SHOP THE BRONX’S LITTLE ITALY ONLINE.
The online store at the Arthur Avenue Web site let’s you shop for meat and cheese and bread and souvenirs and other items delivered anywhere in the country by next day air. If I didn’t live here in New York, I’d be all over that.
THE BRONX’S LITTLE ITALY.
Jin K. and I had dinner on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, after a New York Times Article last week compared the Bronx’s version of Little Italy favorably to Manhattan’s more famous one. We had a very nice, and surprisingly inexpensive meal, but I realize now that I should probably have tried to go during the day. Arthur Avenue does not cater nearly as much to the tastes of tourists, and its emphasis is on shopping more than eating or hanging around. Perhaps I will try to get back there during the day–the trip will be much faster during rush hour, when I can take the express train–but, for now, I think Manhattan’s Little Italy is more my speed. I really go for the touristy stuff, the bright lights, the late night crowds, the overpriced ambiance: these are the reasons why I moved to New York.
WHAT IS REAL? (A POEM BY ME).
Hey, baby, what about you? What are the things that you wanna do? I’m drivin’. I’m driven. Scent drifts from my virgin lips. I need it. I bleed it. I believe it.
Who are you tryin’ to fool, baby? What did you think this was all about? Did you think we could just walk away? Did you think it could just end this way?
Yeah, baby, I’m talkin’ to you. You’ve got to give me the time. You’ve got to get into the frame of mind. We’re there. We’ve always known it.
I hear the voices calling. Do you hear the references dropping away? I’m falling into a disparate paradigm. I tuck my reality away in a small corner of what I call my mind. I’m slipping into a logic where sense makes everything, rather than the reverse. I twist my thoughts, wringing meaning out of them. No longer the dreamer, I become the dream. I am being. I am becoming. I am undone.
Slices of time shatter, fall away. I taste the moment like a little girl suckling her mother’s breast. I am infused with reason, and stripped of consequence. I am married to my flesh: I cannot look away. There is a little tiny machine in my skull and it’s making me think that I can believe things. Do you understand? It’s making me feel like I have emotions.
I am flailing between two worlds, each existing in the shadow of the other. I try to hold both of them in my head, but my mind is too small. Reality is just a metaphor in one. Consciousness is just a superstition in the second. Neither is complete, and yet neither will admit of the other. I am unbalanced, spinning toward the second world, losing sight of the first.
Who am I? What have I become? How did I get to be this way? I taste bile as I scream the questions that know no answers. What is truth? What is fundamental? What differentiates the experience from the thing experienced?
I am elemental, but I don’t know what I am. I am central, but I don’t know where I stand. I cannot see the shroud I wear. I only see through it.
There are too many ways to be to be just one. I know you believe me. But I do not know if I am strong enough. I do not know if I am brave enough to leap from my comfortable frame.
Is it better to suffer or to feel nothing at all? Is it better to want what you cannot have or to have what you cannot want? I have risen from the deepest despair. I was a child once. It was not always this way.
I am lost.
SEX IS OVERRATED.
Listen, I’ve got nothing against sex, and I’m sure I’m every bit as fond of it as the next guy. But, you know, it’s not the only thing in life. It doesn’t need to be the subject of every song and every poem and every novel and every movie and every TV Show and every magazine and every play and every opera and every painting and so on. I’m not against sex. I’m for it, but I tell you it is overrated. You don’t think so? Ask yourself this: Do you think sex is UNDERRATED? Of course, it isn’t. And do you think sex is praised only exactly the right amount? Well, statistically, what are the chances of that? No, sex is great, but it’s overrated. I didn’t just have a bad experience or something. That’s just something I’ve been wanting to get off my chest for a long time.
THE STORY OF THE MONTH (OR SO).
Well, it only took me–wait, this can’t be right–FIVE AND A HALF YEARS, but I’ve finally updated the Story of the Month (Or So) on my personal home page, www.creamy.com. This month (or so)’s story is “Mr. Jones, The School Teacher Mad with Power“. It is purely a coincidence, I assert for legal reasons, that he has the same (extremely common) last name as my high school chemistry teacher.
