A thing of beauty, but useless in a fight

Into a Belfast pub comes Paddy Murphy, looking like he'd just been run over by a train.  His arm is in a sling, his nose is broken, his face is cut and bruised, and he's walking with a limp.

"What happened to you?" asks Sean, the bartender.

"Seamus O'Connor and me had a fight," says Paddy.

"Why, that little sh*t, O'Connor," says Sean,  "He couldn't do that to you, he must have had something in his hand."

"That he did," says Paddy, "a shovel is what he had, and a terrible lickin' he gave me with it."

"Well," says Sean, "you should have defended yourself.  Didn't you have something in your hand?"

"That I did," said Paddy.   "Mrs. O'Connor's breast... and a thing of beauty it was, but useless in a fight."

North by Northeast

Playing on my i-Pod:  Music to fit the weather right now in the Northeast.

It's Election Day!

If you've got enough time to read a blog, you've certainly got enough time to get to the polls and VOTE.  Doesn't matter whether you Rock it or Move it On, whether you're Right, Left, or middle of the road, just VOTE.  Now.  This stuff matters. 

Put it to you this way:  Your brother in-law voted today; so did Gordon in Accounting, your ex-spouse and their lawyer, that idiot who cut you off on the way to work today... and so did I.  Do you want to leave it up to the rest of us to decide who's running the show??  I don't think so.  Get going.   And don't forget to take a clean handkerchief before you leave the house.

a Trio Grows in Brooklyn

Field notes from the field trip to Brooklyn that sparked this blog:

Three for the road.  Timeless strength.  Star quality.  Pure beauty.
[Oh yeah, and there was a bridge, two cameras, some cobblestones, bricks and pizza, too.]

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Update:  Posted at her request...  My e-mail to Stephanie about the day.

SK,

What a great, great day.  It will form the kickstart post for my blog. 

When I was a kid, I used to try to do things that I could be sure that I was the only one in the world doing that at that particular time.  Yesterday, there were two people who set out with that mission.  We picked up a third who, by the way, leavened lunchtime with her fake posting and two-week marriage stories. 

My one regret about Grimaldi's, Stephanie, and I let it get away...  I had a chance to spin a GOOD yarn when Monica asked me who I was.  I think I caught a glimpse of disappointment from you at that moment, but I couldn't decide whether to say I was a guy you dated, a guy who's dating your sister and about to propose, a guy who's dating your mom and about to propose, or that I was Gabe.  Dammit!  I should have gone with it.  I had my own sister convinced when she was 4 and I was 10 that I really wasn't her brother... I was just living at her house while my parents were in France.  NAILED that one!

I've distilled my favorite parts of the day down to the following:  You knowing that I'd go for the Root Beer, and what has to be the best question I've ever been asked in my lifetime, as we walked back over the Brooklyn Bridge:   "Wouldn't this be an awful place to have diarrhea?"

B

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Click here to see my photos from the day.
Click here to see Stephanie Klein's photos from the day (including the three at the top of this entry).

You can tune a piano, but can you tune a Volkswagen?

I drive a LOT... on average, 30,000 miles each year.  I have to say that I've had pretty good luck with the cars I've driven, and I do all the research... Edmund's, Consumer Reports, etc.  With satellite radio, DVD players, mp3 players and the like, audio systems in your average car are advancing at light speed.  But spending as much time as I do in a car, I like to look for the playability of the automobile. 

To wit:  Is the dashboard within reach for me to play "air keyboard" with Genesis??  Does it have produce the right kind of thud when I'm playing the drums??  What else is in reach of the driver that makes for good accompaniment?? 

For my money, Volkswagen produces a finely tuned instrument.  The '91 Jetta had that boxy, right up in your face dash, and my '03 Passat (reasonable facsimilie, courtesy of Edmunds.com) has everything I need. 

Certainly the dash is drum and Moog-worthy, and the steering wheel is solid and thumpable.  But by far, tt's top two selling points:
The shifter:  Mine, which is leather-wrapped, is a veritable drum kit.  Slapping the top with an open hand makes for a good drum beat, but it does a fine rim shot when you push in the shift knob with your thumb and let it snap back out... a sound you can vary with the amount and force of the depression.  (N.B.:  My '91 Jetta's parking brake release was excellent in this regard, but the Passat's is tucked too tightly next to the seat to be of use.) 
The dead-pedal:  This is your own bass drum, also rendering unique sounds depending on the type of shoe worn and the force applied. 

Volkswagen, you're all about the sound, with or without the far Fig Newton! 

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My favorite driving tune:  "Running Down a Dream," Tom Petty

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What's playing in your car?

Don't leave home without it

Good, bad, or indifferent, we all carry with us the lessons learned from our parents.  I carry mine in my left-hand back pocket, only because I haven't mastered the art of folding it for the breast pocket of my suit jacket. 

