When You're Around Dave, The Learning Never Ends

Even though it's nearly summer and senior cut day, I actually taught a high school kid something today-- at bathroom duty, of all places . . . she didn't have her ID because she was coming from PE class and so she had to give me her ID number in order to check in and she recited it like this:

"one, four . . . triple five . . . one three"

and this was too many numbers and did not work, but then she clarified:

"I said that wrong-- just three-- I meant there was just one number three"

and so I told her that the generally acceptable way to give someone a long string of numbers was to do it in groups of three, and when she returned from the bathroom, she did just that, and we were both very pleased.

V/M (C/P) = $$$

Going to the vet is like going to the auto mechanic: cars and animals can't talk (unless perhaps your pet is a parrot with an extensive medical vocabulary?) and because they can't tell you what's wrong, you have to rely on this intermediary, and you hope the intermediary is an expert and understands the problems with the car/pet-- but you never know for sure . . . the only thing you do know for sure when you visit the auto mechanic or the vet is that it's going to be expensive.

Gone Fishin'

They say a bad day fishing is better than a good day at work, and a good day fishing is certainly better than a bad day at work . . . or something to that effect, anyway, Ian and I had a medium day fishing and a great day on the boat-- perfect weather and we caught numerous fish, pretty much every time we dropped the bait into the water, but most were slightly short of the requisite 12 and a half inches-- Ian caught a couple of keepers (and the mate gave us a bunch of extra sea bass filets) and I learned to grab the sea bass by the mouth, not the head, when removing the hook and I also nearly reinjured my healing hamstring when I slipped on a bucket of raw clams, but I was able to catch myself before I wiped out (and even though I showered and washed my hands, my fingers still smell like raw clams and sea bass). 

 

Dave Goes on the IR

I pulled my hamstring this morning playing basketball-- it was kind of tight last week, so I sort of rested it . . . but not really-- and now I'm paying for it-- but I guess this is what you can expect when you play full court basketball at 6:30 in the morning on a humid day.

The Best Way to Teach Hamlet is NOT to Finish

I covered an extraordinary amount of Hamlet in my first two classes today-- the nunnery scene; the play-within-the-play; MY play-within-the-play-within-the-class; Hamlet's advice to the players . . . along with my acting stunt that mirrors his advice; and finally-- the Zefferelli-directed Oedipal Mel Gibson/Glen Close incestuous bedroom scene-- it was utterly exhausting but I'm trying to finish the play before the end of the year . . . alas, best laid plans: during my last period class we had an endless lockdown (because of a "swatting" incident at the elementary school across the road) and because of the delay, I didn't get very much done at all . . . and it was fine . . . because it's the end of the year with the seniors and it's Hamlet-- and who loves a delay more than Hamlet?

Zunis and Hippies and Navahos . . . and Murder

If I learned one thing from reading Tony Hillerman's mystery novel Dance Hall of the Dead-- and I learned a lot of things, about archaeology and Zuni and Navaho beliefs and Folsom Man and fluted arrowheads and the various jurisdictions in New Mexico-- but the one takeaway is this: don't mess with the Zuni kachina Shalako mask ritual or Shuwalitsi might get you.

Nice Job Seth . . . Now Just Keep Doing It Until You Are Old

If you haven't seen Seth Rogen's show The Studio yet, watch it-- it's fucking great-- and episode six, "The Pediatric Oncologist," achieves Curb Your Enthusiasm-level awkward humor-- looks like Larry David is passing the baton to Seth Rogen (and since Curb ran-- intermittently-- from 1999 to 2024, Rogen should aspire to make The Studio for the next 25 years).

No Ass Tattoos . . .

Unfortunately, my wife and I did not read yesterday's comments so we celebrated our 25th Anniversary in a fairly traditional manner-- we caught the train to Newark, took the PATH to Jersey City, walked along the Hudson and took in the views of the city, and then sat outside and ate at Battelo-- which was delicious (prosciutto wrapped zeppoles!) while we watched the yachts, ferries, and sailboats navigate the river . . . then we walked our way through Jersey City-- which is a vey different place than it was thirty years ago-- gentrification!-- got back on the PATH and, of course, missed our connecting train in Newark Penn Station-- which is a disorganized shitshow and has NOT gentrified one bit-- you'd think they'd sync the PATH and the Jersey Transit train, but even though we sprinted up and down several staircases to get to the track, we still missed it by a minute, so then we had to wait in the very very hot waiting area-- not even a trickle of A/C-- because there were no benches up near the actual track (and everything smelled like urine) and so while Cat and I are big proponents of public transportation, I can see why everyone in America is driving everywhere-- our train system is a shitshow-- so thirty minutes later, we caught the next train to New Brunswick, and we ended up sitting in a very old train car with very little A/C) but I did get to hear a delightful, Lebowski-esque conversation between two old Jewish ladies sitting behind us:

Do you swim on Shabbos?

Yes, I swim on Shabbos.

Got to Catch the Train!

 No time for a complete sentence, the wife and I are off to Jersey City to celebrate our

Dumb But True

While America's "A Horse With No Name" is one of the sillier songs to survive the early 70s, I must concur, now that the weather has shifted here-- and this is something I always forget-- that "the heat was hot."

Twenty-Five Years for Dave and Cat!

