ezrabutler

[ezrabutler]

Sitting Shiva for Squirrel Hill

I never know what to say in a shiva house. I don’t feel like I have the right to say something, especially when someone else may have known the person better. So I show up and listen. I may share an anecdote I remember about the person but I know that it’s not my job to talk. 

That’s actually one of the rules of a shiva house: the visitor is not supposed to begin a conversation, they are supposed to wait for the mourner to receive them. Let the mourner talk.

Over the past few years, I have followed the same rules for commenting on events on the internet. Someone else probably knows more than me. Someone else is affected in some way that I cannot fathom. And I never feel that I have something to add to the conversation that would elevate as opposed to analyze. It’s not my job to provide analysis, so I have been very careful to educate myself, to not try to be part of the noise. It’s my job, as a human and as a member of civil society, to listen.

I fought the urge to share the empathic pain I have felt during public tragedies. I restrained myself when I wanted to write harsh words in capital letters and no punctuation. I composed and deleted political diatribes on numerous occasions. (I have slipped up, naturally. I tweeted about what I thought should have been done to members of Congress who voted against common sense gun laws, but even that was written with restraint.)

My family has lived in Pittsburgh for more than a century and in Squirrel Hill for more than 70 years. It was the place where my paternal great grandparents came when they emigrated from White Russia. But it is not my place to tell their story. Or about the family’s deep relationship with the Jewish community of Squirrel Hill. Or to use my family or my friends in the neighborhood as a device to make political point about what I believe should be done.

I went to high school in a suburb of Pittsburgh, and began by living at my grandparents’ home in Squirrel Hill, a few blocks from the Tree of Life Congregation. As the family was Orthodox, we would pray at one of the Orthodox synagogues in the area. I’d go swimming at the JCC. I’d go to the library on the corner of Murray and Forbes, and buy CDs from a record store on Forbes.

On Shabbat, everyone would be walking outside. We’d walk home from shul. We’d walk to the homes of friends for lunch or after lunch. It seemed like everyone had an open door policy.

My grandmother would always have a delicious meal and a table filled with fascinating guests from all backgrounds. My grandfather would regale us with stories of the history of Jewish Squirrel Hill, the founding of the various local Jewish schools and organizations, and about his time serving in the United States Army in Italy and Oran. People would stop by throughout the afternoon and evening just to say hi.

Sitting around that table, I learned the definition of a community.

When I learned about the horrific attack in Squirrel Hill yesterday, I cried. I cried for the murdered, even though I did not know them by name. I cried because it could have been the synagogue a few blocks away where my family and friends attend. I cried for the community that will not feel safe again. A community where the new normal will be locked doors. I cried for my friends and family who will have to explain to their children how a person could be so evil. (I cried a lot.)

I don’t understand how someone could become so evil.

But I’ve been learning what it means to be ignorant.

I’ve spent the past few years learning about things I did not know, much of it through theatre, art, television, movies, books, and essays. For example: I knew nothing about the AIDS crisis that was killing hundreds of thousands of gay men through my high school years. I did not understand privilege. I did not understand the extent of the conditions and the disenfranchisement that people of color in this country experience on a daily basis. I did not comprehend how fearful people of color are that their children would not come home safe at the end of the day. And I did not know enough about the history of legalized oppression Black people face in this country. I knew nothing about the trans experience and the struggles and discrimination trans people go through, or even about the importance of something as basic as pronouns. I knew nothing about the pains of being a new arrival in this country, whether as an immigrant or a refugee. And I knew nothing about the domestic violence, abuse and sexual harassment that so many women have experienced in their lives.

There is still much that I don’t know. So much that I don’t understand, or cannot fathom or comprehend. And so much that I will continue trying to read, watch, listen and learn. And please know that silence is not always complicity, sometimes it is just giving the mourner the chance to be heard.

As my friend Joshua Tranen wrote so beautifully in a tweet yesterday, there is one thing that visitors are supposed to say in a shiva house: "May the Place (God) comfort you among the rest of the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem." He explained “I like the idea of God as Place, dispersed throughout the air. May all Jews find comfort today in their respective places, with friends, family, community.”

I pray that everyone who experienced tragedy over these past few years will quickly find comfort in this Place that seems to be unwilling to provide a moment of respite.

[ezrabutler]

The White Elephant in My Room

A decade ago, I wrote the following piece for Jewneric, a blog that no longer exists. In the intervening years, it has remained mostly true, with a few glaring exceptions. There have been a few romantic partners who have rejected me due to my lack of fluency, there have been exactly two professional opportunities I know I lost because of reasons associated with it, and there have been a couple of sleepless nights. 

The list of things I have done has grown. I’ve interviewed rockstars, negotiated multi-million dollar deals, and been flown all over the world to speak to people.

The White Elephant in My Room: My Stutter

I stutter. But I am not a stutterer.

It does not define me; rather it complements me.

Through the course of history, individuals who stutter have entered into all realms of life. In a religious sense, Moses stuttered. Yet so did Marilyn Monroe. As did James Earl Jones (“This is AT&T”), Isaac Newton, Winston Churchill, and numerous other famous people. And many more unknown people, perhaps because of their speech.

When I made Aliyah, and first went to a doctor, I saw that they wrote that down on my chart. When I went to recruitment centre, I noticed that they wrote that on my profile.

And that shocked me. It has nothing to do with my ability at all: I give business presentations, I act under pressure, and I am extremely talkative and fluent in multiple languages. I get my point across. And I hope that the content of that point is worth it.

I noticed an article on the front page of the newspaper Haaretz (in Hebrew) today, regarding Organization of Stutterers in Israel (AMB”I). Apparently, their 10th Annual Conference will take place tomorrow.

The three major messages of the conference are:

1) For HR people, there is no reason not to hire someone because he stutters, as you may lose a genius. 2) For those looking for a life partner, don’t give up. 3) And for those who speak with those who stutter – don’t help them. They know the word, and your help is no help at all. Give a few more seconds of your time instead.

Personally, I don’t know if I ever was refused a job due to lack of elocution, but I know that a close friend of mine once told me that she could not date me because of it.

That doesn’t keep me up at night.

It did when I was younger. For all intents and purposes, until college.

Instead, my time now is full of people who talk to me. My speech impediment taught me how to listen.

[ezrabutler]

NY Year 2 Update.

A year ago, I wrote an update recounting my first year back in New York. It had been a difficult year to give any particulars about, because quite honestly, not much of anything felt like an accomplishment. It was a very personal year. It was a year of reconnecting with my past, and being grateful for it.

This year was a bit different.

To start: I travelled. Not for work, but for friends, family, art, and even vacation! I visited art museums in eight different cities (nine, if you count Brooklyn as a distinct city, as I do). I’m not even going to attempt to tabulate how many plays and musicals I attended this year. I also experienced two incredible ballets this year and an opera. I even trekked out to the Hamptons to hear the Shabbat services of one of the world’s preeminent cantors. I helped throw a 40th birthday party in Chicago for Leah Jones. 

On the local front, I had a four year old tour guide take me all around the New York ferries, bridges, subways, and parks. 

An entrepreneur gave me some free advice while I was on an unscheduled 36 hour stopover in Miami after my trip to Colombia with my friend Jonathan. He told me to “focus on one thing”. I didn’t take him literally, of course, but I took it to heart about the startup I was working on to help reduce stress in the workplace.

