Easy Listening Podcast

13/08/2024

Parents, take your kids to all those birthday parties. Here's why.

Once upon a time, a million years ago, in a San Fernando Valley far, far away, my mother had a birthday party and nobody showed. Not a single kid.

With school starting, I wanted to share the story.

Days before she died, her last words to me were, "NO FUNERAL." And I knew why. It had been 6 decades since she sat in a wilting paper party hat, staring at a door that never opened, but my mom's shunning still stung. She'd be damned if she was going to get no-showed again.

Her parents had emigrated from Ukraine, fleeing N***s. They weren't exactly familiar with American birthday party customs, RSVPs and the like. My mom was the weird kid in class, with weird foreign food in her lunch. Still, she thought kids would come.

Her last wish was from the broken heart of a child, which makes you rethink every child blowing out candles at every bounce house and neighborhood park and dining room in the world. I know this is heavy sh*t when you're faced with another Evite from a kid your kid barely knows.

If a canned air trampoline park or cardboard crust pizza joint doesn't seem like a real good time, I get it. But in honor of my dead mom, remember that a child's birthday party is sacred ground, even if that ground bounces, or is covered in garish carpet. Peer rejection sticks.

As an adult, my mom never wanted to have any celebrations for herself. A child therapist would tell you that "small t" trauma can rearrange your brain, like being hurt by a friend, being excluded, being shunned.

Tammy did throw THE BEST parties for others, including my step-dad, Ron.

We were "invite the whole class" or invite nobody kind of people, even if she was a single mom working two jobs. She got up early, bought a pinata in the Mission, baked a cake, staked out a spot in Dolores Park.

I didn't ask for much, but as a gift giver, she was 10/10, no notes.

Only when my mom cancelled her own funeral did I understood the categorical devastation of that crap party from yesteryear, the psychic blow of peer rejection. She threw up a final middle finger from the afterlife. "You can't hurt me now!"

When she died, my mom had many friends.

Still, nothing that happened in her adult life could erase the past, my grandparents not speaking English, understanding RSVPs, my mom being the weird girl whose weird party nobody cared to attend.

Generational trauma may be too fancy a term, but if my kids are invited, they go.

It's easy to forget that for a child, your kid may be that one kid they pray will be there, and that to a child, a birthday party is a significant ritual.

We all take note of who shows.

If you don't believe me, think of my mom, who never had that last party, and never will.

I wrote about this for The Arizona Republic (azcentral) after she died. I try to re-post around her birthday. I hope you'll remember this, when the volume at Peter Piper Pizza is somewhere between leaf blower in your frontal cortex & me alone in my car belting "Cruel Summer." 🔊

Thanks for reading this, for going to the party if you can, and maybe pour some liquor (or juice box) for my mom, dying proof that some things you don't "get over," even when you're knock, knock, knocking on heaven's door.

🎂 Happy birthday, Tammy. In heaven, everyone shows 🎂

19/07/2024

I do not understand the ways of Amazon.com or Amazon Kindle, however last month my editor at Penguin Books let me know that my book was chosen for some sort of promotion for one day. And that day is TODAY!

💥THE KINDLE VERSION OF MAKING IT HOME is $1.99 💥

I try to minimize the book peddling these days, but this seems like a great deal. If you haven't read MAKING IT HOME, it covers one season of Little League baseball I watched with my dad after my brother died. Of course the book covers losing, which never stops sucking, but to quote USA TODAY, it "reminds you that life isn't about happy endings, it's about possibilities." My dad talks smack in the bleachers, but also drops wisdom, spills Diet Coke on his f***y pack while jumping up to cheer, screams into the night on his bicycle, and teaches me all I know about baseball and walking through life's toughest sh*t with grace and humor (and a f***y pack).

Some really nice things people have said:

“A MUST READ!” -- USA Today

"It’s a perfect book for fans of baseball, and also wonderful for those who aren’t.” — Good Housekeeping

“This is a story about a team that becomes a family and a family that becomes a team." – Cal Ripken, Jr.

