It’s amazing how unexpected things can trigger childhood memories. Earlier today, I read in the New York Times that Bobby Thomson, who hit the world famous Shot Heard ‘Round the World in 1951 while playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers, passed away last week. Now, I know what you’re thinking. Why are you writing about sports? You don’t like sports. You don’t play sports. The sight of a sporting event on television fills you with a feeling of uncontrollable dread and terror mixed with boredom.Well, no. You’re getting that mixed up with my reaction to Justin Timberlake’s music. You may not know this, and you will be fascinated to learn it, but as a boy I was really interested in baseball. This has long since faded and the most interesting part of going to a baseball game now for me is seeing what kinds of new junk food have been dreamed up for people to gorge on while at the stadium. Last time I went to a Mets game, I had this weird ice cream thing that looked like dirt. And it came in a very small container. And it had some bad punny name like Bitz or Dotz or You Just Wasted a Lot of Money on This Garbage. I also had a pulled-pork sandwich at the Blue Smoke stand, which I suppose is healthier than a hot dog, but if you’re going to serve gourmet food at a baseball game, why not have something more interesting, like a spinach omelet or toast? Also, there is nowhere to buy gum at baseball games. This is annoying. But it’s amazing to me that, like almost everything else in America, baseball has become so corporate. This is not really news, but I’ve always had a hard time accepting it. I’ve always thought that was football’s realm. Baseball was to football like the old musty boutique in your hometown where your grandmother went to buy slacks was to K-Mart. Whereas people once rooted for the Brooklyn Dodgers or the New York Giants or the New York Yankees and heralded amazing feats of athletic achievement and mused over baseball’s ability to transcend racial and economic boundaries, now they just go to eat overpriced ice cream out of a little tub and have a pork sandwich. *********** In this week’s installment of the podcast, we discuss massages. You can listen here and at SelfAbsorbed.me, and subscribe in iTunes. As always, we appreciate your support. Please tell friends, family and coworkers about the show and urge them to listen.
Goldy reads a piece of mail from a long-time listener, and Mark reveals that he’s quit smoking. You can listen here and on SelfAbsorbed.me, and stream the show in iTunes.
As we approach the midway point of summer, please keep in mind one very important thing: nothing works in New York City, and so you will spend your time sweating for no good reason. Need to get somewhere in Brooklyn? Sorry, but the G train will not be running during any weekends until the fall. Why? The MTA claims it’s for improvements, but the service only seems to get worse and the stations themselves look like set pieces from the Road. Would you like an MTA employee to help you figure out how to get around? He’d be happy to give you incorrect information as quickly as he possibly can, so he can go back to chatting with the other MTA employee with the bright orange vest who doesn’t seem to do anything but stand near the turnstiles listening to music. This actually happened to me this past Friday night. A friend of mine who lives in Queens and I went down into the Bergen Street subway station, and asked the MTA worker in the booth if the G train was running. He was chatting with some dude in a bright orange vest. The token booth worker said the G train was, in fact, running, then turned back to continue chatting. What he neglected to tell us was that it was only running for a few more stations. Then we were going to have to take the shuttle bus the rest of the way. On the bright side, if there’s ever a nuclear apocalypse like in the Road, humanity will probably survive. Along with cockroaches, the employees of the MTA will mostly likely continue to live on. *********** In this week’s episode of the podcast we discuss our favorite Jewish delis in the city. Yum! You can stream the show here and at SelfAbsorbed.me, and subscribe in iTunes. As always, please spread the word and tell your friends. And if you could write us a review and rate us in iTunes, we’d be very grateful. See you on the shuttle bus.
If I have a flaw of any kind, it's that I'm far too modest for somebody as great as I am. It's really a serious problem. And since it seems selfish not to share that wonderfulness as much as is humanly possible, I'm forever trying to surround other people with my glorious presence so that they can learn from me. So that I can help others help themselves. This is not always so easy. One thing I was told when I first moved to New York is that I'd never be lonely. Friends from other parts of the world would always stay in touch, because everybody comes to New York and everybody always wants a free place to stay when they're here. Fair enough. I have no problem with that. I'm very social, and since I'm likeable and ridiculously charming I have a ton of friends. But lately, I've been wondering if I have some sort of invisible version of a Kick Me sign on my back. Or one that says ignore me. Case in point: this past Tuesday, I was supposed to have dinner with a friend of mine. A few days before, I hit her up on Gchat to ask if we were still on. No response. The day before, I did the same. Nothing. So, I made other plans. Then, on Tuesday night, her Facebook status said she was hanging out in Hoboken. I'm OK with not having met, because I'm not sure I have anything to say to anybody who would willingly go to Hoboken. But still. Whatever happened to manners? Then, this past weekend, I was trying to meet up with some old friends, one of whom I haven't seen in over a decade. Unfortunately, they decided to get together at 11:00 p.m. on Friday. And since I'm no longer in high school, this was a little late for me. Though I was willing to try to stick it out. So, I made plans with one of the people involved. We would have dinner, then head down to the bar. But this person backed out, saying she was too tired. Not wanting to aimlessly wander in Manhattan for five hours, I went home. I knew if I returned to Brooklyn, there was no way I was heading back into Manhattan. So I just called it an early night. Then the next day, photos of the bar crawl appeared on Facebook. It looked like everyone had a great time. Including my friend who'd said she wasn't going, and had canceled dinner. And I never got to see my friend who I hadn't hung out with in a decade because, even though we had plans to meet for lunch on Saturday, he just simply never responded to my text message trying to figure out where to meet. The only real moral of the story here is that I feel sorry for people who don't get to hang out with me. But you can't make other folks' decisions for them. *********** In this week's episode of the podcast, two important subjects are discussed: the glories of Brooklyn during the summer, and the beauty of New York's female population. You can stream the show here or on SelfAbsorbed.me, and subscribe in iTunes. As always, please help to spread the word by telling a few friends about the show. And it'd be great if you could write a review and rate us in iTunes. Otherwise, the women of New York will be enraged and wonder why you couldn't be bothered to help promote an installment devoted to them. And since there are approximately 4 million females living in New York, that's a lot of enemies to make when you don't have to. Happy listening.
