New Year's Revelations

Well, here we are. 2010. I like the way that number looks on the page. It's clean. It has clarity. I think it's the zeros, they suggest balance, a leveling off. And why not after the year we just had? Michael Jackson dead. Farrah Fawcett dead. Tiger Woods' reputation nearly dead. An economy in the crapper. H1N1 hysteria. The Yankees winning the World Series. And it all ends with a 23 year-old Nigerian jihadi trying to blow up a plane on Christmas day. Could it get any worse? Probs yes, yes it could. But it won't in 2010. How could it with such a symmetrical number driving the train?

I don't do resolutions. Okay, I do do them, but they're a lot of pressure and ultimately disappointing, so I'm going to try something new. Here are my New Year's Revelations for 2010. These are things that recently were revealed to me by intuition or perhaps divine communique. I don't question the source. I am merely a conduit to enlightenment, here for your spiritual evolution. Hear then, what I have learned:


Time keeps on ticking, ticking, ticking into the FU-TURE. Sometimes it's like I can actually feel it ticking by, day after day, hour after hour, feel myself growing older by the second. I'm attending friends' funerals, watching my parents age, become forgetful and wrinkly, looking at myself in the mirror and wondering where the teenage me went. This is the stuff of which midlife angst is made. I read a poll that says that people are happiest at the following ages: 18-24 and 55-65. 35-44? Unhappiest. How can that be, one might ask? I can only figure it this way: 18-24 year olds are in college and graduating shortly thereafter. Or if not college-bound, they be clubbin', they be chillin', they all be too stupid and inexperienced to know what's waiting for them in ten to fifteen years. Optimism reigns. Disillusionment is a microscopic speck on the horizon that is imperceptible. The world is a red carpet and they have the young bodies and minds to run it down. Few mistakes, apart from drug overdoses, can break their reverie. 18-24 year olds are demigods. Broke and dependent demigods, but demigods nonetheless.

55-65 year olds have seen and done most of what they're going to do in life. They've already worked most of the hard hours they're going to work. They've come to terms with their failures and the dreams and ambitions of their youth that never bore fruit. For the men, sex is not the personal driver that it once was. (Fuck if that'll ever be me!) These AARP inductees possess new identities. They are calm. Sedate. They take painting classes. They play golf, chess, and poker. They enjoy their grandkids, who spark their hearts through toothless smiles, innocent questions, and absurd antics. The white hairs appreciate their health because too many of their friends have already passed. So they're happy riding this life thing out until they, too, succumb to a cough or chest pain that never leaves.

What of the 35-44 year olds, then? You'd think we'd be the happiest. We have money, decent jobs, and we pretty much know who we are at this point. Married or single, we get laid with relative regularity, give or take the societal fringe of course. We're independent, we can go and do what we want when we want. No parents to leash us. No osteoporosis to limit us. Why then are we so angst-ridden all the time?

Hell if I know. Ask me when I'm 55.

Sometimes it's not the place, it's the company. I tried Burlington, Vermont again for New Year's this year. Yeah. I did. It's just too nice a place to stay away from and I had some demons to exorcise. Made a few changes this time though. This time I: traveled there in a Volvo with all-weather tires; brought a snow shovel; wore a brand new Gore-tex lined L.L. Bean jacket that the tag said would keep me warm at -20 degrees Fahrenheit; and stayed there three nights instead of one. Most importantly, however, I was accompanied by my girlfriend of one year (today!), rather than someone I barely knew. And that, my friends, made all the difference. Let it never be said that I don't learn from my mistakes.

We are never EVER going to stop every single disgruntled person in the world who wants to kill himself and a bunch of other people. I am dumbfounded by the gnashing of teeth that is going on over this Nigerian dude on the plane. It's stunning how a single potentially deadly act can induce mass hysteria for weeks from here to Des Moines. It was a close call, to be sure. He should never have gotten on the plane. Security needs to be better. Intelligence services need to communicate with each other and learn how to distill, digest, and react to the billions of bits of data that fly by every month. It is a herculean task.

You know who did that remarkably well? Who had incredibly solid control over their country (and several others)? Who knew where everyone was and what they were doing virtually all the time? The Nazis. Stalin ran a pretty tight ship too, as did some generals in Argentina and Chile in the 1970s. You didn't see too many terrorists in those countries back in the day. Pretty high price tag for that "safety" though, eh?

I'm going to make a bold prediction: unfortunately, more Americans are going to be killed by terrorists in the future. It's going to happen on a subway. It's going to happen on an airplane. It's going to happen in buildings, outside of buildings, in the United States and in foreign countries. It's going to happen. I hope I'm not there at the time, but I certainly could be. So could you. Our leaders will and should do their best to protect us and catch the people who want to do us harm, but anyone who thinks that we can stop every single person every single time from killing people when he or she is willing to die him or herself is beyond delusional. We can't even stop disgruntled Americans from killing Americans, in schoolyards, malls, post offices, law firms, brokerage houses, city neighborhoods, and federal buildings. What makes us think we're going to be anymore successful at stopping foreigners from doing it?

And why does everyone shit their pants when it's a foreigner -- an AL QAEDA OPERATIVE -- who does it? Aren't they murderers just like every other murderer? Isn't every homicide victim equal to every other? Maybe it's the mass scale of what the Nigerian tried to do that makes it more frightening. Tell me though, how many people in this country have died at the hands of mass murderers since 9/11? There was Columbine, there was that guy at Virginia Tech, there was that nutjob at the Amish school, there was the BTK Killer, there was Ted Bundy. No - Bundy was way before 9/11. So was BTK. Alright, so we've had mass murderers around for a long time in this country. I'd be willing to bet that more Americans were killed in school shootings during the past 8 years than were killed as a result of foreign terrorism.

Of course we need to try and stop it. I want to clap and dance a jig every time I find out that a drone has offed some human garbage in Pakistan or Afghanistan. But we need to face reality too. We can't stop everybody. There's a risk associated with being alive: you might get killed. We can't invade every country -- we can't afford it and it's bankrupting us. Bin Laden has said from the very beginning that he wants to bankrupt us. Bin Laden has known all along that when we can't afford our tanks, our drones, our military excursions to Iraq, Iran, and North Korea, when Americans are hungry and can't find work or decent health care because we're spending billions upon billions outside the country on war after war after war, when America shreds the Constitution and creates a police state like the Nazis and Soviet Union in an effort to keep out every brainwashed Nigerian or Yemeni or Pakistani who has so devalued his own life that he thinks dying and killing is the only thing that will make him important, well, that's when he knows that he's as close to a complete victory over the United States as he's going to achieve in his lifetime. That's when he and Al Qaeda will have won. He knows it. He's planning for it. And so far, it's working. Because we overreact to every action Al Qaeda takes. Because we fear death so much that we're unwilling to accept a single casualty -- excepting those to our military forces, and even those we find virtually unbearable -- as the cost of doing business in this "War on Terror."

We haven't been asked to do too much in this War since September 2001. The very least we can do is keep our wits, not piss our pants when bad things, terrible things happen -- and unfortunately they will continue to -- and understand that there will be casualties in this War, both civilian and military. It's a War. That's what happens in Wars. People die. When we avoid disaster like we did two weeks ago, we should count our blessings, fix the problems we can fix and accept those that we can't. Because some can't be fixed.

Remember, it wasn't airport security, Predator drones, or the billions of dollars spent in Afghanistan and Iraq that stopped the Nigerian on that Detroit flight. It was two alert, clear-eyed passengers who figured out what was happening and brought the hammer down on that asshole. Same for those passengers over Shanksville, PA on 9/11. They died fighting.

Damn, that was a rant and a half, wasn't it?

Rants can be cathartic.

At some point, I became the parent of my parents. I'm not sure when it happened, but here we are.

I want to ski again. I left this expensive hobby behind when I moved to the city eighteen years ago. It just wasn't easy to keep it up what with law school, no car for more than a decade, and the long hours I worked earlier in my career. Plus it's hard as balls to get out of the city and up to a mountain on a Friday night. Plus no car. Oh, I mentioned that already. Anyhoo, after viewing the whitecapped Alps during my plane ride home last November and driving by the Green Mountains in Vermont over the holiday, I realized that I really miss skiing. I miss being on the mountain, skis underfoot, and trying to figure out how I'm going to survive the black diamond that I mistakenly thought was an intermediate slope. I don't miss kissing tree stumps with my face or bloody lift tickets, though. I'm going to Vail, Colorado in two weeks, so we'll see how strong this rekindled ski bug of mine really is. I heard they wear helmets now, that's probably a good thing for me.

I crave light. I think I have seasonal affective disorder. All I feel like doing this winter, besides skiing of course, is sleeping. I slept so much over Christmas I felt like a hibernating bear. This winter has been cold so far and the darkness is so damn depressing. I'm going to need to wedge in a beach trip before April, methinks.

