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I Hope You Choke on Your Madeleine

2006-10-03T18:42:00.000-04:00

I don't know if you buy books, but I used to. Now that I have a library card, I rent books.

Or I would rent books if any of the books I'd want to rent were in stock. They are often not in stock. There is no guarantee at the library like there is at Blockbuster.

It doesn't matter, anyway. Nowadays, all the new books by my supposed favorite authors are the same!

The same!

I use exclamation points sparingly, so when I mean they're all the same, they're really all the same!

Memoirs!

How I dread when my favorite novel writer eschews making up stuff to pen a book about himself. How self serving. How unprofessional. How blogger-esque!

That is not a winning plan!

I blame it all on Dave Eggers.

(Side note: At Wash U, Eggers handed out five-dollar bills to everyone who came to see his talk...but me. I am still bitter about that. It's not the money; it's the principal. I passed instead of pocketed, like Milton in "Office Space" during Lumberg's birthday party. I had to flex my combo sub that day. [Footnote to the side note: That last sentence was hilarious if you went to Wash U between 2000 and 2004.] So there is pent up frustration with Eggers. That, and after writing some decent books, we became a magazine editor. Lame.)

Eggers wrote a book about himself that was somewhat funny and sad but, like the New York Yankees or the Spanish Armada, did not live up to its billing. It wasn't really as good as everyone said it was.

Of the current New York Times best sellers, so many of them are memoirs. Alan Alda, Jerome Bettis, Princess Diana's butler, Josh Grogan (Marley & Me), Nora Ephron, Lou Holtz and Jeannette Walls (The Glass Castle) all have tell-alls on the list.

What 20-something gives a rat’s ass (that’s the technical term for a “flying f*$@”) about a washed up actor stuffing his pet? He should have retired after M*A*S*H and live off royalties. And then he’s an Emmy-nominated actor on the West Wing?! Let someone else take the stage/write a book.

In other words, Alan Alda’s 15 minutes are up.

Of course there were memoirs before Dave Eggers. But no one my age read them before him. All of the above-mentioned people are 15 to 50 years older than me, and they've done a lot more in their lifetimes.

Eggers didn't do anything. Things just happened to him. He wrote a book about them. He got published. Then he becomes editor of fiction anthologies. (That last one is the kicker. And by "kicker," I mean its traditional definition. Not the "I need to show a cute animal in the last 30 seconds of my newcast" kicker. That's called a "kicker," too.)

Of course, they're making movies out of all these memoirs. "Running with Scissors" is out soon, based on the book with the same name. It's about a crazy psychiatrist taking care of someone else's kids.

When I bought the book, I thought it would be about, wait for it, "running with scissors." A "things-I-learned-growing up" book. With a sharp pair of shears playing a big role. (Note: I have not finished the book and have no plan to see the movie, so this panning of the book is based on having read only 1/5 of it.) Anyway, no scissors. Just some loony psych guy.

I've already met a loony psych guy. He was my prof freshman year for social psych. He said Wash "warsh," so he was as St. Louisian as toasted ravioli. He was unkempt like the lead in "Running with Scissors." So that was enough for me.

Speaking of St. Lunatics, Jonathan Franzen came out with a memoir. He wrote The Corrections and The Twenty-Seventh City. Those are two of my favorite novels. I was waiting years for his new book. And it's a memoir.

He’s not that old. He should be writing novels, but he chose to write a memoir.

I hope he chokes on his madeleine.

(If you don't get that, see "Little Miss Sunshine." If you still don't get it, look up Marcel Proust.)

You'll get it then. Just like Franzen should get it.

Whoops...

2006-09-19T00:41:00.000-04:00

I've always thought I was good at math. So either for that reason, or because I had a P.E. teacher who liked to delegate, I was in charge of calculating a mile for the annual mile run at my elementary school.

Why?

The Presidential Challenge, that’s why!

You remember those tests.

Pull-ups, sit-ups, the mile run, the shuttle run, and the sit-and-reach. You reach one plateau, that's Presidential; a lesser plateau, that's National. You miss both plateaus, you appear on Dateline NBC as the "anonymous stomach" in the story on trans fat or the next diet craze from Dr. Atkins or his (living) surrogate.

I have six National patches in my house somewhere. Why? Because I couldn't reach my arms past my toes. This is not something that should haunt me, right?

But it does. Or it did, once, for a minute or two.

When? When during the only time in your life I had a one-on-one session with a personal trainer, I was told, "Gabe, you are the least flexible 23-year-old I have ever met!"

That was odd because, one, how many 23-year-olds does this 35-year-old personal trainer know? Is he the one taking out the girls my age? Or was he talking about the past? Didn’t people in the past have shorter legs, so that meant, they’d be better sit-and-reachers?

Back to the mile run in fifth grade.

At my elementary school in Nashville, we had four orange cones and the use of one huge park. I had to figure out how far apart to put the cones so that if we ran around them four times, we'd make a mile.

I added, multiplied and divided, and came up with answer.

Then I finished the course in 5 minutes and 49 seconds.

Whoops.

A 5:49 mile meant two things. Either I was the fastest fifth-grader in the state, or I made a math error.

I pushed my glasses up closer to my face, and thought: the latter.

But that meant 50 uncoordinated Jewish kids had to run around cones in the park...again. I was not so popular that day.

In my defense, my P.E. teacher’s method of cone-placement was based on the fact that she could stride exactly a yard 110 times in a row to place one cone, and then based on that cone, she’d figure out where to put the others.

Though I've come close, I have never to this day run a real mile in 5 minutes and 49 seconds.

(This blog is for Merav. What bettern day to give someone a shout out than his or her birthday. Happy 22, kid. I miss the way you like I miss Pedro Martinez. If you had baseball in your country, you'd understand just how much that is.)

Back to Country Living

2006-09-10T10:01:00.000-04:00

It's the first new post in five months.

Since I last posted, I've done a lot.

But now that I'm back in the South, let's burn some bridges.

I have a real problem with rednecks. Though they're all white, you could say I'm racist against them. (You could say that, but don't.)

I don't like their accents, their tattoos, their smoking habits.

They're not a difficult bunch to figure out. But sometimes, they'll surprise you.

I've gotten a lot of calls at work from rednecks. The calls weren't for me in particular; I just sit close enough to the assignment desk that I end up answering a lot of phone calls. (But I don't get coffee!)

Anyway, during the primaries last week, I got a barrage of calls from the Southern Man who was mad we cut in to a new episode of Leno to bring him coverage of a concession speech.

Fine.

Then later that week, another bunch of calls because we interrupted afternoon soaps to talk about a tornado warning that the National Weather Service had put up.

Okay.

On Thursday night I once again got calls from people with accents so thick they made me wish I was back to talking to those girls in India who give me my bank info (which, by the way, is ridiculous considering my bank is across the street and not, say, in New Delhi). This time, these hicks were really pissed.

Why? Because the Jeopardy Tournament of Champions had been preempted for a special on the upcoming NFL season.

That completely threw me off. Don't the Southern folk like the physical pursuits more than the cerebral? Wouldn't you think Alex Trebek and his three know-it-all contestants would make the average Southern Man want to (ran)sack the whole Jeopardy studio?