In the weeks after, I completely redesigned the entire concept for the app. With the help of Marcelo and his team, we are looking to implement the initial stage of our new solution, the Debrief App, with our first clients by end of Q1/2018.

(In short, with the Debrief app, employees will be able to quickly, privately, and securely record their sentiments about meetings, phone calls and other interpersonal interactions. Beyond the personal psychological feedback for each employee, the companies will receive anonymized aggregated information about select negative patterns, and the ability to run micro-experiments to see if it helps alleviate the issue. In other words, the bosses will know that 65% of the company is consistently stressed the Monday morning all-hands meeting and moving it to a new time may help make everyone happier.)

While I have had a wide variety of clients this past year, 10/10 Optics has really become my home, in a myriad of ways. (Not my *literal* home; I moved into a 1BR apartment, with hardwood floors and exposed brick, a mere 5 minute walk away.) Over the past year, I helped relaunch two websites with Ruth Domber, her incredible team and Mike Allen. The friendship and gratitude that I feel toward Ruth grows deeper each day, and I’m truly grateful for all the opportunities I’ve gotten because of it.

But my life can’t be easily split into the “professional” and “personal”. There needs to be a third category, “creative”.

For example, after an overpriced drink with my friend Ned Ehrbar, we created a recurring comedy night called “Bad Pitches” (along with Carol Hartsell and Sean Crespo). 

At Bad Pitches, comedians pitch their worst ideas for television shows, and the judges and audience pretend to be “studio executives” that give horrible feedback in an attempt to make the horrendous ideas even worse. We had four events at the (now-closed) Jimmy’s No. 43, with a raucous standing room only crowd. Over the next quarter, we are looking to rework it a bit and bring it to a new stage with some old and new contenders.

One day, I was chatting with Danny Ross, who told me “I want to write a musical.” I responded, “I’ve seen a bunch of musicals and I know how to write words.” After a few meetings (and waking up at 4:30am on day while under deadline and having a random burst of inspiration), we came up with a concept for a non-magical modern retelling of the Snow White story from the point of view of the dwarves, entitled “Snow”.  

It took months, but we now have the first draft of the book (thank you to all the people who read/criticized/critiqued it) and a few initial songs. We are currently revising it and excited to see where the project goes from here.

In 2015, I wrote a tweet about a illustrated book I wanted to write called “How To Be A Cog”. One day a few months back, I just started writing it. It became “The Little Cog Who Thought He Was Special”, which goes extremely macabre and is not suitable for children at all. 

Unfortunately, my insanely talented friend Edward Heinrich was one of the people to whom I related the story, over a coffee in Silver Lake. He told me that he wanted to illustrate it for me. Then I sent him draft after draft in an attempt to dissuade him, and he still wanted to illustrate it. So that’s happening.

And finally, a few weeks ago, I tweeted about another book I wanted to write called “The Elephants Upstairs” based on my current living situation. After seeing a draft, Edward sent me an email informing me that he would be illustrating this, quite dark, book as well.

(Not all my friends were as enthusiastic. One of my closest friends, whose opinion I usually value, dryly opined “it needs humor.”)

I guess one of the things I learned this year is about the importance of creative partners. Bad Pitches would have never happened without Ned. The Debrief App would be a pipe dream without Marcelo. Snow would have never been imagined without Danny. The books would be nothing without Edward’s feedback and contribution.

This year was replete with new friends and strengthening friendships. I could not imagine the past year without some people who, while I may have known them casually a year ago, transformed my year in ways I cannot describe. I’m particularly grateful to Duvi Stahler for being Duvi Stahler.

I also started going to Equinox. (I figured I should put that somewhere in here.)

I’m not going to pretend that this year was all perfect. There was the month I lived in a hotel. There was the text I accidentally sent to the person the text was about. There was some really horrible theatre. There were failed and stalled projects, lost clients, and unrequited feelings. I started working on my graduate thesis again, for myself, and then I stopped. 

I worked on creating an anthology of sorts called “Ethics of the Mothers” but was entrenched in too many things at the time to make it a reality. I have regrets about a project I did not undertake four years ago, namely a renewable energy company built for island nations, in order to help them maintain power in the aftermath of tropical storms. And I still want to build a gluten-free fortune cookie company.

I feel like I’m on the right path, and can’t wait to see where this next year brings me.

[ezrabutler]

NY Year 1 Update.

Exactly a year ago today, I landed in New York. It was supposed to be a year yesterday, but I had actually missed my flight due to awful planning on my part and normally horrendous Los Angeles traffic. I ended up taking the red-eye and landing early on a Friday morning.

The day before I flew, I bought a necklace from Pyrrha, one with a butterfly and an anchor. I felt it symbolic, because my goal was to find the elusive, mythical thing I had heard about called “stability”. I had only seen the concept in Facebook posts from friends and in thinkpieces I read on the Internet.

I landed not knowing what to expect. I was literally the prodigal son returning home after two decades. (And when I say home, I mean my parents’ attic. It was probably the most millennial thing I could do, even though according to some counts, I’m not technically a millennial.)

And, like in the story of that other prodigal son everyone loves to quote, my parents really made me feel incredibly welcome and were loving, not as if that should be a shock. It was fun having random midnight debugging conversations with my mother or impromptu brainstorms with my father.

For my siblings who live on the East Coast, it had been a major year. My younger sister spoke at a dinner with Bruce Willis and Vice President Joe Biden. My younger brother became the special advisor to The Julis-Rabinowitz Program on Jewish and Israeli Law at the Harvard Law School and helped organize an amazing inaugural event. My older brother started a new company. My eldest niece became a Bat Mitzvah.

I got to experience so much of this with them, as well as more minor things, like being at birthday parties or impromptu BBQs I would have missed in the past or the family Thanksgiving dinner and Hanukkah parties I haven’t attended in well over a decade. Even the tiny things, like randomly helping my niece with some homework late one Saturday night. Or an unplanned Scrabble afternoon with my grandmother. Only now do I realize how much I’ve missed by living so far away.

Professionally, I’m finally launching the company I wanted to start eight years ago in Tel Aviv. The comfort of living in my parents’ attic gave me the time and the resources required to really research and develop and test and iterate the platform, and moving out to Brooklyn gave me the drive to really push out the best possible version it could be. 

But this wasn’t a year marked in its discovering of new relationships; in most cases, it was time spent deepening existing friendships, from different periods and places throughout my entire life. The dinners (and the cigar nights) with some of my closest friends from Jerusalem who now happen to live in Forest Hills. The woman who taught me how to parallel park a decade and a half ago now gave me my office space and so much more. People I had only known virtually have become better friends in real life. I only found my apartment in Bed-Stuy because I’m subletting it from the boyfriend of a Little League teammate from when I was 7 years old. (I recently saw my Little League coach who told me that I was the worst catcher he had ever seen, but it impressed him that I never gave up.)

In other news, New York has changed me. I now schedule my life, for the most part. I make plans more than 24 hours in advance, sometimes even more than 168 hours in advance, which is still a very odd feeling. 

