My feet hurt every day.  My left foot that is.  It’s last three toes complain the most about a pain in the underside, coming from the middle.  Really ambiguous, but enough to get me to  take off my shoes at work and solicit comments from everyone else who has shoes on.  Actually the chairman of the division in his 20×20 foot office also takes his shoes off, so to my knowledge, if you’re looking for the guy who likes to let his dogs bark around the office, it’s either me or the chairman.

I went to see the podiatrist a few years ago after I got a flier with a smiley foot telling me I could get a free consultation and a foot massage.  So I went and they didn’t give me a free foot massage and all he did was tell me to wrap it, and he gave me some free gauze and I filled out about ten forms.  What a load of BS.  Those forms are the worst.  Even this weekend when I went to the gym and said I only had 5 minutes, they asked me to fill out forms that took 3 times as long.

My black shoes are decrepit at this point, being 6 years old and all.  I can get them shined by a portuguese guy who comes to the office and fixes shoes.  He’s in some sort of band, so he has long, curly hair.  He gets off the elevator wearing a shirt from one of the offices on another floor (an obvious gift).  He collects shoes from all the females and does whatever fixing is necessary to maintain them.  I have a 6 year old pair of shoes on my feet that I wear Monday thru Thursday.  They’re originally black, but the leather is deteriorating, so they are closer to grey.  I would ask this guy for a shoe shine ($5) but I really like going to the place and sitting and getting them done.  I get to climb up to the chair way up near the sealing, and then the man shining my shoes goes to work.  I feel very classy and it also feels very old fashioned, to maintain your possessions instead of throwing them away like everything else in this modern world.  Ah the shoe-shine man.  Johnny Cash sang a song about the shoe shine guys, well about a black shoe shine boy who had alot of rhythm.

Most commercials suck.  DVR and Tivo have proven to be our answer to this and it’s simply so awesome that I am loosing hobbies because I watch too much tv without interruption.  But with the World Series (Congrats Yanks!) and live baseball in general, I had to watch alot of commercials.  Live sports doesn’t work with DVR and if you ever do watch baseball recorded, you end up fast forwarding through it and loosing all the tension that builds when you watch it live.  But I digress.  Lots of commercials and nearly all suck.  Joe Buck sucks too.  But a few were good, some were better.  Here’s a breakdown.

American Express – This commercial is annoying, because the cello playing (Bach) while you’re watching a baseball game makes you feel stupid.  But like in all sports, they repeat commercials a million times, and this became the anomaly.  The more you watch this commercial, the more you get familiar with the faces, so much so that their expressions begin to become so familiar, so comical, that you can almost name them like you would pets.  I just watched it again on youtube and have to say, it’s really nicely done.  I sure hope it wasn’t expensive to make because the simplicity would add to the enjoyment.  Anyway, here it is.  Keep a lookout for the red bag at the beginning (That’s how I feel when I’m at work).

Direct TV – Their annoying commercials of old movie scenes that suddenly go off script and tell you about the benefits of their service culminated with the Chris Farley Tommy Boy shtick that, I think, upset alot of people, or at least creeped them out.  But during the World Series, they showed the old Ed Begley Jr. and John Michael Higgins (Best In Show, Fired Up!) running a cable company ads.  These are all funny and easier to watch than those other ones (that also looked really expensive (I obviously like my commercials to look cheap)), and there’s some good lines.  I posted one below as an example, but they should all be checked out.  Also, check out Ed’s IMDB page because he somehow found time to be in every single movie ever made though I can only really remember She-Devil.  And I remember it all too well.  Here’s some more.  ’We’re gonna youthenize America!

Dodge Ram – I caught this about halfway through.  This commercial will not repeat well, nor will it work unless it’s between two very light, funny commercials (like Bud Light and that G1 Google phone with Cat Stevens playing).  But it got me thinking about poetry and imagery and how powerful it could potentially be, A) If it’s done right, and B) If it’s not shilling a car.  Though I must say I sorta thought I could use a car with what seemed like so much personality and purpose after watching this commercial.  Then I got to thinking how cool it would be to have a poetry renaissance in this day and age via the advertising world or something.  But it’s not likely.  As I said before, you do need two light commercials to bookend this one.  ’I will not downshift’ -that line makes me raise one eyebrow in confusion.  Click on the link (I couldn’t embed it because I suck).

