The Unbearable Banishment

55th Street; 7:34 a.m.

2012-01-25T04:15:00.000-08:00

I like the way the morning light hits the façade of that building in the foreground. [It's more dramatic in person. I'm disappointed with this shot.] It only lasts a minute or two. And how about that Chippendale dresser top on the crown of the Sony building? Petty fancy.

Fun line art on a Times Square subway stanchion.

If you resist the urge to read the name and just look at it in conjunction with the reflection, it makes an interesting glyph. Two hour glasses. An infinity symbol. An end tag.

View from inside Central Park of the R train stop across from The Plaza hotel on 59th Street.

The girlies admiring Pollock's One: Number 31.

Anaïs Nin called New York “an ugly prison.”

I don't know. I just don't see it.

Do you have any seeds?

2012-01-22T11:30:00.000-08:00

On my lunch hour I hopped on a downtown C train to the Mary Boone Gallery in Chelsea to view Ai Weiwei's exhibit, Sunflower Seeds. Last May I did a post about his fantastic Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads installation outside The Plaza Hotel. He's become so enmeshed in Chinese politics that many people view his work through a filter. He is also seen as a human rights activist. Fortunately I'm not a deep thinker, so I can enjoy his work on a purely visceral level.

This is a scaled-down version of the exhibit that appeared in the Tate Modern in London in 2010. At that show, the turbine hall was covered about four inches deep with porcelain seeds that were hand painted to look like sunflower seeds. Supposedly, there were 100 million pieces to the exhibit. He employed 1,600 villagers and it took several years for them to create the seeds and then paint them. Originally, it was a participatory exhibit that allowed visitors to walk in the seeds. But as people walked on it, a toxic cloud of porcelain dust rose and that put an end to any contact.

While the London exhibit looked to be awe-inspiring, this is a much smaller showing and it doesn't have much impact. The gallery euro trash employee I chatted up said that only about 3% of the seeds were on display. When I go to special exhibits of this ilk, I always hope for a punch when I turn the corner but this was underwhelming. It was a bit of a disappointment. More would have been better.

I badly want to reach down and run my hand through it and even pocket one, but there is a security guard posted who means business. I heard him yell at a few people while I was there.

* * *

On the way back to the subway I passed by the Bryce_Wolkowitz_Gallery and these fun sculptures caught my eye. The artist is David Updike. I think he might be John Updike's son but I'm not sure.

Do you see the pretty pink blossoms in the bud vase?

They're tiny commodes! How fun is that?!

This leaning sculpture is another work in miniature.

They're actually tiny hand painted boxes from retailers like FreshDirect, IKEA, Pampers, etc. I wish I had held a quarter up to give it some scale. These are very, very small works. I like it a lot but I think the piece was $17,000, so you won't see it in my home. The new puppy would make mincemeat of it.

Incidentally, the dog's name has been changed from Coco to Goddamn It Coco.

Another mouth to feed

2012-01-19T04:33:00.000-08:00

The girls had been relentlessly hammering Mrs. Wife and I for a dog for quite some time. There’s been a big influx of puppies in our suburban enclave and it put ideas into their tiny little heads. We thought if we didn’t talk about it, their resolve would simply fade and dry up. We should have known better. A big thanks-for-nuthin’ to area parents who gave in too easily.

I had two Lower East Side Siamese cats for about 12 years. Women walked in and out of my life but those two cats were always there and happy to see me. I like cats. They’re graceful and mysterious. I admire their aloofness, which is the very thing that turns a lot of people off. Personally, I would prefer a cat. But since we live in a democracy, not a dictatorship, and I was outvoted 3-1, we got a dog.

You don’t just go out and buy a dog. It’s not like selecting a shirt or a sandwich. You have to conduct your due diligence. Each breed has a specific personality trait. (Who knew?!) Some breeds are better with kids than others. Mrs. Wife did all the research and heavy lifting. Originally, we wanted to rescue a dog from a shelter but each time we visited, our choices boiled down to either a pit bull or other psychologically questionable breed or a dog on its last legs. Apparently, the nice family-oriented breeds disappear almost immediately. Your timing has to be impeccable.

We ended up doing the very thing I wanted to avoid; we went to a breeder. I couldn’t see the sense paying a lot of money for a dog when there were free dogs littering the county. But if we were to get our kid-friendly breed of choice, we were going to have to pay for it. And pay we did.

I pictured our breeder living on a farm way out in the pretty New Jersey countryside. Ma and Pa would greet us at the door and take us out back to the barn where mama was nursing some of her pups in a big bale of hay while others frolicked and played in the blue open spaces. We got a recommendation for a breeder from a neighbor, punched the address into the GPS and headed out. It was no bucolic farm.

What we found at the end of the rainbow was a run-down house in a dicey neighborhood. We walked into a small living room that had the thick drapes drawn, blocking out all light. A massive flat screen TV that covered an entire wall was blasting Fox News. When we walked in, volume wasn’t lowered and no lights were illuminated.

We had put a deposit on a puppy back in November and she was just now old enough to take home. It felt like we were rescuing the her from a horrible place and that WE, in fact, were the ones who should be paid. But we were the ones who wrote out a check for $850.

This is Coco. She’s a chocolate cockapoo. If you pay $850 for a dog, it’s chocolate. If you get it from a shelter, it’s brown.

I’ve raised cats and I’ve raised dogs. Cats are a lot smarter. Coco is trying to consume our entire back yard. She eats grass, twigs, dirt, moss, little stones, sand, leaves and pretty much anything else she can get in her mouth. Can anyone tell me when this dog will stop being so dumb?

I’ve done an awful lot for the girls but nothing, and I mean NOTHING, has made them so happy as getting them a dog. I am away at work all day so Mrs. Wife is charged with the unpleasant task of training the dog. She’s doing an exemplary job. We are about to take Coco to dog school. The expenses will start to mount. But I think it’ll be worth it. I think it’ll be cool for the kids to grow up with a dog.

"What does this button do?" "Don't touch tha...!"

2012-01-16T05:10:00.000-08:00

I was passing through Times Square and saw these two dudes up on a crane fixing an LED billboard. Let's call them Moe and Curly.

"Hey Moe, what happens if I twist this dial?

"You imbecile! Are you trying to get us fired!

Nyuk-nyuk-nyuk. And what does this button do?

* * *

Apropos of nothing (perhaps because it's the dead of winter) here's a fantastic pic that Mrs. Wife took of the girls and I on the beach. She gets a big A+ for composition and color. Well done, you.

Here's a rare full frontal shot of us with a pumpkin. This was taken just a couple of weeks before the shit hit the fan. And now, all that angst is behind us. For now. See...all you have to do is ride it out. So simple!

Po, po pitiful me. (With apologies to Mr. Zevon.)

2012-01-13T10:53:00.000-08:00

Self-pity is one of, if not the, least attractive all human traits. As soon as I catch myself wallowing in the throws of it (which is pretty often) I make an effort to grind it down to a fine powder. It’s downright unmanly.

What helped snap me out of my recent funk (although I had good reasons this time) was the theater, which will come as no surprise to regular readers. I am moved by a live performance the same way others are moved by a piece of music or literature or a gourmet meal.

Who in their right mind would sit through a play about a woman dying of cancer? Sounds like an awful night out. But it isn't! When WIT opened off-Broadway in 1999, there was talk of moving it to a Broadway house. But the bean counters decided that nobody would go. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and there have been countless regional productions.

It’s finally about to open on Broadway with Cynthia Nixon. She’s on stage dying of ovarian cancer for the entire 1:45 with no intermission. It was a tough, superb performance and an exceptional piece of writing.

They mess with your emotions by loading the script with heaping helpings of sharp humor. Laughs abound. But they can’t fool me. They only do that for juxtaposition. They get you laughing so that when she’s crying in pain it seems all the more horrific. It’s the oldest trick on the book but it works. There was a lot of weeping in the house.

If anything, I suppose the play can be accused of being highly manipulative. But I dare anyone to not surrender to Nixon’s performance. I can’t imagine the critics saying anything negative about her or her excellent cast mates. (Although, you never know, with those bitter old queens.) In the last scene, in a final act of heroism, Nixon stands in a bright, white spotlight, arms stretched upwards, completely naked. Not that her nakedness was the primary focus of the moment. But I did notice.

As I was saying...

2012-01-10T13:05:00.000-08:00

For the past few years, December has had the uncanny ability to be a watershed month for both joy and cruelty. The Christmas season arrives all wrapped up in a pretty package that contains bad news on my doorstep I couldn’t take one more step. So I didn’t care to write very much. It’s difficult to type with a 50-pound stone strapped to your back.

I used to have a pretty good belly laugh at the expense of people who constantly poured over facebook, twitter and other social media sites. Foursqare. Please. “Here I am everyone! Look at ME!” Don't be such a stooge for Madison Avenue. Get a life.

Then I stopped posting to my blog.

Those first few weeks of not posting exacerbated my melancholy. I couldn’t put my thumb on it. Then I recognized that old, familiar pang. I got the same blue blues you get from a break-up. As the years peel away, I find there are fewer and fewer people in my social circle. One of Christopher Hitchens' parting shots before he died was, "As you get older, you realize that you can’t meet any new old friends." And I realized that over the years, unbeknown to me, this stupid, tedious blog had become an on-call friend. This explains my weird obsession with my comments section. Along with my other issues, I was grieving over the loss of that connection.

Who’s laughing now?

It’s a shame that I didn't post any photos of the city over Christmas/New Years because that has become one of my favorite holiday traditions. The town gets all gussied up like an old, cheap, broken-down, 10-cent whore on my arm and I like to show her off. Bergdorf had the best window displays I‘ve ever seen. But the few times I sat at a keyboard, all it spat out was dreary junk. And you know what you do with dreary junk, don't you? You throw it in the garbage.

Thank-you x 1,000 for your thoughtful comments and emails.

* * *

I had these left over in my iPhone. Consider them a late entry for the holiday season.

Not all holiday window displays are of the heartfelt Norman Rockwell/ Hallmark variety, particularly here in New York. A drug store on 57th Street really knows how to get into the spirit of things in a Tim Burton-ish kind of way.

This consumer-crazed holiday shopper...

...is actually a monstrous 8-armed shopaholic, grabbing everything off a store shelf that comes within reach of her tentacles. To hell with credit card limits! This is Christmastime in America, baby!

Poor, clumsy Santa had a Christmas Eve mishap. This'll be one Christmas morning the kiddies will never forget.

As I gazed into Santa's glassy, dead eyes, I got the notion that this was once a female. So much gender confusion going on these days!

Ommmmmchristmas.

* * *

If things don't start to improve around here I could throw another hissy-fit and disappear again. Just so you know.

All I Want for Christmas

2011-11-30T20:01:00.000-08:00

I've been pumping out these stupid posts for close to four years now and have done so selflessly without asking for, nor expecting, any kind of compensation. I do it because I love you all so bloody much. I just want to be your performing chimp. But now it's time for you guys to step-up, band together and show me a little love. On December 13th, Sotheby's will hold an important rare book auction here in New York. I think it would be a special treat if you guys could somehow pool your resources and gift the following to me for Christmas:

A first edition of Ian Fleming's Goldfinger, inscribed to Raymond Chandler: To Ray. With much affection. From Ian.

Are you kidding me?! Do I want a first edition of Goldfinger inscribed by James Bond to Philip Marlowe? Yes, I do! Fleming, a book collector himself, rarely inscribed books. This is an association copy. An association copy is inscribed by the author to someone significant. It could be his wife or his editor or the guy who helped invent L.A. noir detective fiction. Estimate: $60,000-80,000. C'mon guys! You can do it! Pretty please. You can also pick up Chandler's personal copies of Casino Royale and Live and Let Die, but since they're not inscribed by Fleming, the estimate is a measly $7,000-10,000.

There's a large representation of signed Raymond Chandler books in this auction. There are many personal copies, including his own copy of The Big Sleep, lovingly inscribed to himself: For me. Without my compliments. Raymond Chandler. Riverside. February 1, 1939.

The fact that it's signed in the year of publication (perhaps the DAY OF publication) is significant to collectors. Estimate: $60,000-80,000.

Longtime readers know how much Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird means to me. It changed the course of my life. Well, here's my one and only chance to own a signed first edition. The estimate is $20,000-30,000 but, really, how do you put a price on something that transcends monetary value?

There are a few oddities in the auction, including Charlie Chaplin's bowler hat (estimate $15,000-20,000) and, perhaps strangest of all, the original Apple Computer Partnership Agreement and Dissolution of Contract signed by Jobs, Wozniak and Ronald G. Wayne in 1976. The estimate is an astronomical $100,000-150,000! I suppose some wealthy computer geek would be interested in this. Personally, I'd go for the copy of Goldfinger. Jobs signed his name in all lower case letters. What a weirdo.

I have a pretty healthy collection of Graham Greene first editions. There's one title that NEVER comes on the market; his third novel, Rumour at Nightfall. Greene so despised this book that he had it suppressed immediately after its publication. The only way you're going to read this and find out just how bad it is, is to buy a first edition. And this spectacular example is estimated at $50,000-60,000.

Dear self: Snap out of it!

2011-11-28T04:30:00.000-08:00

My niece and nephew were in town for the four-day Thanksgiving holiday. The two of them are quite gifted. They show an intelligence and a creativity beyond their years. My father-in-law was doing the New York Times crossword puzzle and he asked my nephew for a four-letter word for karate school. He correctly answered "dojo." He also identified a passage through time and space as a wormhole. He's 7-years old. My niece sketched a pear on a table while the other kids sat blank-faced in front of a TV watching Toy Story. She showed the proper light source and correct shading to give it a globular appearance. She's 9.

I was thinking about all this as I was driving home and then it hit me right between the eyes. The most destructive of all human emotions.

Envy.

Envy, despite the fact that I have two healthy, happy, attractive little girls who I wouldn't trade for anyone. Envy that my daughters are only well-adjusted and well-behaved, but not academically exceptional.

Enjoys dancing to mariachi music with a flower in her teeth.

What the hell's wrong with me? I'm no better than the creepy parents on the Upper East Side of Manhattan who dress their yuppie larvae in Brooks Brothers finery and jockey to get them into expensive private preschools in the hopes that 18 years from now it'll be a leg-up when applying to an Ivy League institution, all of which has more to do with the parent's public image than the welfare of their child.

I'm trying not to be too terribly hard on myself. I'm a firm believer in the old adage that the first step is admitting you have a problem, so thank God I've turned that corner. A friend of mine blasted me for being irrational and said I should count my blessings. He cautioned that gifted children can sometimes wind up feeling isolated or be social misfits. Perhaps these silly feelings of mine are nothing more than the small stones that every parent must chew and swallow.

* * *

Everyone at work has a nameplate outside their office. Check out this guy's name:

Gesundheit!

Get it?

Frightening the Kiddies: Tim Burton/Thanksgiving Edition

2011-11-21T12:40:00.000-08:00

If you're in the U.S., don't forget to tune in to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade this Thursday morning. It's nothing more than a three-hour commercial, but I've been watching it ever since I was a little kid and wouldn't miss it. I even attended once! Much like a trip to the Statue of Liberty and spending New Year's Eve in Times Square, once is enough. I froze my ass off. A pal of mine liberated about a dozen tiny bottles of Harvey's Bristol Cream from a British Airways flight and brought them in a paper bag. Drinking amongst all those happy families and little children felt kind of creepy, but drink we did.

I have no idea how THIS got approved but this first pic is one of the new balloons. It was designed by Tim Burton! Seeing "Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade" and "Tim Burton" appear in the same paragraph is something I never could have predicted. The character is B. Boy. According to Mr. Burton:

B. was created, Frankenstein’s monster-style, from the leftover balloons used in children’s parties at the Great Ormond Street Hospital in London. Forbidden from playing with other children because of his jagged teeth and crazy-quilt stitching, B. retreated to a basement lair, where he obsesses over Albert Lamorisse’s film "The Red Balloon" and dreams that he, too, will be able to fly someday.

Fantastic. This may portend a general turn to weirdness, as last years' parade debuted Kaikai and Kiki, balloons created by Takashi Murakami.

Surprisingly, NONE of these new balloons exist to promote a product. I guess you can classify them solely as artistic endeavors. It's enough to give you hope. Here's how Mr. Murakami dressed last year to march alongside Kaikai and Kiki. I'm hoping that Mr. Burton dons an appropriate outfit to march alongside B. Boy.

Tiny Demons

2011-11-18T16:05:00.000-08:00

We send The Daughter to CCD. For the uninitiated, CCD is the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine. Sounds ominous, doesn’t it? It is. It’s where you send your kids if you’re Catholic but don’t attend a parochial school. It’s religion class. I attended when I was a kid and I turned out okay. (Didn’t I?)

I think it’s good that Mrs. Wife takes them to church and gives them a spiritual foundation. Later on, when they get older, they can make up their own minds as to whether they want to continue to embrace church teachings or do as I did and reject Catholicism. I predict that they will become, what I refer to as, Chinese menu Catholics. About 90% of Catholics are Chinese menu Catholics. My mom was one. You pick and choose which aspects of church doctrine you are comfortable with, but reject the silly stuff. Most Catholics don’t feel that birth control is a sin. Divorcees stand in line for communion. For many years, you weren’t supposed to eat meat on Friday, but so many people ignored that one that *presto!* it’s no longer a sin. I believe that most Catholics would love to see women enter the priesthood. I would.

I was surprised to discover that The Daughter's CCD class was taught by a student from the local Catholic high school. I was always taught by either nuns or parents. I think my mom even taught classes for a while. It seemed to me that leaving some poor high school girl to the tender mercies of a room full of 9-year olds was unfair but, apparently, she’s a whiz with kids and it works.

You know what happens when there’s a substitute teacher, right? Bedlam! Except that this evening, it wasn’t the students who rioted. Their usual beloved teacher was out sick so she was replaced by two mean girls from the Catholic high school. They proceeded to tear the class apart. They made fun of one kid's name and told some poor girl she was a nerd. They immediately spotted the class hellion, a kindred spirit, and bonded with him. He performed a profanity-laced rap song which the girls recorded on their phones. It’s probably up on YouTube right now. It’s the first time The Daughter heard the word “fuck” so now THAT cat’s out of the bag. After his rapping, he told my daughter’s friend that he was going to “...put my foot up your ass.” Nine years old! It was about as far away from the teachings of Mathew, Mark, Luke and John as you can get.

The next morning, Mrs. Wife wrote a fantastic, scathing letter to the director of the church and CCD program. Apparently, they were deluged with similar letters. As Daughter was relaying this, I got angrier and angrier. I mean, scary angry. Don't make me elaborate. This sort of thing is going to happen with increasing frequency as she gets older. I'm worried about my self control. Or lack thereof. I'm not a tough guy. I'm liable to get my ass kicked pretty good.

Central Park + Autumn

2011-11-14T06:09:00.000-08:00

Typically, I'll spend my lunch hour reading in Central Park. I've been reading Haruki Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle for the past several weeks. It's a 600-page behemoth. I usually avoid books of this girth because I don't have as much time to read as I used to and it takes too bloody long to finish. Murakami's new book, IQ84 is 925 pages! The new Stephen King novel is 850 pages! What the hell is wrong with these guys!? I once asked Nick Hornby how he was able to get through so many books and he told me to keep in mind that he doesn't have a "proper job." So that's the secret. But I like Murakami and was willing to make an exception. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is good, but not nearly as good as Norwegian Wood. That book is his masterpiece.

Anyway, last week, I left my book in the office, grabbed my camera and went for a stroll. Here's one of the most photographed stone bridges in the world. I, myself, have posted numerous pics of this bridge in various seasons.

Here's the view looking south at The Plaza Hotel. The Plaza was bought and refurbished by Donald Trump. Trump is kind of a buffoon and I can't stand his taste in architecture, but The Plaza was a landmark of faded beauty that needed rehabilitating, so I guess I'm okay with it. I'm just grateful that he didn't wrap the building in gold and mirrors. He likes shiny things. He's like a parrot.