In Los Angeles, I’d go to screeners and premieres and just normal movies on a regular basis, and in New York, I haven’t been to a movie theater a single time. But I have lost count of the number of plays, musicals, concerts and other assorted live shows I’ve attended.

I’m really grateful for everything: the times that had me pushing the “happy” button, and the times that had me pushing the “not happy” button. The times when friendship meant getting a helping hand or good advice, and the times when friendship meant receiving unvarnished, inconvenient truths and tough love.

All in all, for a completely unplanned year with a vague amorphous goal, it turned out alright, even if not everything went the way I would have wanted, it was what I needed. Thank you to everyone who made it what it was.

[ezrabutler]

Yaniv Rokah

“He who saves one life saves the entire world.” 

- Sanhedrin 4:5, as quoted at the very end of the credits of QUEEN MIMI

Before I left Los Angeles, I got into a fight during brunch in a vegan restaurant. It may have been more of a differing of opinions, an argument, or perhaps just a classical Talmudic discussion. It was concerning the meaning a text in Tractate Sanhedrin, in which is written “he who saves one life saves the entire world.”

Earlier that month, I had attended the sold-out Los Angeles premiere of the documentary QUEEN MIMI at the Arclight on the final night of Hanukkah. It is the story of a homeless octogenarian who lived in a Santa Monica laundromat for two decades, becoming a fixture of the neighborhood. 

But no one really knew anything about her past.

The movie was filmed and directed by Yaniv Rokah, over a five year period, when he was an aspiring actor working as a barista in Santa Monica. (We had randomly met a few months prior to the premiere at a tea shop in Beverly Hills, when we realized that both our families shared roots in 19th century Jerusalem.)

Queen Mimi’s story is anything but simple, is not sugar-coated in the slightest, and the mere production of the documentary proves to be a transformative experience for her. A surprise Hollywood ending occurs even though the movie was filmed all the way west in Santa Monica.

In Los Angeles, especially at premieres, it seems that everyone watches the credits, but only to see the names of their friends. After the film ended and the prerequisite Q&A with the eponymous star, the director, the editor and the producer concluded, I walked down from my seat into the throng of adoring friends and fans vying for a moment of congratulations. As I gave the director a hug, I whispered in his ear, “nice quote from Sanhedrin at the very end of the credits to bring it all together.” He laughed.

During our brunch later that month, he noted that no one else really paid any attention to the quotation. We began to discuss to whom in the movie that line refers.

Was it the laundromat owner who allowed Queen Mimi to sleep in the laundromat? Was it the people in the neighborhood who befriended Mimi and treated her as a friend, going drinking and dancing with her, and even going as so far to give her a bed to sleep in at times? Was it the people who worked at the laundromat or the customers who gave their laundry to Mimi to do, to give her a sense of purpose? Was it Zach Galifianakis who became her (second?) biggest champion, who saw Queen Mimi as more than a piece of arm candy to bring to the red carpet premieres of his movies? Was it Yaniv, who looked at a random homeless octogenarian, and realized there must be more of a story? Or was it Queen Mimi herself who transformed lives with her smile and her good nature? Is it an exhortation to the viewing audience to give a damn about the homeless?

What is meant by “saving” a life? How exactly does that “save” the entire world?

QUEEN MIMI is currently in a limited cinematic release, and has been garnering exposure with articles in People, Glamour, UPROXX, L.A. Weekly, the Huffington Post, the Hollywood Reporter, LA Magazine, Entertainment Weekly and the Los Angeles Times, among many others.

The film has won awards at film festivals from Manhattan to St. Tropez, and nominated at festivals from San Francisco to Haifa, garnering 5 wins and 4 nominations.

Most of these I know because Yaniv had been sharing them.

And then I got a sponsored advertisement for the Los Angeles Times piece in my newsfeed, and noticed the 162 shares and more than 825 likes. And the comments were incredible.

“I remember Mimi well from the laundromat. I never really knew her story, but I'm glad that she's not homeless anymore.”

“This used to be my laundromat and I used to look forward to my little chats with Mimi. Glad to see she is doing so well!!”

“I see her every time I do laundry. She explains all the washers and the time it takes to get it done and she doesn't work there.”

“I see her all the time! I have always wondered about her, what a great story!”

“I knew MiMi personally and she helped me every week when I'd do laundry in Santa Monica. We would chat about anything and she'd sing and do what little shuffle dances she could with her tired feet. She was so sweet and helpful and a staple and constant in my L.A. laundry life.”

Perhaps, we can redefine the traditional understanding of the Talmudic passage. I think that the translation of “saves one life” is not the only possible meaning. The word used is not “מציל”  (mtzil), the traditional way of writing “to save”, it is written as “מקיים” (mkyiim), from the root of “rising up”, “attesting” or “establishing”.

It’s not about life and death, it’s about the reputation of the living.

An alternate reading of the passage is therefore, “When you attest to the existence of a single person (besides yourself), you can change the world.” Only when you care about the homeless octogenarian in the hot pink pants, can you actually make the world a better place.

What is a documentary, anyway, besides a testament to the subject’s worth?

[ezrabutler]

My Five Year Plan

“Where do you see yourself in 5 years?” my interlocutor innocuously asked over his regular milk latte at FIKA on West 58th street. I stammered with a reply, not because of my stutter, but due to having no good response. It took me a few pots of tea and an undisclosed number of macarons at Petrossian, whilst reading Etgar Keret’s memoirs, to begin to identify the source of my discomfort with the simple query.

Five years ago, I had just moved to Los Angeles. I recently threw out a treatment for a reality show that was written during that time period. I spent time designing multiple startups that year, all of which greatly informed the past half-decade of my life, but none of which lasted a year. I had not even started working for The Kernel yet, nor had I left, or returned or left again. I hadn’t thought spent a moment thinking about distributed renewable wind energy yet, nor could I imagine being involved with a company for a few years working on ideas to implement concepts about that. I hadn’t walked a fashion runway for a charity (appearing in Vanity Fair), interviewed one of my favorite bands on the red carpet at the BBMAs, attended the Grammys, or ended up at 4am in the pool of a random hip-hop mogul. Like most Angelenos, I hadn’t realized yet that Los Angeles is actually in a dry subtropical climate and would be in a state of drought that would occupy a year of my life. Having only recently arrived, I certainly did not see myself leaving so soon.

Ten years ago, I was living in Jerusalem, in my third year of an MA program in History of Comparative Religion. I spent the summer studying either Latin or Greek, with the thought I would remain in academia for a while. I spent most days in a university library, researching my thesis that would never be completed. I went on a few dates with a beautiful, brilliant girl who pulled out a massive silver-colored semi-automatic handgun when we were stopped at the security before entering a cute book-filled café for a date, thinking that she would be the perfect girl to bring home to my parents. Not because of the gun, obviously. That scared the shit out of me. Almost as much as knowing that I would be living a lie. I thought Jerusalem would be my home for a very long time. I didn’t foresee moving to Tel Aviv only a few years later. Or start a company that would do business with China. Or that I would get involved in the technology industry, a move that flew me around the world. Or ever come out of the closet.

Fifteen years ago, I had just returned from spending two years at a Yeshiva (seminary) in Israel. I was studying Talmud intensely every morning in university, while starting my computer science degree, assuming that I would be a programmer like my mother, or maybe study for my rabbinical ordination, like my father.

