Fan Dance

Okay, right, I live in New York City. But that does not automatically make me a New York Yankees fan. Or, for that matter, a New York Mets fan. Far from it. My fandom for any individual baseball team expired when I moved from San Francisco to NY in 1971 and even that residual feeling is only now sparked by the steroidal Bay Area hysteria of Barry Bonds and his allegedly drug enhanced pursuit of Hank Aaron’s home run record.

I do like baseball; it’s an almost perfect game, even though I detest the Designated Hitter rule in the American League (that’s the ugly worm in this sports tequila that I just can’t swallow). Baseball is a game of summer with a symmetrical beauty that occasionally can blow you away with incredible athletic fireworks. It’s beautiful to watch in person but, even on television, it can rivet your attention. With instant replay it’s a different kind of spectator sport but still valid entertainment and it’s easy to understand why it fulfills the seemingly universal need to be a fan for a specific team, even though it is mostly based on geography. The gospel seems to be that you simply must root for the good old home team no matter what but, sorry, I need specifics. I am, admittedly, pretty much a fair-weather baseball fan and don’t really get all that interested in any sport, not just baseball, until the end of the season. It’s nice if a local team has made the playoffs, it seems to make a lot of people around me happy, but the first 7/8ths of a season is just so much filler to me.

So what if the Yankees are currently in last place in their division of their league; reminding me of that doesn’t offend me in the least, no karma off my nose. The Mets are in good shape at the moment, I guess, but call me in September and if they’re still atop the pile then my interest will be piqued; even if it’s only geographically.

As for Mr. Bonds I hope he keeps up the good work and doesn’t bail out before he breaks the record…it’s because of him I at least check the San Francisco Giant’s stats and therefore might qualify as a Giants fan. Sort of.

Summer Dreams and Some Are Not

The beaches in Sandy Hook, NJ are well known for a variety of reasons. Family friendly, usually surf-safe and, about mid-June and later, fairly temperate waters in which to swim and splash. My posse has a designated spot on one of the beaches, Gunnison, and any given day we can find each other even if we haven’t planned a particular “event.” We usually arrive at the crack of dawn and then judge by weather, insects or sunburn the time of departure, mostly early afternoon...to try to beat some of the rush hour traffic on the Jersey Turnpike (not always successfully).

This photo was taken a week ago yesterday, a couple of days after the 24-hour deluge that hit the east coast. No beach! According to my friend Bill (who took the pic), our beach is now emerging from being a salty, six-foot deep lake and today the water level is still at least a foot above the sand. We are all reassuring each other that Gunnison will soon be back to normal, hoping that the sand has not eroded into oblivion and that we can soon again gather companionably under our sunblock and colorful umbrellas. You might interpret from the photo that our chosen section of the beach is, well, what it is and discretion on both sides of the sign is a given. Whatever, it’s where I go to hang out with my friends in the summer. Insert smirk here if you can’t help it.

Maid in the Shade

If there can be any theater role where the actor portraying it is too good for the material, among them would definitely be Audra McDonald in the current Broadway revival of 110 in the Shade. The musical is bland, dated, socially out-of-whack and needs to be mothballed for at least another 50 years. In other words it was a perfectly pleasant afternoon in the theater and the tourists will probably love it. Ms. McDonald is in full, luscious voice and, I’m not kidding, gives a lot deeper meaning to a role that doesn’t deserve her attention. It’s a well thought out performance but is ultimately, I think, a useless interpretation. The lady sure can sing, though…she almost makes Shade’s hackneyed melodies and lyrics palatable. Almost. The racially blind casting in this production means zilch so even that can’t add zest to what is just basic, boring material. I suppose in desperation the director and designers needed to throw in a constantly whirling turntable but that seems to be de rigueur these days on Broadway and a particular gripe of my own; no offense meant to those who remember Les Miserables fondly. I wish they would just abandon this theatrical device (which is no longer a novelty) and let people walk and/or dance across the stage like they were meant to in the script. Oh, yes, I’m glad you asked: it rains on stage in the finale. Yawn.

