Mark L. Feinsod

I hope you had a lovely 4th of July weekend.  Mine was really very nice, but of course it brings up one of the frightening truths about summer: you are wasting your life.  If you are not at the beach every second, if you are not traveling constantly to exotic locations like St. Tropez or the Hamptons, if you are not taking three day weekends every single weekend in July and August, then you are not taking full advantage of the summer.

Every moment spent in your tiny little cubicle looking forward to sneaking out to Starbucks in half-an-hour is a lost opportunity.  And your misery is directly inversely proportional to how much fun everybody else you know is having.

That said, ultimately I’m a person of simple pleasures.  Give me an air-conditioned apartment and a marathon of Half Pint Brawlers on Spike, and I’m a happy man.

And my favorite part of the holiday weekend was my little trip to Henry Public, a Brooklyn Heights bar famous for its turkey leg sandwiches.  These creations are delightful.  They’re comprised of turkey mixed with some kind of gravy, topped with crispy onions between two slices of thick Pullman bread.  My friend and I sat for two hours, eating and drinking as the pretty waitresses constantly refilled our water glasses because we were obviously dehydrated from having been outside.

Because I’m totally OK with wasting my life, as long as there are turkey sandwiches involved.

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In this week’s episode of the podcast, we talk about the difficulties involved in going up to strange women to try to talk them.  I’m not sure if listening will improve your game, but it’ll certainly give you a chuckle.

You can listen at here and at SelfAbsorbed.me, and subscribe in iTunes.

As always, please help to spread the word.  The number of subscribers we have is growing at an alarming rate, like herpes in a frat house.  And since we do this podcast simply because we enjoy doing it, your support means a lot to us.  It’s like Valtrex for the soul.

Stay cool out there today, folks.

Just a little while ago, I had my first profound thought in probably a decade or so.  It was really important and probably would’ve changed the course of history as we know it, but the person I was with offered me the last slice of bacon from her plate and I got sidetracked.  Though I did remember it a few minutes ago.

But let me back up.  Unless you were locked in a basement as the prisoner of a sadistic, wealthy Swedish industrialist, you know that the big piece of news this past weekend was that Tony Heward, the CEO of BP who looks like the bass player in a British prog rock band circa 1983, took his multi-million dollar yacht to a race on the Isle of Wight.  It was easy to picture Tony Heyward sipping Campari as he sat on deck, the wind whipping his overly-moussed, blow dried hair as two nubile young women pretended they weren't grossed out by his nose hair and tried to suppress the urge to vomit at the thought of having to sleep with him later on.

People were outraged.  And understandably so.  But as I've written before, what always amazes me is when people are surprised.  And this goes back to my profound thought that was interrupted by breakfast meat.  People's politics here in the U.S. can basically be divided into two camps: those who favor the free market, and those who think it needs to be watched.  We recoil at the thought of fascism or socialism.  We're America!  Work hard, get rewarded, have nubile young girlfriends!

I'm convinced, however, that every single economic system just eventually devolves into feudalism.  Doesn't matter what it is.  Capitalism, socialism, hunter/gatherer societies.  Every society becomes very rich people and very poor people.  And that's kind of where we're at now.  Rich people destroy the economy, and nothing happens.  They make money off of healthcare, and nothing happens.  They drill holes and turn the ocean into the aquatic equivalent of the borough of Queens, and nothing happens.

But I have the solution.  Rather than just be bitter and start watching Bill O'Reilly so that I can witness somebody giving voice to my impotent rage, I've worked out the answer.

We need Bono.

Put him in charge of cleaning up the oil spill.  He can fix anything.  In fact, we should temporarily change the law that says people need to be born on American soil in order to become President just so Bono can serve two terms.  Our coastlines will become pristine.  Our economy will become an engine of efficiency.  We’ll find Osama bin Laden and put him in a cage somewhere.  Everything will be great.

Bono’s already saved Africa and made the Joshua Tree.  He’s like the Chuck Norris of international events.

Maybe he can even do something about that goal the U.S. soccer team got robbed of this past Friday.

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This week on the podcast, we answer a piece of listener mail that asks whether or not we’re any good at picking up women.  The short answer would've been no, but we do manage to drag it out for about twenty minutes.  Have a listen for yourself here and at SelfAbsorbed.me, and subscribe in iTunes.

As always, please spread the word and tell your friends and co-workers.  And write a review and rate us in iTunes.

Bono would want you to.

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.

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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.