Least Favoirte: Droid.  Nothing worse than new electronics falling out of the sky to blow our minds.  That’s just dating your product before it even hits the ground.  What the Droid is saying in that commercial is that on my planet, I became obsolete and was shot out into space as space debris only to land on your planet like when you humans throw your apple cores out the car window.  But seriously, it’s just too out there for a phone (it’s not a PSP we’re talking about), and like any gadget, it’s gonna eventually annoy you.  Even my iPhone (what, really? You couldn’t tell?) annoys me, though I think it’s the best phone I’ve ever had.  Ok, I think that’s about it for now.  If you want to watch it, use the link.  I don’t want that embedded on my site.  Hope you enjoyed.

I consider myself to be a tough individual.  I don’t know why.  I have little proof to back it up, but there I sit, and when I think of myself, tough isn’t something I wouldn’t describe myself as (I’m not shouting it from the rooftops, but I’m also not dismissing it either).

I’m not tough.  I am scared of squeaky noises I think are mice.  I am scared of something shaking that I didn’t shake and I think it’s a mouse.  I’m scared of a mouse that’s not scared of me.  But it must be cause it squeaks (in fear?), it doesn’t come out when I’m around either.  And I’m bigger and I play loud music.  He’s so scared he literally shits himself all over my stove.

I have no idea why I have a mouse, though I’m pretty sure it comes in through the stove.  Once, Starr and I were hanging out like we do one Sunday afternoon when we heard a squeak or metal or both.  We both jumped a bit, her more than me, which gave me some courage to be more courageous.  Be the man and all.  I inched over and about 20 minutes later (when I’d gotten 4 feet across the floor) I found nothing.  But since then I noticed there were alot of rocks on my dish rack and stove.  Why were all these little, long rocks there, all over the place?

POOP! The damn mouse comes out at night, poops on my stove and leaves!  I clean up it’s poop and then it comes back and poops again!  The mouse is laughing at me.  It makes me so angry that I put out a trap.  Not at night though.  I don’t want to wake up to the mouse.  That scares me.  I’m too vulnerable when I’m in my underwear.  I need a bio suit or something or at least denim.  On my legs, and denim on my arms and face and hands would be good too.

In theory, I’m really not scared.  I think about the mouse, about how small it is and think and think and think about it and it’s not scary at all.  Really.  It’s a little mouse that I know is almost cute.  I’m 100 times its size and weigh 300 times as much.  It’s really small and he’s obviously scared of me because I leave food out and he’s too scared to even touch it.  Yummy cakes.  Instead the mouse just shits in front of it.  WHY?  Why, if he’s so scared of me would he do that?  Mocking me every night, only coming out just to poop on my stove.  Laughing that little mouse laugh because he knows his size doesn’t matter cause he’s got some bravado death wish or something that little fucking asshole mouse.

It’s like his friends dare him or something.  It makes so angry thinking of it.  And that led me to get the trap.  Forget the noises and squeaks and I’m tired of little long pebbles on my stove and like the Dog Whisperer says, you have to be a pack leader.  Pack leaders aren’t scared of mice.

I knew I’d catch the little sucker tonight.  I was all set to come home tonight and imagined having a Tom & Jerry-esque escapade around my apartment ending with my hand swiping around inside a mousehole (which the mouse then dresses up as a girl that I then somehow end up getting the hots for).  So I cleared the counter, put out a trap with salami on the inside on top of the stove, put two plastic bags next to the door so that I could come home and put him away and toss him as soon as I got home and even bought some industrial gloves from the hardware store just because my denim-bio-suit wasn’t ready yet.

