The Usual Vaseline-Coated Shit-show

I played pickleball this morning, then mowed the lawn, then helped my son Alex move a TV and some furniture to New Brunswick . . . forgetting that I should have been conserving my energy for the traditional Labor Day pool party greased-watermelon-rugby match; this year's match was more epic than usual-- and it's usually fairly epic . . . after jumping out to an early lead, my team eventually lost 3-2 but it took far longer than usual and by the end, most of us were gassed-- from treading water; from wrestling and dunking folks; from trying to keep our with our fully grown, athletic children, and mainly from diving into the murky depths of the deep end in pursuit of the neutrally buoyant melon-- -- with dozens of legs kicking above you, blocking your path to oxygen-- and while most of the match was the usual Vaseline-coated shit-show, I was proud of two particular moments:

1) Alex had the watermelon a yard from the end line, but when he rose up to toss it over the side of the pool and tie the score, I rose up with him-- and like (a very short and hairy) Dikembe Mutombo, I cleanly blocked his scoring attempt . . . it was fucking sweet-- and when Alex scored on the next possession, he said, "Thank God I scored, or I'd never hear the end of that block"

2) during a frothy chaotic melee, I ended up clutching the watermelon to my belly, but my back was turned to our opponent's end-zone and I was holding the melon below the surface of the water-- and no one knew that I was in possession of the melon-- so I channeled Daniel-Day Lewis, looked around frantically, and said, "Where is it? Where did it go?" and I simultaneously started kicking my legs and proceeding very slowly into enemy territory-- and I made it a couple of yards utilizing this deception, but then Alex jumped on me and pushed the melon loose, and he claims "you were making that face that you always make when you're doing something stupid like that."

When You Come to a Fork in the Road . . . Take It

In the newest episode of We Defy Augury-- "Spenser, Morality, and the Jock Ethic" -- I discuss my philosophical, moral, and ethical thoughts (loosely) based on Robert B. Parker's novel Mortal Stakes with Miss Education . . . other special guests include Coach D'Amato, Coach Taylor, Falstaff, God, Walter, Donny, and the Dude.

My Wife, DMV Hero . . .

Thursday morning my wife took her car to the Edison DMV Inspection Station; there was a decent line (because it was the end of the month) and after a number of cars went through the gate, the line of cars came to a stand-still; Catherine was eight cars back from the gate or so and the guy right at the gate, in a white Range Rover, was inching forward, waiting for the gate to rise-- but he didn't realize that you had to press the button and get a ticket and then the gate would rise . . . so everyone sat there for a few minutes, in their cars, waiting for this guy to press the button-- and to the credit of the human race, people did NOT start beeping at this guy (I might have gone that route) but-- to the ignominy of the human race-- neither did any of the drivers in the cars immediately behind this guy get out and help him . . . someone needed to show him that he had to press the button, so Catherine, who was a number of cars behind this guy, got out of the Mazda and walked all the way up to help this guy-- and along the way, everyone opened their windows and said to her, "He didn't push the button" and "I don't think he knows about the button" and "the gate won't open unless he pushes the button" and then Catherine had to literally PRESS the button for the guy-- he didn't speak English-- and then she handed him his ticket and the gate ascended-- and while Catherine was walking back to her car, all the drivers in line thanked her for being a DMV hero-- they complimented her on her alacrity, energy, and initiative-- and then when she reached the DMV Inspection Station, the DMV lady thanked her for pressing the button for the guy . . . she said she was watching the whole time and was just about to walk out an help him . . . and I'm very proud of my wife for being a DMV hero, but that's just the kind of person she is-- but I'm also wondering what I would have done in that situation-- maybe I would have beeped, maybe I would have gotten out of the car, or maybe I would have sat there, bitching and doing the Spelling Bee on my phone.

Happy Boink-Day?

