I'm going to be blogging here every Tuesday and every Friday, talking about everything that interests me and, I hope, interests all or some of you out there. Some of what I'll be blogging about will relate to my new novel WHAT IT WAS LIKE, but a lot of it will just be random thoughts and observations. I'll try to tell the truth about things as I see them, and maybe someone out there will respond.

Generally speaking, I am a very lucky person, and I love my life. (I don't want to jinx things, but I said that I was going to try to be honest.) I grew up around New York City, in the village of Valley Stream on Long Island, and now I live in southern California, in the little city of La Canada Flintridge, about six miles from the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. I have a wonderful wife Buffy, two terrific "children" (my son Jesse is 31; my daughter Daisy is 27), and Jesse's wife Katrina is going to have a baby next month, so I'm going to be a grandfather soon. Ain't life great?

I'll be blogging about the things that interest me – books, movies, music, TV, politics, art, everyday life, and eternal truths. You will find that I am filled with opinions. I know a lot of stuff – I'm an "Ivy League New York Jew" after all -- but no one knows everything, and I am ready and eager to be corrected and educated by anybody who knows anything that I don't know. I am a fairly voracious reader, although my brilliant wife reads much faster than I do, book after book after book. I read three newspapers – yes, old-fashioned, thin-papered, page-turning newspapers – everyday: The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and The Wall Street Journal. I read tons of web stuff (Drudge, Huffington Post, etc.) and I listen to Sirius radio a lot. As I mentioned, I grew up around New York and am a radio fiend. I read books, one after the other, generally one at a time. I know some people can juggle reading several books at a time, but I prefer to go one by one. Unless something is too depressing, and I need some reading relief.

So welcome to my Blog. I'll try to be interesting and fun and occasionally informative. See you next time.