In another life, I'm an artist. If I wasn't so damn materialistic and attached to my thus far cushy lifestyle, I'd be doing full-time what I enjoy in my spare time: writing and photography. Hell, I might even be a painter! I just know in another life, another version of reality in the multiverse, I'm sitting with an easel somewhere, Mandrake goatee on my face, mixing acrylics and painting the Cathedral of Notre Dame. Or, having graduated from the renown MFA program at the University of Iowa, I'm working on my third novel after publishing two lengthy short story compilations. Or I'm a photojournalist documenting atrocities in Darfur. In this life, I catch fluorescent tans in my Aeron chair, work in front of the computer until 11 p.m., and return home only to collapse on my mango sofa from Design Within Reach and click on my plasma t.v. in a vain effort to forget about the stress of my day. Which sounds better to you? I'm just saying, I was probably destined for more arty things, and I got sidetracked somewheres. I think it was when my Uncle Saverio let me borrow his bottle of Paco Rabanne in the seventh grade before a school dance. (I needed all the ammo I could get, you know, to impress the LAY-DEES.)

It was all downhill from there.

Saturday Mournings

I don't know why this happens on Saturday mornings when I'm alone. I'll be sitting at my computer, surfing, playing Scrabble on Facebook. Inevitably, I'll go to iTunes and try to hunt down a new song that I discovered the week before that I can't live without. This week it's "Sing" by Peter Joback and Kate Pierson (of B-52s fame) - I think it's a cover of an old 60s song. I'll play the song and all these memories and thoughts of people who have died will fill my mind. Anne, Matt, my Uncle Saverio, my grandmother, images of them in my head, like grainy old film. Anne's preoccupied scowl on Melrose Avenue. Riding on the back of her motorcycle. The way she hung upside down on the jungle gym when we were seven while I practically wet my pants. Matt's freckles. Matt's cackle. Matt lying in his coffin with too much lipstick. My uncle's voice on the phone the day before he died. His beard. His smile. The way he rubbed his teeth with the plastic wrapper from his cigarette box when he was done eating. My grandmother's bear hugs. The ten dollars I got from her every birthday. The indecipherable half-English, half-Italian scrawl she wrote in my birthday card. Her pizzelli she made herself and wrapped in tinfoil and fed us whenever we'd come to visit. How we'd have to have my father translate half the things she said because we couldn't understand a word.

I'll think of how they're all gone too early, how their lives ended. How they're not here anymore, how I miss them. How my parents will, one day too soon, not be here anymore. And I'll get profoundly, immeasurably sad.

Life sometimes seems quite pointless, doesn't it? Death makes it so. What do we all live for, what's the purpose of it all when inevitably, there will come a day when it's all over and we're not here anymore? When the writer puts a period at the end of our sentence? We try to find meaning for our lives in our jobs, our children, our families, our pastimes, but in the end, the reality we cobble together for ourselves disappears like a mirage that was never really there.

On Saturday mornings, when I don't have a certain someone and her dog to keep me company, that's how it sometimes feels to me. I don't say this because I'm depressed, so don't get all squirrely on me and advise me on the merits of Prozac. I'm fine. I'm just telling you about a feeling I sometimes get. Instead of letting it pass like a bad fart, I thought I'd examine it for a change. Problem is, the second I try to do that, it's gone. It's like trying to dissect a zen koan. "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" Already, even as I type these words, it's floating away, away, away, into the air. The sad feeling never lingers long. It comes upon me like a wave and rolls away just as quickly. I guess I'd compare it to an emotional orgasm. It's short, quick, and cathartic. Once I squeeze a few tears out, I instantly feel better. But why Saturday mornings? And why is it music, a certain kind of heart-tugging song that brings it all out, if ever so briefly? That unconscious, she is a strange bird!

Here's the song and video I was talking about.



The song is beautiful, to me, anyway. A guy, his girl, and their dog, driving through the Arizona or Utah desert, encountering the angry, the frustrated, the dispossessed, and changing their reality in the simplest of ways. It's a choice they make. And it all starts with a song. It's a simple thought: Just Sing. Singing is I am here. Singing is I exist. The connections we make, the people who touch us, whether they are alive or not. There's a purpose to it all, even if we have no idea what it is while we're here. They keep driving, all the way to New York, all the way to Brooklyn. The exhaust coming out of their car is a happy green and blue. You see how loud and angry it is, how mean the people are to each other. A dog gets squirted on. But a song and people change. Even in the Big City. It ends with a Hark the Herald Angels trumpet player, a man on his apartment roof blasting it out while his cat watches. Mission accomplished, our protagonists drive back West, towards the desert.

If only we were capable of that kind of patience and love. Maybe that's why we keep ourselves so busy all the time. Easier to go to work, write that brief, clean the apartment, make lists, check them twice, plan playdates, drive kids to karate, go antiquing, meet that deadline, go shopping, have a glass of wine, zone out to Survivor, or read People magazine to see what hijinks Lindsay Lohan has gotten herself into. A busy mind is an occupied mind, n'est-ce pas? And an occupied mind frets not, at least on the surface.

But is an occupied mind really living, or just passing through? Getting to life's core and purpose means opening up and exploring your guts. It means making yourself a little vulnerable. People don't like to do that. Too much exposure. Too much downside. That's probably why the world is the way it is. No one really knows who they are and why they're here. No one really understands why our priorities are so fucked up in the short time we spend here and we spend so much precious time going through the motions of life. And if we stop the blur for a second, if we bother to think about who we are and what we're doing, the amount of time that's already passed and what we've lost and missed can induce a stark melancholy.

That's why some of us have Saturday Mournings.

Some Things I've Concluded

It's easier to stay in shape in Utah than New York.

It's not all Don Draper's fault.

Organized religion is for the foolish, victimized, and/or lazy.

Spring and summer are for photography. Fall and winter are for writing.

I occasionally delude myself.

Obama could cure cancer and Boehner et al. would say he destroyed the drug industry.

Suggesting therapy to anyone over 55 is an exercise in masochism.

Few people act without the threat of a lawsuit.

Fewer people settle without the threat of significant attorneys fees and/or compensatory damages.

No job is perfect; the best one can hope for is to like it at least 75% of the time.

Buy used, don't lease.

2 is better than 1.

The right dog is better than the wrong woman.

We live in a world of strict duality.

I subscribe to too many magazines.

That crick in my neck isn't going anywhere.

Too many people like the sound of their own voice.

Too many people have sex tapes.

Too many people annoy me.

Anger is an en-er-gy.

The words "blast" and "attack" are overused in the news media.

It's not about Republican or Democrat or the good of America, it's about making money and staying in power.

If I've got nothing nice to blog, don't blog at all.

Things I Think

It's been awhile since I did one of these...

Workplace violence. That's what they're calling the case of Anne Le who was found murdered in a Yale laboratory last Sunday, the day she was supposed to get married. A few days later they had a "person of interest." Today they arrested him, Raymond Clark III. Turns out he worked with Le in the lab studying mice and other animals for science. He strangled her and stuffed her body behind a wall in the basement section of the lab. Why? We have yet to learn why. Some people are saying he was a control freak. There are rumors of some kind of dalliance between the two and she was getting married in a few days. But the thing that's got me thinking about this case is the security cameras. They caught her going in and not coming out. They caught EVERYONE going in that morning. Putting aside the stupidity of Mr. Clark's deciding to murder someone in a place that you needed three swipes of a security card to enter, thus severely limiting the number of individuals who could have done the deed, the thing that gets me is that with all the cameras we've got watching everyone's every move, it's getting very hard to get away with murder these days. We're living in Orwell's world. Now. Today. The only thing Big Brother hasn't mastered yet is how to quickly review all that film and analyze it at supersonic speed so decisions about guilt and innocence can be made instantly, a la Minority Report. But he's a quick study and he'll learn. People are so willing to give up their privacy for "security" that they don't mind more and more cameras. In fact, raise your hand if you're RELIEVED when you hear that a camera was used to capture a murdering fuck as it was in this case. I know I usually am. But deep down I know nothing comes for free. There's a cost associated with all these cameras, we just haven't seen it yet. We're almost there though. It's just around the corner. In the meantime, any sociopath with a brain in his head is going to have to learn that he's got to kill people in the country, not the city. Fewer cameras there.

