Handbill Handout

I almost skipped going to see some live music on Saturday night. I found a movie on the SyFy channel (formerly the Sci-Fi channel) that was so compelling it glued me to the couch. If the Mrs. wasn’t going with me to see the show I might’ve not been able to tear myself away. The movie? Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus I might as well get it out in the open now: I am a sucker for monster movies. Not horror movies or vampire movies or zombie movies. Monster movies, as in a giant something or other destroys a city before being defeated by some heroic scientists or another “good-guy” monster or some combination of both. The monster may or may not be an allegory for “man tampering with nature”. The dialogue must be the sort of dialogue nobody ever hears in real life, there should be no passages that resemble actual human conversation. The dialogue exists to move the plot, such as it is, along. In other words everyone not being killed by the monster (and even some who do wind up kaput) is “Basil ...

At one end of the South/Midland beach boardwalk on Staten Island there is a round plaza called Freedom Circle that has several flag poles flying various incarnations of the American flag and a large plaque detailing the evolution of said flag. It was built to “pay special tribute to the women and men who have fought to defend our freedom over the years” according to o ne borough website . The name “Freedom Circle” sounds vaguely Soviet to me, but maybe our BP was just trying to make the growing Russian population of Staten Island feel at home at our fine beaches. In any event, the Mrs. and I were walking on the boardwalk the other night and as we approached that end of the boardwalk I noticed a flashing light, the sort that one sees on one of those red light cameras. We drew nearer and saw the source of the flashing was a box on one of the flagpoles. As we reached the plaza the box flashed again and a robot voice spoke to us. “You are committing an illegal act. You are in a restr...

There is a new emoticon making the rounds. That emoticon is “ this , the emoticon is sometimes sincere and sometimes not which in my mind sort of defeats the point of using an emoticon (and I loathe using them anyway). My impression has always been that emoticons are used to clarify the meaning of text that might be misinterpreted, usually in the case of sarcasm or possibly to defuse a situation that might arise when words that are “just kidding”, or “JK” as the youngsters prefer, might be taken seriously. So now we have a type of communication invented with a specific purpose for the Internet age having said specific purpose undermined by a shift in usage. It figures, but all of that is beside the point I’m making today. The first time I saw the brings back a very bad memory. It brings back the memory of my first academic failure. Back in the mid 1970’s New York was in the depths of a financial crisis. The city was crumbling, both physically and psychologically. And I was still of si...

According to Variety magazine, Star Trek is the new James Bond . Nice to see the new movie got a good review. Don’t know if that means I’ll see it though. I see about one movie in the theaters a year. Last year it was “Iron Man”. This year I’m leaning towards “Wolverine”. I read those comic books when I was a kid and teen and unlike those who have continued the comic book habit into adulthood (rechristening them “graphic novels” in the process to avoid the stigma of the term “comic book”) I have been pretty entertained by the film adaptations. Then again, I’m not a serious film guy either. After all, like people say about pro wrestling, it’s all fake anyway so who cares? Back when I was a kid though, back in the 70s, back before cable was really prevalent, Star Trek the original series was a big part of my life. Five nights a week, 6pm, channel 11 WPIX in New York if memory serves me right. No, I’m not old enough to remember the original prime time run; that ended right before...

So Bernie Madoff is getting his own trading card . Have I mentioned how difficult is it to try to be satirical or humorous about the modern world? You really can’t beat the truth. I mean if I came up with some short story or even a novel about a guy named Shyster or McFraud or something else obvious like “Made-off” who defrauded huge amounts of money from supposedly smart people and then wound up on a trading card everyone would think I was some kind of a hack of a complete jackass. And yet, there you have it: real life in all its glory. When I was a kid in the 1970’s card collecting as an investment tool was still in its infancy. I was a bit too young to be part of the generation that put cards in their bike wheels or anything like that although we did enter the world of gambling through baseball cards. Oh, and on Staten Island in the ‘70s it was always baseball cards. Sure you might occasionally buy a pack of football cards or hockey cards but the serious card aficionado specialize...

They changed the audio message that blares through the express bus every 20 minutes or so. Around two weeks ago, it went from two alternating messages to a single message. One of the alternating messages cautioned us all to beware of pickpockets and their evil tactics while the other told us we could keep New York moving by always exiting through the center doors. This one was a hoot for us “X-bus” riders since the buses they use on those routes only have one set of doors at the front of the bus. The new message features a tired-sounding middle aged woman likely from Queens judging by the accent reciting the fares for the local and express buses, advising us on how to ask for transfers and finishing with a statement that roused me from my morning bus nap. She says “up to three childwren less than fawty-faw inchas tawl may ride da bus fow free”. Suddenly it was the 1970s again and I was standing with my mother outside the Rae Twin Cinema as she held a birth certificate ready to challeng...

It may come as a surprise to those who know me as a middle aged skeptic (some call me “bitter”), but I was a very credulous child. A true believer. However once one gets to a certain point in kid-hood one becomes doubtful about certain things like the existence of a certain, non-Krampus Christmas figure. It seems silly not to believe nowadays now that everyone can follow the government track of the old guy without having to call a 976 number and pay a quarter a throw like I did as a kid. I mean, if you can follow him on the Web he must be real! Here in New York old St. Nick had severe flight restrictions in those days even though it was the pre-9/11 era. You see, because of the high volume of Christmas Eve air traffic and the usual weather-related delays that the airlines experienced Santa would never receive clearance to enter the airspace until around 3 am when the air traffic was light. So it was that no kid was ever awake to see the man himself dropping off the goods. Well, I don’t...