I was cool the entire walk home.  Armed with my burrito, I climbed the stairs.  At the last step I heard a squeak and my heart sank, my stomach clenched, my throat closed up and my heart started racing and all that talk of being tough I’d given myself all day went out the toilet.  So sad.  I started stamping my feet.  I listened for the squeak and heard it again.  The little mother-son-of-a-bitch was in there, squeaking, writhing in the glue.  I imagined it, imprisoned all day, watching the sun set behind the shades unaware of how it’s routine had become his nightmare now that he was unable to move, and unaware of what was in store for him.  He’d had hours to think about it.  He’d probably gotten quite, like prisoners do, until their faceless captors come stomping down the hall and then they begin to plead for their life.  That’s what I was imagining while on the steps outside my door…and it was freaking me out.  I, instead of being the specter of death that the mouse was picturing was, instead, running up past my door and up the next flight of stairs.  I knocked on my landlords door (we’re friends, right?) but no answer.   I decided the squeaking was paralyzing me and so I had an idea.  I took out my headphones and put them in my ears.  I put on Motley Crue’s Red, White, and Crue and turned it up so that I couldn’t hear anything except Vince Neil screaming Shout At The Devil!  My whole body was shaking.  My heart was racing.  I put the key in and jumped back.  Jumped forward and turned it and pushed the door open.  Jumped back.  Nothing.  Jumped forward, and turned on the light.  One light.  I was going nowhere.  I took off an ear and listened but didn’t hear anything.  I checked my watch.  Shit. The game was starting (World Series Game 5).  I had to do something but I hadn’t gotten worked up like this for so long.  I was supposed to skydive a couple of months ago but didn’t but I imagine my body was clenched in a similar fashion to a freefall from 13,000 feet.  Okay, game.  Gotta do something. The way my apartment is arranged, you walk in, there’s a little wall and behind it is the stove, so I need to get inside to see what’s going on and I can’t just inch my way forward because then I”ll be on top of what, I can’t imagine.  I don’t hear anything and no box is dancing around on the floor , squeaking like I imagined it would be, so I summon my lack of  courage and run in, past the small wall to the far end of the apartment.  Motley Crue is blasting and I initially don’t see anything.  My music goes soft and maybe the thing is dead.   My mom is calling.  MOMTHERESAMOUSEANDIMFREAKINGOUTIDONTKNOWITSINMYAPARTMENTANDIMSICKANDITSTHEREANDIKNOWITANDICANTMOVEANDIMFREAKINGOUT…Something like that (I’m so sad).   But where’s the mouse?!  I take out my headphones and turn on the tv to get some sound in the place.  The phone goes dead.  I put the bags on my hand and look over at the stove.  The mouse isn’t there I think.  I need to be certain.  I need to get to the perfect angle to see through the trap and be positive (even though my logic says the trap would be moving and I know it’s not there).  A squeak! (I think).  It must be in the other trap.  The one I didn’t put out but instead left balanced on top of cup of water.   I’m so stupid and clouded by fear of what I don’t understand.  It’s that damn squeak that sound freaks me out.  Even on the subway, when a train screeches to a halt, or a dump truck outside my apartment hits the break with a squeak.  That makes my stomach clench.  I’m so far gone I take a picture, zoomed in all the way at the trap, I then view the picture and zoom into the trap (inconclusive).  But there’s no mouse.  There’s no dead mouse.  My mom calls back and I come to terms with myself.  I consider myself tough.  But I’m not.  Why do they squeak???

Everyone in New York has mice, a mouse, a rat, roaches, beetles, waterbugs, snakes, racoons, babies, or some sort of animal and a story from the plethora of apartments they all live, have lived, in.  It’s a rite of passage of all New Yorkers.  I need to kill this mouse.  I want to kill it for territory.  Like a pack leader does.  It’s okay.  Animals kill for territory all the time (I googled it today).

UPDATE: 2 days later and no mouse.  I discovered today that the distinct squeaking I heard the other day while coming up the stairs was, in fact, the stairs.  As Balzac said, ‘Our greatest fears lie in anticipation’.

I took advantage of the nice weekend and headed upstate with Rebecca.  The house in the Catskills is an area i’ve always referred to as The Country.  There’s multiple ways to get there, but we usually took the quickway.  A quickway is what older folks refer to a highway as.  Usually a quickway was built in their lifetime that now cuts the old travel time in half.  They remember how long it used to take and wow, that new quickway they built sure does get us there in no time.

Though with the nice weather and changing leaves, we took the old route 17 up, past all the dairy farms and old houses and it’s really nice to get out and see the things you’ve always known in a different way.  I think of the Red Apple Rest, which I stopped by when I was a kid with my dad and uncle and cousin when I was growing up.  They used to stop there on their old trips upstate and by the time the quickway was built  and I visited, it was a relic of a former time, now I returned with Rebecca and the place was all boarded up.

The fresh air and quiet are enough to make you think it’s really all you need in life.  The porch at my grandparents house is a perfect place for sitting and taking it all in.  But soon it got cold and so we watch tv on a small television and light the house with lamps from 50 years ago.  We cook dinner in a stove that only has an ‘ON’ area.  Not even an ‘ON’ area, but something like ‘FULL’, ‘LIGHT’, and I thought to myself, how the hell did someone work this thing.

There’s a bunch of old things in the house.  Old things my grandparents probably bought and thought they’d never have to buy it again.  Items like egg-beaters and telephones.  TV trays from the late seventies.  Coolers (lots of coolers!)  Sheets and bottles of soda.  Things!  So many things.  I can’t help but think how much use all those things could have been at one time or another, and yet my thoughts go to buying new items though I’m depressed that the new stuff is so disenchanting.

We stayed through til Sunday early afternoon.  We ate breakfast at the local diner where the placemats advertise local businesses.  Construction, accounting, jail bonds, etc.  We walked to the lake.  Enjoyed the peace and quiet.