Twenty years ago, I was a chubby 14 year old who left his parents’ home in New York and started at a brand new high school in a small suburb of a small suburb of Pittsburgh. I lived with my grandparents for the first six months, where I started speaking a broken Hebrew around the Shabbat table. I remember hearing that Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated that November. It was only months later that I visited Israel for the first time. I didn’t see myself four years in the future standing in Rabin Square on the anniversary of his murder and or know the feelings an 18 year old me would feel.

I have a dream of what I want to be in five years and it has nothing to do with what my profession is at the time. It doesn’t matter if I work in artificial intelligence, healthcare technology or management consulting. Or if I start a gluten-free fortune cookie company and write about a book about hair.

I moved back to New York a week ago because of the future. While I loved my life in Los Angeles, I felt that going back to where it all started would help me move ahead. There is something great about dropping by my little sister’s house for a chat on a random Wednesday night, or sitting down for a quiet Shabbat dinner with my parents on a random weekend. Or knowing that I can see my nieces and nephew who live less than an hour away or having my younger brother post awful pictures of me on Facebook at random times.

But you can’t exactly tell someone in a coffee shop that you want to be happy, healthy and stable in five years. I should have just responded “rich”. He would have understood. Hopefully, he’ll suggest a job that will cover all bases.

[ezrabutler]

Joe Howard

“Make for yourself a teacher and acquire for yourself a friend, and judge everyone favorably.” — Ethics of the Fathers, 1:6

When Rabbi Joshua ben Perachiah, the head of the Sanhedrin (the Assembly of 71, the equivalent of the Supreme Court) taught those words in the second half the the 2nd century BC, he probably was not envisioning me sipping champagne on a rooftop in Tel Aviv sometime in the spring of 2009.

A dark-haired British gentleman approached me and introduced himself. The name was lost on me, but when I asked him what he did, he responded that he taught companies how to be creative. I laughed, wrote him off as one of the many consultants who frequented technology events in the Silicon Wadi, and went to find a refill for my champagne flute.

The next morning, I found myself drinking some Russian pepper vodka at a technology conference. I remember chatting with my friends, when this gentleman approached us and reintroduced himself to me. I apologized for forgetting meeting him the previous night, and made an excuse to walk away.

Four months later, I woke up in a hotel room in London, a few blocks from Paddington Station, to my Skype ringing on my laptop. “Hello, this is Joe Howard,” the voice on the other end of the line said. “Who?” I genuinely inquired. “We met twice in Tel Aviv, once on a rooftop, another time in a conference. I believe you were drinking both times.” “Oh, hi.” “Can you come to a meeting?” he asked.

Admittedly, I have a horrible problem: namely, I say yes to just about anything.

“Sure.” One should note: I did not ask what the meeting was about, who it was with, or how he tracked me down. I took down the address and time, made some small talk about the weather in London, and ended the call.

Later that day, I took the Tube to the address he gave me. I arrived at a very fancy-looking office building, near the Thames. I probably should note that I was wearing flip-flops, a t-shirt, a pair of ripped jeans, a blazer and sunglasses. In certain circles, I guess I’m known as the “paragon of professionalism”.

The company, if it were in the United States, would have probably been in the Fortune 500. Their total sales for 2009 was around £22 billion, but in my defense, not in the department I was asked to meet with. They only accounted for something like a 20% raise in revenue from the previous year.

I walked into a conference room on a floor somewhere in the middle of the building and saw a sea of middle-aged white men smartly clad in bespoke suits. Joe, or some other dark-haired gentleman, was waving at me, while saying in a British accent “Hey Ezra, it’s me - Joe!”

He introduced me as “Ezra Butler, from Tel Aviv, who will be speaking about the future of television on the Internet.”

I did what anyone would do in my situation. I asked for a whiteboard.

The thing about having a whiteboard is that it makes you omnipotent and omniscient. I wouldn’t be surprised if whiteboards have cured cancer, ended world hunger, or cracked the secret of ensuring that unattractive people on the street don’t make eye contact with you.

I improvised an hour-long lecture, drawing plans that (upon looking back) appear to be very similar to what Netflix looks like in 2015. I spent another hour or so answering questions. Then someone suggested we all get a drink.

I wasn’t fluent in British at that time, so I was unaware that getting “a drink” actually meant “many drinks until inebriation or death”. I learned that this dark-haired gentleman named Joe actually had studied archeology in university and worked in some very big and impressive advertising agencies. I believe I was drinking red wine that night.

A few days later I receive another call from Joe, this time inviting me out to a pub in the middle of the afternoon. We spoke for hours. I think I drank cider. We said that thing that people say when they part from a new acquaintance, namely “Give me a call next time you are in Tel Aviv.”

I checked out of my hotel a few days later, and headed to the airport. I had been really proud of myself that I had stayed exactly on budget, because all my money was in an Israeli bank account, with an Israeli debit card I couldn’t use outside of the country. I arrived at the airport, ready to board the plane and fly home.

Which was when I found out that my plane was actually the next day and whoever booked my hotel room messed up the reservation. I guess you can say I panicked a tad. I tried calling a friend, but he was holed in a 5 star hotel room recuperating from contracting the swine flu in Ibiza. No one else answered my calls, and the credit on the SIM card was quickly dwindling.

I called Joe, and in under a minute described my predicament. He cheerfully offered me a couch in his flat, and told me where to meet him later that afternoon. He took me out for dinner, set me a couch in a room surrounded by piles and piles of books, so many that I couldn’t choose which one to read first, ordered me a black cab to take me to the airport in the morning on his account and handed me £100, just in case I needed to get anything on the way.

Joe began flying to Tel Aviv every month. He decided that I needed to learn improv, so he started a class where I could learn. We met as frequently as he flew in.

When I flew to London again a few months later to organize a Hanukkah party at a casino, he was in Tel Aviv, and happily left the keys to his flat for me in his local pub. The bartender gave me copious amounts of free alcohol and locked me inside when I fell asleep on a couch at 2am. While going through my phone months later, I saw that some patrons had drawn on my face and taken photographic evidence.

Our friendship deepened. We drank one night at the Brasserie in Tel Aviv until way after all of our friends left. We were chatting about how ex-pats quickly appropriate certain activities, yet retain other deep-rooted practices, and drawing random ideas on a napkin. I think he told me I should save that napkin. I didn’t. (Come to think of it, I recently thought about that conversation while consulting for a startup serving ex-pats in Dubai.)

I remember turning to him at around 5am and saying “Joe, it’s getting light out. We shouldn’t be still drinking Mojitos.” He looked at me, and I will never forget what he asked me, “what should we do about it?”

“We should switch to Bloody Mary’s.” “Bloody brilliant, mate,” he answered with a wide grin. I took a cab home at 8 am, woke up at noon, ran a brainstorming session at 2:30, and fell asleep at 5, until midnight.

I woke up starving, because I had not eaten at all. I went to a high-end burger restaurant and ordered the late-night special with a gluten-free bun. The burger arrived burnt. It was the night I came up with idea for my first startup “Happy / Not Happy”, and he was the first one I called. He was more than a mentor. He was my confidant and my best friend.

