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7/31/04: Friday Night Is Killing Me Dear Jaguar, Yes, I know you are a British company. But please stop pronouncing the name of your car as jag-you-are in your commercials, if you want us to keep buying them. To be honest, this pronunciation makes you guys sound like a bunch of g-lords. It sounds way cooler to pronounce the word like this: jag-wahrrr. Thank you for your attention in this matter. Sincerely, Hans Bungle "Hope is on the way" is just not good enough. I am terrified that they think this is going to get the job done. It's wimpy and annoying. Where are all the great slogan-writers? Today a couple of things made me really angry. I won't go into too much detail, but one of them was work-related and one of them was family-related. To the person who perpetrated the work-related nonsense: text removed for issues of job security But to the guy who scammed my 77 year-old father out of twenty dollars on the street: if I ever find out who you are, and I have a good opportunity to do it without going to jail or you killing me, I will break both your legs. You are the lowest form of scum to be found in a city that houses a glorious menagerie of scum-based life forms. You probably don't have internet access, but if you are reading this, clean up your act. I feel for you that you have no money, I really do. I'm sure you have untold problems that I don't know about, problems beyond your control, problems that turned you into the fine piece of shit that you are today. It's not that I don't have any sympathy for what brought you to this place. If you can't find a paying job in America today, I understand. Go sell drugs. Go panhandle. Go write to your congressman. Go rob banks. At least there's an element of risk, and therefore some twisted sense of honor, in that. But to prey on the elderly, my father in particular, is irredeemable in my eyes. You are truly the worst of the worst. I hope the bedbugs are gnawing at your brain as I type this. Speaking of people for whom I have little to no respect, I was walking home from work tonight and I spied the horrible insulting lady from the elevator (scroll down to 7/10/04 if you need to be reminded). I tailed her the down the block towards my apartment, snapping pictures, trying to get a decent shot for all of you. Alas, the hag proved to be too nimble. She moved quickly, darting between pedestrians, bobbing her head like a ratty, gnarly old chicken. Observing her for this one block, I came to the conclusion that she is legitimately insane. She is unaware of the concept of "strangers." She spoke to nearly every person she walked past, usually in a friendly tone, but that made it even creepier, because I already knew what a nutter she is: what a beautiful baby you have! Yuck. Scary. Keep her away from your kid. She also had three or four hostile outbursts (this is all in one block!): she cursed at cars who were speeding past, preventing her from crossing the street. Never mind that they had a green light. They needed to be cursed at, dammit! She also had to wait for a moment on the sidewalk for someone to walk in front of her perpendicularly. She started screaming at him: You motherfucker. Watch where you're going! Fuck you! She's definitely crazy, but not enough for me to feel sorry for her. Just enough for me to want her dragged away in a butterfly net. Sorry for all the negativity on this Friday evening. The wife and I were both groggy and tired tonight, so maybe I'm just feeling grouchy. Happier news: it looks like Schweppes has reintroduced their wonderful raspberry ginger ale. My roommate Scott used to buy this all the time in college and I got hooked on it. It was delicious. I saw a bottle of it in the supermarket today and had to have it. The label has changed, but hopefully the product has remained the same. It is chilling in my fridge right now, and I plan on uncorking it and reviewing it tomorrow. I hope I am not disappointed. There are many other things from 1991 that seemed like good ideas then and now seem not quite so good, My ear was pierced, for Christ's sake.* Pierced twice. Pierced in like '88. Wore a zirconia stud for about a year. Realized what a chump I looked like. Took out the stud. Let the hole close up. Walking in a mall in 1991 or so, decided to get pierced again. This time, a variety of earrings: the zirc piercing stud, a gold stud, a nice silver hoop, even a miniature penny. I was happening. We've got a couple of more weeks until the one year anniversary of The Blackout, and I must admit I am feeling a bit nostalgic for that night. It really reminded me of New York in the 70's: transistor radios playing through open windows, oppressive heat, doormen out on the sidewalk talking to people. No cable TV or internet or cell phones. It was like retro night. Thanks to Irvingbird for the excellent transcript of the balloon debacle. You can view it in yesterday's comments. Amazing. So the Unit may be staying put or going to LA. I can now root for the Yankees with pride. Without my usual guilt. Unless we get him. If we don't get him, I don't think we're going anywhere in October. I actually really like Giambi and I hope they
figure out what's wrong with him. He's a good interview and seems like a decent
fellow.
I wonder if Will Smith might finally be able to actually beat Mike Tyson. It might be the only fight left that could earn Mike some of the money he needs. On Hill Street Blues, the original sergeant (Sgt. Phil Esterhaus) played by Michael Conrad would go over the day's wanted perps and scheduled busts and whatnot, and then he'd send the cops on their way with the famous line: "Hey, let's be careful out there." It became a national catchphrase. Kerry and Edwards need to find out who came up with "Hey, let's be careful out there" and get him or her to work on their new campaign slogan. Pronto. Anyway, Michael Conrad died after a few seasons and was replaced by Robert Prosky (Sgt. Stan Jablonsky). Prosky did a good job and even had his own sign-off, which wasn't bad: "Let's do it to them before they do it to us." Not bad at all. Actually, it was probably a more accurate encapsulation of what policemen actually think each day. Anyway, I think if the show was airing today, I should play the Sergeant, and my line would be: "Guys -- let's stay outta the papers." I said that to one of my co-workers as he left today. He was going out drinking, and I just told him,"Try to stay outta the papers." Good advice for a cop on the beat or a drunk at the bar. * it still works for some people, but definitely not for me. I do want to get a nice thin gold chain again, though. I used to wear one and I was real sexy, believe me. 7/30/04: Old Slang, New Slang: it's all hella swell to me I gave $25 to Mr. Kerry tonight. For some reason, I followed Chris S.'s advice and wagered against Bush, despite my gut telling me Britney knew better when she said: "Honestly, I think we should just trust our president in every decision he makes and just support that...and be faithful." I mean, what she's saying makes total sense. Logically, that's exactly what we should do. But she's only like 22 years old. How can she possess such wisdom? I'm going to play it safe this time. But I don't think the American political scene has heard the last of Ms. Spears. Somebody's ass got fired today at CNN for sure. Did anybody catch what happened? Right after Kerry's speech (I only caught the last five minutes or so -- damn, he sweats like Moses Malone), CNN lost their regular audio feed and began broadcasting the audio from the event producer's microphone, a microphone which should only have been transmitting into the earpieces of the people who were helping coordinate the event. So for like a full minute, all anyone watching CNN heard, while we saw Kerry waving and acknowledging the crowd, was: "Balloons! Balloons! I need some balloons...more balloons! Get me some more fucking balloons! Jesus, where are the balloons. I need more got-damn balloons! Balloooooons!" Nicely done. Then they lost audio when
Aaron Brown threw to the convention site, and had to drop that interview.
Then Jeff Greenfield's key light burnt out, so he was in the pitch black for a
few moments. Then Larry King referred to the young whippersnapper from
MTV, whose name is Gideon something-or-other, as "Gordon." Then Tucker Carlson
spoke.