And this wasn't Jeopardy Teen Tournament or even the college version where they dumb it down. This was the real deal--the hardest match played all year.

What did I do? I gave the callers a treatise on the importance of this season for the Jaguars, and for football in general, while I downplayed the game show. If they were such Jeopardy fans, they would have watched the tournament when it first aired, in the spring, and would know who won.

Maybe they did watch the shows back in the spring but forgot the outcome. If there's one thing I've learned while spending most of life in this part of the country, it's that Southerners have a horribly short-term memory. (Now, who won the Civil War again?)

So I tried to be polite as I told the callers to stay calm, as they just had to wait one more day to find out the results. The tournament would be back on Friday night. (I failed to add, "You can watch as you pack up your pickup for the next day's hunt." That would have been sweet.)

Maybe they were so antsy because they got a preview and knew one of the categories would be "Civil War Generals."

That would have generated loads of interest among Jeopardy-loving locals and football-loving yokels alike.

After all, it's still the South.

Four more years...

2006-04-19T20:53:00.000-04:00

A few days ago, Phil and Rachel (they go to school with me; sometimes we trade snack packs) put up a big two-digit number in the upper left-hand corner of dry erase board that covers a wall in our school's newsroom.

This wasn't any arbitrary two-digit number; it was the number of days until I graduate. I think we're down to 44. (By the time I post again, we'll likely be down to...two.)

There are things that are good about school--positive things that can't be reproduced later in life.

When I'm out of school, I'll make a list of things that I miss about school.

But for right now, here are the things I'm looking forward to when I leave:

1. Sleeping in a bed that's mine.
I have been subletting or living in something that resembles a dorm room since August 2000. That's a long time. I don't even have my own sheets anymore. Or pillows. It's not worth it.

2. Not feeling guilty when I don't have time in the morning to make lunch.
In college, lunch cost $5. Now it costs five real dollars. Or even more. If I make lunch, that's less money but more time. Maybe I should have paid more attention in micro so I could figure out what the opportunity cost of me making lunch vs. buying lunch is. Maybe not.

3. Stability.
I have moved everything I own something like 12 times in 23 months. That's a lot. After the next two, I'm done. For at least a year.

4. Ironing board.
People who move a lot don't own ironing boards. There's only so much ironing on the kitchen table using a towel that one can do. I've about reached my limit.

5. Routine.
I know that I chose to go to journalism grad school because every day is different from the next. And I haven't begun to regret that decision...yet. But routine can be nice. I don't get up at the same time, or come home at the same time, day to day. Don't see the same people. Don't go to the same bars.

6. A full set of pots and pans.
My one pot and two frying pans don't cut it. But then again I don't know how to make many things beyond stir fry and omelets. And shakshuka.

7. My friends to all be in one place.
That's never going to happen.

Ein li koach (part two)

2006-04-07T09:53:00.000-04:00

I wake up at 6:30 on Friday morning to pack. My flight is at 10:15. I plan to leave my apartment at 8:00, but take forever trying to cram all of stuff into bags that can’t really fit so much stuff. So when I get into a cab at 8:50, I need nothing short of a miracle—i.e., no traffic on the highways—to make my flight.

In less than half an hour, I can already see airplanes overhead—we’re at O’Hare in record time! I get out the sheet of paper Travelocity sent me telling me which airline I’m flying and almost pass out from stupidity: “MDW,” it says, not “ORD.” Which means this: I’m going to the wrong airport. I’m supposed to be flying out of Midway—not O’Hare—in less than an hour. The devil’s in the details, it seems.

So we turn around and head south to the other Chicago airport, you know, the one I should have been at from the start. I’m sweating the whole way there, but there’s nothing I can do. We’re not weaving in and out of cars fast enough. Then we’re stuck behind a row of trucks. Then we hit a toll. And another toll.

At some point I realize that I only have enough money in my wallet to pay for a cab ride to one airport, not two. So before we hit the pre-Midway traffic, we stop at a Citgo to hit up the ATM—while the meter’s running, of course.

I get back into the car, get out the sheet I printed from Travelocity to check the airline I’m flying (déjà vu is pretty sweet, huh?) and direct the cabdriver to the ATA curb. It’s 9:53.

The curb-side check-in guys tell me there’s no chance I’m going to make the flight. The guy at the ATA ticket counter inside (where I go after cutting the whole line, of course) says I have no chance of making the flight. I say I can run really fast. He says my bags are overweight. I knew this. But I didn’t have a choice. I left so much stuff in Chicago to begin with (like my guitar, over-the-shoulder bag [I look like a school kid with my backpack on the D.C. Metro these days] desk chair and lawn chair, to name a few), but I just had too much stuff. I figured I would finesse my way into not paying the fee.

Since there was no time for that, I smiled and gave the ticketing agent my credit card, muttering under my breath, “You’re the first person ever to charge me for overweight bags, and I have overweight bags all the time,” to which he replied, “Huh?”

(At some point during this transaction, the cab driver came running after me. Seems I had left my cell phone in the car. Why not?)

The ticketing agent says, fine, you may make it, but your bags won’t. I say, put them on the next flight, I’ll pick them up tomorrow, and then I make something up about how me catching this flight will determine the future course of human events.

He didn’t buy it, but he gave me the ticket anyway.

With my winter coat draped over my shoulder, my backpack—filled with all the odds and ends I couldn’t fit in my suitcases—on my back and my garment bag—with three suits and a dozen shirts and pants—in my arms, I began sprinting to the gate—the gate, B24, of course, being the furthest gate in the airport from the ticket counter.

I get to the security checkpoint, put my bags on the belt, unpack my laptop, and run through the metal detector. But the security lady wasn’t ready for me. (But I didn’t beep, for Christ’s sake!) So I have to take off my shoes and empty my pockets—full of everything that didn’t fit into either of my suitcases or my backpack. I go through the metal detector—again without beeping—and collect my things. Somehow a battery has ended up in my shoe, but there was no time to fish it out.

I am out of shape, so carrying a heavy backpack and a garment bag—which now had my laptop in it since I couldn’t re-cram it into the backpack—would be tough enough while walking. Carrying all that weight and running/trudging/galloping through the terminal at as close to a dead sprint as I could muster was nearly impossible. I careened down moving walkways, zigzagged in between parents with strollers and even almost knocked over a deaf woman who couldn’t hear my cries of “excuse me.”

I finally get to the gate, huffing and puffing. (The huffing was real; the puffing was for sympathy.) But the door to the skyway/jetway/plane sleeve is locked. So I start banging on it. It’s 10:03. I am not late. In fact, after all of that, I am more than 10 minutes early. A man who looks like a security guard comes over to me and wonders why I am banging on the door. Duh. I make an excuse that I had the flu (not the bird flu) earlier this morning and didn’t even think I’d make it to the airport, but here I was, and I wanted to board the plane.

I walked down the jetway, smiling and still huffing, at 10:07, and I landed in D.C. at 12:54—having a great story but really and truly, I just didn’t have the strength.

Ein li koach (I don't have the strength)

2006-04-05T15:51:00.000-04:00

There’s a Hebrew saying Israelis use in lieu of throwing their hands up in capitulation. Ein li koach means, literally, I don’t have the strength, but colloquially it means something closer to I can’t stand to live another second under these conditions.