He was excited for me, encouraging me every step of the way. He was the one who was there for us when tensions got heated with my extremely patient business partner. He was the one who consoled us when we were brutalized in the startup competition in which we were finalists. He was the one who suggested I leave the bar that night at 3am after having way too much dark rum.

I remember the night he got back from Turkey, where they apparently tried to kill him with almonds and pistachios, and we had dinner at an Italian restaurant which served rolls laced with sesame seeds. He didn’t die.

We would chat for hours on end. He would teach me about the work he did with renowned zoologist and ethologist Desmond Morris; regale me with advertising campaigns he did when he was still with the various agencies, teaching me the theory behind why they worked; and tell me stories about working with various politicians, governments, and international corporations, answering any question my inquisitive mind would have.

He remained my mentor as I built a website which tested creativity. He always supported any idea, no matter how far-fetched it was. He would just say “yes, and?”

As a Second City-trained improviser, he would get annoyed whenever I would say “but”, as that is a blocking mechanism. Years later however, he wrote in an recommendation letter that “when Ezra says ‘but’ it’s not because he is trying to block your idea, it’s because he is about to make it even better.”

Joe started bringing me into various projects he was working on. I helped him in whatever way I could, in an attempt to try and repay him for helping me. But soon enough, even though he had moved to Tel Aviv, I would leave for Los Angeles.

Over the next year, our conversations were infrequent, but when they occurred over Skype, they lasted for hours. One day, though, he mentioned that he was working with a renewable energy company in Latvia, and moving there. The conversations resumed in full force. We chatted about the various possibilities for the technology on a nearly daily basis. Each idea was crazier than the previous one, which only invigorated us more. He offered me a job in the company, and for the beginning part of my contract, paid my salary out of his own pocket.

He introduced me to Amsterdam. Many wonderful ideas were explored in Amsterdam, I even recall a few.

We make each other more creative. Our ideas, when we would be working together in our endless chats, were more than good. Later that year, I attended an author talk in Los Angeles about creative duos, and upon reading the book realized it described us. (Today, when I jokingly asked a mutual friend if I was the most creative person she knew, she responded “One of the most creative! I don’t want to offend Joe!”)

Even since I left the company, he still is the one I call when I have a problem or I need to talk. I still try to help whenever there is something I can help on his side as well. Our conversations still last hours on end, only finishing if someone has to go to sleep or walk a dog. We both puppy-sit specific dogs. One time, we were chatting on Skype when the dogs, on two continents, started barking at each other.

Most people only quote the first two clauses of Rabbi Joshua ben Perachiah’s adage. “Make for yourself a teacher and acquire for yourself a friend.” Joe Howard has taught me more than anyone else in the world, and in turn, has become one of my best friends in the world. However, I still remember our first conversation with regret, because of the third clause, “and judge everyone favorably.”

When I was guided by my preconceived notions, I judged unfairly. I was projecting how other people treated me onto him. And I think that he saw himself in me.

Of course, the story would have been very different if we’d started chatting on the rooftop in Tel Aviv and continued our friendship from there. It probably wouldn’t have been as interesting.

Joe has never been guided by status. His opening gambit wasn’t made out of ego, it was the simple statement of fact, an understatement of fact, even. He still teaches creativity. He is a director in Saatchi & Saatchi’s Ideas Academy, teaching creatives from all over Europe how to actually have good ideas. He is a sought-after speaker and instructor for corporations, NGOs, and people who have him sign an iron-clad NDA. He teaches improv every chance he gets. He’s privately consulted with some of the largest companies on earth and has helped certain politicians win major elections. His campaigns have won Cannes Lions and other awards.

In our improv class, he taught me the difference between “high status” and “low status”. Scenes don’t go very well if both actors are playing the high status role, a lesson not only for the stage, but for life itself.

Years after the rooftop, while we were eating a steak in Amsterdam, I asked him the question that had been on my mind: why did he invite me to talk to his clients? I had done nothing that would indicate that I knew anything about the future of television on the internet.

He told me two things that night that I had never known. The first was that he believes in pushing people into the deep end, and letting them sink or swim. Apparently, I swam, because I was still there almost six years later. The other thing I learned was that he was actually the keynote speaker at the technology conference I had originally met him at.

It was probably better that I hadn't known.

[ezrabutler]

I remember...

I remember my first Pride parade. It was in Jerusalem, about a year after I first came out to my roommate, and a half-year since discovering the community at The Edge (ha-Katzeh) on Tuesday nights. I was still closeted to most of the people in my life, but I was becoming more accepting of myself.

Growing up, my fear was never to be beaten because I was gay; it was to be shunned. It was to lose my family and friends. It was to end up alone and unloved.

I began to develop friendships in the Jerusalem gay community. That drag show was my weekly respite from hiding in plain sight. I regularly took a roundabout route to arrive, and would nervously turn on to the street, just in case I would run into anyone I knew. I think I once ran into a friend on the corner and just kept walking on, circling down to the corner of the Old City of Jerusalem before turning around.

I still remember coming out to my second cousin and close confidante Naava, as we were walking on Emek Refaim street. I remember the conversations in which I saw that I transferred part of the weight of my struggle to her. She loved me, and nothing would ever change that, but my desired lifestyle was wrong. But she loved me. But. But. But. But. But.

However scared I was to be seen on the same street as the not-well known gay night at a random bar in Jerusalem, going to Jerusalem Pride was worse. I feared the news crews and I feared the cameras. I was terrified that my closet door would be blown wide open on CNN.

The parade route was shortened due to complaints from the Haredi (ultra-orthodox) community. I remember marching in the parade that year: happy I had found people who accepted me for who I was, but acutely aware of the hate held towards me from the religious community.

I remember being called to the Torah on Yom Kippur during the afternoon service when I was in high school, and hearing the reader read what should be done to the man who lies with another man. While jarring and unsettling to a deeply closeted teenager, that rhetoric was in a book and not being preached or practiced.

In school, our religious classes were more about understanding the legal nuances of divorces where the man wrote a conditional divorce contract and departed on a boat overseas than how to stone the gay. Sermons are largely reactionary to the issues of the day, and during the mid-90’s there was no impetus to lambast the homosexual. Even though DOMA was passed in that era, I can honestly not recall a single conversation about it.

At that parade, I finally saw the face of hate and disgust. I saw the protesters leering at me, scorning me for who I was and what I represented. During the course of the parade, my neuroses subsided a bit, and I understood that the bark of the cordoned-off protestors seemed to be harsher than their bite.

They were vociferously preaching the book, but thankfully weren’t practicing it.

Less than a year later, I moved to Tel Aviv. I cannot convey how open and accepting Tel Aviv was. I had never loved a city so much before, nor had I never felt so much at home before.

I remember sitting alone in my apartment one night and seeing notices on social media that an attack happened in a gay youth club less than a kilometer from where I lived. Even though Tel Aviv was the bastion of acceptance, that event prevented me from leaving home that night. And night after that. I cannot recall if the perpetrator was ever caught.

That week, I attended a well-attended quasi-vigil for the victims on Rothschild Boulevard and heard that some of the teens were only outed to their parents because they were in the hospital. At the time, it shocked me that the parents did not all react lovingly. Some refused to visit.

I remember panicking. What if the way I’d be discovered was an attack report on the evening news? What if those had been my parents? What if that had been me?

