This picture was taken in 1941 in Zhytomyr, Ukraine. German soldiers are surrounding Jews in the Market Square, and we all know what happened after that. My family left Zhytomyr decades earlier. I never thought about that place much, never visited, never felt like I had to. It was the Old Country, not My Country.…

One year ago, in the Year That Wasn’t, I was in a hospital tent trying to breathe, in isolation trying to distract myself with bad football, trying to make it to 2021 because my God how could that be any worse. Overall this year was better, being alive not the least of the positives. We…

I THOUGHT THERE WOULD BE A COUCH.  I’d never been to see a therapist, but I’ve been to a shit-ton of movies and well, there’s always a couch in the movies. There’s almost always a happy ending, too, which should have been my first clue that art does not imitate life, but mocks it.  Instead…

I’VE ALWAYS HAD A LOVE/HATE RELATIONSHIP WITH THE UNKNOWN. I love that it fascinates me, inspires me, drives me. But I embrace it as you would hug a porcupine — very carefully and not without a huge dose of What the Fuck Was I Thinking. I hate myself for feeling this way. Not only is…

IT’S TRADITION here at Below the Fold to share an early excerpt from the next book project. Okay not tradition in like the traditional sense, more in the “well I’ve done it before and I haven’t died from embarrassment yet so what the hell why not” sense. Plus there’s the added benefit of looking back…

THIS IS HOW IT FEELS. Not elation but relief. Not celebration but reflection. Not an end but perhaps a new beginning. Guilty verdicts for Derek Chauvin in the murder (we can now say murder) of George Floyd won’t erase centuries-old systemic racism. It won’t heal a broken America, won’t eradicate discrimination, won’t make us safer.…

ON THE FIRST DAY I WASHED MY HANDS OF IT. Lots of soap, two “happy birthdays.” Rinse and repeat.  After the first week my daughter came home because of it; graduated college in our living room thanks to it.  For months we distanced from it, Zoomed and baked bread and watched everything on the Internet…

I SEE KOBE. Not the undefendable jumper or the unapologetic swagger. Not the 81-point masterpiece or reducing opponents to pieces. Not the championships or the Larry O’Brien embrace, with Shaq at his side and champagne on his face. I see those moments too, but mostly I see Kobe shopping at Fashion Island. I see him…