Five Minute Tour of the Jerzee Shore

Yesterday, I was sitting on the beach with Stacey and my wife and I had to pee and I didin't feel like going in the water because it was fairly chilly down on the beach-- and so I headed up to the boardwalk to the public bathroom and this five-minute trip embodied the Jersey Shore experience: when I first passed the foot rinsing station at the edge of the boardwalk, a beautiful, slender lady in a revealing bikini was washing the sand off her long tan legs and I was like, "the Jersey Shore is the best . . . " and then I walked up the steps to the boardwalk and I was confronted with another scantily clad lady, but this was quite a contrast-- she was skinny and gnarled and leathery, her wrinkles had wrinkles-- she was perhaps 87 (or 47 but spent WAY too much time in the sun) and I was like, "the Jersey Shore . . . oh the humanity!" and then I went to the bathroom and when I returned, a middle-aged woman was struggling to turn on the foot-rinsing sprayer and she asked for help and I told her she was pressing the wrong thing and she had to press the little knob above the sprayer and then the guy behind me said, "YAH GOTTA LEAN ON IT LIKE IT OWES YA MONEY" and I was like "yes! you could only hear a sentence like that, off-the-cuff, in perfect context, at the Jersey Shore" and now I really want to toss out that phrase in the right situation (a door that's jammed because of humidity? a stubborn beach chair?) but I'm not sure if I'm Jersey enough to pull it off.

Bunnies on a Trampoline Portend Doom

Daniel Boorstin was worried about "pseudo-events" and manipulative imagery back in 1962 and expressed this in his classic treatise The Image, but things have gotten far worse and far more absurd than he could imagine-- if you can't trust security cam footage of joyful bunnies jumping on a trampoline, then there is no image you can trust-- which will perhaps move people back towards reading books?-- books can be fictitious, fabricated, and meretricious as well, but you have more time to parse the logic and research the examples and maybe the book is published by an organization you trust?-- who fucking knows, but we are headed into fuzzy and ambiguous times.

 

Broken Harbor Breaks Bad

Tana French's novel, Broken Harbor, is a crime procedural wrapped inside a portrait of insanity balanced atop a real estate crisis —and it's hard to remember when the real estate bubble popped, because it has reinflated, but it was less than two decades ago.

All the Umbrellas Look the Same

Another beautiful fucking beach day-- for most of us . . . but not for the little blonde girl who wandered two beaches from her family (and for her parents, who called the police) but my wife was on the case, got the girl to a lifeguard, who drove her from Ocean Grove over to Bradley Beach, where she was reunited with her family.

Salty Concession

To get my wife to stop nagging me about my habit of swimming alone in the ocean when there's a riptide, I told her she could up our life insurance policy.

Change of Pace, Place, and Space

Spending an extended amount of time in a different place and space has got to be good for my gradually atrophying brain-- I have to really pay attention when I'm walking around inside our little rental, as there are slanted ceilings, a twisty set of stairs, and a small kitchen: there are lots of places for me to hit my head or stub my toe, if I'm not careful-- and this is a good wake-up call for my brain . . . the same goes for walking and biking around-- we're going to be here for nearly a month, so I'm learning how to drive, walk, and bike some new streets . . . yesterday, my wife and I biked inland to Sunshine Village park because they have some outdoor workout equipment and it took some navigating to get there (including a weird bridge with stairs over Route 18 . . . we found an easier way to bike home) and I have to remember this when I'm teaching-- I have to move the students and the seating arrangements around as much as possible, so that the kids bang into things and can't figure out where to sit.

