Life Imitating Bad Art

Sadly, I suspect we’ve reached the point where life no longer imitates art, but what passes for art nowadays. Exhibit A: Donald Trump. Described in a news piece as the “billionaire turned reality star,” he is now taken seriously by some as genuine presidential timber, and covered by an increasingly facile media that just can’t get enough of celebrity and colorful sound bites. By first throwing in with the so-called “Birthers” in clamoring for the official release of President Obama’s birth certificate, and then taking credit for it when it was, the billionaire turned reality star’s been ubiquitous on both the boob tube and YouTube. In the billionaire turned reality star’s brain, this series of events is further evidence of how he—and he alone—gets things done.

But obviously the billionaire turned reality star has more than the president’s birth certificate up his sleeve, and the media that hangs on his every word is there to report his every utterance. Yesterday, he called our leaders “stupid people,” and I will concede that he might be on to something here. A case could be made that some of them in fact are stupid, and some are stupider than others. But he also branded the Chinese “motherfuckers,” and said he’d straightaway slap a two percent tax on their imports. And, no doubt, the Saudi royal family is shivering in their sandals at the thought of the billionaire turned reality star becoming the 45th president of the United States and lecturing them: “You’re not going to raise that fucking [oil] price. You understand me!” Personally, I think the billionaire turned reality star should have his mouth washed out with one of those ever-shrinking bars of Irish Spring.

And, not surprisingly, there’s even more news on the billionaire turned reality star coming down the pike. It seems that he once proposed a 14.25 percent net worth tax on very wealthy Americans like himself. His 1999 plan, he estimated, would raise more than $5.7 trillion and entirely erase the National Debt, which he further reasoned would spur an unprecedented economic expansion. Fast forward twelve years and the National Debt is $14 trillion and growing. How now does the billionaire turned reality star expect to turn things around? No new taxes. It appears his solutions for economic growth and long-term prosperity involve telling a long list of foreign countries and their leadership they are a bunch of losers.

With Buckingham Palace as their backdrops, American news anchors reported on the hundreds of people who died in tornadoes down South. It’s been a strange week. So, just what will the billionaire turned reality star say and do next? Rest assured: It won’t be buried in the backs of newspapers.

Revisiting Dark Alleys

There were bowling alleys in my old neighborhood when I was growing up. Kingsbridge locals could walk to one nearby, and for a period of time actually had a choice between two. While there are still some bowling alleys in the Bronx and the surrounding areas, their numbers have appreciably declined in these parts over the past few decades.

When St. John’s grammar school offered its students an extracurricular sidebar known as the mini-course, bowling was among the options. I signed on to this particular mini-course and Friday afternoon out—out of the classroom’s stuffy confines and into the neighborhood at large. Lorded over by teachers and parental chaperones, we walked a few blocks over to a place called the Bowling Bar. Located in a subterranean niche on a side street, I was immediately intrigued by its off-the-beaten trail address and drab coziness. In fact, an in-home sized bar stood in the myriad lanes’ rear and was sans a bartender. Actually, the owner of the place wore multiple hats. He took our money, sprayed disinfectant into our rented bowling shoes, and served drinks to the adult clientele when called upon. I cannot say with certainty, but I suspect the night crowds were a bit livelier than fourth, fifth, and six graders bowling alongside nuns and mothers.

Despite bowling a twenty-three and my high score, forty-seven, I nevertheless fondly recall my Bowling Bar afternoons sometime in the mid-1970s. I only wish I had thought to snap pictures of the place before it vanished into the ether of extinct businesses. So what if the lightest balls on hand were way too heavy for my fourth-grade muscle. I bowled backhanded in those days because I couldn’t keep my bowling arm straight when ball met floor. This explains the twenty-three.

A year or so later, the school’s bowling mini-course took its business to a bigger and better known establishment, Fieldston Bowl, somewhat farther away. I believe the Bowling Bar had burned down—or up in its case. And while it long outlasted its local competitor, Fieldston Bowl subsequently became Fieldston Billiards. Bowling in the big city was not only declining in popularity, but alleys assumed an awful lot of valuable space—space that has cost increasingly more to lease in New York City, and a lot of other places, too, with the passage of time.

A couple of other alleys in nearby Westchester County—one in Yonkers and the other in Eastchester—that I bowled in a time or two in the distant past are gone as well, victims of changing tastes and voracious landlords altering the landscape. If there’s a bowling alley near you, cherish it while you still can. For the Bowling Bar and its deceased brethren are legion.

Scraping By...

(Originally published 4/20/11)

There are 14,000 McDonald's restaurants in the United States today. The conglomerate controls 49.5% of the country's considerable fast-food hamburger market. In fact, yesterday was officially National Hiring Day at the burger giant, when the company planned on taking aboard 50,000 new employees all across the fruited plain. To some seers, this event indicated an economy on the upswing, but to others it imparted a rather sad story, particularly when factoring in the vast numbers of people applying for these mostly minimum-wage jobs.

For what it's worth, I offer up this parable, or perhaps just some scattershot memories of a McDonald's experience from yesteryear. Once upon time, I worked in a mom-and-pop shop called Pet Nosh, which sold a variety of pet foods and supplies, including premium brands long before it was fashionable. Located on Northern Boulevard in the Little Neck section of Queens some three decades ago, the staff totaled no more than a handful of people on any given day. Come lunchtime, though, the two, three, or four of us would confer and chew over the various meal options at our disposal. There were multiple alternatives on that busy thoroughfare, even back then, but not nearly as many as there are now, including pizza from nearby Sal’s and sandwiches from a deli on the next block that we very cleverly nicknamed “Siphon’s” because its owner very cleverly called straws “siphon hoses” when we purchased sodas, lemonades, and iced teas from him. Occasionally, too, we considered patronizing the area’s McDonald’s.

