The Jersey Shore and Asia . . . So Many Borders, So Much Insanity

Placing your chairs, umbrellas, and ocean sporting equipment on the beach in July in New Jersey is a bit like setting up for RISK:The Game of Global Domination . . . you've really got to strategize in order to claim maximum space and secure your borders; this week we are down the beach with a group of nearly thirty folks, cousins and such, and they sleep late and rarely get to the beach before noon, so it is often up to me to claim a spot on the beach . . . my preferred strategy is to scatter shit all over the place, willy-nilly, everything facing a different direction, so it looks as if a disorganized and chaotic band of gypsies occupied the area, and perhaps seventy or eighty more people are due to show up; I'm also definitely not afraid to encroach on other encampments-- especially if it's a couple of stray unoccupied chairs-- because a small group is more willing to move, with the slightest motivation, whether it's the oncoming tide or a large and loud group of mainly hirsute Italians from central Jersey; also, I like to set up a personal umbrella and chair as close to the water as possible and as far from the main group as possible (while still maintaining a thin connection to the mainland, so not Hawaii, more like Cape Cod) and this is so that I can read in peace . . . yesterday morning, was typical: my family got out to the beach first, and I started a ragged and crazy line of chairs, zig-zagging everywhere, put the cart behind them, chucked some boogie boards and skim boards to the side, taking up lots of land and looking higgledy-piggledy and impossible to fathom, and then a few cousins showed up-- one of whom remarked on the horrible organization of the chairs-- and my family left the beach and walked to LouDogs and when we got back and I sat down in my chair, under my umbrella, things looked and felt different . . . I was hotter for one, the sand seemed drier, and the chairs were in a lovely symmetrical oval and though I was on the far edge, I wasn't as close to the water or the people in front of us as I was before . . . I assumed I was going crazy from the heat, read for a bit (Hue 1968 . . . the perfect mindset for this sort of conflict) and then I decided that something really had changed, something had been moved without my go-ahead, so I walked down to where the twenty-something year old cousins were chatting by the water and asked if anyone had moved the chairs and Nick-- the nicest guy you'll ever meet-- made the mistake of admitting he had moved several umbrellas and chairs and arranged everything into a neat and organized socially functional oval, so everyone was included in the group and everyone could see everyone else and chat and so that outside people could discern where we were sitting and put their own chairs down accordingly . . . it was all very civilized and though he had the best intentions, I reamed him out anyway, told him never to touch my chair again, explained the RISK mentality and how my umbrella outpost was designed to intimidate and amass territory, reiterated the importance of protecting and bolstering one's borders, and gave him a quick lecture on guerrilla beach apparatus fortification and entrenchment . . . and then I went back to the house and took a nap and when I returned, I had to take it all back . . . I misjudged high-tide, and the center of our zone was completely flooded out, my original position was lost to the ocean, and the spot where Nick moved my chair and umbrella was perfect, a little dry island amidst the water and wet sand, there was even a tide-pool behind the spot . . . so I complimented him for his effort and told him I was pleased that we now occupied a large swath of prime oceanfront sand, my chair and umbrella in the optimum position, and that I was especially pleased that the crew that was once in front of us, blasting "hot" country, had been washed away.

Who Do You Root For?

After my favorite morning sequence at Sea Isle: a 6 AM minimalist run on the beach-- barefoot, hat, sunglasses, shorts, spandex-- and then a swim in the ocean (I strip down to just my spandex, usually there is no one out on the beach except scattered fishermen, but this morning a woman happened to be walking by right when I stripped off my shorts, resulting in her suffering beach injuries #3 and #4 . . . her eyes will never recover from the images of me in the bright morning light, my thick hairy body stuffed in a pair of spandex) and then I take an outdoor shower . . . and while I was in the shower this morning, I felt a bump on my back . . . a greenhead fly-- apparently undaunted by my hairy spandex clad body--  had bitten me after I swam, while I was walking back up the beach to our house, and then when I got out of the outdoor shower, I noticed a furious struggle near the upper corner of the stall; another greenhead fly was trapped in a spider web and the spider was trying to dispatch it with its venomous bite, zipping over and attacking the fly, then running back up the web because the fly was a good deal bigger than the spider and this happened over and over and while I don't love spiders-- they freak me out a little bit, especially when I stare into their seventeen eyes-- in this instance I was all for the eight-legger, and I couldn't look away from this miniature yet gruesome spectacle-- I wan ted to see the conclusion and I wanted that fly to die a slow death, encased in a silk web, its juices slowly sucked from its body-- because in the hierarchy of creepy-crawlies, nothing is lower than a greenhead fly; unfortunately, this wasn't a feel-good nature documentary . . . the fly escaped, and while it was stunned, I tried to smash it with a stick so I could fling it back into the web, but I only injured it and it flew off to lick its wounds and bite some other poor soul's back.

