10 May, 2026 2 2 Comments

Lists Are Fun. But..

May 10, 2026 By 2 Comments

Paul Simon is on the list. He’s earned it.

Note: Due to travel, I’m going to post on Sunday for the next two weeks. Wishing all a Happy Mother’s Day!

Lists are trouble.

Whenever I see publications release “best of” lists I know they are inviting debate and a fair share of vitriol.
But maybe that’s the point.
So that’s the lens I took when I read the list of 30 best living American songwriters in the New York Times.
It’s an eclectic collection: from Bad Bunny and Jay-Z to Willie Nelson and Dolly Parton.
Like most lists of this ilk, there’s plenty to agree with and plenty to roll your eyes at.
Again, I think that’s the point.
 But what’s been wild to witness is the anger the list has unleashed.
On the list of pressing issues facing us today; rising gas prices, stubborn inflation, a generation forced to live in their parents’ basements and war a list of the best American songwriters would seem to be pretty low on the tally of things to get excited about.
Tell that to Rick Beato, a YouTube music influencer who released a critical video to decry the list. Or to Chris Willman who wrote a sizzling piece about the list in “Variety”:

“Where in the Actual Hell Is Randy Newman? And Other Questions Raised by the New York Times’ Greatest Living American Songwriters List.”

Willman was positively flabbergasted. 
Take a breath, fellas.
It’s only a list. Perhaps released to spark conversation. Mission accomplished.
The comments on the list from the masses were also equally fierce.
Where’s Joni Mitchell? (Not eligible, she’s from Canada).
Where’s Brian Wilson? (Unfortunately, he passed and the list consists of living songwriters).
Why Springsteen? (Some commenters didn’t like his politics, but regardless he did write “Thunder Road,” “Born to Run” and hundreds of other great songs).
What about Kid Rock? (Really?)
The list included Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, Bob Dylan and Carole King.
It didn’t include Don Henley, Stevie Nicks or John Fogerty. (Shameful).  Also missing: Billy Joel, Jason Isbell and the Avett Brothers. (Also shameful).
Still, the list had names I’ve never heard of and I’m a pretty big music fan.
But rather than offend me, I decided to dig into to those I didn’t know. Some were good. Some were head scratchers.
Oh well, it’s just a list.
There is so much more to fret about.
Like why isn’t Don Mattingly and Thurman Munson in the baseball hall of fame? Or why does my friend insist that Dave Concepcion should be included?
Some things are pure mysteries.
That’s where we find the fun.
Here’s the list in no particular order.
Nile Rodgers
Stevie Wonder
Lucinda Williams
Jay Z
Paul Simon
Taylor Swift
Brian & Eddie Holland
Missy Elliott
Dolly Parton
Willie Nelson
Lionel Richie
Young Thug
Diane Warren
Josh Osborne
Brandy Clark
Fiona Apple
Shane MacAnally
Babyface
Stephin Merritt
Romeo Santos
Carole King
Outkast
Mariah Carey
Kendrick Lamar
Valerie Simpson
Bob Dylan
Lana Delrey
The Dream
Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis
Bad Bunny
Bruce Springsteen
Smokey Robinson
4 May, 2026 0 Comments

Purpose Built

May 4, 2026 By Leave a Comment

Many things have changed since the year 2000 in Delray Beach.

We’ve grown up, I suppose.

The town is big business these days. High real estate prices. Big-time commercial rents. Famous people spotted hanging out in our once sleepy downtown.

I’m not one of those who laments change. I understand that it’s inevitable and in many cases preferable. Stasis is not only impossible, it’s boring.
But I am nostalgic. Genuinely so. And I’ve learned that my favorite part of every endeavor is the climb.

I’ve been astonished at the success of Celsius, the energy drink my company’s founder discovered years ago and poured his heart into building. But as much as I’ve enjoyed seeing the company soar, I still recall the early lean years with fondness.
There were unsung heroes along the way — people who worked hard to build the brand. They were special. They were essential. Many didn’t make it to the mountaintop with the company, but their efforts were early bricks. They mattered.

I’ve also enjoyed watching Delray evolve over the nearly 40 years I’ve lived and worked here.
Those were my thoughts last week when I attended the Purpose Built Communities annual conference in Jacksonville. Purpose Built is a nonprofit network that brings proven tools to its members to help revitalize neighborhoods. The Carl Angus DeSantis Foundation is invested in Rise Coleman Park, a Purpose Built network member in West Palm Beach. We’ve also visited and been inspired by Lift Orlando, which has done a remarkable job lifting up a community holistically.

Sitting with network members from across America, I was reminded of my early days in Delray — a time of visioning, organizing, investing and dreaming. This is what I fell in love with. The civic pride. The aspiration. The neighborhood leaders who stepped forward and became something larger than themselves.

It was a time of high civic engagement. Charrettes — community visioning meetings — drew large, spirited crowds. Town hall meetings filled the Crest Theatre. Church gatherings to craft neighborhood plans attracted people of all ages. There were different ideas and opinions, but there was unity as well. Everyone was committing to lifting this city up. And they did.