Obama-as-Hitler. Obama-as-Hitler sneaks up on you. You don't expect to see it, so it's a little shocking at first. There's Obama's face, usually cast in black and white, for that 1941 Invasion of Poland effect, and just above his upper lip is that little mustache, the wisp of black hair, a style that Hitler ruined for all men forever. Invariably, the sign on which Obama's Teutonic/African visage appears is wielded by an overweight, middle aged white male or female with a right wing axe to grind. I have yet to see a black person or Jew carry an Obama-as-Hitler sign. Or anyone in Birkenstocks. This all begs the question: Why the comparison to Hitler? Weeeeellllll, you see, people are ANGRY! Vewwy angwy with Obama. No, no, not because he initiated a holocaust against a specific group of people, or targeted a minority and tried to erase them from history. Obama hasn't done THAT (yet). No, he hasn't invaded France. Or even Belgium, though he's up the ante in Afghanistan and Pakistan. We don't blame him for those, since they were started by someone else. But what he's trying to do is ALMOST as bad as these things. Bad enough to justify that little mustache. What is it? I'll tell you. (But I have to do it really quietly because if he finds out, I may get arrested and thrown into a socialist gulag. He's.... It's almost too hard to say. He's.... He's trying to force universal health care down everyone's throat.) THERE, I SAID IT. I DON'T CARE WHO HEARS ME NOW! He's going to balloon the deficit! He's going to tax everyone! He's going to turn America into a SOCIALIST COUNTRY!!!!

He's just like Hitler.

I ask you though. When it comes right down to it, who's REALLY more like Hitler? Obama, or the guy before him who started two major wars that have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, and who locked prisoners of war up in internment camps where they were tortured for years? Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.

I've been reading about too many gruesome murders lately, but here's my latest stand on the death penalty.
I'm for it. In extremely limited cases. Far more limited than those that exist today. I'd impose it in cases where a murder was committed under aggravated circumstances, as defined under each state's law and only when DNA or other evidence unequivocally demonstrated someone's guilt. In other words, I'd raise the standard to higher than beyond a reasonable doubt for the sentencing phase. Circumstantial evidence could not be used. The evidence would have to be direct and conclusive. I think that's a fair compromise. The upside is people like Garrido, Clark, and that sick fuck Hilton in Tennessee I think it is, of recent fame, would be fully eligible. I've said it before, some dogs are rabid and need to be put down. The same should be true for humans, who have far more freedom of choice than a dog.

The Hofstra Non-Rape. A couple of days ago, an 18 year old Hofstra University student alleged that 5 men, all black or latino, tied her up and gangraped her in a bathroom. They posted the pictures of these men, boys actually, all over television and the newspaper. The stereotyping began. Only one of them looked somewhat cleancut. The others looked a bit gang-y. I read the story when it came out then the comments on cnn.com. One of them said something along the lines of the following: "Oh, and they all just look so innocent don't they? I heard one of their mothers say he was the 'best' and I wanted to throw up all over my television. Sick bastards. They should castrate all of them, or lock them up and let THEM get gangraped in jail." Strong words, yes.

Turns out, however, that the girl was lying. There was no gangrape. The sex was consensual. She was forced to admit it to the D.A. when one of the participants happened to have, you guessed it, a cell phone video of part of the incident that clearly showed that the girl was not being raped or forced to do anything against her will. The charges against the boys were immediately dropped and they were released from jail. (Thanks to those cameras again.) All the more reason why we shouldn't let our Blink! instincts trick us into assuming five gang-y looking boys who find their mugshots on television are automatically guilty of doing what they've been accused of doing. But we'll keep on doing it. We're all too hardwired to stop. But maybe, just MAYBE instead of assuming, we'll think, just for a split second, "Let's wait for the evidence, let's wait a couple of days before we assume anything." That's what I did with Mr. Clark in New Haven. Now I hope he gets his just desserts.

Tough decision. Who would I rather punch in the face, Glen Beck, Bill O'Reilly, or Anne Coulter? Tough call. I think I have to go with Beck. For right now. But maybe if I get them to stand really close together...

Things I could give a fuck about: Kanye West, Kate & Jon, Joe Wilson, swine flu, town halls,

WTF is up with Ernie Anastos?



Then this:



The guy's got farm animals on the brain - too funny. But really, who doesn't let a slippery curse word out by mistake every now and then? I'm actually surprised it doesn't happen more often on the news. If I were a newscaster, I'd pull a Ron Burgundy every night and go out with something like:

"You stay cock-y, New York City!"

Things I Think

It's Friday, and I have a lot on my mind. Let's get started with the ugly:



Everyone's worried about foreign terrorists. Gotta keep Al Cater out of the country or he's gonna kill a lot of people. Gotta keep those Iranians in check. While everyone's busy hunting for bad guys "over there," we've got homegrown terrorists -- Americans -- shooting abortion doctors, blowing up federal buildings, and now, killing a guard at the Holocaust Museum, a stone's throw from the White House. And let's not forget how, a few years ago, a former Army sharpshooter took a young kid on a shooting spree in Maryland and Virginia. They murdered countless people in parking lots and gas stations and scared the shit out of everyone in the mid-Atlantic States. Oh and remember how, right after 9/11, some kook mailed anthrax to Tom Brokaw and other media personalities? The moral of this story is, that there's no shortage of American nutjobs with axes to grind, people full of venom and hate. And in a developed country like ours, you can buy all the shit you need to kill a lot of people at the local Walmart or Home Depot. Timothy McVeigh blew up the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City with a truck full of fertilizer. The next American mass murder may decide to build a dirty bomb out of all that extra radioactive waste lying around your local hospitals. Actually, another school shooting is more likely than that. For now. These people are terrorists too, right? I mean, you don't need a long beard and catchy "Down with America" chant to be considered a terrorist, do you? They say the hate groups in this country are all riled up because of Obama's election. No shit. They're on the wrong side of history; they should be riled up. I just hope someone's paying attention. If 88 year-old racists with nothing left to lose are pissed off, we're in bigger trouble than I thought.

Now the purdy:



That Miss California -- ex-Miss California -- what's her name, Carrie Prejean? She sure has some stupid views about gay marriage. Real dumb. Redneck dumb. But honestly, the first thing I think every time they show her sauntering around with those fake boobies of hers, is "Damn, that girl is f'n hot!" For what it's worth, I'm not proud of it.


David Carradine, WTF? That is one weird way to go out. And we're never going to know how he really died. It sure as hell wasn't suicide, like they originally reported. His hands were bound. That's impossible to do if you're going to hang yourself. Option two is auto-erotic asphyxiation, a form of masturbation where you cut off the oxygen to your brain to induce a more intense orgasm. Michael Hutchence of INXS supposedly died that way. I'm not sure I buy that theory either, even for an edgy dude like Carradine. Who needs an ex-tree intense orgasm at age 72? I mean, if I'm still that horny at 72 -- and mind you, I PLAN to be -- I'll be happy just to be able to pop one off at that age. I won't need all the extra fixins. I just don't think Carradine would be practicing that kind of thing at that point in his life. And if he was horny, baby, he was in friggin' Thailand. He had money. He could have gotten himself a very affordable playmate. It just makes no sense. I'm thinking he pissed someone off and got his ass killed.

Last night we had another thunder storm. I feel like I've been living in a thunderstorm for a month. The other night, the thunder crackled so loud at 3:30 a.m., I nearly wet the bed. I don't even remember what the sun looks like. It's almost summer, right?

Could someone please explain to me ESPN's inexplicable obsession with Brett Favre? Last year they wouldn't shut up about him coming out of retirement to play for the Jets. This year it's the Vikings he's courting. I say WHO GIVES A FLYING FUCK!!! Is that asshole paying ESPN royalties to mention his name every thirty seconds? Does anyone outside of Minnesota care if he retires or not? I CAN'T TAKE ANYMORE FAVRE STORIES! I JUST WANT THE F'N RED SOX HIGHLIGHTS! PLEASE MAKE THEM STOP!


In other news, my Boston Red Sox have played the New York Yankee$ eight times this season, and they have won all eight games. Sweet, sweet ambrosia.


I have been following the Iranian election with considerable bemusement. You might be surprised to hear (a) that Iran is actually a democracy (more of one than say, China or Iraq); and (b) political elections there are as bareknuckle as they are here. There's a reformist candidate -- Moussavi -- running against Ahmadinejad, and I really hope he wins. He's a painter, an architect, a real renaissance man. Mahmoud is a cock gone flaccid. All arrogant flash and self-delusion but nothing real to er... stand him up when he needs it most. Just like our ex-President. Bush is gone and now it's Mahmoud's turn to leave. I'm really hoping things go that way. Funny how the leaders of Iran and the U.S. create all kinds of conflict inside and outside their countries, but the Iranian and American people seem to want peace and good relations with one another. Fingers crossed.


I loved Obama's speech in Cairo. It's about time an American President said those things to that audience. And it's about time that an American President didn't kowtow to Israel's every desire.

The GM bankruptcy shows that the companies everyone says were "too big to fail" were not too big to fail. I hate to say it, but the Republicans were right about this one. Though they're being totally hypocritical about it because most of them supported Bush when he was pushing these bailout plans nine months ago. Everyone screamed that we needed to save GM or the world would end. Billions of dollars later, it didn't work and GM is still going bankrupt. What a colossal waste of money. Not Iraq War wasteful, but wasteful nonetheless. Obamer got this one wrong. There, I said it.

The twenty-year anniversary of the massacre in Tiananmen Square just passed. Did anyone notice? People seemed to give a shit '89. Guess we can't make too much of a big deal about it now since China owns our ass. Literally.