I took this one with my iPhone and ran it through a vibrancy filter. Not sure I like the results. It gooses up the color levels a bit too much for my tastes and gives it an unnatural look. The greens are too green. It's like looking at an old black and white movie that's been colorized.

As I was uploading these, it dawned on me that they look rather pedestrian. Like greeting card photos or holiday photos your friends bore you with. Too late. I was too deep into the process to stop.

Musicians, musicians everywhere, but not a venue to perform in! Throw a stone in any direction and you'll hit someone who has mastered their instrument but has to busk for a living. The acoustics of this passageway are perfect for a sax, don't you think?

And, of course, this being New York City, as I was enjoying this splendid performance, some guy walked up to the passageway entrance and relieved himself. Right in front of me! He heaved a great, audible, sigh of relief. You've really got to take the good with the bad in this place.

:15 second reviews

2011-11-11T04:42:00.000-08:00

I can't put these off any longer. I'll try be as succinct as possible but you know how I can get.

* * *

I've seen a few of Theresa Rebeck's plays and her new comedy, Seminar, is clearly her best work. There is no thinness to the characters (which was an problem with Mauritius). Rock solid performances from everyone. That damn Alan Rickman knows how to chew up a stage. In the good way. He plays a writer of faded glory who gives private lessons to aspiring authors. He's not a gentle instructor. Here's his teaching philosophy in a nutshell on a poster outside the theater:

Isn't that a great line? The play is loaded with them.

As my pal CB said afterwards, Rickman could read the phone directory in a compelling manner. There are no weak links in the supporting cast. Lily Rabe, who I saw go toe-to-toe with Al Pacino last season in Merchant of Venice, stands her ground in front of another seasoned veteran. Great direction and pacing. Can't wait for the reviews. I'm CERTAIN the critics will agree with me [this time].

* * *

What the hell was I doing at this show? I'm not a fan of Big! Broadway! Musicals! They're too damn cheery. I am NOT the target audience for this sort of thing. Hugh Jackman Back on Broadway is a one-man singing and dancing extravaganza. (Well...one man with a full 18-piece orchestra and six hot, hot back-up singers who have angelic voices and look to have been poured into their little black dresses.

The pre-opening hype has been fierce. The understanding around town is that the run is completely sold out and is, therefore, critic-proof. A sweet spot to be in! I was walking past the Times Square half-price ticket booth on my way home from work and, astonishingly, discount tickets were available. I got caught up in the groundswell of hype and decided to go. The lady in the ticket booth told me Jackman insisted that blocks of tickets be made available at a discount to make it affordable to a wider audience. Nice guy!

It's as good as they say it is. I'm sure the critics are going to fall all over themselves with praise. But I probably would have enjoyed it more if I were a fan of musicals. Did I need to hear Oh, What a Beautiful Morning or songs from Carousel and The Music Man? Not so much. He played clips from his movies and made very funny self-effacing comments about them. He juxtaposed still photos of big, tough, Wolverine with big, gay, Peter Allen, who he played on Broadway a few years ago. A helluva good dancer. He worked his ass off to please the crowd and isn't that where the rubber meets the road?

* * *

How's this for a pedigree: Three one-acts written by Ethan Cohen, Woody Alan and Elaine May. A large cast of seasoned professionals including Julie Kavner, Marlo Thomas and Steven Guttenberg. How can it go wrong?

When it opened a few weeks ago, it received lukewarm reviews. Once again, the critics got it wrong. Lukewarm is being kind. It was one of the worst things I've seen in quite some time. If it were one play, I would have walked out at intermission but because it was three separate pieces, I hung in there hoping the next one would be better. The Woody Alan piece was so filled with negative Jewish stereotypes that if a Gentile had written it, Mossad would assassinate them. The Cohen play unraveled at the end and not only was Elaine May's contribution NOT funny, it actually made me angry. She was the biggest offender. The three of them owe me a refund.

* * *

The Public Theater down in the East Village is NYC's epicenter for Shakespearean productions. It's been around for a long, long time. Currently on the main stage, there's a production of King Lear starring Sam Waterson that got a bunch of mediocre reviews. The production is 3:30 long and it's not cheap! I won't be going to that. But I DID see a spectacular production of Love's Labor's Lost in the tiny, upstairs theater.

Not many props. Sparse costume budget. But there was electricity in the air, which just goes to show you that venue and marquee names count for very little. It's all in the acting, kid. It's one of those productions tucked into a corner that I discovered and want to share with everyone. The tickets were a measly $15 bucks! I've paid more and have gotten a lot less in return (see above). I think Love's Labor's Lost is considered one of Shakespeare's early lightweight plays but I thought parts of it had real gravitas. [Note to Daisyfae: the Princess of France, the lead female role, was played by Renee Elise Goldsberry, who played the upscale wife in Good People. Now, THAT'S range!]

* * *

Poor Hugh Dancy.

Imagine turning out an exhausting, effective performance, but having to share the stage with a firecracker just out of acting school. Such is poor Hugh's plight. In Venus in Fur, he plays a director trying to cast a role. He shares the stage with Nina Arianda, who just recently graduated from the NYU acting program. Graduate from school and go to Broadway! That's like a newly minted lawyer arguing a case in front of the Supreme Court.

It's a two-hander so there's no place for the actors to hide. I couldn't take my eyes off of her. That she's a Goddess dressed in black leather and lace underthings who exudes sexuality throughout much of the show certainly does not help poor Hugh. I think her seductions were directed at me specifically, even though I was in the back of the balcony. I wonder how she was able to sense my presence from so far away? Acting!

Part 2: Bad Art for Sale

2011-11-08T12:05:00.000-08:00

[Edit]: I misidentified the Tomato man sculpture below. It's called Tomato Head (green) by Paul McCarthy. The estimate was $1,000,000-1,500,000. It sold last night for $4,562,500. My feelings about the piece have not changed. I've added the prices realized. Prices include buyer's premium.

Last week's Impressionist auction at Christie's met with limited success. Degas' Little Dancer failed to sell. The experts feel the $25 million estimate was too aggressive. Many of the lots didn't sell. It's the economy, stupid!

So we move from the sublime to the ridiculous. The Contemporary Art auctions will be held this week. There are a few interesting lots but I have chosen to focus on the pieces that I simply don't understand. They strike me as preposterous and the estimates make me dizzy.

It's the old kitchen sink argument I can do that myself. It's a silly thing to say. One can retort well, then, why don't you? But logic has never been welcome on this blog and I'm not about to start now. So take a walk with me. This is the kind of self-indulgent junk that makes people dismiss art and shun museums.

This is Driftwood by Richard Long. It's 48 pieces of driftwood laid out just so on the floor. That's it. Chunks of wood on the floor. If I brought 5-Year Old Daughter to this, she'd immediately start picking them up and stacking them, thereby ruining the aesthetic of the piece. Estimate: $100,000-150,000. Did not sell.

Here's a doozy. This is Untitled (Into a Greater World) by Jim Hodges. It's a statue of a guy with a gigantic tomato head, a block of wood for a penis and a carrot stuck up his ass, surrounded by gardening tools and blocks of wood. Where would you display something like this? No corporation is going to put this in their lobby. I hope.

Is this supposed to be playful? Because I would argue that any playfulness is negated by the carrot sodomy. Even the title reeks of pretense. Untitled, but then, a title. Oy. Estimate: $500,000-700,000. Yeah. I'd be willing to drop half a million on this.

I'm probably going to catch some hell for this. This is Untitled by Jean-Michel Basquiat who I cannot stand. This is a terrible piece. It's infantile scribbling. Basquiat helped legitimize graffiti as an art form. The people who deemed graffiti "art" lived uptown and didn't have to look at it every day while walking to the corner bodega for a quart of milk. It got old. Take my word for it. And stupidly throwing your successful life/career away on a heroin overdose is inexcusable. Estimate: $900,000-1,200,000. Sold for $2,546,500.

This is 6765 by Mario Merz. 85 stacks of aging newspapers with glass plates and neon tubes. Actually, I saw something just like this last weekend at the town recycling center. Estimate: $750,000-950,000. Sold for $1,426,500.

Flowers, Mary's Table by de Kooning. I don't like ANYTHING de Kooning did. It's noise. This piece gave me a headache just by walking past it. Ready for this? Estimate: $8,000,000-12,000,000. Totally worth it. Did not sell.

Another head-scratcher. One and Three Coats by Joseph Kosuth is a photograph of a leather coat, the leather coat and the definition of coat. Again, I ask, where is the artistic merit in this? And where would you proudly display it? Estimate: $140,000-180,000. Sold for $146,500.

I LIKE THIS ONE

Finally, a Jeff Koons I can appreciate. Two Ball Total Equilibrium Tank (Spalding Dr. J. Silver Series, Wilson Aggressor). Two basketballs suspended in sodium chloride reagent and distilled water. You'd have to see this in person to really appreciate it. It's bright and clean with sharp edges and it's funny. I love it. But not for $2,000,000-3,000,000. Sold for $4,226,500.

Random NYC Photos: Dark Shadows

2011-11-05T15:40:00.001-07:00

There are a couple of days in the year when the sun rises and sets in perfect alignment with the city grid. This anomaly produces some interesting, long shadows.

These were taken early in the morning, just after sunrise.

This only happens for a couple of mornings and if it's cloudy you miss it altogether. The sun moves out of alignment within a few minutes. It doesn't last long. I took these from my 10th floor office.

As the sun appears just above the horizon, the shadows stretch almost the length of the avenue.

* * *

We went to Costco today, which is always a horrific experience for me. I think we needed some soap but ended up spending $171.83 on impulse purchases mostly instigated by ME. Did I really need that big plastic jug of chocolate covered almonds? It seemed pretty important at the time. I walk up and down the aisles like a goddamn zombie.

I am easily distracted. If I spot a shiny object out of the corner of my eye, I'll wander off to examine it, leaving dear family behind. Sometimes, I'll be sampling some Italian sausage or mac and cheese, look up and discover that I'm all alone. I had to phone Mrs. Wife TWICE to locate them. It's a big, scary, crowded place!

After locating everyone the second time, 9-Year Old Daughter handed me this note as a reminder to pay attention to my surroundings.

Part 1: Good Art for Sale

2011-11-02T06:45:00.000-07:00

This week is the start of the fall auction season here in New York. Christie's and Sotheby's are holding big, BIG Impressionist and Modern auctions. As is longstanding tradition, all lots are put on display a few days prior to the auction. It's always been important for me to try and visit the auction houses and view the works before they're sold. They're like great museum shows except you can buy stuff. These are pieces that were held in private hands and after the auction will disappear back into private hands, where they will never be seen by the public (i.e., me) again.

I'm lucky enough to work just a few blocks away from Christie's, so I popped over on my lunch hour. Here are a few lots that I would love to own, but never will for obvious reasons. Please take a minute and really meditate on the estimates. Try to grasp the astronomical amount of cash that these works might sell for. It boggles the mind! The first painting is being sold in London and the estimate is in British Pounds. Also, the quality of the pics isn't that great. The lighting wasn't optimal and you can only do so much with a cell phone camera.

Part 2 will be a post of art for sale that boggles the mind for a different reason.

Here's a lovely, thick van Gogh that's estimated to sell for £5,000,000 - 7,000,000. Remember, van Gogh died broke, having sold only one painting to his brother.

I became a bigger fan of Mark Rothko after I saw Alfred Molina play him on stage. The play, Red, gave me a better understanding of his work and his creative process. Estimate: $18,000,000 - $25,000,000.

How would this Matisse look hanging in your parlor? Estimate: $4,000,000 - $6,000,000. I think I remember a storyline in Doonsbury whereby Zonker won the lottery and spent all the money on a Monet. He ruined it by spilling mayonnaise on it. If I had this Matisse, I'd probably do something like that.

Here's one of Andy's Liz's! Pretty lips. Estimate: $16,000,000 - $19,000,000.

Margaret Thatcher once called Francis Bacon, "That horrible man." That's good enough for me! I especially like Bacon's sinister painting of the Pope. I had to take this photo on an angle because of the glare from the glass. Estimate: $12,000,000 - $18,000,000.

Finally, here's the crown jewel of the auction. One of Degas' little dancer statues. You don't see many of these come out on the open market!

9-Year Old Daughter has been in love with this statue for a long time and I'm sure she'd like to see it adorn bedroom. At bedtime, I used to read a children's book to her about the little girl who posed for the statue. I think the story was contrived but it did serve to endear her to the statue.

When The Daughter turns the corner and sees her at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, it's like she's seeing a long, lost friend. Estimate: $25,000,000 - $35,000,000!!

Another cell phone imbecile

2011-10-31T04:42:00.000-07:00

Cell phones are here to stay. I'm trying not to sound dramatic but I think that, for many people, giving up their cell phone would be akin to kicking heroin. They are permanently weaved into the fabric of society, so should I just accept them. [By the way, I think that the UK/Euro "mobile" phone is a far more apt term. We should adapt it here.]

But vent, I must.

On my way out of the city I stumbled across this imbecile. She's holding a conversation on one phone, while having a separate texting conversation on a second. Why do I let this stuff get under my skin? She's not bothering me. Proof positive that I am a curmudgeon. You can take the boy out of the city, etc.

I showed these pics to Mrs. Wife and she said, "What's the big deal? One phone is probably for business and the other is personal." And I get that. But I see this sort of gadget-overload with increasing frequency and it worries me. What are we turning into? Hasn't the promise of new technology always been to make our lives easier and set us free? Look at this poor thing! She's enslaved by technology. She'd probably have a public meltdown if both batteries died simultaneously.

I'm still not very good at meditation, even though I've been doing it for a few years. But occasionally, I catch a wave. I can't tell you how refreshing it is to empty all the noise out of your head and sit in perfect silence, do nothing and, best of all, think nothing. It's a peace you'll never experience while juggling cell phone conversations.

* * *

As long as I'm on an anti-technology kick...

This has been floating around in the ether for a while now. Have you seen it? It's a spoof of Facebook users and it's hysterical. Everyone is reduced to a nice, neat stereotype. Breeder Betsy. Alcoholic Alice. Perfect Pam. etc. Each funny comment is posted by "The Enabler."

The sad part, the part that resonates with me, is the true part. Let's face it; reading a book is a lot more work than going on Facebook. But just think of how rich our lives would be if we all put down our gadgets and read more.

Recently, on the way home from the city, I sat next to a guy who spent half the ride scrolling through Facebook and the other half playing games on his phone. He could be reading On The Road. And I'll bet he'd love it. But Facebook is easier. And after a hard day of counting beans and pushing buttons, who wants to work more?

— OR —

Do I make fun of the girl above and mock people on Facebook because I'm jealous? I don't have a Facebook account. I don't need a website to constantly remind me of how few friends I have. I can count them on one hand and have a few fingers to spare. The girl above is sustaining two conversations. I, on the other hand, got my new phone in May and haven't bothered to set up my voicemail because I never get any calls. So maybe this is all just a case of simple, human envy.

Perhaps the truth lies somewhere in between.

Anti-Greek

2011-10-27T04:50:00.000-07:00

What's this, then?! European banks have just agreed to forgive upwards of 50% of Greek debt in order to avoid a Euro meltdown? Isn't that just rewarding a bunch of lay-about tax dodgers for their bad behavior? Do you suppose I could get JPMorgan Chase to forgive 50% of the principal on my mortgage? Probably not. Foolish me for being responsible.

Didn't Germany do their due diligence before signing up for the Euro and see that the Grecian lifestyle model couldn't possibly sustain itself? Why would you marry your currency to a society whose people throw their tax bills in the furnace and close their businesses for months at at time? I see that the Greeks finally got up off their fat, lazy asses to protest austerity measures. Hey, Greece. You're a bunch of soft babies.

As of this typing, European markets are +5%—an astonishing bump for one day. What do I know? Apparently, nothing.

* * *

I was scouring the help wanteds and came across a position that included the following in the description:

Facilitate the transfer of knowledge.

Develop/execute winning pursuit strategies.

What the hell does that even mean?! What a bunch of corporate gobbledygook. I can't believe I'm trapped in this world. Why the hell didn't I learn to paint or play guitar or write? ANYTHING to have kept me out of this machine?

* * *

5th Avenue as a catwalk. I was visiting the Apple Store on 5th and 59th and stumbled across this cool model shoot.

I usually don't pay any mind to this sort of thing but the gowns were beautiful. I think they might have been wedding gowns. I'm not sure. They were shooting in front of Bergdorf Goodman.

Hey, Pat, does this take you back? The models were striking these crazy poses!

The photographer was standing across 5th Avenue right next to me and had to snap photos between waves of traffic.

Most people just kept walking and didn't pay any attention to them. Here, a woman hails a cab and takes no note. What a bunch of cool cumbers New Yorkers are.

The change of a season

2011-10-23T15:03:00.000-07:00

After Steve Jobs passed away, these Post-It Note tributes popped up at Apple stores across the city. This is the Soho store. I thought the "sad Mac" was really clever.

* * *

I took 5-Year Old Daughter to the local town Halloween parade this afternoon. [9-Year Old was away at a birthday party at the Silverball Pinball Museum in Asbury Park. The Zombie Walk was also on tap for the Asbury Park boardwalk. I was wishing I was there.] After the parade, I watched some football. It is the clearest evidence yet that Fall has arrived. Time for thick sweaters, all-day pots of hot coffee and roast beef sandwiches. I love the change of the season and don't know how those who live in a uni-climate can stand it.

The suburbs have their Autumnal charms; the colorful leaves, the fragrance of burning leaves in the air, the hay rides and Fall festivals. New York City is lacking any of these natural beauties, but there's definitely a feeling of change in the air when Autumn arrives. Theater activity is picking up. [A play written by and starring Jesse Esienberg last week and Love's Labor's Lost at The Public this week.] I've posted this video for the past couple of years. Billie Holiday really captures the essence of walking through town on those shorter days and cooler nights.

Summer food fest photo follies

2011-10-20T04:05:00.000-07:00

I did a big photo-dump of my iPhone and found a bunch of food shots taken over the summer. I had intended to provide my usual droll commentary for each but never got around to it. Does that happen to you? Do you have a big backlog of material that never actually makes it to Publish Post? I think I throw away more than I post. Lucky for you.

Summer is synonymous with eating scrumptious dishes that might not necessarily be in my best interest from a health and wellness standpoint. I should be more mindful of what I put in my body since I have very young children and need to be around for a few more decades. It doesn't help that I bought our healthcare plan from some guy in the Times Square subway station who was selling policies off a card table. But I simply CANNOT HELP MYSELF when faced with these masterpieces of culinary artistic endeavor. These hard/bad choices are almost exclusively related to our annual trip to Cleveland. Make of that what you will.

It's probably because it's what I was raised on, but I feel there's no better pizza than what's served on the great North Coast of Ohio. The style of crust in Cleveland is thicker than the weak, thin-crust variety served on the eastern seaboard, but it's not nearly as thick as Chicago deep dish pizza. Like it's place on the map, Cleveland crust is somewhere between the two.

This is the supreme-ninja-grandmaster-combo of all time; pepperoni, anchovies and onions. I'll bet you're having trouble breathing right now, aren't you? Back in New Jersey I am surrounded by the IRISH, who apparently have a broad cultural disdain for the delicioso tiny, salty fish, so the only time I ever actually GET an anchovy pie is in Cleveland amongst my Italian brethren. You can't have everything. The Italians are lousy playwrights.

For years, I have been writing ad nauseam about my bro-in-law's ribs. Their miraculous quality. The soulful essence that billows up from the grill when he lifts the lid. They have a narcotic, almost addictive quality. This past summer's batch were, as always, perfection and grace. It's October and I'm still having dreams about these beauties.

There was a new item on the menu this summer. He served homemade baked beans. He MADE them! I always assumed baked beans came from a can. I didn't know you could actually make the damn things from scratch. Boy, did they taste better than the ones that come dribbling out of a can. They looked more enticing, too. Just out of camera range: a bottle of Dortmunder Gold from the Great Lakes Brewing Company. Viva!