The End of an Era?

It's that time again . . . yet another trip to Sea Isle, and yet another LeCompt show . . . but this one was a more significant than usual, as we learned that this is the last summer for the Springfield Inn-- the owners are tearing it down and redeveloping the property . . . so one of the dingiest dive bars on the Jersey shore will be no more, and who knows if LeCompt will play in Sea Isle next summer; last night's show featured the original drummer-- who is a show unto himself-- and the band played loads of Who songs to showcase his talents (they also played a fantastically rocking version of Fleetwood Mac's "Go Your Own Way") and Mike hawked some horribly ugly commemorative LeCompt/Springfield long sleeved t-shirts . . . despite my misgivings, Catherine bought one, which she is going to wear to our last LeCompt outing at the Springfield, which will happen on a Sunday in late August . . . if anyone can make it to the beach for that Sunday night show (August 20th) they are welcome to crash at our place, it should be a fun time and the last time we'll ever see LeCompt perform within the low-ceilinged confines of the oval Springfield bar, the gang wailing away a few feet from the liquor bottles, Mike's hat scraping the filthy ceiling tiles.

Beach Injury #2

If you feel the need to sneak up on me, whether to knife me in the abdomen because I owe you money or to sting my leg (presupposing you are a greenhead fly) then I suggest you do the sneaking up on my left side (because I can't swivel my head fluidly to the left, I hurt my neck while running on the beach, or during doubles tennis, or swimming in the ocean or -- most likely-- sleeping on a soft and sloping beach house mattress).

Chacos: Pros and Cons

The pros for Chacos sandals are numerous: they are simple, elegant, comfortable and nearly indestructible-- made with proprietary a lightweight rubber and polyurethane combination that is both stiff and resilient;

there is only one con . . . if you graze your wife's toe with the nearly indestructible stiff and resilient proprietary rubber and polyurethane sole of your Chaco sandal, you'll rip her toenail out, causing her great pain and suffering and you no end of grief.

Parallel Humorous Spare Tires

I watched The Jerk with the kids yesterday and it really holds up; Pig Eye Jackson the cat juggler, Navin grabbing a second dog to obscure his naked figure, the defective cans, and -- of course-- the opening . . . "I was born a poor black child" . . . these scenes all made my kids laugh just as hard as I did some thirty-odd years ago . . . and here's a fun fact that I noticed for the first time: the original house down in Mississippi has a spare tire on the roof-- for no reason that I could surmise other than it's funny-- and the larger version (bought with Navin's dad's canny stock investments) also has a spare tire on the roof, in the same spot . . . perhaps the filmmakers put it there to help convey the size and splendor of the newly improved shack.