There’s lots more, but the important stuff is here.  That I’m now thirty and a weekend of doing nothing and enjoying the weather in my grandparents house is enough to me seems strange, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Notes:

Red Apple Rest was featured in the Woody Allen movie, Deconstructing Harry.  An underrated and very enjoyable film of his.  He stops there with a black hooker and his son in the car because he’s Woody Allen.

Apple Season is upon us.  Jeff, get your cider.  The rest of you get to an orchard and enjoy some apple picking.

I have officially reclaimed the website and registered it for 10 years. What did you do today?

Another event of me expending too much energy on something that should not have needed to be dealt with in the first place.

Now I am going to run to work because I am running late.

I will do work that should have been done yesterday.

My clothes will be wrinkled because I have not done the wash.

My food will be old because I don’t eat leftovers fast enough.

And yet, I will smile because my boss thinks I’m a Masochist.

No big fanfare needed.

MY JOB IN A NUTSHELL

And to think that I missed out on so many things because I was so busy.  

Or was I?

I currently have over 900 emails in my Inbox -not from fans, but from work.  I’m awake, home on a Friday night and ready to go back to the office tomorrow, Saturday, to attempt to get that number down, while people in China struggle to get it up (the number of emails, I mean).

In the bathroom tonight, I thought twice about throwing away a Home Catalog because I suddenly found reading about the thread counts in towels and sheets fascinating.  And I wondered how the cotton yarn gets woven into sheets, but also gets knit into stretchy shirts like a white tee (I actually think I know this).  

I’m shocked that I’m even writing right now, at 20 to 2 in the morning, but A. Rebecca’s away in Vegas, and B. Work breeds work.  Hate admitting that, but it’s the only way I can explain why I’m still awake, doing the things I deem ”working”, like writing this blog, or reading about what a stock is, or  drawing a picture.

I don’t know how I feel about it yet and It’s a sick and twisted logic.  The more I work, the more tired I should be.  But instead, I’ve worked more this week than I have in the past 7 years at my company and yet I’m not yet tired cause all I’ve been doing is working.  

But oh how bad it is!  Days disappear and I haven’t written a book, or drawn a collage.  Weather changes and I hope for rain because it’s easier to be in during the rain.  And my girlfriend is the toughest part, because no one wants to hear that you can’t be home because you need to read a bunch of emails.  

It’s still too early to tell.  I’ll crash very hard after I publish this.  

Meanwhile, I watched Will Ferrel on Man vs. Wild yesterday -THAT WAS GREAT!  I now feel every celebrity should do this to plug a movie (especially those based on campy 70’s television).  

Will all this work do this to me?

Who are all these people in my yard?

Psh, I read today on Gothamist, that the NY Post, is not a lover of the new move in the city to to block traffic on Broadway, between 47th and 42nd Street.  If you’re not familiar with the move, basically Bloomberg wants more pedestrians, less cars in this great city of ours, and I, for one, fully agree.  I’ll make my sacrifice (as this affects me too, as the occasional driver and relative of drivers (thanks dad)), I fully feel that cars, especially in Manhattan, kill certain characteristics of the city and the less cars, the better.  

I saw it for the first time today and thought it was great.  Everyone’s out in the street and the street feels more like it’s namesake “SQUARE”, than two streets colliding to form a Crossroads of The Taxi World.  It reminded me of all those European cities, with their central meeting squares.  I mentioned this to my friends who I travelled with to Europe and just this one line sold them.  Why?  Because when you’re traveling, those squares ground you.  You stand there and say to yourself, Here I am, and then you go from there.

Screw the Post.  They don’t know squat.  

This has, and always will be a walking city.  The car thing is relatively new.  And in the past two decades, the sidewalks have become unbearably crowded.  Opening up Broadway to pedestrians will only add more character to the city (as the picture above shows).  And the people and the tourists especially love it.  So if the tourists, with their money like this more than 6 blocks of taxi’s, I say give it to them because we like their money.

Will this make me a happier taxi rider?

My Uncle once told me that the best taxi drivers the city had were the blacks.  Then the Russians came and they were okay too.  Not as good, but okay.  Nowadays, the Indians, Pakistani, Middle Eastern drivers, and other such drivers dominate the New York City taxi driving community.  But they’re crap and probably not much worth third in this category.  Alot -not all, but alot- plug in their phones and treat you and driving like a complete afterthought.  They drive slow (which is my main complaint), and don’t seem to care much about getting you to your destination.  It’s like life in mediocrity.  Feh, I’m on the phone.  What is it that they talk about all the time?  Who knows.  The cabs smell sometimes.  The music is loud sometimes too.  I mean, the whole thing is just kinda depressing.  I get into a cab instead of taking a subway and I’m already paying about 4 times as much.  I want to either be treated like the most important person in that car, or like my destination is the most important place to be.  Preferably both.  

