Dave Takes an Aesthetic Stand
Although it is certainly a shortcoming in my aesthetic sensibility, there is one thing for certain that I will never have any use for: the Dorian mode.
Reflecting on the Inflection
Eight Year Olds Dude, Eight Year Olds . . .
At the beach today, a fairly innocuous looking guy who claimed to be a journalism teacher at a high school in Pennsylvania asked if he could take a picture of Alex and Ian-- they were wearing their sun hats and playing on a large pile of sand-- but I told him I thought that was kind of weird, and that I would rather he didn't; I would never ask anyone if I could take a picture of their kids, so that's how I made my decision, but it also may have been influenced by the fact that earlier in the day the lifeguards pulled everyone out of the water for a few minutes because of a reputed shark sighting.
Youth Sports: They Build Character?
While walking home from my pick-up soccer game, I saw a great moment in youth sports: a shaggy haired kid who couldn't have been more than eight was standing on the tennis court, sandwiched by his parents, who were tag-teaming him with a vicious coaching diatribe because of his lame strokes and lamer attitude-- the mom, who was wearing a Rutgers shirt and looked athletic in a stocky way, was lambasting him with lines like this: "If you don't lift your arm, I'll lift you! Don't tell me it's hot, it was hotter than this at camp! Did they have air-conditioning on the courts at camp? I don't think so! If you don't bend your knees, I'll bend you!" and then the dad, who was tossing this youngster balls to whack, told her to stop and "watch Momma, don't watch the ball, watch Momma" and he would toss her one and "Momma" would whip a crisp top-spin forehand down the line, and then Dad would go back to tossing to his kid, who could barely bop the thing over the net, and the berating would begin all over again.
Lying . . . It's What Civilized People Do
It's all how you phrase it: when I suggested (to save some money) that I could do some of the painting for our kitchen addition, my wife gave me an absolute vote of no confidence, and banned me from doing ANY painting in her new kitchen, which offended me, of course-- I told her she had to give me some sort of hope that I could possibly do it, if I was very careful and uncharacteristically neat, even if she didn't believe this and wasn't even planning on letting me even stir the paint can-- just to show faith that her husband has the ability to improve himself, just to see optimism and potential in the universe-- and she said to me, "What do you want me to do? Lie?" and I said, "Yes! That's what people do!" and she said I was too sensitive, but my friend Eric didn't see what the problem was, he just said, "This is great-- now you don't have to paint."
Tombstone . . . What the Fuck?
I just watched Tombstone, one of the movies all my friends had seen but me (now only Top Gun and The Big Chill remain) and it's like everyone is acting in a different genre of film: Kurt Russell and Dana Delany are in a cheesy 80's romantic comedy (and they don't even attempt to alter their diction); Sam Elliott is in a bona fide Western; Bill Paxton and Jason Priestly are in a made for TV movie; Powers Boothe is in a B grade slasher flick; Val Kilmer steals the show as Doc Holiday-- and he's in a super-freaky Tarantino-esque meta-Western; Charlton Heston is in The Ten Commandments; and the director had the audacity to start and end the film like a documentary, with some black and white footage and a voice-over, but he couples this with maudlin music, romanticized shots of thundering hoof-beats, Schwarzenegger-esque dialogue (Johnny Ringo says "Let's do this" and Kurt Russell replies, "See you in Hell") and there's also some of the most absurd gunfighting in cinema history-- what were George P. Cosmatos and the gang thinking?
Close Call
Close call in Princeton: after eating a giant meal at Tortuga's Mexican Village ( I ordered three items instead of two, I couldn't pass up an extra tamale smothered with chicken and mole sauce) we took the kids to the art and archaeology museum, where the rule is that you must hold hands with your children so they do not destroy the artifacts, and while staring at a Buddha, my button popped off my shorts and Catherine did not have a bobby pin on her (in fact, she thought my request was ludicrous) and, most importantly, I had been at the gym earlier and didn't bring an extra pair of boxers so I was commando under there . . . there was nothing but one layer of unsupported fabric between me and the art-- and some of those statues are naked . . . but I got out without flashing any Princetonites and from now on I will stick to two items when I eat at Tortuga's (but I can't make any promises about the underwear).
My Wife Berates Me About a Fictitious Insect
When I notice someone has the hiccups, I pretend there is a bug in their hair-- this usually gets people flustered, anxious and concerned . . . they pick through their hair, look for a mirror, shake their heads, etcetera . . . and, during the fretfulness, the reverse peristalsis usually rights itself, plus-- as a bonus-- the bystanders get a laugh-- but I tried this on Catherine yesterday and it didn't work; she said, "Well, get it out" and when I pretended to be squeamish about grabbing the bug she called me a "pussy"-- actually she spelled out the word "pussy," because the kids were sitting there, but still.
R.I.P. A Bunch of People
In the locker-room after successful swim with my new Otterbox (a contraption which makes an Ipod submersible) I heard one old guy ask another how he was doing-- and the other guy's reply was truly inspirational, one of the sunniest things I've ever heard, in fact, a whole new way of looking at the world; he said: "Doing good, doing good . . . a lot of people didn't wake up this morning."
Post-Judgement Judgy Stuff
On the way home from the beach yesterday (and there's no better way to decompress from a long weekend at the beach than by going to the beach-- except when Ian dropped a load in his bathing suit) we were listening to the radio and there was a reference to the "More Cowbell" SNL sketch and my wife revealed that she had never seen it, which kind of astounded me, but then I realized because of the massive variety of media choices that we have now, that we have gotten into the habit of understanding people simply by what they have seen and not their thoughts on what they have seen-- because of the lack of a common denominator (You hate Silver Spoons? Me too!) we simply count someone's choice in media as enough to signify taste, critical thought and intelligence (you watch The Wire? Me too! Awesome!) and not knowing about the existence of certain media is a serious character indicator (you've never heard of Radiohead? Very, very weird . . . there must be something wrong here . . . where did you grow up?) and this is probably not the best way to judge people.