So what's the consensus on the Kerry speech? 8.5? He seemed pretty composed and forceful from what I saw, and the early reviews are very positive. I am actually getting excited about this election. I may vote in as many as twelve states. I haven't felt this kind of buzz since Dukakis poked his head out of the tank. My only complaint was the sweat, yo -- he should have busted out a hankie at some point to wipe off that upper lip. He'll learn. Oh, and his plan for Iraq seemed pretty vague, to the point where I was embarrassed that he didn't have more to say. I know it's just a speech and not a full platform, but "we're going to enlist other countries to join us and we're going to bring our troops home" seemed simplistic, optimistic and inadequate. I would have been like, "Iraq? Fuck that! That's Bush's problem. I ain't going NEAR that hornets' nest. I'm going to appoint W. to a new cabinet position called 'Secretary of Cleaning Up His Own Mess' and let him figure it out." I still sent Kerry $25 towards his iPod. Edwards is on his own. Remember when Reagan tried to appropriate "Born in the USA" as his song back in '84? Good to see Bruce putting his tunes to use in the right direction. It would have been cooler if they played "Incident on 57th Street," or "Fade Away" or "It's Hard to be a Saint in the City," but I see their logic in going with "No Surrender." Everybody loves an underdog, right? Speaking of Bruce, while "The Rising" does not rank among my favorite Springsteen albums, I respect his efforts to deal with 9/11, and I think for the most part he handles it gracefully and sensitively. It's been three years: has any other musician made a real and decent effort at discussing those events? I give him a tip of the cap for a job well done, although generally speaking I prefer songs about cars and girls. It's official: I trust El Duque and his decaying body way more than I trust Contreras. We could have saved ourselves some serious cheese on that deal. Oh, I forgot, money is meaningless in Yankeeland. Spend, print, spend, print. The Unit is on the way, methinks. Time for me to stop backpedaling and enjoy the run. I was thinking about the song "Kiss on My List" for a minute or two today. While I grant that it is one of the catchier cheesy pop songs of its time, I somehow can't help feeling angered by the lyrics. What a desperate attempt to force two words together incongruously: kiss and list. What kind of a pitiful scrub would create such a thing, a "list of the best things in life"? And how disappointed he (he = Hall and/or Oates; probably Oates) must have been when the girl told him what he could do with his list. I was so tired at work today, I thought about how lucky it is that I don't have my own office (there I go again! being saved by my own lack of success), because I would have closed the door and nodded off for about three hours. That would have been swell, actually. Think we should bring back "swell"? In my dad's yearbook (Senn High School, Chicago, class of '44, one year behind Harvey Korman), that was all anybody wrote to him. It was "To A Swell Guy" and "To a swell basketball player" and "have a swell summer." Of course, that swell summer ended up taking place in Madison, Wisconsin, where he attended radio school and hooked up with a girl from Liz Waters dorm (the "virgin vault" as it would be known 43 years later when I arrived in Madison). And in the fall, it was off to fight in WWII. No fun. I much preferred the house parties at 222 N. Bassett Street. It's where I learned about life and became a man. And you wonder why nobody calls us "the greatest generation." We had it too good. Kerry's speech: pretty swell, I think. During my tiredness at work, I let my mind wander with some of the corny show opens I've been working on. My attention could only muster the proper level of corniness for about half of each open, so I'd end up with stuff like this: "There’s definitely something to be said for subtle food, the kind where you can just make out a hint of this or a trace of that. But when it comes right down to it, I want a meal with CONVICTION: food that’s full of bold flavors that stand right up and announce their presence. Today I’ve got three dishes that aren’t afraid to kick you in the crotch, drag you by your hair down to the curb and make you smell that dog shit." No way we can air that, right? 7/29/04: The people have spoken Another great thing about Chicago is people actually go to the street fairs. And they aren't quite as lame as they are here. Lame, yes. But not as lame. So Tony Pierce got his iPod. If you want to be cynical you could probably find a dozen reasons why it's wrong to ask people who read your blog for money so you can buy an iPod. But I say it is a wonderful experiment in blogonomics*, and it's a chance for Tony's readers to offer an outpouring of appreciation for the daily bursts of joy and insight he brings to their lives. I am proud to have been a part of it. I gave $11.99, my reasoning being: that's what I've paid for plenty of lousy books at Barnes & Noble, books I forgot within three days of reading them. Now here's a guy providing wit and style and occasionally something that genuinely moves me, and doing it for free. Every day. Twice a day. $11.99 is the least I can offer (as well as the most, based on my means). It turns out Apple got wind of the scheme and coughed up the last $63 themselves. It'll be interesting to see what impact this
has on his blog from here on out.
I think I may start a drive for a bag of Doritos. Nacho Cheese flavor. The big bag. The one you should eat with a bunch of friends or over the span of two weeks, but instead end up eating the entire thing alone in front of a meaningless college football game. If you are feeling like you want to be part of an even more important piece of internet donation history, Chris S. sends in this advice: "there's two days left before the donation
rules change. i know you all have credit cards, i've seen you all blow way more
than $25 on booze, gambling and other luxuries, so if you haven't done it yet
c'mon. when they announce how much money they've raised this week, you can take
pride in the fact that you were a part of it. I don't live in Boston, but I'm sure the people there are pretty fucking annoyed at the whole Democratic Convention situation. I know my blood is boiling about the RNC coming to NYC at the end of August. My wife's company (Viacom) has told all employees in their Times Square offices to work from home that week. They don't want anybody in the office. They said if you absolutely need to, you can come in, but you have to let management know exactly where you'll be and when. Now that may be an overreaction, but who knows? It's not that I'm afraid of a terrorist attack during the convention, even though I acknowledge it's a possibility. It's more the inconvenience they are causing, and the fact that they are going to be disrupting a city that is already pretty good at disrupting itself. Here are a few reasons I am offended by the GOP's decision to hold their convention in my fine city: 1. You know that Bush is going to invoke
September 11 as often and as cheaply as possible. He is going to point out
that he has kept America, and New York, safe for three years, while battling Al
Qaeda overseas. He will say something like, "The turrurists are on the
run. But they can't hide. You know that, I know that, and they
learned it themselves in Afghanistan and Iraq." He won't mention the fact that
the 3,000 people our city lost were lost on HIS WATCH. Nor will he mention
the cost in
human lives of his
misguided war in Iraq. So in short, George W. Bush is returning to New York, a city that was deeply wounded three years ago, a city that continues to heal today, and he's undoubtedly going to exploit those wounds for his own gain. He will exploit them against the wishes of the people who are wounded, people who voted more than 4 to 1 against him. He will exploit them while increasing the chances that we get wounded again. He will exploit them while disturbing our daily routines, keeping a lot of us from getting to work, inconveniencing nearly all of us -- all with a dubious economic benefit for our city. Anxiety will be needlessly high. I wish they'd stay the hell out of my city and hold their event someplace like Houston, where they have friends. A city that could use a convention. A city that could handle it. And we get this from Bloomberg: "New York will be a great place during the convention." By what standards? I guess it will be great if you're a cockwad delegate getting wined and dined all over town while the locals put their lives on hold. Otherwise, it's going to be hell. And I gotta deal with it. Ah, fuck all those guys. Let's complain about baseball. Michael Kay in particular. If you wonder why the ex-jocks in the booth sometimes gang up on Kay and remind him that he never played the game****, it's because he's a fucking know-it-all, and he really doesn't know all that much. Tonight he wrongly corrected Singleton when Singleton made a reference to what I have determined to be an old Doris Day song. In between pitches to Jeter, they cut away to a beautiful shot of the moon shining down on the water in Toronto. Singleton said, rather eloquently, "sailing along on moonlight bay." Kay jumped in and corrected him, or at least unnecessarily embellished him, in one of those windbag addendums that asshole younger brothers need to make when someone else says something clever at the dinner table. Click on the douche to listen (beware: possible audio): Am I being a dick for wondering about the "parasites" that have struck Kevin Brown and Giambi and now Giambi's wife? Is it possible these are the type of "parasites" you get from sex with unsavory strangers when far away from home? I just wanted to mention something about the women my friend was talking to in Chicago. We have received several rather crude responses about the way these ladies look. First of all, my friend did not kiss them, he did not get their phone numbers, he did not attempt to go home with them. He was just talking and having fun. Secondly, I wonder if all the comment-leavers themselves would hold up to such scrutiny about their looks. Lastly, having been there, I can vouch that neither of the women in question was ugly, despite what the photos might tell you. They weren't supermodels, either, but they were more than decent-looking when judged fairly (fairly=through beer-swollen eyes at 3:45am). Thank you. * Just because I am making lame puns involving