Looking back, I’d have to say that McDonald's was sort of our nuclear option. If memory serves, not one of us could stomach the toppings en masse on McDonald’s hamburgers, which included pickles, lettuce, and way, way, way too many micro-chopped onions that had an uncanny and disgusting knack of burrowing into their ketchupy soggy buns. We merely wanted plain burgers, with maybe a little ketchup on the side, but encountered oodles and oodles of problems when ordering them in their virgin states.

It seemed this multinational operation never had an uncontaminated hamburger patty on the premises—quite unlike competitor Burger King, which was running commercials on how special orders didn’t upset their apple carts in the least. Pet Nosh boss man Richie. would nonetheless pose this question every once in a while, “Are you up for a scraping?” In other words, we’d order lunch from McDonald’s and not bother requesting plain hamburgers that typically threw a wrench into the franchise’s well-oiled machine. Special orders not only took forever, if you will, but, in the final analysis, were rarely if ever special.

So, we’d just bring their regular burgers back to the shop and painstakingly scrape away the pickles, lettuce, and onions ourselves. Actually, in supplying us with plain burgers a time or two, the McDonald’s staff had done both an amateurish and unappetizing version of scrapings, so we were better off decontaminating our own burgers. Of course, all of this was before Chicken McNuggets came along, which would have at least solved my McDonald’s scraping dilemma. In retrospect, I’m surprised I signed on to to this peculiar lunch ritual at all. Removing literal pickles from the scene of the crime does not, ever, remove their calling cards—a loathsome taste. The moral of this parable as I see it: If a hamburger joint can't prepare a hamburger with nothing on it—there's nothing more to say.

Finding a Silver Lining

I’m pleased to report that the United States Post Office is still getting a sliver of the venerable spam-scam business. In today’s mail I received a rather benign-looking yellow postcard. It was headlined “Parcel Notification” and informed me that what I had in my possession was not a “postal card,” and that I should not, therefore, call the post office. Further reading explained that some unknown package awaited me in some undisclosed location somewhere. But if the phone number I’ve been asked to call—if, of course, I want my package delivered to me—is indicative of its present coordinates, it’s not very far away.

But I only have five days in which to place this call and set my mystery parcel in motion. If I don’t do exactly as instructed in this allotted time, it will no longer be held for me. Now that hardly sounds fair.

The most unsettling aspect of this preposterous solicitation, with both its mailing label and stamp askew (always a bad sign), is that a small percentage of its recipients will, very likely, call that number. And, I fear, a certain percentage of that number will supply the purported package holders with personal financial information or some such thing they have no business having. After all, that mystery package may contain an expensive mink stole, the keys to a pricey condo in tony Riverdale, or maybe two passes to an all expenses paid day of fun and frolic at Six Flags Great Adventure.

Every cloud has a silver lining. So, once again, let me reiterate that it’s truly heartening to see that the post office’s fraudulent mail biz has not been completely cast asunder by the World Wide Web and e-mail. It’s important in life to look on the bright side of things whenever and wherever possible. Why not look at it this way: Some enterprising sorts are actually using physical postcards and either paying somebody to print them, or printing them on their home computers and buying the necessary card stock from another business enterprise. They are, too, purchasing potential sucker mailing lists, which for some reason unbeknownst to me included my name and address, from still another entrepreneur. Then there's that mess of twenty-eight cents stamps from that aforementioned institution that desperately needs the business. Economic stimulation and good old-fashioned American capitalism at work.

The Bill Company

As is the case with virtually everybody under seventy nowadays, I check my e-mail first thing in the morning. Typically, I count more missives in my spam folder than in my mailbox proper. And while my AOL spam filter does a yeoman’s job at separating the wheat from the chaff, occasionally bona fide correspondence finds itself sleeping with the spam. So, before deleting the whole sorry lot, I scrupulously peruse the sender addresses and subject fields. And admittedly, I cannot help but find some of the headings quite entertaining!

Once upon a time this sort of thing was not only more unfiltered and commonplace, but overwhelmingly sex-themed and no-holds-barred coarse. Slowly but surely, though, solicitations inviting me to watch people do it with a pig, goat, or horse fell by the wayside. They were, of course, replaced by Viagra and penis enlargement pitches that I’d hazard a guess were—if not outright shams—exaggerating their successes. Eventually, this sexually charged importuning diminished to a trickle—in my mailbox at least—only to be replaced by extended car-warranty and boring-as-all-Hell vitamin supplements for sale entreaties. 

I am happy to report that my spam du jour is now Nigerian money scams and their many epigones. And since I don’t dare open any of these e-mails, I content myself with the subject matter. This particular spam genre is my all-time favorite, I must say, and certainly goes better with the morning cup of coffee than bestiality porn and male enhancements. Courtesy of the inevitable malaproping, inadvertent puns, and general incoherence that go with the territory of not being proficient in the mother tongue of prospective suckers, foreign scams targeting the English-speaking peoples are precious indeed.

This very morning, I received a couple of e-mails offering me an incredible opportunity. One announced: “Sir, Waiting Money.” Another read: “Inheritance Estate Devoted to You.” The last one plucked from the virtual rubble could either have been an opportunity or something intended to frighten me into paying off a bogus debt. I guess I'll never know. It was headlined “The Bill Company.”

Why Dykstra Matters

Were she following the Lenny Dykstra saga, a certain aunt of mine would say of the man: “He’s not right in the head.” And she’d be right on the mark. The fate that has befallen this onetime baseball star, and more recent Wall Street whiz kid, is at once tragic and darkly comedic. Personally, I’d prefer remembering Dykstra as the scrappy spitfire nicknamed “Nails,” who furnished Met fans with one of their greatest baseball thrills in 1986. We will not soon forget his dramatic walk-off home run in the National League playoffs against the Astros.