Keynes vs Friedman . . . with Madrick as Referee

Jeff Madrick's book Seven Bad Ideas: How Mainstream Economists Have Damaged America and the World pits Keynesian economics-- the idea that markets can be extremely erratic and inefficient, especially in times of recession and/or economic chaos, and so active and aggressive financial policy decisions are essential and important-- against the ideas of Milton Friedman (and what those ideas have evolved into . . . a moralistic narrow-minded worship of the beauty and unerring accuracy of the Invisible Hand, free markets, and EMT) and while Madrick keeps it fairly intellectual-- this is not an easy read and certainly not a polemic, it's a point-by-point academic debunking and dismissal of much of what mainstream economists pass for fact (if you want something in this vein that is a little more entertaining, I recommend the writing of Ha Joon Chang) and while you might get bogged down in the chapters about Say's Law and the mathematics of inflation, it's still easy enough to read between the lines and realize how much economic conservatives-- and this includes Bill Clinton-- have fucked things up, by thinking that the abstract elegance of the Invisible Hand means that the axiom (mentioned once by Adam Smith) is the absolute be-all-end all in economics, some universal truth like the Golden Rule (and we all know that Golden Rule has a loophole-- which is analogous to economics because it deals with irrationality-- you should do unto others as you would have done unto you . . . unless you love a good knife fight . . . if you love a good knife fight and wake up each morning hoping, praying to get into a knife fight, for no reason at all other than you love violence and blood and honing your boot knife and so-- since you love knife fighting-- you do this unto others that you meet, assuming they would love a good knife fight as well, most people would say that's a flaw in the Golden Rule and you're totally irrational . . . it's the same with economics: it would be lovely if markets and people within them were totally rational and all wanted the same thing and had the same information and motivation, but that's not how it works, people move in herds, they panic, they operate without perfect information, in markets that aren't large enough to be statistically accurate, etcetera, etcetera) and the important thing to remember is that economics is NOT math and it has a moral component . . . it has a real effect on people's lives and there are no commandments from on high-- even if they're from the IMF-- that are universally right . . . you'll need to read the book to get the fine points but near the end Madrick summarizes things:

"Economies of scale, the growth of trade, the availability of natural resources, educational attainment, the quality of financial institutions, military spending, the rise of wages, the establishment of unions, welfare programs, the optimism of a people, varieties of attitudes toward materialism, the sense of community, marriage and families, the broadening of freedom-- these are major factors contributing to growth and it is hard to separate one from another . . . there are no adequate universal theories of growth because the nature of growth on a country-by-country basis and over time is too individual and involves too many factors . .  this does not stop economists from insisting on a scientific-like one-note explanation of growth"

and so those who propose orthodox supply-side EMT free market economics in the face of every problem-- whether it be a moral, philosophical, sociological, or psychological-- are "profoundly responsible" for what has happened to the American economy and need to realize that these simplistic models are only hypothetical, and have very little empirical factuality . . . this is a must read for politicians and free market advocates, and if our leaders and legislators could be a little more open-minded and creative about economic policy and reform (this can happen, even in the face of lobbyists . . . New Jersey just completely reformed it's corrupt bail system) and realize that markets occasionally work but they are not some universal truth inscribed on a tablet, they are just another economic game with rules and regulations and consequences and incentives, and just like any game, the rules can be massaged and adjusted and outright changed to allow fairer play and better results for all participants and other outcomes . . . football did it with the forward pass (and then pass interference and quarterback protection rules etc. and look at all the scoring) and basketball introduced the three-pointer so that little guys like Stephen Curry could profit as well as big men . . . economics can adapt the same mentality, if people can get beyond this universal acceptance of orthodoxy . . . it ain't religion, it's money.

