Category Archives: Items of note

Apropos of almost nothing

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I am a creature of habit. Every day I leave my house at 8:04 a.m., walk to the deli, get a cup of tea and the Daily News, and proceed to the train station. The train comes at 8:16. I find a seat, read the paper, drink my tea, and try to map out my first couple of posts for this site.

For some reason today the train was more crowded than usual. I had to sit in one of the so-called stare seats, meaning I left myself open to sitting not only directly next to another passenger but also across from one. Two stops after mine, a couple of women about 50, wearing black pantsuits and sneakers, carrying alligator-leather handbags oversized near the point of absurdity, got on and sat down.

One sat in the seat across from me and one in the seat next to me, making it impossible for me to avoid their conversation or concentrate on anything else — namely thinking about what to write for this site.

These are some of the topics they discussed:

– Their mutual friend Connie, who has a great body for a woman her age because she is extremely wealthy and has the time and resources to work out constantly, and how, despite her flat stomach and toned arms, her face is irrevocably busted — the type of thing no personal trainer can ever repair.

– The son of the woman sitting next to me, a 25-year-old loser who still lives at home and will never find a woman to marry him.

– How every husband cheats on his wife.

– The price of handbags at Nieman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue.

– The ex-husband of the woman sitting across from me, who is remiss in paying some of the expenses of their children, in part because of the medical expenses he is accruing due to a brain tumor.

– The price of cocktail and formal dresses.

– How they hoped to be retired by now, and how the market picked an inconvenient time to tank.

– The price of apartments in Trump Tower White Plains, which don’t even come with a deck.

– The price of an apartment for the loser son, and whether that would cast him out of or deeper into loserdom.

There was more but I think I blocked it. Yes, I’m a judgmental jerk. And maybe I’ve had a dozen audible chats that have made me sound far worse. But if it weren’t for a few kind words about the smart daughter of the woman sitting across from me, this might have been the worst conversation of all time. Mostly because it distracted me. Should’ve put my headphones in and bagged the whole thinking plan, I guess.

The TMNT pizza challenge

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For some reason, possibly drugs, a group of humans decided to try all the weird pizzas Michelangelo ordered on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoons. Slightly related anecdote: My college roommate worked in a pizzeria that used one-letter codes for toppings, so the person would write down the letter corresponding to each topping then hand the slip to the person making pizzas. P was pepperoni, M was mushrooms, E was meatballs, N was pineapples, etc. He worked there so he knew the code. We used to prank the place by ordering pizzas that spelled funny things. But usually I’d start giggling or the woman would be like “wait a minute, who is this?” when she looked down at the slip and saw the beginning of something obscene.

Literally HUNDREDS of Nassau County bigwigs to end months of “intense media speculation”

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Nassau County Executive Edward P. Mangano will be joined by hundreds of local business, community and labor leaders on Wednesday, May 11, 2011 at 11:00 a.m. in announcing a major Economic Development and Job Creation Plan to build a world-class sports-entertainment destination center. After months of intense media speculation, the County Executive will also announce plans to pursue the construction of an Indian gaming casino.

– Nassau County Executive Edward P. Mangano, press release.

Well there’s just a ton here.

First off, it’s worth noting that Nassau County executives absolutely love pomp, circumstance and press releases. When I was in high school I won some stupid award for something stupid, and I swear we got a press release announcing that some county politician was coming to present the award, then afterward a second press release announcing that he came and presented the award, then later a signed 8×10″ black-and-white photo of me with the dude. It’s somewhere in my parents’ attic now, unless they threw in out in one of their biannual stuff-no-one-needs purges. For all I know it could have been Edward Mangano.

Anyway, I hope this guy Mangano is actually “joined by hundreds of local business, community and sportsbet leaders” to announce whatever plans are so important that they merit capitalization. That’d be something to see: some 200 suits  set up behind podiums while two reporters from Newsday and some guy representing all the Herald papers sit in an otherwise empty conference room, anxiously biting their nails and tapping pencils on notebooks, desperate to learn whatever it is that the county is doing to quiet all the speculating they’ve been doing.

It should be noted that I got this release through the New York Islanders, which really calls into question the use of the phrase “world-class.” The Islanders, you may know, have finished dead last in their division for four seasons running and shut out a member of the Professional Hockey Writers of America (and the SNY.tv blog network, to boot) from covering their team for entirely nebulous reasons.

But I suppose it is possible that the new “sports-entertainment destination center” planned for Nassau County will be world-class even if the team playing inside it is not, and at least there will also be a nearby Indian casino for betting against the Islanders.

Twitter Q&A-type thing

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Well technically I said “everything hurts” and not “Everybody Hurts,” but I’ll confess I sort of have a soft spot for R.E.M.

I guess really there’s no spot anyone has for R.E.M. that’s not soft, is the thing. What I’m saying is I don’t hate them as much as some of my contemporaries do, mostly because I think the song “Stand” is hilarious and it makes me happy every time I hear it. That’s at least partly because it was the theme song for the amazing Chris Elliot show Get A Life, but also because I love singing along with the “NOW FACE NORTH!” background vocal parts.

And furthermore, “Everybody Hurts” would make for hilarious closer music. I’ve been through that before though.

Oh man, that’s such a good question, and one for which the answer would inevitably change every time I attempted it. Thing is, in an actual desert-island scenario I’d probably try to go with a good mix of genres so I had something for every possible mood. But let me start with the obvious ones and see where it goes.