That week was the first time I feared bodily harm; the first time I really believed the religious would practice what was being preached. It was the actualization of my fears, the personification of my bogeyman.

But it was worse than I could have imagined. Until then, I had never fathomed that paternal love could be trumped by ritualistic hatred.

This story does not end with descriptions of Tel Aviv pride or a narrative of my coming out to my parents and family members, even though both went relatively well. The story jumps more than six years to a Facebook message from my cousin Naava informing me that she and her husband “adopted” a gay 19-year-old boy currently living alone in Jerusalem, because he was such an amazing person.

Tonight I read the how Naava described the people with whom she marched today. When I read her words, “I want my kids to grow up in a world free of crazy and bigotry such as this; I will do everything I can to make that world a reality” and her description of how tightly she hugged her children tonight, I remembered that initial hug she gave me.

For me, Jerusalem went from a place where a scared closeted boy walked in a Pride parade, to where my straight cousin would proudly march for her “adopted” son, for her biological children and for me. At the same time, Jerusalem became a place where the preaching turned into practice for the other side, as well.

Jerusalem has always been a dichotomy to me. New and old. Secular and religious. Love and hate. On one hand, I am hopeful; on the other, today leaves me full of fear.

But the fear is not for myself; it is that some scared closeted boy in Jerusalem will now fear for his life. The hope is that someone, like my cousin Naava, will be there to give him a much-needed hug and tell him that everything will be alright.

[ezrabutler]

Dear Chocolate,

You and me are pretty good together. You complement parts of me I didn’t even know were lacking. I know what people’s initial reaction to seeing us together is. "That’s so unnatural and wrong,” they scream, “if god wanted things to mix, he would’ve created them together!”

And I also know that you do some one of your best work on your own. But I just wanted to let you know that I’m a lucky guy for having met you. You make me a better person. 

Would you, maybe, perhaps, want to see if we can take things to the next level? We make a great team and I can’t think of a life without you anymore. 

Love,

Peanut Butter

Dear Peanut Butter,

We’ve had some really good times together, but I can’t lead you on. I could never be monogamous with you. You should taste me with sea salt, if you know what I mean. 

At times you can be a really smooth lover, but some of my kisses just taste better with almonds. I know that seeing us together makes a lot of mouths happy, so let’s just be friends with benefits. 

Fond(ant)ly,

Chocolate

[ezrabutler]

The Things I Didn't Write Last Week

"Who sold their soul to the devil to get Ghost: The Musical made?"

A scathing review of a musical that should have never been produced.

"The Official Ezra Butler Guide to Shopping"

When you need a book about Jesus from Barnes & Noble and buy a pair of pants from TopMan instead.

"Why are eating 'hot dogs' synonymous with American patriotism?"

An essay about how hot dogs are really an allegory for all the problems with our society.

"From Picking Grapes to Driving People to Drink Wine."

An interview with my Uber driver who went from being a migrant worker in Central California at age 12 to driving me to my July 4th fireworks viewing party in the Hollywood Hills.

"The Caper Caper"

A short fiction story about a criminal mastermind hellbent on getting some capers for his salad.

"Why We Need The Fashion Police."

An essay about we need them now more than ever.

"An Open Letter to a Secret Crush"

Because he should know, dammit. Unless he does already. Which would be awkward.

A Hate Sonnet about "July Gloom"

Kind of self-explanatory.

"How West Hollywood is like Mister Rogers' Neighborhood."

See: https://twitter.com/ezrabutler/status/485498745300086784

[ezrabutler]

A Self-Interview on The State of Internet Interviews

To the onlooker, the interview should be indecipherable from a first date. It should be casual, yet probing. The subject should be made comfortable and at ease. The flow of questions should be conversational, revealing knowledge about the subject, but not putting words in the subject’s mouth. The interviewer should not be overly antagonistic, but should aim at uncovering previously unknown truths. In my opinion, one should be able to learn just as much about the interviewer while reading the transcript as they do the subject.

Recently, while reading a Q&A with a casual internet acquaintance/future husband of mine, I realized that interviewers have become quite lazy. There is no romance left in many interviews, they have become rather formulaic. It’s easy to blame on technology, with the whole simplicity of copy/pasting the same drivel and sending it to many people.

This is not to say that the interviewer in question did not do a semi-admirable job in crafting questions that would allow the aforementioned casual internet acquaintance/future husband appear witty and creative, but that is only because he is both witty and creative. A good interviewer should be able to make a boring subject sound interesting and an interesting subject seem iconic.

In an attempt to better illustrate the problem, I have emailed myself a list of questions and I will answer them to the best of my ability.

What do you consider the problem is with interviews today?

As I wrote in the preamble to this Q&A, I feel that many interviewers today simply “email it in”, to turn a phrase. Sending someone a predetermined list of questions to answer does not enable to interviewer to really play off the answers. There tends to be a logical flow between the questions themselves, but not between questions to previous responses.

Personally, I like going on random tangents. For instance, I was just writing something about my current job at Windfire and I compared it to watching penguins waddling down Fifth Avenue in New York or Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. I’m too poor for therapy, so my interviewer should take the place of a therapist and ask me why my subconscious mentions penguins when I should be talking about distributed renewable energy technologies. It is quid quo pro. You get a brilliant piece about my psyche and I save $300 an hour. Win-win-win. (The third win is for the reader, obviously.)

But as I’m answering a list of questions, which will in turn be posted on a website to where I will happily share a link that validates me as someone “interesting enough to be interviewed”, the only ones who may psychoanalyze my penguin fetish are going to be located in the comment section.

I could never really bear to read comment sections for anything of value, besides for the Schadenfreude aspect. They are full of poorly spelled ad hominem epithets and weak argument structures. Has anyone ever really been convinced by a comment they have read on the internet?

Why would I consider you an expert in interviews anyways?

I’ve interviewed rockstars and CEOs, artists and actors, entrepreneurs and agents in the past, for many different publications and sites. I’ve even interviewed a hospital administrator. We chatted about his bowtie, if I remember correctly. I feel that fashion choices are a great ice-breaker in any conversation.

I tried to interview a tree once, because my mother had always said that I could probably talk with anyone. The tree was rather stoic in response to my questions, but in his defense, he was quite old and possibly sleeping. I wonder if trees have a sleeping schedule akin to bears, or if they are in perpetual hibernation.

After a recent interview, an interviewee walked up to me in a club and said “You’re Ezra, right? We loved the interview you did with our band earlier today. It was the best interview we had in a long time.” I’m not going to say where else they’ve given interviews recently, but the list is long and impressive.

What do you think could save interviews on the internet?

I’d even prefer chats, Skype calls. Anything fluid.

A good interview makes the reader feel like they are in on the conversation. I actually loved an interview I read a while back between Tavi Gevinson and Lorde. It made me wish I was a 17-year-old girl again.

I wish that people would throw the script away. We aren’t on a technical support call with a call center in India. There is no need to ask the same sorts of questions to each person they interview.

I don’t care if you are interviewing Joe Jonas or a graphic designer, you should make the interviewee feel like a rockstar. Actually, if I were to interview Joe Jonas, I’d probably play it cool and talk about his shoes or something.

Where is the weirdest place you’ve ever done an interview?

I have never conducted an interview in a brothel or a cemetery, if that is what you are implying.