If I'm clutching a big fist full of Clevo ribs, that can only mean one thing; the marinara sauce is only a day or two away. I know the "old-world recipe handed down through the generations" is a tired, worn-out cliché, but that's exactly what you're looking at here, folks. It migrated over from Calabria, through Ellis Island to Cleveland, then to my grandmother, then mother and now sister. That's how it's done! One of my nieces had better learn how to make this. There'll be a pop quiz one day.

No, I didn't arrange the sausage and meatballs on my plate like that intentionally. I didn't even notice it until just now. What would Freud say?

Mom's parents immigrated from Italy but Dad's parents immigrated from Poland. Growing up, we weren't as steeped in Polish cuisine as we were Italian, but I still have a soft spot on my palate for it. The perogies that come off of Grandma Ski's Polish Food truck at the Cuyahoga County Fair are pretty much an exact replica of the ones that Grandma P used to make. As a child, I didn't have a great affinity for them and turned my nose up. But now, I gladly pay good money for something that was once free.

Take a look at "Grandma Ski." It looks like Grandma Ski can set up a little side business as an arc welder or mob enforcer.

After your big, heavy County Fair perogie orgy, for desert you can treat yourself to one of these:
Or not. NEW taste sensation, indeed.

Brush with death

2011-10-17T09:45:00.000-07:00

I was knocked on my ass with the flu all weekend. All my life I've had a fairly healthy constitution and never had a propensity to get sick. Since I have no benchmark for what it's like to be really ill, something like the flu seems cataclysmic to me. But this was a bad one. I didn't leave my bed for two days and was delirious.

I slept for astonishingly long periods of time. I occupied a half awake/half asleep dream state whereby I could hear things going on around me but couldn't respond to any of it. I looked really, really bad and was moaning a lot. At one point, 9-Year Old Daughter walked up to me and asked, in all seriousness, "Dad, are you going to die?"

I was tossing in bed having one of my torturous fever-dreams. Mrs. Wife and the two Daughters were gone from my life. Just like that! Pfft! No reason was provided by the devils sticking forks in me. Someone walked up and asked me, "Do you feel liberated?" I knew what he meant. And I thought about it. And my answer welled up from the part of me that was still of sound mind and I yelled at him, "No! Bring them back immediately!"

* * *

I started feeling dizzy on Friday night while in a Broadway house seeing Venus in Fur. If you were in the audience for that performance and don't feel quite up to par, you can blame me.

Hugh Dancy is such a good actor. He holds his place on a stage well. Not just a pretty boy. He turned out an exhausting, effective performance. But here's his problem: The show is a two-hander and he's sharing the stage with a newbie just out of acting school named Nina Arianda and she is a friggin' firecracker. She spends long swaths of the show in black leather and lace underthings seducing him and, I felt, me. It's hard to take your (my) eyes off of her. What I did see of Dancy was great. It's a play about control. Who has it. What are you willing to give it up for. It'll be interesting to see if any community theaters have the guts to put this on.

Unbearable recommendation

2011-10-13T03:40:00.000-07:00

Every time I pull the bucket up from the well of inspiration it's bone dry. Not a drop in it! Until that resolves itself, have a look at The Last Mortician, by writer Tim Hall and Emmy-winning cartoonist Dean Haspiel. Set the creepy meter to 11.

* * *

Random NYC iPhone photo.

The New York Times headquarters with taxi cabs.

Steel ribbon

2011-10-09T06:42:00.000-07:00

If you scroll down a bit, you'll see a post about the current "big space" exhibit at MoMA, which struck me as being somewhat bland and uninspired. Here, on the other hand, is how it's done.

The Gagosian gallery on 24th Street just opened Junction/Cycle, a thrill ride by Richard Serra. It's another of his room-filling steel ribbon sculptures. I love this guy's work. I pinched this first photo from the NY Times to give you a view from above that was not available to me. It affords some perspective on the scale and mass of the piece. The rest of these pics are mine.

The gallery is filled with huge, gently curved, slabs of steel. The metal is oxidized so it has a soft orange tint to it. We went on a sunny Saturday afternoon and the natural light pouring in made it glow where the sun hit it and cast dark shadows around corners.

I saw the piece he did at MoMA in 2007 and this one is even better. It fits beautifully into this gallery space. Again, 10,000 thank-yous to the Gagosian, who constantly puts on these fantastic exhibits for free. The Gagosian is not a museum but it continues to behave like one.

I was almost maniacally adamant to Mrs. Wife that we bring the girls in to see this. We are very fortunate to have this at our doorstep. I argued that not exposing them to stuff like this would boarder on irresponsible parenting. That may sound like a lot of histrionics but I really feel that way.

Besides, if you live in reasonably close proximity to this, have even a modicum of interest but don't bother to go, then all you're doing is suffering the high cost of living in this area without taking advantage of what's so great about it.

There are narrow passageways that can only be entered single file that open into winding orange canyons. The urge to reach out and touch the metal is overwhelming but there are security guards posted who prevent people from putting their oily, dirty hands on it. I completely understand. Can you imagine what this piece would look like after two months if thousands of people ran their fingers along it?

All apologies, as I went slightly overboard with the photos and a brief video at the end, but this exhibit loves the camera.

I hope you're looking at these on a proper monitor, as opposed to a smart phone.

This exhibit just opened and is up through November 26th. It's a shame they couldn't leave it up through the Christmas holiday. I'll make an effort to see it again before it closes.

My last two years have been a terrible struggle. My insufferably long commute is finally starting to grind me down, as is the relentless, ongoing search for permanent work. I'm grateful to be gainfully employed and love the work I'm doing right now, but consulting is not what I want. There are other difficulties that don't make their way into this blog because they're none of your business. But afternoons like this, to steal from Charles Bukowski:

...lift me high through the night
and put me down
in a better
place.

Do I have latent homophobic tendencies?

2011-10-05T05:20:00.000-07:00

The Great Gay White Way.

I saw a fantastic new play at the Roundabout Theater. Sons of the Profit is still in previews and it'll be interesting to see what the critics say once it opens. I always like to have my opinion validated by the professionals, although sometimes it works the other way around. I loved Enron but it closed the week after it opened. What do I know?

Sons of the Profit is a well-written and superbly acted comedy/drama. Some of the plot elements regarding an aging family member in declining health hit a little too close to home for comfort, but most of it was very funny with a whip-smart script by Stephan Karam. I'd like to see it again to catch the punchlines I missed.

Here's what concerns me: There was a gay make-out scene, which typically isn't a big deal. But I suddenly found myself surprisingly uncomfortable watching two dudes paw at each other. This discomfort came out of nowhere! I've seen the original production of Angels in America and many other gay librettos and never gave this sort of thing a second thought. But this time, it pulled me out of the story and made me want to thumb through my Playbill until the scene ended.

Does that mean I have latent homophobic tendencies? Because all of a sudden I don't want to watch two guys make-out? I hope not! (Two girls making out is a completely different matter.) I reject the notion that it makes me uncomfortable because I might actually BE gay. All those decades in Manhattan afforded me plenty of opportunities to experiment, but it never interested me. I told one of my gay friends what happened and he suggested, in all seriousness, that I watch a bunch of gay porn to "desensitize" myself. What an idiot.

* * *

Speaking of gay theater, Mrs. Wife and I saw Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. I won tickets in a trivia contest. I'll see pretty much anything for free.

It seems mean spirited to say anything bad about it. It tries so hard to be a happy, crowd-pleasing show, but I'm not the target audience. I'm not big into musicals and the songs played throughout the show are the big disco hits that, when played on the radio, cause me to turn the station. So, IF you like drag queens to the 10th power and IF It's Raining Men makes you want to wave your hands above your head and IF you like to see what a costume designer's acid trip looks like, you'll love this show. The best part of the evening was being out with my lovely bride on her birthday, who seemed to enjoy herself tremendously.

Sitting next to us was a woman who brought her two children. By children, I mean they were so young that in order to see the stage, they needed those plastic booster seats that theaters keep on hand. This is NOT a show for toddlers! What the fuck is wrong with people? I wonder if mommy had to explain why the woman was shooting ping pong balls out of her vagina into the audience or why the man was wearing a silver panties and a bra ensemble?

HOMOPHOBE!

* * *

Look at this crazy picture Mrs. Wife took of me in Times Square just before the curtain of Priscilla. It looks like my big Polish kielbasa fell out of my pants!

It isn't Aul' Cyclops and it isn't Photoshop trickery, either. It's someone's leg!

They walked behind me just as she took the photo. When she saw it, she was laughing hysterically and claiming she didn't do it on purpose, but I know better. You can't fool me. I've been married a long time.

My last column

2011-10-02T05:42:00.000-07:00

For the past year, I've written a monthly column over at the Undie Press on collecting rare books. Specifically, I tried to convey why certain authors got under my skin and how I obtained some of the more rare pieces in my library. The quality of the column was uneven but overall I am pleased with the results. Having a monthly column taught me that a deadline can suck all the joy out of writing.

This month will be my final column. Undie Press is moving towards more traditional long-form publishing (as opposed to monthly bits and bites). Also, I've pretty much exhausted the subject of egomaniacally prattling on about my books.

Explicit warning: This last column contains nudity and sexual situations. Hence, it is one of my best. I'm glad to go out on a high note. Bukowski's Admirers is about how literary fame changed an alcoholic, pock-marked Charles Bukowski into an object of desire.

Many thanks to Tim Hall, Undie Press editor and publisher extraordinaire, for the opportunity.

Dog v. Porcupine

2011-09-30T03:44:00.000-07:00

I stumbled across this post from back in 2008 when I first opened this space and since most everyone reading today wasn't around back then (and since I have NOTHING to write about right now), I thought I'd rerun it. I'd forgotten all about it and it gave me a chuckle.

* * *

This is C.'s dog, Buddy. Buddy isn't all that bright and C. is the first person who'll point that out. You see, Buddy likes to chase porcupines. They're slow and easy to catch! This is the sixth time that Buddy has had a quill facial. You would think that he'd learn after the fourth or fifth time that porcupines = excruciating pain, but not our Buddy.

You can't see it in the photo, but he had quills running all down his chest and legs and some in his back, as well. He had to be anesthetized in order to have them removed and is sleeping it off behind the sofa. C.'s bank account is $400 lighter for the trouble (x 6 = $2,400). Oh, Buddy. Stop chasing porcupines. They'll always come out on top.

A deep cut begets deep anger

2011-09-26T10:26:00.000-07:00

"Daddy, I don't want to go to school anymore. They tease me."

It has come to light that my little 5-year old peanut of a daughter is being teased in kindergarten. At recess, she walks around the playground by herself. Kindergartners who have older siblings are taught early on how to stick the knife in. 9-Year Old Daughter has sailed through school without any of this nonsense, so this is new to me. Something biological kicks in when you discover your child is being picked on. A chemical reaction. It has fostered a swelling of anger in me that I've never experienced before.

Every class has one kid who is singled out and relentlessly hammered by everyone else. I had a bit of a problem with being picked on back in Eastpark Elementary School, but it was nothing as compared to what happened to poor Joy Keck. You didn't want to get near Joy or you would get "Joy Keck germs." Her torment continued straight through Midpark High. I don't recall her having one friend. I'd love to report that after high school, Joy gave Cleveland the middle finger and is now a successful cardiologist with homes in Beverly Hills and Geneva. But the truth is she committed suicide.

Mrs. Wife is taking the calm, rational approach. Writing letters. Trying to separate fact from fiction. I, on the other hand, would very much like to walk into her classroom and ask, "Honey, which one of these mutants is picking on you?", rip their tiny arms out of their tiny sockets and calmly ask, "Anyone else?" As satisfying as that would be, it's probably the wrong approach.

I just read an article about how kids are reluctant to report that they're being bullied. If you report you're being bullied, you label yourself as a victim and are likely to walk around feeling like one. If you make a public declaration that you're a victim, you'll be treated like a victim by everyone around you. Kids know this.

My greatest fear is that if we don't get a handle on this, it'll snowball and there'll be no end to it. She'll end up with the same low self-esteem her father is plagued with.

Ham ‘n art

2011-09-23T20:16:00.000-07:00

I usually sit on a bench and read in Central Park for my lunch hour but there was a terrific, pounding, rainstorm this afternoon so instead I walked across the street and took in the Carlito Carvalhosa: Sum of Days exhibit at MoMA. [Admission is $22.50 but I get in for free using my corporate ID. Working for “The Man” occasionally has its benefits.]

I love these big-room exhibits. It’s interesting to see what happens when you hand an open area this size to an artist. The last really good exhibit I saw in this space was the Marina Abramović bizarro starring contest.

Sum of Days is a floor to ceiling drape of soft, white, translucent fabric that’s hung in a spiral. The material is so thin that as you walk through it, it bellows and breathes when you disturb the air around it.

There are microphones hung that record whatever ambient noise visitors make. People clap, sing and whistle as they pass through and the recordings are played back in the museum. There are also a series of speakers that periodically play pieces by Philip Glass, Mick Rossi and a few others.

It all sounds like a great idea but it didn’t work for me. It reminded me of the world’s largest shower curtain.

My heart didn’t flutter the way it usually does when I turn corner and am faced with a piece this size. And I'm an easy audience!

* * *

I had a bit more time to kill so I wandered amongst the soaking wet tourists and did a quick “greatest hits” tour. I saw Picasso’s landmark Les Demoiselles d'Avignon...

...van Gogh’s crowd-pleasing Starry Night...

...Duchamp’s playful, yet, idiotic Bicycle Wheel...

…Modigliani’s seductive Reclining Nude…

…and Matisse’s vibrant Red Studio.

I discovered a new one, too. M’Amenez-y by Francis Picabia. I'm sure it's been hanging there all these years but sometimes you look but don't really see. I don't get it but it's fantastic! Fell free to provide a commentary on this. Use little words, please.

* * *

After that, I went back to my desk, ate a ham sandwich and got back to work. It was a nice repose. I'm sure I'll do it more frequently as the weather deteriorates.

A big de Kooning retrospective just opened at MoMA. 200+ pieces! But you won’t be reading about it here. No, sir! I’m not going. Do you know why? Because I don’t like ugly paintings.

More China-bashing

2011-09-22T04:35:00.000-07:00

Regular readers have enjoyed my occasional tirades against China, an evil country, run by corrupt individuals. The fact that I once suffered at the hands of a manager who was an insane, yammering Chinese woman only made my loathing of China deeper and richer.

I don't blog about hard news stories often but if I stumble across one that's going to reinforce my prejudices, I’m more than happy to oblige.

The Chinese steal every western technological innovation they can get their tiny hands on because they lack the freedom of imagination and creative juice necessary to invent things like Apple products and movies. Although, admittedly, they’ve gotten pretty good at hacking into the computer systems (a western invention) of other countries via the internet (another western invention). Also, paying royalties doesn’t mesh with their agenda of crushing the west.

My latest out-loud laugh at China came when they canceled Super Girl. Super Girl is an American Idol/Pop Idol rip-off. The official reason for the cancellation was that the show exceeded the :90 minute, state-imposed, time limit placed on ALL talent competitions. Additionally, it was branded as “vulgar, manipulative and poison for our youth.” The culture minister issued a harsh statement saying, “What the market chooses is not necessarily a good thing.” Have you seen Jersey Shore or Teen Mom? He might have a good point. He also said, “...we can’t have working people reveling all day in low culture.”

In its place, the state will run shows with programs that promote “healthy morals, public safety and practical information about housework.” One fan of Super Girl blogged, “I will never be happy again!” and another suggested that, “Maybe we need another revolution.”

The real reason it was canceled is that bureaucrats were caught off-guard by the show’s astounding popularity. The show relied on audience votes to pick the winner and the LAST thing the Politburo wants is for people to become accustom to voting.

I just won a pair of tickets to the Broadway musical Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. (Which, as an aside, I would never pay to see. It's just not my thing.) Mrs. Wife and I will soon be reveling in some low culture and I’ll bet our life will be better off for it.

If Christian fundamentalists were to come into power here in the U.S., I could see them doing the EXACT same thing as the Chinese communists. Canceling shows they deemed "poison for our youth." Controlling what's allowed over the airwaves so that only their approved messages came through. They're cut from the same cloth.

Bombs Away: Parts I and II

2011-09-18T18:15:00.000-07:00

Part I

Each morning while my Mac is booting up I stand at my window, cup of coffee in hand, and survey my fiefdom. I'm ten floors above 6th Avenue and from that vantage point the streets look like veins, flowing with taxis, buses and pedestrians.

On Wednesday morning I saw something new outside my window. Overnight, the hotel across the avenue had been ringed with concrete NYPD car/truck bomb barricades.

Many high-profile buildings in Manhattan have cement barricades that are disguised as planters, but the temporary ones used by the NYPD are more function than form. They're pretty obvious. The cops are expecting trouble.

The Warwick Hotel isn't exactly a top-tier hotel and I couldn't imagine what high profile guest would warrant protection against a possible truck bomb. It seems absurd. Then it came out in the news. This week, the UN General Assembly is meeting and this turd will be speaking:

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Iran and "wee man" syndrome sufferer, is staying right across the street. Boy, is the hotel catching hell. There will be protests. Great. I don't want to be collateral damage! Why can't he stay at the Iranian consulate's residence? More importantly, if I see him, would that count as a celebrity spotting? I hope he wears that snazzy 1988 Members Only jacket.

Part II

When I was 18, I thought it wasn't a proper party until someone dumped a beer on the carpet or broke a piece of furniture or the cops were called. Now that I'm ensconced in the suburbs, things don't get wild until the top layer of a two-layer cake...

...slides off onto the floor...

...bouncing off a chair on the way down. Some frosting was quickly applied to the surviving layer and all was forgotten but, my God, I couldn't stop laughing. I don't think it was appreciated when I started clicking photos with my iPhone. I couldn't help myself!

Urban cacti

2011-09-15T17:55:00.000-07:00

I stumbled across this exhibit during a trip to The Public Theater to pick up tickets for Love's Labor's Lost. [They're also doing Titus Andronicus, which is a real bloodbath of a play. One rape, one tongue cut out, three hands chopped off, a castration and two ground-up heads baked into a pie. Shakespeare at The Public for only $15 bucks! Seriously, if you live in the vicinity, you owe it to yourself to take advantage of this.]

Believe it or not, this exhibit was commissioned by the NYC Department of Transportation. Who knew transportation funds were being allocated for public art? I approve! Flaming Cactus, a product of the Animus Arts Collective, is a wrap project. Thousands of fluorescent colored cable ties are attached to lampposts surrounding Astor Place.

I was there during the afternoon rush hour and nobody stopped to look at it. It's been there for a month so perhaps they're locals who are sick of it. I think it's pretty neat. And it's weatherproof!

I appreciate the fact that the artists chose a color scheme that would compliment Starbucks' brand palate. How thoughtful!

Each strip had to be put on individually by hand. Imagine the amount of work involved! What a crazy, labor-intensive project. But it works.

They look more like fine hairs than cactus needles, especially from a distance.

* * *

I was having a pre-theater stinky gyro and realized that I have been coming to this same gyro joint in Greenwich Village and sitting at this same table since I was 21. I've never revealed my age, and I'm sure as hell not going to do it now, but take my word for it, that's a loooong time ago and a LOT of gyros down the gullet. I'm happy to report that the quality has remained consistent through the decades.

This is where 6th Avenue, West 4th St. and Cornelia St. come to a point. The table is practically right on the sidewalk and is perfect for dinner and a show (the show being, NYC).

My long, lost buddy, Klinger, used to live two doors down in a tiny second floor apartment with French windows that opened onto Cornelia St. He would throw crazy, overcrowded parties. We were both utterly smitten with the same girl, Mimi (an actress, of course). She thought we were two nice, funny boys but she was involved with a successful artist who would take her to his place in the Hamptons on summer weekends. Klinger and I would eat gyros, drink cheap draft beer and wallow in our broken-hearted loserdom. Good times.