THE BEST BLOG YOU’RE NOT READING.
The advice that I try out the Friday Five came from Blake N., whose blog, “Blake Got Blogged” is my favorite blog to read. There are a lot of clever, creative blogs out there, but they just can’t compete with television and movies and books and magazines and professional Web pages for entertainment. But Blake’s is really intimate and personal, and feels just like reading someone’s diary. I aspire to the ideal of writing for myself and not for other people, but I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to do so with the openness that she does.
THE FRIDAY FIVE.
In keeping with the suggestion I received to answer more party-game type questions in my Blog, here’s “The Friday Five“.
1. What is your current occupation? Is this what you chose to be doing at this point in your life? Why or why not?
I co-founded Charge.Com with my brother, and we run it together. This is what I chose for myself, and I decided to create this, instead of pursuing a law career (I am a lawyer with a degree from Duke Law).
2. If time/talent/money were no object, what would your dream occupation be?
I hate to say it, but I dream of not working, and just traveling the world. I always used to want to go into politics, but lately I don’t think it would be worth the loss of privacy. So, I think that if I have to work at all, then my dream job is the job that I have now.
3. What did/do your parents do for a living? Has this had any influence on your career choices?
My parents are retired, but they also started their own business, a very successful mail order company called NSMI. I have no doubt that their success inspired my brother and me to start our own business.
4. Have you ever had to choose between having a career and having a family?
I have not, and I’m grateful that I have a job that will not make me ever face that kind of choice.
5. In your opinion, what is the easiest job in the world? What is the hardest? Why?
Lately, I’m thinking the easiest job in the world is President of the US. I want to take a month off and relax on a ranch! It’s like Will Rogers said: “My mother always told me that anybody could grow up to become President, and lately I’m beginning to believe it.” I think my friend Jessica J. might have the hardest job in the world. She’s a genetic counselor, and she has to tell people that their fetus (or occasionally their child) has a terrible, incurable genetic disorder.
THIS OR THAT.
I’m told I should try including these party-game type questions in my Blog, so I’ll give it a try.
Here’s somebody’s “This or that” list that maybe I’ll keep up with when I remember.
The theme of the list is “TV nostalgia“.
1. Sesame Street or Captain Kangaroo?
Sesame Street, but Captain Kangaroo was cool.
2. Muppet Show or Fraggle Rock?
Muppet Show. Fraggle Rock sucked.
3. He-Man or Jem?
He-Man is the lesser evil.
4. The Smurfs or Muppet Babies?
Smurfs.
5. Archie or Josie & the Pussycats?
Archie.
6. H.R. Pufnstuf or The Banana Splits?
I don’t know what either of those are.
7. The Partridge Family or The Brady Bunch?
I have never seen a complete episode of either.
8. Happy Days or Welcome Back Kotter?
Welcome Back Kotter, but I like both.
9. Punky Brewster or Small Wonder?
Punky Brewster.
10. The Facts of Life or Silver Spoons?
Silver Spoons!
Well, I hope that gives all of us, especially me, a little more insight into who I am. Maybe this one is a little light-hearted, and future ones will be more penetrating.
MICHAEL J. FOX’S AQUAFINA COMMERCIAL.
Isn’t that new Michael J. Fox commercial for Aquafina water kind of creepy? In it, he’s animated and he looks like he’s in his 20s, and it doesn’t actually look that much like him, which is presumably why they put his name on the screen. But the thing is, you know he has Parkinson’s, and you know the only reason it’s animated is because he’s shaking all over the place in real life while he’s reading the script. And that’s all I can think about while I’m watching him animated and not shaking at all even a little bit. Is it just me?
FEARDOTCOM.
