I can come clean now, I think, after all these years. After all, it’s been four and a half decades. My father was wrong – ‘Dad, the umpire had it right.’

In days of yore when weekends were not saturated with wall to wall AFL – no bad thing I might add – I, in my callow youth and with my great mate, Neville H Milne, followed the local footy. We travelled the length of the North West Coast in my trusty Fiat, with the suicide doors, so we could cheer on our team, the mighty Burnie Tigers, in good years and bad. Back then winters were pluvial in nature – remember when Yogga Young played the game in his raincoat? – but we were undaunted in our allegiance. I think I started barracking for them largely because my father, Fred, was a supporter of the town’s other side, the Cooee Bulldogs. I loved and admired my dad, but by this point of difference I could step aside from his shadow. When it came to the AFL – back then the VFL – we agreed. Originally we both chivvied on the Saints – St Kilda – it being the home of many Tasmanian champions. On espying an image in the local rag of a scrawny New Norfolk lad about to try his luck across the Strait in the big smoke, my father commented, ‘He’ll never make it over there. He’ll come back with his tail between his legs!’ I disagreed. I had perhaps a better handle on the prospective Hawthorn recruit. I had been following the progress of the mayhem the youth created for the backlines of opposing teams down south, as well as the bags of majors he was kicking each Saturday arvo. When I pointed this out Fred, who prided himself on his ability to spot a future Baldock or Stewart, again made disparaging remarks. It was then we parted company. From that point on my love affair with the brown and gold commenced. The lad in question was the freakish Peter Hudson, who went on to be a legend in the game. Fred Lovell was wrong about him, with my old man being very, very wrong about something else as well.

Nowadays the local footy scene is a mere shell of its former self compared to back in the days when Milney and I were traipsing along the Coast. The island can still produce champions, but in the modern era they are plucked away to Melbourne, whilst still in their teens, by the draft. Back in our time they served an apprenticeship locally before the big boys came calling. In the twilight of their careers ex-Coasters, who made it across the waves, often came back, invariably playing in their original colours. From Smithton to Latrobe, in the necklace of towns facing Bass Strait, there played out a roster for the Union, as the provincial comp was known. Ours was roughly equal in standard to the two other leagues, centred on Launceston and Hobart respectively. Of course it was huge to win the grand final in the Union competition, but the real bragging rights were with a coastal team that could beat the winners of the other two associations for the state premiership.

In 1967, my final year of secondary school, the culminating game for that title was to be between the Wynyard Cats and the North Hobart Demons. These were both led by playing coaches and the known enforcers for their sides – Johnny Coughlan of Wynyard and John Devine for the red and blue. These were the days of single umpires; video reviews were a long way in the future. The hated southerners were playing away at Burnie’s blustery, mud ridden West Park. There was no pampering of players during the Sixties with the flawless playing surfaces of today.

Even though my father and I did not share the same team, we were united when it came to the state-wide final. We were behind the locals as they took on the powerhouse from the south. Never was parochialism more prevalent than when a Hobart team came to our neck of the woods. Down south was where the big money was; down south was where all the rules were made – obviously in their favour – and down south they drank that inferior ale, Cascade. Despite the home ground advantage, all knew it would be tough to knock off North Hobart, with their ‘never-say-die’ reputation. To the crowd’s delight the smaller, but pacier, sons of the soil from the spud farms around the Inglis River had a handy lead at half time, due to a dominant second quarter. In the third stanza the big city boys hit their straps, kicking with the wind, taking a narrow lead. The last quarter saw the potato-diggers sprint away again, but with the wind dropping and the Cats tiring, the South hit back. With a few minutes to go the lead had been whittled to a point when the courageous little Wynyard rover, Doola King, was felled behind play, a cowardly act right in front of the grandstand. The crowd went ballistic. With moments left the ball squirted out of the centre and was kicked down-field onto the barrel-like chest of North Hobart full-forward Dickie Collins, about thirty metres out, directly in front. He took the mark just as the siren sounded, a feeble noise amongst the din made by an incensed, over-excited crowd. It took the umpire a few seconds to realise the game had ended, but he adjudged Collins had taken the grab before that point. At this stage a stunned lull came over the throng in the grandstand. It all came too much for Fred.