Kids and Sports . . . Highs, Lows and Digressive In-Betweens

This was supposed to be yesterday's sentence but after coaching soccer in extreme heat and humidity last night, my brain melted out of my head . . . so here it is, better late than never: my younger son Ian and I have been playing a lot of tennis lately-- all spring and summer-- and to make sure I taught him everything correctly, we watched a lot of YouTube videos on proper technique; this helped both of our games, and we've been improving in lockstep, hitting and serving better and better-- and my older son Alex comes out and plays occasionally, and he's quite good but just didn't practice enough to keep up with Ian (who was has been near obsessed with it) and both boys and their friend have been attending tennis camp this week, it's run by Ed Ransom, a trainer of some repute around here, and he took one look at Ian and moved him into the highest group and when my wife picked up the kids he asked her who Ian's private instructor was and said he was really talented and my wife told him that Ian's private instructor was his dad (Dad of the Year! this is a high point in the story . . . I was so proud that I had taught Ian to play tennis correctly) and for the next few days, Ian was the talk of the camp-- I was getting texts from other parents about how Ed had talked to them about this young phenom and it turned out to be Ian-- when I took my turn picking up the kids on Wednesday, Ed told me that Ian really had a talent and it needed to be "cultivated" and I told him we played all the time-- I was cultivating the hell out of it-- but he was also a soccer star and a pretty good basketball player and Ed frowned and said that Ian was going to have to choose and that he couldn't play everything or his talent would be "diluted" and I scoffed at this because I'm a big proponent of playing different sports in different seasons-- you make new friends, develop new skills, and don't burn out-- and so we went home and the kids rested, it was insanely hot, and then we headed to the high school gym (no A/C) for our summer basketball league, I help coach with my friend John-- a great basketball player-- and both boys play; tonight was supposed to be just seventh and eighth graders playing, but the other team had two ninth graders, so we matched them with two of ours, which made for a wide variety of body types on the court . . . Ian is heading into seventh grade and weighs 80 pounds and he stepped in front of a pass and grabbed it from a two hundred pound ninth grader-- a giant flabby kid who could play hoops but hadn't grown into his body yet-- and the kid toppled over on Ian, landing on Ian's ankle and knee and Ian's leg bent backwards and I thought something was broken (this happened to another one of our players in the winter and he was in a cast for a couple of months) and Ian was crying and clutching his leg and I had to carry him off the court to the bench and while nothing was broken, he had hyperextended his knee and couldn't walk and I had to carry him to the car after the game and now I had a stomachache and Ed Ransom's words were ringing in my ears-- this was crazy to try to play every sport . . . maybe Ian needed to focus, though he just turned twelve and hadn't hit puberty yet-- and maybe coaching soccer and basketball, and also trying to train tennis was making me crazy as well . . . but the boys finished watching Unbreakable and then went to bed and some of David Dunn must have rubbed off on Ian, because he woke up the next morning and though his knee was a little sore, he was fine, a rubber band, and he went off to tennis camp with barely a limp, which got me a little choked up, because sports stories where the scrappy little underdog prevails always do (I was crying like a baby the other day at the end of the Netflix series GLOW, if you haven't seen it, it's a wonderful show . . . empowering and athletic and funny and moving-- the total opposite of The Handmaid's Tale, which is just brutal) and I'm not sure what the future will bring, maybe some private lessons for Ian-- but he definitely wants to pursue some serious tennis instruction . . . or maybe I'll just keep watching videos and cultivate him . . . and we also have my brother as a resource-- he played tennis in college and he's still quite good . . . he hit with Ian last Sunday and he was really impressed, and though he only mentioned it once, I think he was impressed with the improvement in my game as well . . . so this is a double underdog story, because while I was a serviceable tennis player, I'm not an expert, but I think I can figure it out . . . anyway, I'm hoping to get Alex out with Ian a lot more, we've got courts right by our house and if the two of them start really playing together, they could end up like Serena and Venus, and I'm also still hoping that they can prove Ed Ransom wrong, and excel at several sports because while tennis is awesome, it's a lonely game, and doesn't compare to the fun and drama of soccer, basketball, and professional wrestling.

Something to Look Forward To

The right to free speech contains its inverse-- inside of itself-- and so it will eventually collapse, like a black hole, sucking in everything good and just and logical, destroying that information and spewing it out the other end, scrambled and worthless.

The Test 92: Letters of Recommendation?

This week on The Test, Cunningham winds us up and lets us go . . . see if you can keep up; as a bonus, Dave hashes out some immigration policy, Cunningham begins with a bang, and Stacey suggest something filthy.

Nerds Unite!

I drove down the block this morning to toss the cardboard into the recycling bin, and a number of folks-- mainly Asian-- were sitting on the corner, phones in hand, staring up the giant hill, and so after I tossed my cardboard over the fence into the bin (the gate is never open) I asked them if something exciting was about to happen; I assumed someone was going to longboard down the giant hill and do a trick, as I had seen skaters doing this from time to time, but an Asian girl said, "Yes, but on our phones" and she explained that a rare Pokemon had shown up in this location, but it was going to take a large number of people to "take it down" and as she told me this another person drove up and got out of his car, and then I took off, so I don't know if they got enough people or not, but if you see a random group of nerds, waiting around anxiously, they're probably not waiting for a partial eclipse or birdwatching, they are most likely assembling in reality to defeat something virtual.

The Victorian Age: Unbuttoned and Muddy

On nearly every page of The Essex Serpent, a dense and lengthy novel by Sarah Perry, ideas clash-- but in the civilized manner of the late-Victorian age, in fact, much of the weightiest discourse takes place by letter; science and faith; myth and reality; love and friendship; the monstrous and the absurd; city life and country living; politics and society; feminism and the male hegemony; poverty and wealth; sickness and vitality; medicine and quackery; etcetera, etcetera . . . and all this juxtaposition is couched in the language of the time period, so it's not exactly a beach read, but the prose is beautiful and gothic, and picks up in pace later in the story . . . many of the events are based on real happenings of the the time, and Perry lays her sources bare at the end; this book will change your view of the 1880s (if you had one) as it paints a picture of a world just on the edge of modernity, one boot in the 20th century and the other pulling out of the sucking mud of antiquity.