Fast forward a quarter of century and Dykstra’s athletic sheen has altogether evaporated. The gritty baseball player giving his all, and clearly maximizing his talent, is yesterday's news. In its stead is a freakish caricature wholly divorced from reality. Bankrupt and arrested for selling off things under a trustee’s guardianship, Nails sees things a bit differently. He doesn’t for a nano-second feel he bilked individuals and lenders with what could best be described as No There There investments. In fact, he considers those seeking redress from him “derelict losers” and “whores.” Dykstra even compares himself to "that Indian dude” named Gandhi. After all, just like Mahatma Gandhi, he too has lived on the streets and, of course, been persecuted. Indeed, ol' Lenny believes the big banks might assassinate him.

Nails has apparently had a sea change of heart as well. His new mission in life, he says, is aiding and abetting folks facing home foreclosures. You see: He knows what it’s like to experience a foreclosure. He actually knows what it’s like to face multiple ones simultaneously. Funny, though, but it’s kind of difficult sympathizing with the guy here. He’s hardly a poster child for the genuine victims of foreclosures in what are ugly economic times.

So, you ask, why does ultra-wacky Lenny Dykstra matter—a man who bounced a check made payable to a working girl, which is about as low as one can get? Well, for starters, he typifies so much of what’s gone awry with society of late. The ballplayer who began his career as a skinny kid exits the game a power-hitting RBI man with a Frankenstein monster-sized head and a prematurely wrecked body. Soon after baseball, he amasses some serious dollars in the guise of investment genius. But among the financial rubble of recent times, individual tales of deceit and greed like Bernie Madoff's and Lenny Dykstra's are repeatedly plucked from the cinders. It seems that greed and excess always attract greed and excess.

Gold Coins and the Corrector Class

Many years ago—and I’ve long since forgotten the context—radio broadcaster Barry Farber informed a caller in his distinctive tone of voice, “He that correcteth me handeth me a gold coin.” Being the recipient of a correction, I know, is often unwelcome and a difficult pill to swallow, but it’s sometimes an invaluable learning moment. When mean old Sister Camillus humiliated me in front of my elementary school peers by nastily proclaiming, “Imagine a fifth grader who doesn’t know how to spell 'paid,'” I was indeed handed a gold coin. Granted, I didn't appreciate it at the time, but I never misspelled “paid” as “payed” again.

The Corrector Class has mushroomed in size in the new millennium. The Internet and social networking sites have in fact empowered the formerly powerless, who can now prove how smart they are by correcting their fellow men and women in all kinds of venues. People of all ages, and in all walks of life, are literally lying in wait to catch our mistakes and point out our blunders and missteps to the wider world.

A recent discussion board comment from a fellow writer struck me as at once timely and right on the mark. Responding to a question concerning the pluses versus minuses of plying in this trade of ours, he noted how he receives precious little positive feedback when he gets things right, which is the norm. And when he does get a modicum of credit for a job well done, it’s typically a long time in coming and breathlessly short in its approbation. However, when he errs in the slightest, heaven forbid, the Corrector Class pounces in a nanosecond to broadcast the errors of his ways.

Happily, even amidst the sprawling virtual rubble, there are still countless gold coins to be harvested. But there are also more counterfeits than ever before in the brush. All too many members of today’s considerable Corrector Class appear more interested in inflating their rather poor self-esteems than offering genuine gold coins to their fellow world travelers. This is both a little sad and very annoying. Sister Camillus, where are you when we need you?

Stream of Consciousness

A local newspaper, the Riverdale Press, recently ran a piece about a meandering stream that runs through parts of my neighborhood. Having been covered over by landfill in the fledgling years of the twentieth century, the waterway is now—with the exception of a few visible remnants in nearby Van Cortlandt Park—completely underground and wholly unseen. Most of the area’s current residents, I suspect, are blissfully ignorant of the fact that many private homes and apartment buildings in the area are built atop Tibbetts Brook and its surrounding wetlands.

Several decades ago, a man named William Tieck published a neat history of adjoining Bronx neighborhoods' Kingsbridge and Riverdale. Rare photographs in his book included images of the formerly free-flowing Tibbetts Brook in locations that have long been smothered by concrete and asphalt. For those of us who call home this densely populated nook of New York City, it’s hard to imagine a rowboat tethered to a small wooden dock on what is now a busy cross-street—but some of the old pictures actually paint a Norman Rockwell postcard past of what is now a teeming urban enclave.

While a return to this Rockwellian vista is not possible (nor desired), the newspaper account nonetheless reported on possible future efforts in “daylighting” the brook—bringing it back to the surface where feasible. Interestingly, and on its own, the indefatigable stream seems to be doing just that in snippets of Van Cortlandt that were not very long-ago bone dry but are now swampy marshland. Really, what the city fathers and mothers have in mind at this point in time is merely a theoretical restoration of the brook that runs from the City of Yonkers, just to the north, and empties into the nearby Harlem River Ship Canal, which, by the way, empties into the Hudson River, likewise a stone's throw away.

Growing up on the street that received its name from the stream that runs beneath it, I have something of an intimate acquaintance with its subterranean waters. Along with several others, my grandfather planted a sprawling “victory garden” on an empty lot on the very same street in the late 1950s. Naturally, there was no modern water source to attach hoses or sprinklers to, but there was Tibbetts Brook not too far from the surface.

Italians from the old country knew how to do an awful lot of things back then, which are downright foreign to most of us in the twenty-first century. My grandfather could dig a well—no problem. Utilizing a fifty-gallon barrel with its bottom removed, he dug down several feet through layers of dirt and landfill (ashes of some sort) and struck water, which quickly wound its way up the barrel’s sides. The well worked like a charm for more than a decade in tapping into what proved an inexhaustible water supply. Year after year, and summer after summer, the gardeners on Tibbett Avenue lowered buckets attached to a rope into the drink, watering dozens of tomato plants, pepper plants, eggplants, string beans, and all kinds of flowers. In springtime, after the winter's snow melt, I remember the water reaching the well’s top but never quite spilling over.