the term "blog" does not mean that I accept this word. We still need a
better word for this. 7/28/04: Regressing and Fessing like Debra Messing Freehold's own Bruce Springsteen once said, "One step up and two steps back." After publishing this thing I humbly refer to as a website for a year and a half, I should be coming up with some snazzy new design ideas. New fonts, new tables, some multimedia shit. Instead, I am finding it hard to even get my pages to publish correctly. So I am taking it back to a simpler look, sort of what you might get from a 12 year-old geocities resident in early 1995. I call it verbungle classic. Hopefully I'll have less problems if nothing else. Truth be told, I don't care how the page looks. I know you come here for the content. The stuff you can't find anywhere else. I know this because you told me when I came over to do my laundry last week. Thanks, mom. Part of the problem is that my laptop has a
decent 15" monitor, so the site always looks "good"
My wife reads "Us" Magazine on a semi-regular basis. I hope you don't judge her for this, because if you do, you gotta judge me too. I gobble that shit up like popcorn. It's a very satisfying piece of fluff and it's always fascinating to see how vapid our nation's celebrities really are. In honor of all the fine work the folks at "Us" have done over the years, I am going to start posting a semi-weekly quote from one of these celebrities, pulled from the magazine, that shows just how out of touch and imbecilic they are. Here is this week's: "We're like the gay Beatles!" Yeah, sorta. Except for everything. Today at work one of my co-workers started talking to me about her job, and how it's not a bad job, but it could be better. Everything she mentioned that was bad about her job was worse for me in mine. On top of that, the stuff that she takes pleasure in leaves me completely cold. It was one of those slaps in the face where I thought, "WTF am I still doing here? Good Lord!" It came down to two things: I truly enjoy the company of the people I work with (with a few dozen notable exceptions), and I am a hopelessly inert motherfucker. I actually started thinking, "Damn, I need a new job." I have that thought about once every 3 months, and it usually passes within a day or two. It's not anything particularly wrong with the job itself; it's more that it just ain't right for me. Maybe in another five years I'll figure out what to do. In the meantime, feel free to offer me a cool job. Whenever I talk about work here, I am reminded
of the hard rules you get in
almost any practical discussion of "how to blog." There will be some
combination of the following statements: There are, to my knowledge, four people I work with who know about my site (only one that I know of actually bothers to read it on a semi-regular basis). I write about my work in my blog. I sometimes say negative things about my job here. I sometimes refer to other employees, if not by name by some specific event or characteristic that they could easily use to identify themselves. There are several people at work who I haven't mentioned it to -- people I like and respect and I'd love to share it with. But I am already in violation of several of the golden tenets of work and blogging, and I am sure I could already get fired or severely reprimanded for the stuff I've posted on here. so I best keep it down. Co-workers: shhh. I don't know what any of that means. Here is a good and real guide to blogging if you're interested. 7/27/04: Chicago sleeps in I guess I should describe a few more stupid adventures from Chicago. I hesitate to do so, because most of the stuff is embarrassing and pretty unamusing and really shouldn't still be happening to a man my age. Another reason I'd kind of rather not is that I am generally not the hero of these stories; I am more what you might call "the asshole" of the stories. One of the assholes, anyway. But what else have I got to talk about? The Yankees and Red Sox? Missed the game. Saw the highlights of the fight. Seemed like a pretty decent fight. Was a pretty huge win for the Red Sox. But they're still a bunch of g-lords*. I could talk about the election or the RNC and how annoyed I am that it's gonna be here in NYC. And how annoyed I am that I can't leave town that week. But you don't want to hear me whine. No, I guess I have to recount my stupid bar stories for you. And I have to give you some pictures as well. It was Chicago, after all. One of the sweetest words there is. 1. On Thursday night, in a story that I
forgot until the next day, Dillahunt, Brady and I were in the bar, and we
were drinking 'em down with authority and efficiency.
Dillahunt even slammed two full pints of beer in the span of a minute and
a half. Good work for a married father of three. And I say the
following in a spirit of true repentance: Jägermeister was consumed**. We
were definitely in unbearable fuckhead drinking mode. Anybody who walked
by us could smell our obnoxious fumes. The only nice thing we did was buy
about 5 drinks for a down on his luck Joe who Dillahunt befriended. He was
grateful and promised that he'd have his mom make DIllahunt a home-cooked
meal the next time we were in town. Otherwise, we were pretty loud and not
as funny as we thought we were. At one point, Brady asked, "What are
the chances one of us gets slapped in the face tonight?" I responded
to this by resoundingly slapping Dillahunt across the face and saying,
"100%." Dillahunt will probably abduct one of my children someday
for that one, but as of now he has not sought revenge. Deep in his
soul, he must know he deserved it. 2. You know how usually in a bar the line for the ladies' room is ten deep but the men's room is wide open? Well in Ravens bar at 3am Friday night, the situation was reversed. The men's room line was at approximately fifteen d-bags and counting, and the bungmeister had to go. There were only maybe two women waiting for the ladies' room. My friend****, who had been chatting one of these two up, mentioned to me that she had let him sneak into the ladies' room ahead of her because there was no line. I know, kind of a weak move, but when ya gotta go, ya gotta go. I asked her if I could do the same and she said sure. I am a legendarily quick pisser, so I didn't think it was such a big deal. I also didn't think it was such a big deal that I took an extra moment to document just how wrecked the ladies' room was. That's a secret the ladies have been keeping from us for awhile. They just as nasty as we are. Kind of disappointing. I would think that having to sit down to squirt would make one more respectful of one's bathroom. Nope. Anyway, I was probably in there for 45 seconds to a minute total, and when I got back there were now like four women on line, and they were good and pissed. Being a chivalrous type, I immediately tried to shift the blame to the nice woman who, I pointed out, had given me permission to use the bathroom. Of course, she was already in the bathroom, so I was left to face my critics alone. In truth, they were right. But I didn't appreciate them getting all up in my grill. One woman was about to have a conniption and was all but shoving her fingers in my face (she must have really had to pee! ha ha!). Then her Ferris Bueller-looking boyfriend (who was totally lit) starts in on me. Him: "You can't do that, man. You