Just like the way I fake translated the saying above, it’s often used in a very melodramatic way. If someone has a lot of things to do, and little time in which to do them, they may whine, ein li koach.

But it’s especially when Israelis don’t feel like doing those things will they break out the ein li koach. For school kids, it’s like a disease. Wonder why your ninth grader isn’t doing her English homework? Likely she’s got a case of ein li koach.

The problem I have with the phrase is that nine times out of 10 it’s excusable. It’s as if anyone afflicted with ein li koach can just kick back relax and let the energy they’ve “lost” flow back inside them.

I found that one actually excusable case of ein li koach last Thursday and Friday, as I was in the process of moving from Chicago to D.C.

It all began last Tuesday through Thursday when I was in St. Louis visiting old Wash U friends. Some were still students there, some graduated my year but had found themselves still in the Lou. Anyway, I had to return to Chicago Thursday morning because I was moving to Washington, D.C., Friday morning.

So the scene is set, and the drama begins.

I got to the St. Louis Metrolink station Thursday morning to take the St. Louis version of the “L” to the generically named Union Station. There I was scheduled to board an 8:30 Amtrak train back to Chicago. The (first) problem (of many to come) is that Metrolink doesn’t take $20 bills, and all I have is twenties. Awesome. So I have to find a convenient store in the neighborhood to break my $20. And my train leaves for Chicago in 20 minutes.

Eventually I make it to the Metrolink and get off at the station called “Union Station.” Logical? Yes. Did I have any idea where the Amtrak hut was in relation to the mega-mall that the 1920s era Union Station has become? No.

I see a sign marked “trains” with an arrow pointing to—guess what—actual trains! And I see a track in the distance. The “trains” I found, though, were better equipped to bring the boys to the (army) bases (circa WWII) and not to bring me to my home. These trains, these tracks had not been used in about 60 years. So I had little more than 60 seconds to find my train, or I was stuck in St. Louis for the day with only 25 hours until I needed to move myself across the country.

I did what has only been attempt once before in history by a guy in St. Louis—I asked for directions. (The last time that happened Lewis and Clark found Sacagawea, whatever the hell that is.) I ran through parking lots, federal office buildings and almost into a moving car but got to the station in time—8:29!—only to be told that the train was delayed an hour and a half. Four hours later, when I was still sitting at the Amtrak station and not looking forward to my six-hour train ride, I thought, man, I really don’t have the energy for this.

By the time I got home, I had enough time to eat, shower and do laundry—but not to pack—before my going-away party. So I left the packing for later. Shouldn’t be so hard, right? In future, the order should be pack then party, not party then pack. I’ve learned my lesson, or so I thought.

(to be continued...)

The District of Cool

2006-03-29T14:34:00.000-05:00

I've moved. I no longer live in the nicely-skylined city to the left.

I live in Washington, D.C., now. It took me a while to get here, and the story behind that is coming in the next post.

One of the first things you notice about D.C. vs. Chicago is that D.C. is really small. You could walk from one end of D.C. to the other in about 30 minutes--25 if you have really long legs, with "one end of D.C. to the other" meaning "one end of the northwestest quadrant to other, since you're likely never going to venture into the other quadrants."

The big word here is bureaucracy. Everyone here is a bureaucrat--even the homeless man who hands out newspapers to commuters in the morning. These freebie newspapers are published by another newspaper that itself is owned by another newspaper, which is owned by a big international media conglomerate. If this homeless man, who is working for someone who works for someone who works for someone else, isn't a bureaucrat, I don't know who is.

Capitol Hill is a special place. If you really like to hear yourself talk, or if you really like to wear a sweatshirt bearing the name of your hometown/state, it's probably the best place in the world to go. I've only been up there once, but watching the mix of big egos and big Midwesterners milling around the storied halls was nothing short of inspiring. I can't wait to go back.

D.C. is about to experience the blossoming of about 1,000,000 cherry trees, or so I'm told. I think it must be the biggest deal in the world because it's the only thing people are talking about. These trees don't even bear fruit. What's the point of a cherry tree if there are no delicious cherries to eat off it?

That sounds like a question that could only be answered by a bureacrat on Capitol Hill.

Northwestern State!?

2006-03-18T14:39:00.000-05:00

In terms of doing illegal things, I am not that accomplished. I may have rolled through a few stop signs and kicked a few dogs (that's got to be wrong, right?), but I'm a very amateur criminal.

Except when it comes to March Madness.

And though I pretty much expected my bracket to be busted at this point, though not by Bradley and George Mason (and almost by Albany), I entered two pools. Arrest me now.

People respond differently to March Madness. Some people ignore it. Some people pay attention only after Duke gets knocked out because everyone hates Duke. Some people base their schedules on when they can expect to see Live Look-ins (I love Like Look-ins!) and increas the frequency at which they say things like "awesome, baby" because that's all they've been hearing on ESPN (Dick Vitale doesn't work for CBS any more) for weeks.

And one of my sixth graders at Sunday School asked me if last Sunday should be a national holiday. "For what?" I asked. "For Selection Sunday," he replied.

Though I don't think my kids should have been exempt from attending to watch Clark Kellogg and Greg Gumbel debate whether Michigan and Cincinnati "should get a ticket to the Big Dance," I can understand the excitement surrounding the tournament.

And I can't understand how anyone was able to get any work done this past Thursday and Friday during the tournament's first round. Most people who work sit at computers. Computers have ESPN.com automatically updating scores. This makes for a tricky situation.

Personally, I didn't leave my couch for two days. No, wait, make it three.

I'm still sitting on my couch.

And if somehow, some way Connecticut can pull it together (while Duke, UNC, Texas and Tennessee lose soon), I may be able to finish in second or third place and get my money back...only to lose it all over again next year.

What the hell is dysentery*?

2006-03-18T14:14:00.000-05:00

Confused about its identity as a college and post-college site, Facebook has begun allowing high school kids to sign up. This is a bad move. Now it is lame, like MySpace.

For me, this means one thing: pretty soon, I will have more high school friends than college and post-college ones. I was a camp counselor for so many years (see previous post), and these kids are really good at finding me. They even IM me to encourage me to return to camp, which they think I will. But I won't.

Either way, I feel like I have the responsibility with all the new people on Facebook to lay out some ground rules as to what is okay and what is not in terms of the pictures you put in your Facebook profile. (Don't even think about not having a Facebook picture. That's worst of all.)

The following things are not cool:

1. Putting up a picture of yourself holding an alcoholic beverage
This is a dumb idea for many reasons. First, if you are under 21, you are just asking to get caught. Now I think it's obnoxious lame when school administrators browse Facebook to try to catch underage kids with drinks in their hands in order to reprimand them. But holding a bottle of who-knows-what clear liquid with lots of friends around is equally annoying. It's your profile. Not your drunk friends'.

2. Putting up a picture of yourself holding/being held by a significant other.
Way to learn some independence. You were you long before you met him/her and by putting him/her in your profile you're saying that you lost some of you by meeting him/her. That may have been too many pronouns in one sentence, but you get the idea.

3. Putting up a picture of something that is not yourself.
This is also lame. It's called Facebook not Fingerpaintingbyathreeyearoldbook or Celebritywhoisbetterlookingthanmebook. Just in case you were confused.