Sadly, the garden was bulldozed in 1971 when I was nine years old. Fortunately, though, I had the opportunity to witness the well at work. And if memory serves, the waters of Tibbetts Brook typically appeared crystal clear, almost good enough to drink. However, I'm happy to report that all concerned considered the source and resisted the temptation. When the pilings were being pounded into the very same space for a future six-story building, water pumps labored day and night in spilling out Tibbetts Brook into the street. We knew it was there then, and know it’s still there now, just champing at the bit to reveal itself once again—someday and somewhere.

(Photo from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Reality...Unscripted...Yuk!!!

It’s called "unscripted television" now—a quasi-admission by reality show producers that not everything you are seeing is quite real. After all, we don’t ordinarily live our lives with cameras and cameramen—in eyeshot and earshot—recording our every move and every emotion.

Once upon a time we were supposed to accept the basic premise of reality shows that human beings behave naturally when being filmed—spontaneously, even in the most intimate of moments. But apparently, it doesn’t really matter to the viewing public whether it’s truly real, or real in some ambiguous definition of the word, because it's still entertaining.

Albeit in the virtual ether, Facebook shares common ground with unscripted television. There is a mother lode of revelations, support, good humor, bad humor, as well as unhealthy doses of vitriol, too, on people’s personal “walls.” Facebook is real, unreal, and surreal all rolled into one Internet soap opera. By its very nature, this kind of social interaction is akin to having the cameras rolling. Yes, occasionally good old-fashioned reality and total candor shines through. In the instance that I am about to recount, the man’s honesty is absolutely breathtaking.

It seems that a thirty-something fellow, who’s evidently held some responsible adult jobs in his life, had encountered a few financial difficulties in recent years. So, it was with unrestrained joy that he reported to his Facebook family that his financial woes were a thing of the past—the Heavenly Father having intervened on his behalf. He informed one and all he had won a considerable sum from Publishers Clearinghouse.

I never knew of any real person who actually won one of their prizes. These are the people who show up at your door with a bunch of balloons and a colossal-sized check made out to you. Now, had this poor chap posted a photo of the PCH entourage on his doorstep, I may have been more inclined to believe in his good fortune. But within his description of the blessed event—difficult enough to swallow—there were a couple of particulars that didn’t exactly pass the smell test.

Sure enough, a mere day later, he announced on Facebook that his unexpected but very welcome windfall was not to be. He deposited the $26,500 check he received in the mail, he said, only to be asked to wire a $3,000 processing fee to the scam artists before they would permit it to clear. On numerous fronts, this almost-victim of a big-time hoax came across as not too smart. New Jersey-born guys are supposed to be more savvy than that. Seriously, his Facebook info listed his occupation as "financial adviser." He wasn’t an old lady living alone on a fixed income, or some uneducated man trying to make ends meet and support his family. He had a college degree and offered investment advice.

What would you do if you received an unsolicited $26,500 check in the mail? I suspect you’d be skeptical and probably recycle it without further ado. Our guy called a phone number to verify its authenticity. He alerted the world via Facebook about his sudden good fortune without doing a right and proper investigation. Personally, I wouldn’t reveal a financial matter of any kind and under any circumstances on a social networking site. I'd imagine, too, this revelation won't help his future business prospects. Reality…unscripted…yuk!

RIP Greg Goossen

As part of my morning ritual and Internet roundup, I visit various news sites, faithfully read several bookmarked blogs, and call upon a cyber portal devoted to the New York Mets and their illustrious history. Dubbed Centerfield Maz and choreographed by its indefatigable owner, the Zelig of Met fans—check it out and you’ll see what I mean—the website is teeming with memories, as well as a mother lode of “Whatever Became Of?” info and trivia on past players from the well known to the obscure; the stars to the scrubs.

As a devout former Met fan, who considers contemporary professional baseball outright sacrilege, I’d just assume remember the game from a more innocent time. I'd prefer recalling the pure joys of following my team before the onset of steroids and mega-million dollar salaries, which sometimes stretch farther than the eye can see. I cherished America's pastime before the sport became just another appendage to today’s tacky celebrity culture. You know, where the likes of A-Rod’s not particularly interesting off-the-field antics compete with Lady Gaga for ink in the newspapers and its virtual equivalent.

A couple of weeks ago, Centerfield Maz featured former Mets' player Greg Goossen—a catching prospect who subsequently got drafted by the Seattle Pilots, a 1969 American league expansion team that not only moved to Milwaukee a year later, but was forever immortalized in Jim Bouton’s then very controversial inside-the-clubhouse baseball book Ball Four. (Forty years ago, Bouton was actually vilified within the fraternity for violating baseball's equivalent of omerta.)

Anyway, while reading the Goossen account, with a recent picture of him staring back at me the whole time, I couldn’t help but notice how completely unrecognizable he appeared in contrast with his youthful baseball card photos. In his sixties now, he had a distinctively tough-looking and world-weary mug. His rough-hewn but nonetheless noble countenance told me that Goossen had suffered more than a few hard knocks along life's highways and byways.

The final thoughts of Centerfield Maz profiles frequently disclose what ex-players have been up to in their post-career lives. Apparently, Greg Goossen toiled at many jobs and in many professions after baseball. But while his life may have traversed a rocky road, it was off-the-beaten path and quite interesting. Goossen was actor Gene Hackman’s stand-in for many years. He worked too as both a private detective and boxing trainer. But the saddest of all parting shots in Centerfield Maz profiles are sometimes death notices. RIP Greg Goossen, who passed away of a sudden heart attack at the not-so-old age of sixty-five on February 26th.  He, I’d hazard a guess, was more every man than Oprah is every woman.

Delivery Boy

Yesterday, I performed unusual courier duties for a close relation of mine. And I wasn’t entrusted with delivering any old package to any old place. No, this was something special—an invaluable fluid coveted by a certain medical institution. To be more specific, I delivered a urine sample to Memorial Sloan-Kettering cancer hospital on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Life so often drops us in circumstances that not too long ago would have seemed preposterous.