Tana French is The Bomb

I just finished The Trespasser by Irish-American mystery writer Tana French-- this is the sixth book in her "Dublin Murder Squad" series-- but each book is from the perspective of a different detective, so she does away with that whole "Sherlock Holmes genius detective trope" and instead focuses on how each case affects (and is affected by) the particular detective working the murder . . . and while I've read her books in no particular order (I also read Faithful Place and In the Woods in the Murder Squad series and her stand-alone novels The Wych Elm and The Searcher and I just started Broken Harbor) I am realizing that she is perhaps the best living mystery writer-- she is definitely a cut above Ruth Ware, although I love a Ruth Ware thriller-- so if you haven't read a Tana French novel, pick one at random and give it a shot, I doubt you'll be disappointed.

Salt Life

A cool, cloudy day here at the beach so I'm back at the coffee shop-- but this time, taking some advice from my wife, I have ordered my coffee "for here," and so I get it in a little blue mug, and then I can get a refill . . . anyway, lots of adventures in the past two days-- I oculd really get used to living down here:

1) yesterday, Stacey came to visit, and we spent some time at the beach, and then we went out for drinks and food in Asbury Park;

2) we visited the Black Swan for all-day Tuesday happy hour-- all alcohol is half off-- so we had some fancy drinks and apps . . . get this, in ANOTHER refurbished bank-- so I'm writing this sentence in a refurbished bank in Ocean Grove and we had drinks in a refurbished bank in Asbury-- fucking wild-- and while the food and drinks were great, Stacey and I did feel a strange and very random tapping on the metal foot rail but we couldn't exactly figure out which bar patron had the nervous feet;

3) then we went to Barrio Costero, the upscale Mexican joint, for Taco Tuesday-- three tacos and a spicy margarite for $15-- which is a deal at this place-- and there was no room at the bar so the hostess seated us at the "chef's counter" and we watched the kitchen in action-- it was quite impressive and I certainly got my money's worth-- I asked the head chef a lot of questions (she was saying "hands!" not "hits!" and the spritzer was full of lime juice) and we noticed that EVERYTHING was prepped and labeled, so they were really just assembling and cooking, for the most part-- an excellent experience;

4)  this morning, I shook off the alcohol and took Lola to the Asbury dog beach-- she enjoyed that . . .

5) after the dog park, I geared up and made the short drive to Wardell Park for some pickleball-- as usual, everything was organized and there were some decent players-- I ended up playing for nearly three hours;

6) post-pickleball, I cooked up some leftovers, collapsed on the couch and I read my Tana French novel until I fell asleep-- 

7) Catherine got home from her book club outing in Bradley Beach, and she's making some eggplant parm in our tiny kitchen-- she made the sauce yesterday with tomatoes from her garden and now she's prepping the white eggplants (also homegrown) and I took a lovely picture of this-- it's not easy to work in this little kitchen so that's why I cleared out (too many cooks=no good) and I did get a free coffee refill (but the AC in this old bank sucks).

Dave Finally Achieves Stereotypical Blogger Status!

 

In all my years of writing this blog, I have never once (until today) sat down in a hipster coffee shop, connected to the wifi, and wrote my daily sentence while drinking a cup of high-end joe-- but here I am, in Odyssey Coffee in Ocean Grove, stimming on caffeine, sitting at a counter, listening to some kind of chill-hop jazzy techno-beat, and crafting my sentence-- but it's a bit nerve-wracking trying to write in here, as I'm trying to guard my screen from prying eyes because I'm sure there are other bloggers in here who will steal my shit at the drop of a hat, so I've got to stay vigilant-- but my eyes aren't very good so I need to use a very large font, so youngsters can read my screen from across the room, those fuckers-- and honestly, there's too much stimulus in here anyway, I can't focus on anything but all the white people walking by and all the white people in here and the very soothing music-- it's starting to drive me crazy . . . smooth saxophone over a chillaxing kick drum?-- and really I don't know how anyone writes anything of quality when they are in one of these places and this will probably be the last time that I attempt this (although I do love the coffee!)

Perfect Beach Day . . . Too Perfect . . .

