BROOKLYN, NY-

I’ve lived without a television for just over two months now.

At first I panicked. 

I come from a family who firmly believes that Katie Couric and Alex Trebek are immediate family members and should be laid places akin to Elijah’s at the family dining table.

When I still lived at home, my parents’ Christmas card list should have included Bob Newhart (with Larry, his cousin Darryl and his other cousin Darryl), Sgt. Frank Furrillo, the Seavers, the Huxtables, the Carringtons, the Ewings, and the entire staff of St. Eligius Hospital for the amount of time we spent with each other.

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BALTIMORE, MD-

In Vladimir Nabokov’s short story, “Signs and Symbols,” the narrator says of one character that, “Living did mean accepting the loss of one joy after another, not even joys in her case—mere possibilities of improvement.” I have always found that line to be profoundly depressing and if you’re reading this, I wish with all my heart that your life is not an acceptance of the loss of one joy after another.

My own life, I have realized, can partially be characterized by the acceptance of one embarrassment after another. I have decided to chronicle these embarrassments (the list will never end as long as I am alive and participating in the world) starting with the Blue Ribbon for the Most Embarrassing Thing Ever:

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CHESTERTOWN, MD-

“Hold it together man!”

Shut up you. I’m getting there, so cut me some slack.

“Persevere!”

Look, don’t make me stick this pencil up my nose and take care of you Randle Patrick McMurphy style.

“Against all odds you shall prevail!”

This is my brain. My brain speaks to me, ad nauseum, typically in a British accent. It’s also a veritable movie quote machine. In fact, I figure that when my brain shuts up I’ll finally be hanging with Chief Bromden and we can talk about how hard it was to power lift that sink off the floor. At this very moment my brain is in full on battle- Braveheart-you’ll-take-my-life-but-never-take- my-freedom frenzy.

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BROOKLYN, NY-

Working in Manhattan can be an exciting, thrilling experience, but it doesn’t have to be. For the first year of my legitimate-office-job-having life, I worked in a building entrenched in a cozy block of 7th Avenue, spitting distance from two of the most impressively banal landmarks in this city: Times Square and Macy’s. Now, things can get pretty hectic in busy digital media what with the constant barrage of emails, IMs, phone calls, and that woman from accounting shrilly dictating lists of numbers into her speaker phone. I soon learned, therefore, how valuable it was for the mental health of any office worker to unwinch one’s shoulders from their hunched slump, peer away from the computer screen, and make one’s way out into the city.

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SAN FRANCISCO, CA-

“But I don’t even like tennis. I hate it.”

I was adamant. I was honest. Watching little green balls sail backwards and forwards has never been my idea of a jolly time. Until Venus and Serena happened upon the scene I was convinced that there was nothing whiter and more elitist than a game of tennis, and I’ve always been righteously determined to maintain my sniffy stance.

But despite my protestations the smiling face across the wide wooden table continued to expound upon the merits of tennis coaching. Within five minutes I had promised him that I would not only take lessons, but that I would purchase a racket.

Another five minutes after that and I’d been coerced into tango lessons. The strange grinning person was hella persuasive.

Shit, thought I, I’d better leave this cafe before I get roped into learning Swahili. I don’t think my poor little model brain has room for Swahili.

“Are you ready to be this validated and this happy?” asked the still-smiling face of my newest cafe acquaintance. I nodded, unsure. “Yeah? Then welcome to San Francisco!”

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A few words on the self-destruction of erstwhile presidential candidate John Edwards. At first glance, yes, it’s just another tired and ugly story, tabloid drivel about deviant sex involving another slick Washington shark. Then, when you stop for a moment and consider the actual human fallout, it becomes a gut-wrenching soap opera with seriously depressing undertones…the sort of story that makes you put down the newspaper and turn away from the television entirely. Elizabeth Edwards, the wife, has terminal cancer. The couple have three children: Cate is in her twenties; Emma Claire and Jack are eleven and nine, respectively. (A fourth child, Wade, was killed in a car accident in 1996.) And Rielle Hunter, the mistress, is now a single mother raising an infant daughter—identity of father as yet unknown.

So yeah. It’s pretty safe to say that the political career of John Edwards now finds itself at a dismal dead end. Maybe temporarily; probably permanently. American implosion at its finest and most telegenically pulverizing. Any hope of a Cabinet position in an Obama administration appears to be a silly pipe-dream. No veepstakes, no attorney general…not even housing and urban development.
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LOS ANGELES-

I heard a great story the other night involving alcohol, feces, guilt, innocence, and a bathtub. My wife and I were out to dinner with some friends. Our friend Betty was the one who told the story. (And yes, she waited until after the meal to unleash it upon us.) Betty, just so you know, is a complete riot. She claps when she laughs. Always. I find this charming. She’s a tiny little thing, cute and petite. And she’s an easy laugher, a big laugher, really loves to laugh. And as soon as Betty starts laughing, she starts applauding. A matter of reflex. I find this tremendously enjoyable.