If hardcore pro-life folks seriously believe that life begins at conception-- the moment when that one special sperm plunges into an enormous (relatively speaking) looming orb of an ovum, sparking the miracle of meiosis-- then they should start measuring their age differently; in the conception-begins-life camp, instead of celebrating your birthday, you should observe the day you were conceived-- and, consequently, these folks should consider themselves approximately nine months older than their current age-- of course, you can't call this new holiday a birthday-- so I humbly suggest "Boink-day" . . . although Boink-day applies more to parents than progeny, plus no one wants to think about their parents doing THAT . . . even if it did lead to your birth-- and while we're discussing this verboten subject, if you really drill down into what happened on your "birth" day, I regret to inform you that it involved your mother's (stretched out) vagina, and that's not something most people want to think about when they're blowing out candles and cutting a slice of cake

Spenser Being Spenser

Robert B. Parker's fourth Spenser novel, Promised Land, is more about relationships than crime, and I should warn you: there's quite a bit of romance between Spenser and Susan Silverman (blech) which makes me think something terrible is going to happen to her later in the series, and-- far more fun-- we learn about Spenser's complicated connection to Hawk, a gangster adjacent black dude who Spenser knows from back in his boxing days . . . anyway, this isn't my favorite Spenser book, but it still has its moments; here are some highlights from my Kindle notes:

Spenser on radical feminism . . .

“No,” I said. “Annoyed, maybe, if you push me. But not at her, at all the silliness in the world. I’m sick of movements. I’m sick of people who think that a new system will take care of everything. I’m sick of people who put the cause ahead of the person. And I am sick of people, whatever sex, who dump the kids and run off: to work, to booze, to sex, to success. It’s irresponsible.”

Susan Silverman on Spenser . . .

“More than maybe,” Susan said. “It’s autonomy. You are the most autonomous person I’ve ever seen and you don’t let anything into that. Sometimes I think the muscle you’ve built is like a shield, like armor, and you keep yourself private and alone inside there. The integrity complete, unviolated, impervious, safe even from love.”

Spenser on human nature and belief . . .

Everyone gets contemptuous after a while of his clients. Teachers get scornful of students, doctors of patients,  bartenders of drinkers, salesmen of buyers, clerks of customers. But, Jesus, they were saps. The Promised Land.  Holy Christ.

Spenser and Pam on the city in the distance . . .

“What is it,” Pam Shepard said, “about a cluster of skyscrapers in the distance that makes you feel… What?…  Romantic? Melancholy? Excited? Excited probably.”

“Promise,” I said.

“Of what?”

“Of everything,” I said. “From a distance they promise everything, whatever you’re after. They look clean and  permanent against the sky like that. Up close you notice dog litter around the foundations.”

“Are you saying it’s not real? The look of the skyscrapers from a distance."

“No. It’s real enough, I think. But so is the dog litter and if you spend all your time looking at the spires you’re  going to step in it.”

“Into each life some shit must fall?”

“Ah,” I said, “you put it so much more gracefully than I.”

Spenser being Spenser . . .

Outside I bought two hot dogs and a bottle of cream soda from a street vendor and ate sitting by the fountain in  City Hall Plaza. A lot of women employed in the Government Center buildings were lunching also on the plaza and I ranked them in the order of general desirability. I was down to sixteenth when my lunch was finished and I had to go to work. I’d have ranked the top twenty-five in that time normally, but there was a three-way tie for seventh and I lost a great deal of time trying to resolve it.

The restaurant wasn’t very busy, more empty than full, and I glanced around to see if anyone was casing me. Or looked suspicious. No one was polishing a machine gun, no one was picking his teeth with a switchblade, no one was paying me any attention at all.

Spenser on Hawk . . .

“Why did you warn that black man?” Pam Shepard said, putting cream cheese on her bagel. She had skipped the hash and eggs, which showed you what she knew about breakfasts. The waitress came and poured more coffee in both our cups. “I don’t know. I’ve known him a long  time. He was a fighter when I was. We used to train together sometimes.” 

“But isn’t he one of them? I mean  isn’t he the, what, the muscle man, the enforcer, for those people?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Doesn’t that make a difference? I mean you just let him go.” 

“I’ve known him a long time,” I said.

Hawk on Spenser . . .

Hawk shrugged. “Me and your old man there are a lot alike. I told you that already. There ain’t all that many of us left, guys like old Spenser and me. He was gone there’d be one less. I’d have missed him. And I owed him  one from this morning.”

