Bar Stool Sporting Spectating Spectacular

Yesterday afternoon, my son Alex and I took the train into the city to have a beer and some food at a sports bar (he just turned 21!) and then go to the Knicks/Wizards game-- so we watched NCAA basketball on the train and then more college hoops while we ate and drank at Goldie's Tavern, a spacious place with good food and drink close enough to Madison Square Garden-- Goldie's was full of Knicks fans and a couple of beautiful people-- a dude who looked like he was right off The Bachelor and his date, who was a young Jennifer Connelly look-alike-- and then we walked over to the game, but we had some trouble finding our seats, which were in section 219 . . . but we were in row BS6 . . . which did not seem to exist . . . and then we learned we had Bar Stool seats, right on level with the concession stands-- with a temporary wall behind you and a nice little bar for your beer in front of you . . . and these tickets were pretty cheap, considering, probably because the Wizards are lousy (although Jordan Poole was fun to watch) and March Madness was happening-- but anyway, these seats totally spoiled me and I don't know if I could ever sit anywhere else-- there's no one in front of you or behind you, you have space on your side and can swivel, you can stand any time you like, you don't have to put your beer on the floor, and -- if there's a close college game you want to keep tabs on, you can rest your phone on the little wall above your personal "bar" . . . I guess the secret is out about these seats, to some extent, but if you can ever nab them, they make for a comfortable, non-claustrophobic game experience-- you don't have to rub elbows with the masses or ever stand up to let someone through and you have easy access to both the concession stands and the bathroom . . . pretty sweet.

Teach Your Teachers Well

In a recurring feature that SHOULD recur more often, here are a few things I learned from my high school students recently:

1) chameleons do NOT change color to camouflage themselves, their color indicates their emotional state or can be used for social signaling-- so they are more like reptilian mood rings than reptilian spies;

2) Bill Belichick (72) is dating a slender 24-year-old named Jordon Hudson and he poses for some very silly pictures with her, including doing some athletic "beach yoga" and dressing as a fisherman and "catching" her while she is dressed as a mermaid;

3) "brain rot" phrases such as "the Balkan rage" and "the German stare" and "the rizz";

4) the slangy subjunctive hypothetical "Would you still love me if I were a worm?"

5) Several US coins have a front-facing presidential face instead of a profile, including the 1861-65 Lincoln dollar.

Conference Madness

Tonight is the dreaded parent/teacher evening conferences, from 5 PM to 8 PM-- but, luckily my schedule is light (or perhaps not luckily because I implore my students to simply talk to their parents about how it's going in my class and remind them that all their grades are on the computer and that I know how to use email fairly well, so if their parents actually have a pressing question, it's much easier to email me than to drive to the school and talk to me, especially since I will be watching NCAA basketball games on YouTube TV while I speak to them so I won't be giving them my full attention).

Madness

I filled out my NCAA brackets today and Venmoed various people money, but I did not use the proper emojis-- which my friend Terry showed me-- he uses the combination of the basketball followed by the trashcan . . . because that's generally where your basketball brackets end up after a round or two.

Sentence of Guy

We returned from Naples, Florida late last night on Frontier Air-- which is most definitely a seat-of-your-pants budget-type airline . . . but though we were cramped, Frontier got my family there and back on time-- unlike my brother and his wife who are still stranded in Florida-- they were supposed to leave Sunday but their flight was canceled due to wind and all the Frontier flights were full on Monday night and they don't really have reciprocity with other airlines or give vouchers, so my brother and his wife are flying out on Tuesday night-- hopefully because Frontier doesn't fly on Wednesdays to Fort Meyers-- but though the flights were sketchy, my father's Celebration of Life service was a great success: my wife did an incredible job collecting pictures of my dad and made a comprehensive slideshow of his life, which I set to Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, two of my father's favorite musicians and then several people spoke about my dad-- I led off and spoke about my dad's impressive career in corrections and what a privilege it was to work with him . . . I wrote up my dad's expert witness reports, and then I talked about how my dad, despite his incredible career as a progressive prison director and designer, always expressed how proud he was of me, despite the fact that I haven't accomplished anything near what he accomplished in his life, and then I threw in a few literary allusions because I'm a bombastic jackass, and so I mentioned Turgenev and The Great Santini and Biff from Death of a Salesman and touched upon that classic trope of the son trying to impress his father, usually to no avail, but that I never had to worry about that because my dad always sincerely expressed pride in whatever I accomplished, teaching, coaching, being a dad, playing sports, whatever-- and that gave me so much joy and confidence;