Another perfect beach day . . . or near perfect: I pulled the wagon down early while Catherine was at the grocery store and got set up-- there was plenty of open space (because it's Monday) so I placed the chairs and umbrella at the high tide line, with an unobstructed view of the water, but the two old ladies next to me had piercing voices so I moved over a bit and then I really got set up: I laid down in Cat's low-rider beach chair and put my feet up on the taller Tommy Bahama beach chair-- so I was horizontal to the sand-- and then I put on my headphones and started listening to a podcast about America's failure to build high speed railway lines . . . it was sweet while it lasted, which was about three minutes-- then a family comprised of a harried mom and four children invaded my space-- and there was so much other beach space!-- and they were loud, they were chaotic, the rental umbrella guy put the umbrella way too close to mine (notice the thin sliver of sun between the two umbrella shadows) and then a portly kid started digging a hole that was destined to go underneath my beach chair . . .I was so ensconced in this family that I think people around us thought I was the dad-- so I got up and moved once again . . . and there I remained for many hours (my wife came down with sandwiches, which was lovely) and I knocked out quite a bit of a Tana French mystery novel (The Trespasser) and perhaps tomorrow I will invade some other person's space, just to see how it feels.

Things Are Quiet, Too Quiet

Cat, Lola, and I are settling in to our beach rental in Ocean Grove . . . we had coffee this morning at Odyssey Coffee- which resides in the old bank on Main Street, you can drink your coffee in the vault, if you don't want a window view-- and then we walked through all the lush gardens and Victorian architecture to the Asbury Farmers Market and waited in a very long line to buy some sourdough bread (Benchmark Bread) and then we went over to C'est Cheese and bought some cheese to accompany the bread-- and last night, for the first time in my life, I made espresso martinis with Mr. Black and they were delicious-- and the weather is beautiful, there's a breeze off the ocean, and this is shaping up to be a lovely and relaxing end to the summer (which is the start of every horror movie ever).

Let's Move It Along

Yesterday, I finished my first (and perhaps last) P.D. James mystery novel, A Taste for Death, and while I enjoyed the central mystery and grisly murder, the book became a bit of a bombastic slog in the middle-- too much furniture and interior description, too many interviews, too many characters-- I guess I enjoy my crime fiction a little less realistic, a little more meta, and much faster paced . . . because I am certainly not going to crack the case, so I don't want to spend forever reading about it.

Il Gattopardo

 

My new episode of We Defy Augury, "From Sayreville to Sicily: The Effect of Setting on the Psyche," is (loosely) inspired by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's great Sicilian novel "The Leopard," but I get some help explaining the theme from Jon Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen.

Big Weird Musical Project

So I've listened to so much various music in the course of my lifetime--mainly jazz, indie rock, prog rock, alternative rock, punk rock, emo rock, psychedelic rock, garage rock, grunge rock, electronica, industrial rock, blues rock, jazz-fusion rock, new wave rock, and hip-hop-- and this eclecticism has been exponentially accelerated by platforms like Spotify and Rdio, and at this point, as I bumble into early onset dementia, I can't remember all the names of the albums that I enjoy (such as el Guincho's "Alegranza") and I don't have an array of CDs or records to peruse AND I am often talking to my Google speaker while cooking or talking to my phone while driving and trying to recall the name of the album I want to hear while engaged in some other activity, and so I have started making a spreadsheet, in the form of a Google Form, with the names of all these albums that I love (and the artist and genre) and then I'm going to print this massive list out and keep one print-out in the kitchen and one in the car and this list will serve as my CD case and then I can peruse the music I love and listen to a greater variety of albums (because Spotify prods you toward listening to the albums and music you've been listening to recently and their random function never goes deep into your liked albums and songs) but progress has been pretty slow-- I'm scrolling through my Spotify album list and slowly typing the information into the Google Sheet-- but the upside is that I am listening to a wider variety of music while I do this ludicrous task of trying to make my digital universe more analog.