(At this point I've realized this blog isn't as funny as it was the first time I wrote it, the "first time I wrote it" being two weeks ago, but my computer crashed before I hit the "publish post" button. So do I abort or continue to an unsatisfactory ending? You be the judge...)

4. Joining a Facebook group
These groups try to bring together people from disperate backgrounds under a common heading but aren't really very interesting or useful or anything. The only acceptable group to join is the Oregon Trail group because it's hilarious. If I had a dollar for every time I said, "What do you mean I can only carry 99 pounds of meat back to the wagon," I would have at least eight or nine dollars, which back when I was playing the game regularly (say, 1993) would have almost been a lot of money, especially if I had invested it in Microsoft, in which case I'd be a hundred-aire.

Facebook is useful, however, to find out how that girl you dated five years ago looks. So it's not totally bad. Happy stalking!

*Dysentery is a disorder of the intestinal tract that gives you severe diarrhea and apparently happened a lot in the Western U.S. about 150 years ago, or whenever/wherever Oregon Trail was set.

To update from a previous post... Just in case you were wondering, it was Meredith who Ben asked to marry him. Sorry for the omission. Meredith and I are good friends, went to the same school (at different times) and illegally ran onto the Clemson football field (or tip-toed, more likely, but "running on" makes for a better story). Thanks to her, I take the "L" (not the "El") and "champ at the bit" (not "chomp"). She is obviously really good at grammar. And I value that in friendship. Nice job, Ben, with the engagement.

I give in...

2006-02-22T20:14:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago, I got drinks with a girl I have known since 1993. She had just gotten engaged, and I wanted to do something nice for her. In my book, getting margaritas equals "nice."

This girl is a camp friend. I hadn't hung out with her in about eight years, but it didn't really matter. When we met up we talked like the last time we had seen each was more recent than 1998.

That's the great thing about camp friends--they're easy to catch up with. Two months a year at the same camp for six years ends up feeling like way more than just one year of your life. Those who have gone to camp know those few months a year are more intense than the other 10. More happens, you learn more and years later you remember more from them.

So that got me thinking. It's February. It's cold. It's still dark when I wake up. I have too much work. So I miss camp.

There, I said it.

Growing up, my camp friends and I didn't have IM or My Space to communicate multiple times a day. We wrote letters to each other instead. Sometimes we made phone calls. We attended each other's bar/bat mitzvahs in places as remote as Hyde Park, Cincinnati and Nashville.

Now all these years later, and with IM, Facebook and Friendster at my disposal, nary a day goes by that I don't "talk" with at least one of my camp friends. Or that at least one of them gets engaged. (Congrats, Ben!)

You know the "Everything I Needed to Know in Life I Learned in Kindergarten" poster? That's bull. I learned everything I needed to know in life at camp. I learned how to plan a program for dozens of people in little or no time with few materials. I learned how to relax. How to deal with overseers and peers with whom I don't see eye to eye. How to sing and act. How to run a radio station. How to build a bonfire.

Not to mention how to sumo wrestle in sleeping bags on top of a steep hill. How to bring back American Gladiators using water balloons, broomsticks and a 30-foot climbing wall. All sorts of important things.

One of the most rewarding experiences I have ever had was working as a camp counselor and unit head with dozens of wonderful kids. (Many of the "kids" are now "adults," which means that when I ask them what they've been up to I don't really want an answer, whereas in the past I did.)

And I know I've been lucky. Not everyone has had as good an experience as I've had. Some years you get obnxious kids or co-workers that are not capable of taking care of themselves, let alone other human beings. But even the craziest bunks of campers turned out to be fun and respectful in the times it mattered the most.

One of the things that struck me about being a counselor was that for some reason, most all of the campers I worked with thought I was a badass when I was camper just because I knew how to have fun at camp. They never believed me when I told them that I attended pretty much every activity and rarely flouted authority.

There were plenty of examples where my age group did "bad" things--most of which involved breaking of windows and making fun of other people to the extent that they never came back to camp--but somehow I was never in the middle of these things. I missed strip poker tournaments and some sneaking out. Didn't even hear about a few water fights. Was oblivious to some eisodes of stealing food from the dining hall and food fights. Where was I?

(I think I was trying to figure out girls. Boy, was that a waste of time.)

I was a part of a bunk raid or two and some major water fights. I got the game-winning hit in our biggest softball game over the six summers. I made at least three kids cry. So I had my fun, even if I wasn't a real badass.

If I was lacking at all as a camper, I did make up for it as a counselor. I enacted the "if I don't know about it, it didn't happen" policy. Some campers would, for some dumb reason, ask if they could start a food fight or sneak out at night. I would always answer "no." But if they were clever enough to do these things without asking--and if they were clever enough to ensure that I didn't find out about it--I was secretly (or maybe not so secretly) happy they did them.

(That's the other thing about pranks. If they're not clever, they're not worth doing. "Cupping" or "canoeing" a cabin is fine, but it's been done. Stealing boats, golf carts, banners, or whatever else that can be stolen has been stolen numerous times, so there's no creativity in that. I never saw a good cabin switch in my day (where a guy's bunk and girl's bunk switch beds in the middle of the night) nor have I seen anything involving animals or locals or both.)

The kids that followed that no-asking rule in order to get their first kiss are now going off to college. The kids who shared bunks with me for six summers are now walking down the aisle.

I bet they miss camp, too.

In the future I'm sure there will be other camp-related posts, especially since this one is so vague and not really filled with specific stories...not like I can remember them, anyway. And there's like a million shout outs that I want to give and tales I want to tell even though I have no idea who, if anyone, actually reads this blog.

And one more thing...

2006-01-25T18:04:00.000-05:00

There's this book by Malcolm Gladwell called Blink. It's about how you can learn a lot about something even if you have just encountered it. This applies to people, too.

The key example of these successful snap judgments was given by a marriage counselor who could correctly guess the health of a marriage just by watching a short tape of a husband and wife interacting.

Apparently, there are certain behavioral clues that an observer can pick up that give hints to the larger picture.

I totally buy it.

(Blink is by the same guy who wrote Tipping Point, which is one of the best non-fiction books I have read recently. It discusses how trends become, well, trendy.

Gladwell focuses on three types of people who make and break trends: the maven, who knows a lot about a product; the seller, who could sell a toupee to a gorilla (figuratively, but it'd be funny to see); and the connector, who knows a lot of people and brings them together.

One of the things I liked about the book was that it gave me an unofficial title for something I already do. See, I'm a connector. Not officially, but I feel like I know a lot of people who live in a lot of different places and do a lot of different things, and though none of them are famous or important or even read my stupid blog, if I needed a kidney or a bunch of petition signatures or something, I'm sure I could find it after making a few calls or sending a few e-mails. So according to this author, the one thing I'm good at (see the blog entry called "Mediocre bad guys") may one day pay off. )

But back to Blink and finishing up the posting from yesterday.

Every girl I have ever really liked, I've known it within the first few minutes of meeting them. (If you think you are one of these girls and are reading this right now and are confused about this statement, either I didn't really like you or I hid it well that I really did. But probably the latter.)

So I wasn't so disappointed when a girl I went out with a few couples weeks ago called me (the day I got my wisdom teeth out!) said she wasn't interested.