Now I have inherited a few salient genes from my dear old dad. One of them is my inability to cope with the tension of a close game, especially if it involves my beloved Hawks. This has reached what my mates consider to be ludicrous proportions these days. I go into stress mode, I pace floors and cannot bring myself to watch. The three grand finals the brown and gold have been involved with in recent times have been excruciating for me and I did anything I could to take my mind off the first two until the final siren. The Hawks are now premiers for 2013, but I ensured I would be immune this time from the actual match itself by arranging to be up in the air for its duration. What a treat it was to watch the game in full a few days later in the knowledge that they had won. Back in 1967, though, I was made of slightly sterner stuff than my father.

In the midst of the lull, as the umpire arranged for Dickie to take his kick, my father stood up and started to wildly gesticulate his arms around. It took a nano-second for me to realise what was going on, but suddenly he was yelling, exhorting those in the grandstand to ‘Get out on the ground! Get on the ground! That mark was after the siren! Get on the ground! Stop him! Stop him kicking the ball!’ With that he charged down off the bleachers, arms still going akimbo, with, to my surprise, a few hotheads following. Gradually the few became dozens, then a horde – and by then I thought I had better go down too to prevent my father getting himself into more mischief, possibly amounting to trouble. By the time I arrived on the muddy green sward of West Park, hundreds, possibly thousands had made a similar decision. By the stage I arrived there was no way any kick could be taken. Dickie was surrounded by a multitude – he’d had the forethought, though, to tuck the ball up under his guernsey.

Gradually the mood settled as the over-heated disciples of the game stood their ground to see what would happen. The umpires were in consultation with the constabulary, deciding to clear a pathway through the thong so the bemused full-forward could take his kick. I was still looking for my father, who must have woken up to what was afoot. I heard a voice rise up above the murmurs of the assembled, ‘The goalposts! The goalposts! Bring down the goalposts! Stop him having his kick! Bring down the goalposts!’ I could now place where my father was. The king of the hotheads stood and watched as his acolytes did exactly what he demanded of them. They came crashing down, one just missing me by millimetres. Soon the officials decided the exercise was pointless and called off the game. As for the goalposts, they reportedly ended up on a train headed for Hobart.

Sadly, my father is no longer with us and I do need to put the record right:-
‘Dear old Dad – you were wrong. I knew that back then just as I know now. Dickie Collins took that grab on the siren, not after. He was entitled to take his kick. He deserved to take his place in history for kicking the winning goal – a place you denied him. But then, my beloved father – without you this saga; this fabulous story that has been dined out on for decades on our footy mad island, would not have occurred. Your input saw this one game become a great yarn!’

Yes, I know – every islander my age or thereabouts would no doubt claim to have been at West Park that infamous day. Every one of them will tell you they know the true story. But this, I believe, beyond a shadow of doubt – it was Freddy Lovell alone who instigated the riot on that windswept oval that day!

So, Martin Flanagan, you now know the truth; you know who caused the goalposts to be moved – uprooted indeed – and it was not ‘some intemperate behaviour’ by your mate, poet Pete Hay. In my view, Flanagan is the best football writer going around in any code – but he is just one of many notable contributors to ‘The Australian Game’. In ‘Tomorrow We Are Playing Away’ Martin F writes lovingly of Aussie rules in this state during its glory years. Why, we even once beat the Vics at their own game. No account of the sport in Tasmania would be complete, though, without a mention of Queenstown’s famous gravel field of play. That duly occurs in Paul Daffey’s sublime piece, ‘Home and Away’.

The book is indeed an update of a collection that first saw the light of day twenty-five years ago. Fresh contributions have been added, but many classic yarns remain. Geoffrey Blainey, for instance, recalls the smell of eucalyptus and the bevy of gladstone bags that once marked Geelong’s games at its former oval, Corio. One of my best mates is an Essendon tragic. No, not Neville H Milne – he lamentably is a devoted and deluded follower of Collingwood. Steph would love the Peter Corris piece ‘Barracking for the Bombers’ where he pontificates on the ridiculousness of grid iron and the twin marvels of Coleman and Hird. Let us just hope that the latter’s reputation is not too sullied by that club’s annus horribilis. Dinny O’Hearn, on the tribal nature of the game, is a delight. The potted history of the Sherrin is wonderfully and wistfully bought to life by Vin Maskell. Along with Bill Cannon, we were all in awe of and pretended to be Darrel Baldock once upon a time. He recounts a rollicking time as ‘The One-gamer’. I adored reading Max Piggot’s ‘Swansong’ – a homage to the Bloods and ‘Up There Cazaly’. As well, it is a lament for how it has all changed now in the modern era.