When I ran for office in 2000, there were two animating issues — neighborhoods and the downtown. Neighborhood leaders were concerned about crime and appearance; they were asking for more information and hungering to be involved. It made for an exciting and lively time.
Same for the downtown. People wanted restaurants and retail. They wanted vibrancy, but they also wanted human-scale development and beautification that made the downtown pedestrian-friendly and safe.
These thoughts flooded my mind as I attended sessions and chatted with community members from across the country who came to Purpose Built Communities to learn, connect and better their neighborhoods. It’s intoxicating being with these kinds of people. They are change agents. Civic heroes.

While much has changed in the generation since 2000, one truism remains: it’s people who drive change. Their passion. Their love of community. Their ambitions and dreams. The technology has changed, the scale of money needed has changed, the dynamics of our economy are very different — but sit in a room full of people who are fired up about their neighborhoods, and none of that feels like the point. The human factor is the point. It always has been.
If you can inspire and support people to get off their couches and make change, your city will thrive. It’s just that simple and just that complex.
When we move together, we move differently. I borrowed that line from Jotaka Eady, one of the speakers at the conference. She lit up the room. Her message: we are enough. Indeed. We are more than enough.
People are joyful when they work in community together toward a common goal. We need more of that in our world today. A whole lot more. We can live in silos. We cannot thrive in them.

 

27 April, 2026 10 10 Comments

The Cliffs We All Meet

April 27, 2026 By 10 Comments

I just finished the new Jim Collins book, “What to Make of a Life”, and it’s been quietly following me around the house for days.

I sit down to write, and I hear a sentence again. I take a walk and think, yes, that’s exactly what it felt like.

Collins spent ten years studying 34 remarkable lives — astronauts, musicians, suffragists, scientists, people whose stories you’d think you already knew — and built the whole book around three words: cliffs, fog, fire.

A cliff is the moment the ground you’ve been standing on is suddenly gone. The diagnosis. The phone call. The election you lost. The child who moved out. The job that ended. The career that peaked and then, imperceptibly at first, began to descend. Cliffs are not always tragic. Sometimes the cliff is a triumph so complete that you wake up the next morning and don’t know what the next morning is for. Ask any Olympian what happens the week after the closing ceremony. Ask any founder who finally sold the company.

The fog is what comes next.

And the fire — the fire is the thing Collins spent a decade trying to understand. Why do some people, after the cliff and through the fog, find their way to a second burning? And why do others, just as talented, just as loved, never quite get the flame going again?

I don’t have a neat answer. I’m not sure Collins does either, though he works hard at it and earns every page. What I have, instead, after finishing the book, is a feeling. And the feeling is this: the cliffs are not the interruption of your life. The cliffs are your life.

 

We are raised, most of us, to believe in a certain arc. You go to school, you work hard, you build a career, you raise a family, you retire, you rest. A single clean line, rising gently, like the approach to a summit you’ve been told is up there somewhere in the clouds. The brochure version.

But nobody lives the brochure.

What we live instead is a series of plateaus and drop-offs. You climb for a while. The view is good. You get comfortable. And then one Tuesday the floor gives way,and you find yourself in a country with no map, trying to remember how to breathe. Some of those drop-offs you choose. Most of them choose you. A few of them — and these are the ones we don’t talk about enough — were disguised as promotions, as weddings, as the thing you wanted most in the world and then got.

Getting what you wanted is a cliff too. Maybe the most disorienting one of all.

 

I keep thinking about the fog. Collins calls it a “befuddling fog,” and the adjective matters. It isn’t a clean sadness. It isn’t a grief you can name and honor and set on a shelf. It’s something stranger and more embarrassing — the inability to locate yourself. You know the feeling. You stand in the kitchen at three in the afternoon and realize you’ve been standing there for a while. You open your laptop and close it again. You read the same paragraph four times. You’re not depressed, exactly. You’re not grieving, exactly. You’re lost, and the worst part is there’s no one to ask for directions because the landmarks you used to navigate by aren’t there anymore.

I think we owe each other more honesty about the fog. We tell each other about the cliffs — the divorces, the deaths, the firings — because those have language. The fog doesn’t. The fog is the six months after, or the six years after, when you’re supposed to be fine, when the casseroles have stopped arriving, when everyone else has moved on to the next chapter of their own book, and you’re still standing in your kitchen at three in the afternoon wondering who you are now.

If you’re there — if you’ve ever been there — I want you to hear this: the fog is not a failure of character. The fog is the weather. It comes in off the ocean whether you like it or not, and it burns off when it burns off, and the only real mistake is believing you’re the only one who has ever been lost in it.

 

Here’s the part of Collins’s book that caught in my throat. He found, in studying those 34 lives, that the people who burned brightest late weren’t the ones who avoided the cliffs. Nobody avoided the cliffs. The cliffs are the price of admission. What those people did, again and again, was ask themselves a different question than the rest of us tend to ask.

Not what do I have to do now?

Not what would make me look successful again?

But: what do I want to be responsible for?

Read that one more time. It’s the whole book in a sentence. The people who found their second fire were the ones who treated the cliff not as the end of the story but as the moment the story got honest. Who looked at the rubble and asked, genuinely, given all of this, given who I am and what I now know, what do I want to carry forward?

Most of us, when we fall, spend the fog trying to climb back to the cliff we fell from. We want our old life back. We want to be the mayor again (for the record, I never did), the CEO again, the young parent again (guilty), the person we were before the diagnosis. That’s human. That’s the first instinct and it deserves compassion.

But the people who found their fire didn’t climb back. They walked. They took what they had learned on the high – ground and brought it down into the valley and started building something new out of it. Not a replacement. A continuation. The same fire, in a different hearth.