When we were "talking," as all failed relationshipees do, I thought that--for sure--she would have a lot to say. But she was quiet most of the time, and I led the conversation from place to place, even on the date night.

So when we were at sushi having our little dateroo, I was expecting to learn more about her, have a nice conversation, say goodnight and maybe even see her for drinks the next week.

But, no. Instead, she was quiet and kept looking at her watch. I felt like I was at a job interview and my time for making a good impression had expired before the sushi even got to the table.

After years of not giving the girls I "eh...kinda like" a chance, I was given that very treatment.

(There's lots of girls who don't even want to go out with me to begin with. I could list them now, but I don't want to get into any deeper poo than I probably am now for writing about someone specific in my blog. But for girls who agree to go out to dinner with me, I think she's the first who's been totally against even trying to make something work. And I probably deserve it.)

The funny thing is that at the start, when I had just met her, I fully thought that she snap-judged me positively, thinking to herself that I was worth giving a shot.

But I never even got the (fill in the cliche) benefit of the doubt. Maybe she read Blink too and realized it wasn't worth putting in the effort.

So in football, it's three downs and out. In dating, it's three dates (or three months if you're Cara or Katie) and out. All I got was three minutes out.

And I was having an off night.

Throw that idea out the window

2006-01-24T20:47:00.000-05:00

At first, I thought "an effort to write something funny and witty without angering or annoying a single person" would be a good idea (see the blog's header).

But I've changed my mind. That's getting kind of boring. There are so many people out there who have done bone-headed things who need to be remind that they have done bone-headed things, and what better place to do that than the Internet, where, if I write about you, you're going to find out about it one day or another and get mad.

So we'll start with the most unsuspecting of characters: the food services employees at Northwestern and the girl I went on a date with last week.

Today (now yesterday) was a crappy day to begin with on a number of reasons, none of which are important, all of which are petty, but I wasn't happy regardless. I get my work for the morning done, something about the Canadian general election (that was oddly interesting and not conducive to north-of-the-border jokes), and go to the cafeteria for lunch.

I want a quesadilla--possibly the easiest food item to make besides pasta or hot cereal--so I order a cheese one. Fine. It says it comes with salsa and sour cream. Great.

I ask the person making the quesadilla to put lettuce and tomato inside of it. He says no. I point out that a big bucket of shredded lettuced and a big bucked of diced tomatoes are sitting one foot to the left of the quesadilla, and he could make me really happy on a crappy day with a handful or two of veggies, but he doesn't comply.

I say, "If you put the lettuce and tomato in the quesadilla real quick and then fold the tortilla . . . no one's going to know!" He says no.

I say, "So my meal will only consist of just stinky cheese and a small flour tortilla?" He says he'll put the lettuce and tomato on the side. Wonderful.

The sign hanging above Mr. Quesadilla Maker says that the the quesadilla comes with salsa and sour cream. I say great, but I don't want him to put the sour cream and salsa directly on the quesadilla because I'm not going to eat it right away, and I don't want my meal to get soggy in the meantime. He puts the salsa and sour cream in little plastic containers and hands it all to me to go pay. I go to pay for my meal, and the cashier says that I have to pay extra for my salsa.

I say that this is ridiculous and walk halfway across the food court to point to the place on the sign where it says that the food comes with the sour cream salsa for no charge. She calls in the manager, who takes my quesadilla away and brings it to Mr. Quesadilla Maker shaking his head. The manager tells the Maker that he has done wrong--the "included" sour cream and salsa does not go in containers but it should be drizzled on the quesadilla itself.

I say I don't want my quesadilla to become soggy. The manager says I have to pay to have the condiments in containers. He takes the containers away, and I get two condimental drizzles--one red, one white. Not even dollops.

So at the cafeteria, it's $5.10 for a soggy, veggie-less single folded flour tortilla with a shred of cheese. It's $5.85 without the sog.

I return to the cashier, muttering, and I pay.

(Since I began writing this yesterday, two of my friends have gotten engaged. So congrats, Amy and Becca! [But which Becca and which Amy?!])

I forgot to post this in the fall

2006-01-20T10:19:00.000-05:00

After Hurricanes Katrina and Wilma hit the Southeastern U.S., I was primed for a huge tribute concert whose proceeds would go to the Bayou and South Florida. Like another "Live 8" or "FarmAid"--or even a "Bonaroo" or "Boombamela."

But it never happened; instead, there was just a smattering of relatively small shows.

More realistically, though, I expected a song to come out that would reflect our collective grief at the tragedy, or at least a song overlaid with reports of the hurricane.

Remember the Oklahoma City bombing back in 1995? Remember how Live's song "Lightning Crashes" was No. 1 at the time? And remember how soundbytes relating to the bombing were inserted into the song?

It was like, "Lightning crashes / an old mother dies ... 'There's been a bombing here at the Federal Building' .... Her intentions fall to the floor. . . . 'We don't know how many are still inside' " and so on.

The same thing happened after Sept. 11. Live profitted off the tragedy, as their song "Overcome" simarly overlaid with newscasters' comments.

But after Katrina, I just heard the song "Golddigger" a little more. That's it.

We used to be so opportunistic. . . . What happened?

Indoor Voices

2006-01-19T18:43:00.000-05:00

Growing up, I really liked sports. When I got the newspaper from the front lawn in the morning, I read the sports page first. I played half a dozen sports at my ultra-masculine all-dude high school. I raced home from Sunday school each weekend to watch pro football games in the the fall and pro basketball in the winter. Sports Night and Sportscenter are pretty much my favorite television shows. (They have never jumped the shark.)

Sports rule. But sports are not life.

I don't own a single jersey. I own maybe a dozen baseball hats (but hundreds of those little plastic ones that ice cream used to come in at ball games). Before this past New Year's Eve, I had attended exactly zero pro basketball games. There's a time for sports and a time for other important things, like music or beer or friends.

So picture this scene: You're at a bar to meet friends to celebrate someone's birthday. You're on time; your friends are late. (10:30 apparently means sometime after 11 for people under 25.) But it's bowl season, so you don't really care that much. You sit down at the bar and watch the game.

To your left are two Penn State fans, wearing Penn State hats and Penn State jerseys. To be sure, they are not in State College, Penn. They are in Roscoe Village, Chicago, Ill.--a neighborhood of artists. No one in a five block radius even knows what a Nittany Lion is and no one in a ten block radius can name more than three schools in the Big Ten.

There are no more than six people in the bar, but your ears think you're at a Strokes concert.

Why? Because these kids are idiots.

They yell. They shout. They throw their hats on the bar in disgust when Michael Robinson (the QB) loses yardage.

Every play is critical to their survival. Every yard Penn State gains, it's like these two guys won the lottery. Like they heard their best friend has just gotten out of prison. Like the girl they kept asking out in college finally said yes.

Guess what, kids? College is over. It's a Tuesday. See, in the real world, we use our indoor voices.

Remember first grade? Remember when Ms. Berlove had three circles on the board (one red, one yellow, one green) that indicated if we were to be silent, whisper, or use our indoor voices, respectively, in class?

Remember how there was no ciricle for "scream your head off"? These guys didn't.