Beginning my journey in the Northwest Bronx, I rode the Number 1 train to Columbus Circle, exited—with the urine safely ensconced in a Trader Joe's shopping bag—and then walked eastward on 59th Street along the periphery of Central Park, which was lined with a fleet of hansom cabs operated by rather non-handsome drivers—a dodgy looking crew if you ask me. I felt bad for the poor horses, which I always do when I spy these noble beasts navigating the mean streets of New York.

Despite having only one biological leg at my disposal, I nevertheless opted to walk across town rather than hop on a bus or a hail a cab. It was a sunny, breezy, and pretty crisp early March morning, but my trusty C-Leg—a computerized knee that nobly attempts to mimic my gait—was definitely up to the task. When I received this state-of-the-art knee, replacing a mechanical one, I asked my prosthetist, “So this leg stops your falls?” He answered, “No…let’s just say that it slows them.” Essentially, with any luck, my new knee would furnish me with the necessary seconds to right myself before I went down for the count. And I can say this much: I’ve had a few close calls that—were I wearing my prior knee—would have landed me on the pavement. But then again, I take many, many more chances with this remarkably stable and trusty friend that I slip on every morning. I walked long distances before—when I was physically whole—and I walk long distances now. I guess there are some things that never change.

In fact, Part A of this New York adventure was such a success that I decided—after turning over the urine sample—to retrace my steps on foot again, but with a slight route change this go-around. I followed the M66 cross-town bus route, which put me on a heavily traveled cross street through Central Park. The sidewalk was a filthy mess and the traffic whizzed by me at high speeds, spewing harsh fumes in my direction. And as a pedestrian crossing in the heart of New York City, it was pretty desolate. I had erred in my return-trip choice of routes, but my C-Leg and I nonetheless overcame the considerable cracks and crevices in the concrete, as well as occasional patches of wet leaves and mud along the way, without a hitch.

At West 66th Street and Broadway, Lincoln Center, where I landed and would catch the subway home, I couldn’t help but recall how I shopped for many years at a multi-storied Tower Records and a Barnes & Noble superstore across the street, which are gone now—casualties of both the times and the passage of time. It seems though that while nothing lasts forever, spanking new and unpredictable adventures await us all.

Pizza Wars

These are taxing economic times for sure. It should therefore come as no surprise to you that business competition gets mighty ugly on occasion, with one and all fighting tooth and nail for shares of a finite pie. And the pie on our plate right now is a pizza pie. I would like to elucidate on the particulars of the most important news story—bar none—in what has been a very busy news week.

Pizza Owner Number One, you see—the perpetrator in this strange but true account—was, for all intents and purposes, caught red-handed in the act of placing live mice in a nearby competitor's establishment. It was his hope the mice would be fruitful, multiply, and eventually sound the death knell of Pizza Owner Number Two.

It seems, however, that said perpetrator was hopelessly inept in executing Operation Mouse Mayhem. Reports say he entered the competition’s shop sporting a brown paper bag and made a beeline for the bathroom. But when he emerged several minutes later without the bag, Pizza Owner Number Two, who didn’t know who he was, nonetheless sensed perversion afoot. In a twist of fate that proved the undoing of Pizza Owner Number One, there just happened to be two off-duty policemen in the dining room at the time, who were informed of what just transpired and promptly investigated what would soon become—officially—a crime scene. The cops found live mice scurrying about, and also telling footprints on the toilet seat. It seems the perpetrator stood on it in hopes of placing the mice above some ceiling tiles.

Pizza Owner Number One, the hapless perpetrator, was subsequently apprehended in the environs of yet another pizza joint, Pizza Owner Number Three, again not too far away. Mice were also present. He straightaway confessed to his crimes, but claimed his competitors were trying to run him out of business with the very same lethal weapons, and that turnabout was fair play.

So, just what exactly can be gleaned from these Pizza Wars or, if you prefer, Mouse Tales? Yes, there are lots of pizza places around and we eat an awful lot of the stuff. But also that competition for the Almighty Dollar goes bizarrely awry on occasion. Had only Pizza Owner Number One contented himself to posting bogus reviews of his rivals on Internet reviewing sites—which I'm certain countless entrepreneurs do in this age of anonymous libel—he’d be better off. He's not only facing misdemeanor charges of harassment, criminal mischief, and disorderly conduct, but animal cruelty as well. And heaven knows what could have been unleashed had the mice not been discovered and been left to their own devices in a food and restaurant setting.

There is a shred of hope for the perpetrator in these Pizza Wars, which have all the ingredients of a reality show in the making. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Pizza Owner Number One, Pizza Owner Number Two, and Pizza Owner Number Three are all living the surreal life under the same roof in the not-too-distant future, working out their differences with, of course, the cameras rolling.

Where Less Is Better

I was genuinely disheartened by the untimely death of TV pitchman Billy Mays a couple of years ago. For quite a while he was a part of my life in some perverse sort of way. I enjoyed his over-the-top, boardwalk approach to peddling products—everything from laundry soap to super-powerful silly putty to stick-on wall hooks. I must concede that I always stopped what I was doing and watched a Billy Mays' advertisement, even one I had seen countless times and for which I had no particular commercial interest. Billy Mays' moments were anxiety busters, I guess, taking my mind off my troubles for a split-second in time. It was always about the man’s incomparable style, not the particular product he was pitching.

Ah, but once upon a time Billy Mays was merely a commercial spokesperson and familiar face and recognizable voice to millions. We knew little about the man beyond his TV ad persona. In fact, we only knew his name because it was part of his shtick. He always proclaimed, "Hi, Billy Mays here..." before any and all of his pitches. But that was the long and short of our knowledge of the guy, and we weren't much interested in learning anything more, either. We didn't care whether or not Mays was a Republican or a Democrat, or whether he was a meat and potatoes guy or a vegan.

But as the World Wide Web grew wider and wider, and cable television expanded its ever-metastasizing waistline, personalities like Billy Mays could no longer remain contained and personally anonymous. So, no surprise here: Billy got a reality show of his own, which I dutifully watched. He seemed of decent enough character considering his less than savory line of work, but the bloom was definitely off the rose.