The Tell-Tale Goggles
Outer Banks Fishing Trip XV
Here are some things that happened during The Fifteenth Annual Outer Banks Fishing Trip that didn't happen during the other years:
1) stand-up paddle boarding;
2) no swimming flag for three days;
3) Lacey, the bartender at Tortuga's, joined in movie game II and sat down and had a beer with us AND texted Jeremy twice to see if we would meet her out, despite the fact that she was married . . . apparently, to a good-looking but humorless guy;
4) Whitney invented the movie sound track game and scrolled from A to Z on his infinite Ipod;
5) Cliff demonstrated his knowledge of Mary Poppins and Grease;
6) Rodell demonstrated his musical knowledge of Singles and Fast Times at Ridgemont High;
7) Squirrel demonstrated his musical knowledge of The Big Chill;
8) we learned that I have never seen Top Gun (but I have seen The Big Lewbowski and can identify the Cheers theme song in one note) and that Lacy has never seen Vacation
9) Frisbeer is all about defense;
10) Kenny Bloom and Fish were in spitting distance but decided not to show;
this is all I can think of for now, remind me of anything else I forgot-- it's too bad no one has been jotting down what happened at OBFT for the first fourteen years-- or perhaps that's a good thing.
Ocean Miracles
Ha Ha Ha
I will be truthful and tell you that this is not a fresh sentence-- I'm in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina and this sentence was written days ahead of time-- but I've added an imaginary and subconscious laugh track, so you'll think it's live.
Grandma Logic
Yesterday, when we returned from a day at the beach, there was a cryptic message on the phone from my grandmother (this isn't unusual as no one in my family ever leaves anything concrete on an answering machine, they always demand a call-back) and when I called her back she told me she wanted to give me some money for my fishing trip, but I told her not to drive over because there was a downed telephone pole on Route 1, and so she asked me if Catherine had fifty dollars . . . and if Catherine did possess fifty dollars, then she was to give the money to me, and then my grandmother said that she would give Catherine fifty dollars; although my wife said this was the funniest thing she had ever heard, I held my tongue while I was on the phone because fifty dollars is fifty dollars and I wasn't going to risk losing the cash with a sarcastic comment about the logic of a financial transaction.
Dave Invents A Revolutionary New Diet
I would like to lose a few pounds before I gain a few pounds on vacation (I will not gain them back-- I will gain some entirely new pounds on vacation, mainly composed of fermented sugars, aquatic life, and pulled pork . . . unless I continue my moratorium on large mammals) and so I have developed a new diet, the gum diet: whenever I want to eat a cookie or a ham sandwich, instead I chew some gum.
Four Firsts
Today, I present four "firsts":
1) Alex caught his first fish;
2) Ian caught his first fish;
3) I monitored my first kid able to swim in deep water-- Ian, who is only three, has been experimenting with holding his breath underwater and jumping into the pool (unlike his older brother Alex, who is more tentative and anxious, and completely oblivious to peer pressure-- I was like this as a kid too-- Alex could care less if he looks like a complete wiener in front of other kids) and then yesterday Ian started swimming for real-- stroking, kicking, keeping his mouth closed-- and he jumped in and out of my friend's pool for hours, letting himself go deep under-water (he's too short to touch) and then he practiced swimming to the ladder, and then he finally swam the length of the pool, while I nervously treaded water beside him;
4) also, the other day, I was playing with the boys at Bicentennial Park, and I saw an Asian grandmother try to do the little zip line-- first time I've ever seen that, and perhaps the last, as I think she pulled something.
You Don't Ask a Tomato For Ketchup
The recent salmonella-laden tomato scare reminded me of my favorite line in the 1978 camp classic film Attack of the Killer Tomatoes: Sam Smith, who is so masterful at the art of disguise that even though he is black, he has no trouble posing as Hitler, successfully infiltrates the camp of the killer tomatoes . . . but while he is eating human flesh with them, he makes a grave error and asks, "Can somebody please pass the ketchup?"-- and then he is consumed by the tomatoes he is spying on.
The Fat Gets Fatter
When I woke up this morning, I had a brief blissful moment of delusional consciousness . . . I thought that I didn't go out last night in New Brunswick and do the usual thing that happens when Whitney comes to town (shoot darts, chew tobacco, stay up far too late in a dinghy bar, get a grease-truck sandwich) but then that feeling was shattered by my son Ian's voice . . . he was yelling "Time to wake up!" at Alex's door (Whitney's daughters were sleeping in there) and then it all came back to me: I remembered that, improbably, we did go out, energized by the late appearance of Mose-- long after the kids and the ladies had gone to bed-- but there was one salubrious change in the routine . . . I did not get a greasetruck sandwich and Whitney, infamous for his usual two sandwich order (we'll have a cheese-steak and egg and a fat-bitch/ we? you!) only ordered one measly cheese-steak and egg-- which confounded the order taker: no mozzarella sticks on that? chicken fingers? french fries? gyro meat? do you want your cheese-steak and egg on top of a chicken parm?-- and then Whitney shared the seemingly slender sandwich with me, and we realized that the super-sizing of America is pretty scary, because fifteen years ago we thought a cheese-steak with egg was the height of gluttony, but now-- in comparison to the newer "fat" sandwiches-- it has become an hors d'oeuvre.
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