But I should. “As I sat down in the Crazy Horse Gentlemen’s Club with Father O'Loughlin, we discussed his views on the Vatican’s shift to the left, while tipping Crystal expertly dancing on the stripper pole to our right.”

Or, “we spoke about his inspiration for writing children’s books while enjoying a snack of Gouda expertly paired with a delicious California Merlot on a picnic blanket on the lush green grass of the historic cemetery for victims of childhood diphtheria in the 1920’s.”

Do you consider your beautiful eyes detrimental to your ability to interview, because they are really beautiful and I just got lost in them and forgot what the next question was?

It is a struggle on a daily basis, and I don’t really like to talk about it. There is no support group for individuals with beautiful eyes. And when you bring it up, people think you are being pretentious. So I must employ tactics, like wearing sunglasses while interviewing or conducting an interview in a dark location where I simply appear to be an amorphous blob.

Has an interview ever gotten you laid? 

With the subject or someone who read the interview?

Do you like long walks on the beach?

I used to run on the beach every day in Tel Aviv, down to Jaffa. Or sometimes up to the port of Tel Aviv. Now I prefer long solitary runs through the Hollywood Hills. Why do you ask?

What about sunsets?

I’m a huge fan of sunsets. It’s partly because they are so liminal, and if you had read my bio at The Kernel, you’d know that I really love liminal locations like the beach and liminal times like sunset. Even my birthday party this year was held on a rooftop during sunset.

Birthdays are kind of liminal, as well, if you know what I mean. They are like a break from reality. You don’t really have the wisdom of a 33 year old yet, because you’ve been it for less than a day. But you’re too overqualified to be 32 anymore.

What are you doing this weekend?

I have no plans yet, but I’ll probably be in Los Angeles.

[ezrabutler]

Why I Chose Not To Post A Photoshopped Picture Of Myself

I am not a model, an actor, a singer or a well-known dilettante photographed incessantly by the paparazzi after becoming famous for my reckless and overly hedonistic lifestyle. I’m so unknown that I heard murmurs by photographers on a red carpet I recently attended, asking each other if Pitbull had lost a lot of weight recently. My ego suffered volumes that day.

I consider myself lucky in that respect, as I can get my unsweetened Matcha almond latte from Urth Caffe without being mobbed for autographs or requests by teenage girls for selfies. I can run down the street unmolested by passerby, needing only to make eye contact as a tacit hello with other runners. I can shop freely at Trader Joe’s without the fear that someone will assume I’m pregnant if I am wearing a hoodie.

I don’t generally wear hoodies, partially due to the beautiful nature of Los Angeles weather and partially due to the fact that I really don’t own any hoodies. But if I wanted to wear one, I could wear it with pride, or sloth. It would probably be sloth. Definitely not wrath, envy, or lust. Perhaps it would be gluttony. Or as a result of my previous gluttony. Let’s say that I could wear a hoodie as a prideful sloth as a result of a gluttonous lifestyle. I should probably run to Kitson and buy a hoodie, because it sounds quite appealing once I think of it in that way. I wonder if their hoodies are comfortable.

A few days ago, I was confronted with the moral dilemma that plagues millions of Americans on a daily basis: Should I post a picture of myself, taken during a photoshoot by a professional bi-coastal fashion photographer, if it had been photoshopped to make me appear slimmer and fitter?

As a proud Black woman, I am proud of my curves and no man is going to make me feel anything less than flawless an overly neurotic gay man, I tried to weigh the positive benefits and negative effects of such a photo.

I recalled an individual I know who recently changed his profile picture on Facebook to a heavily photoshopped version of his face so that he appears to be devoid of emotions, feelings, or a soul, for that matter. And people say that there is no truth in advertising.

On the negative side, I thought about the bullying I very occasionally endure while living in West Hollywood. On more than one occasion, I’ve been referred to publicly as “WeHobese”, the horribly offensive slur, by someone I considered a friend.

“WeHobese” is a portmanteau I had coined a few years ago to describe the plight of the non-anorexic men in West Hollywood, who would be considered “thin” or “emaciated” in any other city in the world. These are the people whose mothers in New York attempt to feed them brisket by gavage when they visit or whose fathers push plates full of oily French Fries upon them to accompany an otherwise healthy dinner.

In West Hollywood parlance, these men are obese. There is not even a term in the gay lexicon to refer to them, as they are not heavy enough to be considered a “bear” or “cub”. They aren’t chubby enough to be cute and lovable. They are written out of the discussion, unfetishized by the masses, considered to be unlovable outcasts.

I considered the tens of miles I run on a weekly basis, my carefully cheated-on diet, and the gym I occasionally visit so I can stare at myself in the mirror. I thought of the stylist at Diesel who once suggested to me in the changing room, “Maybe you should think of trying on a size 31”.

If I were to post a picture that would depict me with a waist size of 26” with a chest size of 33”, I would be enabling the impossible and unrealistic expectations of others. When I say “impossible”, I mean, a doctor would have to surgically remove my ribs and literally shave my ilium down a few inches to make it work.

Had it been destined for me to be so slight and slim, I would have born in Tokyo to Japanese parents. That wouldn’t have been such a problem, considering their fabulous fashion sense and their obsession with fresh raw fish and rice wine. That was unfortunately not the case.

I’m not choosing to refrain from posting this picture on Facebook in order to make a controversial statement like Lena Dunham, Lady Gaga, Keira Knightley, or Beyoncé. They love and own their body image, and are respected for it.

I, on the other hand, would live in constant trepidation that someone will call me out as the fraud I am.

And I would have to agree. 

Original:

Photoshopped:

All photos by Mike Allen.

[ezrabutler]

An Open Letter to "So Delicious"

Dear “So Delicious”,

I happened across your “Mint Chip” Coconut Milk non-dairy frozen dessert while perusing the over-the-counter drug aisle for Zyrtec at Gelson’s in West Hollywood.

The only reason I really use Zyrtec so much is because I walk my friend Sheena’s two dogs every day, one being an adorable 11 month old rescued pit bull named Pancake. It amuses me that, as an openly celiac individual, I scream the word Pancake so much while trying to walk her. The real issue is that Sheena also has a bow-tie wearing cat in her menagerie, to whom I’m apparently allergic. I suppose I could refer to him a dandily-dressed dander machine, but I guess I digress.

From the array of possibilities in the freezer case, I chose the “Mint Chip” flavor as it fondly reminded me of trips to Baskin Robbins as a child with my father. A more innocent time when I freely ate dairy products and did not worry about dander or gluten.

After picking up the container, I hesitated for a moment and wondered if I should purchase the “Vanilla” almond milk non-dairy frozen dessert instead whose nutrition label boasted fewer calories per serving. Ultimately, I decided that my happiness was worth the extra 10-20 calories.

When the Gelson’s bagger packed my container in a small, nondescript, unmarked brown paper bag, I should have realized I wasn’t buying a normal pint of ice cream.

Outside the rather on-the-nose company name, I had no indication whatsoever that the container I was carrying would trigger spikes in the serotonin levels in my brain that would cause me to repeat multiple trips back to the freezer to get more spoonfuls of that creamy minty deliciousness. There was no warning anywhere that I’d want a quick mouthful before starting work in the morning.