* * *

Bad trades by a rogue trader cost the United Bank of Switzerland (UBS) $2 billion. That's billion with a big B. Believe me, if that guy had MADE $2 billion, they'd have given him a raise, a corner office and a promotion, despite the rogue activity. That industry is amoral.

Two anniversaries. One dark. One light.

2011-09-11T14:50:00.000-07:00

This weekend here in NY/NJ, everyone is focused on the 10th anniversary of 9/11. Is it like that where you live, or is it the third story in the newscast? It looks to me like the overwhelming display of grief is reopening a lot of old wounds. But it's necessary. It's right. The memorial. The special programing on TV. The visiting dignitaries. It has to be done.

Mrs. Wife and I lived in the East Village, less than a mile from the WTC. We both worked in midtown and had to walk home because the transit system was shut down. She was six months pregnant and was wearing terrible shoes that chewed her feet up. We had to stop so she could rest. The streets were choked with people trying to get home. It's the only time I saw New Yorkers not complain about being inconvenienced. The air stunk like burning electricity for weeks after. South of Houston St., where we lived, was a militarized zone and we had to show ID and pass an armed checkpoint in order to get home. But we were alive and so were all of our friends, and that's what mattered.

Architectural purists complained about the design of the World Trade Center but I loved it. I would ride my bike there all the time. If you stood with your back against one of the towers and looked up, an optical illusion made the tower seem as if it were bending over you. Even more so if you had a few good bong hits in you. They were astonishingly tall buildings. When flying home, those two towers were the first things I'd see. Hello, fellas! It's good to be back!

Here's a very good exhibit that's up in Bryant Park for only two days. There are 2,819 empty chairs lined up across the lawn; one for each life lost in the attack. They're all pointed south where the World Trade Center once stood.

Our wedding anniversary is 9/11. Not THE 9/11. Today is 12 years. For the first few years after the attacks, I didn't feel that being in a celebratory mood was respectful or right. I feel awful that some families were torn asunder and that my beautiful shining city has a big gash in it. But I'm reclaiming 9/11 to celebrate my marriage. 12 years is a pretty damn good run. A lot of folks don't make it this far, but we did.

I lived in New York City, but 9/11 is so much more than a terrorist attack to me.

* * *

The annual 9/11 remembrance has given rise to a new sensation. In addition to the sad reflection and thoughtful meditation, 9/11 also serves as a reminder that autumn is upon us. It's the opening weekend of the football season. The weather turns cool. The theater season gets underway. The kids are back in school. It's time to swap out my summer clothes.

Also, it's the final week that this place, a New Jersey summer institution, is open.

Mrs. Wife and 9-Year Old Daughter place an order.

Young, nearly naked, lithe and Irish. 0% body fat.

2011-09-09T02:30:00.000-07:00

I could take the high road and say I was interested in seeing this show to study its aesthetics, but instead I’ll tell the truth. I was intrigued by this provocative and highly effective ad:

Just look at them. Couldn't you just eat them up? They’re dancers and you can see them in a blast furnace of a show called NOĊTÚ that’s in previews at the Irish Rep.

I've started this sentence three times and still cannot find the right combination of words to convey how much fun this show is. And, mind you, I'm not a big fan of dance. It's choreographed and directed by Riverdance Principal Dancer Breandán de Gallaí, but to simply call it “Irish dancing” seems wholly inadequate. It uses traditional step dancing merely as a jumping off point.

Maybe it’s because the Irish Rep is such a small venue and the dancers are right in your FACE. (I'm not certain it would work as well in a larger house.) Or perhaps it's the perfect song selections. Or maybe it’s because they're such accomplished dancers (they all have impressive bios). But this is such a powerful piece of theater. I wish I could take you to see it.

13 superb dancers wind their way through routines choreographed to the likes of Björk, Goldfrapp, Leonard Cohen (of course) and Kate Bush. There’s a seductive pas de trois to Imelda May’s My Big Bad Handsome Man that made me wish I had taken more chances when I was in my 20s. There's a section of Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite that’s worth another viewing (which I hope to get before word gets out and tickets vanish). Although, please, can you spare me the false ending? It's unnecessary. False endings are right up there with audience participation for spoiling my night out.

* * *

Can the Irish Rep ever do wrong?! It would seem not. Their next show is the rarely performed Dancing at Lughnasa by Brian Friel. The autumn theater season is just underway. Tonight, it's seasoned pro Frank Langella in Terrence Rattigan's 1963 drama Man and Boy at the Roundabout. It’s time, once again, for those dreary theater posts that you all pass over.

* * *

I did not listen to the President's speech last night. Nor did I watch the Republican presidential candidate debate on Wednesday. My apathy towards politicians is at an absolute nadir. None of those fucking clowns can help me with my problem. No one can. I have to figure it out for myself. We should all pray that NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg runs for President. There's a guy who could light the political fires under my ass again. But this current crop? Worse than useless.

Are New York Yankee fans brain damaged?

2011-09-06T10:25:00.000-07:00

Steiner Sports Gifts and Collectibles is an outfit that deals in sports memorabilia. Aside from the usual bubble gum cards and signed baseballs, they specialize in catering to wealthy micro-collectors. They cut “exclusive” deals with players and teams. They are big on partnering with the New York Yankees.

Yankee deity Derek Jeter hit his 3,000th major league hit this summer. Steiner Sports, in partnership with the Yankees consigliere, swooped in and created the following collectible items from the game where he achieved this milestone.

Bases used in the game: $7,000
Balls (unsigned): $2,000
Dirt that Jeter walked on from the shortstop and right-hand batters box: $250 for a half-ounce container
Jeter’s used sox: $1,000

Under a separate agreement, you can buy a vial of dirt from the old Yankee stadium that was demolished in 2008. And there’s no need to worry whether or not it’s legitimate Yankee Stadium dirt. Rest assured. All dirt sold by Steiner Sports Marketing is collected “under strict supervision to assure authenticity.” The target audience for these items appears to be brain damaged Yankee fans with deep pockets.

I understand the pull of nostalgia and the want to hold onto a piece of your youth. But this strikes me as both tragic and laughable. Ladies...if you walked into some guy's apartment and saw a container of (potentially bogus) Yankee Stadium dirt sitting in worship up on his mantle, would you not run for the hills as fast as your feet could carry you? I wouldn’t want The Daughters to date someone of this ilk.

* * *

Well! That was uncharacteristically mean-spirited! I usually try not to judge people too harshly but as long as I rang that bell, I might as well get it all out of my system. Buckle up.

* * *

If I was emperor of the planet for one day, I would write an irrevocable law that would state; if you are caught talking on a cell phone while walking down the sidewalk so loudly that everyone can hear you, you have to go to the county jail for seven days. If you’re using a Bluetooth, you have to go to a federal penitentiary for nine months. I know that sounds a bit harsh but things have gotten pretty bad out here.

* * *

I hurt myself at the gym in the stupidest way imaginable.

I was doing reverse curls (grab a barbell with palms facing inwards and pull it up to your chin). In front of me were two TV monitors. One was playing an interview with Sean Hannity and Dick Cheney. Sean, he of the steely look in the eye and jutting square jaw and Good Ole’ Dick, looking every bit the Bond villain he is, sat in front of an animated waving American flag backdrop. Two heroes. The other monitor played the corporate cyborg New York Yankees beating-up on the small-market Toronto Blue Jays.

My eyes frantically darted from one monitor to the other. I became so angry that I lost my concentration, pulled the barbell up too fast and smacked myself in the chin. My jaw snapped shut so hard that my teeth banged together. They still kind of hurt.

Anger. It’ll get you nowhere, brothers and sisters.

Winnie-the-Pooh's big cancer scare

2011-09-02T07:43:00.000-07:00

I had a horrendous dream yesterday morning. I was walking through a half animated/half real forest. Waddling down a pretty, sun speckled trail appeared none other than Winnie-the-Pooh, your favorite "bear of very little brain." But right behind him, waddling in hot pursuit, was ANOTHER Winnie-the-Pooh. The second Winnie had cancer! He was trying to catch the first Winnie to give him his cancer.

The only physical difference between the two was that the second, cancerous, Winnie-the-Pooh had white eyes instead of black. "Jesus Christ, Winnie, run! It's cancer, for fuck's sake!," I yelled. Realizing he was in mortal danger, healthy Winnie waddled as fast as he could, big, stupid smile frozen on his face, and kept repeating over and over "Oh, bother!, Oh, bother!"

My alarm went off and I woke up in an absolute stupor. I walked to the bathroom through thick air and replayed the dream over and over while in the shower. I got into the city, still not fully awake, turned the corner at 44th and Broadway and was hit in the face with this:

Sweet Mother Mary! The big Times Square Disney store animated billboard is featuring Pooh characters. It's as though this town is a living entity that peers into my innermost thoughts and daydreams and uses them to torment me. My iTouch shuffle does it sometimes, too.

* * *

A friend invited me over for a post-work glass of vino and a bite to eat. He lives on the Upper West Side and was home with his charming 3-year old daughter while his wife was out at a business dinner. I had some time to kill so I walked up from 54th and 6th, cut across a corner of Central Park, and then up Amsterdam Avenue into the west 70's. The sky was a brilliant blue hue and there was just a slight twinge of a cool breeze to announce the coming of autumn.

I didn't listen to my iTouch or bury my face in a smart phone (as many did). Instead, I did a lot of people-watching and soaked it all in. Walking up Central Park West and winding through the neighborhood, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the sense that I was surrounded by successful, happy people. People who had interesting careers and lots of friends. Pretty homes, perfect marriages, stable work they enjoyed and no financial duress. They don't get bad haircuts, don't drive a car with a big dent in the front quarter panel and don't wear shoes that hurt their feet. Frankly, it made me feel kind of sad.

Now, I know better. All those people who I clandestinely envied are probably just as neurotic and I am. Possibly more so. The Upper West Side of Manhattan is one of the top two epicenters in the U.S. for neurotic behavior (the other being the Upper East Side). But it seems to me they handle their neurosis with a lot more panache and joie de vivre than I do mine. I felt melancholy.

What are we longing for? Where does all this yearning come from?

—Pina Bausch

Schoolgirl outfits in Times Square

2011-08-31T04:09:00.000-07:00

I was on my morning slog through the middle of Times Square and stumbled across this delicious scene.

My goodness gracious! At at 6:25 a.m., no less! I think they're a singing group. When the photographer stopped to adjust his camera, they practiced a few dance steps. That sure woke my ass up. Can anyone explain the proclivity in Japanese society for sexed-up schoolgirl outfits?

At the risk of sounding like a filthy, lonely old rotter, which I am not (I don't think), I'm going to publicly admit that I find this provocative to the 10th power. I felt creepy starring. But if you're going to stand in the epicenter of the Crossroads of the World dressed like that and practice dance moves that resemble a stripper grind, I can assure you that you're going to be starred at by lonely, old office drones on their way to work. Duly warned. I run across stuff like this all the time. New York: Expensive, but not boring.

* * *

My current gig has me in a 10th floor corner office on 6th Avenue in the 50's. My windows face north to Central Park and east to the Museum of Modern Art. I love midtown. Its where the action is, baby!

You'd think that being ten floors above the Avenue would offer some peace and quiet but you'd be mistaken. Sound waves bounce off the surrounding skyscrapers and travel upward. You can hear quite clearly what's going on at street level. Taxi cabs with horns blazing sound like they're passing just outside my window. This would make most people grind their molars but I consider it part of the symphony of the city.

I am only occasionally bothered by this one dude. A street musician. See him down there by the lamppost?

He's one of these guys who sets up a drum kit using plastic paint buckets, pieces of metal, an overturned soup pot and some bins from the post office. His drum sticks are two thick pieces of wood.

He's very, very talented. He's also relentless. He can play for HOURS. It looks like he makes a pretty good buck and, as far as I'm concerned, he earns it. He plays his ass off. But it sounds like the playing right OUTSIDE my WINDOW. We are thinking of taking up a collection to pay him to stop playing.

* * *

Someone pushed the PANIC BUTTON

2011-08-27T13:01:00.000-07:00

Here are a few of the extraordinary and, in my humble opinion, unnecessary actions that have been taken in preparation for the arrival of Hurricane Irene:

The southern tip of Manhattan has been evacuated
The NYC transit system has been completely shut down
All Broadway and off-Broadway shows have been canceled [a first]
You can't drive on the Garden State Parkway south of Exit 98 and beach towns have been evacuated
The governor of New Jersey has HALTED GAMING in Atlantic City casinos [yet another first and the most offensive item on the list, as far as I'm concerned]
No gym. No movies. No groceries. No nothin'

You should have seen Port Authority yesterday afternoon. There was a mass exodus. It was like the set of a science fiction film where a plague is coursing through Manhattan. CB said that Manhattan is even more desolate today than it is on December 25th. At least you can go to a movie on Christmas Day. (Although, I told him he could probably still get some egg rolls delivered by a guy on a bicycle.)

I think it's all a lot of of sturm und drang. The storm seems to be weakening and will probably be a Category 1 by the time it gets here. A friend of mine has a Dominican girlfriend and she can't stop laughing. She said that back home, they don't even go indoors until it's a Category 4. If I'm lucky, the 8-10 inches of rain will drown the moles who have furrowed in my front yard.

In lieu of going anywhere, here's what'll go down in the Unbearable household:

That's right. A Little Rascals film festival. 10 DVDs, 88 episodes. You can't go wrong (except for the horribly racist parts). In one early episode, Spanky's father refers to Buckwheat and his younger sister as "the little Pickaninnies." Now, that's just wrong. It requires some sensitivity training for The Daughters. Some of it goes right over their heads, thank God. Does anybody remember "I wish Cotton was a monkey"?

I have no back-up plan for entertainment if the electricity goes out. Perhaps I'll break out my guitar. That always goes over really well.

A tip-o'-the hat and a thank-you to the nice people who have pinged me offline to check up. Glub-glub.

Chay-Chay-Chain. Chain of Nudes.

2011-08-25T04:32:00.000-07:00

Photographer David LaChapelle got his leg-up from Andy Warhol shooting for Interview Magazine. That lead to a whole slew of gigs shooting wealthy, famous celebrities.

His current (FREE) exhibit in the architectural landmark Lever House lobby is Chain of Life. It's a huge, playful, paper chain constructed from strips of photographs. The chain stretches and dips the length of the lobby. Quite an impressive feat!

It's hard to tell because of my shitty camera skills, but the color tone at the front of the chain (by the Park Avenue entrance) is dark. As it stretches through the lobby, the tone lightens considerably, giving it an effective dark-to-light blending.

The chain stretches down to the floor. It's hard to resist giving it a good tug!

Upon closer examination, you'll see that all of the photos are of nude bodies! [Go ahead. Click on them.]

The exhibit write-up speaks to "...humanity's need for one being to affect or connect to the next." I never get these write-ups. They always sound superficial to me. I enjoy art on a very visceral level. I'm shallow that way.

I consider sneaking this exhibit into a big, public space like Lever House a real coup! I've been back twice on my lunch hour; not because it's titillating (there are too many male genitalia for my taste) but because I can't imagine too many public spaces putting up with this sort of thing.

It's up through September 30. If you anywhere nearby it's worth a look. If you go, walk across the street, south a few blocks and have a look a the lobby and floral displays of the Waldorf-Astoria. Always a treat.

I've always depended on the kindness of strangers

2011-08-22T18:09:00.000-07:00

In the past 24-hours, since my last post, in addition to words of support both public and private, I've had no fewer than FOUR people (one in the UK, one in Australia and two in the U.S.) come forward and offer their copies of the Thunder Road chapbook in order to right the wrong perpetrated by the U.S. Post Office. In addition, I notified the Office of the U.S. Postal Inspector and the guy I spoke to (Me: "Where are you located?" Him: "All we're allowed to say is west of the Mississippi.") seems almost bizarrely enthusiastic about finding the book! As though it's his new reason for being!

It's enough to restore my faith in humankind. You people in the blogging ether are best. Thank you.

The dirty, rotten thieves in the U.S. Post Office

2011-08-21T17:32:00.000-07:00

I was feeling all full of myself because the Thunder Road chapbook odyssey finally came to a successful conclusion. The books sold out. Demand is still strong. (I continue to get emails requesting a copy.) During the eight years it took to make them, I had a terrible falling out with a great friend but I am happy to report that we are communicating again and it feels like nothing ever happened! I just submitted a fat check to Ambitious about Autism, the designated charity, for $15,778.27. As you can imagine, they're thrilled.

Then I get this from one of my customers:

Unfortunately, it looks like someone purposely targeted your package, tampered with it, and switched the contents. The Post Office is taking responsibility for the damage to the package...

The generic apology affixed to the package says "Dear Postal Customer: We sincerely regret the damage...bla..bla...bla. Although every effort is made...bla...bla...bla. We hope you understand."

Once the damaged package arrived at its destination, here's what tumbled out:

Can you fucking believe this? Of course, I wouldn't want this to happen to anybody, but here's a note that accompanied the payment:

The book looks beautiful. My grandfather was a lithographer and ran a letterpress early on. I'm thrilled to have the opportunity to see a chapbook 'in person.'

The book meant a lot to this person and all they got for their money was a Disney DVD. I am in a terrible bind because it is completely sold out. There are no more copies. I reject the assertation that my part of the transaction is complete and it's the post office's responsibility. Sending the money back is unsatisfactory to me. I want this person to own a book.

Dear Post Office: I do not understand, nor do I accept your apology. Call me cynical, but do you know what I think happened? I think the package accidentally tore open, as stated in your templated apology, and one of your shitheel employees saw a beautiful hand-made book fall out and decided to steal it. Chalk up another one for mankind. It never fails to disappoint.

Roots

2011-08-15T18:40:00.000-07:00

You'll never guess where this sunny, sandy shore is.

The water was warm and calm. The sun gleamed off the surface. It was early in the morning. Mrs. Wife and I had the entire beach to ourselves. It was a nice, quiet hour. But we weren't on the New Jersey shore, as you might suspect. This, believe it or not, was Lake Erie. (Huntington Beach, to be specific.)

For the uninitiated, thanks to Cleveland's heavy industry, Lake Erie spent decades as a feted, polluted mess. At one time, the Cuyahoga River, which feeds into Lake Erie at downtown Cleveland, was so rank that the waste floating on the surface ignited and caught fire. To this day, Cleveland has never been able to shake the "river that burned" albatross around its neck.

When I grew up here [mumble-mumble] years ago, spending the morning strolling along the shore of Lake Erie was unthinkable. It was that bad. Thanks to a fed up community and a government that had a shred of dignity, things were cleaned up. Mrs. Wife and I took our shoes off and waded in the water. Here I am knee-deep in Lake Erie. Look how clear it is! This is pretty mind-blowing stuff to people like myself who grew up here.

An astonishing turn of events. And people complain about government regulation. Do you suppose this ever would have happened if it hadn't been legislated?

* * *

My brother and I broke away from the family festivities to take a drive around the near West Side where our family roots are buried. We went by the alcohol treatment center at St. Malachi on W. 25th and Detroit where our step father, and many like him, got through the DTs.

This is St. Michael the Archangel Church on Scranton Road. It was built by German and Polish immigrants in the 1800s. My mother went to its school and was married there. My sister was married there. Now, it's a predominantly Latino parish.

A few blocks away is Buhrer Avenue, where my mother, three uncles, grandmother and grandfather lived. Six people lived in this modest house. It's a lot smaller inside than it looks! We drove by slowly, like we were casing the place out, and I had sudden rush of memories. I dropped my grandfather's gold pocket watch down a crack in a window sill and it fell into the house's foundation. It's probably still there. He never got angry about it. My grandfather, a gardener, showed me how grasshoppers spit.

The neighborhood looked better than I thought it would. I assumed, because I buy into racial stereotypes without realizing it, that the houses would be a wreck. But they were fairly well maintained.