These are my favourites amidst a plethora of quality writing from quality wordsmiths, but each will has his/her own. The tome is a must for all lovers of the world’s best sporting attraction; for all those hopelessly bewitched by the game, as Fred was and I shall forever be.

A ‘Sunday Telegraph reviewer reckons (Brendan) ‘Cowell looks destined to be one of Australia’s finest novelists’. I wonder what book of this author he/she was reading to make that assertion. I sincerely hope it wasn’t this one!

Now I like Cowell – still best known, I think, for his acting. I have loved him in such television and cinematic features as ‘Love My Way’, ‘I Love You Too’ and ‘Save Your Legs’. Listening to him being interviewed by Ellen Fanning for ‘The Observer Effect’, he comes across as your typical laconic, knockabout Aussie in the Bryan Brown mould. He was engaging and it seemed he had been a bit of a lad in his day. Maybe he still was. As well as act, there is no doubt he can write. ‘How It Feels’ has a reasonable enough story line, with occasionally the actor making this reader sit up and take notice with an original turn of phrase, or clever metaphor. But this punter did not enjoy having to wade through all the f-bombs and c-missiles to find them. I doubt if I’ve read a book with so many ‘fucks’ per page.

The main protagonist is simply obnoxious – no redeeming qualities whatsoever. He ‘outslaps’ the guys in ‘The Slap’. The ‘hero’ is drug-addled, vodka-sodden prima donna who none-the-less seems to attract the ladies, of course treating them abominably. He has a tome-long thing for Courtney and this seemed the major thrust – excuse the pun – of the book – would he ever get to ‘screw’ her. I won’t let the cat out of the bag for any other unfortunate soul who perseveres through till the end. When he loses his best mate to suicide his grief is typically ‘look at me’ over the top. He takes it out on his other mates for years – more fool them for sticking by him. He ‘talks’ to Stuart in heaven to discover that all the ‘chicks’ in his section of what’s behind St Peter’s Gate are ‘…blonde with big tits.’ This is the level Cowell sinks to. The only redeeming feature of Neil Cronk is that he adores my island’s Mersey Valley vintage cheese.

And the sex – oh dear the sex! It is foul. Simply foul, unedifying writing. Cowell’s purple prose drains most of it of any degree of sensitivity or mutual affection – it is just a bonk-fest, and a turgid one at that. It’s like watching the bright pink stuff on-line – revolting.

Yet I read this drivel to the end. Perhaps being up in Mangoland at the time fried my brain. I ploughed on to see if there was any redemption at the end. There was – but what a cop-out cliched one he came up with.

Please stick to your acting Mr Cowell. I found your novel, sir, in a remainder bin for a few dollars. It deserved to be there in spades. If you, dear reader, do the same – don’t dare believe the back cover guff when it spouts ‘…a blazing comet of a book.’ For me it was more like being in a repugnant foul Dickensian black hole. Ignore it and walk on by!

Initially I thought I may attempt a poem to parallel the Passenger song ‘I Hate’, one of my favourite ditties from the hit album ‘All The Little Lights’. I am addicted to music – always have been – always will be. In my very early years I was listening to country and western on my father’s old 78s; in my teens the addiction was vinyl and now, of course, it’s CDs – they being where I draw the line in the sand. I haven’t gone beyond and I will not until that format dies a death. Hopefully they’ll outlast me. Many music tragics my age are stuck in the past – hanging on to the geriatric heroes from when they were also in their pomp – and there’s nothing wrong with that. I do a bit of it as well. My wonderful BTD – Beautiful Talented Daughter – ensures that I am kept up to date. But when my mates state something like, ‘Modern music is all crap.’ – thanks to her, I can roll out a list of names from her generation that are the bee’s knees – Josh Ritter, Megan Washington, Dan Sultan, Eskimo Joe, the Panics, Busby Marou, Sarah Blasko, Lanie Lane – and on and on I could go, but you get the idea. And no, I am not trying to be hip. You couldn’t get further away from a hipster than this old codger – I just like them. I wouldn’t waste my hard earned on something just to big note! And, as with BTD, I am also addicted to lists. Each year – sort of like the J’s OzDay musiclistfest – I compile a rank order of my favourite albums of the past twelve months. It’s too early for 2013’s – I can’t tell you how much I am looking forward to ruminating over that – but if you’re interested in 2012’s, please click on
http://blueroomriversidedrive.blogspot.com.au/2012/12/the-blue-rooms-top-albums-2012.html