 

I’m past sixty now, and one of Collins’s most beautiful data points is this: across all the biographies of Benjamin Franklin, fifty-three percent of the pages are still ahead of him at age sixty. More than half. In an era when most people didn’t see sixty at all.

I think about that every morning now.

I think about the cliffs I’ve already been over, and the ones I can see coming, and the ones I can’t. I think about the friends I’ve lost and the ones I’m still lucky enough to annoy on bi-weekly Zoom calls. I think about the plays I haven’t written yet and the ones I have, and whether any of it matters. I think about what I want to be responsible for in the time I have left, and the answer is not the answer I would have given at thirty-five.

Maybe that’s the grace of the cliffs. They force the question younger selves are too busy to ask.

If you are standing at an edge right now — if you’ve just fallen, or you feel one coming, or you’re deep in the fog and can’t see your own hand in front of your face — please know two things.

The first is that you are not alone, and you are not broken. The cliffs are not a deviation from a life well lived. They are how life gets lived.

The second is that the fire is still possible. Not the same fire. A new one. Lit from the same flint, in a different wind.

Walk toward it when you’re ready. The fog will burn off. It always does.

And if it hasn’t yet — trust that it will. Find someone to sit with you until it does. But have faith that it will.

20 April, 2026 2 2 Comments

Empathy As An Antidote

April 20, 2026 By 2 Comments

Empathy may be my favorite word.

I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately — partly because I get to work in a field where it’s the price of admission, and partly because I’m not sure our world has enough of it left.

A few years ago I left business behind and entered the world of philanthropy. Every day, foundations across the country work with nonprofit partners to solve — or at least ease — problems and suffering. It’s a fascinating space, and an empathetic one by design. You can’t do this work without first trying to understand the lives of people you’ve never met.

I have the honor of serving as the executive director of the Carl Angus DeSantis Foundation, which serves Broward and Palm Beach Counties. We are trying to build something designed to last forever. That’s both humbling and inspiring.

Our pillars — health and wellness, faith-based giving, leadership and entrepreneurship, and civic innovation — reflect the passions of our founder, Carl DeSantis. Mr. D, as we affectionately called him, asked me and a trusted colleague to build the foundation from the ground up. It’s a great capstone to my career, and a responsibility I feel every day.

We lost Mr. D in 2023.

He was a singular American entrepreneur — a leader in nutrition, consumer products, real estate, hospitality, and beverages. He founded Rexall Sundown, one of the country’s largest vitamin manufacturers, and was an early believer and spiritual godfather of Celsius, which revolutionized the energy drink industry. But what I remember isn’t the business. It’s the man. Funny, humble, sensitive, visionary, kind. You didn’t work for Carl. You worked with him. He was forever challenging his people to “use their brains” and help him create.

Carl was also the most empathetic man I’ve ever known. I think it’s why we became close.

When he saw a need, his instinct was to help. His success allowed him to indulge a very big heart, and he did — quietly, constantly, without fanfare. He believed in giving people a hand up, not a hand out. He created what we came to call “ripples” of goodness that spread to places I don’t think he fully grasped. People he never met had better lives because of him.

That’s what empathy does. It doesn’t just make us feel better. It changes things. When we approach a problem with empathy for the person on the other side of it, we start finding solutions that blame, vitriol, and contempt always overlook. Empathy opens a door. Hatred slams it shut.

I see this every day. Our partners are in the trenches — meeting people where they are, listening before prescribing, treating those they serve as neighbors rather than cases. The results are real. Lives change. Communities get stronger. None of it happens without empathy as the starting point.

Which brings me to the thing I can’t stop thinking about.

We live in a divisive age. We fear each other. We are estranged from people who are different from us and from people who simply disagree with us. We’ve confused contempt for conviction and cruelty for strength.

Empathy is the antidote. It’s not soft. It’s not naive. It’s the hardest and most useful thing we do in this work — and it’s precisely what’s missing from the rooms where our biggest decisions get made.

Carl understood this instinctively. He didn’t talk about empathy. He practiced it. And the ripples are still spreading.

I hope, somehow, they reach the places that need them most.

13 April, 2026 2 2 Comments

What Happens When We Stop The Presses

April 13, 2026 By 2 Comments

April 9 was Local News Day in America.

As a former journalist, I still subscribe to newspapers, blogs and social media feeds that cover the state of the industry. They talk about the work. They typically don’t celebrate, because frankly there’s not much to celebrate.

Newspapers have been hit hard — real hard — by the Internet. Artificial intelligence poses yet another threat, siphoning off the web traffic that already-dwindling ad revenue depends on. These trends lead to cuts in local newsrooms, and when that happens, we lose something very important: our ability to be informed, to connect, to understand the issues and to make good decisions.

Good journalism holds those in power accountable. Strong local reporting builds community pride, because when you tell the stories of people trying to make a difference, it serves as an impetus for involvement and connection. That ultimately makes for closer, more resilient communities.

At its best, local news serves as the equivalent of the office water cooler — a place we could go to learn what was happening at City Hall, at our schools, in sports, business and culture. It was one of those coveted “third places” where a community could gather around shared information and actually talk to each other. What a concept.

Much of it has gone away. And we are left sorting through the slop served to us by billionaire gatekeepers. Yuck.