* * *

They closed one block of East 9th Street for a film shoot. Nobody shoots in Cleveland! East 9th Street is THE major north/south thoroughfare that runs through the center of downtown, and it's a major disruption, but this is for the big Marvel Comics flagship movie The Avengers, due out next spring.

In it, Ironman, The Hulk, Sgt. Fury, Thor and Captain America team up to fight..I don't know who. Maybe the Republican presidential candidates. Cleveland was remade to look like New York City. I can't get away from that place!

A crushed NYC taxi cab.

Someone said this scene involves a fight with The Hulk and Sgt. Fury. Nobody could confirm. Samuel L. Jackson was in town. He was spotted at the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame.

The most unsettling special effect was NOT the fake destruction or false fronts built onto the surrounding buildings. The most unsettling effect was seeing a lot of NYPD cruisers on East 9th Street in Cleveland. Very confusing.

I'm a sell out / Nasty

2011-08-09T14:33:00.000-07:00

I've been away from reading/commenting on blogs because last week some nice guy out in L.A. bought a copy of the Thunder Road chapbook I made and was so smitten with the book and the story behind it, that he did a great write-up for Backstreets.com, the all-Bruce Springsteen, all-the-time fan website. He even skewed one of Nick Hornby's book titles for the article headline and linked Springsteen's cameo from the film adaptation of Hornby's High Fidelity. Oh, that's clever!

The piece is so compelling and so well-written that it resulted in a tsunami of orders. I'm a one-man fulfillment center so I've spent the last five or six nights hold-up in my basement packing and shipping books. Here's the article. Just scroll down a bit. The books are now sold-out, which was never a guarantee, so thanks, Jon. I've also had to spend time refunding money that keeps pouring in. People are disappointed. Additionally, I was contacted by a DJ from E Street Radio on Sirius Satellite who was going to play Thunder Road and then do a story on the book to try and move copies, but that's no longer necessary. I'd also like to publically thank Mrs. Wife for taking all 200 packages to the post office for me. Do you think that was easy?

Backstreets.com is a huge, influential website. They linked my blog post that tells the story of how the book was made and my stats went through the roof. My usual puny 50-70 hits per day ballooned to about 300 per day since last week. Many orders included congratulations and messages of admiration which, for an egomaniac like me, couldn't be more satisfying. I keep re-reading them over and over. It's like pushing a lever and getting a peanut M&M.

* * *

Last week, Mrs. Wife impulse-purchased a pair of deeply discounted tickets to see Janet Jackson. I'm not a huge Janet Jackson fan but it certainly beat the hell out of another fruitless scroll through Netflix. It was an outdoor venue and the concert sold so poorly that everyone who had a lawn seat was given a seat inside the pavilion. The back parking lot, where we usually get stuck, was completely empty. Not one car! Hence, the discounted tix, I suppose.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that about 70% of the concert was lip-synced. But I don't fault Ms. Jackson. The show is so intensely choreographed that I decided it's not meant to be a concert of just singing. It's about the dancing and visuals, too. And you can't put on that kind of show and still sing live. It's just not possible! Especially at 45 years old.

Her want to please the audience seemed genuine to me. To turn around and say, oh, for shame, she lip-syncs, would be in poor form and belittle her efforts. She was working her ass off. What more do you want? So I will grant her a pass, where many others would cry foul.

There was a mini-tribute to Michael Jackson, which left me unexpectedly sad. A photo montage that featured the two of them since their childhood was played on a screen behind her while she sang. It dawned on me that although he was an oddity, he was also her brother. And he died tragically. She lost her big bother, whom she obviously loved. Do you have siblings? Can you imagine watching one of them die in the manner he did? I was so blue.

Music in the streets of Crazytown

2011-08-05T03:48:00.000-07:00

The city is littered with outdoor festivals and events throughout the summer. It's all free, so bring your cheap ass to Manhattan and be entertained for nothing!

I was feeling a little blue so I went to the Lincoln Center Out of Doors Festival to see if anything there could cheer me up. Boy, did it ever! I saw the Raya Brass Band. They're five young guys from Brooklyn who play music of the Balkans. Good, Eastern European stomp. Just like the stuff my Polish dad used to play on Sunday mornings.

You might have to watch this clip twice to take it all in. First, watch the old dude on the right in the blue tee-shirt and hat dance the crazy spastic-twist. No rhythm whatsoever. He just wants to steal attention from the band and make it all about him. Typical crazy New Yorker. Then, about midway through, watch the old Balkan women dance into the frame. And notice the old perv looking them over. The poor band.

The dancing becomes TOO FRANTIC and the po-lice have to step in to restore order. I kept waiting for fists to fly. Meanwhile, the band never stops playing! Seasoned pros. As you can imagine, I walked away from all this feeling much better about life.

God bless Lincoln Center for providing this festival for the city. Laurie Anderson is doing a free show on the 10th but I'll be away. If you're around you should go. Unless it's raining. Nothing will kill an outdoor concert quicker than rain.

* * *

Last summer, 88 decorated pianos were placed throughout the city streets and plazas. People could just walk up and start playing. The event was so popular that they brought it back this year. Sadly, someone actually stole one of the pianos that was out in Queens. Bastards! They're chained to cinder blocks but that didn't stop the thieves.

Here, at the piano in Times Square, a woman bangs out a ragtime number. I've always heard that ragtime is particularly difficult to play. Is that true?

Anger! Insults! Expulsion! And then...CRAPS!

2011-07-28T19:45:00.000-07:00

Out of a sense of self-preservation and duty to family, I've decided to leave my current consulting gig at an unstable company who might (or might NOT) have eventually offered me a staff position for a consulting job at a healthier firm. This can't go on forever.

Can it?

A prerequisite for the new gig was that I start on Monday. When you leave a job, it's customary to give two weeks' notice. If you're a consultant, however, the rules are a little looser. If they had to terminate my contract, I wouldn't have been given two minutes notice much less two weeks. So I was shocked (shocked!) at the anger and vitriol spewed by my boss because I was only giving them one week notice. She stood up from her chair, her eyes flaring, and told me I was the most unprofessional person she ever met. She disappeared into the department head's office for about :45 minutes and when she came back she walked up to my desk and said that everyone (meaning, her) felt it best if I left right now. They confiscated my ID and threw me out of the building! I don't recall anyone being that angry at me. Ever!

The headhunter who placed me at my new gig said he could rustle up a short project to finish out the week but since the next day was The Daughter's birthday (5-years old with a vengeance), I decided to take the rest of the week off. When I related this tale of rejection to Mrs. Wife, she suggested that I take a day and blow off some steam in Atlantic City. What a wife!

* * *

Here's an interesting photo. This is the Revel Casino which is under construction and due to open in the spring. It's designed as an "invisible" building, i.e., its reflective surface causes the building to vanish against the sky. This photo was taken with my iPhone and is NOT retouched in any way.

See that little house in front of it? The owner has lived there for 80 years—since he was 5 years old!—and refused to sell his property, so the building is being constructed in his back yard. Personally, I think that would be wonderfully convenient. Morgan Stanley initially helped finance the project with a pre-recession cash infusion of $1.2 billion. Their investment value today is estimated at $30 million—a loss of -98%! Pretty typical return when you bring money to Atlantic City.

* * *

I had a quick cup of coffee and headed straight for the craps tables. It's my thing! I love the game, the people, the language, the culture.

Favorite bit of overheard banter:

70-ish year-old woman: "Give me the six and the nine."

Stickman: "The six and nine! My favorite numbers!"

70-ish year-old woman: "Mine, too, when I was younger."

Pit boss: "This is supposed to be a family destination."

* * *

By the sea. By the beautiful sea.

A Losing Game

2011-07-25T05:08:00.000-07:00

We had just survived two absolutely brutal winters. Record amounts of snowfall and frigid temps. We were looking forward to summer and now this...

I lived in Phoenix for about 18 months, so I know what heat is. I know that I'm going to be called a big baby by people who live below the Mason-Dixon line (That's you Savannah). But, I'm sorry, this is unbearable.

There is no heat like New York City heat. The glass skyscrapers reflect the sunlight down onto the already blistering streets and the subway keeps the sidewalks super-heated. It's a phenomena that's akin to living inside a pizza oven. So sorry to Daisyfae and Nursemyra, who visited during this insufferable, record-setting heatwave. If you pop over to their blogs, you'll see that they were forced to remove almost all of their clothing. The poor darlings.

The temperature inside Mrs. Wife's Toyota. Nice.

9-Year Old Daughter and I have decided that there's nothing to do but make the best of it until it passes.

* * *

I was deeply saddened/angered to hear of the passing of poor, broken Amy Winehouse. Sad because that girl was the real deal. Her Back to Black album is a masterpiece. I won't queue it up unless I have time to hear the whole thing from start to finish uninterrupted. There's not one losing track. Do you know what a rare thing that is?

But I'm angry because here I am trying to find stable employment and she was given talent and success at a very early age and pissed it all away. I read an interview whereby she complained that she was "bored." Fuck you, Amy. We're all bored. Part of life is finding a way to rise above your boredom. Did you see that photo of her house in North London? Spectacular.

Give a listen to this gut-wrenching (to me) rendition of Love is a Losing Game and try to imagine what an astonishing career she could have had.

Cyanide would be quicker

2011-07-21T09:33:00.000-07:00

Here's what I ate last Sunday:

Breakfast: Dunkin' Donuts + coffee

Lunch: Kentucky Fried Chicken
(Four piece meal. Finger lickin' good, my friends.)

Dinner: Domino's Pizza
(Sausage and mushroom action.)

Many, many Oreo cookies
(In the shape of little footballs).

I was on the road for breakfast and lunch but that's no excuse. I shouldn't treat my body like it's an open sewer.

* * *

Do you know what I've had for lunch over the past two weeks?

Tension.

I gave up my lofty professional aspirations and have settled into a groove of searching for an ordinary, full-time job with benefits for my family. (One man's groove is another man's rut but that's what it's come to, I'm afraid.) While I'm grateful that I've been gainfully employed during this horrifying recession, the fact is that I've been doing nothing but consulting work these past two years. It's dispiriting, to say the least.

SO. Here's my dilemma. Should I stay with a job I enjoy at a troubled company that might (or might not) offer a full-time position in September or go with an open-ended consulting gig at a healthy firm where there's no hope of a hire? Ever. Tell me what you think. I am EXHAUSTED from meditating on this. Do you know how if you work on something for a long time — a painting or a piece of music or a blog post — you become so saturated with it that you don't know what you're looking at anymore? I can't think straight with this decision.

If the recession has left you relatively unscathed, please realize how fortunate you are. Take a moment and feel good about that.

* * *

I found these two winter pics buried in my blog and I'm posting them in honor of our insane heat wave. This is Bryant Park in the wintertime. The trees are lit from underneath by the ice skating rink that goes up from November to February. The branches look metallic! If you look closely, you can see the Chrysler Building through the branches.

Here's the crown of the Empire State Building shining up onto a low, leaden, sullen winter sky.

Mr. Mom + :15 second reviews

2011-07-12T17:27:00.000-07:00

Here's another gaggle of shows that should be seen or avoided.

* * *

Mrs. Wife had to attend a wedding shower (which sounds like torture to me) so I had The Daughters for the day. I took them into the city to see Rain, the fake Beatles show on Broadway.

I saw it last February and was pleasantly surprised to see that even though it was a lightly attended 2:00 Saturday matinee, the four actors/musicians put on a pretty decent show. They only look a little bit like The Beatles, but the music is right on the money. I brought pediatric ear plugs for the girls and it’s a damn good thing I did. It was loud, particularly the ear-splitting orchestral crescendo at the end of A Day in the Life. I question some of their song choices, though. Why play a throw-away ditty like Hello Goodbye, but not a masterpiece like Help? They should’ve asked me first.

Prior to the show I took them for a row out on Central Park Lake. It’s only $12 bucks for an hour! An incredible bargain, especially in an overpriced town like this. The views from the center of the lake of the skyline, Bethesda Fountain and The Dakota knock the wind out of me every time. The next day we all spent the afternoon sitting on the beach. I had my Sunday New York Times and The Daughters and Mrs. Wife bumped into some friends. There was plenty of sun, a cool northwest breeze and no humidity. Toes in the soft sand. Manhattan + Broadway with The Daughters on Saturday and the beach on Sunday. I’m pretty sure this is as good as it gets. I hope I don't fuck it up.

* * *

Do you guys know who John Leguizamo is? He's a B-list actor who has been in more movies than you probably realize. What you might not know is that he is also a master of one-man shows. I remember seeing his first show, Mambo Mouth, many years ago down in a dingy theater in the East Village when I was still young and pretty. All these years later and now his shows open on Broadway and cost 10x as much to see. I was lucky enough to catch Ghetto Klown before it closed. (I think this might be the last week.)

In the spectrum of entertainers, I think I have the most respect for, believe it or not, stand-up comedians and actors who do one-man shows. Imagine walking out on a stage all by yourself and all you have is your words and talent! No other actors around to support you or prop your ass up if you get into a jam. It's a crazy notion but when it works it's magic. Señor Leguizamo was a tad overindulgent and could have trimmed :15 minutes from Ghetto Klown but it was still a great evening.

* * *

Some of Our Parts is, as advertised, seven 10-minute plays about disability. The sincere, if somewhat clunkily named TBTB (Theater Breaking Through Barriers), is an earnest troop of actors, some of whom are disabled. I love an evening of one-acts. If the play stinks, just hang in there for a few minutes longer and an entirely new story will replace it. You can't go wrong! It's not like Spider-man whereby I was trapped in my seat with the same abysmal material for almost three hours.

In case it's too small to read, the cartoon headline is "Autumn in the Leper Colony." The caption is "Now get out there and rake up those fallen limbs!" Oooh.

I'm going to admit right up front that I'm not very comfortable around disabled people. Yeah, I know it's my hang-up and I'm working on it, so spare me the sermons. The theme that seemed to string these stories together is that the disabled want to be treated like everyone else so here goes. Overall it was an enjoyable evening but some of the acting and writing was sub-par. Of the seven play (playlets?) five were serviceable but the last two achieved greatness. Neil LaBute's Cripples, about three guys sitting on a park bench discussing sex with a legless woman, was black and funny. The last piece, Samuel D. Hunter's Welcome to Wal-Mart, where two disabled Wal-Mart greeters dish on customers and each other, was pure genius.

* * *

I admire the Roundabout Theater for it's healthy mixture of producing time-tested classics and new material, some of it by young, unknown playwrights, so I am reluctant to criticize anything they do. But I'm sorry, Death Takes a Holiday didn't work for me on any level. I went with DG, who is seasoned and he enjoyed it a lot so what the hell do I know?

I'm just not good with traditional Broadway musical stylings (The Book of Mormon being the exception). I've never seen Oklahoma or Annie Get Your Gun or Carousel or South Pacific or The Music Man or any of that crap-ola. If it's a staple for high school thespians, I'm not interested. A valiant effort, but Death Takes a Holiday never rose above it's bland songs, clumsy stage direction or obvious (even to an idiot like me) plot devices.

But that's an awesome poster, don't you think?

* * *

I loved, LOVED All New People, the new show at the 2econd Stage Theater. It's written by Zach Braff, who was on TV for years in Scrubs and also wrote a very good movie called Garden State. Is it fair that one guy gets to be in a successful TV show AND is a talented writer to boot? I'd like to know that he suffers just a bit to balance it all out.

CB is correct that it's derivative of a lot of other things, specifically, The Breakfast Club, but I don't care and I don't think he did, either. It's well acted and funny. I've decided that Anna Camp, who was brilliant as the hot blond minister's wife in True Blood and here plays the stereotypical hooker with a heart of gold, is my new pretend girlfriend. Sorry Mary-Louise Parker. You had your chance.

I can see clearly now

2011-07-08T02:55:00.000-07:00

Go, go, go shawty
It's your birthday
We gon' party like it's yo birthday
We gon' sip Bacardi like it's your birthday

As I do every year on my birthday for no good reason whatsoever, here's a rare frontal shot of The Daughter and I. This is from a few years ago. We're at our favorite diner.

Which diner is our favorite? That would be whatever diner we happen to be sitting in. They're ALL good.

* * *

My posts tend to be somewhat city-centric. I don't dwell in New Jersey too often. I don't have the same affinity for the Garden State that I do for Gotham City. I don't mind living there, but I spent so many years in the city that it got under my skin. Unlike any rational human being, I never tired of the inconveniences and downsides.

But over this past holiday weekend, I saw New Jersey in a different light. We went to an authentic, all-American block party for the 4th of July. Two ends of the street were blocked off with orange cones and kitchen chairs. There were dozens of families there and everyone brought something to eat. (One evil super-villain brought a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken, knowing full well that it's my kryptonite. God bless you, Col. Sanders. God bless you, evil super-villain.)

To be perfectly frank, I don't have a great chemistry with our lovely neighbors. Mrs. Wife fits right in. Over the years, she has become an integral part of the community. She volunteers at the school and is at the core of a group of people who try to make it a better place to live. But I got nothin'. It's not from lack of effort, either. I go to these gatherings and can't seem to insert myself into any conversations. They all peter off into that embarrassing silence. I talk a pretty good game! I don't get it. It's as if I was back in high school, sitting at the corner cafeteria table being ignored. I thought I'd seen the last of those days but here I am again.

I was sitting off to the side all alone stuffing my face with fried chicken, cold pasta salad and beer, and I watched the swirl of activity going on all around me. My usual city cynicism was nowhere to be found. What I saw was suddenly very moving to me.

Some manly men were manning three grills and feeding the masses. There were about a half dozen long folding tables overflowing with food. Coolers filled with drinks were everywhere. I have no idea where any of this stuff came from! It just appeared! You simply walked up, filled your plate, opened a cooler, grabbed a beer and enjoyed yourself. I watched my two daughters stand in a long line of kids who were patiently waiting for pink and blue cotton candy. I watched 5-Year Old Daughter wrestle with a wad of cotton candy as big as her head, big smile on her face, a red ribbon tying back her hair, and it moved me to a place I'm too embarrassed to mention.

There were water balloon toss games and Silly String battles for the kids. When darkness fell, thin glow sticks came out and glowing bracelets and necklaces were fashioned. I wore two bracelets; one orange and one yellow. Some guys had their guitars out. A spectacular, city-sponsored, fireworks display was launched from a barge floating on the Shrewsbury River.

I get it.

I get it!

"You touched me!"

2011-06-29T15:02:00.000-07:00

I boarded my 5:35 a.m. bus to the city and about :15 minutes into my ride the woman sitting in front of me lurched her seat back in a violent manner and cracked me in the knee caps. This is an almost (twice) daily occurrence.

We turned off the Garden State Parkway onto the New Jersey Turnpike and the guy sitting next to me suddenly yells out, loud enough for everyone on the bus to hear, "Look. I don't mind if you use your little computer but you're MOVING AROUND TOO MUCH. You touched my arm, LIKE, 20 TIMES!" I know what you're picturing. You're picturing a milquetoast pencil pushing desk jockey with thick-lensed glasses. A whiny little bitch. But you're wrong. This was a hulking construction worker with arms like pythons. So I kept my mouth shut and didn't move a muscle for the remainder of the ride. Hell yeah, I did.

I was stewing in my juices when I left Port Authority, wasn't watching where I was going and I STEPPED IN VOMIT. That's right. Some parts of New York are still olde style New York. I stepped in vomit. It used to happen more frequently.

Then I was walking up Madison Avenue at 44th Street and a jogger passed by who wasn't wearing any shoes. Running barefoot in Manhattan! What a madman! I turned to look at the soles of his feet as he ran by and they were BLACK. No amount of scrubbing would ever get them clean enough for me. This is just minutes after I stepped in vomit and I suddenly imagined it squishing up between my toes. Retch, I did. The very next morning I saw him again and I tried to whip out my cell phone but he was too fast. Now I walk with my cell phone in my hand and the camera on when I walk that stretch of Madison.

