In 1984, I was 12 years old, and my four closest friends were all over the age of sixty-five. They were retired, blue collar senior citizens from Queens who loved sitting on the stoop with their coffee and scratch-off lottery tickets, shooting the breeze about baseball and the pretty girls...

I never got to know my mother's father, John F. Jordan, very well. From what I remember, he was a polite and reserved man who liked baseball, and spending time in his garden outside a quaint home in Queens. As a boy, I remember wondering why he was...

Four years ago, I walked into a crowded conference room on the Sony lot and there were all of these smart, beautiful, determined women sitting behind laptops with big, bright smiles on their faces. The biggest and brightest smile came from a petite lady with an enormous presence, great sense...

In 1998, Derek Cianfrance stood over a Xerox machine watching copies of his Blue Valentine script spill out into a sorter. He thought that his movie would sell within a few months. After every studio turned him down, he relied on commercial and documentary work to pay the bills as...

If you saw the movie "Waiting for 'Superman' " you likely started crying from the opening images of orange juice, shoes and backpacks, and consistently sobbed until the closing credits. Then you heard John Legend's deeply moving anthem and reached for another Kleenex. It's a safe bet the scenes involving...

In the summer before I turned sixteen, I worked in a grocery store as a part-time bag boy. One night I covered for a new employee, some southern man in his early twenties who had recently dropped out of college and pissed off his wealthy parents so much they forced...

LA Times columnist Steve Lopez did something pretty brave recently, especially given today's fear-driven, layoff weary media climate. He went against his paper's editorial board and stood up...

Just like on The Flintstones, when we married men get together, we often complain and groan about the mother-in-law, if for nothing else, than it's a classic and never-ending source of comedy. As mother-in-laws go, I did well. Mine loves sports, can dig into a rack of baby back ribs...

Our daughter, Andie, is starting Kindergarten in the fall, at Wonderland Elementary -- one of the best public schools in the city, the state, and if you ask the parents, many would say the world. My wife and I are the envy of many of our soon-to-be cash-strapped friends who...

For all the talk about the potential Bradley effect and how underlying racism might rear its ugly head today, there is a stronger undercurrent that will more likely prevail. I call it the "The Alison Effect," named for my sister. (Feel free to adapt this phenomenon and name it for...

Why Straight Parents Need to Take a Strong Stand Against Prop 8

A short while after my son was born, my wife brought him into the office to meet my co-workers. My wife was still nursing. My infant son was hungry and my wife was going to breast feed him...