Palin's pissed about a tasteless Letterman joke about her daughter. Here, Dave explains what happened:



Good, now someone please grab a cane and drag dear Sarah off the stage. Talk about making a mountain out of a molehill and misleading people in the process. Shit, if she didn't have any kids, she'd have no publicity at all. She should be thanking Dave for the airtime, not getting all up in his 62 year-old grille.

Here's a final thought to ponder over the weekend: what if every single thing our five senses tell us is actually an illusion? Descartes said "I think, therefore I am." That may be true. But what if none of what we think is real, the things we see, hear, smell, taste, and touch is the real reality? What if it's all a dream that the collective mind is having? A bad dream where Big Mind believes that it has divided into billions of individual bodies containing tiny, smaller minds? Where Big Mind has forgotten that it's actually one mind and is now divided and subdivided and at war with itself. Where it watches millions of tiny minds -- broken pieces of itself encased in symbolic bodies -- fight each other in every way possible, from household arguments between spouses to drunken fisticuffs, to criminal assaults, rapes, and serial murders, to world wars. What would it mean if nothing in this world really mattered, that it's all an illusion to serve some unknown purpose? What if nothing we see is real and we are living in Matrixland?

If you think this is a bizarre idea, tell me, did you have a dream last night or the night before? Have you ever had a dream where you thought you were flying? Or you were shagging that boy or girl you've had your eye on for awhile? Then you woke up and you realized it was just a dream, that you can't really fly, and Bobby/Georgina never looks in your direction. (And you were pissed!) Your mind, my mind, they have the power to create worlds that defy the laws of reality, or what we think is reality. We do fantastical things in our dreams. We do bad things to good people and bad people do them to us. If there is a powerful, collective unconscious mind out there, one that encompasses the electromagnetic strength of every living thing, isn't it possible that it too could be having an incredibly intense dream (or nightmare, depending on how you look at it) where it created a world -- this world --that's not the real reality? And time, birth, life, death, winning, losing, sex, killing, wars are all an illusion occuring in the dream? Me, I not only think it's possible, I think it's happening.

Quick Hits

Let me make sure I understand this. Somalia is a failed state, mired in poverty, overrun by weapons of every stripe and color, has thousands of miles of unguarded coastline and is conveniently located near major shipping lanes, and people are surprised that piracy is rampant in that country? No guns or soldiers to protect millions of dollars in cargo? Didn't anyone see Black Hawk Down? C'mon.

Damn those Navy SEALs are good. Seriously, they're badass. The whole time I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. You had to know that someone on those battleships was waiting to take a shot, the only question was whether Phillips was going to make it out alive. Thanks to those SEALs, he did. He was lucky too. If those three pirates didn't happen to show their heads all at the same time, if there was even a single one of them left in the boat with Phillips, he'd be dead or still floating in that lifeboat.

Is it true that there's a mountain of garbage the size of Texas floating in the Pacific Ocean? I sure hope not, but my money's on "yes."

Went to NH for Easter this weekend. Took my 8 year-old nephew on a drive to Best Buy, Barnes and Noble, and Chris' Comics. Put him in the front seat of my car and buckled him in. He said "Uncle Tim, isn't it against the law for me to be sitting in the front seat like this?" I was like, I don't think so, you're seatbelted in, we've got airbags, I don't see why we'd have a problem. He didn't seem too satisfied with my answer, and had plenty of questions about how airbags work, when they get deployed, and what would happen to him if that should occur. I fielded all his ground balls and threw to first. When I got home, my mother told me he was right, that if kids are not of a certain height and weight (my nephew, like me at his age, is on the smaller side), you have to put them in a carseat in the back, or use a booster in the front seat, otherwise you can get a massive fine and if there's an accident, even go to jail. Of course, I did neither. I had no idea. C'mon, how often do I have kids in my car? The funny part is that he knew it and I didn't. Score one for the 8 year-old without the college education and law degree.

I know I'm getting a taste of the "Daddys" when we get to Best Buy and instead of taking my time gadget-surfing, I breeze through the shit I'm interested in and spend more time with him walking through DS games and Pokemon DVDs. I also found myself excessively concerned with how bored he was waiting for me to be done looking for radar detectors and Rock Band drum kits.

It's April 2009, over five months after the November election, and Al Franken still hasn't taken the Senate seat he won in Minnesota. After yesterday's big court victory though, he's one step closer, finally. He's the first non-N.Y., non-Presidential candidate I've ever supported with hard currency, so he'd better do me proud and not be Mr. Funnyman for the next 6 years.

Cuba's callin'. Looks like Obamar is going to loosen the restrictions on traveling to Cuba. About fucking time. I can't wait to visit. Of course, much of the cachet of traveling to Cuba will disappear the second we're allowed to go. If I want to see fat Americans walking around in flower print shorts and floppy hats, I'll go to Florida. Maybe once the old embargo is gone, there should be a new one imposed on clueless American tourists. Haven't the Cubans suffered enough?

Um, can someone explain to me how Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo are earning major profits after supposedly needing taxpayer bailout money not too long ago? And once you're done explaining that, can you tell me whether I should be happy or sad about this? Talk about redistribution of wealth. Why is it okay when the redistributed wealth trickles up but not down? I know why: because the United States is an oligarchy and our economic policies favor the rich. There, that was easy.

Guess that trip to Thailand is on hold for awhile. I don't do civil war vacations. Or "local unrest" vacations. Or "anti-government" demonstration vacations. Not my bag. All I want, all I NEED, is a long sandy beach, a warm sun, and a prettysomething to rub oil on me. Awwww yeeaaaah.

Add this to the list of shit to worry about: Clostridium difficile, a contagious and potentially deadly bacterium. According to the New York Times, health officials estimate that in the United States the bacteria cause 350,000 infections each year in hospitals, with tens of thousands more incidents occurring in nursing homes. It kills an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 people annually. And surprise, surprise, the disease is often helped by antibiotics. "The drugs wipe out the targeted illness, like a urinary tract or upper respiratory infection, but they also kill off large portions of the healthy bacteria that normally live in the digestive tract. If a person comes into contact with C. difficile, or already has it, the disruption to the beneficial bacteria creates an opportunity for the harmful bacteria to flourish." Keep on overmedicating, people. Superbug, twelve o'clock.

Speaking of losing weight, those calorie signs they have up at McDonald's and Wendy's? They're kind of effective. It's one thing to order a Quarter Pounder with cheese and surmise that you're not helping yourself healthwise. It's quite another to see that a QP w/C, medium sized french fry, and Coca-Cola will inject 830-1100 calories into your guttus biggus. That's negative reinforcement alright. Kind of takes the joy out of gorging. You know how long it takes to run all those calories off? Me neither. As soon as I'm done eating my Quarter Pounder, I'll figure it out and get back to you.

Back In The Blogger's Seat

Interesting the effect that jury duty and trying to replace lost billable hours will have on one's blog, should you in fact have a blog, as I do. I got two weeks "off" and to the powers that be, it looks like I took a two-week vacation but sitting in that courtroom for two weeks was far from it. Since my professional success and compensation are measured in large part by how many clients I have and how much I bill every year, being on jury duty has put a crimp -- no, let's call it a crAmp -- on my employment, the trickle down effect of which has also cramped my style when it comes to posting regularly.

So with that mea culpa out of the way and as I continue working on a longer piece that I hope to post this weekend, let me hit the reset button and throw a few random thoughts up in here.


I'm quickly realizing that I'm a much bigger Obama fan than I am a Democratic Party fan. He's only been in office two months, but I really like the way he's approaching things and the way he clearly explains his thinking and what he's trying to do. He's stuck between two poles: dealing with seriously P.O.'ed Americans whose pockets were, and are continuing to get picked by corporate greed; and recognizing that the only way out of this mess, is to allow more corporate pick-pocketing. The guy really can't win because he can't make everyone happy, but you wouldn't know it because he's as cool as they come. What sitting President does Leno? What sitting President laughs at these problems on 60 Minutes? As John McCain would say, "That one." I love it. His political enemies are so desperate to lower his approval rating that they've taken to criticizing small shit like his use of a teleprompter and the fact that he went on Leno. It's ridiculous. George Bush spent 40% of his Presidency on vacation; Obama's been in office two months and they're ripping him for doing a 20 minute spot on a late night talk show? Please. Is that all you've got?

He is the Black Ronald Reagan. Barring any kind of sex scandal or a crack-pot trying to take him out, he's a two-termer. He's just too smooth. Sure, he'll do something dumb out of hubris in the second term (the guy does like himself a little too much), but we'll get a good six years out of him or so.