* * *

We received the following company-wide email at work:

"The NYC OEM (Office of Emergency Management) has reported that several aircraft will be flying at a very low altitude in the vicinity of the Statue of Liberty and Battery Park at approximately 11:00 a.m. today. This is a planned event that is part of the Fleet Week celebration. There is no cause for alarm."

My, goodness. It's been 10 years and this town is still fucked-up over 9/11. Tell me, London, were you still in a nervous state of mind 10 years after the Blitz of 1941? I'll bet not. I mean no disrespect but it's time to move on.

Not FDIC Insured | May Lose Value | No Bank Guarantee

2011-06-25T20:15:00.000-07:00

This past week I was designing a library of marketing brochures to promote a group of investment vehicles. One of them is called The Russian Fund. As the name implies, the fund is populated with Russian growth stocks and investments. While I was laying it out I was thinking to myself, isn't the Russian business and political machine notoriously corrupt? Why would anyone send their money to Russia? It seems like a bad bet to me, but what do I know? I'm just a dopey graphic designer. I passed on Google when it was $32/share. [Sadly, not kidding about that].

Then I got to the all-important disclosure. You know what that is? That's the tiny, tiny print in the back that NOBODY ever reads. Get a load of these two sentences that were buried within. And the bold emphasis is theirs, not mine!

There may be a Lack of Reliable Financial Information and there is less transparency with Russian investments. Potential for Expropriation, Dilution, Devaluation, Default or Excessive Taxation by the Russian government.

I didn't know what "expropriation" meant so I had to looked it up. It means that the Russian government might take your money and/or property for no good reason and there's nothing you can do about it. Isn't that crazy! Why am I actively involved with promoting this investment? I feel dirty. Buyer beware, indeed.

* * *

Speaking of warnings...I recently saw a movie in Times Square. Some of the Times Square movie houses are still like the wild west. If you're bothered by people talking out loud to each other, cell phone calls during the quiet parts of the film, 4-year old children frantic from drinking jumbo-sized Coca-Colas and that sort of thing, you'd better not bother.

When I walked into the theater I turned the corner and saw two kids who must have been about 19 years old changing the diaper of their baby who was laid down on the seat between them. Kids with kids. There's nothing sadder. At the box office, they post this warning sign. It says, basically, don't bring a kid in who is under six years old to an R rated movie after 6:00 p.m. They call it "Distraction Free Entertainment."

You don't see THAT in the suburbs! This means there were SO MANY 5-year old children being brought into loud, VIOLENT, scary R-rated movies, that they actually had to CREATE A SIGN asking people (mainly, kids with kids) to refrain from doing it. Tragic Town, U.S.A.

* * *

Random NYC photo.

This is where I eat lunch every day when the weather is cooperating. There are several streets in the city that have been turned into permanent pedestrian malls and plazas. This one is right outside Grand Central Station. A great place to watch the chaos pass by. It's like a beehive.

I wanna take a walk along Action Strasse

2011-06-22T14:45:00.000-07:00

I have been uninspired to read or write anything lately. Like a light bulb that was suddenly switched off. Amazing! Let's try this, shall we?

* * *

I took two days off between consulting gigs. On one day, I watched The Daughters while Mrs. Wife went on a well-deserved long weekend away. Before she left, I spent a day strolling around Chelsea with CB ducking in an out of the galleries. It was mid-week so, naturally, they were all gloriously empty. It's the only way to see these things and it made me yearn for the days when I was unemployed (with a severance).

I'm not a huge Picasso fan—a lot of his stuff is too esoteric for me and it sails over my head—but I was really moved by the Picasso and Marie-Thérèse exhibit at the Gagosian Gallery on 21st Street (through July 15). The idea that you can see such a huge gathering of Picassos in a beautifully lit gallery for FREE blows my mind.

The Gagosian has gotten into the habit of putting on blockbuster exhibits for free...because they can, I guess. They mounted a spectacular Monet exhibit not long ago. None of the pieces in these exhibits are for sale, which is counterintuitive to what a gallery is all about. But it's not as though I could afford any them if they were. The gallery is turning itself into a de facto museum.

* * *

CB is a scribe in the fashion industry so we had a professional obligation to visit the Kate Moss photo exhibit at the Danzinger Gallery on W. 23rd Street. There are about two dozen pics by different photographers that span her career. Like the Picasso work, I didn't think this would be for me but enjoyed it despite my preconceived notions. That happens a LOT.

This was my favorite shot because it shows Kate on 42nd Street right around the time I got to New York. The city was dank, dirty and scary—especially 42nd Street. I like looking back on old New York but don't miss it all that much. In some of the photos, Kate is no more than a child and they were kind of creepy and sad to look at. They certainly explain some of the horribleness she was to experience later in life.

* * *

Here's a fun one also at the Gagosian Gallery (the one on 24th Street). John Chamberlain's sculptures are constructed from mangled auto parts.

You have to stand next to these things to really feel the scale of how massive they are. Get down heavy.

I can understand hanging a Picasso or a photo of Kate Moss but what the hell are you supposed to do with these? They must weigh a ton!

I was hoping for a price guide to see what one costs. They're interesting in that if you slowly walk around them, they change shape, light and color. Well done to you, Mr. Chamberlain, sir!

The rich are different than you and me—they're insane

2011-06-14T04:30:00.000-07:00

I've been working down in Soho for the past several months but now I am, happily, back in midtown Manhattan. It's where the action is. Casual observation: Soho tourists are all from Europe. Midtown tourists are from the U.S.

My morning walk takes me past the Brooks Brothers store on Madison Avenue. This window display caught my eye. Initially, I couldn't figure out what kind of nutty theme they were going for with the lemonade stand. I then realized that these clothes are for children!

Who the hell goes to Brooks Brothers to shop for children's clothing?! Rich New Yorkers are a crazy lot. There seems to be a constant push to fashion their kids into tiny adults. I think a lot of Upper East Side children are treated more like fashion accessories than individual personalities. They're mirrors that mom and dad can peer into and see themselves. I don't think they have normal upbringings. Look at these clothes! They're ridiculous!

Who'd want to wear a blue jacket with a gold Brooks Brothers crest on the breast? And are people still tying sweater arms around their necks? These clothes AREN'T CHEAP and if you have kids, you know that they grow out of them in very short order.

It's not envy. Even if I had the money to buy The Daughter's clothes at Brooks Brothers, I wouldn't do it. I'd feel like a pretentious idiot.

Do you know who buys their kid's clothes at Brooks Brothers? The same dopes who wait in a line outside Grand Central Station that stretches out the door to buy a $4.95 cup of coffee.

You can walk one block in any direction and get a perfectly acceptable cup of coffee from a coffee cart for $1. No waiting!

* * *

Early morning Bryant Park behind the Library. The lawn was watered overnight so all the chairs were removed. Some guy carries an arm full of chairs onto the lawn, places them at equal distances apart in a perfect line, and walks away.

I understand why people feel this place is uninhabitable. Country legend Buck Owens wrote a song called I Wouldn't Live in New York City (If They Gave Me the Whole Damn Town). But I love this joint and all its crazy citizens.

Fanfare for a Common Man

2011-06-12T03:05:00.000-07:00

I've been a bit preoccupied with the Thunder Road chapbook, hence no new blog posts. Do you miss me? I miss you. Worldwide distribution is out of my office next to the family room. People have started to receive their copies and here are some nice things they've said about it. Copies are still available. Hint.

Here I am at Lead Graffiti lettering the hardcover copies.

* * *

I received the book today, thanks for the quick delivery!

I have to tell you, the pictures don't do it justice. What a beautiful design, from the BTR typeface to the raised lettering...simply gorgeous. I've been a Springsteen fan for three decades and this has to rank up there with some of the best Bruce-related items I've collected over the years. I feel very fortunate to be one of the lucky 200. And of course Nick's passionate and lovingly written essay. That it's personally signed is quite the bonus. This will sit well with the 1st edition copies of some of my all-time favorite books and I know I will revisit your hard-won labor of love often.

* * *

In my hand...
...is a thing of absolute beauty. Wow. My book arrived today, and I'm floored... even more beautiful than expected.

* * *

Got the book yesterday and it is a beautiful thing. I really love it. Especially enjoy the black on black and white on white cloud prints. Adds a beautiful subtle layer to it all. The yellow against black is super and the letterpress text looks really nice. I kept noticing it while I was re-reading the essay.

I love the song Thunder Road, and Nick Hornby's essay just nails it!! The song is corny, overwrought and bombastic but I still love it. Like great art the song as a whole manages to create a set of emotions beyond its words.

* * *

Additionally, the nice people at Indie Reader.com found out about the book via Nick Hornby's Facebook page and wrote a feature story that (as of this writing) is on their landing page.

* * *

Speaking of Nick, I received this after he opened his box o' books that included his hardcover inscribed to him by Bruce:

They came! They look really, really lovely, and I'm thrilled. I'm so glad you stuck it out...

Respect,

Nick

* * *

I told Nick that his hardcover is the ultimate association copy and if it ever appeared at a rare book auction, it would ignite a fierce bidding war.

Don't hold your breath.

:15 Second Reviews

2011-06-07T18:50:00.000-07:00

Once again, I am too lazy to write individual posts for these plays so I decided to lump them together. We are all better off for it.

* * *

Through a Glass Darkly is a stage adaptation of a 1962 Ingmar Bergman film. Cheery, it ain't. But Carey Mulligan, who was so good in An Eduction, gives such a powerful and convincing performance as a woman who is descending into mental illness, that I'm actually quite worried for her. I don't know how she can put herself through that wringer eight times a week for eight weeks and come out the other side undamaged. When I left the theater, I was actually upset and had to phone Mrs. Wife so she could talk me down.

Part of what makes this so effective is that it's playing in a small, off-Broadway venue in the East Village and everything is RIGHT IN YOUR FACE. You don't feel the detached protection that a big Broadway house offers. Not to be missed but not for the meek.

* * *

What to say about Spider-man: Turn off the Dark? It is not good. The friend I went with saw an early preview and he said that it has improved insofar as it now has a coherent plot (albeit the same tired Spider-Man story I've been reading since I was a kid). Apparently, prior to being shut down, it was a confused mess of junk.

Some of it was quite stunning to look at from a design standpoint and the costumes were fantastic. Julie Taymor's influences were pretty obvious. The actors wanted it to work so bad but it didn't. And I'll tell you whose fault it is:

Bono and The Edge.

Those guys should stay the hell off Broadway. The music was AWFUL. Each song was one boring funeral dirge after another that dragged the show down. Songs would start and I couldn't wait until they were over. That's a major problem if you're trying to stage a musical. 2:35 long and there were exactly two—that's TWO—songs that didn't work like a 50-pound stone strapped to the actors' backs. And, yet, the crowd gave a standing ovation. I don't get it.

* * *

Mark Ryalnce is the current man of the hour in New York theater. What a tough, funny performance. Jerusalem is three hours of pure adrenalin rush. There was some concern that this London transplant was too "British" for a U.S. stage. (Whatever the hell that means. Shakespeare is pretty British and he does just fine.) Rylance is Johnny Byron, local seducer of disenfranchised youth. Firmly anti-establishment and not one to respect the rules, he pays for his rebellion in a most violent way. My toes curled back to my heels. Hope they perform a snippet of the torture sequence on the Tony Awards this Sunday.

* * *

Check all your razors and your guns
We gonna be rasslin' when the wagon comes
I wanna pigfoot and a bottle of beer
Gimme a reefer and a gang o' gin
Slay me 'cause I'm in my sin
Slay me 'cause I'm full of gin

Needless to say, I won't be bringing the daughter to see this one. The Devil's Music: The Life and Blues of Bessie Smith is less play and more musical review. There are some brief biographical interludes but it's mostly one great blues song after another. A sax. A stand-up bass. An upright piano and one strong voice belting out songs from the early blues era about love and sex and cheating and drinking. Kind of like country music today.

* * *

Robin William was great for two reasons. First of all, he wasn't Robin Williams. He altered his voice, look, posture and body movements to become someone who isn't quite so recognizable. I dispensed with the preconceived notions within a few minutes. Second, he's being used as bait. His name is above the title but he is not the lead. More like the third or fourth, actually. The actors who drive the show are committed, believable characters. So people are drawn in to see Robin Williams and what they end up with are solid performances by actors who otherwise wouldn't get this kind of exposure. And that's a beautiful thing. The play is rough stuff. Lots of war and blood and mysticism and ghosts and talking to God. I liked it a lot.

* * *

Oh, let's see Play Dead! It'll be a funny, spooky night out in Greenwich Village. Ha ha. So fun! It's just a magic show!

Okay. There were a couple of moments in this show that were so genuinely frightening that if the lights had been on, I'd have run screaming out of the theater like a little girl. Creepy old Todd Robbins got together with the magician Teller and created a show that is definitely for adults only. In more than one segment they turn out the lights. They somehow received permission from the City of New York to also turn out the exit sign lights, so that you are plunged into a pitch-black darkness. The he starts telling gory stories.

You've been warned.

Afterglow

2011-06-05T14:25:00.000-07:00

I've just spent the last several days basking in the unexpected tsunami of congratulations that followed my post about the Thunder Road chapbook I helped publish. All I wanted to do was tell a story and sell some books, but the kind words that were left in the comments section and included with the orders I received were a complete surprise. What a treat!

Let's see...there are about 48 comments right now and in order to appease my pathetically needy ego, I've probably read each one no fewer than five times. That means I've read and reread about 250 comments. What an utterly shameless waste of time. I approve!

Included was a clever quip from Nick Hornby which, I suppose, is as close as I'll get to the :15 minutes of fame that Andy Warhol promised me, and a remarkably gracious comment from my buddy, Jim, who started this project with me all those years ago. Although things kind of imploded along the way, there wouldn't have been a book without him. Truth.

Thanks to those who have already submitted orders. I beg your patience, as I am a one-man worldwide fulfillment center. So far, I've gotten orders from all over the U.S., Denmark, Canada, Australia and England. (Now that I look at the list, I realize they are from the epicenters of lily-white Caucasian culture. Springsteen and Hornby's base!) Also, I'm shouldering a 40-hour work week and have two young daughters who feel they own all my free time. I wonder where they got that idea? And thanks to all who provided links, especially whoever put it on Backstreets.com. My hit rate went from a measly 80-90 per day to a fertile and potent 475 per day.

* * *

Did I just write a post about a post? Now, that's just lazy. I've got posts about New York City in the queue.

The book I just published for Bruce Springsteen and Nick Hornby

2011-05-31T09:08:00.000-07:00

And by "I," I mean "WE," because there's no way I could have pulled off a stunt like this on my own.

Back in 2003, I took a class in book binding and letterpress printing at the Center for Book Arts in Manhattan. I had been collecting for quite some time and began to wonder, as most collectors eventually do, how books are constructed. Especially the fancy ones.

That same year, British author Nick Hornby published Songbook. It’s a series of essays about songs that are meaningful to him. It's still in print and it's a pretty entertaining read. I'm a big fan of his work and have a healthy collection of signed first editions and rarities.

Songbook includes an essay on Bruce Springsteen's Thunder Road that I think is particularly effective. It's the standout piece of the book. I was in bookbinding class stabbing myself with a sewing needle trying to perfect a chapbook spine stitch when I had the spark of an idea. Wouldn’t it be cool, I thought, to create a chapbook that married both Hornby’s Thunder Road essay with Springsteen's lyrics? And do it legitimately, with permission from the artists? Yeah, right. Like that could ever happen.

* * *

I bought a rare Charles Bukowski first edition from Jim, who lived in Phoenix, Arizona. As it turned out, he’s a letterpress printer. He creates beautiful, limited-run books at synaestheia press. He's a design and production genius. I was a patron of his press and we became pretty good friends. He visited New York City, I visited Phoenix and we also met in Las Vegas once. We spoke all the time.

I told him about my crazy idea for the Thunder Road chapbook. He encouraged me and said that if I could somehow secure permission from Hornby and Springsteen, he would print it. Shortly thereafter, Hornby was on a promotional tour for Songbook. At his Manhattan stop, while getting my copy signed, I casually asked if I could reprint his Thunder Road essay in a chapbook. Much to my surprise, he said yes, with the stipulation that every penny made from the sale go to charity. That was okay by me, since making money never entered my mind. Not once!

Now the tough part. Bruce Springsteen’s business machine is fiercely protective of his material. I thought that going to him with an agreement from Hornby already in-hand would add legitimacy to the project. I wrote to his manager, Jon Landau, and not long thereafter, much to my complete shock, received permission to reprint the lyrics on a letterpress broadside. The stipulation was the same as the one Hornby set out for us; we were not permitted to profit from the venture. All proceeds had to be donated to charity.

We received nothing more than a verbal agreement and a “good luck” from Hornby, however, we received a multi-paged contract from the legal department of Shore Fire Media that we were required to sign and return. It was stipulated, in no uncertain terms, that all monies were to be donated to charity and that we were to use the lyrics provided with the contract (vs. getting them off the internet and possibly misquoting). Pretty serious stuff. The contracts were signed on May 28, 2004.

With my recently acquired knowledge of chapbook construction, I worked up about four different prototypes. The trick was to collapse both the essay and the broadside into one book. I sent them off to Phoenix and, if I’m being completely honest here, the layout ideas that Jim came up with were much better than mine. I wanted the book to be great so it required some humility on my part. The finished layout is probably 80% his talent and 20% my lucky guesses.

Do you know what can dramatically increase the value of a book? A signature. We had another brilliant, impossible, idea. We would fly to London, meet with Hornby, and he would sit and sign a stack of title pages for the essay portion of the book. In early 2006, I sent him, via his publisher at Penguin, a “Hey, remember me? We’re going to be in the neighborhood. How’d you like to sign some title pages?” e-mail. How many authors of Hornby’s stature do you suppose would entertain such a request? Damn few, I’d guess. But he agreed to do it. On March 16, 2006, he had us over to his writing studio and for a few hours the three of us bullshitted about music and literature and the internet and he told us some fun stories about dealing with Hollywood, all while signing page after page after page after page.

We were planning a print run of 200 copies. Hornby signed 250 leaves. This is common practice as it allows for overage, contributor copies and damage during construction. Nick developed a terrible hand cramp. I felt kind of bad. Afterwards, he walked with us back to the tube station and took us past the vintage (1913), now demolished, Arsenal stadium, home to his beloved Gunners. It's one of my top five favorite afternoons ever.

I sent a request to Springsteen asking if he would be willing to sign a portion of the broadsides. I didn't dare hope that he'd sign all 250. He declined and I didn't have the nerve to pursue the issue. Frankly, I was surprised that he granted permission to use the lyrics and I didn't want to push my luck.

* * *

It took a little over a year to produce the printer’s mock-up proof. A year is a bit longer than is customary for this type of work, but there were delays.

And then there were more delays. And the months peeled away. I thought the project was becoming a burden, so I offered to find someone else to print it. But Jim is steadfast and a man of his word and always finishes what he starts. The printing commenced slowly.

I actually don’t recall the specifics (and wouldn’t share them here if I did) but eventually, tensions rose, words were exchanged and we stopped speaking. Our friendship died. And the Thunder Road chapbook project ceased.

In July of 2008 I wrote to Hornby and said that, with deepest regrets, the book would not be made. He wrote a short piece on his blog about how all artistic endeavors begin with good intentions but don't always come to fruition or a happy ending. He used our book as a case in point.

* * *

Years passed by.

I wrote to Jim last fall and after a few tentative e-mail exchanges, I asked if he wouldn’t mind shipping the guts of the book. He had finished the essays and broadsides but the covers still needed to be printed and the book had to be assembled. He boxed them up carefully and they arrived in New Jersey sometime in December.

* * *

I had some contacts in the letterpress community that led me to Ray at Lead Graffiti, an extraordinary letterpress printer in Delaware. I approached him about the project with the caveat that although I could cover the cost of materials, all the heavy lifting would have to be done pro bono. Would he be interested?

He embraced the project so enthusiastically that in addition to making the 200 softcovers, he decided to create a special run of 26 hardcovers that would sell at a premium. Ray's partner, Jill, jumped in and created a beautiful linocut stamp of storm clouds to print on the cover.