“You’re gonna love this book.” — Mike Rowe, bestselling author, podcaster, host of Dirty Jobs

"Strasser knocks it out of the park,”— Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Thank you for your support

HERE IS A LINK 👉 https://buff.ly/3zQbelr

18/07/2024

Oceanside, CA.

On the beach, I was reading both a book of short stories by Ann Patchett, and a "Canon Rebel Photography For Dummies" book. Both were complicated, emotionally.

Some of my photos are out of focus. And sometimes, I tinkered with my settings, then handed over the camera and asked Daniel to become my own personal Herb Ritts.

(I've seen every episode of "Animal Kingdom," and that's why I loved O'side before I even got there, and it didn't disappoint.)

I'm only on page 28 of the Canon For Dummies book, so cut me some slack, because though being a fast reader has always been one of my superpowers, I can only get through a page at a time of technical camera argot before my brain starts doing this: "Should I get that $12 tank top from Zara in another color, or is the fabric too clingy? Should we go to that Mexican place again for lunch, or have we all eaten too much cheese? I need to order some emu oil, I hear that's good for dry skin. My mom always used that on her heels. Did I miss her birthday? She'd be upset that I didn't post anything to celebrate her, even though she's dead. When does school start this year? How much would it be to fly to Poland to see Taylor Swift? Seaweed is a good snack, but it gets in your teeth and all over your clothes. I wish I knew how to surf. I'm going to learn how to bake donuts. Why have I been reading this book for 28 pages, and I don't know what the "F" in F-stop even stands for?"

Well, Adam Carolla always says it's good to have hobbies. So, "F" it if I'm still remedial!

07/06/2024

The most common question I get when doing interviews about my book: who should play my dad?

Henry Winkler.

Who I actually met once, while co-hosting a show on deep cable with Dave Coulier. I’m dropping some heavy names this Flashback Friday.

But at least I didn’t ask you to caption this.

Happy Days. Indeed.

01/05/2024

One thing I like about the world, is that Gina Grad resides here, and we happen to be on the same timeline.

We first met when we were both "news girls" at KLSX in Los Angeles, me with Adam Carolla and Gina with Timothy Conway in the evenings. We used to sit at the House of Pies diner for hours eating fries and talking about life. Gina once told me that it was best to stick to fries and pies at the House of Pies, and not order the fish. And it's that kind of wisdom and practical life advice that has made her an invaluable resource.

Once, just after I had my first baby, Gina offered to join me at the janky park near my place in Koreatown. It started pouring rain, the baby was crying, so we scurried out of there as the skies opened over the east side. I had no idea how to be a mom, or work a stroller, and in my haste to get out of there, I didn't exactly buckle young Nate into his stroller correctly, and as Gina and I clacked down a steep hill in sheets of rain, Nate came tumbling out of he stroller onto the grimy, slimy sidewalk. He was unharmed, but I'm pretty sure I cried. I was so embarrassed that I didn't know how to strap in my own child, which meant I probably had no idea what I was doing at all as a mom. The funny thing is that I can't recall a single thing she said that afternoon, only the feeling of total acceptance and love remain vivid in my mind. And we probably starting making fun of the incident by the following day, hopefully over fries and not Los Feliz fish.

I love you so much, Gina. I love to see you now flourishing in your own family. Please help me wish Gina the happiest of birthdays today ❤🍟🥧🎂

16/04/2024

Four years ago, my dad rode his bicycle to the doctor to get his chemo port taken out. He didn't tell anyone. A nurse removed it and stitched him up. He went directly to the Little League field in time for the first pitch.

He hasn't missed a single baseball game for either one of my boys since Farm AA. He's no Cal Ripken Jr, but it's a pretty impressive streak for Breaking Dad.

05/03/2024

This weekend, I'll be at the Tucson Festival of Books with the likes of Joe Posnanski Bob Odenkirk Meg Kissinger Margo Steines and so many more. I'll be doing two author panels, one on writing about family, the other on memoir.

They said I could bring a guest, so I'll be inviting my Imposter Syndrome. See you in Tucson!

20/01/2024

My dad always says that whole “stages of grief” thing is just a bunch of bu****it.

“There are only two stages,” he says. “Before and after.”