then my brother Marc talked about how my father was always there for him and so he missed his best friend and confidant;

then my older son Alex. who just turned 21, recalled a time when he was very young and thought his Poppy was the coolest old guy in the world and how he thought that his Poppy was called "guy" because he was the original "guy"-- he was THE "guy" and Alex remembered how when he was older and needed help for a Model UN event, Poppy set up a lunch with Alex and his friend who was an FBI agent and the agent explained all the things Alex needed to know;

then my younger son Ian, who is 19, described how strong-willed and stubborn my father was and then he described what his Poppy would do when he did something stupid and idiotic-- Poppy would ask Ian to "step into my office"-- and Ian remembered how annoyed he would get when he heard this, when he knew he was in for a lecture, but then he finished his speech by saying though the phrase "step into my office" annoyed him then, now all he really wanted was to hear my dad say it one more time;

then some of my father's friends spoke-- his consulting partner Tony Ventetuolo explained my father's awful sense of direction and recounted an anecdote about a bridge in Sioux City and then he had us close our eyes and imagine my father missing a two-foot putt and asked if we could hear him from above, yelling profanity from Heaven;

and Mr. Apgar donned a pair of reading glasses with the price tag still on them and told a slew of stories, from Cape Cod-- how my dad would go to the Christmas Tree shop and "borrow" a pair of reading glasses and wear them with the tag on so he could read the prices and how he was there when my dad told him how excited he was that Catherine and I were going to teach overseas and he was hoping we'd land in Italy or Switzerland or Spain and his reaction when he got the phone call and we were going to teach in Damascus and how they had to go to the Chatham bookstore the next day and look at a map to see exactly where that was and he talked about what a great golfer and competitor my dad was and some other things I can't remember-- 

so we crammed in my mother's condo for the long weekend and celebrated my father's incredible life and I was really proud of how well my children spoke of him and how they comported themselves all weekend, putting up with a bunch of old people reminiscing-- and amidst all the eulogizing and sadness, we also had to celebrate three recent birthdays: my mom just turned 80, I just turned 55, and Alex just turned 21.

The Secret Hours is Like Gretchen Wiener's Hair: Full of Secrets

If you are a fan of Jackson Lamb and the show Slow Horses, then you need to read Mick Herron's standalone prequel The Secret Hours-- this book fills in a lot of the gaps and backstory of the misfit MI5 gang of Slough House and does it in brilliant fashion: the novel centers on a government inquiry into some wild and nasty business in Berlin just after the wall fell and the spies came out of the cold . . . and while it seems to be all codenames and obfuscation, if you're a fan you will start to recognize many of the characters and plot strands from the show . . . very entertaining and very illuminating but you certainly want to watch Slow Horses or read a few Slough House books before you dive into this one.

Romantic Gen Z Double Duplex Jorty Thriftiness

My son bought a pair of fashionable baggy jorts at a thrift sale, and his (shorter) girlfriend also wears them as a pair of pants.

You Can't Control Your Thoughts (About Will Ferrell)

Last night at dinner, my brother-- who lives in Hamilton, New Jersey-- told us about a terrible, horrible, awful child pornography case that happened in his town: a police officer and his wife, a Mercer County Sheriff’s Sergeant, were arrested for allegedly making videos where they had sex and their young children, drugged and naked, watched them and were also included in these videos-- disturbing, disgusting stuff-- and these two are now on house arrest, awaiting trial, because they were not safe in jail-- and while I was completely unsettled by this story, and the depravity of which humans are capable, I also could not help thinking about the fabulously surreal and hysterically funny dream that Ashley Schaeffer (Will Ferrell) recounts in Eastbound and Down, which ends with him commanding his wife to "let the boy watch."

Worst Bar on the Frontier

I find it odd that they serve alcohol on the airplane-- or at least in the Economy section of the airplane-- and I also find it odd that people in the Economy section drink alcohol during the flight, and this seems to be an even worse decision in the Economy section of Frontier airlines, where the seats do NOT recline and the legroom is several inches shorter than any other airline-- alcohol is a beverage that makes me want to pee, fight, dance, play the guitar, go walkabout, participate in games of skill and dexterity, and swim in any available body of water and none of these options are available in the Economy section (I assume some of these options are available in First Class, but I owuldn't know for sure) and so it astounds me when people order a drink on the plane, especially at 7:15 AM . . . but whatever, to each his own, maybe if I had a few drinks I would have been able to sleep in an upright position while listening to a combination of a high-pitched engine whine (which penetrated my earbuds) and the reissue of Sunlandic Twins, instead of walking off the flight with a massive headache.