Give me the days when the local publisher and editor lived down the street, showed up at Chamber meetings, had breakfast at The Green Owl and sat through long city commission meetings so they could soak up the flavor of the community they were part of.

I think of how much people will miss about their communities if there is nobody there to tell its stories. Consider our own Delray Beach. All the wonderful characters who came here and wrote chapters.

I think about the people who shaped this town as I travel its streets.

When I pull across Lake Ida Road and drive by the Achievement Center for Children & Families I think of its founder Nancy Hurd. Barely 5 feet tall, Nancy built an early childhood learning center that started in a church and grew into a national model. Nancy was a force of nature. I adored her and I relished telling her story as a reporter for the Delray Times in the 80s and 90s.

The center did such a great job that Governor Lawton Chiles came to visit and see for himself. “Walkin Lawton” they called him. He reminded me of Abe Lincoln. The visit was tightly choreographed. But Nancy made sure I had an exclusive with the Governor. We weren’t the biggest paper in the market, but she appreciated our desire to tell her story with care and depth. She took care of me and thousands of others.

As I head east to Swinton and south to my  office, I drive by St. Paul’s Episcopal Church where my friend Father Chip Stokes used to serve before becoming the Bishop of New Jersey. Chip was an early leader in race relations, a calm port in any storm. Chip is a quiet leader who cares deeply for people, especially those new to America who came here seeking opportunity.

Newspapers covered his ministry. And we were better off  for knowing about his work.

If not for local newspapers, we would not have known about all the volunteers who worked for our police department. Back in the day, we read about all the World War II veterans who retired to Florida and decided to volunteer their time as Citizens on Patrol.

I remember reading and writing stories about Leo Erbstein. Major Erbstein as he was known, with his handlebar mustache, sharp sense of humor, and deep commitment to helping our police department was a larger-than-life character. Unforgettable.

A few weeks ago, I went to see my friend Shelly Pittleman hold court at the Weisman  Community Center in West Delray.

On Fridays, Shelly packs the room with seniors for a program he calls “Positively Pittleman.” He reads news stories, riffs on current events and invites guest speakers to share their stories.

It was wonderful to witness. Just pure magic. And I thought, this should be in a community newspaper. Everyone should know about this program and about Shelly who spends just about every waking moment volunteering in the community.

Yes, we miss a lot when we lose our storytellers.

Yeah, yeah, I know that sometimes journalists get it wrong. As a former elected official, I used to get angry when reporters missed the mark. But they are not the enemy of the people, in many ways, community journalism was the glue that bound us together.

There are many reasons why we feel estranged from one another: divisive politics, the dangerous algorithms that keep us angry, too much time in front of screens. All of it contributes to the toxicity we experience. But I believe the diminishment of local journalism is also a reason for our estrangement — maybe more than we realize.

Strong local news builds strong communities. It’s just that simple.

But local journalism costs money, and the advertising and subscription model isn’t cutting it anymore. I think part of the answer is philanthropy. That’s not easy either, because local news — while critically important — is competing against an ocean of good causes.

Still, I maintain we are at risk when stories go untold, when local officials look around and see that nobody is watching, and when issues go uncovered.

We are at a critical juncture in Palm Beach County. A stunning amount of news is happening all at once. West Palm Beach is becoming a major city before our eyes. Financial titans are pouring into the county to set up offices. Real estate is changing rapidly. Technology is transforming our lives and our society, and while that’s exciting, there are troubling things to be concerned about.

Right now, much of it is going unreported or underreported. That puts us in peril.

Journalism may not solve these issues, but it shines a light on them. And when that light dims — or is doused — we all lose.

Loss of an artistic giant

We got the new sad news over the weekend that Lou Tyrell, a titan of local theater passed away suddenly and unexpectedly.

Lou was the founding director of Theatre Lab on the campus of FAU and served as an Eminent Scholar in the Arts at the university.

Lou was well known and highly regarded in the local arts community. Theatre Lab is a treasure. If you haven’t attended, I highly recommend that you do.

In honor of Lou’s life and contributions, Theatre Lab is dedicating the 2026 Owl New Play Festival, which opened this weekend, to his memory.

I was recently back in touch with Lou. I got to know him when he was involved in Delray’s Arts Garage some years ago.

We reconnected when I started writing plays. He was a kind man, generous with his time and knowledge.

He will be deeply missed by all those who knew him. But his influence will last.

 

 

 

 

6 April, 2026 23 23 Comments

We May Never Pass This Way Again

April 6, 2026 By 23 Comments

When I heard that Dash Crofts had died at 85, I was reminded of something unsettling.

 

The music stays. We don’t.

 

Crofts, half of Seals & Crofts, was part of the soundtrack of my youth—though I hadn’t thought about him, or them, in years. Their songs weren’t always front and center. They lived in the background, floating through long summer days, woven into moments that felt ordinary at the time but permanent in memory.

 

“Summer Breeze makes me feel fine, blowin’ through the jasmine in my mind.”

 

When I hear that lyric now, I’m back at a pool club in Stony Brook, New York. Endless summers. Families spending entire days together. Kids chasing tennis balls across hot pavement. The steady click-clack of mahjong tiles. A line at the snack bar for cold Sprites. Music pouring out of oversized boom boxes, filling the air without asking for attention.

 

No one checked a phone. There was nowhere else to be.