I rarely take taxis, but as i’m getting older and as the service in the subway deteriorates while the fare goes up, I try sometimes to treat myself to a taxi ride if it’s late and the subway’s too much work.   And so I just say this because tonight I got a ride home with Jamal from Guinea.  And I can see he’s driving fast (but smart), no music on, no phone plugged into his ear.  I like this and tell him so and I ask him where he’s from and we get to talking about this subject and he pretty much agrees: This is not your living room!  He says.  You need to eat, you pull over for 15 minutes and eat!  And goes on…The customer is the reason you are working and you should be thanking him!  Well, Jamal, I couldn’t agree more, and as a result of your fast driving, proving my Uncle right (yet again) and determination to get me to my destination, I will give you an extra dollar (it’s all I have).

And if you think I’m full of shit, think about this:  Jamal was a driver in Guinea to the diplomat of Yemen.  He takes driving seriously.  He tells me how he knows what’s going on two blocks ahead.  He tells me that in order to do his job, he has to know everything about every street and how to handle it.  16 years and no accident, he tells me.  Maybe.  It’s the other drivers in the world you gotta look out for after all.

I don’t mean to come off racist or anything, but I’m just telling you what I see.  For now, I don’t love cabs so much anyway (esp. for the price), and the subway has been desperately depressing to me as well lately.  But for the treat I give myself every once in a while, I hope they do, in fact, feel like it.   

Notes:

I couldn’t turn that tv off in the back seat.  Jamal said most people don’t like them.  I hate them.  I believe it was one of the worst things to be added to taxis mandatorily.  

However the credit card machines are pretty much brilliant.  Very Back To The Future: Part II, when Biff takes the taxi to Hilldale and pays with his thumbprint.

Yo Yo Scottie came through in spades yesterday, scoring us spots on the list to the Ford Supermodel search of 2007/8.

No Country For Old Men, the latest film by the Coen Brothers (Joel & Ethan) is a fantastic thriller by two of the most versatile directors we have working today. They’re like authors that can tackle any subject, spinning it with their particular tastes and flavors and making it their own, which is quite a feat as anyone who likes a particular author should know. Seeing their take on any subject is at the very least intelligent and interesting, but it’s never the ‘very least’ with them. They work hard on their films and think alot about their subjects, do their research, and work meticulously as a team. All this shows in the final product.

The movie feels like a book, with chapters ending in fade outs, and soft spoken dialogue. I liked the way this method was used by the Cohen brothers, though they never lacked for directing originality.

Tommy Lee Jones is the best actor in the film, and gives one of his finest performances as he becomes a more and more haunted man as the film moves on.

Spanish guy (Javier Bardem) is equally as good as he is scary, his ghostly presence like death itself is almost as mesmerizing as his 80’s haircut and tight blue trousers. And while he seems to hold all the cards by being the man willing to go to all lengths, one does get the feeling that he can be outsmarted by his own psychopathy or by something else.

Cormac McCarthy also wrote All The Pretty Horses, which also became a movie, but I’ve never seen it. (Nor will I probably ever, (the word ‘pretty’ makes it sound unappealing.))

My personal favorite Cohen Brothers film is O Brother Where Art Thou. It still is. The direction, the sharp wit, characters, and the music above all else, gives that movie, to me, a beating heart.

There’s a shift in the ending for NCFOM. Though I won’t ruin it for you, I will say that I like it. Alot. It has a great affect, and my only dissappointment is that it took to the third act for this to start to really come into focus. If there’s one thing in this film that holds it from being the Best Picture of the year, it’s that the theme of the final 15 minutes doesn’t fully make itself known until then. This, to me, is the difference. I want the Coen Brothers here the whole time, with the rest of the film going on along with it. Unfortunately it shows up a little late. No consilation because the film is still incredible the way it is. However, the last of it is even more incredible.

One thing to think about that I don’t think ruins it is that the Coen Brothers often use a guy in their films -a specter of death/evil, if you will- that pervades and tracks the main protagonists (O’Brother had the guy in the glasses with the dog, Raising Arizona had that biker guy, Millers Crossing had one too). So in the case of this film, there’s no doubt in my mind that Bardem is this character and I think it’s safe to say he’s as ambiguous and unpredictable in the role here as any of the other ones before him. In fact, he’s probably the most perfect of these characters the Coens have realized.

Notes:

The title comes from the poem “Sailing to Byzantium” by William Butler Yeats.