Anecdotal Evidence

During my many years on the road, I have noticed that Subaru wagons tend to sport bumper stickers . . . and the older the wagon, the more likely it is to have many bumper stickers.

Who Says Teenagers are Self-Centered?

My senior college writing classes chipped in and surprised me with a "condolences" edible arrangement today-- a very sweet gesture that took some organization and foresight-- very impressive for the youth!

The Frenemy Known as Sunshine

Yesterday's copious and unseasonable sunshine caused a classroom disaster-- we're doing great American art forms and genres in Grade 10, and I showing the kids a Western-- Unforgiven, which is the best Western-- but the film has a number of dark and rainy scenes and my blinds are bent and mutilated and my projector bulb is getting dim and at certain times of day, if it's sunny, the sunlight just streams through and creates a glare on the screen, so the kids couldn't see shit when William Munny (Clint Eastwood) calmy goes on his murderous rampage to avenge the death his good buddy Ned (Morgan Freeman) because of the horrible glare and while this really upset me, the sunshine made for a fantastic afternoon of pickleball, where I took all comers, young, old and in between and coldly slaughtered them in various ways before coming home to do some emergency yardwork because the soil around my bamboo plants was very dry, because of all the unseasonable sun and wind. 

A Tough Nut to Crack (on Limited Sleep)

I'm still a little groggy today, due to Daylight Savings Time-- and so I can't figure out this conundrum: if Trump dismantles the Department of Education, how will he ensure that deviant leftist teachers don't propagate critical race theory, condone perverse sexual identities, bring systemic injustice to light, and disseminate Marxist propaganda?

Someone Save Me From Daylight Savings Time

Rough Monday morning: our dog heard a smoke detector chirping in the kitchen at 4 AM-- the battery had run out and it was making that little distress signal, and while it was responsible and conscientious canine behavior, it was still hard to get back to sleep once the issue had been resolved-- and then when my alarm DID go off, it felt way too early-- because it WAS way too early . . . due to motherfucking Daylight Savings Time-- and then I stuck my toe in some dog vomit on the edge of the step . . . Lola ate too many cucumber slices last night (she loves cucumber slices) and must have upchucked them when she was fretting about the chirping noise and then I went through the day like a zombie and to add insult to injury, we had a meeting.

Francis Ellis and Lil Sasquatch at the Stress Factory

Great show at the Stress Factory last night-- as always-- and we had no clue what to expect from the comics because Stacey unloaded the tickets on us and went to Seaside for a St. Patrick's Day Parade; after a forgettable opener (I even forgot his name) then Lil Sasquatch took the stage and did a great bit about being an oddly sexual suit-fitting session by a little European man that could fit in his pocket and another about dolphin rape and then he critiqued the "Stop Human Trafficking" sign he saw at the airport, he felt he needed more methodology and advice on exactly how to follow those orders, and then the opener, Francis Ellis, who seemed to good-looking and too smart to be a stand-up-comedian-- he attended Harvard-- talked his membership in the exclusive Delta Diamond Medallion Club and about terrorists having trouble collecting points for their one way flights and about his first (and only?) fight which happened to be with a guy who had a mouthguard and absolutely lived for that kind of shit; then he criticized people who abuse the "Sophie's choice" metaphor and use it for frivolous circumstances and then he discussed how he liked kids "just the right amount" and how he was recently divorced and so he bought a Costco 144 pack of toothbrushes for any ladies that slept over-- but this made him look like a serial killer and then he talked about trying to impress the workmen on his block, the real men, but how it was hard to do while walking a French bulldog and then he really got into it with the aduience-- he wanted to know if anyone had a union job and he had a discussion with a guy who worked for Dupont, making printing plates and using monomers and polymers and then he asked if there were more union workers in the crowd and my wife yelled out and so he got to discuss teachers and the teacher's union and how he loved teachers but wow they get a lot of time off and then he gathered some more audience material from a couple of guys who lost chain necklaces (and when he was "ambushed" by a high school sophomore) and he wrapped all this up on his keyboard (which we did not know was on the stage or a part of the exact) when he first sang a romantic song about jizz and then sang a song that included all the audience participation specifics-- gold chains and teachers, and polymers, and all the other odd stuff he pulled from the audience that I can't remember-- so if Francis Ellis is coming to a small comedy club in your town, check him out, he's a fun, smart, and energetic entertainer.