Seeing Billy Mays as merely an enthusiastic pitchman thereafter—perhaps overly boisterous on occasion—for a diverse line of merchandise was no longer possible. Having been ushered into the minutia of his television salesman's world shattered for all time what was once a virgin deception. When Billy willingly unmasked himself in this age of celebrity, the bare bones appeals of his commercials could never be watched with the same wide-eyed innocence.

When I first saw a competitor pitchman named Vince plugging a product called ShamWow, I found the ad uncouthly intriguing on some visceral level. But very soon after, I not only learned Vince's full name but a bit more than I really wanted to know about his background. It seemed that ShamWow Vince was a guy named Vince Shlomi with a less than savory history, who subsequently added to his dossier by doing even more repellent things to a certain lady companion. So naturally, I can’t watch a ShamWow commercial today without this information lodged in my brain, and I wouldn't consider purchasing a ShamWow under any circumstances.

Knowing too much about people obviously has its disadvantages. And this doesn’t only apply to big-mouth infomercial talking heads, but actors, businesspersons, spiritual gurus, sports figures, et al. Excessive info cannot help but soil the simple illusion. And simple illusions have their place, particularly now in this—metaphorically speaking—increasingly colder world of ours.

The Oaf Factor

For a forty-something guy like me who will be a fifty-something guy before too long, YouTube has been a godsend. Without it, countless memories of my past would be just that—memories—and most of them long forgotten. But now, by merely typing in a few key words, I can unearth a combative and very possibly drunk Norman Mailer on the Dick Cavett Show, a vintage McDonald’s commercial featuring the grisly Willard Scott as the original Ronald McDonald, and the Nanny and the Professor opening TV theme—a mother lode of rather amazing stuff that was, not very long ago, lost to us all. Calling on the Museum of Broadcasting and combing through their massive archives was really all we had at our disposal to possibly unearth a Schaefer beer commercial, or the Cesar Romero, Jack Palance, and Phil Rizzuto appearances on What’s My Line?

But wouldn’t you know it—there’s a downside to such ready access to a seemingly bottomless treasure trove of good stuff from days gone by. Oaf is the word…is the word…is the word. Yes…oaf. The oaf is omnipresent nowadays—in our virtual faces 24/7. The Internet in general, and social networking sites in particular, have empowered him and her as never before. Oafs sound off on Facebook with unrestrained abandon. They comment on YouTube videos, disliking all sorts of things—some in fact that they have little or no knowledge of. They weigh in on news stories big and small. They leave reviews on everything conceivable from movies to restaurants to boxes of cereal.

This diverse breed of oafs is frequently ignorant and often crass. But that’s why they are called oafs, I suppose. They are sometimes preposterously politically correct and ask in all seriousness if the Beverly Hillbillies sitcom's Clampett family was a racist brood because old granny brandished a Confederate flag and thought that Jefferson Davis was still her president. At other times they are downright boorish, moronic, and even a bit scary, believing that President Obama is an Afrikaner and card-carrying commy seeking to transform America into Amerika.

Oafs of all stripes have been furnished bona fide platforms in this Information Age of ours, and we had just better get used to it. There’s no putting this genie back in the bottle. Oafs—young and old—are here to stay.

Coming Attractions

The better part of this week found me in a hospital setting. The upside, for lack of a better word, is that I wasn’t the patient but a "caregiver" instead. Anyway, without going into too many details, patient and I landed in Memorial Sloan-Kettering’s Urgent Care (triage) wing. This hospital space perpetually brings together a diverse group of cancer patients who are feeling unwell for a variety of reasons, but who are, in most instances, not unwell enough to be Emergency Room caliber.

Having arrived there at around noontime, I didn't leave the premises until ten o'clock at night. (Lucky her: The patient got to stay over a couple of nights to knock out a spot of pneumonia.) It was an extraordinarily long day of uncomfortably sitting around mostly—waiting and wondering, but also observing and listening to the never-ending theater all around us. The place filled up in a New York minute—hey, it’s winter and a bad one at that—and men and women were lined up in the corridor, with some looking more worse for wear than others. Most of the assembled had family or friends at their sides for moral support and physical assistance if needed, but a handful did not. I noticed an elderly woman all alone and seated on chair in the hallway for hours. I took an educated guess that she had both cancer and nobody—an incredibly sad one-two gut punch in life’s waning hours.

I overheard doctors visiting patients and discussing morphine drips and other painkilling options. One man was informed that the drug cocktail given to him wouldn’t rid his pain altogether, but hopefully make his day-to-day existence at least tolerable. I heard another poor fellow feebly cry out, “I don’t want to die.” His doctor reassured him, “We don’t want you to die, either.”

It’s difficult not to reflect on Coming Attractions, and the less than harmonious last legs of life’s journey, while amidst this stark reality snapshot. Really…there just aren’t very many happy endings in store for us. Looking on the bright side, a trip to Urgent Care can be an enlightening experience, too—an eye-opener. (I’ve been there a few times.) While in this milieu, I am always reminded of the endgame, and why it’s absolutely essential to make the most of what's in-between our beginnings and endings.

Heroes and Villains

When I first began rooting for the New York Mets in defiant opposition to family tradition and the Bronx’s elite home team, baseball’s history actually mattered. Old-Timers’ Day promotions drew big crowds. The eight-year-old me experienced genuine awe in seeing former greats like Joe DiMaggio, Jackie Robinson, and Bob Feller in the flesh. I listened closely when the game's oldsters reminisced about playing alongside and against the likes of Ruth, Williams, and Cobb. By osmosis, I received an education on the old and storied Brooklyn Dodgers-New York Giants rivalry. Of course, I knew the teams' owners—taking the late Horace Greeley’s advice—simultaneously left the city after the 1957 season for the West’s greener pastures. and wondered how this dastardly duo could have done anything so awful.