First, Dark Side. Maybe that’s a cliched choice or whatever, but there’s just no way I could imagine life without having access to the last five-song sequence there, which might be the pinnacle of human achievement. And it sucks that it’s such a short album because if I can only choose five I feel like I’m giving up some music then, but you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. I like to think of what it must have looked like when Pink Floyd first sat down and listened to that album all the way through, with the ridiculously triumphant ending and everything. “OK, yeah, I think we’re good bro.”

Second, James Brown’s Love Power Peace live album. There are going to be some funky times on this island, and I can think of no one better to provide the soundtrack than the Godfather of Soul, Mr. Please Please himself. I like James Brown’s live stuff better than his studio recordings, and this incarnation of the JBs features Bootsy and Catfish Collins and funk trombone hero Fred Wesley. No Maceo, sadly.

OK now it gets really hard. No way I can get by without something from the Beatles, though, which means I’ll take Abbey Road.

Man, that gives me nothing after 1973, and, truth be told, none of the albums I actually listen to most on the day-to-day. I’m panicking now. I gotta choose between Dr. Dre and the Wu-Tang Clan? I guess I’ll go with Enter the Wu-Tang because East Coast and everything. After that… I don’t know.

My 7th grade self would be disappointed in me if it wasn’t Nevermind, my 10th grade self would be disappointed if it wasn’t Punk in Drublic, my 12th grade self would be disappointed if it wasn’t Odelay, and various incarnations of me would want the eponymous Rage Against the Machine album. Punk in Drublic, though, contains “Jeff Wears Birkenstocks,” which is one of the few songs absolutely guaranteed to make me happy, so that might give it an edge. But a bunch of CAKE albums need to be considered too.

How about a little optimism? I’ll go with yes. Is that Mets-fan Polyannaism? Maybe. But as I’ve written countless times, Sandy Alderson should be able to see the value in Reyes, since Reyes is an elite 28-year-old shortstop. I think the whole not-a-Moneyball-player talk is overblown by people who either didn’t read or didn’t really understand the point of Moneyball.

The Mets have a ton of money coming off the books and, as a big market baseball franchise with a television network, have a steady stream of money coming in. They should have no problem finding the money to re-sign Reyes, especially if they can find a part-owner to increase their financial flexibility. The decision should come down not to if they can but if they should, and given how infrequently players like Reyes become free agents and how slim the pickings at shortstop will be otherwise, it seems like re-signing him will be a smart move.

Hu has been brutal, and since Justin Turner can back up shortstop in a pinch it doesn’t seem like there’s much need for him on the team.

But are people really down on Lucas Duda already? And look: I know I can’t go killing Hu because of 18 at-bats then screaming about small sample size with Duda, but there’s actually evidence that Duda can hit — which doesn’t exist with Hu. Duda has suffered from a brutal .205 batting average on balls in play in the Majors (compare to a career Minor League rate well over .300). Even before his power explosion in 2010, Duda got on base at every level in the Minors. He should eventually do so in the Majors too. He just needs more than 115 plate appearances to prove that.

Lede of the year?

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A West Virginia man claims he was high on “bath salts” when he allegedly stabbed a neighbor’s goat to death while wearing women’s underwear.

– Michael Sheridan, N.Y. Daily News.

Man… sucks most for the goat, of course. Sucks second most for the 4-year-old who owned the goat as a pet (follow-up: People have pet goats?). Sucks third most for the West Virginia goat-murderer, who probably has some pretty serious issues if he’s getting high on bath salts and murdering goats while wearing women’s underwear.

Reminder: Me doing stuff

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Just a friendly reminder that I’ll be co-hosting a live streaming web show from the Citi Field McFadden’s with Matt Cerrone this afternoon at 5 p.m. If all goes according to plan, John Franco and WFAN’s Ed Coleman will join us. I’ll be the ridiculously handsome guy.

I’ll have a link for you here closer to the time, or you can access the stream from SNY.tv.

Don’t cross the streams… It would be bad.

Twitter Q&A-ish thing, part 2

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Here’s a fun fact (that @MLBoorstein already knows I think, but for anyone else who might care about my reading habits): I don’t really read much non-fiction. I like it fine; learning is great and everything. But I do most of my reading immediately before bed, and for some reason when I read non-fiction I don’t sleep well. What’s that about? I guess fiction helps me transition into sleep by distracting me from reality, escapism or whatever. Something like that.

Anyway, I’ve read a lot of vaguely disappointing novels lately. But I enjoyed Joshua Ferris’ The Unnamed and Colum McCann’s Let the Great World Spin.

My opinion on donuts is that they’re amazing. Sad story: When I was leaving Miami, on my way to the airport around 6 a.m., I stopped in a Starbucks to get coffee and a donut. And the donut sucked. It’s hard to put my finger on why exactly, but the cake part was too sweet and the glaze was too thick and the whole thing got me feeling sick, to the point where I actually had to stop eating the donut — something I’m not certain I’ve ever done before. Then, about a mile further down the road, I passed a brightly lit standalone Krispy Kreme with the hot doughnuts light flashing. I had a plane to catch so I couldn’t stop, plus I wasn’t in the mood for doughnuts after that terrible donut. But man, what misfortune.

Krispy Kreme doughnuts are incredible, but if we’re using the broadest possible definition of the pastry I’d say my favorites are the beignets from Cafe Du Monde in New Orleans. As for New York City, I really like the Donut Pub (together at last!) on 14th and 7th, and I’ve still yet to try the famous Doughnut Plant on the Lower East Side that everyone raves about. Hard to get down there in the morning hours.

Well if it’s a sandwich it’s Ricobene’s breaded steak, no doubt. But truthfully — and I think I may have answered a similar question before — if I had to choose a last meal it’d probably be my mom’s ravioli with meat sauce. It’s really, really good.