Dave's Spring Weather Warning

 Wind makes temperature irrelevant.

No Handles (Except Love Handles)

First time I played morning hoops twice in one week in a few months-- and, strangely, though my legs were tired, my knee felt fine-- it still took me some time (and profanity) to warm-up, but in the end it was worth it all: the getting up extra early; the packing of clothing and towel the night before; the double knee braces; the rapid and rather perfunctory shower in the moldy coach's room; the race to class; the ridicule and derision from the students because of my open-toed sandals (which are much easier to don after a fast shower) and the general hangriness while teaching the first two periods-- because I made a game-winning three in the last two games-- and that's all you really remember, that last shot (although I also remember a couple of out-of-control dribbling escapades and those episodes were pretty traumatic . . . I really shouldn't be handling the ball unless I'm going to immediately shoot it).

Four Albums and a Lager

Things I have been enjoying lately:

1) pianist McCoy Tyner's exotic sounding jazz albums, especially Extensions and Sahara;

2) saxophonist Cannonball Adderley's swinging bluesy jazz album Somethin' Else;

3) trumpeter Freddie Hubbard's jazz fusion classic Red Clay;

4) the dark and (barely) smoky Smoke & Dagger lager brewed by Jack's Abby.

American Art Forms and More Dated Allusions

Today in Grade 10 Honors English class, I charged my students to make the best possible argument for the "most American art form"-- I was doing this because we just finished Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and, unfortunately, the slave narrative was very popular and powerful American literary genre-- so I told them to choose another art form that embodied America-- and after some prompting, the five groups chose these topics: jazz, country music, hip-hop, reality TV, and motor vehicle culture . . . and the reality TV group was working right next to my desk, so I could hear their sophomoric logic and often needed to guide them towards rationality and at one point I said, "You've got to mention our president if you want to win this debate!" and they were like: "Wha?" and I then realized that these sophomore girls had never heard of The Apprentice and did not know Donald Trump's trademark phrase "You're fired" so I polled the class of twenty-five and only one student knew this . . . but then, after more prompting-- the sophomores require a lot of prompting-- they recognized the connection between the fantasy of reality TV and actual political reality-- the fact that Donald Trump was now actually firing federal employees-- and other than this youthful oversight, the presentations were quite persuasive-- hip-hop and car/motorcyle design and culture were probably the best-- but then I synthesized those and said that the MOST American art form is playing hip-hop from a monster stereo system in your tricked out low-rider . . . and then I informed them that though they did a good job, they all neglected to remember that we were still in the 1800s in the chronological progression of the class (which is not actually how the curriculum progresses but I like to teach the kids some history along the way so I like to do things chronologically) and so next class I will make my case for the Western as the most American art form-- or at least for the 1800s . . . as the Western features guns and freedom and taking the law into your own hands and treating Native American poorly and manifesting destiny westward and horses and trains . . . and I'm going to introduce this genre and how it operates with a clip from Malcolm Gladwell on Joe Rogan's podcast-- and this is two hours and twenty-six minutes in and Gladwell is starting to get wacky, as anyone would-- just before this segment he says some sexist things about women who love Law and Order and then he explains his compass-point theory on Westerns . . . and all the other compass points-- here are his categories of thrillers:

A Western takes place in “a world in which there is no law and order, and a man shows up and imposes, personally, law and order on the territory, the community”

An Eastern is “a story where there is law and order, so there are institutions of justice, but they have been subverted by people from within”

In a Northern, “law and order exists, and law and order is morally righteous, the system works.” (A prime example is, of course, Law and Order.)

A Southern is “where the entire apparatus is corrupt, and where the reformer is not an insider but an outsider.” 

My Allusions Grow (Even More) Dated

 

Today at morning basketball we were lamenting the absence of Jeff, due to a groin pull, and I broke into a bit of Sam Malone's "groin injury" rap and no one knew what the fuck I was referring to.

The Week Begins, as Literacy Ends

It is Monday, it's butt-ass cold, the double birthday weekend is over, Donald Trump is aligning himself with Vladimir Putin's vision of the new world order, and apparently-- according to the new episode of Derek Thompson's podcast Plain English-- reading an entire book is a dying art.

I Can't Drive 55 (or at Night)

Me and the Seuss, we share birthday fun--

If the doc were alive, he'd be one-twenty-one!

I'm not quite that old, but D. Boon would be proud--

there's no shame in saying it, so I'll say it loud,

fuck all those youngsters, growing old is no crime--

I'll revel in my age: double nickels on the dime.