The prevailing sentiment in this neck of the woods considered Dodgers’ owner Walter O’Malley a bona fide scoundrel, not ever to be forgiven for whisking away Brooklyn’s beloved Bums. Columnist Jack Newfield christened him “one of the three worst villains that ever lived”—the others being Hitler and Stalin. As for Horace Stoneham, the Giants’ owner, any lingering vitriol that existed was tepid by comparison. (And, really, attendance in the antiquated Polo Grounds was 653,923 in 1957, and the city had confiscated an area of its less than ample parking space to erect housing projects.)

I just finished reading Michael D’Antonio’s Forever Blue, a fascinating account of Walter O’Malley, his fabled team, and the rapidly changing times that inspired the controversial move. It could be justly said that the book was sympathetic to O’Malley. He was no Hitler. In fact, when compared to the Boss, George Steinbrenner, in my opinion, he was positively upright, of sound mind, and a paradigm of virtue.

Sure, the Dodgers’ owner was foremost interested in making money—lots of it—and he hungered, too, for accolades regarding his baseball and business acumen. Nevertheless, the more writers and historians unearth, the less cut and dried O’Malley’s purported treachery appears. Despite attendance being down in old Ebbets Field, the Dodgers were still—courtesy of television and radio deals—one of the most profitable franchises in the game (unlike the Giants). O’Malley had also zeroed in on what today would be called his “brand.” He merchandised Brooklyn Dodgers’ stuff before it was the rage. Yes, he wanted a new ballpark in a better location. The increasingly dilapidated Ebbets Field’s seating capacity was only 32,000, with less than 1,000 available parking spaces. It was not particularly accessible by either automobile or mass transit, and the neighborhood was pretty unsavory and not about to get any better. After the war, Long Island and the New Jersey suburbs were where many Dodger fans and their families relocated. Driving to a game at Ebbets Field with a young family in tow was a major hassle.

So, really, O’Malley had a winning case for a new ballpark and found a Brooklyn location that he coveted. However, he needed the help of city fathers to procure the land—or, more aptly, master builder Robert Moses, who wielded the real power back then (but that’s another story altogether). The Dodgers’ owner was actually going to pay in full the building costs of the new stadium. But Moses had his long-term sights set on a stadium complex in some swampy area in Queens called Flushing Meadows. He didn’t care about the Dodgers, and he didn’t like being told what he had to do.

To make a very long story short, the preponderance of evidence suggests that O’Malley sincerely wanted to remain in Brooklyn. Nevertheless, he pushed the envelope by selling Ebbets Field to a developer, meaning that either he got what he wanted, or would pick up his marbles and move elsewhere. Funny…but there would be no Mets without O’Malley’s move—no miracle in 1969, the only truly documented one of its kind. And nobody can argue that the Los Angeles relocation wasn’t ultra-profitable for the O’Malley family and the Dodgers. But, hey, that proposed stadium project in Queens turned out all right as well. The Mets, born in 1962 via league expansion, established an all-time baseball attendance record in 1970—drawing over 2.7 million fans—in a then state-of-the-art ballpark called Shea Stadium. It seems there was a heaping helping of money to be made in New York, and a heaping helping of money to be made in Los Angeles, too. And one final postscript here: When Shea Stadium’s demolition began in 2008, it was standing almost as long as Ebbets Field, built in 1913, had been when it sadly welcomed the wrecking ball. Time flies when you're having fun, it would seem, and all things come to an end. That’s the long and short of it in baseball and in life.

Strange New World

Some time ago, while Googling my name in concert with a recently published book, I encountered a dreaded citizen review (not the first and, I suspect, not the last). Needless to say, it was not a glowing tribute of my highly touted talents. In fact, I was called many names therein, including an “overly optimistic douchebag” and “asshole.” Now, this particular title of mine importuned its unemployed readership to remain upbeat, not lose hope, and uncover every possible stone in his or her job search. It was not intended to rile the public at large. The book even received a half-page review, and recommendation, from a fellow named Harry Hurt III in the business section of Sunday’s New York Times.

But this is a strange new world that we live in. The virtual equivalent of road rage awaits everybody and anybody who puts himself or herself out there. Indeed, the average Joe and Mary has been empowered as never before—furnished with a venue to express his or her opinion on books, movies, politics, religion, food, and, of course, everything else, including the worth of their fellow human beings.

The woman (least her username suggests the feminine), who tarred and feathered yours truly in a profanity-laced diatribe, decreed at one point that she knew—positively knew—based on the book’s less than somber title, that it would be an awful read and downright offensive to her. But, apparently, she couldn't resist.

Why pray tell? If I have learned anything in life, it’s this: If I absolutely know something is going to be dreadful (a book, movie, etc.), I avoid it like the plague and forage elsewhere for my entertainment and kicks. Ah, but I suspect that the average Joe and Mary Reviewer frequently gets off on being offended, enraged, and on his or her high horse. Unfortunately, in all too many instances, both Joe's and Mary's opining amounts to the virtual equivalent of road rage.

Obviously, I consider myself neither a “douchebag” nor an “asshole.” I would even find fault with the adjective employed in front of the former: “overly optimistic.” But with citizen reviewers poised and ready to pounce, it isn’t just writers, artists, and actors who need fear the verbal guillotine. Merely commenting on an online news article, or in a Facebook thread, is wont to infuriate your opinionated neighbors, who just might call you the worst kinds of names and wish upon you the worst kinds of hardships. Such are the times we live in…we might as well get used to it.

Food for Thought

In a recent conversation, I learned an inconsequential piece of trivia. It concerned a deceased woman named Mary, whom I didn’t know very well. It seems that while among the living, Mary loathed eggs, and anything made with them, with a passion. Obviously, this stance of hers covered a heaping helping of culinary ground.