Today is the twenty-fifth anniversary of our wild wedding (I ended up taking a forced swim in the Lawrence Brook, thanks to my fraternity brothers and high school buddies) and an incredible journey with my beloved wife-- we traveled the world, educated the masses, raised a couple of children, refurbished a kitchen, fought a stubborn racoon in the attic, and we maintained our good looks and our even better sense of humor . . . I can't wait to see what the future brings!

The Me Detonate a Bomb Generation

If you've forgotten-- or are not familiar-- with the spate of terroristic bombings that beset the United States in the early 1970s and instead you think of the 70s as an age of disco, drugs, and glam rock, then you are suffering from a case of misinformation or rose-tinted nostalgia and need to read the Bryan Burrough book Days of Rage: America's Radical Underground, the FBI, and the Forgotten Age of Revolutionary Violence . . . I don't remember any of this, but apparently I was born into a political maelstrom of protest against racism and the Vietnam War.

See You in 25 Years?

A good run for the New York Knickerbockers, including a solid 4-2 victory over the reigning champs, the Celtics, but the Pacers' pace proved to be too much for them-- so there's always next year (or, judging by the last time the Knicks went deep into the play-offs, there's always 2050 . . . and I might still be alive then!)

Embrace the Absurdity

I played indoor pickleball this morning at an open play and ended up paired with a fairly skilled but very surly man named Sergei-- we were winning games, but he was far more concerned with telling me all kinds of things about where I should be and what shots I should and shouldn't take-- I think he forgot we were planning giant ping-pong with a wiffleball.

Should Have Known Better

Last night I met my friends and my son Alex at Tavern on George to watch the Knicks defeat the Pacers-- which was very fun-- but I had committed to 6:30 AM basketball, so I dragged myself out of bed and played hoops this morning, which was not so fun (until I made the last two shots to win the final game-- and that's all you remember anyway) and the lesson is: I will not combine alcohol and early morning athletics again any time soon, as that is a young man's game.

I've Got a Perfect Puzzle For You

Until I listened to Malcolm Gladwell's Revisionist History episode "Nooks and Crannies"—which is about the legality surrounding trade secrets, particularly the recipe for Thomas's English Muffins—I never contemplated a serious moral dilemma from my youth: were the original Oompa-Loompas slave labor? . . . in the first edition of the book, the one I read, Roald Dahl described the Oompa-Loompas as a tribe of African Pygmy people whom Willy Wonka shipped to England to work forever in his factory--protecting his valuable trade secrets, which were previously being stolen by corporate spies-- and the Oompa-Loompas worked in exchange for cocoa beans . . . so this set-up sounds super sketchy . . . Wonka claims that the Oompa-Loompa's country of origin was a horrible place and the Oompa-Loompas were vulnerable to predators such as the Snozzwangers and Wangdoodles and so they are better off working in his factory but at the very least this sounds colonialist and certainly Wonka is breaking numerous labor laws and the worst case scenario is that the Oompa-Loompas have been taken against their will and detained indefinitely, without passport, currency, or any way to return home and have no choice but to work for cocoa beans.

Pure Innocent Fun

Ira Madison's collection of pop culture essays, Pure Innocent Fun, is the elder millennial Black gay man's dishier version of Chuck Klosterman's Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs-- a book that Madison says inspired him-- and while Klosterman is around my age and evrything he writes about resonates with me, Ira Madison-- who is 39-- came of age in a slightly different pop culture environment and I was not familiar with all pop culture touchstones-- according to Madison, Gen Xers watched Beavis and Butthead while Madison connected with Daria . . . we do both love Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but for Madison, Buffy is a bad-ass bitch who is also in a secret club-- which he related to as a closeted gay Black man at a very white and preppy high school in Milwaukee . . . Madison is also a fan of soap operas-- which I never watched-- and the film Soapdish, which I remember loving but I haven't seen it in a long time . . . and he has inspired me to watch the movie Bring It On, which he claims "might seem to be a frivolous cheerleading movie" but it is "one of the only good films about cultural appropriation that’s ever been made and most certainly one of the best films about race in America"-- I hope this is true because I love a good sports movie . . . we shall see.

Something Happened

When I was young, you specified the thing you were listening to, watching, or reading: I'm reading the new Stephen King book; I'm listening to the new God Lives Underwater album; I'm watching Melrose Place . . . but now I people often mention the platform they are using instead of the specific content: I'm watching Netflix/YouTube/TikTok, I'm listening to Spotify, I'm going to sit down and read my Kindle-- I'm sure Marshall McLuhan would have a field day with this trend-- the delivery method and the algorithm are more important than the content; we don't own content any more-- we just breeze though it, separate from everyone else and because of media fragmentation, no one is watching/reading/listening to the same thing . . . and I find this is a little sad and scary.

"very rough trail through boulder field"

 

Catherine and I took a hike in the John Witherspoon Woods this morning-- a patch of land we'd never visited -- and we entered from the north, off Stuart Road, which was a bit hairy-- there's no real parking lot and you have to scramble and climb through a boulder field and past Devil's Cave, before you hit discernable trails-- and while it's quite beautiful inside the woods . . . there's a lovely stream and an old lake--they restored the stone dams from the 1800s-- it's also a bit of a maze-- I had to use the compass app on my phone to avoid a Blair Witch situation-- and there's also quite a bit of poison ivy-- but we eventually made it back to the car and went to the The Tiger's Tale in Montgomery for beers and sandwiches-- an excellent little pub, if you're in the vicinity.

Go Knicks

My two cents: Sunday sporting event should be on earlier than 8 PM.