New Old Car Redux

Although yesterday's car-buying process took nearly eight hours, it was still a walk in the park compared to last summer's fiasco-- the people at Bell Audi were lovely and professional and up-front and didn't try to tack on sketchy warranties and oddball fees (nitrogen in the tires, anti-theft etching, dealer prep fee, etcetera) and they were totally willing to work with our budget-- and our side visit to Citi Motors to check out a Subaru Outback was fast and efficient and also totally transparent-- no weird fees, quick access to the car for a test drive, and a fast negotiation to the out-the door-price . . . so we were pleased with both the 2015 Honda CR-V with an immaculate CarFax and the slightly newer Subaru so we called our mechanic and he broke the tie-- and we are now the proud owners of a blue 2015 Honda CR-V . . . this car seems very similar to the Honda CR-V that our son Alex totalled in 2021 and maybe this time around we'll get to see just how reliable this model is.

For the Amount of Time This is Taking, I Should Be Buying an Infiniti

I would love to write a witty, profound sentence today, but this car-buying process is taking forever!

The Screwworms Are Coming! The Screwworms Are Coming!

Due to warmer winters and global trade, Africanized "killer bees" and armadillos and fire ants and cane toads have all made inroads from South and Central America into the United States-- but we've learned to live with these creatures-- but now we might get screwed by a parasite we eradicated in the 1960s but is creeping northward again, often in livestock wandering through the Darién Gap, a dense jungle region between Panama (Central America) and Colombia (South America) that usually acts as a natural barrier between North and South America-- but there have been more and more asylum seekers and refugees moving through, often with livestock, and so the screwworm is coming with them-- and it probably won't be as harmless as those stupid lantern flies, which peaked and then practically disappeared-- so enjoy your burgers now because you might not later.

Beware of the Auto-Pay

This is the second time in the last year that my family has been betrayed by the combination of predatory insurance companies and autopay—first, Liberty Mutual jacked up our rates without informing us (and this rate change was really hidden as we paid our home insurance along with our mortgage), and recently Travelers did the same with our auto insurance... so make sure you examine those bills carefully because apparently they can just raise the rates for no particular reason (the lady said the increase was because of rate changes in New Jersey and the cost of doing business... such bullshit), and so you have to switch home insurance every couple of years or so, and you might have to switch auto insurance every year or six months to avoid this scam—because Progressive (who raised our rates several years ago) will now insure us for much less than Travelers... and the worst is if you DON'T use autopay there are extra fees—it's a trap, I tell you, a trap!

Man vs. Bald-faced Hornet

Apparently, one way to deal with bald-faced hornets is to spray them with soapy water-- and I also read that bald-faced hornets are less active when it's dark-- so during yesterday's thunderstorm, I geared up in sweatpants, gloves, and a rain-jacket, filled a lawn hose end-sprayer with dish soap, enlisted my long-armed son Ian, and we ran the ol' "spray the soapy water smack the hornet's nest with a shovel end around"-- and while we definitely aroused the ire of these hornets, I'm not sure we really did much damage to the nest . . . but I'm not quite ready to call in the professionals yet, as I do have other schemes brewing in my head (I've been dreaming about this nest for a week now, it's totally invaded my subconscious, it's down there buzzing and humming and thrumming in my amygdala). 

Dave IS a Pelican

One of my students-- who is an accomplished artist and an aspiring tattoo artist-- asked if he could draw my portrait for an art project, and I said, "Sure!"-- because I think there should be more drawings of me-- and then he came back a day later and said, "Could I do something weird? Could I make you a pelican?" and I said "absolutely" because while my students have given me various pelican-shaped objects as gifts (which I find odd-- although I understand my last name is quite close in spelling to the large-billed bird, but I've had students with last names such as "Bell" and "Green" and "Hill" and I did not give those students gifts associated with their last names) but I never had a student transmogrify me into a pelican (complete with Under Armour polo shirt) and the result is funny and sublime and will probably be worth millions of dollars in a few years-- unfortunately, my wife has forbidden me from getting this image tattooed on my back.