I Drink Your Milkshake!

If the world were a fairer place, when you beat someone younger than you at tennis (or in a fistfight or armwrestling or any other one-on-one physical challenge) then you would swap ages with them . . . you'd suck up all their youthful energies and become instantly younger and they would assume the burden of your years and become instantly older (and we're talking about consenting adults here-- no chucking an infant out on the court and whacking balls at them).

Ham-handed Dilemma (in Honor of Alec)

Is it wrong to pretend to be friends with someone solely because he smokes (and distributes) his own bacon?

It's Summer! Make Your Kids Watch Movies!

My kids and I don't watch much TV during the school year, but now that it's summer, we are making up for lost time-- and I'm very lucky to have two excellent (and captive) movie watchers . . . one of the great joys of fatherhood is forcing my kids to watch films that I want to see; and the rule is, if you don't want to watch what dad has chosen, then go read a fucking book . . . here's a few of the things we've watched lately:

1) Song of the Sea . . . 2D and proud of it, a little slow, but visually stunning;

2) American Werewolf in London . . . best pub scene ever at The Slaughtered Lamb, a lot of awkward seventies nudity, and if they had just listened and stayed off the moors . . . a great movie and streams for free on Amazon Prime;

3) Caddyshack . . . still holds up and my kids loved it as both a comedy and a sports movie-- the dialogue is a lot weirder than you remember, especially Chevy Chase's seventies mystical guru bullshit . . . Bill Murray is often incomprehensible, and may have been drunk/stoned during production;

4) Goodfellas . . . this is one of my favorites and the kids really appreciated the dialogue and the lesson . . . Alex said in school they told him not to do drugs, but he though a better approach would have been to simply show the last twenty minutes of Goodfellas, the deathly pale Ray Liotta having paranoid freak-outs while being chased by helicopters, and the class would have gotten it more clearly;

5) The Shawshank Redemption . . . Ian sat silently during the entire film and then at the end turned to me, astonished, and said, "That was a great movie!"

6) Saving Private Ryan . . . this one struck a chord with Ian as well, making him want to watch another war movie, and we realized you can stream this film on Amazon . . .

7) Apocalypse Now . . . I was really impressed that my kids dug this movie, it's long and trippy and slow at times-- although punctuated with some of the greatest scenes of violence and horror ever filmed-- I hadn't watched it in a long time and forgot how astounding it is-- you couldn't make a movie like that today: slightly plotless, surreal and psychedelic, chock full of stars, and tragically abject at the end . . . the boys were riveted, even during the interminably long and weird Kurtz portion . . . warning though, animals ARE harmed during the production of this movie, especially a water buffalo . . .

8) 30 Rock . . . we all love this show and it's a great thing to watch right after you finish Apocalypse Now, in order to wind down and not have nightmares;

9) Raising Arizona . . . kids loved this one as well, especially the fight between John Goodman and Nicholas Cage in the trailer home, and Randall "Tex" Cobb as Leonard Smalls;

10) Poltergeist . . . fairly scary, especially the clown, and very important for kids to see, so they understand jokes about building houses on top of ancient Indian burial grounds.

Freedom?

In the spirit of Independence Day, I cut the cord on our cable and home phone; we now only have Verizon FIOS internet-- they're sending us a prepaid shipping box so we can mail back the set-top cable receiver, so no more weird fees to "rent" that stupid thing (no taxation without representation!) and they are also sending us a new router . . . at first the lady on the phone wanted to charge me 84.99 a month for internet, but once I mentioned the opposing deal from Optimum, she "noticed" that if I signed up for two years, it would be 44.99 a month--- and that's it, no fees or anything-- I think I now need to get a digital antennae for local stations (apparently there are more than you think) and I'm a little hazy about the rest-- I'm still a Verizon customer, so I can login to ESPN3 and other channels-- and in place of the home-phone, I used Google Voice and got a Google Phone Number . . . yesterday I actually called my son and the computer in the kitchen "rang" and he answered the call . . . and he was able to reciprocate and call my cell from the computer with Google Voice . . . to celebrate the new digital revolution, we watched Apocalypse Now last night, it's streaming for free on Amazon if you have Prime.