But I digress – back to Mr Passenger – yes, it’s a person, not a group – a la Pink, Cat Power, Sting etc. His collection is terrific and surely will be a candidate for the above. There are many singalongworthy tracks – but it is the ‘afterthought’ of the album that really struck a chord (pun intended). On it he musically riffs about racism, drugs, Facebook, fussy eaters, festival toilets, X-Factor and the evils of fashion magazines. Take a peek at the YouTube and hear for yourself

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh2XKDj_eD0

But then I thought, ‘Nah! Life’s pretty good for this old bloke at the moment. I want to focus on the positive; be glass half full – not the reverse.’ So with apologies to Jane – the muse and inspiration for the band named in her honour – see, that’s the music coming out in me – here are my Top 10 addictions. It is taken as given that my DLP (Darling Loving Partner), BTD, a wonderful son and my wondrous granddaughter float way above this list, as do other family members and my mates. And, as always, feel free to throw your addictions back at me.

1. Music – I’ve rabbited on enough on that topic. See above.

2. The Superior Gender – Women. Again I have said enough on that score in other places on my blog. Here is just one take on that
http://blueroomriversidedrive.blogspot.com.au/2013/07/women-with-allure.html

And my world receives such a fillip when a beautiful lady – and ninety-nine percent of all women are beautiful – gives me an eye-smile. What’s an eye-smile?
http://blueroomriversidedrive.blogspot.com.au/2012/11/the-girl-in-jbs.html

3. West Wing – Most are aware that my prime television addiction is ‘Mad Men’
http://blueroomriversidedrive.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/mad-manlove.html

However, after watching the luscious Sidse Babett Knudsen do her ice cool schtick as a Danish equivalent to Julia in ‘Borgen’, I decided to check out the first season of the above when I spied it on special in JBs. Evidently the Scandipol drama is heavily influenced by its US predecessor. And of course, now I am hooked. There are seven, yes seven, series of it to get through, but I am in for the long haul. I know it is hokey in parts. Yes, I know it disses out lamentably on every other country in the world that does not share the Yanks’ high moral ground as the ‘good guys’ and yes, tanks could be driven through some of the holes in its plot-lines. This political junkie finds it engrossing and is rivetted. I am looking forward to seeing if ‘House of Cards’ has the same effect. At the present time the first season of ‘Homeland’ is the DVD DLP and I are working our way through. It’s not bad – anything with Mandy Patikin in it must have legs – but some of it seems to me to be stretching the bounds of belief somewhat – surely he/she/they could see what would happen if they did that? And happen it does!

4. Football – specifically Aussie Rules – more specifically, the Hawthorn Football Club. You know, I actually look forward to this time of year now footy is off our television screens as now I can do other stuff on Friday and Saturday eves. And Yay! Yay! The brown and gold are premiers for 2013, just in case you didn’t know. A decade or so ago test cricket would have had this spot, but I am dark on cricket at the moment – and not just because lady luck has gone dark on our test team either. Here is another list – a very AFL unbiased one!
http://blueroomriversidedrive.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/a-blue-room-list-our-top-ten-favourite.html

5. Taking Baths – I am in the firm belief that the rise in stress levels in the Western world is down to two factors – on-lineism (don’t get me started) and our penchant for taking showers. Or, I should say – your penchant, for I don’t if can possibly help it. Me? Each morning I am a like a big grampus wallowing in my warm, manly fragranced bath for at least half an hour! There’s no spending the inordinate amount of time finely tuning the balance between hot and cold before placing my shivering body under a feeble spittle of moisture emanating from a shower head for me. There’s no sissy squealing from me if someone else turns on a tap in one’s abode. No, I am perfectly languorous in my steaming blanket of soapy water – perfectly at ease with the world. There are no frantic gyrations for me to ensure as much of my anatomy as possible has a warm jet of liquid aimed at it – it simply is. And, of course one can ruminate in the tub. It’s where I do my best thinking – some would say my only thinking. It is the location where my blogs are germinated, including this one; in another life, where my lessons were planned. Ban showers, I say; the world would be a calmer, more serene place. Politicians wouldn’t yell at each other, road ragers would cease to rage and the bottom would drop out of the coffee market. Copious caffeine to get one through the day would not be required!