Now, a mere day since purchasing the delicious dairy- and soy-free drug you are pushing, I feel like I need to attend a support meeting of some sort to admit in front of a group of anonymous attractive vegan-adjacent strangers that I have a problem.

I call upon you as a responsible brand to provide a framework for individuals addicted to your delicious products to be able to be honest in a nonjudgmental arena.

Don’t do it for me. I’m already too far-gone. Do it for the thousands of other consumers who may innocently and accidentally stumble across your hyper-addictive taste of heaven.

How many more people must succumb to delicious dependency before you do something?

Thank you,

Ezra

[ezrabutler]

On OneRepublic's Creativity

When the television show “Smash” needed to cast an innovative songwriter and producer who could re-envision the character of Marilyn Monroe with a harder edge, they called Ryan Tedder, lead singer and frontman for OneRepublic to play himself.

The long list of cross-genre artists that Tedder has either wrote songs for or produced is both inspiring and mind-blowing at the same time. Ironically, two of the names on that list are Carrie Underwood and Ellie Goulding, the chanteuses who were the other finalists for the fan-voted 2014 Billboard Music Milestone Award.

One could therefore ascribe the sheer innovative nature of OneRepublic’s three album discography solely to Tedder’s brilliance. One would be very wrong.

Take the bassist Brent Kutzle, for example. He also happens to play the cello, an instrument one does not usually hear in a rock song. Yet, on tracks like “All Fall Down” from their album “Dreaming Out Loud”, “Secrets” from “Waking Up” and “Preacher” from “Native”, his cello transforms and elevates each song into an ethereal experience.

Before they took the stage at the Billboard Music Awards at the MGM Grand Arena in Las Vegas, I chatted with the band on the red carpet, trying to ascertain the silver bullet of their creativity. Tedder explained, “The primary rule of this band has been from an early stage is that we don’t have any rules.” In other words, he explained, unlike many other bands, “we just don’t stick to one sound.”

Through the course of the short interview, the one word Tedder repeated more than anything else was the pronoun “we”, an inclusionary mantra that is evident in both their music and in the writing credits. “We’ve been lucky because we’ve been able to constantly evolve into whatever gets us off.”

Luckily for OneRepublic’s millions of fans, the constant aural evolution does not disappoint.

[ezrabutler]

From the Ground Up: Ruminations of a Street Corner

I’ve been having very morbid thoughts recently, like who would play me in a biopic of my life. I would really want James Earl Jones, because that voice has a gravitas I feel goes really well with my personality. 

I’ve seen my community change through the years. If I were to have died a couple of decades ago, I’m sure that the pomp and circumstance of my demise would have been surrounded by police tape and marked up with the chalk of the coroner. Now, I’d probably have some hipsters planting wild colorful flowers in my cracked orifices.

As some things change, others stay the same. Whereas a generation ago a john would pick up a girl (or boy) working me, today, two lovers may meet on me to start their date. I’ve always been a meeting place, but never one where people stay for too long.

Now, when people work me, they are usually a charitable organization trying to get signatures or donations to help save a village in Africa or penguins in the Antarctic. I see the people who pretend to have conversations with imaginary phone friends so they don’t have to have a real conversation with the people trying to make a difference.

On a daily basis, I also see random encounters of friends and neighbors who stop for a few minutes on top of me, catch up and make empty promises for plans that will never actually take place.

As a street corner, you learn not to judge the professions, life choices or lies. The people who walk on top of you consider you a liminal place that, like Las Vegas of lore, maintains its secrets.

I really love the goodbyes, though. The end of the date that lingers with a conversation that just doesn’t want to end. Both parties know that they need to go to their respective homes alone, but the desire to stay for a bit longer overwhelms them. I feel special at that point, because their conversation is more intimate and meaningful than it was an hour ago in the restaurant. 

And then when they finally kiss goodbye, I transport them to a place far from here for a moment that can last forever. Those are the moments I cherish. Those are the moments that will survive me when I’m gone.

[ezrabutler]

Dear ________________, I am writing to you because I consider you as a fairly good grocery shopper. I am worried about my subconscious. When I arrived home, I noticed a slew of healthy products, like kale, beets, avocados, cucumbers, tomatoes and almond milk. However, I also found ice cream and a half-eaten box of creme-filled cookies. Who am I? What do my shopping habits say about my being? Am I a horrible person? Am I a horrible person because I didn’t pay the premium for organic vegetables? Is there anything else you would have suggested I purchase? Thank you for your time. Sincerely, Ezra

[ezrabutler]

On the Effects of Pizza Fetishism

Over the past year, I began to fetishize pizza. After the better part of a decade of leading a gluten-free lifestyle due to my celiac, I had finally found numerous pizza shops in my neighborhood with gluten-free offerings. I had the artisan pizza shop I brought friends to, the pizza shop I received delivery from, the pizza shop in walking distance where I could get a sub-ten dollar personal gluten-free pie.

And they were all good. In some, I was even able to order a gluten-free beer, and for 20 minutes - feign normalcy. And that was the root of the issue.

To me, pizza symbolized normalcy. It was what people ordered when they didn’t want to have to think. It was a cheap meal one could get on the go. It has sparked inter-city rivalries and embarrassed politicians who deigned not to eat it in a common manner. It is iconic in its ruling of the international fast-food pantheon alongside the hamburger, both acting as an ingenious delivery system of a theoretically balanced meal of carbohydrates, proteins, calcium, and vegetables.

Being celiac had long made me feel like a bother and an outsider. It made me feel uncomfortable to eat at other people’s homes or social events. I feared trying new restaurants, and frequented heavily the restaurants I knew well, consistently repeating dishes.

It was a constant reminder of my being different. A few years ago, I even began working on a technology to help people with dietary restrictions feel comfortable eating out. While it is currently on the proverbial “backburner”, I am happy to see more restaurants in my neighborhood making real strides towards providing options for all kinds of people.

But it wasn’t only pizza. I had my daily cappuccinos with frothy whole milk, my steak as a safe option while travelling abroad, my crispy gluten-free chocolate chip cookies from Trader Joes’ and my burgers with gluten-free buns from a half-dozen places in LA. The more I felt included in society, the less I recognized myself in the mirror and in pictures. I felt lethargic and depressed, and lacked all desire to exercise.

It all came to halting stop two weeks ago. Three unrelated events in a single 26-hour period forced me to reexamine my life and my lifestyle. After a day in bed and a failed attempt at some minor retail therapy. I decided to make a change. I began running  again and eating a mostly plant-based diet, with some fish, chicken or turkey for needed protein. I began cooking again and making fresh salads (almost) daily. I eschewed coffee and dairy completely, choosing matcha and almond milk instead. I tweeted about my “beet lifestyle”.

The funny part is that I don’t crave a single thing. In such a short time, I feel healthy again. My productivity is back. Even the clothing in my closet I couldn’t imagine wearing a scant two weeks ago suddenly fits. I feel happy and energetic..

My professional lifestyle currently consists of working as the Director of Creative Innovation for a European distributed energy company, launching a new LA-based business with some insanely talented partners, attending fun events and writing for people who pay me money and planning a charity rooftop party for an amazing anti-trafficking organization in mid-March.

That isn’t completely normal either, I’m told.  

Then again, normalcy is overrated.