As for the Democratic Party, what a bunch of pansy fuckups. They haven't played this stimulus bill out wisely. At all. With their inability to exercise discretion on the programs they're spending our money on and learn from the Republicans' mistakes, they should expect to be turned out in large numbers in 2010. I know it's early, but these fools don't seem to have learned anything from the Republicans' foibles the past six years. It's a bit like watching one of those grainy black and white movies where you see all these nutty people driving Model T's in the middle of a city with no traffic lights. Who the hell is in charge? Why do they think pork is acceptable at a time like this? Does anyone in Congress have a brain? Now I hear some of them are defecting on the spending package because they're up for re-election and don't want to be labeled as big spenders by their future opponents. Then you have dirty coal-state Democrats like Robert Byrd blocking Obama's efforts to improve our policies on global warming.

Let me tell you something that you should already know. There's no difference between the two political parties in this country when it comes to self-interest and perpetuating their own power. All they care about is getting re-elected, not doing well by this country. Obama would do well to chart his own course and show the Democratic Party the back side of his hand every once in awhile. He seems to be doing a bit more of that now, but I didn't like how he gave Pelosi et al. the steering wheel on the budget and this stimulus package. Not that The Party of NO! is any better. Top to bottom, they're pathetic and transparent. Jindal is a joke and Eric Cantor is the biggest douche-face I've seen since Tom Delay. The guy hasn't met a camera he didn't want to fellate and he sniffs out free publicity like Toucan Sam chasing Froot Loops.

So much to be done and so many ineptiks in power to perpetuate this mess.

Rarely have I appreciated my job more than right now. We all piss and moan about work and all the things wrong with our jobs and the people who make decisions about our fate, blah blah. But when the shit hits the Stop sign, I realize how dependent I am on my job for all my necessities, wants, pleasures, and the freedom that I enjoy. That's when I understand that my job is my lifeline. It's the fountain from which all happiness springs. You can't travel without a job to pay for it. You can't save for a car or a house or clothes or that lovely leather murse if you don't have a job to leverage your materialism. Of course, the merits of full employment are easily taken for granted when I'm mired in work and killing too many Saturdays in the office. But not right now. Now, I WANT to work more. Which makes me despise this recession even more. Damn you, Recession, for making me even more of a slave and happy about it! Damn you for binding me closer to the alienation of which Marx spake!

Whither the Kindle? Do I need a Kindle? No. I can get by reading a normal book in my hand and buying the occasional newspaper. Neither will stop me from getting one, however. Raise your hand if you don't know what the fuck a Kindle is. Luddites.

Whither the Watchmen Movie? I went out and bought the graphic novel to see what the fuss was all about. Also, Time magazine had picked it as one of the 100 best all-time books. I really enjoyed it. Some weird-ass superheros though. A guy who dresses like an owl? Another who calls himself The Comedian? Who came up with this? Dr. Manhattan, well that's a cool name, I like that. I'm not sure how I missed it when it came out in 1988, but the story works and has stood the test of time. Now the question is, do I ruin it all by seeing the movie, which purists have sworn off, or do I leave it alone? I don't know. Maybe I'll ask Kindle and see what he thinks.

Total number of Palestinians killed in the recent Gaza conflict: 1400, including 900 civilians. Total Israelis killed: 13. Hmmmm. Disproportionate, much? New York-based Human Rights Watch is calling the Israelis' indiscriminate use of white phosphorus in densely populated areas a war crime. Who am I to disagree? Hamas is being pegged for its war crime of deliberately shooting rockets at civilian targets in Israel, this which precipitated the Israeli invasion, according to Israel. Me, I think it was more Obama's election that precipitated the Israeli invasion. They had to get their last licks in and try and decapitate Hamas before Obama came in and took away W's blank check, so-far-up-Israel's-ass-that-his-head-came-out-in-Tel-Aviv policy. Why can't anyone in this country criticize Israel without being villified? How is it in our national interest to go along with everything Israel does? Aren't there as many Israelis as Americans out there who think their country's foreign policy sucks a lot of the time? There have to be.

Disturbing environmental factoid of the week: Scientists are discovering with increasing regularity traces of prescription drugs in our water supply. Our rivers in particular are loaded with it. Scientists are also finding that due to their constant exposure to the water, many fish and frogs are loaded with all kinds of pharmaceuticals: bipolar medication, anti-depressants, high cholesterol drugs, high blood pressure and allergy medication, among others. Doesn't that sound great? Now we can all take Paxil and Zoloft just by eating sushi. Cut out the middle-man, that's what I say!

Don't look now, but Mexico is exploding. It's the new Colombia. While we cavort around and engage in an ill-advised military adventure a world away, Americans are being killed right next door, in our very own neighborhood, and it's barely making headlines. Mexico's political system is hopelessly corrupt. Politicians and cops on the take, pay-offs galore, and cartels who have their own armies. I don't see any end to it either because the DEMAND for the drugs that these entrepreneurs are selling is VERY HIGH here in these UNITED STATES. Americans like their Mary Juana and Coke-hyena. Kill the demand, you kill the industry.

All this wasted money on a "drug war" that is rotting from the inside out, swallowing itself. Mark my words: Mexico is on the verge of a civil war. There is too much poverty and corruption for things to continue too much longer without blowing up in a big way. Then we'll see what REAL illegal immigration is like. Except instead of calling them "refugees" like we would if they came from Cuba, we'll deport them as quickly as possible.

This just in: Octomom once worked as a stripper. Perfect! Octomom, I've got just the guy for you. Have you met A-Rod? A-Rod, Octomom. This'll be perfect. A-Rod, you've got the $$$ to take care of Octomom and her 14 kids, and Octomom, you're just nutty enough to make A-Rod look stable. Two great tastes that go great together. Mazel Tov!

Jury Fury

I haven't posted in awhile due in large part to my having been called for grand jury duty on March 6th. For the past week, instead of going to work, I've taken the subway down to the criminal courthouse on Jay Street in Brooklyn, and proceeded up the elevator to a nondescript courtroom where I've been performing my civic duty as an American citizen.

Most people run from jury duty. That's because it's inconvenient, disruptive to one's life, and often boring as hell. My service has been no exception. Many have asked why I wasn't able to get out of it since I'm an attorney and that's supposedly Jury Kryptonite. Um, no it's not. Time was, neither attorneys nor judges could serve on juries. That was a very long time ago, however. Now both can serve and in the State of New York, unless you've got a medical condition, are under 18, have committed a felony, don't understand English, or can demonstrate some major emergency or hardship under penalty of perjury, you HAVE to serve. So that's how I got here, jury service for 10 straight business days, from 10-5:30 or however late they decide they need us. And it could get extended beyond the 10 days (hopefully not).

I'm on a grand jury, which is not to be confused with a petit jury, the kind that decides who wins or loses trials. Grand juries decide whether or not to indict criminal defendants and the legal standard for doing so is very low: you only need to have legally sufficient evidence and reasonable cause to believe that a crime was committed. Contrast that with the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard for a criminal trial and you can see that an indictment requires far less than a conviction. Hence the old saying: "A grand jury could indict a ham sandwich." Grand jury proceedings typically involve only a few witnesses per case, sometimes as few as one. Typically, defendants do not appear because they can be cross-examined and anything they say can be used against them during a trial. So most of the time it's just the prosecutor calling his or her own witnesses and then us voting on whether to indict or not. It's been an interesting experience, to say the least, and I thought I'd share a few quick thoughts on it, now that I'm halfway through my 10-day service.

1. There's a real mix of people on my jury; about as diverse a group of people as you could ask for: 5 Whites; 3 Asians; 10 African-Americans; 2 Latinos; and even a Native American, believe it or not. These are the ones I can remember. 23 were originally picked but a couple seem to have dropped off the radar somewhere. And with that kind of diversity comes a wide variety of opinions on things, based on life experience. It's not a perfect system we have, but it's about the best we can do, in my opinion.

2. My attitude about grand jury service has evolved thusly: Oh fuck, is that a grand jury summons?? This intro video is borings as hells, should I slit my wrists now? Damn my ass hurts. I agree, Wonder Woman is a lousy superhero, totally. But if they're making a movie, I think she should be played by Katie Holmes. No, not Angelina Jolie, for fuck's sake. I'm sick of her. Okay, Megan Fox is a fair compromise. When are we gonna deliberate on some shit? Whoa, did that guy just say he was punched/robbed/stabbed/shot? Why is that dude in a wheelchair? Oh. That's why. Damn. Remind me never to look at anyone funny. Or get into a bar fight. Oh my God, I can't believe I'm hearing this. I'd kill that motherfucker if he ever did that to anyone I cared about. Sick son of a bitch. I'm ready to vote right now. Do I really live in this kind of world? I guess I do. It's even worse when you see it close up. This jury shit is serious business.

3. That scraggly dude on the subway, the one with the dreads and crazy eyes, the one who looks like a drug-dealing, gun-carrying freak? Well, there's a very good chance that guy is an undercover cop. It is unbelievable how authentic they look.

4. That said, the drug war is a monumental joke. Drug bust cases comprise the vast majority of the cases we've heard and the amount of manpower, money, time, and legal resources devoted to rolling this large stone up a mountain is incomprehensible. There has to be a better way to deal with this problem. I'm more convinced than ever that the problem is on the demand side, not the supply side.

