to his family, Jerry was passionate about helping Scouting and giving aid to Jewish Scouts and units. His constant phone calls and letters to local chairmen were instrumental in strengthening the National Jewish Committee on Scouting both before and after he was chairman. The remainder of the holiday weekend was spent traveling to Milwaukee by plane and a rental car eight-hour drive to Cleveland on Independence Day with my close friend, Cheryl Baraty, who is the regional chair for the Central Region from which Jerry hailed. We stayed with friends in Cleveland overnight before heading to Canton for the services on Sunday afternoon. We returned to Cleveland on the way back after the graveside services, saw some friends and then drove until the wee hours of the morning on Monday just in time for me to grab a 7:00 a.m. flight back home from Milwaukee. I crashed hard the next night after a full day of work on Monday. All the while, I kept hearing Jerry's voice in my head along with the eulogies of his children and the cantor who conducted the service. I kept thinking that I will surely miss him. Jerry's voice may be stilled, but his legacy will live on. Those of us who knew him will keep his memory alive in our hearts.

Printers, the scourge of network administrators

Egads! Not another printer problem. It seems whevever my day is going well, I'll get a franctic call from someone who is experiencing a problem with his or her printer. Now, don't get me wrong. Printers, or as Microsoft refers to them "print devices," do a lot of necessary work for legal, medical and retail firms across the country. They help students prepare academic work, draft plans for architects and engineers and make graphics design work a snap. They can be very expensive, very delicate machines or big clunkers that have form feeders pulling large boxes of fan-fold paper. Some multi-function printers scan, fax and copy. Every printer is different and requires drivers that interface with each operating system. Some are ink jet printers (usually the best and most expensive for photographic reproductions), while others are laser printers which involve a process where the ink is fused to paper. Older model printers use ribbon inks struck by nine- or 24-pin printer heads. The fact is printers do much of the work used in computing today. They organize our lives and make the cyber world accessible and mobile. Yet, they can confound even the most casual of users by their annoying habit of failing to print due to a host of factors. Low ink, no ink, no paper, inoperable form feeders, disfunctional fusers and dirty heads are just some of the reasons printers don't print. Many times the problem is in the software, as when a driver is corrupted or it could simply be a connection with the device has been lost, either over the network or through a cable. Microsoft calls the software on its operating systems that make print devices work as "printers." This can be confusing to anyone who doesn't understand Microsoft-speak. The fact is there are as many reasons printers don't print as there are that they do. The key to understanding a printer is to know the popular adage "garbage in, garbage out." A printer will usually do no more than it is told to do by the operating system. It rarely thinks for itself and that is good. There is enough going on in a computer operating system to go around that the printers don't need to start making decisions for us. In some of the more high-end print devices, there are parameters that can be set and maintained for every print job so that different size paper jobs can be diverted to the appropriate trays or that no color is used on certain jobs. As I indicated, when they work, they are a godsend. When they fail, they are nerve wracking. The first thing to remember when a print job fails is to stay calm and focused. Is the printer on? If not, plug it in. Is there an error message? If it suggests there is no connection, check the cabling. If it fails to print, but the job(s) are very plainly listed in the print device under the Printers and Faxes icon of the Control Panel, delete everything and start over. Many times a print job will fail for one reason or another due to an electric surge or choked network bandwidth. I have actually seen a print job fail due to a long USB cable being used. Moving the printer to within six feet of the computer cured the problem. The key is to approach these things in a mannered and orderly fashion. While one would like to drop kick them or crunch them beneath a steamroller, being patient does have its merits. If, after checking power and cables and deleting the print jobs from queue, the printer is still having issues (not printing), it may be time to examine the software. Sometimes deleting the printer, rebooting and reinstalling is called for. That's a drastic solution, but one that works in many cases. I recommend not doing it until consulting someone like yours truly. Network administrators and computer consultants know far better what might be going on. Deleting a printer is definitely not the first course of action and anyone who does that deserves to be without a printer in the interim. So, please, if your printer is not working, take a deep breath. Relax. Remember that a calm, measured approach to printers is best and that your friendly neighborhood network administrator or computer consultant can help. Whoops...gotta go. It's a phone call from someone having a printing problem....