"Never leave the house without a clean handkerchief," Mom used to say.  As a kid, I rolled my eyes and ignored the advice, deciding I didn't really want to cart around a Cold-in-a-Pocket.  But with age came the dawning of her wisdom.  It's become the family punchline that what John D. Rockefeller was to dimes, Yours Truly has become to handkerchiefs.  Really, I go through them like Kleenex, and hardly ever by using them myself.  I've lost many a pocket square to:

Ketchup and coffee mishaps.  (Catsup and Colombian Supremo, for the refined)
On a date.  (This isn't that kind of blog.) 
Weddings.  (Mostly my wife confiscates those, so they're recycled.)
Funerals.  (Most recently to a friend in a receiving line at his dad's wake.)
Friends.  (The One who lost her Dad; the One who lost her job; the One who thought she was sick, but wasn't; the One who thought she was sick, and was; the One who got away.)

It might not help an old lady cross the street, but if you're the kind who likes to do a Good Deed daily, and "Pay it Forward," you can do a lot worse than to spread some clean, white cotton squares around the world. 

I'll be honest.  Except for one time, I'm not the kind of guy who is prone to part with the shirt off my back.  But when I die, and someone asks what kind of person I was, I want it to be said, "He gave me his hankie."  [And then mutter, "I'm still trying to figure out what to do with the damned thing..."]

My first post

Today is my birthday... and I need your help

[My first designed-for-the-blog post, penned on May 25th.]

I am 40 years old today, and I need your help.  Today we break the chain.  Today, I ask you to join me on a crusade to stamp out a scourge in the workplace known as OBB. Office Birthday Behavior (Behaviour if you're in England).

Somebody must have done a riff on this, and I'm guessing that dozens could do it better than me.  However, for the record, your approval, and action, here is mine...

Tell me if this sounds familiar.  It's your birthday.  You get to work and it's a ghost town.  Someone in the office circulates an email saying, "Don't forget, it's Stan's birthday today."  By your second cup of coffee, "IT" is being circulated, and you can smell IT:  the goofy "from the group" card with cartoon animals in an office setting, furtively tucked away in a colored file folder.  (And the first couple if signers get to pick the really cool looking animals.)  Often this clandestine card trick is carried off with the subtlety of a train wreck.  "Psst!  Here.  This is for Stan.  It's his birthday today.  We're having cake in the conference room at 4:00. Sign it and pass it on. And whatever you do, DON'T blow the surprise."

Right.

Let's face it, WE ALL DO IT.  And all day long, until the appointed hour of the secret party, what do we do for our buddy Stan to show him the love on his birthday???  WE GIVE HIM THE SILENT TREATMENT.  That's right!

We avert our gaze... we avoid conversations that might lead to his mentioning.... "Oh yeah, I got this tie for my birthday."  Then you're screwed.  "Oh Stan, it's your birthday today????  Golly!  I.  Had.  No.  Idea!"  (Which immediately becomes a lie when the cake comes out.)  The alternate response is even more lame.  "Oh, right. Happy Birthday, Stan.  Uh... I gotta go!"

Poor Stan.  The man's CLOTING could be on fire, and people will go to ANY length to avoid talking to him until the appointed hour later that day when it's okay to do so..... when you show how much you REALLY care about good old Stan.

"I'll bet you thought we forgot about you, Stan...."

"Yeah, sorry we didn't talk to you today.... We care about you so much that we gave you the stink-eye for 7 and a half hours so we could share this meaningful 30 minutes with you.  Oh, by the way, I'd love to stay, but do you mind if I get a head start on that traffic?"

And here's the kicker.... it's not like Stan isn't onto the whole birthday gig....  Heck, he was in charge of last week's party for Gordon in Accounting.  We ALL do it.  We do the same exact thing to everyone else in the office for the other 364 days of the year...  we think we're really being clever... and suddenly we think Stan's going to FORGET about it on his own birthday???? 

"Yeah. Okay. SPARE ME.   Today I'm Stan, and it's my fecking birthday.... Share it with me, for crying out loud."

The only saving grace through a day like today is the one person who gets it.  Who cares... who doesn't think it will give away the surprise and synthetic supermarket cake to extend a bit of human kindness to their fellow man.  That one... rare... BEAUTIFUL person who ducks their head in your office and says, "Happy Birthday, Stan!" (That person just stepped into my office and made my day.)

Today, I am going to break the chain.  Today, when the moment strikes, I will take a stand.  I will tell my coworkers that it's time we ALL cast off the shackles of OBB so we can ALL enjoy our birthdays as the good Lord intended.  When they call me for that "impromptu meeting" in the conference room, I'll be ready.  I know my duty.  I know my mission.  Here goes!

Oh... one thing before I go....   If it's a Carvel cake with those cholocate crunchies in the middle, scratch everything I just said.  Carvel cakes with cholocate crunchies are worth a day as the office pariah!