5. I hate to say this, and maybe it's not much of a surprise, but more than a couple of my fellow jurors are not taking their job very seriously. One of them routinely snoozes through presentations; another prefers to play with his Nintendo handheld than listen to testimony; and two routinely don't bother to vote at all, purportedly because we have more than the requisite 12 votes to accomplish something. It's really pissing me off. Since the first day, when we were given our marching orders by the Warden and his clerk, we've been unsupervised and it shows. One of the jurors has taken to playing his iPod earbuds over the microphone to give us some music of his to listen to. That's when he's not busy pretending to be on trial and testifying on his own behalf. This all happens during breaks of course and sometimes it's fun to break up the monotony, but some people don't know where the off button is when it's time to be serious.

6. The sex crime cases I've heard are heartbreaking and will be in my head for the rest of my life.

7. It is VERY easy to find trouble, even when you're not looking for it. Sometimes trouble finds you. Most of the time, it's far better to defuse potentially-ugly situations than escalate them. No joke: in one case, someone ended up dead because someone called a girl a fat pig and her friends felt the need to confront the offender, rather than just leave it alone.

8. Good people who live in bad neighborhoods have it much harder than anyone gives them credit for. Like you and me, they're just minding their own business, trying to make a living and get through life. But for them, even the mundane -- going to work, visiting a friend, going out for some food or a drink -- involves risk. I've heard many of these people testify about how they were going about their daily business, engaging in an activity that I do every day of the week, when something bad happened to them: they got robbed or stabbed or shot. People say that in America we all have the same advantages, that anyone who works hard can make it. It's not remotely true. If you live in a certain place and you're surrounded by crime and human garbage, it doesn't matter how smart a person you are, how great your parents were, or how hard you work, you've got a much higher bar to reach in order to succeed.

9. A couple of my fellow jurors, both African-American, were surprised to hear that I was an attorney. They both had me pegged as a cop. Now THAT's funny. Second time I've heard that in a month. Maybe I missed my calling.

10. A stubborn few of those on my jury keep confusing the role of a grand jury with that of a petit jury. They're acting like we're voting on guilt or innocence, rather than the sufficiency of the evidence for the purpose of an indictment. It's beyond frustrating. They forget that the defendant is going to have a trial, even if we indict, where many of their irrelevant questions about the case will be answered. We're not hearing from every relevant witness and we're not seeing every relevant piece of evidence. We're only seeing and hearing what the prosecutor feels we must in order to indict someone for the alleged crime. There is a BIG difference, but it's lost on too many of my fellow jurors. Maybe that's because they're too busy sleeping or playing Nintendo to pay attention to what they're actually supposed to be doing.

11. The defendants who have chosen to testify in the hope of avoiding an indictment have been VERY convincing. Seriously, these guys should be in Hollywood, they're such good actors. They're practiced liars. The one thing they have in common: none of them have looked at the jury when testifying. All of them have given their "statements" while staring straight ahead or at the prosecutor. I suppose it's easier to lie when you don't have to look at someone in the eyes. I wasn't buying what they were selling but I'll tell you, several of my colleagues are eating their b.s. UP. It's eerie to me how some people are such good liars. But I guess when you're trying to stay out of jail, freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose.

12. The Assistant District Attorneys are a competent, if comical bunch. Most of them seem fresh out of law school and appear to be feeling their way through things. It's not too hard; most of them are reading from scripts and outlines. There have been more than a few times when a defendant had the balls to come and testify where I've wanted to stand up and try and do their cross-examination for them. Still, most of them are good and you can tell they care about what they're doing. We've given a couple of them nicknames. One guy has a real young face, floppy hair, and goatee. The first time he came in, someone said "He looks like he skateboarded to work." So now we call him The Skateboarder. Another one wears a scarf over his suit, a dubious affectation to say the least. I call him "Scarf Guy." A young female ADA came in the other day with a mod haircut and strangely cut skirt that I found inappropriate for court but which showed off her rocking legs. She held my full attention and I now call her "Legs." Another one had her zipper down during her entire presentation, an unfortunate circumstance that a tactful juror felt the need to point out in front of everyone. "You'll never forget me now," she said. She's right.

13. The world we live in is violent, painful, and sad. Forget Al Qaeda, North Korea, and Iran. A major war is going on right under our nose. People are suffering and dying every single day. Right here.

14. Love it or hate it, jury service -- particularly grand jury service -- brings one closer to the nature of man and the disturbing passions that drive people to do despicable things. It's voyeuristic, educational, fascinating, and depressing all at once. Next time you get called, I wouldn't try so hard to avoid it, you'll learn a lot about your city, your country, humanity, and especially yourself. You may not like what you see.

Some Thoughts While Watching the Super Bowl

Well, I've been rooting for the Cardinals because I hate the Steelers, and here we are, well into the fourth quarter, and they're losing by 13. So, let's ride this out with a little bloggy and see if they come back.

I'll be honest, I haven't had much to say lately. I guess I've got writer's block. Or, more accurately, Blogger's Block. I've started several entries but haven't finished them because they've been half-assed and uninspired. Just keepin' it real.

OOOH THE CARDINALS JUST SCORED! About fucking time. Larry Fitzgerald is a stud.

Saw Revolutionary Road a couple of weeks ago. Pretty damn depressing. Good performances though.

Saw The Wrestler a week ago. Pretty damn depressing. Good performances though.

Slumdog Millionaire was good, but too candy-coated for my taste. It was difficult to really feel for the characters when they kept cutting to modern-day every five minutes. I have a feeling most slumdwellers in Mumbai don't have happy endings. Loved the outdoor toilet scene, though. That was the highlight of the movie for me.

If you're in New York and you're hankering for something funny, I highly recommend Sleepwalk With Me, which is playing at the Bleecker Street Theatre. It's a one-man comedy show, just a guy and a stool, produced by Nathan Lane (he's not in it) and starring comedian Mike Birbiglia. I saw it last night, and it was funny as hell.

A Macgruber Pepsi commercial with Richard Dean Anderson (i.e. MacGuyver) in it. Clever. So far, I like the one with the Koala bear getting punched in the head the best. On the whole though, they haven't been very good this year. I mean, even the GoDaddy.com commercial sucked. Usually I at least have those, I mean THAT, to look forward to.

(Football note: ever since I started blogging, the Cardinals have been playing better. Must. Keep. Typing.)

They just cut to Kurt Warner's wife, who's extremely religious, and they showed her with her hands clasped, presumably praying to God that the Cardinals win. I have a feeling that God doesn't give an ethereal shit who wins this game.

I went to Barnes & Noble yesterday and bought a bunch of books. It's always a good feeling when I buy a bunch of books. I feel instantly smarter, more erudite. One of the books I bought is Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell. I've already read 100 pages, and it's fascinating. The gist of the book is that we all have an adaptive unconscious that allows us to make instantaneous judgments and decisions in the blink of an eye. And a lot of the time, those quick judgments, or "thin slicing," are as accurate and reliable as the judgments we take a long time to make, or "thick slicing." So every time we meet someone new, or interview someone, or read something, or take a test, there are all kinds of unconscious things operating in our heads. Sometimes they're reliable, sometimes they're not. The key is learning to tell the difference. I love learning about stuff like this and it validates everything I've been trying to tell people when it comes to dating and relationships. Sometimes it's there, sometimes it's not. And sometimes you can't explain why.

LARRY FUCKING FITZGERALD JUST SCORED AGAIN!!!!!! DAMN WHAT A GAME. WOW. There's 2:37 left.

Okay, I stand corrected. GoDaddy has just presented another commercial rectifying its prior oversight. In other news, Danica Patrick has officially lost all professional credibility.

I think it's pretty cool that Obama invited a bunch of Congresspeople, including Republicans, to watch the Super Bowl with him. So far, he's shown that his call for bipartisanship isn't just a bunch of hot air. He's walking the walk.

DAMNIT. STEELERS DOWN TO THE SEVEN YARDLINE. I HATE THEM. They're either going to win by 4 or 1. Sucks. 43 seconds left.

STEELERS SCORE. GREAT CATCH BY HOLMES. Two years in a row the team I want to win loses. When do pitchers and catchers report?

I don't pretend to understand the ins and outs of in vitro fertilization (no pun intended), but when I hear that a woman recently gave birth to eight babies as a result of IVF, to me, it's a problem. In an overpopulated world, there's no excuse for people pumping out 4 or 6 or 8 kids at a time. It's negligent and completely selfish. Someone needs to regulate this shit. Who's going to feed these kids? Who's going to take care of them? I know who isn't: the mother. The responsiblity will fall to others because no one person can possibly take care of that many kids. And what kind of life are these kids going to have, exactly? An attention-starved one, if you ask me.