I hope this snowstorm is bigger than they say. Nature is the only thing that can slow things down in the 21st century. Yes, I am at work right now, but things are winding down as people drift off for the holidays. Business slows in my industry for the two weeks containing Christmas and New Year’s, though in my particular area the day to day stuff never stops and we use the holidays to get ahead of the curve on upcoming projects that will hit the fan come the first Monday after New Year’s. But yes, I will have to deal with commuting home through the mess. Fine. For now, I can take a few minutes and watch the snow swirl outside. Unfortunately, right now I can only watch and not get the full experience. You see, what I really love is the sound of snow. The silence that a nice, thick snow covering provides at the height of a heavy snowfall that doesn ’t have too much wind. It’s a silence that almost lets you hear the plink of each flake as it adds to the pile. It pads and muffles and chan...

Decades ago, there was a social custom of sending a Christmas Letter. The Christmas Letter was a document sent out every year where one would chronicle the events of the past year to people who were friends of the family but who lived far away or for whatever reason weren ’t in regular contact. With the advent of constant contact via all the various forms of technology currently cluttering the ether such a thing is an anachronism. However, I still receive the odd holiday missive and I try to write a little something extra to those who I don’t communicate with frequently. Sometimes the letter contains good news. This year for example we found out a waiter friend of ours from Montreal who we don’t see anymore since he quit his job at the restaurant and he lives outside the city is marrying his partner. This is the kind of holiday news that warms the heart Of course, there’s also the other kind. When I was growing up, my mother was good friends with a woman who lived across the street. He...

The late, great Kaos used to say that men under 40 should not wear suspenders or bow ties as part of their business apparel. Don’t know why. He was an accountant at a commodities firm during the 1990s so it’s possible that the people who dressed that way treated him poorly which caused him to create a rule for himself. Since he died before he made 40 there’s way of knowing if he would’ve expanded his sartorial repertoire upon reaching that age. I, on the other hand think there are certain words that you shouldn’t use before you hit middle age. I have reached that wonderful phase of life, and I am proudly using those words whenever I can. One of the words in question is “keister”, as in rear-end, buttocks or ass. Now I know what you’re thinking: why use a word that makes you sound like Colonel Sherman Potter on M*A*S*H? It’s an attention getter, that’s why. Nobody uses that word, least of all young people. Throw it in a sentence and watch those heads turn! It’s even money tha...

Just got the word that a big conference I was supposed to attend in Vegas in March has been cancelled. Just more crappy news on top of no company Christmas party this year and various other cutbacks that have been implemented. Could be worse, I suppose. At least I still have a job. Assuming I think that having this particular job is a good thing which depends on my mood. Maybe the global economic collapse is my fault. I put the jinx on this conference the minute I decided to attend. I'm one of about three or four Americans who have never set foot in the state of Nevada. Gambling's not my thing. Neither is unironic tourist kitsch save for things that have a sentimental attachment to from my childhood like Weeki Wachee . Somewhere in some box that some family member has are a couple of wax mermaids my father and I bought from a machine that poured the liquid wax into a mold and formed the statues before your very eyes. How those machines didn't make it and the squish-a-penny-...

There’s a new show on WFMU in the overnight hours called Night People . Last night’s topic was ostensibly ghosts but the first hour experienced a little topic drift into what scared the crap out of you when you were a kid including one male caller who claimed to never have, er, sexual dreams because he was petrified by the scene in Ghostbusters where a guy was sleeping and a ghost (probably a succubus ) floated above the bed and undid the guy’s fly. Who knew that that movie could be so psychologically damaging? I mean sure, you may never want to eat marshmallows or green jello again but I would’ve thought that would be the end of it. Anyway, it reminded me of some of the things that scared me as a kid and with Halloween approaching and me probably not having time to write much next week since I’m traveling on business to the most frightening and unreal place on Earth (Los Angeles) I figured I’d write about ‘em today. One thing that sent me running from the room on a regular basis was...

I am sitting on the bus trying to doze for the last few minutes before it reaches the stop nearest my office. The speaker right about my head crackles with a sound not unlike ladyfinger firecrackers detonating two blocks away before a canned voice dispenses these words of wisdom: “ Noo Yawk is a fast paced town. You can do yaw pawt to keep things moving by exiting through the centuh daws .” I hear this announcement almost every morning and marvel at the fatal flaw it contains. Express buses do not have a center door. You might think this is a design error but it makes sense since the nature of an express bus is that it picks up passengers in one borough and drops them off in another. Except for the odd transfer there aren ’t any stops where people are both boarding and departing the bus. I muttered something like “fantastic, I'll kick the middle window out” aloud and was momentarily paralyzed by fear. Instantly I was transported back almost 30 years to the scene of one o...

Yes it’s true . I can honestly say I’ ve never eaten an Egg McMuffin . Never even tried one. Long time readers may recall my antipathy toward eggs which some would say disqualifies me from being a true gourmand, whatever the hell that is. That’s all right with me. I’m just a guy who likes food. The passing of Mr. Egg McMuffin reminded me that Easter has just passed for most Christian denominations. I had a bit of a different upbringing around that holiday since my family wasn ’t particularly religious and my dad usually got some time off around then so many Easter mornings were spent in campgrounds. The possibilities of hiding eggs on a campsite are infinitely expanded over to those in a house so it was possible for parents to keep kids occupied for much longer than they would be at home while they had a second cup of Maxwell House and another Kent while trying to orient the rabbit ears on the crummy black and white TV we dragged with us on every trip. When we weren ’t camping on Eas...