can get arrested for that shit." It kind of ended there, but later he came up to me and tried to befriend me. He was actually a pretty mellow guy, must have been putting on a macho show for his girlfriend. He's human. But he's no cop. 3. There was another guy there that night who wanted to brain me for something I said in the presence of his sister. My friend was chatting to the sister at the bar and asked if I could hold his seat for a minute while he took a leak. Another friend and I stepped forward and were talking for a minute when I accidentally let the word "penis" go. Not about my penis or my friend's penis, and I'm pretty sure I wasn't even talking to the girl when I said it. I was commenting on how the next generation of people is so physically superior to our generation. I think I said something like, "They have better hair, better clothes, better penises..." The next thing I know, my friend says some guy at the end of the bar wants to kill me. I decided to go straighten out the situation, as I felt that it was clearly a misunderstanding. My friend was like, no, stay away, the guy is pissed but he's not going to do anything. I couldn't let it sit. I had to find out what I said that was so horrible. Later, I was reminded that maybe I said the word "penis," but I didn't recall this at the time (and the word "penis" in a bar at 3:14 am doesn't qualify as horrible anyway). I was in disbelief that the guy was pissed. When I went over there, I quickly determined that Jocko was nuts. He had that wild-eyed, unfocused rage, like Brad from Real World San Diego. He mentioned that he had wanted to kill me "because that's my little sister, dude." I showed him my wedding ring and assured him that I had no designs on his not unattractive but sorta weird looking sister. He calmed down but proceeded to tell me that he was Armenian and liked to fight. He wanted me to know that these two things go together like bacon and eggs over easy. He told me maybe eight stories about guys he had punched out, and felt no remorse for the fact that some of them, by his own admission, didn't deserve it. We eventually became friends when I referenced System of a Down and showcased my vague understanding of the Armenian genocide. I am glad he didn't go all Roy Jones, Jr. on me. 4. On Saturday night I proved once again what a bastard I am. There was a young couple at one bar we were at (a bar with a photo booth), and my friend took an interest in the girl. We invited them on to Ravens with us, and to our surprise, they showed up about an hour later, eager to share our good company. I decided to occupy the boyfriend so my friend could chat up the girlfriend. As the night went on, and it did indeed go on, I started to realize there was some moral ambiguity to my actions. This was a young couple, probably already doomed to failure like most young couples are, and I was contributing to a situation that was putting their (5-year!) relationship in deep jeopardy. My friend was unleashing his most charming 3:47 am bullshit, and the young girl was loving every minute of it. Granted, she was a free woman, entitled to make her own decisions, but I couldn't help feeling sorry for the boyfriend guy. His woman was being stolen from right under his nose. So in the middle of whatever half-baked crap I was telling him, I would periodically throw in a "Dude, how can you stand there like that? You need to get your girl out of here." I was honestly concerned for the guy, and I felt like his relationship with his long-term girlfriend took precedence over whatever my friend had planned for the evening and beyond. But I also felt some allegiance to my friend, and dammit this girl seemed to be really into him. And the boyfriend seemed OK with it. But still I felt bad. He was just a kid, and he seemed confused and sort of helpless about the whole thing. So I kept waffling between, "Hey, you guys have been dating for five years, huh? That's great" and "DUDE, are you nuts? Step in there and tell her it's time to go." As always, conflicted. Finally, the guy freaked out. "I don't have to listen to this," he said, and marched up to his girlfriend. "Let's go. Now!" he said to her. He had done pretty much what I suggested, but now I felt like I had shortchanged my friend. I got the dude's attention again and said, "Hey, calm down. Everything's cool." I was hoping to buy my friend some more talky talk time. The young kid was clearly pissed at me more than anything else. "You're the most manipulative person I've ever met," he said. I hadn't meant to be, but maybe I was. I was really just trying to look after all three of them. What an officious asshole I can be. I apologized to the guy and assured him that I could barely manipulate my legs to keep from falling down. Once again, he was sufficiently soothed to avoid an incident. The couple stayed for awhile and then went home together. No harm done, right? Boy, I bet they fought like gangbusters the next morning. Maybe even broke up. So unnecessary. Oh well, it'll probably save them some agony in the long run. 5. Got up around 10:45 on Sunday and had a flight at 2. After a little too much dilly-dallying******, I started to worry that I might be late. Thankfully, Appleton-bound Dave and John offered to drive me (Brady was bed-ridden at this point), even though it wasn't really on the way. We left at 12:20 -- if we had hit bad traffic, which you usually do in Chicago, we would have gotten to the airport at 1:30 or later. Luckily, God loves a hung-over man and He ushered me right to the self-check-in window******* by 12:48. Traveling is good for the ego. Now matter how ashamed and incompetent I might feel on any given day (that one in particular), I am encouraged by the utter hopelessness of the average human. People really can't help but fuck up, you know? There was a guy trying to check in at the self-check-in window who was just sort of muttering to himself, not even pressing any buttons, looking very confused. One of the guys behind the counter (greatest secret of the self-check-in window: people are actually there to assist you!) asked him if he could help. The guy handed him an e-ticket printout. The worker guy said, "It's 1pm. Your flight left at 9:30 this morning. I can't help you. You need to go talk to someone over there (pointing to the endless line of sad sacks who are too suspicious of modern advances to have discovered the self-check-in by now)." Did the guy think he could just bluff his way onto another flight? Seconds later, a party girl stepped forward with a similar problem. Seems she overdid it on Saturday night and slept through her flight. Wow, people are just pathetic. Even more pathetic than me. At least I know to schedule my flight for the afternoon. I made my flight easily, and even got to eat some O'Hare popcorn before I left. Home by 6:30 pm. Life can return to normal. 6. Have the bars near you caught on and scored one of the new internet jukeboxes (displayed here by verbungle.com spokesmodel Rodney Manfredi)? Sure, they're charmless, and part of the fun of going to a new bar is seeing the obscure/lame/excellent CD's/45's they have in their jukebox. But it's pretty cool to be able to hear almost any song you want whenever you want. If you don't agree, throw a few more quarters into Buck Hunter II. OK, that should cover Chicago. Even though I have some serious doubts about his character, watching Bill Clinton speak is a near-pornographic experience. Especially after four years listening to the bumblings of El Busheristo. I went down to Duane Reade to pick up some TP tonight. After the lady gave me my bag, I started to leave. "Do you want a receipt?" she asked. It took all my power not to say, "No, it's OK. I'm just gonna be shoving it up my ass." * g-lords is short for "gonad-lords".
7/24/04: It's easier to ask forgiveness than permission The airport delays were awful. Two and a half hours in total. After awhile, I decided to head into the airport TGIF's and get a beer. In my mind, I have always romanticized airport bars and hotel bars. I imagined them as a place for people to come out of their shell a little, to talk to strangers, and to share the common experience of being away from home. I always thought the people who inhabit these bars must be special; they all have reason to be in more than one place at a time. They have people to visit or important business to attend to, and loving families who are eager for them to return home. Nope, it turns out they're just a bunch of regular old shitheads. I got the hell out of TGIF's as fast as I could. After a tough day of airport delays and
baggage delays, I finally made it to my friend
Brady's (brand new, beautiful) apartment by 10:30 pm. We sat on his roof and had a couple of
beers and soaked in the splendor of the Chicago night. At one point, a
The night was lots of fun. Coldies were consumed. Cigarettes were quasi-smoked. I had a long metaphysical discussion with a lapsed Mormon dude and his girlfriend. We eventually came to the same conclusion: Mormonism is sorta weird At one point, Mike D. and I hatched an evil plan. Brady had told us that his friend was coming over today (Friday) to help him install a brand new door on his roommate's bedroom. We knew that Brady would be working on this door all day. So we decided that upon our return from the bars tonight, we would kick down Brady's brand new door and then throw some wadded up money at him to settle our tab. We even had a payment plan worked out for the eventual actual replacing of the door. I was in for 25%; Dillahunt for 75%. We were willing to invest as much as $400 total in this joke. Unfortunately, I blew it by kicking down a different door in the apartment when we returned home last night at around 4. It was going to get replaced and discarded soon anyway. Brady wasn't that happy about it. It is a bathroom door after all. You need a door on the bathroom. He said he knew he was mad at me when he woke up today, but couldn't remember why. Then he saw the door leaning there against the wall and remembered. A hot pocket also mysteriously appeared on the floor today. Under intense pressure from one anonymous reader and my own nagging sense of what's right, I must admit that the term "gaylord" is inappropriate. I will refrain from using it after this paragraph. As someone who is not currently gay and has only been gay for a few evenings in his entire life, it is not my place to decide what is offensive or not. I just wish the person who keeps complaining would stop being such a gaylord about it. There. I'm done. Gaylord. Gaylord. Gaylord. OK, now I am really done. Sorry. One thing we did last night that could have gotten ugly but didn't was stage a nice old-fashioned chicken fight. I grabbed Dillahunt on my shoulders, the Red Bull guy (whose name was Dave, and whose identical twin Ed was the guy who came over to install the door today, very confusing) grabbed Brady and we went at it. Dillahunt is perhaps the ultimate top half of a chicken fight tandem. He's light, he's aggressive, and he's tenacious. He was clawing and biting Brady, but the fight was basically even when an ambulance stopped and the guy yelled out that his money was on "the guy in black" (Brady). The ambulance was probably just slowing down thinking we'd be needing them any minute. We took it as a nice friendly warning and dismounted our chickens. To be continued. 