Michael Phelps smoked a bong? Now I'm even more impressed with those gold medals. I'm far less impressed, however, with his stupid apology. Stand by your marijuana use, you pansy!

Hamas is declaring "victory" in Gaza? That's like stepping barefoot into a pile of dogshit and saying that it smells great.

Delinquent Thoughts

It's 1:30 a.m. and I'm feeling guilty, guilty because I haven't posted in over a week. I'm not proud of it. Not one bit. Too late to say anything deep or coherent tonight. Have to go with Plan B. The list. The list is life.

First, a word about this recession. Recession is a scary word that no one likes to use. It's the dark side of capitalism, when the good times end, black turns to red, and fear comes to dominate the collective psyche. Fear is everywhere right now. I've had three friends get laid off recently, or downsized, or rightsized -- whatever euphemism they're using for layoffs and pink slips these days. I've never seen it so bad. Then again, during the last bad recession we had, back in 1991, I was applying to law school, so I didn't feel the punch. By the time it ended, I'd graduated and it wasn't difficult to find work. It's interesting to see how much has changed since those heady days of 1998 and 1999 when people were rolling in cash and it seemed like happy days were here forever. Nothing lasts though. People forget. This recession won't either, so we'll all just have to ride it out. Easier said than done.

Eyes wide shut. I read a statistic the other day on one of those elevator trivia t.v.'s they have so that no person will have to experience mental peace and doing nothing for longer than a millisecond. It said that each year 1,500 Americans suffer eye injuries from cork releases, i.e., champagne bottles. That's a sickening number, truly and verily. So people, please: when you're out celebrating this holiday season and enjoying a bit of the bubbly, please PLEASE watch your eyeballs and point that cork where it's safe. Better yet, cover the fucker up with a dishtowel or somesuch. Common friggin' sense.

I'm really enjoying the following music at the moment: Guns N Roses (Street of Dreams), Fleet Foxes (He Doesn't Know Why), Blitzen Trapper (Black River Killer), Empire of the Sun (Walking on a Dream). The last one is quite catchy. You can't be in a bad mood after listening to it. I'm too tired to link anything or post a YouTube video, so just Google that shit. Do I have to do everything? [WEDNESDAY MORNING, SLIGHTLY MORE AWAKE REVISION: I ADDED THE LINKS. ENJOY].

Hillary as Secretary of State? Meh. I'd have gone in another direction. In fact, I'm a little perturbed by how many Clintonites are seeping into this Administration. Experience, fine, there's going to be some overlap. But he'd better watch himself or he's going to become More of the Same, at least with foreign policy. A friend of a friend who knows someone in the know told me that now that Obama got the inside, supersecret security briefings, he's not going to change shit with regard to Bush's wiretapping policy, torture, or the Patriot Act. I find that hard to believe. I guess we'll see. At a minimum, he'd better close Guantanamo, which is a national disgrace. I wouldn't mind seeing him end the idiotic Cuban embargo either. It makes no sense to me that we do business with China, Venezuela, North Korea, and Iraq, but we can't deal with Cuba. Talk about your Cold War relics, that archaic policy has got to go. Let's see if O-Man has the eggs to pull the trigger on it once and for all.

The auto industry bailout chaps my ass. I've been debating KG (who's from Michigan, enough said) on and off about this for a couple of weeks. No one wants to see auto workers unemployed, but while Toyota and Nissan saw the future and took the lead years ago building fuel efficient cars and hybrids, GM, Ford, and Chrysler were busy sucking the oil industry's co--, and building gas guzzling Hummers and SUVs. At the same time, they paid expensive lobbyists lots of money to keep Congress from raising mpg requirements. Now their cars aren't selling and they want a taxpayer handout? Screw them. Sadly, the Democrats are too beholden to this group and their unions to say no. Just watch, the Big Three will be back in six or eight or ten months asking for more money to flush down the turlet.

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich wanted to put Obama's vacated Senate seat on eBay. Well, not literally. But he wanted to sell it to the highest bidder, the person who would give him the most money or power in exchange. Instead, all he's going to get in return is a jail sentence. Because, um, you're not allowed to do sell Senate seats for personal gain. But I have a more pressing issue: how does someone with the name Rod Blagojevich get elected to anything? Say it with me: Rod. Blagojevich. It sounds like a Russian sandwich. Enjoy prison, Rod. I can't tell which is stupider, your name, or that ridiculous, Koppelesque mop of hair on your head.

Speaking of prison, O.J. finally got his. He was convicted thirteen years to the day of his acquittal back in 1995. Better late than never, but shit, to the very day? That's just weird. At least Fred Goldman can take a vengeance day off now. Just one.

Psssst. My Boston Bruins, who have sucked aaaasssss for the better part of the past decade and who haven't won a Stanley Cup since I graduated from diaper use, are in first place and have one of the best records in the NHL. I can't even skate, but I do like hockey and have been waiting a long time for them to get good again. The Oakland Raiders, however, are another story entirely. I'll be collecting retirement before they get good again. Longer, if they keep Al Davis' brain in a jar after he dies and let him run the team.

Extra Credit Idiot Quiz: Please match the following moronic baby names to their narcissistic celebrity mothers. No cheating.

Bronx Mowgli

Sunday Rose

Zuma Nesta Rock

Honor Marie


Jessica Alba

Ashlee Simpson

Nicole Kidman

Gwen Stefani

Answers to be provided on a future edition of M-A. Or better yet, find them yourself. With Google. Go ahead, I give you permission now.

Last, but not least, here's a shout-out to my NYC readers: "seatless" subway cars are coming! Sick of old ladies and pregnant women running you over to grab a seat before you can get there? Well, in April 2009, some subway lines (probably the L and J/M/Z with my luck) are going to be testing cars with seats that fold up and stay locked during rush hour. This so they can cram 18% more sweaty cattle into the trains and, of course, gain more revenue. Money, money, money, it's the American way. Now if they could just do something about people with b.o. and those annoying Nextel phones.

Doggy Lessons

I took the train home from work the other night. It wasn't too late, about 9:00 p.m. or so. I pulled out a Time Magazine, the latest one with Obama on the cover, and was reading about his campaign, how he won, why McCain lost, what we can expect from the new administration, why the last one failed. At the Essex Street stop, a woman get on. She was white, in her 30s, and well-dressed. Just your average New York woman. She carried this small, black package in her arms and sat down right across from me.

A minute later, from my peripheral vision, I saw her lean over and give the black package a kiss. I looked up, and it was then that I realized that she wasn't holding a package at all, but a small, furry dog. A pug. I thought to myself, here's another person who treats her dog like it's her baby, a substitute for the child she never had. I'll bet she takes that thing home and dresses it up for walks in the park. I'll bet she coordinates Halloween costumes with it. I'll bet she carries it on airplanes and lets it piss and whine in a crate below the seat in front of her.

I'm not a pet guy. I'm not into having animals stink up my place or cleaning up after them. I like cats, because they're independent and meticulously clean. They rub up against you for affection and when they're done, they leave. You don't have to walk them or potty train them too long. All you really need to do is feed them and clean the litter box every once in awhile. Problem is, I'm seriously allergic to cats, so I could never own one. Dogs, on the other hand, are cuter and more affectionate. I have a thing for small dogs, especially Chihuahuas and French Bulldogs. And Pugs. I like them. It's something about their eyes. They're always so expressive and emotional. But dogs are way more work than cats, between the walking and the cleaning and the training and the psychology. Even though I sometimes toy with the idea of getting a dog, it just wouldn't work with the way my life is currently structured. I'm too set in my ways and I work too much. And if I'm going to pay someone else to take care of it, what's the point of having it in the first place? That said, I enjoy playing with other people's dogs, as long as they don't jump all over me and nose around my crotch.

As the J train exited the Essex Station and began its ascent to the Williamsburg Bridge, I couldn't help but throw an occasional glance at the pug across the aisle. He was black as midnight and had buried his head in the woman's lap. His eyes were closed. Then the train slowed down for the ride over the bridge, and, sensing the change in speed, he lifted his scrunchy head to see what was going on. He turned to the right, and his eye, an enormous orb that took up nearly half of his head, flitted back and forth as he surveyed the scene. Then he turned back to the left. I looked at his face and saw that where his other eye should have been, there was just an empty black indentation.

I'm embarrassed to confess the next thing that floated into my head: Why would anyone go out and buy a one-eyed dog? Why would someone want a pet with a deformity? Then I thought, maybe something happened to the dog after she bought it. Or maybe, out of the goodness of her heart, she decided that she wanted this particular dog; maybe she saw him and fell in love with him. Maybe I shouldn't be questioning why. Perhaps it wasn't the dog who was defective, perhaps it was my way of thinking that was defective. Why assume that someone wouldn't want a dog who had only one eye, or that only fully functioning animals are wanted as pets?