 

“See the smile awaitin’ in the kitchen

Food cookin’ and the plates for two

Feel the arms that reach out to hold me

In the evening, when the day is through.”

 

The song reaches across decades to a version of home that no longer exists except in fragments. A feeling more than a place.

 

For me, Seals & Crofts were never just songs. They were markers—quiet signposts along the road.

 

One of them was “Fair Share,” which I first heard in the movie “One on One.” I was 13 when it came out. I took a date to see it at the Smith Haven Mall. We sat side by side, eyes locked on the screen, both too afraid to look at each other.

 

For two hours, we stared straight ahead afraid to look at each other. 

 

My eyes never moved. Neither did hers.

 

When the credits rolled, we walked out the same way we walked in. 

 

One of many missed moments that were still to come.

 

And yet, those were the days.

 

Another Seals & Crofts song, “We May Never Pass This Way Again,” carries a different memory. I was in my dorm at college, standing in the hallway of Hart Hall, watching three young women singing at the top of their lungs into hairbrushes, using them as microphones. Behind them, a window framed Lake Ontario in all its quiet magnitude.

 

They were graduating, I was staying.  Life was just beginning for all of us. The road ahead felt long and wide and full of possibility.

 

I married one of those women.

 

It didn’t last. But that’s not the point. I have many fond memories and that was one of them. 

 

We believed we’d always find our way back—to Oswego, to that hallway, to that version of ourselves.

 

We didn’t.

 

We visited once or twice. But not in the way we imagined. Not with the same feeling. And then, somehow, 40 years passed.

 

And so it goes.

 

Life fills up. Kids, jobs, deadlines, obligations. The days become structured, then crowded, then gone.

 

“We may never pass this way again” isn’t just a lyric. It’s a truth that reveals itself slowly, then all at once.

 

I’m reminded of a line from one of my favorite shows “The Office.”

 

“I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good old days before you’ve actually left them.”

 

We never do know. Not really.

 

The moments that feel small—the ones we barely notice—are the ones that stay. The background music. The laughter from across a room. The way the light came through a window at a particular time of day.

 

Last week, Paul McCartney released a new song at 83. It’s called “Days We Left Behind.” It’s beautiful, classic Paul. And in it, he sings:

 

“Nothing ever stays…

No one can erase the days we left behind.”

 

Nothing lasts forever.

 

Not summers.

Not songs drifting from a boom box.

Not the people we thought we’d always be.

 

But the memories—somehow—do.

30 March, 2026 4 4 Comments

To Theatre With Love

March 30, 2026 By 4 Comments

Some theatres are grand, some are bland, but all are magical.

“The arts have a higher purpose. They are here to enrich our lives, expand our vision, enlighten our world, challenge our reality, enable our core beliefs, improve our humanity, activate our imaginations, and to bring into the world that which could not exist but through this vision, talent and invention of artists.” – David Rainey, founder Studio for Actors Houston.

The theater was standing room only.

Every seat taken, every inch of space claimed by people who had driven over, walked over, struggled to find parking — and made their way inside to watch something that had no algorithm behind it, no streaming subscription, no skip button. Just people, on a stage, doing the thing humans have been doing for thousands of years: telling stories to other humans in the same room.

This was Sea Shorts, produced by the Lauderdale by the Sea Players — a community theater festival that just wrapped its tenth year.

Two weekends, six performances, nine short plays, and a company made up entirely of volunteers.

Every actor, every director, every person who schlepped a set piece or adjusted a light or handed out a program: doing it for love. Nothing more, nothing less. Love.  That’s the secret sauce. There is nothing that comes close.

I had two plays in the festival this year — “Love After Love” and “Time Table.”

Being selected was an honor. I was genuinely moved by this production. Not because of anything I wrote. Because of what happened in that room.

What Community Theater Actually Is

There’s a tendency to use the phrase “community theater” with a slight wince — a polite softening, as if to say: “it’s not the real thing but isn’t it sweet”. That instinct is completely wrong, and Sea Shorts dismantled it in about ninety minutes flat.

The actors were charming, funny, and talented. The directors made real choices. The audience laughed in exactly the right places, went quiet in exactly the right places, and gave the kind of sustained, full-room applause that you can’t manufacture. That’s art and passion meeting community.  It’s electric.

This is what theater was always meant to be — not a luxury for those who can afford the ticket, but a gathering place for everyone.

Why It Matters More Right Now

We are living through a strange and fractured moment. Economic anxiety is real. Social trust is fraying. We spend enormous portions of our lives staring at screens that are specifically engineered to outrage us, isolate us, and keep us scrolling. In that context, the act of sitting in a room full of strangers — laughing together, tearing up together, startled by the same moment — is not a small thing. It feeds your soul.

Theater doesn’t let you look away. It doesn’t offer a comment section. It puts a human being a few feet in front of you and asks you to pay attention, to feel something, to be moved. And here’s what I watched happen at Sea Shorts: an audience of people sat together and shared the same emotional experience. For those ninety minutes or so, they were one room. One community. That’s magic by the sea.

The People Who Make It Happen

I want to say something about the volunteers who produce festivals like Sea Shorts, because they don’t always get their due. These are people who hold day jobs, manage families, navigate the ordinary chaos of adult life — and then show up to rehearsals on weeknights, haul set pieces on weekends, and pour themselves into the work because they believe in it.

That’s a serious commitment.

That’s love.