7/23/04 5pm Newark Airport Update: Severe Thunderstorm Warning OK, I have about a half hour before my flight boards, so I am going to hit you with a late-afternoon blitz. Please excuse typos and incomplete/erroneous thoughts. I was supposed to be on the 5:45 to O'Hare, but there are thunderstorms in the Chicago area, so I have been put on the flight that was supposed to leave at 3:15, and is now scheduled to leave at 6. You got that? What a mess. To quote Dinny's softball recap of 5/16/04: "Whose brilliant fucking idea was it to make O’Hare the central hub of all U.S. air traffic? One thunderstorm and everything in the entire COUNTRY gets fucked up. I was supposed to go to Indiana and couldn’t due to weather. Fine, at least that’s nearby. But my father was flying back to NYC from Atlanta and was delayed for 3 hours because of delays at O’Hare. What bullshit. We need a major transportation hub someplace fucking beautiful where there are no weather issues. Hawaii is a good bet. Someone start drawing up the plans." Of course, I am flying into Chicago for
Chicago's sake, so the hub choice isn't really a factor in my delay. Doesn't
mean I can't bitch. I am meeting Mike at the hospital. Actually, I meant to type the word "airport," but in a slipup that might prove to be prophetic, typed "hospital." Mike is a dangerous man. That's him in the picture, attempting to drive his Nissan pickup telepathically. I've got much better pictures of Mike, but none are really appropriate for public view. Mike is capable of incredible feats, both physically and intellectually. I've seen him do one armed pullups without a problem, I've seen him run the 40 in under 4.5 seconds, I've seen him nearly dunk a basketball at 5'5" tall. Rumor was that he killed a guy with one punch in Eau Claire*. Mike got one "B" in college, and was valedictorian of the UW law school. The problem with Mike is that he sometimes gets headaches and begins using his powers for evil instead of good. Most people who have met him can share at least one story of an encounter with Mike that went awry. He loves a challenge, and he is relentless in his pursuit not just of victory, but of the complete demoralization of his opponent. If he does you wrong, it's best to let it go, because it's only going to get worse if you respond. Let's hope he's on his best behavior this weekend: willing to climb tall trees or smash his face on a streetlamp, but not so lost in the moment that he pees on me under the table in a bar. We shall see. Just a quick note on the use of the term "gaylord." At some point, many of us have sarcastically referred to something as "gay," meaning lame, stupid, corny, etc. I think the use of the term is most prevalent among second graders. Some adults like using the term, too, even adults who are enlightened enough to know it's offensive when used this way. They sort of justify it by saying they're using it in a "can you believe people used to actually use this word?" kind of way. I remember when Quentin Tarantino was called out on his use of the "N" word, he responded that the only way to take away the power that a terrible word like that has is to shout it from the rooftops until it becomes meaningless. However, Quentin Tarantino is wrong about this one**: the only way to know if a word is offensive is if you are in a member of the group being referred to. If you're not black, you have no idea what the word means, and no business using it. The same goes for the flippant use of the term "gay." Maybe you know you are not using it with malice, but the offensiveness of the word lies in the feelings of the person who that word refers to. Which of course you can't know. So stop using the term "gay" to refer to things that are lame. There are plenty of other words that mean this. However, none of that goes for "gaylord." Gaylord stands. * Upon further examination, the man was merely
hospitalized. 7/22/04: City Folk and Country Folk I actually leave for Chicago straight from work Thursday, land at 7:30 pm, and I should be spruced up and ready to have some fun by 9pm. I want to thank my wife for making this trip possible. It will be good to see all the fellas. I think I may bring the ol' laptop for the sake of downloading pictures, and that means there may be an update somewhere along the line. If there is a post, it will probably consist mostly of photos. Photos of drunks. Tell me, who doesn't like photos of drunks? It seems like every day I am delivered another reminder of why I am not upper management material. Not that I want to be; managing people is just about the most thankless fucking job in the world. Especially if you're a guy like me who'd rather just be everybody's best pal than tell them they're doing a bad job. (Note to some of the people who used to work for me: there were times when you were doing a bad job and I didn't say anything. You should consider this a compliment, because it means I valued your friendship more than doing my job.) Boy am I off the path here. What I was getting at was an email exchange that indicates why flakes like me are best kept out of the corner office. This email arrived as our company was preparing to move to our new location. It came from a woman I work with who has her own office. She is a director-level employee. I like saying that. Here it goes (first email on top for your convenience):
I am a top-notch employee. This picture is Mike and me imitating VC and Fred Weis. An interesting development at work is that our new office seems to be mysteriously draining cell phone batteries. Verizon customers seem to be hit the hardest -- their phones aren't making it through a single workday. They also get lousy reception in the building, so I assumed maybe the phone was using up its battery by searching for service all day. But now Sprint phones are starting to drain, too. I have no idea what it is. I'm guessing electromagnetic field. Hey, I was only kidding about no more sports posts. I am going to keep posting whatever I like, and of course people can choose to ignore it if they like. That's the beauty of the ol' internet, one of the few things out there that's truly free and pretty much unregulated. You don't like it, go visit Wil Wheaton's blog or something (no link provided). 7/21/04: Come on, baby don't you want to go Based on your comments, I guess my sports musings don't cut it. I will try to limit them in the future, because ultimately it's you who pays the bills. If I piss you off, the landlord's gonna come knocking, and then he's gonna boot us out on our ass. There'll be big stacks of verbungle.com letterhead piled up among the garbage bags outside verbungle.com headquarters. We don't want that. Or maybe we do. The Verbungle has been a little dry and flaky lately. I need to bolster it with some good stories, or take a little hiatus. One such hiatus is coming up this week, and it might provide some good new stories as well. I am leaving Thursday morning for my annual visit to Chicago. Three days of mindless fun. I like Chicago. Here are some of the things I will probably do in Chicago: -eat bacon
ü You know what sucks about naming your website "verbungle.com"? You never, ever get any accidental hits from people who searched for the word "verbungle." It just doesn't happen -- well, actually, last week we had our first visitor who had done exactly that. So the name has gotten us one hit. It was a doozy, though. Tipping is such an delicate art, and so few people do it well. I am a hack tipper. I generally overtip, and then sometimes I will totally forget a real important one. There is nowhere to go for advice on this stuff, because everybody has different opinions. How much should you leave for a housekeeper in a hotel after a three night stay? A weeklong stay? When should you leave something in the tip jar at the coffee shop, and how much should you leave when you do? I think we should also institute a system of tipping in generic office settings. Not a bonus system, just a couple of bucks here or there. Say your boss asks you to do something that you think is beneath you, and you do it without complaint. Wouldn't it be nice if he slipped you a ten for your troubles? There have been several times this week when I would have appreciated a tip, and also a few when I would have liked to give one. I would work at least 35% harder if I thought it might result in a nice fat tip. So I take it my sports bullshit is not welcome. I have one more post to go before Chicago. Tell me what it should be about, if you're so smart. The trayline saga is tempting, but long.