This little filler of old neighborhood lore came my way during a debate on the taste benefits of Italian hot sausages versus Italian sweet sausages. One relative of mine found it inconceivable that another could honestly dislike hot sausages. From her perspective, it was positively odd—perhaps even a critical character defect—not to appreciate something as super-scrumptious as a spicy hot sausage. Oblivious to the bald-faced irony, the relative accuser conceded to not liking sweet sausages at all—only their fiery pork cousins. And may I add this parenthetical aside: It’s more conceivable to me how somebody could find hot sausages objectionable—seeing as they are so spicy hot—while appreciating sweet sausages.

Anyway, there is a moral to this sausage story—a little food for thought that serves up a bit of insight into human nature, and reveals at least a morsel of why we are so messed up as a species. Granted, some of us are more messed up than others. While I consume the incredible, edible egg in many guises, there are some foods that I absolutely say no to—just like the late Mary. In fact, there are a few of them that physically and sometimes emotionally repulse me beyond any logic or reason. One wouldn’t need to waterboard me to break my spirit. Merely placing me in a colossal bowl of coleslaw, or some fancy salad with gelatinous tomatoes and stinky cheese bathed in pungent vinegar, would do the trick and fast turn me into a blithering idiot. I wonder if our CIA operatives have figured this one out. You know: Uncover the very foods (and various other things) that so nauseate their various prey. Traveling down this route, they could torture a whole lot of folks without violating the Geneva Convention.

While growing up, the utter disdain cast my way for not liking things that were so patently yummy for my tummy was at once palpable and predictable. “You don’t know what you’re missing” and "You don't know what's good" were phrases I heard with great regularity. And, of course, I was accused of seeking attention and desiring to be different in these family food wars of ours. I don't know...maybe this was so...as I cannot say why I loathe certain fare with such fervor to this day. I was also told more than a time or two that I would eventually come to my senses as an adult, and rue all the good feed that I passed on as a boy. For the most part, I haven't.

And I’ve long since learned that an awful lot of people don’t like an awful lot of things, including many things I find pleasing to the palate. Go figure. Once upon a time I thought I was all alone in some gastronomic No Man’s Land. Turns out that I’m not so abnormal after all—in this regard at least—just made to feel so because I see a freshly sliced tomato for what it really is.

A New Year...the Same Old Focus

In the fledgling days of 1994, a retail store manager, with whom I worked alongside, crafted a document on his then very primitive computer. It nonetheless impressed one and all with its unusual and competing fonts, bold-lettered headlines, and colorful graphics. Headlined “A New Year, A New Focus,” it was specifically produced for the place's staff, who were asked to pore over its inspirational contents and inhale its lofty objectives like they would fresh roses in springtime.

This manager bloke was a disciple of the relatively new and somewhat chic approach to business management called Coaching and Mentoring. You know: Encourage each member of one’s team to boldly go where no employee has gone before by treating him or her like a bona fide human being—for starters—and offering him or her a lunch table of carrots along the way for innovating, working hard, and keeping eyes peeled to the future. Yada…yada…yada.

The major pothole on this business road to good intentions—for lack of a better description—was that there was no there there. This particular retail bossman affixed special titles to virtually every Tom, Dick, and Harriet, many of whom were minimum wage laborers unloading trucks and stocking shelves. Cashiers, for instance, were christened “front-end supervisors.” I’d wager they would have preferred raises. In fact, at that time, I had never even heard of the title. Of course, nowadays the woods are full of such meaningless labels. At the very least, isn’t everyone employed in Big Box Retail Land an “associate” or better than that?

From my observing eyes, “A New Year, A New Focus” quickly degenerated into an “A New Year, the Same Old Focus.” Why? Because it was a bogus bill of goods. Employees working for peanuts and, at best, cashews aren’t easily won over by extravagant promises of future opportunity and security in places with little evident opportunity and minimal security. And calling a pig a gazelle doesn’t make a pig a gazelle. It just makes the pig clamor for a little more bacon. The 1994 New Year's lesson is eternal.

The Bloomberg Is Off the Rose

My father had a penchant for mangling people’s surnames. Although some of his mispronunciations were sincerely delivered, I long suspected that many more were intentional—his inimitable way of showing disdain for certain folks, most notably in the political class.

His more memorable mispronunciations were of a recent vintage and targeted New York City mayors Giuliani and Bloomberg. Instead of Giuliani, it was always “Gooliani,” and Bloomberg was “Blumberg.” Now, my dad clearly heard these famous fellows’ names mentioned on the television from time to time, but it didn’t deter him from getting their names wrong always and every day. And although he voted for both men in his lifetime, I imagine he just couldn’t bring himself to fully respect anybody who plied his or her trade in the world’s second oldest profession.

While on the subject of Mayor Bloomberg—for whom I voted for three times, with decreasing enthusiasm I might add—the bloom is definitely off the rose. This week’s blizzard has unquestionably tarnished his veneer as a manager with a golden touch. But I don’t blame him for the snow-cleanup snafus. These things happen. However, I do blame Mayor Mike for his runaway haughtiness—his billionaire’s tin ear that has manifested itself through the years, and for which I largely overlooked because he was much preferred to his hack Democrat opponents in this one-party town.

In the immediate aftermath of the snowstorm, Bloomberg’s initial reaction to legitimate complaints was a testy bristle. Festooned in his green Christmas sweater vest, the mayor said something to the effect that the world’s not coming to an end. In other words: Shut your mouths and shovel your snow. I recall him uttering something similarly callous when a smoking ban was enacted in city bars that were previously exempt from the prohibition. Granted, these business establishments traffic in more than a few unhealthy life choices. But they serve adult beverages to adults with free will in a city that never sleeps in the land of the free. Not surprisingly, some proprietors feared their businesses would suffer, or even go under with an enforced ban on smoking. “If a business can’t make it, another one will take its place,” said the always-empathetic mayor.

The third term has not exactly been a charm for Bloomy, who single-handedly cast asunder term limit laws to get it. I don’t know…but maybe two terms of our billionaire nanny may have been enough. And if salt is banned in city restaurants anytime soon, you'll know who to blame.