I wrote a book about how baseball helped us with the after. And it did. It gave us a place to go a couple times a week, a place that smelled like red clay and ocean water and sunscreen and Bermuda grass and bug spray, a place where all the parents gathered in the bleachers in a state of communal prayer and longing, and all the angels watched over their kin from somewhere way over the outfield.

On the diamond, a Little League version of my brother came back to life, not sick and swollen with steroids, as he was when he died, but lithe and confident, a fast bat, and bouncy walk. The bleachers were a netherworld where everyone was alive, and anything good was possible. And we never had to like losing. We were sore losers, but we let it pass over and through us, because we had no choice.

I do think about one stage of grief all the time, and that stage is shock. Even though my big brother, Morgan Dov Strasser, took his last breath eight years ago today, I am still shocked. I’m pretty sure I’m doing grief wrong, and don’t tell me there’s no wrong way, because I know it shouldn’t be a surprise that someone with terminal cancer up and goddamn died. They said it would be six months, and it was six months and ten days. I prayed for him not to die on his son’s birthday, as the doctors predicted, and he didn’t. But if I’m confessing the truth, I am capable of a level of fairy tale thinking and blind optimism that’s stunning. When they said there was nothing else they could do, I sat in the leather library chair of the private hermitage where I have my deep and secret ridiculuos thoughts, and I knew, I KNEW he wasn’t going to die. He was my big brother. He was hearty, even with cancer, and he would be a success story. And all the doctors at Johns Hopkins would have to write it up in a paper or something, the guy who somehow managed to metabolize a spinal tumor.

They say there is “pre-grief” when someone takes a long time to die. Well, that didn’t work on me. I was shocked as s**t eight years ago, and I remain so. This year has been the hardest, maybe because of my book, and all the talking about it I did, in wanting people to find the book. All the while, I knew my brother would have loved it, would have loved his photo being in the paper, and on the MLB Network, and wherever any one would have me, to talk about Morgan. He was sweet and guileless. He was a warm dad and a loyal friend.

** Thinks she needs to give this post an upbeat button and comes up with something very lame and half-baked, but possibly useful **

When he was down to the last few months, he said he wanted to do two things: go to the movies, and watch his son play soccer. We got him to the theatre, but it wasn’t soccer season. He never did see that game. No season is perfect, but here we are. If you knew my brother, maybe think of him, relentlessly good and a hell of a first baseman.

05/01/2024

💥This morning, USA TODAY posted a list of "Best Books of 2023," and MAKING IT HOME made the list 💥

I am at a loss for words. But if you like words, there are certainly lots of them in my book. I am BESIDE MYSELF.

THANK YOU SO MUCH USA TODAY and David Oliver.

"Strasser's grief memoir about her mother and brother dying four months apart is a must-read for anyone grieving, because it reminds you that life isn't about happy endings, it's about possibilities."

Before all the great new books of 2024 are published, we're looking back at our favorite titles of 2023.

05/01/2024

I've never owned a Kindle, but apparently it allows you to highlight quotes and screenshot them. Sometimes, a reader will send me one, such as this.

My stepfather, a musician, used to say basically the same thing, about the chance to start over. Only, he'd say it in trumpet player terms. "Upper left hand corner," he'd mumble, shaking his head. "That's where the song starts. You pick it up from the top."

Sorry to quote myself, but happy to quote Ron, which I often do, as you may know.

Both notions seem fitting this time of year, when it feels like do-overs are possible, everything bad is "out" and everything good is "in" and at the same time, grief, if you have it, might be a tone bursting through the noise of daily life, like the sound of an oboe warming up an orchestra.

Anyway, I hear it sometimes. And I like to think about Little League tryouts coming up, a sign of the beginning of the beginning of a new season, all those chances for us to be together, new innings and new swings and my dad and I falling in love with a whole new team, and the tiny, cute Vodka bottles I just stocked for the Old Man, for those tense games on a Saturday morning.

My brother died in the month of January eight years ago, during a blizzard, and honestly, even though I live in Arizona, it's felt a little like winter ever since. I start over and over, not as the person I was, because I can never be that person, but as this person, warm and cold and morose and hopeful and always rooting my very hardest, no matter what.