Here's Ray slaving away at the printing press.

I was moved by their enthusiasm for the project and willingness to create hardcovers. I meditated on how they could be made even more special. I approached Springsteen again and asked if he would be willing to sign the broadsides for just those 26 copies. He politely declined five years ago, but this time he said yes. I dropped the broadsides off at his house and picked them up several weeks later.

* * *

The book has two spines. The essay is bound in on the left spine, and the broadside with the lyrics unfolds from the right. We borrowed the same font from the Born to Run album cover for the title. The covers are printed on black Somerset Velvet and the flysheet for the essay is printed on white mulberry paper.

Click on these pics, magnify, and take a good, close look. Try not to salivate into your keyboard.

The linocut is printed black-on-black ink for the cover and repeated in white-on-white for the flysheet.

A hand-rolled deckle edge that emulates yellow road paint was added along the bottom.

It's sewn with matching yellow thread. The hardcovers have yellow endpapers.

The 26 copies signed by both Springsteen and Hornby were priced at $225 and are sold out. But I still have the softcovers to sell. They are priced at $60 each; a steal considering the level of craftsmanship and the content. All copies are signed by Nick Hornby on his essay. Per Hornby and Springsteen's request, proceeds from the sale are being donated to TreeHouse, a school in London for autistic children.

We created six special sets that are not for sale. One hardcover and one softcover are laid into a custom clamshell case, handmade by Bill of Bottle of Smoke Press, who also assisted with the cover printing. These sets go to Springsteen, Hornby and the four project participants. Bruce was kind enough to inscribe the broadsides for those six copies to each of us. Here’s my hardcover copy. Brothers and sisters, this is all the payment I'll ever need.

* * *

Getting this book made has been a long, arduous process but the finished product is a small masterpiece. Hardbound copies were purchased for the special collection libraries at Columbia University, The University of Delaware and The Newark Library. There’s also a copy on hold for the Library of Congress.

Letterpress printing is a fading art form. There are no new Heidelberg Presses being manufactured. These books are created by craftsmen who are at the top of their game. They're the polar opposite of cold, impersonal eBooks. Aside from the obvious “do-good” aspect, they are a prestige item. But it was very, very expensive to produce. And I don’t just mean the black Somerset Velvet, white mulberry paper and untold hours of uncompensated labor. This book annihilated a great friendship.

You can order a copy via PayPal. The account is ThunderRoadChapbook@gmail.com. [Please do not leave orders in the comments section.] I'll start shipping copies sometime next week. If you really want to help out, throw a link up to this too-long post.

Please note: We are sold out. There are no books available. Thanks to all who purchased a copy.

How a bona fide tough guy inscribes a book

2011-05-26T03:02:00.000-07:00

A poem should be written so that a whore, a stockbroker, a garbage collector, an aviator, a jockey, a baker, a child molester, a saint, a fool and a genius can understand it.

Charles Bukowski

If you're familiar with Bukowski's work, you know how much he adhered to that philosophy.

That's the inscription in one of my Bukowski first editions. In this month's column over at the Undie Press, I discuss Bukowski's talent for inscribing and also say some unflattering things about a beloved, dead author. Enjoy!

* * *

If you haven't already done so, click to the comments in my last post and read JZ's fascinating history lesson. It's got more gravitas than anything I've written here.

Conference Room With a View

2011-05-23T04:15:00.000-07:00

The job market is steadily improving here in New York and I've been on a mad tear interviewing in an effort to shed this consultant skin and get a position that will provide my family and I with fat, juicy benefits. I have some freelance friends who would never trade-in their independence. They don't want to be beholden to The Man, man, but that ain't me. The Man has afforded me a pretty decent standard of living and I'll sign on the dotted line with blood as soon as I find a good match.

To that end, I called in sick last Tuesday (kack-kack) and interviewed at Large Orange Institution inside the elegant Helmsley Building, just outside of Grand Central Station. Originally built in 1929 by the New York Central Railroad Company and known as the New York Central Building, it was renamed in 1988 by a wretched, old gargoyle named Leona Helmsley.

I interviewed with two different Big Shots. After sufficiently charming and dispensing with Big Shot #1, and while waiting for Big Shot #2 to show up, I snapped this photo from the conference room window. This is looking north up Park Avenue. I like this perspective because everything comes to a sharp point.

The third building on the left—the one that juts out a bit—is Lever House. Directly across the street is the Seagram Building. Both are considered influential architectural milestones and if a certain JZ wants to explain why in the comments section he should feel free to do so. The building one block north of the Seagram Building with the gold glow is the Waldorf-Astoria. This is the high-rent district.

Here's the elevator I took up to my interview. It's so Olde World New York. It's red painted wood with an ornate metal façade.

At the center of the abstract design at eye level is an interlocking "NYC" in front of two intertwined serpents. (Click on this one.)

The elevators have an over-the-top Louis XIV interior with a sky mural on the ceiling. It's flea market elegant.

The interviews went SO well, and my skill set is so suited to their needs, that before the day was over I got a call from the headhunter telling me they're interested. It would, however, be a three-month contract-to-hire. Nobody hires directly on staff anymore! Here we go again.

# # #

Boy, did I need a stiff drink after all that. It feels strange to drink at 3:00 in the afternoon, but when ya gotta, ya gotta. And I knew just the place.

I met CB, who is a writer and keeps very irregular hours, and Bob, who's visiting from London, at the elegant Campbell Apartment inside Grand Central Station. It's a little known, stately, watering hole tucked into the corner that looks out onto Vanderbilt Avenue. The drinks aren't cheap but it's an authentic New York place to have a libation.

The room was once the office of American financier John W. Campbell, who served on the New York Central's Board of Directors. It was never actually an apartment.

Light streams in and bathes the dark wood room with midday sun. There's balcony seating (from where I took these shots) where you can observe all the busy little creatures chasing out their destinies.

Of high art and low art

2011-05-20T04:02:00.000-07:00

Mural with blue brush stroke (1987) is a five-story high mural in the atrium of the Equitable Life Assurance building on 7th Avenue and 53rd Street by benday dot master Roy Lichtenstein. I had always tried to get a photo of it but pictures are not permitted. The cracker jack lobby security guards are quick to jump on anyone who pulls a camera out of their bag.

I just got a 3G iPhone and the Facetime feature includes a forward facing camera. So by pretending to send a text message, I was able to take a pic over my shoulder. The work is a nice piece but this photo looks kind of washed out. The colors are more vivid in person. I haven't mastered my iPhone's camera functionality yet.

Now that I have an iPhone I feel like I've been given a seat at the cool kid's table in the cafeteria. The Facetime feature is kind of useless to me since I don't know anyone else with a 3G iPhone. I resisted the iPhone for years but now that I have one I kind of see what the fuss is all about.

# # #

I was out for lunch eating my ham sandwich and saw this homeless woman acting in a most peculiar way.

Upon closer examination, I saw that she was painting. She had a gallon can of what looked like white house paint and a small, small, model paint brush. She would dip the tip into the can of paint and make very deliberate and delicate squiggles of white paint on her shoe. She had already painted her backpack, luggage, pants and hat. (Click for detail.)

This pic doesn't do it justice. It makes it look like the suitcase is covered with pigeon droppings. But the work is actually quite detailed and delicate. I would hazard to say that the effort and number of hours spent on her project might rival that of Mr. Lichtenstein's mural above.

It made me wonder how the arbitrators of art—the ones who hold the purse strings and dole out commissions—get their position. And what separates one artist, who has his work displayed in corporate atriums and is a multimillionaire, from another artist who has the same burning need for artistic expression but is homeless. To me, these things have more to do with chance and circumstance than the quality of the work itself. I've seen works on display at MoMA that didn't have the same depth of thought as that suitcase.

It's Guess the Odd Shape Tuesday

2011-05-17T05:15:00.000-07:00

Can anyone guess what this is without scrolling down?

Give up? It's the entrance to an inflatable tunnel at a local fair! What were you thinking?

If you think this looks odd, you should see what it looked like when they came out the other end. All sorts of anatomical horrors were called to mind.

# # #

I was passing by the Aéropostale store on 5th Avenue and saw a big hub-bub. A gaggle of tourists and clicking cameras on a busy Manhattan street can only mean one thing: celebrity sighting! I've lived here a long, long time and let me tell you something; spotting a celebrity NEVER gets old. I moved in for a closer look. I had faint hopes that it was one of my two pretend girlfriends; Mary Louise Parker or Marissa Tomei.

As expected, I was sorely disappointed in the extreme. It was the cut, hunky young man whose poster adorns the entrance. It was an in-store promotion. That guy has 0% body fat! The girls swooned. You know, they only want him for his washboard abs and exposed boxer shorts.

They don't care one whit about his mind. If I saw my Mary Louise or Marissa, I'd ask them a lot of questions about their aspirations and pay attention. I wouldn't stare longingly at their heaving breasts while they answered.

# # #

As I've admitted in the past, I'm just a big old Anglophile so, yes, I got sucked into the Royal Wedding madness just a bit. I know I should be too old and too detached to care but what can I say? There are taxi cabs roaming around town that carry a congratulatory message for the Royal Couple. I think this is so fine! It's New York tipping our hat to London.

Every morning before work I have a cup of coffee at the same corner deli. There's always a flat screen TV playing the A.M. talk shows. The sound on the TV is turned down and they stream the local lite rock radio station in the background. I got my coffee and sat at a table to watch the wedding coverage. Big stupid smile on my face wishing I was there. The carriage had left Westminster Abbey and was well on its way to Buckingham Palace. As it turned a corner, the radio station blasted Barry White's disco classic Can't Get Enough of Your Love. It was so perfectly timed that it made me wonder if it was intentional.

I got to my office and booted up to watch the balcony kiss from my desk. I thought the BBC was the place to go for the best coverage. Go to the source! I got this very British response when I clicked the "watch live" link:

Shouldn't the BBC have assumed that streaming traffic would be extraordinarily heavy that morning and somehow found a way to up their bandwidth? Who's running that joint?

Tales of Terror for Tiny Tots

2011-05-13T21:10:00.000-07:00

I bought 9-Year Old Daughter a box set of classic paperbacks packaged by Wordsworth Classics. Peter Pan. Treasure Island. The Wizard of Oz. Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. The usual suspects.

I was complaining that I was out of reading material so she went up to her room and came down with a book from that set. English Fairy Tales. She knows I'm an old Anglophile and I'm always pushing books under her nose so turnabout is fair play. Besides, the illustrations were by Arthur Rackham and I've always admired his work.

For the love of GOD what are you British people feeding your children!? These are not at all like the delicate, sanitized fables that I've been reading to my poor young innocents all these years. It's basically the same story over and over. Male royalty discovers downtrodden female commoner, falls in love and marries her. It's Cinderella over and over and over, but with acts of extreme violence and cruelty. To wit.

This is from Mr. Fox, the tale of a beautiful young maiden (They're always young and beautiful unless they are a "witch-woman" in which case they're old and ugly.) who discovers a secret about the man she is soon to marry. While exploring the castle she discovers...

Why! a wide saloon lit with many candles, and all round it, some hanging by their necks, some seated on chairs, some lying on the floor, were the skeletons and bodies of numbers of beautiful young maidens in their wedding-dresses that were all stained with blood.

In Babes in the Woods, a three-year old boy and his younger sister are abandoned in the woods by a mean uncle. Is there a fairy tale happy ending? Nay.

Thus wandered these poor innocents,
Till death did end their grief;
In one another's arms they died,
As wanting due relief:
No burial this pretty pair
From any man receives,
Till Robin Readbreast piously
Did cover them with leaves.

The Red Ettin is a fearsome creature who...

...stole King Malcom's daughter, The King of Scotland. He beats her, he binds her, He lays her on a band; And every day he strikes her With a bright silver wand.

The Fish and the Ring is (yet another) fable of a parent who unwittingly entrusts their child to the tender mercies of a cruel adult.

Well! the man he nigh jumped for joy, since he was to get good money, and his daughter, so he thought, a good home. Therefore he brought out the child then and there and the Barron, wrapping the babe in his cloak, rode away. But when he got to the river he flung the little thing into the swollen stream and said to himself as he galloped back to his castle: 'There goes fate!

In Molly Whuppie and the Double-Faced Giant, the giant is cheated out of his own riches by a conniving young man, and is tricked in a most heinous way:

For in the very middle of the night, when everybody else was dead asleep, and it was pitch dark, in comes the giant, all stealthy, feels for the straw chains, twists theme tight round the wearers' necks, half strangles his daughters, drags them on to the floor, and beats them till are quite dead.

The Little Red Riding Hood of my youth always ended with the hunter slaying the wolf. Not in the original English version:

'All the better to eat you with, my dear!' says that wicked, wicked wolf, and with that he gobbled up little Red Riding Hood.

The end.

I have a vague recollection of Disney making a movie out of the classic Tom Thumb. I don't recall how the movie ends, but I'm willing to bet it didn't end the way the original story did:

Thus Tom was once more in favour; but he did not live long to enjoy his good luck, for a spider one day attacked him, and though he fought well, the creature's poisonous breath proved too much for him; he fell dead on the ground where he stood, and the spider soon sucked every drop of his blood.

The Rose Tree borrows a page from Sweeney Todd. Or perhaps it's the other way around.

And the child did as she was bid without fear; and lo! the beautiful little golden head was off in a second, by one blow of the axe. Because she was a wicked witch-woman, knowing spells and charms, she took out the heart of the little girl and make it into two savoury pasties, one for her husband's breakfast and one for the little boy's.

The English might be a bunch of crazies, but I still wish I was one of them.

Two sides of the same NYC coin

2011-05-10T19:05:00.000-07:00

I just came from Lincoln Center where I saw a piano recital. I know most people would find that to be a big bore-fest of an evening but that stuff feeds my needs. The program included Bach's Tocatta and the beautiful Six Moments Musicaux by Rachmaninoff. The pianist was Xiayin Wang and, oh Sweet Mother of Jesus, what a performance! Do you realize the level of musicianship someone needs to attain in order to play at Alice Tully Hall? It takes a superhuman, almost mystical capability. You have to be, quite literally, among the best in the world.

They completed a major renovation of Alice Tully Hall just two years ago. The concert hall itself is a work of art. It's all soft angles and perfect acoustics and warm wood and full sound. And it's super-comfortable, to boot. I was sitting on the side balcony, which is the perfect view to watch her fingers dance across the keyboard.

The program had this to say about Bach's Tocatta:

The intervening slow passage raises questions of its own in its harmonic circling, and has to deal with an early crisis in the form of an extraordinary diminished-seventh tremulation.

WHAT THE HELL IS THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?

What a bunch of pretentious gobbledygook. They could just as well have written this:

Gpungh elwengh crothzen leumbh geewee goygoy fungsell weveweve neng.

# # #

The day before I was bathed in Lincoln Center splendor, I passed this on Varick Street in Soho on the way to work:

Yeah, vermin proof if the lid is on. What kind of twisted city ordinance requires that the garbage bins that are vermin proof need to be labeled as such? Vermin can't read. I like the lettering. It looks like the cover of a death-metal CD. I am happy to report that I saw this near the Trump Soho Hotel. Make of that what you will.

Since I work on the third floor, I don't bother with the elevator. I take the stairs up. Right after I saw vermin-proof, I bumped into this little fella right around the second floor:

It looks like someone mushed his little head. They call these "water bugs" but that just a pleasant name for a BIG cockroach. I should have put a coin next to him to give you a sense of scale. He's a bit larger than your thumb.

New York. You gotta take the world-class pianists with the vermin.

Head on a stick

2011-05-06T20:25:00.000-07:00

Ai Weiwei is a contemporary Chinese artist. He helped design the "bird's nest" stadium for the Chinese Olympics and recently had an exhibit at the Tate Modern in London where he covered the turbine hall floor with sunflower seeds that were made from porcelain.

He is currently sitting in a jail cell in China. (No one knows exactly where.) He was snatched as he boarded a flight to Hong Kong. The government said he has committed "economic crimes." I don't suppose his detention has anything to do with his outspokenness, does it? China is a terrible, terrible place. They're not our friends.

A fantastic sculpture exhibit by Mr. Ai, Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads, just opened outside of the Plaza Hotel at Central Park South and 59th Street. The exhibit was long planned and he was supposed to be there for the opening, but it's hard to attend your opening when your legs are in shackles.

The bronze sculptures are 12 heads of the creatures of the Chinese zodiac. They're much, much bigger than I thought they'd be. I was told by the guy selling exhibit books and tee-shirts that they weigh 800 pounds each!

There's rat, ox, tiger...

...rabbit, dragon, snake...

...horse, goat, monkey...

...and rooster, dog, boar.

Dragon is, by far, the most beautifully rendered. Click on this and have a look.

The heads are replicas of versions that were made by European Jesuits for the Manchu emperor Qianlong. They were looted in 1860 when the Summer Palace was ransacked and burned by British and French troops during the Opium Wars. The Chinese government eventually retrieved five of them (ox, tiger, horse, monkey and boar). Two of them (rat and rabbit) are part of designer Yves Saint Laurent's art collection. The remaining five are presumed lost forever.

Unlike Mr. Ai, the exhibit is FREE! FREE! FREE! It runs through July 15th.

# # #

To every thing there is a season,

and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die;

a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

A time to weep, and a time to laugh;

a time to mourn, and a time to dance.

Abu Ghraib, New Jersey

2011-04-20T15:15:00.000-07:00

5-Year Old Daughter has a wild and vivid movie playing inside her head at all times. Often, I'll hear her on her own in some corner of the house providing dialog for two inanimate objects. Not just dolls. She'll pick up two pencils or a fork and a toy car and have them "talk" to one another. Whole conversations! It's entertaining to watch from the shadows.

I heard her yammering upstairs in our bedroom so I crept up to see what kind of charming world she was creating this time. Was it princesses or a menagerie of friendly stuffed animals? I turned the corner and was stunned to see this scene unfolding on our bed. She had placed the cloth pouch used for game pieces over the head her doll!

Then, much to my horror, she cinched the bag closed around the doll's neck! Oh, my God! What ghastly game is this she's playing!? Next stop, the child psychologist.

* * *

I was walking down my driveway with 9-Year Old Daughter to get in the car. At the apron, we saw an empty, crushed pack of Marlboro's. The wind blows all kinds of crap in from the roadway. She looked down and said the most wonderful, satisfying thing:

"Dad, what is that?"

Can you imagine! 9-years old and doesn't recognize a pack of cigarettes! Perhaps next I'll show her a typewriter, an 8-track cartridge and a black and white television.

* * *

Have you ever impulse purchased a CD from Amazon.com because it was really cheap and then, once it arrived and you go to tuck it into your CD rack, found that you ALREADY OWN A COPY?

No, of course you haven't. Only someone with the attention span of a gnat would do that.

Would anybody like a free copy of Genius: Warren Zevon's Greatest Hits? His songs are like really great short stories, mostly about broken, fucked up lives, all weaved with sometimes gentle, sometimes chugging, piano.

Well, I'm sittin' here playing solitaire
With my pearl-handled deck
The county won't give me no more methadone
And they cut off your welfare check.

Carmelita hold me tighter
I think I'm sinking down
And I'm all strung out on heroin
On the outskirts of town

Carmelita

Edit: The CD is gone. It's going to Ireland! Thank you for playing.

My superhero origin

2011-04-18T15:20:00.000-07:00

Superman had his rocket from Krypton

Batman saw his parents murdered.

Spider-man was bitten by a radioactive spider.

In this month's column at the Undie Press, I tell the story of how I became The Unbearable Banishment and then segue to my recent trip to the annual Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America rare bookfair, where I swooned and salivated over some of the most beautiful and unobtainable books on the planet.

The Rebbe is coming! The Rebbe is coming! And he's driving an RV.