More Consumerism

Some friends gave me a gift card from Smith & Hawken and it’s been burning a hole in my wallet for quite a while, mainly because their retail store is not all that convenient for me. Since it looks like we may have actually gotten past the pall of winter and the rains of April, I decided to make the trek into Manhattan and check out what’s what. In this day and age of volume-sales in mega-stores like Home Depot and Loews, S&H is a tad upscale for being just a gardening center but they do tend to carry only the best of the best in supplies thereof and, like my comment on BB&B below, presentation is half the battle. The place is pleasing to the eye and a good stroll even if you don’t have a gift card or a whole lot of cash in your wallet.

The coup of this shopping trip is my new, and I think very nifty, rake. The handle adjusts from 35” to 57” and, at the same time, spreads the tines from 7” to 22” wide and, I thought, fairly cheap and on sale at a “promotional price.” The balance of my gift card went for a new hose nozzle (4-way) and some large, handsome hooks from which to hang plants on the back porch. A “roll” of aromatic (rose) sachet wiped out the card with only a small additional cash outlay. I hadn’t been on West Broadway in quite some time so the street itself was a pleasant stroll, with a lot of notable changes, even though the handle of my new rake seemed to snag on every passing hem and pant leg I encountered. Oh well, if you don’t get angry looks on the streets of Manhattan you haven’t really completed your designated mission; but I nonetheless tender my apologies to one and all.

BB&B & Me

I do like Bed, Bath & Beyond, don’t you? Perfect in-house display marketing and I always spend more time and money than planned just because I’m dazzled by all the choices. Friday’s visit was to buy a new toaster. My old one bit the dust on Thursday and, even though you can only do one thing with it (make toast) I don’t really know how anyone can survive without one. Like all other appliances there are way too many brands and types and capacities to choose from but for this particular purchase I was drawn to KitchenAid’s two-slice toaster (in white). There were other brands just as hand- some but this one has a bagel button. Yes, a special setting for toasting bagels. As it turns out it only warms the outside while toasting the sliced side; truly an amazingly simple invention. It must have been designed by some east coast-reared, probably Jewish, mechanical genius who grew up with his/her bagels getting browned on one side only, under the broiler. Whoever did it, I thank you and/or mazel tov. Yes, I bought other stuff: a bathmat; two vinyl table cloths for the back porch; a scented candle; a veggie peeler and how could I resist that little box of gourmet tic tacs at the checkout counter? So I spent $50 more than planned; BB&B marketing should be proud.

Oh yeah, I forgot, Old Navy is right next door and they were having a sale on flipflops…curses; hard to pass up!

Coffee Wars

We’ve all noticed how the coffee wars are heating up, haven’t we? With Starbucks currently ruling the roast it was bound to happen. Although I’m currently a fan of their Sumatra blend and a nice latte venti is still my coffee overindulgence of choice I’m always on the lookout for a cheaper alternative.

Summer-before-last was my first successful experience with Dunkin’ Donuts; an early morning stop-off on the way to the beach at Sandy Hook, NJ. It was not my choice of venue but dictated by companionable fiat. What a nice surprise. Tasty, with a piquant flavor that doesn’t bite back and pretty damn satisfying on a cool early-summer morning.

This year I’ve gone even more mundane, again only because of geographical convenience. I had occasion to drop-off and wait-for someone on a mission-of-mercy at a local beauty parlor and the closest outlet was a Burger King whose signs (that day) touted their new coffee blend. Only needing something hot and reasonably coffee-like I zipped in there, with my NY Times, to kill some minutes and warm the gut. To my surprise the BK Joe pleased the palate almost as much as DD had. That day I drank the regular blend and it exceeded expectations. I’ve been back several times and sampled the “turbo” option once, which was very good but jangled my nerves beyond any comfort level.

I have subsequently sampled the new "premium" brew at McDonalds (which, so far, is by far the cheapest but, to my taste, really sucks). This may not be fair since one man's coffee is another man's mud but I plan to look beyond even McD’s for alternatives. My motivation for this anti-Starbucks research is purely price, which is not really “me” since I firmly believe that you get what you pay for. But what I’m worried about is that both Dunkin’ Donuts and Burger King have already, since my first foray onto their premises, jacked up their prices. Damn ‘em all to hell! I should just stop drinking coffee altogether, that would be the best revenge. I can break myself of this need for caffeine. I can. Really. I can.

Nothing to fear but fear itself!

I have no superstitious fear of Friday the 13th. What worries me is there is a scientific word for it, paraskevidekatriaphobia. Now that's scary!