The new movie “FearDotCom” has nothing to do with the Web site “fear.com“, which has gotten a pretty huge windfall in traffic lately, I should think. The website for the movie is feardotcom.com. That seems pretty stupid to me. It kind of makes me not want to see the movie. Or, rather, that is, it makes me not want to see the movie, even more than the commercials for the movie make me not want to see the movie.
WHAT DOES “SINGLE” MEAN?
About 3 or 4 years ago, I went out with Julia B.. We only went out twice. She lived about 3 hours north of New York, and I lived an hour and a half south, in Philadelphia, and we used to meet here in New York. I can’t remember when or why we stopped seeing each other, but there must have been some reason. So, we really lost touch, except that she always sends me a Christmas card, and if she sends it early enough and if I’m un-lazy enough, I send one back. And every time she sends it, and every time she sends an e-mail to update my contact information for her, she always seems to go out of her way to mention her boyfriend, over and over and over again. “Me and my boyfriend” this, “we” that. So, it was interesting to get an e-mail from her saying that she had moved to the New York area, and “I” just went on a trip to Italy, and “I” just finished unpacking in my new place, and “I” would like to hang out with you on Monday. So, being the confrontational, shoot from the hip guy I am, I called her on it. I said almost word-for-word what I just wrote in this blog entry, and she said, “I was going to talk to you about it in person.” But I pressed her. “Are you single?” I asked. Yes, she assured me, she was. “Well, now that’s interesting,” I said. “Don’t you think that’s interesting? That you are single, and we’re going to see each other again?” And she allowed as that she thought that everything was interesting.
Okay, so I hung out with her Monday night, and it turns out that she, in fact, just moved in with her boyfriend a couple weeks ago. She insists that she thought I was asking whether she had gotten married. So does she really not know what “single” means? Or was she just lying to me? But why? Women.
PROFANITY.
In writing that last post, I was made a little uncomfortable by having to type and publish profanity on my Web site. It’s not like I’ve never sworn before, including in print and on the Web and on stage. But I’ve really cut down on it, especially in public. What happened was, I used to take classes at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater and occasionally perform there in improvised (made up on the spot) student shows there. And I noticed that a lot of the people really swore horribly on stage, even though they didn’t necessarily swear that much in real life. It was like they weren’t allowed to swear in public their whole lives, and now it was okay, so they became like kids with a new toy. I swore on stage and when practicing when I thought it was appropriate, but I did so no more than I do in real life, and maybe less so. But after watching all this on-stage profanity, I reacted negatively to it, and started making a conscious effort not to swear on stage, which had the immediate and hitherto permanent effect of making me swear a lot less in real life.
THEATER REVIEW: A NIGHT OF SHITTY THEATRE * * * 1/2 (3 and a half stars out of 4).
I just saw this show, part of the New York International Fringe Festival, with Danny B. and Graham M. The premise of the show is that the company takes actual plays that are really terrible, and act out scenes from these terrible scripts. The concept works brilliantly, and just never gets old. The opening scene, a late scene from the teleplay in which it was intended to appear, begins with something to the effect of “Amanda, step away from the time portal– I love you!” I think my favorite was from “Superman, a Gay Love Story”. It is word-for-word the scene in Superman: the Movie where Lois meets Superman on her balcony– only it’s with “Lewis Lane”, instead of Lois. And I had to groan at “Columbine: The Musical.” I think this show succeeds where the new TV Show “The Rerun Show” falls a little short. That show tries to make fun of TV Shows that are not really all that terrible, and puts ridiculous twists on the characters’ attitudes and actions. The unfortunately titled show I saw tonight took scripts that were embarrassingly bad, and acted their hearts out, taking these terrible scenes much too seriously. I wish I’d seen more of the Fringe Festival, so that I could say with some confidence that this is going to be one of the break-out shows. But it really is great, and I think I’ve seen enough theater in general to know that this show really is special.
TUNNEL OF LOVE.