I looked at him again. His head lolled back and forth in her lap. Even with his head resting, his single eye kept going back and forth, back and forth. It was bulging out of his head and seemed overworked, like it was doing the job of two eyes. Against all that dark, the thin band of whiteness around his pupil shined as bright as a candle. It struck me that this dog seemed aware of his impairment. He wasn't self-conscious, but he seemed to know that he was missing something that he once had. Then I started to wonder what could have happened to him to make him lose his eye? Did he get into a nasty fight with another dog or some other animal? Did he suffer at the hands of an abusive owner, one he had before this woman? Did he have an accident? Maybe he was chasing a car on the street and ran into something? Was he born this way? Whatever it was, he seemed grateful that someone had decided to love him in spite of it all. He seemed happy that this woman was taking care of him. He'd come to terms with what life had handed him -- a future with only one eye and certain blindness should anything happen to the one he had left -- and he'd made the most of his situation. Though scarred, both physically and, no doubt, psychologically, he was muddling through it, he was getting by and dealing with the bullshit that life had thrown at him. He didn't complain or whine or say "Why me?" Dogs don't get to do that. They don't talk. They can't tell you how they feel. They don't get to mope or pop a Xanax or Zoloft when bad shit happens to them. They just accept their fate and do their best to get through it. And that's what this one-eyed pug was doing. He was persevering.

That's when I teared up and almost cried on Obama's face. A few minutes before, I'd given him so little value. All I saw was his deformity. Now, in his quiet acceptance, I saw strength and courage. Qualities I wanted for myself. Lately, I've been reminded of the brevity of life, of how our bodies and minds are not immortal and will not go on forever. Eventually, they will fail. Eventually we will die. It's true for you, and it's true for me. We don't ponder such things until we're forced to, until we, or someone we care about gets sick or dies. Regardless of what one believes comes after, we all have to deal with the prospect of the now, of handling adversity and pain while we still live. It's not easy. Sometimes, it doesn't even seem possible. So we put all of it -- the fear, the pain, the emotions -- in a box and stack it on the shelf where it collects dust until a certain song or memory sparks its way into our consciousness, and then we remember everything that's in that box. Courage lies in facing it head-on, with patience, strength, and honesty. Courage lies in persevering through all that fear and anguish and muddling through, just like that one-eyed pug I saw the other night.

There's a lot you can learn from a dog.

Things I'm Thinking On November 9, 2008

Been working my ass off lately and this is the first weekend I've had to myself in awhile, so it's time to catch up on a few post-election thoughts.

1. We have a black President-elect. Days later, I'm still dumbfounded. Part of it is shock that in four years, American voters have gone from re-electing a man like George Bush to electing a man like Barack Obama. It's positively schizophrenic. The other part of it is, I can't believe we're actually going to have our first black President. Say that a few times. The last black candidate to be remotely viable (and he wasn't really viable) was Jesse Jackson. That was in 1988. A few days ago we saw him crying tears of joy during Obama's victory speech. The irony is that a few months ago, JJ was criticizing Obama for talking down to African-Americans. What a difference victory makes.

I don't want to get all Revelations here, but it almost seemed like this election was preordained, like events were conspiring to propel him into power. Every time McCain seemed to be making headway, something would get in the way. There was the hurricane during the Republican Convention, which reminded everyone of the fuckups during Hurricane Katrina. Then the Palin pick, which at first seemed so genius -- she was practically deified at the RNC -- in time, proved to be disastrous. Then the economic freefall that McCain reacted to like a human pinball, demonstrating his knee-jerk approach. It's amazing how much went wrong for them.

That said, Obama is a phenomenon, no two ways about it. They're making t-shirts with his face on them, and already he's become a cultural icon like Che Guevara, JFK, Malcolm X, and MLK. And he did it largely because he excels at that lost art of public speaking. He inspires people with his voice and words. In this country, we've forgotten what it's like to be moved by a political leader. Who was the last President to inspire people? Reagan? JFK? We had MLK and RFK as well, people who moved others through their words, deeds, and what they stood for. Obama's doing it again. Which brings me to my next point.

2. Obama's Cult of Personality Never have I seen national, nay, GLOBAL adulation at the result of a Presidential election. Kids all over the world -- Indonesia, Kenya, Detroit -- holding up pictures of Obama, a spontaneous street party in front of the White House, tears of joy, spontaneous relief. A great deal of it had to do with the historical significance of Obama's victory and a huuuuuge exhale that the Bush Administration, with its advocacy of torture, domestic eavesdropping, warmongering, and go-it-alone foreign policy, is on its way out. Rationality and diplomacy are making a comeback.

But... the elephant in the room, the thing that few people are talking about (yet), is that Obama is a blank slate on which everyone is unrealistically painting their unique hopes and dreams. Everyone thinks he's a savior, that he's going to solve everyone's problems like a Magic Man, a Fixer, a Messiah. Many will be sorely disappointed. At the end of the day, he's just a man, a smart, competent, intellectually curious man, but just a man who is inheriting a colossal mess. He's going to face the same kinds of hurdles and challenges that every previous administration has faced, and if people are expecting miracles or a wave of quick-fixes, they're living in a dream world. The best we can hope for is a reasoned, careful consideration of our problems and an intelligent approach to solving them. For all his inspiration, Obama is not a miracle worker. Not everyone is going to like what he does. There is major potential for a letdown in some circles. I can already hear the criticism coming that he didn't fulfill his promises and compromised too much. Personally, I'm hoping he accomplishes a few of his domestic goals and changes the way the world sees us. For me, that will be huge progress.

3. Writing fiction is harder than anything I've ever done. I don't even know why I bother. I shut myself in my apartment or a cafe and bang my head all day to get a paragraph out and then I read a flawless short story by T.C. Boyle or Raymond Carver or Hannah Tinti, and I want to slit my wrists.

4. I saw my first Christmas commercial three days ago. Why don't they just start pulling them out on the Fourth of July? They're not even waiting for Thanksgiving anymore. Ridiculous.

5. I made the mistake of drinking coffee at 7 pm last night and ended up watching the Justin Timberlake movie Alpha Dog until almost four in the morning. Don't ask.

6. A few more words on the election: Funny how all that nonsense about Bill Ayers and socialism and Reverend Wright went out the window after Obama won. Nary a mention of it in McCain's consolation speech (which was excellent, in my view). Kudos to the American people for not believing that horseshit this time around. Political campaigns are sales jobs, nothing more, nothing less.

Hey Rudy 9/11: The Commmmunity Orrrrrganizer won!!! Now fuck you.

Last but not least, can we leave Sarah Palin alone now? Jesus. The election's over. They both lost. And it wasn't all her fault. So why doesn't everyone get off her back? She can't be blamed for McCain's bad judgment in picking someone with no national experience that he only met twice. I don't blame her for being tantalized by power and reaching beyond her capabilities. I blame McCain's group for not figuring out all the problems ahead of time. (Really, how hard was it? Katie Couric figured it out in a 60 minute interview.) Now they're trying to make her the fall lady here, and I don't think it's fair. Shit, I think I'm starting to feel sorry for her. So please. Stop.

7. Guns, guns, guns! Is it funny or scary to hear stories of people stockpiling firearms the day after Obama won? I'm going with scary. Have you ever seen a more paranoid group of people than gun owners? Will you people please fucking relax? No one is going to take your guns away. This country will be and remain the violent and gun-obsessed Wild West that it's always been, so don't worry your precious, gun-toting hearts about it. You may not have Charlton Heston to press your case no mo', but the Second Amendment isn't going anywhere, so you'll still be able to shoot squirrels, Campbell soup cans, deer, moose, crocodiles, beer bottles, Stop signs, skeet, ducks, geese, loons, and, on occasion, human beings, whenever you like. Don't be afraid, Obama won't hurt you. He's got bigger fish to fry. But you may want to start supporting that health care plan of his because as popular as guns have become in the good ol' U.S. of A., you, or some high school or college student you love, may need affordable health care one day.

8. True Blood. I read three of the Anne Rice books and loved the movie The Lost Boys, but I've always found the notion of vampires a little hokey. I keep thinking of how silly Gary Oldman looked and sounded in Dracula. That said, the new HBO show True Blood is pretty damn good. Soap opera good. Lots of interesting characters, conflict, and cliffhangers. I've even started preempting Dexter to watch it. Choices, choices.

9. Could I date someone who didn't like television? Nope. Do I watch too much television? Yup.

10. Little kids have been staring at me a lot lately. Not in a scared or mean way, but in a curious, friendly way. I'm talking toddlers. The other day a lady was getting out of an elevator in a building I was in and she pushed a stroller by me that bore a cute little boy -- I think it was a boy -- with curly blonde hair and blue eyes. She was halfway down the hallway and I happened to look at him before I got in the elevator and I saw the kid looking back and smiling at me. So I waved. It happened again on the subway the other day, and then again tonight in the elevator up to my apartment. They look at me like I'm some kind of friendly alien or something. Like I'm a Teletubby with facial hair. I guess it's better to be noticed than ignored, eh?