A Touch of Genius (cough, cough)

Kurt Vonnegut died last night. He was 84 but it still seems untimely and unfair. His obituary in the NY Times iterates the usual boring platitudes: “he caught the temper of his times and the imagination of a generation.” However unimaginative, the platitude works in this case and I can attest to it. I was one of that particular generation and I pretty much credit Vonnegut with my becoming the curmudgeonly coot I am today. “Slaughterhouse Five” was the book that did it and I carried the paperback with me for years. Although set during WWII (including the Dresden firebombing in 1945 which he miraculously survived as a prisoner of war) and published in 1969 (well after I, myself, spent three degrading years in the U.S. Army). I totally identified with both its protagonist, Billy Pilgrim, and Billy’s chronicler Kilgore Trout (and, therefore, Mr. Vonnegut) as we slid into the morass of Vietnam and civilization started to collapse, yet again. Luckily, Vonnegut’s sense of humor permeated his writing and he had a quality which he incorporated into a lot of his characters that I perceived as, well…as banal as this may sound…kindness. Vonnegut understood basic human character and as appalling as some of society was, and is, he always seemed to be able to be quirky and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny. To this day I count myself as a tithing member of his Church of God the Utterly Indifferent, the reigning religion in his novel “The Sirens of Titan.”

When I moved to New York in the early 70's I went to see an off-Broadway play Vonnegut wrote called “Happy Birthday, Wanda June” and, although I now can’t recall anything at all about the play, Slaughterhouse Five was still metaphorically in the back pocket of my jeans, so I remember vividly having the opportunity to shake his hand. And, you know what? He didn’t mind the intrusion at all; totally recognizing tongue-tied hero worship when he saw it in the flesh. Yes, kindly, he shook my hand and said “Thanks for coming” and coughed a cloud of cigarette smoke in my face. I knew, even then, I was privileged to have touched the hand, and inhaled a lungful of second hand smoke, of genius.

peace in our time

Any fool can grow peace lilies all year around. The proof is right here in my living room. I water my peace lily once a week during the winter and twice a week in the summer. It rewards me extravagantly in the spring and almost throughout the summer. I can now count seven blooms with numbers eight and nine on the way…eventually it maintains about 25 beautiful, white swan-necked mini-sculptures for months on end, new ones blooming as I pinch off the depleted. Any old fool can grow ‘em.

Electoral Collage

The guest list at Easter brunch was ten in number and spectacularly intergenerational, being from early 20’s to 80, with almost every decade in between represented. It was pretty amazing since there were only nine of us covering seven decades. In addition we had one non-citizen (from Nigeria). Being Easter the subject of religion was unavoidable: the Nigerian is a catholic priest and he intoned grace charmingly if slightly incomprehensibly. But during the general pork-out, we somehow segued into a political discussion, usually forbidden, that got really interesting, mainly because Father Hyacinth (his real name) is fairly naïve about American politics and he was used as a sounding board for all our opinions. If he wasn’t confused before he certainly is now.

Our hostess seemed to think we should all decide (now!) who we are voting for in the ’08 presidential election and it was pretty obvious who her favorite is; Barak Obama. Before we got going we first pretty much participated in, and enjoyed, a session of Bush-bashing so it was very clear from the beginning that our selections were limited to non-Republican candidates and it was also fairly obvious how left-leaning we all are in one way or another. I even gave a little lecture about the Electoral College so Father H. could understand how Bush came to power in the first place. His understanding of our process was further complicated by the fact he doesn’t really get just how huge and diverse our country is; how politically comatose a majority of Americans are; and why millions of us don’t even vote.

Anyway, dear Paula, we don’t have to decide now and you might even be right about Obama, even though his only experience has been as a one-term Senator from Illinois. He seems to have all the right liberal platitudes at the tip of his silver tongue and he kind of has that “savior” look. Even more telling, he has some powerful media machinery grooming him for greatness. Paula has obviously bought into the hype. Well, maybe there is meat on those bones and maybe he can wrench the nomination from our current iron maiden, Hillary Clinton, and maybe one of them can wrest the election out of the hands of some honky from Texas. But I’ve been around too long to let hope overcome basic pragmatism.

A Bunny's Nightmare

Happy Easter!