A performance with a purpose

Cabaret Le Chat Noir is hosting a performance tonight at 7:30 p.m. That's not unusual. The swanky stage where various plays and musical performances are seen is usually dark only a few nights a month. What is unusual is that hostess Barbara Motley is giving away all the money that's collected at the door for this evening's special show. It's a fundraiser for two local performers who will be participants at the seventh annual Cabaret Conference at Yale University. Amanda Zirchenbach, affectionately known as "Mandy" and Lisa Picone, a recent Big Easy Award winner for her work in "Assassins," are due to travel to New Haven in just a few more weeks. The expense of travel and the course fee for the two will take a considerable toll on their personal finances. So, in order to publicize the fact that two New Orleanians will be members of the class of 2009 and to spirit them on their way with wads of cash in hand, Cabaret Le Chat Noir is hosting a combination performance and silent auction this evening. The Cabaret Conference at Yale University has played host to a number of talented New Orleanians including singers Amy Alvarez, Julia LaShae, Suzaune McKamey, Natasha Ramer, Anais St. John and pianists Harry Mayronne, Jr. and  Jefferson Turner. Auditions are held across the United States and around the world (this year London, UK). Le Chat Noir serves as one of the venues for the auditions with each hopeful applicant singing two numbers; one, an upbeat, comic piece and the other a slow, more introspective song with patter between the two. Judges want to see they have the very best applicants from each region and offer only 40 slots each year to work with seasoned faculty members like Julie Wilson and Alex Rybeck, who critique each student, tear them apart and hone them into better cabaret performers in a nine-day course that is held on the New Haven campus. What makes this year's benefit show even more special is that Lisa Picone is finally making her way to Yale after last year's scare with breast cancer. Picone was given a slot this year after she had wowed judges in 2008, but was forced to bow out after her regimen of chemotherapy prevented her from attending the course. Picone's fellow classmate Mandy stepped into Ricky Graham and Jefferson Turner's Renew Review while Picone was on the mend. So, the two have history between them. Soon they will be making history on the historic Yale campus.

Could the two older Jackson kids be Yids?

With all of the attention given to the three children of Michael Jackson, there is an interesting aspect to the two oldest of his brood. When Debbie Rowe bore the Gloved One his first two children, Jackson, a former member of the Seventh Day Adventists and a high profile member of the Church of Scientology, became the dad of two Jewish children. While Prince Michael and Paris Michael Jackson have probably never ventured near a synagogue or entertained the thought of having a Bat or Bar Mitzvah, the weird fact is that Rowe has finally admitted that she was born and had been raised as a Jewess. According to halacha (rabbinic law), any child born to a Jewish mother (or whose maternal grandmother was Jewish) is considered a member of the tribe. In addition, there have been new allegations that Debbie Rowe's former boss, dermatologist Arnie Klein, who is also Jewish and a longtime Jackson associate, was the actual biological father of Prince I and Paris. Not that this makes any difference to what the children consider themselves. All three (including the youngest, Prince Michael II, born to a surrogate mother) are the children of Michael Jackson. But the religious questions swirling around his children's religious affiliation remain to be sorted out. The children were raised by a nanny who is reportedly Muslim, something that alarmed Rowe, according to court documents she filed in the past on behalf of her two biological children. Whatever religious or spiritual background Michael Jackson imposed upon his three children is speculative. Katherine Jackson, Michael's mother and the court-dictated guardian of the children, has been a very committed member of the Jehovah's Witnesses church. How this tragedy continues to develop remains to be seen. Ultimately, though, all of his surviving children will need divine inspiration in the coming months, while a permanent home is determined for them by the courts, and they cope with the loss of the only parent they've ever known.

AJPA Conference

Former AJPA president Rob Certner with a former CJN reporter at left.

