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Showing posts from May, 2012

Tube Boob

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I’m starting to feel like the Flying Dutchman of television. It seems like every time I get hooked on a new TV show and recommend it to friends and family, the program is promptly canceled and driven off the air like a plague. I first noticed this phenomenon back in 1992 when I stumbled across “ The Ben Stiller Show ” on Fox. It’s been a while, but I remember the show having some excellent sketches, including a medieval version of “ Cops ” and a take-off on “ A Few Good Men ” that featured Stiller cross-examining himself as both the Tom Cruise and the Jack Nicholson characters. I told my friends at work that the show was funny and they should watch it. And it got canceled. Twenty years later, I still haven’t lost my touch. The latest victim was “ Awake ,” a brilliant show on NBC that starred Jason Isaacs as Michael Britten, an L.A. cop who finds himself living two different lives after a fatal car crash. In one version of reality, Britten’s wife has been killed in the accid

Double Nickel

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When I was a young man I used go to a local karate school in hopes of becoming a fearless killer. Our sensei was a stocky Italian-American man who would routinely ream us out for being so pathetically out of shape. “I am fifty-five years old ,” he roared at us one night, “and I can do this!” I was about 20 at the time and I remember thinking, fifty-five? God, that’s so old! I can't imagine being 55! Well, as of today, I’m fifty-five years old. The karate school, which had been located over an old bingo hall, is now a New York Sports Club and I still go there. I never did earn that black belt, and I'm no fearless killer, but I feel like I deserve some kind of award for making it this far. I know a number of people who didn’t, so I am extremely thankful that I’m still around. “This is my special day,” I thought as I walked to get my bus this morning. I had planned to write about how I haven’t reached a lot of my goals or seen many of my dreams come true, but then it

Bench Mark

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I was relaxing in the park this afternoon when I heard the angelic voice of a little girl floating over me. “Why is he sleeping on the bench ?” It took a second for me to realize that “he” was “me” and that this innocent child was referring to yours truly. And not very nicely. I was indeed stretched out on a park bench on Shore Road, enjoying the warm weather—and minding my own business, I might add, and I suppose to the untrained eye I might have looked like a homeless bum in need of a shave and a career—as opposed to the soon-to-be-world-renown literary and cinematic genius I really and truly am. I opened my eyes in time to see a man walking away from me with a cute little blond girl perched on his shoulders. I gave her a smile and threw her a wave but she turned away, clearly unimpressed. Give me a break, kid , I thought, I’m having a rough time here. How rough? Well, for starters I feel like crap. I’ve got a cold or a virus or a sinus infection or a voodoo curse or yell

Heart of A Mother

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“The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness.” -- Honoré de Balzac I thought I’d get through today without crying, but I was wrong. It’s been nearly 10 years since my mother died and I was certain that Mother’s Day wouldn’t affect me the way it had when we first lost her. And then I thought of the importance of this day while I was doing the breakfast dishes and the tears started to flow. I still miss her so much. There are so many things I want to share with her, so many things I want to ask her, and so many stupid, selfish words, deeds and missteps that I want to apologize for that it’s driving me crazy. I think about all the anguish I caused her as I struggled to find a career and then I’m reaching for the tissues once more. Both my parents are gone and there are times when I feel like I’ve been set adrift in some vast ocean and land is nowhere in sight. And my Aunt Margaret’s death on Thursday is adding to that feeling of

The Last Holiday

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We lost another member of our family today. My father’s sister, Margaret, died this evening. She had fallen down in her apartment earlier in the day, hit her head, and went into cardiac arrest. She was taken to the hospital, but she never regained consciousness. She was 88 years old. The last time I saw Margaret was on Easter Sunday when we went to dinner with her at a restaurant in Sheepshead Bay. It seems fitting that this last meeting was on a holiday since that’s when I usually saw Margaret and many of my other family members—Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, all the big ones. I remember calling her the morning my father died to tell her the bad news and she started to cry. My father, too, had fallen and hit his head. That was five years ago and now she’s gone. It just doesn’t seem right. There’s nothing we can do but stand by and watch our parents’ generation die off one by one. I'm thinking of all those great holiday meals, all those good times, and how so many of t

Smile or Go Home

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The woman with the buzzcut was giving out free advice as well as newspapers on Church Street this week. “Smile,” she said to the somnambulant commuters. “Smile or go home!” It was a good suggestion, actually, but I think I’d get in trouble with my boss if I turned tail and went back to Brooklyn because I couldn’t come up with a grin. Still, I’ve been trying to be more positive. I saw this little boy in a stroller on Monday morning and I can’t get him out of my head—mainly because I want to keep him there. I saw him as I was walking up Fulton Street. His mother was pushing the stroller toward me and this little guy was so excited at everything he saw that he seemed ready to climb out of his seat. He was looking in all directions, at all the people and buildings and activity; he couldn’t get enough. The contrast between this boy’s boundless enthusiasm and everybody else’s bottomless misery was stunning. Here we were, Monday freaking morning, heading back to work with this so