Working Out vs. Work

I could get the same amount of exercise digging the arbor vitae out of the ground along my back property line, but I'd rather go to the gym . . . which is sort of sad, that I'd rather exercise for no purpose, instead of getting something done (but I suppose there's no chance of seeing any good-looking women in spandex along my back property line).

It's All Relative

Watching my son Alex do "surf camp" in Sea Isle City last week was scary enough, so I can't even imagine how Garrett McNamara's parents felt when they watched their son careen down the face of a 100 foot wave in Portugal.

Some Balls (Metaphorically)

Last week in Sea Isle City, while I was walking home with some take out food from McGowan's, a twenty-something blonde woman dressed in a black waitress uniform shot across Landis Avenue at a fairly busy intersection on her pink beach cruiser bike, and she was texting as she rode across the main drag, and this wasn't at a light . . . I guess she had just gotten off her shift and really wanted to know what was going on (and she wasn't wearing a helmet, either).

Slavery!

Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained may be a lot of things -- including gratuitously violent, profanely offensive, and way too long -- but it's certainly not boring, in fact, it's one of the most entertaining movies I've seen since Pulp Fiction . . . everything you want to happen, happens . . . plus a whole bunch of other stuff: nine phrenologists out of ten.

Some Titles Are Literal and Some Titles Are Ironic

They should tell you this at the start, but instead I learned far too late that the title of Edith Wharton's fin de siècle novel of manners House of Mirth is an allusion to a Biblical quotation from Ecclesiastes (the heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth) and so if you're expecting a happy, mirthful ending from this book then you are going to be very disappointed . . . it's a turn-of-the-century version of Mean Girls, without the jokes and the tacked-on happy ending; Lily Bart -- like Cady Heron -- has to navigate the world of the rich and popular, and though it's something of an anachronism to describe them in this way, they turn out to be just like "the Plastics."

True (but boring) Confessions #6

I don't ever floss, until it's three days before the dentist appointment (and I don't fool anyone).

True (but boring) Confessions #5

Before I go coach my son's soccer team, I religiously put two pint glasses into the freezer.

True (but boring) Confessions #4

Sometimes I watch 30 Rock on Netflix without telling my wife, and then the next time we watch 30 Rock, I don't tell her that she's missed an episode -- so unless she's doing the same thing to me, I've seen all the episodes and she hasn't.

True (but boring) Confessions #3

Sometimes when I open my car door, I make contact with the car next to mine (and sometimes I even scratch their door . . . but I never tell a soul).

True (but boring) Confessions #2

Sometimes when I water the garden, I forget to shut the hose off.

One Hundred Years Ago, It Was Still Humid

Although I can't relate to the parties that Gatsby threw in West Egg, or the way the Gormers eschewed social conventions in Edith Wharton's House of Mirth and -- in a precursor to Gatsby --"started a sort of continuous performance of their own, a kind of social Coney Island, where everybody is welcome who can make noise enough and doesn't put on airs," but what I can understand is that going to one of these parties will be a good deal better than suffering "a broiling Sunday in town," as both The Great Gatsby and House of Mirth contain the palpable heat and humidity of the East Coast -- and this was long before the idea of global warming-- and both novels put forward the very advanced idea that no civilized person should stand this sort of weather.

True (but boring) Confessions #1

I haven't done a crossword puzzle in a LONG time.

Two Moving Rocks Are Better Than One

Two new songs from The World's Second Greatest Rock Band . . . one about community college and the other about not getting to have a midlife crisis; lyrics and more over at Gheorghe: The Blog, of course.

Psychiatric Tales Are More Fun If There Are Pictures

Darryl Cunnigham's eleven graphic stories about mental illness -- simply titled Psychiatric Tales -- is a terse and powerful reminder that we are not in control of our own brains, and that mental illness is just that  . . . an illness that is often beyond the control of our willpower and consciousness; the late great Mitch Hedberg said: "Alcoholism is a disease, but it's the only one that you can get yelled at for having," and you can substitute any of the disorders from the book in that sentence and get the same result . . . a quick read and worth checking out.

Obviously

It's more fun to brush up on Richard Pryor, then it is to brush up on Espanol (and I'm understanding a lot more of the content).

Is This Genius or a Flaw?

We are coming to the end of the BBC series Top of the Lake and some bad stuff is going down in the New Zealand bush, but the show takes place in such a breathtaking setting -- snow-covered rocky mountains surrounding a deepwater mountain lake, that I'm often just looking at the scenery and thinking: I'd really like to go on vacation in New Zealand instead of being concerned for the people in peril on the show . . . and so I am wondering if this is a flaw in the show, or if it's done purposefully, in order to create some weird paradoxical friction in the audience, some detachment from the characters, some sensation of their puniness in the landscape.

I Wish I Thought of This

My friend Adam passed along this list of "28 "Favorite" Books That Are Huge Red Flags" and I find it accurate, funny, and applicable; I am suspicious of any adult who advertises their "favorite" anything, and while I have sworn to finish Infinite Jest this summer, I'm not going to let anyone see me reading it, because that's just pretentious and annoying (like this blog).

Gas is Funny

I was listening to the news on NPR, and when Soterios Johnson explained that the NYPD released some harmless gas into the subway system it made me laugh out loud in my car, which is pretty juvenile for a 43 year old man.

My Summer To-Do List

Here are some of the things I want to accomplish this summer -- and I think if I complete half of them, I'll be quite proud:

1) Brush up on my Spanish while walking the dog,

2) record an album,

3) move the arbor vitae from the back property line to the side property line,

4) install a fence on the back property line,

5) plant some screening shrubs or bamboo in decorative containers on the back property line,

6) get some steel or wire shelving units and organize the sporting goods in the study,

7) get my body fat percentage down to 12%,

8) strengthen my core,

9) get new lenses for my glasses,

10) restring my tennis racket,

11) finish Infinite Jest,

12) attend the 20th Annual Outer Banks Fishing Trip,

14) get over my triscadecaphobia.

Would You Rather (a Transcript of the Dumbest Dialogue Ever Held by Cognizant, Literate Human Beings)

We are eating dinner, and my eight year old son Ian says to me: "Would you rather get baked in an oven or eaten by a donut?" and, idiotically, I answer him . . . the rest of the conversation goes down like this: "Eaten by a donut? . . . yes, eaten by a donut, instead of you eating the donut, the donut gets revenge and eats you . . . well, I definitely don't want to be baked in an oven, so eaten by a donut . . . me too, eaten by a donut, you might live ten seconds more of your life in its stomach . . . wait, how big is this donut? . . . as big as our house, so even if it eats you, you might still be alive in its stomach . . . okay, then definitely eaten by a donut."