The New York Sun reported Friday about a repidly spreading anonymous August 14 email that declares the front train of every New York City subway car to be the “singles car”, where singles can mingle and strike up a conversation with one another. I think that’s a pretty interesting idea. Anyway, I just wanted to give everyone a heads-up so you know to seek out that car or to avoid it, as the case may be.
THEATER REVIEW: THE GRADUATE * * * (3 stars out of 4).
I saw the Graduate on Broadway last night with Danny B. and his brother Bernie. Briefly, in case you’ve never heard of or seen the movie, both the movie and the play are about a recent college graduate who has an affair with his parents’ friend, Mrs. Robinson, who has a daughter named Elaine. The play stars Kathleen Turner as Mrs. Robinson, Alicia Silverstone as Elaine, and Jason Biggs as the graduate. It went into a lot more detail than the movie, with a lot of scenes and confrontations that were skipped in the film. To me, the play, much more than the movie, is really about Elaine, and her transformation from a mouse who does as she’s told to an adult woman, who trades her innocence and sweetness for freedom and self-determination. Of course, the play, far more than the movie, is also about the full frontal nudity of 48-year-old Kathleen Turner.
WHAT THESE STARS MEAN IN THE REVIEWS.
I thought it would be a good idea to set out what the different number of stars mean in my reviews, more for getting it straight in my own head than for any other reason.
(no stars) — “The worst.” The worst of the worst. Absurdly bad.
1/2 (half a star) — “Terrible.” Practically no redeeming features. It should never have been made.
* (one star) — “Bad.” There may be something a little interesting, but it is far outweighed by the bad.
* 1/2 (one and a half stars) — “Not good.” Not recommended, but there’s some small redeeming thing about it.
* * (You get the idea) — “So so.” Not recommended, but not lousy either. Something worthwhile, but not enough.
* * 1/2 — “Disappointing.” Not great, but there’s definitely something good about it. It could be worth checking out.
* * * — “Good.” Recommended.
* * * 1/2 — “Extraordinary.” Highly recommended.
* * * * — “The best.” The very best of the best. Perhaps 1 or 2 movies a year get this rating from me.
BOOK REVIEW: EVERYTHING AND A KITE * * * (3 stars out of 4).
Everything and a Kite by Ray Ramano was really funny and made me laugh again and again. I listened to the book on tape (which is usually the case with these book reviews, by the way), and I particularly recommend that you get it on audio, because it’s read by Romano, and his delivery has a lot of the humor. I’m not too familiar with his show, but I had already seen a lot of his material from his stand-up routine, most notably his appearance on the animated Comedy Central show Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist. If you’re very familiar with his material, you may be able to skip it. But if you want to see what the fuss is about Ray Ramano, get this very funny book.
POTTED MEAT FOOD PRODUCT.
I was at the drug store to buy some Dr. Scholl’s insoles, and I saw a 3 ounce can of “Armour Potted Meat Food Product”. It has no other name or description. On the can is a picture of some bright pink mush on a cracker, too undefined to have been said to have been “spread” there. I bought it because the name amused me, and because it was carb free. I opened it up, and it was just like the picture. It actually tasted okay, except it was really too salty.
But, yuck, I just looked at the ingredients:
“Mechanically Separated Chicken, Beef Tripe, Partially Defatted Cooked Beef Fatty Tissue, Beef Hearts, Water, Partially Defatted Cooked Pork Fatty Tissue, Salt.”
At least they partially defatted the cooked fatty tissue, right?
MOVIE REVIEW: RONIN * * 1/2 (2 and a half stars out of 4).
My friend Stefanie C. said she really loved this movie. But when I rented it, my brother and both my parents each told me that they thought it was the worst movie they ever saw. So, I was really looking forward to seeing it and, for good or bad, having a strong reaction to it. So, I was disappointed to find that it was really just okay. There are some great car chases going the wrong way in traffic, and a really intense scene where DeNiro directs his friend on how to operate to remove a bullet from DeNiro’s abdomen without anesthesia. But I don’t much care for those mindless action movies, and the plot was a little too twisty. Also, it seemed a little violent to me. It doesn’t have that much more violence than many action movies, but I think what bothered me was that so many innocent bystanders got killed.