2011-04-16T19:50:00.000-07:00

Every religion has its fringe elements who have *ahem* interesting viewpoints. Here in New York, the Hasidic community has a group of followers who insist that their charismatic leader, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who died in 1994, is actually the Moshiach (Messiah), and are eagerly await his resurrection. Now, I ask you, is that any crazier than when the Apostles were selling the same special sauce 2,000 years ago?

If you're in the right place at the right time, you'll catch their fabulous parade of rented RVs that promote their beliefs. The RVs blast music and people hang out the windows and wave at New Yorkers, some who watch gape-mouthed. In this clip, I caught them on 6th Avenue just south of 42nd Street working their way uptown towards Rockefeller Center.

These seem to be benevolent folks whose core message, as far as I can tell, is one of promoting goodness and kindness. To me, they're harmless nuts, unlike some other religious fringe groups who like to judge people and tell everyone how to live—or else.

:15 second reviews

2011-04-14T14:40:00.000-07:00

I'm never going to get around to writing individual posts for these and since it's my least-popular feature, I thought I'd lump a bunch of quick-hit reviews together. Enjoy! Or not.

* * *

In High, Kathleen Turner plays a foul-mouthed alcoholic nun in a rehab center. Big stretch! She was great but I thought the plot was very movie-of-the-week and the script was weak. An actual line of dialog:

“Cody is hiding something!”

Oh, you don't say? Well, beat me over the head with a big obvious stick. The guy playing the young drug addict was AC-TING and E-MO-TING too much. But my two friends loved it, so who knows? The reviews come out Tuesday. Then I'll know what to think.

* * *

Marisa Tomei is my pretend girlfriend, along with Mary Louise Parker. They, on the other hand, are unaware of my existence. The New Group's Marie and Bruce is :90 minutes of a wife's raging, venomous hatred of her husband. If you think that's uncomfortable to sit through, you're right. Both Tomei and Frank Whaley, her punching bag husband, are terrific. They leave it all on the stage, including for real tears. But if you're feeling kind of blue and insecure about your relationship, then I'd steer clear of this one. A few years back they made this into a movie with Julianne Moore and Matthew Broderick. I can't IMAGINE what that looks like.

* * *

I was looking forward to Driving Miss Daisy with slight trepidation. I thought it might be a lot of Old Lions of the Theater-type histrionics. Well, it wasn't. Darth Vader's Hoke was quiet and seemed truer to the spirit of the character than Morgan Freeman's (although Freeman originated it). And, boy, can Vanessa Redgrave act! (That's like pointing out that water is wet.) A highlight of the season.

* * *

The funniest/saddest/truest thing you can see right now is David Lindsay-Abaire's Good People. Francis McDormand, a down and out "Southie" from the wrong side of Boston, looks up Tate Donovan, a former fling who made it out of the neighborhood and is now a doctor. She gives an utterly selfless performance, looking drab and beaten by life throughout. The entire cast of six is spectacular. I recognize some of the characters in this show from my past and it stayed with me for a long while.

* * *

Richard Thomas plays the bumbling idiot Timon in Shakespeare's rarely-produced Timon of Athens. Timon gives all of his money away to his friends and then turns into a hermit and violent misanthrope when he goes broke and none of his "friends" will lend him a nickle. It didn't get strong reviews when it opened but I really liked it a lot. And tickets were a measly $15 bucks! C'mon! A top-notch Shakespeare production at The Public Theater (one of the best venues in town) for mere pennies. You can't go wrong, folks.

How the Chinese in New York scam Apple

2011-04-09T21:40:00.000-07:00

This is the Apple store in Soho.

This is a queue of Chinatown residents waiting to get inside.

You'll stumble across this curious scene in front of Apple retail outlets each time Apple releases a popular product. Are the Chinatown residents obsessed with having the latest cutting edge technology? No, they are not. They are part of an elaborate scheme perpetuated from China, a country flush with disposable income and obsessed with owning prestigious items like Apple products.

It works like this: local Chinese wait in line and pay retail for Apple products, forgoing any contracts with AT&T or Verizon. (In this case, they are after the new, hard-to-get, iPad2.) They will each buy two (the limit per customer) and sell them to a middleman in Chinatown, usually an electronics store. They are then shipped back to China (from where they're made!) and sold at inflated prices. Last summer, they'd paid $600 for an iPhone 4, sell it to their middleman for $750 and it was resold in China for up to $1,000. Workers can earn up to $300 in a single morning.

Apple tried to clamp down on this trading network but advocates for the Chinese went to the New York State Attorney General and cried that they were being discriminated against, so Apple backed off.

It's not actually stealing per se, but there's a wrongness about it. They deprive domestic, legitimate customers of product. They're a crafty bunch, aren't they? How do you like them Apples?

Jesus saves. Except when he doesn't.

2011-04-06T10:50:00.000-07:00

I'll probably catch a lot of hell for this one but this is *my* sandbox.

* * *

I recently read a piece in The New York Times about Bethany Hamilton. She's a professional surfer who, at 13 years old, had her arm bitten off by a shark while surfing in Hawaii. They made a movie about her.

During the course of the very brief interview, she said the following:

"[The movie] tells of the struggles that me and my family went through after the attack and the passion we have for both surfing and God."

"I believe in Jesus Christ and I believe he gave me the passion and determination to continue surfing."

"I...enjoy Bible study and making dinners."

"[My parents] have encouraged me in my relationship with Jesus Christ and in my passion for surfing."

10 questions. Four of her answers mentioned Jeebus. When people shoehorn their religious beliefs into every facet of the conversation, they always come off as sounding kind of brainwashed to me. Like they're stumbling around in a narcotic stupor.

My mother did it the right way. She had a strong bond with the Catholic church but never militantly so. She never berated me for falling away from the church. Never proselytized. And certainly never spewed any of that "Jesus is the only way to heaven" rhetoric. (Somehow, I can't picture Gandhi in hell.)

If I were Bethany and I had a special relationship with Jesus, I'd ask Him why the hell a shark ate my arm. And, as long as I had his attention, why entire villages were swept out to sea in Japan.

Oh...excuse me...I forgot my place. My catechism classes are long behind me. We are never supposed to ask questions. Keep your head down. Give thanks. I'm a sinner. I believe in the Holy Catholic Church. But don't ask why.

God gets all the credit, but none of the blame. That's a pretty sweet deal. How can I swing that at work?

Wherefore art thou, sanity?

2011-04-04T06:50:00.000-07:00

My Bride went to a Ladies Party on Sunday afternoon. A Ladies Party is where someone invites all of her lady friends over and then proceeds to sell them stuff. I think this all started in the 1950s with Tupperware. This time, it was jewelry. Sometimes, it's clothing or make-up or cleaning products. I take a suspicious view of all this. If I had a bunch of guy friends over for beers and poker and tried to sell them gym memberships, I'd probably get a good swift kick in the nobby-halls.

I gathered The Daughters and escaped into the city. It's finally starting to become spring-like. I took them to a play in Greenwich Village but before the show we hung out in Washington Square Park for a bit.

I wonder what she was pointing out? I'll never know.

There's always a busker or two around. Someone rolled a piano into the park and was played Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue (see pic above). After that we watched a contortionist fold himself into a tiny Plexiglas cube. What a way to make a living! I'll bet it beats the hell out of sitting at a desk all day. That's no fun. Take it from me.

I took them to see the sickeningly talented Flying Karamazov Brothers at the Minetta Lane Theater. The Brothers (who aren't) are world class jugglers and also pretty damn good musicians, dancers and comedians.

I saw their show last fall and had been meaning to take the girls. I read that they're packing up their flaming torches, pins and tutus and heading off to London, so I got tickets to their last day in New York. As satisfying as ever. UK readers; they're starting a summer run at the Vaudeville in June. They'll make you forget all your troubles for :90 minutes, and who couldn't use that?

Before the show, we were sitting in a booth at a diner on 6th Avenue, me across from the two of them. I sipped my coffee and watched them eat. Two healthy, happy, well behaved, pretty little girls. I looked out the window at a sun-soaked Manhattan. Show tickets in my pocket. A hot meal waiting for us when we got home. Tickets to a top-shelf production of Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors for next week. Can someone tell me where my sanity is?

Why, while possessing all the ingredients for a satisfying life, do I still occasionally want to run someone off the freeway into a bridge abutment if I see them using the cell phone while driving? Why do I allow some people at work to burrow so deep under my skin that I'd like to stick a pencil in their eye? Why do I fret about bull whipping the first person who breaks my daughter's heart (which, let's face it, is inevitable)? Is this part of the human condition or is it my singular madness?

Not ALL of Manhattan is beautified

2011-03-31T15:13:00.000-07:00

New Yorkers constantly moan and complain about the sterilization of Manhattan. But I'm here to tell you that if you want to get that walking-down-a-dark-street-might-get-mugged good ole' days feeling again, there are still some pretty dark areas. Personally? I've had my fill.

Certain sections of 8th Avenue, particularly near the Port Authority bus station, are still kind of spooky and have spooky businesses lining the streets. Porn shops. Fortune tellers. Check cashing services. Lottery merchants. I recently passed this fine establishment on 8th and 38th. It's one-stop shopping for all your rockin' Saturday night party needs!

Liquor and chicken, baby. It doesn't get any better than that. I wonder which came first? Did the liquor store buy a fryer or did the fried chicken shack obtain a liquor license? Either way, it sounds like a real moneymaker to me. Next time I walk by I'll pick up a couple of thighs, a breast and a bottle of Captain Morgan. I really do love this dirty town.

* * *

Here's the bus driver who took us to the Orlando airport last week. He seemed like a pretty happy, normal dude. Helped us with our luggage. A regular Joe.

But his name isn't Joe. It's this:

Fantastic. That's not a bus driver name. That's a Bond villain. Or a 1970's porn star. Or the heartbreaker in a cheap soap opera.

The hardest I've ever laughed (not counting that nitrous oxide incident)

2011-03-29T17:15:00.000-07:00

I try to use superlatives sparingly. If you use them too often, they lose their luster and your credibility is shot. Not everything can be the best or the brightest or the most clever.

But I'm going to go on a limb and say that The Book of Mormon, the new Broadway musical, is the funniest thing I've ever seen. I'm not kidding, bitches. I don't think I've ever laughed so hard in my life.

Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the guys who write South Park, got together with Robert Lopez, who wrote the music for Avenue Q and created a modern masterpiece.

I'd be very careful as to who I'd recommended this to. It's not for everyone. There are some extraordinarily vulgar and crude things being said and done on stage. The creators of the show are clearly not believers. The humor is all derived from actual Mormon doctrine. I had a Mormon girlfriend when I lived in Phoenix and I read The Book of Mormon to try and get inside of her head. The jokes in the show that seem the most outlandish and get the biggest laughs are actual teachings from the book! But the the magic trick is that they don't slander Mormons or religion. It's a celebration of blind, stupid faith.

I rarely, rarely see anything twice. If I get a night-out chit, I want to use it to see something new. But I already have tickets for another dose of this show in April. Little Miss Daisyfae will be in town on business and I'm dragging her with me. She gets her hands dirty in her local community theater, so I think she'll have an appreciation for what happens on stage from a technical standpoint. It'll be nice to show her what can be done with a monster budget at your disposal. And I'm fairly certain she can handle the blue material.

They did that on purpose...didn't they?

2011-03-27T18:40:00.000-07:00

Take a look at the cover of the new issue of Cosmopolitan:

PLEASE tell me that the Gyno News feature blurb is placed there intentionally. Because I don't want to believe that the editors of Cosmo are so vapid and clueless that they didn't realize what they were doing. Am I thinking too much?

Speaking of clueless...I love the lead article—50 Ways to Seduce a Man (In a Minute or Less). Don't make me laugh. Ladies, I will tell you how to seduce a man in two seconds. Walk up to your intended prey and in a soft voice, purr the following:

Would you like to sleep with me?

Presto! Men have a hard time putting up any resistance to a girl who is offering up her goodies. It's biology!

* * *

In 2010, General Electric posted a profit of $14.2 billion. The portion of that profit generated in the United States was $5.1 billion. That's profit, folks, above operating costs. A pretty damn good year considering there's a worldwide recession.

Guess how much General Electric paid in taxes on that $5.1 billion?

$0.00

Not only did they not pay a cent in taxes, they actually claimed a $3.2 billion tax benefit.

They accomplished this through perfectly legal accounting practices. They employ an army of aggressive tax lobbyists in Washington and have a tax department that's staffed by former officials of the Treasury Department, the I.R.S. and members of Congressional tax-writing committees.

I cannot tell you how angry I get when I read this stuff. I actively try to avoid news of this ilk because it causes me to lay in bed at night, stare at the ceiling and stew in my juices. It's very difficult for me to un-read something.

Hot Things

2011-03-25T01:08:00.000-07:00

Hot Thing...

Barely 21.

Hot thing...

Looking 4 big fun.

Hot thing...

What's your fantasy?

Hot thing...

Do U wanna play with me?

Hot Thing
by Prince

Princesses
by Disney

* * *

We met many of the Princesses at a special Princess breakfast. You have to make reservations months in advance, as it sells out quickly. During your meal, Princesses decked out in full ball gowns and surprisingly bad wigs flutter from table to table. They stop at each one, sign autograph books and have their pictures taken. I try to get them to break character but they never do. They're so committed to their roles that it's almost a bit creepy.

For the kiddies, it's their first celebrity encounter. It's like if you were eating in a restaurant that served mediocre food and Robert De Niro or Madonna walked up to your table to chat for a moment. Or if President Obama asked you if you were enjoying your eggs.

It costs a lot of money to hang out with royalty. This was the most expensive breakfast I'd ever purchased. It's an ordinary American breakfast; scrambled eggs, bacon, juice, potatoes and, for mom and dad, two cups of strong coffee. Breakfast for two adults and two daughters:

This is the mantra that is repeated over and over as you navigate through Disneyworld:

My memories began with that check.

It was three years ago today...

2011-03-23T03:30:00.000-07:00

Number of online followers:

Lady Gaga: 8,934,958

Justin Bieber: 8,295,699

Britney Spears: 7,192,143

President Obama: 7,101,148

The Unbearable Banishment: +/- 55 118

Three years and 711 posts. Telling the truth as I see it since 2008.

* * *

I am just back from Disneyworld. I enjoyed it vicariously through The Daughters, but would not choose to go there if I didn't have kids. I *did* see a few childless adults there. To each his/her own, I suppose.

I am going to refrain from the obligatory and obvious "Americans who visit amusement parks are out of shape" post because, despite outward appearances, I am a deeply flawed and troubled individual. Judging is not my business. And besides, I saw lot of people who were jogging in the morning, as well.

I will note, just in passing, that I saw some people who were so physically broken and so obviously beyond any kind of redemption, that I wonder where they find the strength to get out of bed in the morning and face the day, much less go through the expense and hassle of getting to Disneyworld. It didn't make me feel superior, as it might have when I was younger and less evolved. I just felt waves of sadness for them.

It started out small but grew very big

2011-03-19T18:30:00.000-07:00

While I'm in Orlando riding the Disney buses from one resort to the other, here's my monthly column in the Undie Press on collecting rare books. This time, I discuss a literary journal that had humble origins but is now a publishing powerhouse. Along the way, I reveal the source for all my best ideas and quips. Hint: they're not exactly original.

* * *

We went to a luau tonight and between the main course and the Polynesian fire dance, the woman sitting next to me whipped out her tit and breastfed her infant. If I were a more evolved individual it wouldn't have bothered me but, I'm sorry, it did.

* * *

I usually keep close tabs on world events but it's hard when you're on a holiday. I got back to the hotel this evening and saw that the West has dropped a shitload of tomahawk missiles on Muammar el-Qaddafi's ass. The New York Times is reporting that he's using women and children to shield his compound.

Did you know that the Arab League went to the United Nations and asked them to intervene? Once again, the Arab world is incapable of taking care of its own.

Question: Why doesn't the Arab League mass an army on the outskirts of Tripoli and march in?

Answer: Because we're addicted to oil so they don't have to. They're crafty.

Another day on your knees in the salt mine

2011-03-17T03:16:00.000-07:00

On my lunch hour, I visited the Mary Boone Gallery in Chelsea to see performance artist Terence Koh's latest work, nothingtoodooterencekoh. In it, a (supposedly) 45 ton pile of rock salt was dumped into the center of the gallery and Koh circumnavigates the pile ON HIS KNEES from the time the gallery opens until it closes. It's madness.

Some performance art is quite lovely to behold but I was going there to laugh at him. It seemed like a pretentious stunt. I don't know what it was supposed to signify. I NEVER know what it's supposed to signify. I don't do subtlety My judgments are all very base. Is it pretty to look at? I was sure that this was not.

There is no interaction with the audience. He has taken a vow of silence for the length of the run. Sometimes, he lays prostate on the floor in front of the pile. Initially, he was crawling on his knees without the aid of knee pads but he had to give that up because it was tearing his knees up.

As I said, I was going there because I thought the concept was a big joke. But a funny thing happened. Once there, I got swept up in it and it was actually quite beautiful. I can't explain it! The pile of salt was a perfect, perfect inverted cone with a sharply defined edge. His white garments seemed to mesh with the salt. The only light was the light that poured in from the skylight. There were about a dozen people there and they were all respectfully silent. There was something very calming about watching the whole thing and I didn't want to leave but I had to get back to MY pile of rock salt.

The goodbye look

2011-03-15T03:29:00.000-07:00

Disneyworld is pretty much the last thing that comes to mind when I think of taking some time off and going away on a relaxing holiday. But then I get this:

I know what happens.
I read the book.
I believe I just got the goodbye look.

So that pretty much settled that. I'm going to Disneyworld. I just got an e-mail from a friend who is, as this very moment, vacationing in Venice. It was a lifetime ago that I saw Italy and it'll be another lifetime until I can return. Until then, I'm off to the happiest place on earth. So help me Bog, it had better not rain. Not for the kind of money I had to burn.

Won't you pour me a Cuban breeze, Gretchen?

* * *

Last Sunday, The New York Times printed their semi-annual fashion magazine, T. This was the spring issue. It's thick and glossy and nothing but ads, really.

One spread featured Lou Reed wearing a Rick Owens jacket ($1,602), t-shirt ($286) and pants ($750).

Lou Reed!

Wearing a friggin' $286 t-shirt!

I guess I'm glad for Lou because he certainly did earn it, but it makes me kind of sad, too. When I was a tyke, I saw Lou tour his Sally Can't Dance album at Cleveland's Music Hall. He had platinum blond hair. At the beginning of the show, someone walked a dazed Lou out to the mike at center stage, strapped a guitar on him and he stood rooted in that spot for the entire show. But he got through it!

Now he's a model.

Okay. As Bukowski put it, scramble two.

Free tip from the Buddha/Baby, it's cold outside

2011-03-09T04:30:00.000-08:00

"Look how he abused me and beat me,
"How he threw me down and robbed me."
Live with such thoughts and you live with hate.

"Look how he abused me and beat me,
"How he threw me down and robbed me."
Abandon such thoughts and live in love.

In this world
Hate never yet dispelled hate.
This is law,
Ancient and inexhaustible.
You too shall pass away.
Knowing this, how can you quarrel?

from the Dhammapada

I suppose this can be dismissed as a platitude, but it got under my skin and stayed with me. In reading it over and over, I revealed an unattractive truth about myself. It's something I'm working on.

* * *

I had to stay in the city overnight so I got a hotel room. When I walked out the next morning at 6:30, I turned onto 57th Street and was hit with a blast of frigid crosstown wind. The Hudson River to my left, the East River to my right. Caught in the crossfire!

I simply can't take the cold anymore. It's been a long, cold winter. I fought my way eastward to the A train against a wind gust that stung my ears and made my eyes water. I lost it. I had a moment of insanity and started cursing God. I called him the most vile and foul things I could think of. Take it from me. I can be pretty imaginative.

To remedy this I am exercising the only option I have. I'm playing the Disney card. I'm taking all The Girls to Florida next week. So help me God, if the weather is bad when we get there, I'm going to find the nearest Catlick Church, kick the door in and give the Holy Father a piece of my mind. I'm not kidding.