6. Bill – There are some actors who, with their manner and mannerisms, tics, even – in some cases – their gormlessness – I could sit, transfixed, through any old dross as long as they were on screen. Several examples come to mind – Hugh Grant in anything he gets to play Hugh Grant; Daniel Auteuil in anything; John Hamm in ‘Mad Men’; David Duchovny in ‘Californication’; Richard Roxburgh in ‘Rake’; David Wenham when in Sea Change persona. Towering over them all, though, is Bill. I first became infatuated with Mr Nighy back in 1991 when he played an amoral university academic in the BBC adaptation of Anne Oakey’s ‘The Men’s Room’. It was a fine series from a fine source. Then he seemed to disappear off the radar for a while. He returned with a shambolic turn – in the best sense of the word – as a member of the reforming band in ‘Still Crazy’. Of course his star moment is and always will be, as Billy Mack in ‘Love Actually’. His taking the piss out of every dirgeful Christmas opus is a classic – be reminded, dear reader, be reminded!

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8261_christmas-is-all-around_music

To my mind, he is masterful in such lesser known roles as ‘The Girl in the Cafe’, ‘Gideon’s Daughter’ – both made for television – and ‘Wild Target. I eschewed the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ franchise forever after what they did to poor Bill’s lovely face in the second instalment.

7. The State Cinema, Brunswick Hotel, Fullers Book Shop – aka my favourite Hobart watering holes. They obviously provide me with more than just flat whites, ales and ciders. In the former I can slake my desire for quality art house productions; in the second my desire for quality craft beer and in the latter, for quality literature. And the staff at each venue are noted for their eye smiles.

8. Books – adore reading, adore indie bookshops, adore launches, adore reviewing them on this blog and yes, I adore working out my top reads for any given year. See last year’s for tomes (and films)
http://blueroomriversidedrive.blogspot.com.au/2012/12/the-blue-rooms-best-reads-and-movies.html

9. Beaches and Buffett – The two go hand in hand. My days of disporting myself on Mangoland, and other, beaches are now gone – but they are still marvellous for perambulating, camera in hand. Here’s one take
http://blueroomriversidedrive.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/the-white-bikini.html

BTD marrying her lovely man was one of the happiest days of my life. I gave my gorgeous Kate away to the parrothead lyrics of Jimmy. There can be no greater tribute to the man’s music.
http://blueroomriversidedrive.blogspot.com.au/2013/02/jimmy-and-josh-my-sunny-companions.html

10. Life – Yes, life is too blissful to waste time concentrating on one’s hates. I reckon my beloved DLP could list them well enough – starting with showers, ‘Minuscule’, SUVs in the city – and so on. But I won’t dwell. With she by my side, with her wonderful optimism, I am smiling with joy every day. Grandfathering makes it all magic too. My Poppet is only very small at the moment, as is the other mite who has come into our lives – LFM (Little Ford Man). I like to look at the small things – maybe even capture them with my camera, for in those small things great beauty and wonder exist. It’s all too marvellous for downers. There’s stuff I’ve missed. – photography, art exhibitions, Mangoland, mangoes, cooking, whiskey, and so on – maybe there’ll be a Steve’s Addictions Part 2!All in all, I am a lucky old bugger.

Just fragments. There are only a few fragments of memory that I have of him all these years on. It was so long ago. – back when I was the age of Craig, Harry, Avery, Ryan, Peter, Neil and Cooper. These were the leads in Levithan’s offering, ‘Two Boys Kissing’. I’ll call the character in my tale George – just in case I am wrong. I don’t think I am – and in any case there is no right or wrong in all this, despite the homophobic neolith we now have running this country.

George was a friend I kept in a separate box. He was a ‘me’ friend – someone to be with away from my matey mates – the guys I mucked around with most of the time. The ones I went to the footy with, played tennis with and later, shared a university hall of residence with.