7/20/04: Unreadable Sports Nonsense Times is rough for sports fans. Or at least for me. I don't want to sound too crusty or out of touch, but I'm finding it harder and harder to feel passionate about any particular sport or team. Maybe it's just getting old and realizing that sports are kind of silly. Maybe it's the fact that my teams are either spoiled rotten (the Yankees) or just plain rotten (the Knicks). I have to admit I enjoy particular games (like Game 7 last year between the Yankees and Red Sox) and matchups (Pedro vs. anyone). I love Mariano/Jeter/Posada/Bernie. There are still breathtaking athletic feats being performed every night in every sport. Sports, when you strip away all the contracts and lawsuits and steroids and shit and expose their pure competitive essence, are still fun. Maybe that's all I ever should have hoped to get out of them. But there was a time, when pop culture bottomed out in the early 90's1, that I used to fucking tear my hair out over sports. One sport, to be precise. One team, to be honest. The thugs who helped ruin modern basketball, the early-mid 90's New York Knickerbockers. The guys who helped inspire the NBA to move the three point line in, as if to say, hey guys, try this one. Enough with the 2 for 18's. We were a team of weirdos and hacks and
tough guys: CBA refugees like Mason and Starks and wild-eyed butchers like
Charles Oakley. Deft veterans looking for a ring, like Derek Harper
and Doc Rivers. One trick ponies like Hubert Davis and Anthony Bonner.
Pat Riley, aging every year, eyes getting more hollow with every manly
press-conference in front of the brick wall outside the locker room,
pursuing the championship that would validate
I loved them the way my dad loved those teams from '70 and '73. Where those teams were a study in motion and teamwork and synchronization, all parts moving as one, my team was a clumsy, angry, relentless bunch of brutes who yelled at each other and felt entitled to a championship just because they worked so hard for it. At one point or another, I loved every guy on that team but Charles Smith. Oh, and Greg Anthony. He could effortlessly dribble away 22 seconds without advancing the ball past the three point line. He was a punk and a Young Republican and he always launched a three the instant he saw his sub sitting at the scorer's table, ready to check in. Nobody else loved 'em. Nobody outside New York. They were tough to watch. But they seemed like a family to me. The '92-'93 team in particular. Sure, the '94 team came closer, and I loved that team, too. But there was no Jordan in '94. In '94, we needed a cheap call to get past the Bulls and then we lost to Houston in the finals, making it seem like maybe we were never as close to a championship as we thought we were. Nope, '93 was the season when it was supposed to happen. It was my last year in Wisconsin. I was working on the trayline* at the University Hospital and trying to figure out what to do with my life. My friends were all graduating and moving on to real jobs in faraway places. I was drinking too much, earning too little, and generally floundering without charm or style. The Knicks became a real cause in my life, and their wins and losses defined my days and my moods. They made me scream. They made me stand up with my hands on my head in disbelief. They made me do a little dance. They made me lose sleep. I thought about them during trayline. I cared what message Mase had inscribed in his hair. I worried about Starks's state of mind. I went bananas every time the Oak-man chucked an outlet pass into the blue seats. And despite the fact that they would often go eight minutes without a basket, they were a 60-win team. They were absolutely not scared of the Bulls, even though they should have been. They didn't give a fuck about Jordan's reputation. He was just another guy in the way, a guy who needed to get guarded and hounded and occasionally dropped. It's just another measure of how great he was that he torched them in the end, once again. But I think they earned his respect. I think I may have seen fear in his eyes a couple of times. Were he a lesser player, he might have gone into a shell and let the Knicks trample him. But he just got more motivated and more focused, and he got what he wanted in the end. He always did. But there was a moment, when we took a 2-0 lead on the Bulls in the conference finals, that I thought we had the bastards beat. It was a great couple of days in between games 2 and 3; we were unblemished and we could just sit around and talk about how they had to beat us 4 out of 5 now and what are the odds of that? All we need is one of these 2 in Chicago... We didn't win any more games that year. But I think this article beautifully sums up how I felt that year, what that team meant to me, and just how significant the Starks dunk was. To us, anyway. It was absolutely electrifying, the greatest moment by far of my sports-watching life. Like the Knicks, I had no idea things would never get so good again. 1Raftery et al, The Death and Rebirth of American Popular Culture, 2004, p.136 * to be explained in a later entry 7/19/04: Jockstrap Mystery Unraveled I have decided to start keeping a week's worth of entries on this main page for the time being. I don't know if this is better or worse, but I am going to try it. I will reset it each Sunday and then let it build up through the week until the following Saturday. Today (Sunday, actually, despite the date at the top of the page) was one of those days where I had about ten things that I wanted to do, and did none of them. But, in a pale imitation of the wonderful Tony Pierce, I will present you with multiple entries today (2, actually), even if technically one is marked Sunday and one is marked Monday. That's just a trick to make it seem like you're getting one post every day. Pretty sneaky, huh? Not that much to say, really. I almost went to see a movie. I almost played softball. I almost cleaned up around the house. But instead I watched the British Open and part of the Yankee game and took a couple of naps. The nasty weather didn't help. One of the good things about drinking with
Ambrose is he has an opinion on nearly every possible subject.
Often when I am in my local Dirty Deli, waiting on line to purchase some overpriced foodstuffs, a person will come into the store needing only one item, an item they know the price of, an item for which they have exact change. Rather than wait in the line with the rest of us idiots, this enterprising person will create their own EZ Pass lane: they'll walk right to the very front of the line, even in front of the person who is in the process of paying, and then they'll hold up their item and toss their 79 cents onto the counter before marching out of the store. They won't waste a precious minute of their time waiting on line. Now, if indeed their money went into some magic slot and counted itself, I'd have no problem with it. But the truth is, the cashier has to take that money, count it, and put it in the register (and possibly even ring up the item in question). All that shit takes time. Time that rightfully belongs to the suckers in line. Now I admit that I myself have committed this offense in the past, especially when I sensed that the line was not being managed efficiently. But I don't do it anymore and I don't want you to do it either. I bet they don't do it in Vermont. That should be the new standard of behavior for New Yorkers. As you're about to steal a cab from someone who was waiting before you, or as you pretend not to notice the elderly woman standing in front of you as you occupy a seat on the subway, or as you piss on the street*: what would a Vermonter do? I truly love red onions, but I guess I need to accept that they don't love me. I thought this site (via Metafilter) was pretty entertaining. If you are bored at work you should have a look, although some of the pictures have scrotums and stuff in them, so be careful (in fact, that link has a scrotum in it). I am feeling a little sad and old on this Sunday night. Sometimes you think back on your life and wonder if you're proud of any of it. I have that nervous feeling again tonight, like my homework's not done. I kind of wish I could go back to school. I'd do my homework this time. I swear. (beware, possible audio) The Reader Challenge may be winding down, but one of today's answers was so moving I thought I'd give it its own front-page mention. The Question: Moment in your life you would
relive, (good or bad) real outcome and desired outcome, if different. It's enough to make me want to keep posting those stupid challenges. * I still say pissing on the street is an
acceptable thing to do, but others might disagree. 7/18/04: Of Meters and Men Here's the thing about meter-vaulting: to do it right, which is to do it without cracking open your balls or skull, you don't need to be the strongest guy, or the tallest, or the best leaper. You just need to be some reasonable combination of all that. I'm certainly not strong. I don't jump very high. I guess I'm fairly tall; my height varies anywhere from 72 to 77 inches*, depending on various factors including temperature, humidity, environment, present company, and mood. And I can vault over any small to medium-sized parking meter you put in front of me. The first person I ever saw vault a meter was D. Lee in maybe 6th grade. We were walking down MacDougal Street one day and he just went, bwoop, right over the top of that thing with no problem. I was in awe of him that day, and not just for that: I had also recently learned that in 5th grade, he staged a makeout party at his apartment. Hero of the Day Material.**