And the result is not some lesser version of theater. It is theater, in the fullest and most honest sense of the word.

The Lauderdale by the Sea Players have been building something real for a decade. Sea Shorts in its tenth year isn’t a happy accident — it’s the result of hundreds of people, over hundreds of rehearsal hours, choosing to invest in something that belongs to their community.

What This Does for a Playwright

I came to Sea Shorts as a writer. I left as a believer. It happened to me at the Delray Beach Playhouse as well. And when I travelled to Columbus, Ohio to share a story that happened here in Delray.

There is a particular kind of joy that comes from hearing a room full of people laugh at something you wrote or watching them lean forward in their seats because they want to know what happens next. It’s humbling and thrilling in equal measure. But more than that — more than any personal satisfaction — I was moved by the simple fact of the gathering itself.

That’s what theater does. It gathers us. It says: come be in this room, with these people, for this hour. Leave your phone in your pocket. Pay attention. You might feel something you haven’t felt in a while. You might look over at the stranger sitting next to you and realize you’re both crying, or both laughing, and in that moment, you are not strangers at all.

 

That’s the power of local theater. That’s why it matters. That’s why we need it — maybe now more than ever.

If there’s a community theater near you, go. Buy a ticket. Or find a volunteer night and show up with a willingness to work. You’ll be surprised what’s waiting for you inside that room.

Remembering

We lost two fine people recently that I wanted to remember in this space.

Sonya Costin was a close friend of our family, a fixture in Delray Beach for decades and an all around wonderful person.

She was married to her Seacrest High School sweetheart former City Commissioner Bob Costin. The duo ran Costin’s Flowers & Gifts in downtown Delray for over 45 years.

Bob and Sonya used to joke that they were downtown before downtown was cool.

How true that was.

Bob and I hit it off while serving on the Commission together and we became close to Sonya as a result. That meant dinners out (mostly Longhorn and Il Girasol) and time together during holidays. We even went to a destination wedding together in Florence, Italy and to Lake Tahoe together.

We have nothing but fond memories of the Costin’s. We lost Bob a few years back. I miss him and think of him often.

Bob and Sonya enjoyed time in their “chalet” on Lake Burton in Georgia and went all over the country in their prized Bluebird Wanderlodge.

Sonya was a teacher and a graduate of FSU. She encouraged my daughter who went into education.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Achievement Centers for Children & Families, 555 Northwest 4th Street, Delray Beach, FL 33444, visit www.AchievementCentersFL.org for more information.

Sonya will be missed by all those who knew her.

We also send our condolences to the family of Ivan Ladizinsky who passed March 12 at age 92.

Ivan served as the city Public Information Officer during my term in office. We worked on annual reports, town hall meetings, newsletters etc., during that time. He came to us after a distinguished career in TV where he nurtured the careers of Ted Koppel and Charles Osgood. He was a kind and gentle man.

We wish his wife Karen and four children solace during this difficult time.

 

 

 

23 March, 2026 10 10 Comments

Driving Around These Parts…

March 23, 2026 By 10 Comments

I try not to be a scorekeeper.

I really try.

But lately I’ve been keeping score of how many near misses I experience while driving to and from work in downtown Delray Beach.

Last week, the score was 14 near misses, that’s more than two a day since I work 5 days a week. Mind you, I work three miles from my home. And I don’t go anywhere near I-95 when I “commute.”

It’s gotten dangerous around here my friends. I know I’m not alone in that assessment.

I thought I’d share my experience in the spirit of—oh OK—venting.

I’m calling this essay “Surviving Delray Beach: A Driver’s Field Guide to Urban Combat”.

Let me be clear: there are many things to recommend about Delray. The restaurants, the vibe, the ocean — all magnificent. But the moment you get behind the wheel anywhere near Atlantic Avenue, you are no longer a driver. You are a contestant. Welcome to the game. Nobody told you the rules because there aren’t any.

Here’s a field guide to some of the hazards you’re likely to encounter.

The Pedestrians Who Don’t Need Traffic Signals

 

Somewhere along the way, the crosswalk signal became advisory in Delray. Merely a “suggestion”, like the “suggested donation” at a museum — acknowledged, considered, and promptly ignored.

 

The Delray pedestrian does not wait for the little white walking man to appear. That little white walking man is for other people. People from, I don’t know, Ohio.

Instead, our Delray pedestrian steps into the street with the serene confidence of someone who has already made peace with their mortality and is just trying to get to City Oyster before it gets crowded.

 

They don’t look at you. That’s the key detail. They look through you or at their phones. You are the obstacle. They are the destination. You will wait.

 

And you know what? You do. Because they’re already halfway across the street anyway and it’s too late to honk. But oh is it tempting.

 

 

The Green Light: A Color That Has Lost All Meaning

 

Here is something the Florida Department of Transportation did not account for when they engineered traffic signals: the smartphone.

 

The light turns green. You wait. Nothing happens. You wait some more. Still nothing. You begin to wonder if you’ve died and this is your personal purgatory — a stretch of Atlantic Avenue or Swinton that never actually moves. Then, gently, almost apologetically, the car in front of you lurches forward because the driver has finally — finally — concluded whatever they were doing on their phone.

 

What were they doing? Nobody knows. Texting? Checking Instagram? Reading a deeply important email from a local blogger?  Making a stock trade? Rewatching a TikTok they’ve already watched twice?