Eventually my friends showed up. Henry, the birthday boy who was getting drinks left and right from all of us, started yelling along with them for no reason, or to egg them on.

"I love sports!" he yelled, knowing full well that it's the Orange Bowl going on and not just some random game. "Yeah, sports! Go, team!"

A quiet bar on a Tuesday is not a stadium on the weekend. It's a place to celebrate Henry's 24th birthday, no more.

What a headache.

At least these guys weren't smoking. Don't even get me started on that.

The Jewel of Piso Mojado

2006-01-12T21:03:00.000-05:00

Has it ever occurred to you that everwhere else in the world, people speak more than one language?

In the United States, we speak English, and only English, unless you have recently immigrated from Mexico or went to private school.

Go anywhere else in the world, and you'll find that "everwhere else in the world" knows English. And French. And they can comprehend two Spanish dialects.

So a nation of immigrants decided not to pass on their bilingual abilities (with their Queen's English or Yiddish, if you're WASPish or Jewish, respectively). Or we don't have good public school teachers.

Spanish has become really popular recently--even more than English--in this country. And English used to be pretty popular.

In Chicago there are nearly more Hispanics than whites. Two wards in my city are vying for the title of "Little Mexico." No wards in my city are vying for the title of "Little Connecticut."

Growing up, I learned French because the Spanish teachers at my school were scary, but I do know a few words of Spanish. This weekend's "Simpsons" episode had two, and I could laugh along when the cartoon family began searching for the "Jewel of 'Wet Floor'" (see the blog's title).

I still know French because I had a great set of French teachers. But I'm one of the lucky ones. And my French is not so great, as I'd be lucky to be able to hold a conversation with someone half my age in French for five minutes.

There is no emphasis in this country on being multi-lingual. Our president is not multi-lingual. (Hold your "But he can speak stupid" jokes.)

Our representatives probably studied Latin and Greek but that won't help us until the Vatican and the lost city of Troy get in a tiff.

You've heard the terms "global economy," "integration," "information age" and "I-bankers have no souls." (I just threw the last one in for good measure.) All of them mean that we need to know more than we used to, and foreign languages are a good place to start.

I'm not saying that everyone should learn Chinese. (Everyone should learn Japanese, though, so they could understand what those guys were thinking when they got millions of American addicted to stupid games involving squares and the digits 0-9.)

But it may not be such a bad idea. It'd give you a billion more possible "Friendster" friends instantly.

We all should have done a better job learning foreign languages when we were younger. I don't know about you, but I feel pretty dumb when I hear a little French kid say something on TV (not that there are a lot of them on TV) that I don't understand.

It reminds me that as much as we harp on other countries for being inferior to ours, at least they can understand us when we denegrate them.

So I should have kept up with French. And eeeeeveryone else...with Spanish.

Because if that little French kids from two paragraphs ago comes to my country and takes my job because he can perform it in 16 languages, and I can't, then I could at least be able to swear at him in his native tongue.

Sale morceau de merde.

I'm back

2006-01-05T21:28:00.000-05:00

Like Phil Bredesen and Minnie Minoso (who?), I'm making a triumphant return.

After putting my blog on hiatus following a lack of creativity and, let's face it, interest (on both mine and my six readers' parts), I've decided to return to the world of Matt Drudge, Twenty Nothing and Brian Williams, bloggers all.

But that doesn't mean I'm going to enjoy it.

Speaking of things I'm not going to enjoy, I have to buy make-up to be on television. (In case you didn't know, I'm in graduate school at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism learning broadcast.)

This means three things. First, that my face isn't perfect. I've known this for a while. I have a few moles here and there and a few scars from a chicken pock or two (one pock, two pox?) and a fall down the stairs or two. So some concealer would help, though they have yet to come out with concealer that conceals the size of ears.

Second, this means that I have to suck up my masculinity and blot my face with liquids and powders of different shades. That sucks. It worse than when a girl asks you to hold her purse/bag and worse than shopping for hours on end and worse than going to see "Divine Pants of the Secret Travelling Ya-Ya Sisterhood" sitting in between Oprah and Martha Stewart who are giving you a manicure and pedicure, respectively.

Maybe not worse than the last one. Especially since my toes could probably use a scrub and my hands an exfoliation.

Third, I now notice when news anchors--and people on the street--are using make-up to hide their blemishes. I wanted to shout to the girl sitting across from me on the bus today, "Your cheekbones are not that high! You're not fooling anyone!" But that would not have been nice.

But other than that, I have no complaints. I spent all winter break in fun places--New York, Israel and D.C.--seeing family and friends and meeting new people who I may even keep in touch with and may even be reading this blog this very minute...

More to follow,
Gabe

Sun. night TV

2005-11-20T21:58:00.000-05:00

I don't know what it says about our society that the best way to alert people of a life-altering event is by leaving an away message about it.

I can know what many of my friends, and even more of my "friends," did this weekend with just a few clicks. I can find out who is mad at whom, who broke up with whom and who is feeling elated or frustrated for no apparent reason.

I've found out about engagements, new jobs and newborns through IM.

Reading body language is so passe. Reading away messages--that's what's in.

For those of us who are funny, we out up funny away messages.

For those of us who are not, we put up "I am away from my computer right now," "Away" or "Out."

Even my away messages are somewhat revealing, even if just on the surface. If you just look at the random ones I've saved over the past month or so, you'd know that I am left-handed, like football, often make chicken, am going to Israel in December, teach Sunday school, and listen to Jimmy Eat World.

My personality floats around on the Internet, and its changes can be updated as often I want, thanks to "profiles" or "testimonials."

And then there's this whole blog thing. I don't like telling people about my blog. It's embarrassing. And dorky. And read mostly by former campers who are still in high school. (No offense.) But it's another way of knowing a lot about me with me having met/seen/had a conversation with me.

So is this good or bad?

For me, it's bad. I hate technology. I'm going to be that old person who's going to tell his grandkids, "I remember the car, and it was way better than those flying machines you have now." So sitting at a computer updating AIM, Facebook or Friendster profiles is something I rarely do. If I'm going to stare at something for hours, it's going to be a book or a crossword. Maybe a Sudoku, but even those have started to annoy me. (I'm over them.)

It's also bad for me because I pride myself in remembering things about people's lives. If you're reading this blog now, chances are that we are friends and I know your birthday, your roommate, where you were born, your favorite pro sports team, and names of your last two ex-boy/girlfriends.

If I have all that readily available on a computer, what's the point of remembering all that? Facebook sends me birthday updates, and Friendster e-mails me when my friends update their profiles.

In wanting so much information so far, we've lost our soul.

(I'm kidding about that; I just can't think of any other way to end it, and "Grey's Anatomy" is coming on in two minutes.)

The masses of readers have spoken

2005-11-20T00:51:00.000-05:00

TheBarryMeister: i wait two weeks for a blog entry, and all you give me is that short piece of crap

Follow your nose

2005-11-04T13:42:00.000-05:00

I have a friend coming in from New York over the weekend. She'll be here for an interview at Northwestern Law School, and when she's not freaking out about what to say or do while she's grilled by a likely overzealous, condescending admissions counselor, she and I are going to hang out.