Central Jersey: We Exist!

Governor Phil Murphy recently signed Bill S3206, which requires the New Jersey "Division of Travel and Tourism to re-draw the tourism map to promote Central Jersey" and also "requires promotion of overnight stays" in the newly created Central Jersey region-- so the folks in Middlesex, Hunterdon, Mercer, Middlesex, and Somerset counties now officially exist as full-fledged denizens of the Garden State . . . and now we've got to work on a slogan to promote Central Jersey so that I can AirBnB my house for lots of cash; here are a few ideas:

1) Central Jersey: no beaches but plenty of humidity;

2) Central Jersey: come for the pizza, stay for the poison ivy;

3) Central Jersey: we've got strip clubs AND strip malls;

4) Central Jersey: we'd love you to visit-- but there's enough fucking traffic so please take the train;

5) Central Jersey: we ain't Pennsylvania.

Always A Good Day for a Nap

On our third day in Saugerties we walked too much: I got up early and biked over to the Esopus Bend Nature Preserve and wandered through the overgrown and buggy trails and boardwalks; then the rest of the gang got up and we drove over to Falling Waters Preserve and hiked along the Hudson to the waterfall; then we walked north from our house, over the Esopus, up towards town and then out to the Saugerties Lighthouse-- which sits at the end of a breezy and scenic peninsula that juts way out into the river-- along the sandy trail, my wife noticed the hundreds of oblong and pointy Eurasian water chestnut seeds, and she grabbed a couple to bring home to show her students, even though they are an invasive species and you know the end of this story . . . she brings them back to New Jersey, one falls out of her hand and into the Raritan River and ten years later they're clogging up every waterway in Central Jersey-- but she wouldn't heed my dire warnings and instead put them into our pack (and later, when I reached into the bag, the pointy seed poked my finger) and after checking out the lighthouse, we walked back into town, had local beers at the Dutch, ate lunch at the Village Diner (but Dom did not take advantage of the 55-and-over senior special menu . . . pudding comes with) and then we trekked back to the AirBnB . . . 25,000 steps . . . and as we walked up the steep street to our house, we ran into an old dude who looked a bit like a wizard, a wizard sitting in a battery powered wheelchair in the middle of the road and I greeted him and he said, "It's a good day for a nap" and I concurred and once we got home, I took a nap.

Overlook Mountain: Rattlesnakes, Ruins, and Bears (Oh Shit)

On day two of our Saugerties vacation, we all got up early and headed to the Overlook Mountain Trailhead-- the trail is an out-and-back gravel and stone fire road and it ascends aggressively up Overlook mountain for 2.5 miles, but I read that the views from the fire tower at the top were worth the slog, plus there were some ruins of an abandoned hotel near the top that sounded interesting; for a while the trail was a bit boring and rather steep-- but once we got to the ruins of the Overlook Mountain House (which was the third iteration of the hotel . . . it started as a small lodge in 1833, then grew into a 300 room hotel, which consequently burned down-- twice-- so then the new owner, Morris Newgold, decided to build something that would last, so he started on the massive concrete structure that still stands-- in ruins-- today . . . but he never finished construction and abandoned the project in 1939) then things changed for the better; the ruins looked like a Catskills version of Angor Wat, with trees and shrubs growing amidst the layers of concrete foundations, walls, arches, pediments, pools, and stairs-- and after the ruins, we noticed a number of signs on the trail warning us of rattlesnakes, but we scoffed at these signs-- rattlesnakes? seriously?-- and then, when we reached the top, the two dudes that were right behind us told us that just after we left the Overlook Hotel area, a black bear strolled through the ruins; when we made our way to the lookout tower, a couple of rangers greeted us-- which was unusual-- but they were stationed up there to warn folks about all the nesting rattlesnakes . . . as the top of the mountain was infested with serpents; they pointed out a couple of sunning rattlers and a molting black corn snake . . . one thick brown timber rattlesnake that lay stoic and still on a stone just off the path was a monster-- thicker than my arm and six feet long; after observing the snakes, Catherine and I then climbed the fire-tower to the tiny observatory on top-- and, as a bonus, we were joined by a very good-looking couple of twenty-somethings from New York City and by the time we got down, Dom and Michelle had made it to the top and they got to see the rattlesnakes and then we hiked a bit to the other viewpoint and from there we could actually see Saugerties Light-- so all-in-all, a spectacular hike-- ruins, a bear-sighting, rattlesnakes, and great views-- plus, as a bonus, we saw a middle-aged lady jogging up the trail several times while we hikes and she told me she was doing SIX HOURS of running up and down the trail-- ultramarathon training?-- which was wild because we all thought going down the trail was harder on your knees and feet than walking up it-- but this lady was an iron-woman . . . anyway, we made it to the bottom, drove to Woodstock to get some lunch, miraculously found parking right in front of Oriole 9 . . . as Woodstock was packed with shoppers-- and after a delicious lunch and some excellent beers from the Westkill brewery, we went to a fairly lame flea market, bought some bread, and then drove back to back to Saugerties (and made a quick stop at Beer Universe . . .  which is an entire universe of beer) and then we all took well deserved naps.

