Cleaning out the closet

Here are a few odds and ends that can't stand on their own as a proper post but are too good to trash.

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If you're out for a lunchtime walkabout on a sunny day (as I was) and you head west on Spring Street, right where Soho blends into Chinatown, you might (as I did) be drawn to the sound of a table saw intermittently being turned on and off in short bursts. "A table saw outdoors in the middle of fashionable Soho?" you'll ask yourself.

Follow the sound, and you'll come across a Chinaman standing on the sidewalk next to some large canvas bags filled with coconuts and a table saw perched precariously on top of a metal garbage can. He'll take a coconut out of the bag, saw the top off, drain the milk into a pail and stack the coconuts in a nice, neat pyramid.


I think I saw this in a dream sequence of a David Lynch film once except the coconuts were being decapitated by a midget. Walk around New York long enough and sooner or later you'll stumble across something of this ilk.

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I finally succumbed to worldwide societal pressure and read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. 250 pages of back story and droll finance and then, out of nowhere, a terrible rape. I don't see what all the fuss is about. I feel like I missed something. I have no plans to read the other two books.

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Here's who I sit closest to at work, on my right and directly behind me, respectively:


I feel like I work in central casting for Bond villains.

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I saw this in my grocer's freezer:


That's disgusting, right? I don't want to see the words "chocolate" and "taco" in such close proximity to one another. True, you can't beat a good mole sauce, but not on tacos for chrissakes!

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Q: What do you call a man who wears a Bluetooth and takes calls while at the gym bench pressing about 175 pounds?

A: Nothing. You bite your tongue and keep your fucking mouth shut.