I have no recall of how George an I came to be pals – it is lost in the ether of time. Did he attend the high school on the hill where I completed Years 9 and 10, or the secondary institution by the sea through my two matriculation years? He had a surfie hair cut – although I cannot remember him being one of the set that lived on West Beach during the summer months. He may have been there, waxing down his surfboard and ‘hangin’ ten’. He had an eagle’s beak of a nose, was thin and scrawy with acne but, nonetheless, was strangely handsome. There was a sheen to him – his skin seemed softer, shinier than that of the bronzed/ruddy lads who were my ‘other’ cobbers. All this seemed to set him apart and made him somewhat attractive to me – no, I don’t mean in that sense. Whilst my friendship with him was happening, I was also discovering the wonders of the opposite gender. He lived down the hill from me, in a small house in the same street as the fire station. I remember his father – he seemed to me to be unusually old – of George’s stature, but bald. I have no recollection of a mother.

He told me he was gay – at least I think he did. I laughed it off – thought he was just joking around. It may have been a big thing for him to admit that to me, but I immediately changed the subject. I am sorry I did that – even now. I had no experience of what he was trying to tell me. In my world there was nothing of boys liking boys. ‘Faggots’ – disgusting term, but that was their collective noun in the parlance of the times – just did not exist for my other mates and I. I just assumed, with hormones exploding through our capillaries at that time, that sex, when it came time to attain it, would be between myself and a girl.

My ‘usual’ friends and I went to university down south, spreading ourselves through the dorms of the three men’s colleges. I can’t remember if George actually went to the university as well – he may have done for a while, then dropped out. He shared a house with two older guys and I was invited to come to stay for a while during a uni vac, The house smelt odd – not unpleasantly so – a bit like a curry, I seem to recall. Perhaps that is what it was – as curries, apart from those made with Keen’s, were alien to me then. I remember George and one of the older residents of the abode – a very dapper, well groomed guy – being intimate in some minor way or other, that again, the exact nature of which has been deleted from my synapses. It made me think back then that I should have been more ‘humane’ with his ‘coming out’ to me, if that is what it was. After that, I have no knowledge if our paths ever crossed again. Shame that. I would like the opportunity to apologise to him.

My daughter encouraged me to read this book. She said she shed tears at the end. I didn’t. That is unusual for she and I as we are generally symbiotic in that regard. It is a well written and beautifully structured tome – a given. After all, it is by Levithan! My beautiful daughter will possibly be shocked with what I am about to write from here on in. She does know me well enough to know I am a strong supporter of equal rights – especially the right for any person to be able to marry the one he/she loves. If my island’s Legislative Assembly hadn’t been so jelly-livered my state may have been the first in the country to grant what I regard to be long overdue. I have had wonderful gay friends and taught students who, if not gay, were very confused about their sexuality. I had always beseeched my classes to have tolerance of those who differ from the white bread heterosexual majority – easier said that done when so many of their parents were Deliverance style red-necks. Whereas sex between two women is the stuff of male fantasy; that between two men, I find, is something I’d rather not think about – although I support their right to have it – just not anywhere near where I can see it. Even if I espy men kissing on the tele, or on film, I have to look the other way. I know – it’s pathetic – but there you are. A publication based on the premise of two young men openly trying to break the world record for continuous kissing, of my own volition, is something I would not choose to read about – but I gave it a go. And, of course, the novel is about far more than just that. Sadly, because of their sexual persuasion, I found it difficult to care about the aforementioned characters as much as I knew I should; as my talented offspring obviously did – and I love her for that.

That being said, I am sad that I cannot imagine the school I taught in for twenty years prior to retirement would have tolerated being the venue for such an attempt to change the record books – despite working under some very broad-minded, but nonetheless community conscious, principals. I supported the right of two openly gay women to have a relationship and continuing to work in that school. I like to think that would have been no different had they been men.

No,’Two Boys Kissing’ is a fine book and should be in every high school library. Levithan is to be commended for tackling the subject of boys in love with each other, even if in saying that, it indicates that in many schools relationships of that hue are still not regarded as mainstream – as they so should be. That it is ‘not my cup of tea’ should not diminish the novel’s worth.

David Levithan’s web-site = http://www.davidlevithan.com/