If A Tree Falls in Saugerties, I Want to See It!

Yesterday, Catherine and I drove up to Saugerties, NY to meet our friends Dom and Michelle for our first "empty nest" getaway . . . when we arrived, we parked in town, had a beer and some food at Stella's Station and then we drove across the bridge and unpacked and got set up in our AirBnB; that evening, we all walked back across the bridge which spanned the Esopus Creek, and headed back towards town-- and right after crossing the bridge, we stopped at the Diamond Mills Hotel, an expansive and swanky venue overlooking the Esopus Creek Falls, and we sat out on the patio and had drinks right above the roar of the cascading water and the scene would have been idyllic if it wasn't for two trees balanced precariously on the edge of the precipice-- we desperately wanted to see these trees plummet over the falls, but they had obviously been there a while and the chances of them falling in the brief window of time that we sat on the patio was slim-- especially since we weren't going to eat there . . . too expensive-- so after some speculation on how long the trees had been perched on the brink, I went and asked a random server for some information and he said the big one had been there since before he started working at the place, so several months and the small tree had been there a few weeks and then he said something that renewed my faith in the universality of the human spirit: "Man, I would love to see that big one fall tonight" and I concurred with him-- wholeheartedly concurred-- and then our fabulous server returned and they asked if we needed anything else, and we asked them if they could possibly make both the trees plummet over the falls and they laughed and said another line that confirmed the ubiquitous essence of the human experience-- they said, "I just work here" and on that note, we paid the check and headed to town, where we ate excellent Mexican food at the convivial and pub-like Main Street Restaurant-- and as far as we know, those trees are still hanging on for dear life. 

Colleen Hoover and the Art of the Inner Monologue

 

Another episode of We Defy Augury is up and streaming-- Miss Education and I discuss the literary tornado known as Colleen Hoover (or "CoHo" to her fans) and-- with the help of a benevolent God-- we cover topics far and wide: relationships, communication, chick lit, trauma porn, infertility, the art of the inner monologue, coat-hanger abortions, and the very real problems of very good-looking people (a topic of which I am very familiar).

SOMEBODY in These Photos Knows How to Party . . .

Ian's graduation party was a great success: the food was fantastic and it ALL went . . . the brisket, the special kielbasa, the pulled pork, the bbq chicken, the baked beans, the mac and cheese, the stuffed hot peppers . . . pretty much zero leftovers, which made clean-up easy; we did a good job on the alcohol as well, but if you'll notice in these pictures (one of which is NOT from this party but fits thematically) there is one person who knows how to party, photo be damned.

 

A Mystery with a Curveball

Mortal Stakes-- the third book in Robert B. Parker's Spenser series-- is about things I love: athletics, the ethics of sports, a conflict between ethical systems, the seedy underworld of 1970s prostitution and pornography, and-- of course-- ingenious blackmailing schemes.