There's a problem with visitors from New York: you can't take them anywhere in this city. Their city is bigger, they have more pro sports teams, their buildings are taller (we have the Sears Tower, but that's little consolation), their hip neighborhoods are hipper and their yuppie neighborhood are yuppier.

You can't fit "I *heart* Chicago" on a T-shirt so well, either.

I can't take my New York friend down Michigan Avenue--what I usually do with out-of-towners--for two reasons. I hate shopping, and she'd probably say, "It's nothing like Fifth Avenue."

She did mention, though, that she would like to go to a place called "Cereality," a new restaurant in the West Loop.

To which I shook my head and responded, "How about shopping on Michigan Ave.?"

At Cereality, they serve cereal. Hot cold, cold cereal, cereal bars--any and everything that's cereal-related.

To this I say: Stay home, watch Sportscenter and eat the cereal in your pantry!

Their speciality, so I hear, is mixing cereal. That means you can have Lucky Charms and Cheerios...in the same bowl!

It's as if this restaurant presumes that no one had thought of mixing cereal before, which is totally ludicrous.

In Tennessee, we've been mixing for years.

I remember that when I was little and sleeping over at friends' places, my friends' parents would be surprised when I requested two cereals for breakfast instead of one. The nerve.

Either I was a trend-setter or did just about the most obvious thing ever that most people don't do.

From this I've decided that there are really only two types of people in the world: those who eat one cereal for breakfast, and those who mix.

Mixers are way better. We are risk-takers and take risks on a daily basis--like mixing Quaker Oat Squares with Honey Bunches of Oats! Look out!

No offense if you're not a mixer, but if you're not, I bet you're a right-handed Yankees fan who hasn't started planning for retirement, too. To you I say, Do not be a fair-weather fan, get an IRA, and start mixing! Life is too short to have one cereal at a time!

I understand going out to eat, especially ethnic food. I am white and do not currently have any Mexican friends who cook. So weekly Baja Fresh is justified.

Until, that is, I find a grilled veggie burrito in my kitchen cabinet.

She puts the Seoul in South Korea

2005-10-27T10:53:00.000-04:00

When I was a little kid, I loved geography.

One of my favorite shows (in addition to 'Today's Special' and 'Square One TV') was "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?"

It was a great tool for kids to learn geography. I bet you that every fan of that show knew exactly where places like Kentucky, Kinshasa, Kilimanjaro and Kalamazoo were located thanks to Greg Lee and Lynne Thigpen.

I would have totally ruled on that show. I would have found the loot, the warrant and the crook really fast. And I would have run all over that huge map and put the markers in the right spots and won a totally awesome prize.

But I never made it, and the show is now gone. I still can sing much of the theme song, though, but that just means I'm a total loser.

(P.S. I have a blog. That might have been the first clue.)

People don't know where things are nowadays. I'm not talking about the grocery store or the post office, but I'm talking about where things are happening in the world.

From now on, for the rest of our lives, we're only going to learn about a foreign country or capital city like based on whether it's just been bombed by some other country.

Last generation, it was Saigon and Moscow, but this generation, we're talking Kabul and Tikrit.

I miss the Lynne Thigpen way. Even if wars had theme songs done by Rockappella, I'd take "Carmen Sandiego" over any battle any day.

Speaking of battles, I almost got into my first real fight over the weekend.

That's for next time.

Better than Burkina Faso

2005-10-23T15:21:00.000-04:00

After much thought, I've decided that Ghana is my new favorite country.

This is for a number of reasons. The weather is good, they speak English, and the country is a constitutional democracy. What's not to like?

And boy, do they speak English. It's totally awesome to hear someone from Ghana speak English, much like it is to hear an Australian or Indian, even though they don't use y'all.

Ghana is located in western Africa and is about the size of Oregon, which is where I'm moving if I don't get a job in the northeast next year. Or in Ghana.

I have only met three people from the country, but based on this small sample size, I think I can make generalizations on the entire population.

Ghanaians are very happy people. They are always smiling. They laugh at jokes before you tell the punchline, as if anticipating that what you're going to say is funny. That's great, because not everything I say is that funny. But not to Ghanaians--they think I'm hilarious!

The three Ghanaians I have met are hard working. One is a cab driver, one is in charge of the parking garage in my building, and the third, Mohammed, worked in the kitchen of my summer camp.

I got to know Mohammed in the summer of 2004. He was on a work visa program in which he worked legally in the United States for a time before deciding to become a citizen here or go back to Ghana. He went back to Ghana; but his brother, who did the program a few before him, is now a cab driver in New York.

Mohammed lived in a small house with four other people on the same program and he served food to snot-nosed kids in the middle of nowhere in the Georgia woods. The money that he earned in the U.S. was a lot better than what he was earning in Ghana. Mohammed is intelligent and talented and loves to travel, and he decided that while he was still young, he would give a year or two in the U.S. a chance. Most of the money he made he sent back to his wife and infant in Ghana.

Mohammed is also a great soccer player. I think everyone in the world--save the 300 million of us who live in between Maine and San Diego/between what's left of Key West and Seattle--is a great soccer player. (I learned this last year when I'd get schooled daily by small Ethiopian children who lived at the same absorption center where I lived.)

Mohammed would always come up to me and say "hi" and tell me about whether or not the food was going to be good that day and how his family was doing. It was always nice to see him, especially in a kitchen full of southern Americans who talk as if they were from another planet, save a foreign country.

Another reason to like Ghana: they have jokes on their website. Imagine a joke on whitehouse.gov. I think not.

Anyway, here's the joke:

Wife: Why are you home so early?
Husband: My boss told me to go to hell.

See, I told you Ghana is totally awesome.

Dear sir

2005-10-20T18:25:00.000-04:00

A few days ago, I was riding the bus on my way to work/school (those of you who know where I go every day probably also have difficulty figuring out which it is) as I usually do, and near the end of the run, I received a phone call.

It was the secretary of a lawyer with whom I had been trying to get in touch, and she wanted to set up a time I could talk to the lawyer. I wasn't in any trouble with the law (if I were to be, I'd have Aaron Spiwak 1L/attorney-at-law/same diff. represent me); I was just working on an article on a Supreme Court death penalty case.

At the end of the conversation, the bus driver (I was the only one left on the bus and was near the front) said to me, "I didn't mean to eavesdrop or anything, but I couldn't help but notice that you were using 'ma'am' a lot during that phone conversation."

Guilty as charged.

"Yeah," I said, "I'm from Tennessee--what can I say?"

I never used to say "ma'am" or "sir" or "y'all" for that matter. I hated those terms, much as I hated how by living in a certain area of the country meant that one had to use a specific, and in this case genteel, vocabulary.

I remember my first few days of seventh grade at MBA (that's Mamma's Boy Academy for those who don't know), my ultra-preppie, must-wear-a-belt/collared shirt/no sneakers, named- after-a-slave-owner school, in which I was repeatedly told that "we use 'ma'am' and 'sir' around here."

These same people--my friends, my teachers--called their parents "ma'am" and "sir," too.

And I thought you call your mom "mom."

Who are these people? And where did they come from?

My parents thought this was funny but expected. They didn't want me to call them "ma'am" and "sir," but when in Rome...