Like everyone else, the members of the American Jewish Press Association (AJPA) have been hit hard by the economic crisis. Moreover, the newspaper industry in general and niche publishing in particular have been severely bleeding red ink due to lack of advertising and shrinking readership. The advent of the Internet as a main source of news for young readership has cast a pall over the future of the newspaper industry. Nevertheless, the AJPA, an organization representing 250 Jewish organizations, publishers, advertising sales directors and writers decided to meet this week in Evanston, Illinois (just north of Chicago). It's hard to encapsulate three days of mostly round-the-clock work, but I will endeavor to do so. Frankly, the demeanor of the attendees was somber, but hopeful. Much of the sessions employed by the AJPA gave members opportunities to evaluate where their institutions could make cuts and use their abilities to maintain the course during the turbulent financial times ahead. The American Press Institute's Andrew Davis representing its Newspaper Next project led several SWOTs exercises to determine the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to each member's organization. This took over two days of concentrated introspection and evaluation. It was very revealing and, hopefully, provided members some insight into where they can apply first or second aid once they return to their respective publications. Aside from the work there were opportunities to network and to glean from respected longtime members how they are weathering this current crisis. Thursday night the Rockower Awards for excellence in Jewish journalism were acknowledged in short ceremonies at the Spertus Museum on Michigan Avenue across from historic Grant Park at Lake Michigan. The comraderie among AJPA members was palpable, but genuine. I got to catch up with retiring Cleveland Jewish News (CJN) CEO Rob Certner as well as present CJN advertising director Jennifer Woomer and publisher/editor-in-chief Michael Bennett. It was great to see them as well as to see others whose previous stewardship in the AJPA have made them respected veterans. It was the first time in three decades that my former editor, Cynthia Dettelbach, who just retired from the CJN at the end of last month, had failed to attend the AJPA conference. Hats off to AJPA executive director Toby Dershowitz and associate director Natasha Nadel, whose hard work made the conference a glittering success. Although a decision hasn't been made yet on next year's conference, I am hoping to attend that as well. The future of Jewish journalism may be less sure than it has in the past, but the AJPA is working to guarantee that those who survive will be better prepared to meet the challenge head on.

The man in the mirror and the girl on the poster

My head was still reeling from the news of the passing of Farrah Fawcett when everyone at the American Jewish Press Association in Chicago started receiving news over their Blackberrys and iPhones  of the death of the King of Pop, Michael Jackson. Nearby Gary, Indiana was the birthplace of the musical icon who, along with his brothers, took the world by storm in 1969 beginning with "I Want You Back." Jackson, 50,  was eccentric and controversial in his later years, but no less than another pop icon, Elvis Presley, who passed away tragically at 42. One cannot forget that Jackson married the King's daughter, Lisa Marie. Fame and fortune did not bring either of them true happiness. In the end the two musical figures died shut away from the outside world, seeking privacy and solace that all of the money could not bring them. Jackson had his Neverland, while Presley had his Graceland. Both were supreme influences over popular music and in their heydays no one could eclipse them. Jackson sold over 750 million albums and his "Thriller" album still holds records for sales that may never be breached. The world will continue to mourn his early demise despite the insinuations and suggestions of improper behavior with juveniles that will cast a cloud over his sunny career. While Jackson changed his skin color and facial characteristics over the course of the last several decades, Fawcett hardly ever changed her truly beautiful countenance. Cancer was her companion these last three years in addition to her love, Ryan O'Neal. It was announced a few days ago that the two would be married, but the ceremony was never held due to her condition. In the end she resembled only a shadow of her former beauty, yet her strength of character and her determination to fight with all of her being shone through, captured through Alana Stewart's moving documentary. Fawcett's iconic poster was on the walls of most of the teenagers and young men who grew up in the 70s. The Jackson Five's "ABC" and other top sellers were on the phonographs of that same crowd. My high school senior class song was "I'll Be There." Both of these figures will be sorely missed by my generation and those that have and will follow. Fawcett's talent may take a back seat to Jackson's musical genius, but the fact they are both gone on the same day within hours of one another will always strike me as strange and odd.