Slouching Towards Something

I'm very proud that the new episode of my podcast is up and streaming: "Slouching Towards Something:Karl Polyani vs. Friedrich Hayek: Steel Cage Match or Shotgun Marriage?" as it took me months to read J. Bradford DeLong's epic economic tome-- apparently the sporadic and unprecedented progress of the Long Twentieth Century is over and weird times lie ahead; DeLong explains why in comprehensive detail but I boil things down to the essence of his argument and hopefully add some entertainment value to some dense and complicated content (as do my special guests, Milton Friedman, Gordon Gekko, and Bill Cosby).

I'm Rooting for the Sharks

Shark attacks have increased on the East Coast, for a number of reasons: an increase in gray seals and menhaden-- both food for sharks; federal laws that protect sharks from overfishing; and warming waters which allow bull, tiger, and black-tipped sharks to roam much farther north than Florida and the Carolinas . . . and I, for one, am rooting for more shark attacks because the Jersey shore has gotten extremely crowded and extremely expensive-- a few gruesome shark encounters might bring down the cost of weekly rentals, or at least clear the water out a bit so I can swim in peace (until I lose a limb).

Nice Boognish!

I was walking the dog in the park this morning, slightly dazed from Ian's graduation party, when the mirror-shade-wearing, long-haired park employee covered from head to toe in tattoos yelled from his moving maintenance vehicle, "Nice Boognish, man!" in reference to the Ween-style Boognish tattoo on my ankle-- and then he rolled to a stop and we talked about the Ween discography, Gene Ween's drug problems, the possibility of one last album, the weirdness of the last album, John and Peter's Place in New Hope, his interactions with Dean Ween, the Asbury Park concert we both attended, and other Ween-related topics . . . and then I recommended he check out 100 gecs, of course . . . so the moral is: tattoos, they connect people, all sorts of people.

I'm Too Tired to Party (Because of All the Party Prep)

After a LOT of prep (including painting the deck) we are ready to roll for Ian's graduation party-- Catherine just told me that my list is DONE-- and we were lucky enough to get one of the nicest day of summer for the party . . . the decorations are up, the food is ready (pulled pork bbq, pulled chicken bbq, beef brisket, stuffed peppers, mac and cheese, and some authentic Polish kielbasa from the weird little European provisions store on the Old Bridge Turnpike) and the house is clean; we had a to borrow quite a few tables and chairs from our friends-- I'm not looking forward to returning them tomorrow-- but everyone should have a place to plant their butt today (as long as they don't weight more than 225 pounds . . . as Alec's folding chairs have a weight limit tag on the back).

 

Nap Time is Relative

 Yesterday, I napped so hard that when I woke up, I thought it was tomorrow (which would be today).

Fuck You, Weather Underground

I shouldn't reveal this, in case a malevolent demon reads my blog, but if someone wanted to punish me for eternity-- mercilessly-- they would have me paint the fucking spindles on our deck and then, right when I got some decent work done-- it would start to rain, and wash away the coat of paint-- and then I would have to start over-- because I hate to paint, and I hate to start over (and that's what's now happened to days in a row-- I've just painted the same area twice in two days and for the second day in a row there was a rain squall that was not predicted by my weather app).

Groceries vs. Food

There's nothing worse than pulling up to your house at 1 PM after a long day of work-- four hours!-- and you're very hungry and you know exactly what you're going to eat (a leftover jalapeno cheddar burger and air-fried potato wedges) BUT you're wife has also just pulled up from a massive grocery shopping trip and you've got to help her carry in all the groceries and then you have to put away the groceries before you can cook your lunch-- the groceries are getting in the way of you eating food . . . the irony!

Refreshing is a State of Mind

After a long day of grueling "work" (four hours of cutting and pasting curriculum bullshit into pacing guides and syllabi-- so dumb) I took a nap, biked over to the pool, swam some laps, and then lay on a lounge chair-- refreshed-- and read my mystery novel . . . until a couple kids jumped into the water near me and a third kid (who did not jump in) said, "You just jumped in where the shit was!" and then the kids discussed how a girl pooped in the pool yesterday, in that very corner, and then I felt less refreshed, so I biked home and showered.