Betty was born and raised in the Middle West, in small town Illinois. Went to college in the Middle West, at Wisconsin. On holidays, as a college student, she would return home to visit family and old friends from childhood. These return trips were always festive. Betty and her buddies from the Land of Lincoln were at the height of their Bacchanalian collegiate excess. Anything went. It was youth. And it was a reunion.

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GLENSIDE, PA-

My old roommate first pointed it out to me about seven years ago.

“Look!” he said, jabbing a finger at the TV screen. “There she is- WHEEL ASS!”

He took a tug from his Busch pounder and slammed it on the coffee table.

“See…the one on the left. WHEEL ASS!”

“Wheel ass?” I repeated. “What are you talking about?”

“You don’t know? Listen. Every Wheel of Fortune episode has one hot girl…or sort of hot girl on it. EVERY EPISODE! One hot contestant. It’s like written in the show’s contract or something.”

“Noooo,” I said. “No way! What about episodes with just three old ladies?”

“Never happens.”

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SARASOTA, FL-

The global economy, like it or not, doesn’t like you. If you’ve acquired a job in a third world country, congratulations: You’re one step shy of a slave. If you’re an American, you can work, live and die at Walmart, which will soon offer funeral services next to the produce department. Are there, you Americans ask, no careers vouchsafed from the global suck? It depends. Do you possess sticktoitiveness and a can-do attitude? Are you a no-getter? Are you willing to take personal responsibility where you have none? Then the answer is, “Yes!.” Jobs await you, some already available, others waiting in the wings of hell. Love it or leave it, except you can’t afford to leave: Trust me, I tried. Here, then, is the future, and your opportunities within it. I have randomly numbered these jobs, for none are better than the others, though some are worse.

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LOS ANGELES, CA-

There were few albums in my youth that had a greater impact on me than Appetite for Destruction, the seminal hard rock masterpiece from the late great Guns-n-Roses. Formed in 1985 in Los Angeles, Guns-n-Roses was helmed by Axl Rose, who himself had spent an ungodly youth in the bleak redneck wilderness of West Lafayette, Indiana. Appetite was the band’s major label debut, released in 1987, when I was twelve years old. It went on to sell 200 million copies and produced three Top 10 hits.

This was seventh grade. Suburban Indianapolis. Indianapolis is a cow town now; back then it was really a cow town. My neighborhood abutted a giant hog farm, the stench of which was unbelievable on a hot autumn day.

Hog town.

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ST. AUGUSTINE, FL-

My grandfather was a doctor. And for at least a few hours, he was convinced that I would follow in his footsteps.

I was seventeen years old, and aside from a brief flirtation with veterinary medicine, utterly uninterested in any career that involved scalpels and touching guts. I had discovered the joys of writing snarky op-ed pieces for the high school newspaper, performing in Woody Allen plays for the drama department, and smoking clove cigarettes with my girlfriend in her bedroom as we listened to Smiths’ records and complained about how much the suburbs “sucked balls.”

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BAKERSFIELD, CA-

How many people do you know go to bed at night and wake up to an alarm clock? Of these people, how many, including yourself, have woken to the equivalent of roller coasters zooming through ears? Is this something you like? Is it a routine? Are you hung over everyday? Tell me, why are people turning these alarms up so loud? Are you innocent in the matter? Are people’s alarm clocks troubling you? Are they, or you, difficult risers, heavy sleepers, sedated drug users, loud-noise addicts, alcoholics, insomniacs or closet water-boarders who have to torture everyone even while sleeping?

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Los Angeles, CA-

I’m nervous about this post.  I’m worried that because of its subject matter and the nasty habit we all have of interpreting things differently than they were meant, I will come across as being a racist.  I would say I am not, but that seems pretty much pointless, so I will just write what I am going to write and we’ll see where we end up. (more…)

LOS ANGELES, CA-

I got inside of another taxicab last night and was stunned when, about three quarters of the way through the ride, the cabdriver started asking me about my innards.

“You know what a bladder is?” he said to me.

“A bladder?” I said.

“Yeah, a bladder,” he said.

My wife was seated on my left, and she repeated my question aloud for the sake of overall clarity.

“You want to know what a bladder is?” she said.

“Yeah,” said the cabdriver. “I want to know, like, where it’s located in the body.”

“I don’t think anyone’s ever asked me that before,” I said. (more…)

LOS ANGELES, CA-

In Parts I & II of This Post:

I’d been asked by the school nurse to give my fifth grade boys the puberty talk. A couple problems, though: First, I’d never given anyone the puberty talk. Next, the nurse had asked that I refrain from discussing too much about sex while giving the talk.

Yeah right, I thought. That would be like trying to discuss the Theory of Relativity without ever mentioning E = MC 2.

Still, I felt I owed it to my students to do whatever I could to help usher them into manhood.

And so came the day when I showed them the puberty video. Some were amused. Most, however, were stunned to silence.

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