LATIN FESTIVAL.
My friend P. is now a prominent local politician in South Florida. He invited me to join him and his wife at a local Latin Festival. There were over a hundred thousand people there, I heard tell, which is a lot of people for South Florida. Even though the streets are very broad, it was almost as difficult to walk down the street as it is here in Times Square. We got to park in a great free parking spot reserved for VIPs, and we got free VIP food (nothing fancy, but it was good), and I got to watch him address the crowd.
A lot of the booths seemed out of place for a festival crowd. There was a place to sign up for digital cable, and an Army recruitment booth, for example. We stopped at a shaved-ice booth, and P bought his wife some flavored ice. It was taking forever, so I joked, “Hang on just a second, I’m going to go over there and join the Army real quick.” P scoffed that I’d be a terrible soldier, because I wouldn’t like to take orders. “Yeah,” I agreed. “I would always be questioning my orders. Like, if they told me to jump, I wouldn’t just do it. I’d be all like, ‘how high?'”
THEATER REVIEW: THE SUN RISES IN THE EAST * 1/2 (1 and a half stars out of 4).
I just saw The Sun Rises in the East tonight with Jin K. as part of the New York International Fringe Festival. This one man show was disappointing, and not very good. It opened with an okay piece, where the performer pretended to be the teacher in a community school class on cultural relativism. But after that, it became totally disjointed and boring.
The show ended with the performer passing out cards and pens, and asking everyone to write down the answers to four questions, which he then read anonymously (though he didn’t read mine). The questions were:
1) How much money do you need, in order to be content for one year? Not luxuriously decadent, but content.
2) What smell most makes you salivate?
3) What is the best compliment you have ever received, or can think of?
4) If you could sleep with one person, one last time, who would it be?
My answers were
1) $500,000.00
2) A bakery
3) “I love you.”
4) I answered this at the time, but only because it was anonymous.
So, those two parts were marginally interesting, but the middle 40 minutes really went nowhere and had nothing worthwhile, I think.
I’M BACK IN NEW YORK.
I’m back in New York.
I know I haven’t been keeping up with my blog too well lately. I make no excuse, and I make no apology.
MOVIE REVIEW: LITTLE NICKY 1/2 (half a star out of 4).
Ugh. I suppose it’s possible that someone will make a worse movie someday, so I gave it that half-star instead of none. And I guess I sort of chuckled once or twice. But in the first five minutes, I could see that this movie was no good, and I should have just bailed out then because it only got worse. The story doesn’t make sense, the characters are not even a little sympathetic or believable, the love story totally doesn’t work, and the dialogue is just horrid. I’ve always been a big Adam Sandler fan, but there is simply nothing good about this unwatchable movie, and you have already wasted too much time on it just by reading this review.
BOOK REVIEW: OGILVY ON ADVERTISING * * * 1/2 (3 and a half stars out of 4).
“Ogilvy on Advertising” by David Ogilvy is fascinating, whether you buy advertising (as I do) or merely find yourself occasionally exposed to it. The bulk of the book is taken up by detailing what specific techniques work the best, mainly for print advertising. He sites research showing which kinds of fonts work best, and where the headline should be and how long the ad should be, and so on. Why one thing works and another thing doesn’t often seems so random, but it’s difficult to argue with the numbers. My only complaint (and Ogilvy can hardly be blamed for this) is that the book was written in 1983, and much of the rules he has set in stone, may in fact have changed since then.
“NO EXCESSIVE STARING.”
At the Oasis, at the Sawgrass Mills mall in Sunrise, Florida, there’s a sign posted of the rules for people who are hanging out there. They have the usual stuff about not swearing and not painting graffiti, and not panhandling. But early on, they have this rule against “excessive staring.” Weird.
« Previous Page — Next Page »