But like a space shuttle launch, if even the teeniest thing goes wrong during a meter-vault, you are just absolutely fucked. Here are a couple of cautionary tales. Know your meter. Both times I've seen a meter-vault go badly awry it was because the vaulter underestimated the danger/difficulty of the meter he was facing off against. New York City, 1995: I was leaving Phebe's, the charmless but cheap bar that used to occupy the SE corner of Bowery and E. 4th street. Something had me in a good mood that night, because I ran down the block, heading East, vaulting over every meter I saw, bwoop, bwoop, bwoop. My friends struggled to keep up with me, vaulting a meter of their own here or there as necessary. Finally, we arrived on the corner of 7th street and Avenue A. It was there that I saw the mother of all meters, a truly daunting vault. The meter itself was pretty high, although not too high to vault, just on the tougher end of the vaultable meter scale. The real problem was that next to the meter was a "No Parking" sign******* that really fouled everything up (see diagram). You couldn't approach from the side with the sign, because you had no room to get a running start. You couldn't approach from the opposite side, because you might very well smash yourself up against the sign after you had cleared the meter. There was just very little space in which to operate. The only viable option was to approach the meter from an angle perpendicular to the street, and vault towards the street. This was complicated further by the meter's position: your natural landing area, if you approached from this angle, would be right on the edge of the curb, which could potentially mean death. A successful vaulter would have to take a little something off his leap so he could come up safely short of the curb, or give it a turbo boost and launch himself into the street. Not easy. I stood there studying it for maybe five minutes, calculating angles, trying to figure out if it was possible. I probably looked like Sergio Garcia lining up a putt to win the Masters. Finally, one of the local winos came up and got involved. He was probably 55 years old, drunker even than me, and of course he had an opinion. He couldn't understand why I was deliberating for so long; it looked easily vaultable to him. "You just have to go at it this way," he said, angling himself towards the street and giving a mock demonstration of traditional vault posture. As if I didn't know how to vault a parking meter. "I know, I know," I said. "But this one is pretty tricky. I don't know if it's worth it. Sometimes you just need to walk away." Now the guy was getting pissed off. "Nah, you can do it easy, man," he said. He was now excitedly rubbing his hands on top of the meter, probably remembering some particularly satisfying vault from his youth. "I don't know, man. I think I might let this one go." He'd had it now. If this young punk wasn't going to even attempt it, he was going to take matters, and meters, into his own hands. He gave it a little trial push to see if his tired old legs and arms still had the power, and seemed satisfied that they did. He took a run, got a decent leap and a solid push, and he was airborne. He easily cleared the meter. Not bad for 55 and drunk. But. But he hadn't given enough thought to sticking the landing. He should have. His feet landed squarely on the edge of the curb, and his ankles buckled instantly and grotesquely. His legs collapsed, and his torso fell backwards. His head smashed against the meter and made a loud "doink" sound not unlike a Chris Lee scoreboard home run. Novice. He was dazed and definitely in some pain. Nothing too serious, but his hangover the next day was going to be a little more intense than usual. As he sat there, muttering and trying to pull himself together, I could think of only one thing to tell him. "That's why I didn't want to jump that one." I turned and began heading towards 7B, strangely unsympathetic toward my fallen comrade. But I was confident in my decision: sometimes you just need to walk away. New Orleans, 1996: I was there making a cameo in a film about The Big Easy******** called "Drunk and Not Nearly As Funny as They Think They Are, Volume 18." I played the part of "wasted fratboy type #12,987." Anyway, in the middle of the revelry, I decided it was time to bust out the meter vault and increase the fun quotient for all involved. Well, the New Orleans Department of Parking Enforcement must have known that among the millions of drunken morons who come and lay waste to their beautiful city year after year would be a couple of meter-vaulters, because they decided to make all the meters in town about 5'6" tall. Too tall for me. I don't know if they did this as a deterrent, to discourage idiots like me from even thinking about it, or if they did it so they could laugh their asses off when we creamed ourselves. Well, I gave it a go. But I hesitated a little in my jump, which is one thing you can't do. You've got to commit to that shit and follow through. So I had a bit of a subpar leap, and my balls were definitely on line for a solid whacking across the top of the meter. My ball-protection instinct took over at this point, and I actually got a pretty good push with my hands, which got me right to the top of the meter, balls clearing by millimeters. Unfortunately, my hands kind of got stuck under my legs and I couldn't free myself to get all the way over the meter. I was just kind of perched there like a big stupid parakeet, and then I lost my grip and fell straight down, bruising my verbungle on the top of the meter as I tumbled down. (I fell forward, so technically I did complete the vault.) People must have enjoyed watching that one. It was God's way of punishing me for my callousness towards the Vaulting Hobo the year before. I should have heeded my own advice. Then, last night at 3:49 am, Ambrose, Abby and I left the Abbey Tavern on 26th and 3rd after some good bullshitting and Bud-pounding. The Cicada even made a brief appearance before fluttering off into the night. The bartendress had given us two buybacks, which was pretty cool of her. Maybe it was the fact that I tipped her $5 after the first one that inspired her to give us another at around 3:30. If so, it worked. I gave her another $5. Stupid of me. We didn't need that beer anyway. Whatever. As we walked outside, I saw a beautiful meter that wanted so very badly to be vaulted. After talking about it for a few minutes, I gave it a shot. I cleared it with relative ease and felt good that I had met the challenge. Now Ambrose was interested. You could tell he wanted to do it. He was gauging it with his hands, trying to get a sense for how hard it would be. Abby was getting pretty annoyed. She had been patient, sitting and listening to us ramble about baseball and stuff for about four hours in the bar. Now he was wasting more of her time, and threatening to do himself bodily harm in the process. He definitely could have made it, but it's also possible he might have screwed it up and really clobbered himself. I hopped in a cab as they continued debating. The cabbie and I both yelled a couple of words of encouragement (not "Fuck her, I did," which was actually called for in that situation), and then drove off as the two silhouettes got smaller and smaller through the back windshield, eventually becoming one. I wonder if he made it. Murcer had some tough moments this weekend, but he generally picked up his game and I kind of enjoyed the combination of Singleton and Murcer. Two announcers are really more than adequate to cover the majority of professional sports, don't ya think? * This phenomenon is known as "Giant
Steve." It's been scientifically documented and it can be quite
frightening to behold if you aren't prepared for it. There are certain
days when I look down on men as tall as 6'3". My being basically
inflates with power and I develop a menacing, snarling personality to
match my enhanced size. If you see Giant Steve, just try not to make
eye contact. 7/16/04: It ain't bragging if you can do it This is one of those days when I have a lot of shit to post and I should probably wait until the work week, when some of you puds might actually look at it. But instead, I will give you some weekend love, and still save a little for next week. Enjoy. It must have been sometime in late Spring/Early Summer of 1986. I was watching an interview with RUN-DMC on MTV. They were touring to support their third (and third best, and last good) album, Raising Hell. It was the album that blew them up to nationwide star status, and they were clearly loving life. Run: "We played a show in
Philly last night."* Run: "Well, this time we've got some more serious songs on there. We got a song called "Proud to Be Black" that's a little more serious, makes you think. But don't worry. We got our usual braggin' rekkids on there too. Everyone's gonna love it." He was my hero. He was bragging
about bragging, and since that day or, who knows, maybe even before it,
I've really enjoyed listening to people brag, boast, talk shit, whatever
you want to call it. I don't think less of them for doing it, as
long as they're artful about it. When a guy hits an open layup in an