The content doesn’t matter. What matters is that the light has now been green for eleven seconds and you have collectively traveled four feet.

The technical term for this is “distracted driving.” The local term is “Tuesday.”

 

Federal Highway: Now Featuring Bonus Lanes Going In Both Directions

 

Federal Highway is a road running straight through the heart of Delray. It has clearly marked lanes, clearly marked directions, and a meaningful percentage of drivers who are operating in complete defiance of both.

 

I do not know what causes someone to decide that the southbound lanes are, for their purposes, northbound. I have theories. Maybe their GPS gave up. Maybe they’re from a country where this is standard. Maybe they’ve simply been to Too Many Brunches and things got directionally fuzzy after a few mimosas. Whatever the cause, the effect is the same: a car coming straight at you in a lane you were reasonably certain was yours.

The correct response is to brake, swerve gently, and take several deep breaths. The tempting response is to ask, loudly and alone in your car, what on earth is happening. Both responses are valid. Neither fixes the problem.

 

The E-Bike: Safety Optional

 

The electric bike has transformed Delray Beach. People who once would have had to interact with traffic only occasionally can now interact with it constantly and at surprising speeds.

 

The Delray e-bike rider operates in a fascinating middle space between bicyclist and vehicle — subject to the laws of neither, governed only by an invisible code of risk taking. They will dart out of a side street without looking. They will cut across two lanes while on a phone call. They will appear, fully formed, from between two parked cars as if conjured by the universe specifically to test your reflexes.

 

And they are fast. This is the part that catches you. You expect a bicycle. You get a bicycle that has had a very important conversation with electricity, and the result is a two-wheeled projectile doing 25 mph through a gap that a sensible person would not walk through.

 

They also usually get away with their daredevil behavior. E-bike riders in Delray have developed a kind of chaos immunity. It’s impressive, honestly. Infuriating, but impressive.

 

The Guy on the Regular Bike Downtown

 

There is one specific man — and I believe it is always the same guy, though I cannot prove this — who rides a regular bicycle through downtown Delray as though he is auditioning for a role in a film about a person who has never seen traffic before.

 

He weaves. A lot.

Left, right, then left again, threading through moving cars with the unhurried grace of someone who decided long ago that traffic lanes are aesthetic rather than functional. He has no helmet. He may or may not have hands on the handlebars — this varies by observation. He is relaxed in a way that triggers something primal in everyone watching him.

Cars swerve. Drivers gasp. And he glides on, indifferent, peaceful, somehow always fine.

I think he might be a kind of civic spirit. A guardian of chaos. Delray’s answer to the sphinx — a riddle at the center of things, never fully explicable, always present.

 

A Word of Encouragement

 

Here’s the thing: once you accept that driving in Delray Beach is participatory theater, it becomes almost enjoyable. Almost.

You stop fighting the pedestrians and start marveling at their boldness. You stop being annoyed at the green-light daydreamers and start appreciating that we live somewhere leisurely enough that people can afford to be that distracted. You start clocking e-bike riders the way birdwatchers clock birds — oh, there’s another one, look at him go.

Federal Highway wrong-way drivers remain inexcusable. I can’t spin that one.

But the rest of it? It’s Delray. It’s loud, slightly unhinged, and completely itself. Buckle up, pay attention, and for the love of all that is good, do not assume that a green light means go.

 

It means probably go—just as soon as the driver in front of you looks up from their phone.

Note: The author survived the writing of this piece and three trips down Atlantic Avenue this weekend.

16 March, 2026 3 3 Comments

The Art of Community

March 16, 2026 By 3 Comments

Kerry Koen was more than a fire chief, he was a leader, teacher, mentor and role model.

This time of year, I always think about the events of February/March 2005 when Jerrod Miller, a Delray Beach teenager was shot and killed outside the Delray Full Service Center by an off-duty police officer working security at a school dance.

I was mayor at the time.

I have a file of emails I received around this time—the good, the bad and the ugly.

Last week, I opened an old email from Kerry Koen, my friend who passed away last year. Kerry was fire chief at the time. He was a wonderful chief and an even better man. I miss him terribly.

We were still sifting through the wreckage of the shooting—the anger, grief, shock etc. when Kerry took the time to send me a short but kind and thoughtful email. He was that kind of guy; sensitive, smart, a man with a big heart and an unquenching desire to learn and share his thoughts. I loved that about him.  I miss our phone calls and meet ups where he would share what he learned with me. Those calls and get togethers continued decades after we stopped working together. They continued until hours before his death. He was a teacher and he taught me and others right up until his last breath.

In the email, Kerry told me had attended a graveside service at the Delray Beach Cemetery to support two of his fire department employees who lost a family member. Kerry was always there for his people, his door and his heart were always open.

Delray was still raw a few weeks after the Jerrod Miller shooting. It was a fraught time.

Kerry had a special relationship with Zack Straghn, a local leader, civil rights icon and businessman.

They met frequently at Donnie’s on 5th Avenue for coffee and conversation.

When Zack passed away, Kerry was grief stricken. Although struggling with his own health issues, Kerry championed a plaque at the beach to honor Zack.

Mr. Straghn fought for and achieved access for people of color at our municipal beach. It was a fitting tribute. Kerry organized a committee, raised money and oversaw the design and wording of the tribute. I urge you to visit it near the pavilion. It’s beautiful.