So somewhere between 1995 and today, I picked up the "ma'am/sir" when talking, but only under the following conditions:

1. I'll say it on the phone
2. To someone I don't know
3. When I want/need something from them

Basically, it's used when talking to the cable guy, the guy from Dell, and the woman who takes mysterious purchases off my credit card bill.

Or when I'm interviewing someone for an article or something else related to work and people who are obviously older than me.

What's weird is when someone calls me "sir."

For the first time in my life, I am living in a big city. I appreciate many of the amenities that come with living in Chicago, such as public transportation, civic services like parks and beaches, and many, many professional sports teams.

However, this is the first time that I've had to face the daily bustle, crowded commuting and the poverty that is also a part of big cities.

While it's the first two that I complain the most about, it's the third one that should really bother me. When I get shoved on the train, or someone takes my seat on the bus, the offending person doesn't say to me, "Excuse me, sir."

Rather, it's the guy on the corner holding a cup, the woman in a wheelchair overflowing with bags, and the man bouncing up and down and rubbing his hands trying to stay warm who try to warm up to me by calling me "sir."

"Sir, can you spare some change."

At first when I saw the panhandlers, I didn't notice them. I mean, I did, but I didn't. I was just rushing to home or work or school and didn't care.

"Please, sir," they'd say.

I'm not their cable guy, their computer guy, and they're not about to interview me. So the whole "sir" thing threw me off.

I don't want to be called "sir." Also, I don't want them to be poor.

What's annoying is that it's my mood and whether I'm late for something that determines whether they get the spare change in my pocket.

Also, they're a lot older and have gone through a lot more than I have.

So maybe I should start calling them "sir" as I drop my change in their cups.

Priorities

2005-10-11T22:05:00.000-04:00

I'm not posting this week due to a West Wing marathon on Bravo. They're showing season six (the one that aired while I was in Israel last year) every night during the time that would be blogging time.

Also, tomorrow is my dad's birthday. He is as old as the Marshall Plan, the UN's Declaration of Human Rights, Israel, and Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Way to go, dad!

Call him Josh

2005-10-09T13:30:00.000-04:00

Last night, I went to a hookah bar/restaurant in Lakeview called a la Turka. A Turkish and not a strictly Muslim place as many hookah bars are, this bar serves alcohol, including this Turkish lager called "Efes" ("zero" or "something kinda lame" in Hebrew but "really tasty," or something like that, in Turkish).

But as corny as it sounds, this eatery/smokery specializes in service.

Turkey is three percent in Europe, 97 percent in Asia and 100 percent Middle Eastern. About half an hour into our visit there, while two friends and I were smoking "mix fruit," complaining about the weather and trying to determine the ethnicity of those sitting near us, the owner of the bar, a middle-aged Turkish man named Joshkun, or "Josh" for short, sat down in the empty seat at our table.

Joshkun has short spiked gray hair, a thick black mustache and the body type of a restaurant owner/cook--a little heavy in the paunch.

Jovial and passionate, as soon as Josh sat down, he began to recount his life story: how he grew up in the mountainous northeastern Anatolia (the Asia part) raising horses and cattle. When he came to the U.S. in 1974, he wanted to settle a big, flat city and chose Chicago.

(He said that he doesn't like New York. "Every time I drive on the George Washington Bridge, I think, 'With one bomb...., forget about it.'" Not only would he dead, he added, but those poor people would all be stuck in New Jersey. [The Lincoln Tunnel is out of the question. He doesn't like to drive underwater.])

After working numerous jobs--janitor, cook, cab driver (is it required that all Middle Eastern immigrants drive cabs in big cities? Am I being insensitive or observant?)--he took a job with Federal Express, where he learned the company's philosophy for success. "PSP it's called--"people, service, and success." You have to get the right people around you, teach them how to give a good, reliable service, and then the profits will come.

Simple enough, right?

When Joshkun open his high-end Turkish restaurant in 2001, it was the beginning of our "bagel," or "recession," as it is usually called. He had two very difficult years but then began turning a profit in 2003.

He believes he has achieved his success because of taste of his food--he adds a secret ingredient to lamb and chicken dishes that only his wife knows and makes his cooks turn away for a few minutes while he adds it--and his ability to teach 20 employees how best to serve customers.

Turkish food, he explained us, is recognizable to a large audience, especially in the multi-cultural North Side of Chicago, because there are a number of ethnicities who cook meat in a similar way with their kofta, kebabs, shawarmas, etc.

But what separates his food from others is that Turkish meat melts in your mouth--it doesn't have the lemon juice and garlic or Greek food or the crazy spices of Arabic food--the meat speaks for itself. His meat, killed in accordance with Halal laws, is delivered to his restaurant every other day. What his patrons do not order, he gives to a nearby church.

"We get a tax write-off, the church feeds hungry people, and everyone wins," he said.

Josh has two talented daughters, one a singer still in high school and one an actress who is currently serving as an assistant producer in Hollywood.

(You think your rent is bad, Joshkun's daughter in paying $1800/mo. for a loft in L.A. "But it's very nice," he said.)

Towards the end of his visit with us, Joshkun, in addition to forcing my friends to try his baklava while exhorting them to "open their mouths wide, wide!" as if to swallow the piece whole, gave us bracelets as momentos. These beaded bracelets, one of which is sitting near my computer on my desk, have small, blue eyes that are supposed to guard against the wearer of the bracelet and bring him or her good luck.

"Wear it on your next date," he said to us.

When dining or smoking at the restaurant, Joshkun wants his patrons--his guests--to feel at home: That is the Middle Eastern and Turkish way. Giving guests bracelets as gifts is just another facet of that hospitality.

I can only hope that the good fortune he has had rubs off.

Anyone but the Yankees

2005-10-07T11:21:00.000-04:00

I'm thinking of bringing some New York attitude to the Midwest. Everyone here is nice and passive, and I feel like the happy, fat Midwesterners need a little push every now and then.

That's why I'm here.

The weather--and maybe the Yankees' participation in another playoffs series--has made people edgy. For example, I almost got hit by a car that was inching into a pedestrian crosswalk as I was crossing. The little white man (not my roommate) said I could cross, he had a red light, and I almost get hit. The nerve. So we exchange choice words, and he makes like he's going to follow me and kill me with the gun I'm sure he has stored in his glove compartment specifically for these. (Mind you, I was about to walk into a synagogue--so what was he going to do, hit me with a machzor?)

And on the bus today, this lady didn't like the fact that I coughed (I covered), or that I had to read my paper close to her face because it was a crowded bus. So she whined at me, and I told her to get off the bus if she couldn't handle the crowd. Hey, lady, I don't care if it's the slow-as-poop Midwest, there are still 8 million people in this city. So deal.

Take that, Midwest.

Anyone that knows me, though, knows that I'm a softie at heart. I don't like yelling at people, I don't like getting in fights, and I don't hold grudges. I don't like disciplining campers or the kids I teach, and I'm always a mediator between friends.

My positive attitude may seem naive, but I have spent most of my life in the Midwest/ Southeast corridor, and we think like that here.

No matter how much I feel my personality will be partly New York, forever, though I've never lived there for more than a week at a time (does three years in Princeton, N.J., count?), I believe that people--even if they are boring, plump Midwesterners--mean well and have the best intentions in most situations.

Except when they try to hit me with their cars. Idiots.