NBA game, and then runs back downcourt screaming at the top of his I suppose we should draw a distinction between bragging, which technically is talking about how good you are and what you can and will do, and reporting, which is just telling stories about shit you've done. The truth is I like them both so long as they're done right. I have spent countless hours on the phone listening to my friend Professor Dave update me on just how great his career is going, how awesome he is at what he does. Then I will waste an equal amount of time telling him about how I killed some guy on the basketball court or something. It's satisfying, like getting good news. You take joy in the joy your friend is feeling over his achievements, be they real or merely perceived. Like when Pete hit the 285 foot-plus HR in softball the other day, I fucking enjoyed reading about it. I could sense his pride in what he had done, and that made me happy. So what if my own jealousy acted up a bit and made me question the accuracy of the 285-foot sign; that's just jealousy. The man in me is delighted for the man in him. I would do anything to experience a moment of pure athletic triumph like that. It makes the hair on my neck stand up just thinking about what he must have felt as he crossed home plate. I bet he was doing everything in his power not to scream or guffaw or do a stupid dance. Act like you've been there before, they always say. What they don't say is you don't know if you'll ever be there again, so you better enjoy it while you can. I hope he grinned like a bastard once he had a moment of privacy. So I say all this as a preamble to a pathetic bit of reporting of my own, one that goes all the way back to 1980 (sometimes you have to dig deep). It was 5th grade. My teacher, Mr. Smith, had decided that we should elect a class president. I was, it must be reported, the smartest kid in the class. Not the most popular or the best athlete, but sort of the brain, if you will, of class 5-407. I didn't really want to be president of the class, but somehow I ended up running anyway. It was me against two of the more popular kids, John and Cecil. Cecil told me that he smoked hash and made out with girls just about every weekend. Very effective bragging. John was somewhat famous already because he once (maybe 4th grade?) allegedly got a blowjob from a short, cute, pudgy blond girl named Laura. What a blowjob could possibly entail at this point in a boy's sexual development I don't know. But John was a good-looking kid, sort of a Cali-surfer type, a great athlete, an excellent student, and generally someone we were all very impressed with. Anyway, on the day of the big election, they made the three of us stand outside in the hall while the other kids voted for president. I remember very distinctly that John was doing his King Tut Strut back into the room, so sure was he of his imminent victory. Then we looked at the final tally and I had won something like 24-2-2. Not sure if it was a secret ballot or just a bunch of kids acting like sheep, but John did a complete double-take that I'll never forget. Tuttus Interruptus. Anyway, I became President, and pretty much did nothing once I took office. (Hot-button issue that year: should girls be allowed to play on the class whiffle-bat-spaldeen-self-hit baseball team, which faced off against teams from other classes? In my heart I felt "no," but I publicly stated "yes." What a phony.) That story was better in my head. Isn't that always the case? I'm sorry if it disappointed you, because I plan on bragging more in the future. Anyway, if you are leaving a comment, feel free to include your own boast about some cool shit you once did or some cool shit you can and may one day do. My buddy Navy Dave, formerly Columbia Dave, unofficial ambassador to Madison, Wisconsin, is on that aircraft carrier right there (he's the one in the blue jacket). The ship is the USS Reagan, and the shot was taken just as they passed through the Strait of Magellan. I wish him the best and I want you all to do the same. I wonder if there is a Strait of Verbungle. (photo courtesy PH3(AW) Elizabeth Thompson, US Navy) Can any of you tell me what PH3 (AW) stands for? We have a new picture gallery from perhaps the summer of 2000...? The wife got her flowers. I hope you are all happy. If you look closely, you may be able to see the Strait of Magellan. * I don't have a transcript of this
interview, so I am largely bullshitting when I pretend to have exact
quotes. But the important lines are exact. I swear. 7/15/04: Stuck in Lodi Again Would you believe I am holding off on publishing a beautiful photo for national security reasons? I swear it's true. Hopefully I'll have it up by Friday. Who was it that predicted I'd stop coming home semi-drunk three times a week? When does your prediction take effect? Hopefully not tonight. Tonight was one of those nights that should have been a strong one for the ol' bungmeister. I had a lot of stuff I wanted to post, stuff which I guess will have to wait until tomorrow if I remember what it is. Because tonight I got home too late and too tired and too full of beer. I went out after work with some co-workers. We have the convenient bar downstairs that makes it real easy to do just that. I was supposed to meet up with Greg W., but he bailed at the last minute. He said he wanted it made clear that he would prefer to stay home and work on algorithm he had developed for solving for the lyric stumpah than hang out with me in public, and yes, he said, he was prepared for me to call him out as a soft-sac on my website in front of like eight people, if necessary. I said I'd get back to him.
So a few of us went to that downstairs
bar, and it was plenty lame: Even though they had $2 Coronas and the bar was right in our very building, and it was raining outside, me and Emily (possible first-time verbungle.con reader. Hey, Emily!) decided to split for browner pastures. We hit a dive bar on 14th street between 7th and 8th. It was just what il dottore ordered. We had a couple of Stellas and chatted with the British bartender. He was pretty nice, gave us a buy back after two rounds, and the music was generally good. He played some interesting 80's stuff, and then I recognized the opening bars to "Major Tom," a bizarre and neither good nor bad continuation of the David Bowie Major Tom saga. I started singing along, somewhat in jest: "4...3...2...1. Earth below us..." The bartender was happy that I knew the tune. I asked him who sang it again, and he was like, "Peter Schilling." That was all I needed to know, but then the guy played an entire Peter Schilling album. He wanted to educate us on Peter Schilling. The bar we were at had a huge front window that was left open. There were seats on each side of the window, so if I sat on the inside, Emily could sit on the outside and smoke, and we would still be sitting right across from each other. What a great idea. Why don't all bars do this? They should charge extra for those seats on the outside. Anyway, we sat and listened to Peter Schilling and met a barfly couple who was also sitting at that window, and by the time I got home all the good posting thoughts were gone. Here is what tonight was supposed to be about, sorta: -I had an anti-AOL rant. Sure, this is like tossing newspaper on a forest fire, but I've actually always liked AOL. I recently |
But the way
they are handling this whole illness seems highly suspicious to me. 
It
was a comedy of errors and you simply could not change the channel.
And also interesting to see how many
copycats there are (not that he's the first person to do such a thing).
when
I publish it at home. Then I get to work and view it on my 13" monitor, with my
computer running Windows '83, and the pages are all messed up. Text is covered
by pictures, the paragraphs run off the screen into oblivion, and it makes the
whole thing unreadable. I don't blame you if you go visit
guy went downstairs to make himself a Red Bull and Vodka,
and I went with him to grab another beer. Dillahunt
said he had never tasted Red Bull and asked if we could bring him one. There was
only one left, so the other guy made his drink with it, and then we filled the
Red Bull can with blue Gatorade for Mike and told him it was Red Bull. He
liked it.
him as a real coach and not
a ball-roller-outer like K.C. Jones. At the center of it all, the
flawed, frustrating big man, Ewing. Someone once told me there was a
"win" at the heart of "E-win-g." I believed it, and I wrote it with my
finger in the frost on the big glass window of the Red Shed in Madison on
a blustery night after a big Knicks victory. There's a win at the
heart of Ewing. Turned out it wasn't true, but it sounded good at the
time.
Often I
disagree with him (such as when he cited the years 1991-1994 as the nadir for
pop culture, and awkwardly tried to illustrate this point with a discussion of
the music of this period), but sometimes he wins me over. Last night he
finally explained something that's been perplexing me for almost 20 years. Many
people don't remember this, but there was at one point in the late 80's a trend
in which guys playing ball would wear their jockstraps on the
Eventually I learned that vaulting
parking meters is no big deal.*** The biggest obstacle is getting
over your initial understandable fear of ball crushage. There's
really no margin for error; if you don't make it, you may well smash up
your sac but good. But the feat itself is pretty easy: just a
small leap, a gentle push with your hand(s)**** at the peak, and a clean
landing, and you're golden.***** I think I vault meters maybe once
every year or so******, just to make sure I can still do it.
lungs and shaking his head so violently that it looks like it might detach
from his shoulders, that is not bragging. That's acting like an
idiot. But when Larry Bird scores on Dr. J, and then mutters to him
as they run back downcourt, "What's that, Doc? 42-6?" I get a charge out
of it. Good-ass job on the bragging.