In the email, Kerry shared that he had run into Zack at the cemetery. Two old friends. Two people who loved and respected each other.

But as I mentioned, it was a tense time. The death of Jerrod Miller exposed old issues that have bedeviled Delray Beach and frankly our nation since our founding.

And the wounds were fresh…we were still struggling to make sense of what happened, still struggling to find a way forward.

Kerry noted that he was at the funeral not as chief, but  as a friend as a  “little part of a big Delray family.”

I was struck by Kerry’s use of the word family. It resonated with me. It speaks to what we all long for when we seek belonging, when we seek community.

I don’t think it’s a  betrayal of Kerry’s memory to share his thoughts. In fact, we talked about it toward the end of his life. Kerry supported my writing and he was a muse of mine. He knew that and I think he liked being one. He often pitched me topics to write and think about.

Also, as a teacher, I know he wouldn’t mind me sharing what he learned and so generously shared with me as a young mayor at the time struggling mightily with the pain the city’s family was feeling in the wake of losing a teenager with his whole life ahead of him. Here’s what he wrote.

“After the service, Zack and I were standing about 50-60 feet away from the crowd.  We sorta grabbed each other and both seemed to want to say something to the other.  Zack said all that needed to be said… “I know what we have been through, but I’ll tell everyone I know the same thing ….”Delray isn’t a bad town… it just isn’t” ……  We both seemed satisfied…. knowing this whole thing will be worked through because of the sprit and love in the hearts of individual Delray folks and the greater, community family.

I deeply believe that in the final analysis, Delray people will step up to the plate and deal with Delray’s issues….because Delray is  that kind of place, and “it isn’t a bad town…it just isn’t”.

This is the definition of community. People connecting with each other over the long haul, through the ups and downs, in triumph and in tragedy, through our differences which are many and inevitable we find common ground. We connect, we sometimes disagree and if we keep an open heart we can come together again because we have built a reservoir of good will.

At this funeral, Zack and Kerry reconnected in the wake of Jerrod Miller’s death. Just two old friends, with lots of respect for each other, wanting to reach across the divide and just be people.

We’ve lost some of that in our society, but it’s there, waiting to be tapped if we want it. It’s still there. And if we need reminding we can just go to the well and find it again.

Kerry mentioned in the email the family’s faith that “someday ….in the fullness of G-d’s time, they know they will all be united again.”

Amen. We’re counting on that.

Alfred “Zack” Straghn was a leader, mentor and inspiration.

 

9 March, 2026 3 3 Comments

Brain Coast Taking Shape

March 9, 2026 By 3 Comments

For about 9 years, Patrick McNamara, President and CEO of the Palm Health Foundation has been beating the drum for a concept called the “Brain Coast.”
The goal is to brand our community as an important hub for brain health, research and education.

While the concept has been around for a while it’s beginning to gain significant momentum thanks to Pat’s leadership and passion for brain health.
One of my colleagues on the Delray Beach City Commission used to say it takes a monomaniac on a mission to move big ideas forward.
You need passion. You need commitment. My friend Patrick has both—in abundance.

The Carl Angus DeSantis foundation recently  invested in the effort because we like to make strategic bets on special people and big ideas.
The Brain Coast is a big idea. The vision is to harness the neuroscience firepower in our area to improve brain health, fuel research and create an ecosystem that will have global significance.

Last week, I attended the inaugural meeting of the Brain Coast Advisory Council to help sketch a path and a plan.
I’m excited and hopeful that our community can make it happen.

Years ago, as a Business Development Board member, I remember hearing BDB CEO Kelly Smallridge talk about branding our area as “Wall Street South.”
At the time, nobody really took the effort seriously. There’s nothing wrong with Palm Beach County of course, but Wall Street South? It seemed like a leap.
But today, Wall Street South is a reality with financial firms and hedge fund titans pouring into Palm Beach County.

We can envision a similar trajectory for the Brain Coast. There is already an impressive array of talent and institutions, devoted to brain health and research dong great work right here in our backyard.

The Max Planck Florida Institute, the Stiles- Nicholson Brain Institute, the Marcus Neuroscience Institute, Florida Atlantic University, UM Health, Cleveland Clinic, Scripps, the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation and others have clustered in our community bringing cutting edge science to our county from Jupiter to Boca Raton.
I’ve had an opportunity to be involved with Max Planck, the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation and FAU. The effort devoted to brain health is impressive. I recently toured the Stiles- Nicholson Brain Institute and was blown away by the work being done in their labs under the watchful eyes of Dr. Randy Blakely.

At the advisory council meeting last week, I got to listen to neuroscientists from Miami, the UK and elsewhere talk about the potential of the Brain Coast initiative.
Joining us via phone were Susan Magsamen, who wrote a seminal book on neuroarts, an emerging field that is already producing remarkable research on how the arts improves brain health and Dr. Harris Eyre, a researcher who has helped to build a similar ecosystem in Houston.
It’s an exciting time.

With an aging population, the time is ripe to improve brain health so we can offer help and hope to people with dementia, Parkinson’s, substance use disorders, bipolar disorder etc.
It will take a lot of work and coordination for the Brain Coast to reach its considerable potential. But leaving last week’s meeting I am bullish.
The elements are there: talent, capital, passion and commitment.
It takes a village and last week the village gathered to discuss possibilities. Magic happens when great minds collaborate.

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