It Was 45 Years Ago Today

Review of slices HERE.

Something I Hadn't Said in 15 Years Until Today

"Get in the fucking truck."

HAPPY BIRFDAY CHERRY BOMB!!!!!

Here she is at Woodstock. Hippy.

This Better Be a Chick

Re: my moving from the peanut gallery:

What a sad day! I used to see you around town sometimes (L train, soccer field, one night staggering outside the Turkey's Nest) and I'd be like, "Hey, that's Xmastime! I gotta have a beer with that guy someday..." but sniff, never came to pass.

Moving.

Every time I've ever moved to a new city I've thrown my hands in the air re: how the hell I'm ever gonna learn the new tv channels goddammit, it's impossible, I'll never get the hang of them etc etc, and of course by Day 3 I can't wrap my head around the concept of the channels ever having been anything different than what they currently are.

Catchers/Umpires

Via HERE;

Martin said the initial refusal came in the second inning, then continued all night during the Yankees' 6-5 win over the Angels.
"Even at the end of the game, after I got hit in the neck, I'm like, 'Can I throw the ball back now?'" Martin said. "He's still like, 'No.' ... Unbelievable."

Martin said he likes throwing the ball back to the pitcher to keep his arm warmed up, especially if there are runners on base during a tight game. Despite repeated requests, Diaz declined to hand the ball to Martin, throwing it back to the mound himself.

This should hopefully put us that much closer to my dream movie re: umpires/catchers!

No matter how many decades I may be a fan of baseball, every once in a while I'm shocked to be reminded of the intimacy between an umpire and catcher. Nine innings, literally hovering over the catchers shoulder, game after game, all season long. A subtle flow of communication played out over the months. How has no one turned this into a sitcom or movie? 

How is this shit not a documentary?!?!?

Too Sad.

Over the years, including HERE, I've yammered about how much I loved COLLECTING CHILDREN'S BOOKS. Every Sunday I'd faithfully check in on Peter's latest "Sunday brunch" writeup on children's literature. This being the times we're in, I became his Facebook friend, and I can't say it didn't make me happy whenever he commented on something I'd posted. Over the past year he's been giving us updates on a book on children's literature he was co-authoring with two other people, and his excitement about the project was contagious. To me he was a quasi-celebrity just because I didn't know him personally, but I was a huge fan of his blog.

About a week ago he mentioned on FB he'd badly broken his ankle, to which I, like everybody else I reckon, thought " oh gee, that sucks" and didn't think much about it. Just a broken ankle, after all.

Saturday night, a message came from his brother on Peter's FB page that Peter had suddenly died, presumably from a blood clot. A happy, young (early 50's) guy in the midst of finishing his dream of authoring a book on children's books dropped dead, gasping to his mother (he was taking care of his 90 year-old parents) to call 911. Just like that.

I'm not saying I'm curled up under my bed crying; as I said, I never actually met him, but that's the way the world works now - our celebrity culture allows us to think of a major celebrity as we would a close friend, and the internet takes this a step farther in that we get caught up in the lives of people we'll never meet who are celebrities in our eyes because we're fans of their websites/blogs, but in actuality, they're no more "famous" than ourselves. I am somewhat comforted to see that based on the number of comments on his Facebook page, I'm only one of dozens (hundreds) of people touched by his blog and now saddened by his sudden death.

A broken ankle. Dead. It's quite simply the saddest thing I've ever heard.

The Dinner Crowd at Joy Garden. Some Things Never Change.

It's Official: I'm Back in Virginia.

Joy Garden with Sistatime!

The Interns Begin Their Day at the Xmastime Blogging Bank

Timing

One of the "paid" interns over at guerretype got into the corn squeezins and accidently typed some words together:

im usually at the gate just before boarding. not something i stress about. but lately i worry ive begun to stress out the kids; waking them up in the morning now takes cold water and a fucking marching band so i let them sleep and watch the end of the show and go back into the apartment to grab something else for class and on and on until i say for the nth time Hurry, were gonna be late! i need to quit that shit before they become the type to arrive at airports 6 hours early.

I, as you know, am the complete opposite. I show up at the fucking bus two hours early, panicking that they'll say "oh, fuck it" and leave 120 minutes early for no apparent reason. And I'm the only mf even mildly concerned the bus will leave me at a rest stop, which never, ever happens:

...whenever I ride from NYC to DC, as we get near the Baltimore Travel Plaza the driver will ask if we wanna push through, or take a break. You can guess what the vote is. So he’ll say “okay, be back on the bus in 30 minutes.” I’m fuming cause we’re only an hour away, but these jackasses wanna stop for half a fucking hour. And then you know me – I think I have to be an Olympic sprinter, or I’ll be watching the bus pulling away. But I’m maybe starving, so I get off the bus, and it goes like this: SPRINT to Sbarro oh god, 3 people in line will take forever no time SPRINT to KFC fucking hell no time no time SPRINT to the vending machine and in a total panic buy purchase some Combos, of which I’m better off chewing on the back of the bus seat in front of me, SPRINT back to the bus and quickly find my seat, throw myself down in drenched in sweat and check the time and we only have…28 minutes left. Jesus Christ. But of course 30 minutes isn’t enough for these people, and it’s apparently against the laws of mechanical engineering for this bus to start moving again unless we’ve spent an extra 15 minutes waiting for people to wander back onto the bus, in absolutely no hurry at all. I’m clutching my fucking bag of Combos, keeping them in my jacket pocket so it doesn’t take up any space on the bus, and these people come back on the bus with three course meals fucking spread out.

And I assume if I show up at Mass later than twenty minutes early, God himself will smite me while the priest stands there shaking his head "is this motherfucker kidding me with this shit?"

I spent the entire 15-minute walk/sprint from my building to the Church in a panic that I'd be late; of course I got there 20 minutes early.  There were maybe 6 other people there, and the choir was practicing.  Not only did half of the congregation roll in with about a minute to spare, but the other half wandered in immediately AFTER the priest!!! Wtf?  I understand shit happens and you get caught scrambling in late, apologizing profusely - but these people obviously were standing around outside doing whatthefuckever until they saw the priest start the service and then decided "okay, now's a good time to grace everyone with our presence." And that was HALF the fucking people!  For fuck's sake, there's should be a lion at the door once the priest passes through i - if you still wanna try to enter you're welcome to try; otherwise, get your sorry, sweatpants-covered ass (JUICY, indeed) in a pew before Father Mike lights this fucking candle. Pitiful.

The point is, I can't remember what the fuck my point was. Hey, I'm in Virginia now.  We go at a slower pace.

Big Bear & Husky Shoutout to Xmastime, VA

"We'll do his patented #1 finger, but only if we can be picking boogers too."

Oddly Telling

I'm not doing my patented #1 finger. WTF?

Dear Brooklyn

Goodbye.