The Test 91: Looking Through the Looking Glass (Menagerie)

Another brilliant and creative quiz from Stacey on this week's episode of The Test, but this time-- as I've always suspected-- she didn't think of the idea herself . . . you'll understand once you navigate the steep and thorny path through seven ethical dilemmas-- with an added layer of mental gymnastics-- plus, as a bonus, listen all the way until the end to hear us laugh and laugh at Cunningham's anguish.

Trump and Scott Pruitt Want to Contaminate Our Precious Bodily Fluids

If you're worried about the state of our nation, forget about the tweets and the faux-Time magazine covers and the Russia investigation and the posturing with North Korea . . . the Trump administration is dismantling the Waters of United States Rule, which extended the EPA's authority to regulate large bodies of water, such as the Chesapeake Bay and the waterways, streams, and wetlands that flow into these bodies of water . . . this is also called The Stream Protection Rule, and it fleshes out the laws that prevent mining companies from doing "material damage" to the waterways and streams, and it took many, many years to enact . . . fifteen, in fact; Scott Pruitt-- Trump's pro-coal nutjob EPA administrator-- just signed a proposal to rescind the rule, and return the power in these pollution issues back to the states, which makes no logical sense, because waterways do not observe state borders (nor can water be gerrymandered) and if you're upstream-- whether you're a farmer or a miner or work in some other industry-- then you can pollute away, and let the state downstream worry about it . . . and if we've learned anything from Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove, the best way to start World War III is to taint our fresh pure water, which we need to replenish our precious bodily fluids, so that we can engage in the physical act of love without a loss of essence.

Parallel Gluttony with a Dash of Surrealism

Friday, I got home from my four hour workshop on how to teach the Rutgers Composition class, ate some lunch and crawled into bed for a nap-- I was all tuckered out from Thursday night . . . we took a tour of the Cypress Brewery-- which involved much sampling of the wares-- then went to the pub (I dropped a dart on my foot and, unfortunately, I was wearing sandals, there was some blood) and then ate a bacon cheeseburger and some fries at White Rose . . . an epic evening for middle-aged men-- meanwhile, as I slept through the afternoon, my kids and their friend Tibby were out on the town, determined to spend their allowance; they walked all the way to White Rose for lunch-- which is quite a haul, especially in the heat-- and on the way they found a wallet in the street, and they looked inside and ascertained the address of the owner from her ID . . . she lived on the North Side, by the Middle School, and she also happened to be a little person (dwarf also seems to be okay when describing someone very short, but the "midget" is politically incorrect) and they decided they should return the wallet to the little lady, but first they would follow a rule of thumb very close to my heart: Eat first, then do a good deed . . . so they ate their burgers, then walked across town and delivered the wallet back to the little lady, who Ian described as very kind and thankful, but slightly witch-like, with a boil on her nose and some green cupcake batter on the side of her face . . . and she was so pleased with the return of her wallet that she gave the boys a twenty dollar reward, and they applied another commonly used heuristic to that situation: Found Money? Spend That Cheddar! and so the three of them went straight to Baskin Robbins and spent twenty dollars on ice cream (they ordered elaborate sundaes that sounded more like bowls of candy with a dollop of ice cream tossed in for good measure) and then, to finish the adventure, they went to the comic book store . . . so a gluttonous twenty-four hour cycle for all the males in my household, but while I needed a nap to recover, Alex and Ian said they had no ill effects from throwing a shit-ton of ice cream and candy on top of a greasy burger and fries . . . the joys of youth.

Drinking and Tossing

Playing cornhole without beer feels a bit childish-- especially if you're playing with other adults-- you quickly realize that you're just tossing around beanbags in public (we learned this lesson at the Stress Factory, the local comedy club . . . they have cornhole outside and you can play while you wait to get in, and while the hostess insisted we'd be able to get beer out there while we waited, that was patently false . . . cornhole was fun at first, but then, without beer, the realization dawned on us what we were doing; at least with horseshoes, if you don't pay attention, you can get a concussion).