If you live in New York, you're aware of how hot it was yesterday. It felt like the middle of August, when you take a shower and immediately start sweating again before you can towel off and get dressed. When I started to grouse about this to an older gentleman with whom I was carrying on a conversation, he was kind of dismissive about it. That's one of the problems with talking to old people. You can never impress them. Whatever you say, they've got a story that can beat it. This brings up a slightly larger point. I hate it when you tell somebody about something that happened to you, then that person spins a yarn that tops your tale to such a large degree that you either don't believe it or you just wish they'd shut up and let you finish whatever it is you're saying without interrupting. Because it's so self-centered and rude of people to make every conversation take a left turn so that it's about them. When it so obviously should be about me. You saw a burning truck on the side of the road, and braved the flames to rescue the driver? Your grandfather probably had the same thing happen, but he put the fire out just by staring at it with such intensity that the flames got scared. You once won $10,000 in Las Vegas? That's nothing. Your boss once won $1 million, and the casino gave him an extra $2 million just because he was such a hard-ass. And charming. The other day, I was mulling over how fortunate I am to have dated such beautiful, interesting women over the course of my life. But then I listened to the episode of Marc Maron's WTF podcast wherein he interviews Margaret Cho, and she talked about the orgies she had with porn stars. Then I just had to call my therapist, to get all kinds of straightened out. But as for the heat, I was talking to somebody who's much older than I am and he was unimpressed by our little 89 degree heatwave. He could not only recall blistering, drought-inducing heat in December, but also snow in July. And gale-force hurricanes in August. This annoyed me so much that I kicked his cane out from under him, and grabbed his wallet while he was doubled over in pain on the sidewalk. Then I went and got myself a peach-strawberry smoothie as he writhed in agony. That'll teach him to talk to strangers. *********** In this week's episode of the podcast, Goldy tells a story that can't be topped. It involves bee stings and penises, and I don't want to give away much more than that. You can stream the show at SelfAbsorbed.me and subscribe in iTunes. As always, please tell friends and help to spread the word. And if you write a review and rate us, we will give you a personal shout-out on the podcast. Seriously. No fooling. Thanks.
People are forever asking me what my favorite podcasts are. They'll say to me, "ever since I discovered the world of podcasts, I've been able to listen to shows like Melvyn Bragg's In Our Time, and learn about historical things like the life of Edvard Munch; Radiolab, where I can explore science in a new, fascinating way and discover things I never knew existed; and the Tobolowsky Files, where I can hear character actor Stephen Tobolowsky discuss life in the entertainment industry. What would you recommend?" But I am usually too busy looking at pictures of Lindsay Lohan falling down drunk to give it much thought, and so I just reply, "Mine." This week, we discuss the pressures of being a New Yorker in terms of staying fit and going to the gym. We also read more hate mail. For some strange, perverse reason, we really enjoy hate mail. You can listen on SelfAbsorbed.me and subscribe in iTunes. Please write a review and rate us in iTunes and, as always, help to spread the word. I would tell you how much I appreciate your support, but I just found a website with pictures of celebrities without makeup on and it's oddly fascinating. So maybe next week.
The second installment of our What is a New Yorker? series has just been posted on SelfAbsorbed and on this website. You can also subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. In this latest version, we're joined by our special guest E. as we discuss topics like the major time suck and retard factory that is Duane Reade, and the tiny size of many New York City apartments. I did my own bit of apartment improvement this past weekend. I built a bookcase that I had purchased at IKEA. And I didn't even mess it up. Although I did have to start from the beginning again after I was about halfway done, because the shelves were facing the wrong way and the unpainted particle board was pointing outwards. But I finished. Except for the last step, which involved nailing the bookcase to the wall. It just seemed a little superfluous. In the case of an earthquake or a tsunami, I'm willing to let my collection of Weird New Jersey books fall to the floor as I rush to safety. And yes, I really do have more than volume of Weird New Jersey. You should check them out. They're spooky and interesting. But the thing is, when I had finally finished assembling the bookcase, I expected it to collapse. And it didn't. That was encouraging. So I put a book on it. And it still didn't fall down. Tomorrow, I may put another book on it. But only if I'm feeling adventurous.
|
RSS Feed