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Cube Your Enthusiasm

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I was wheezing my way through a Stairmaster workout last week when I took a half‑century backward. Like most fitness clubs, my gym has music pouring out of the sound system nonstop. They keep it at a decent volume so you can enjoy the songs, but you can also tune out the tunes you don’t like. For years I worked out in the early morning, when the club played a solid hour of Frank Sinatra — probably to please me and my fellow dawn‑patrol geezers. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of mentioning how much I liked it to the staff, and it seemed like a short time later Old Blue Eyes went silent. The last time I heard Frank at my gym, the sound system abruptly cut him off midway through “You Make Me Feel So Young.” That made me feel so old. But my Stairmaster flashback concerns another Sinatra — his daughter Nancy — whose voice suddenly filled the gym in the midst of my stationary ascent. I strained to hear the lyrics over the clang of barbells, the gym chatter, the pounding ...
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Unlucky Number

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“ Hell is truth seen too late.”—Thomas Hobbes And then the dog showed up. I joined my sister and her friend on Saturday to see The Fear of 13, a play based on the life of Nick Yarris, who spent 22 years on Pennsylvania’s death row before becoming the state’s first death row inmate exonerated by DNA evidence. The play, written by Lindsey Ferrentino, is based on a 2015 British documentary film and stars Adrien Brody as Yarris and Tessa Thompson as a death row volunteer, both in their Broadway debuts. It was also one of the most exhilarating theatrical experiences I’ve had in years. I knew next to nothing about the play when we walked into the theater, and I’d never seen the film. But I was in tears by the time the lights came up. Brody is simply extraordinary as he takes us on the brutal journey of Yarris’ life — how this stupid young kid with a knack for stealing cars ended up convicted and sentenced to death for a 1981 kidnapping, rape, and murder. Director David Crome...
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Post Imperfect

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Skip the sneakers. That’s just one nugget of advice that comes up when you google “how to dress for a job interview.” Men are advised to wear polished leather dress shoes or oxfords to go with a navy, charcoal, or black suit with a light-colored button-down shirt, “along with a conservative, high-quality tie.” But you can’t wear kicks. Of course, I already knew that. I always put on my dress shoes when I meet with a prospective employer, no matter how laid back the company appears to be. And yet I did that very thing when I went to inquire about a reporting position at the Washington Post. Well, it wasn’t a real interview. This was a moment in yet another very weird dream of mine where I had gone to the 149-year-old publication in the nation’s capital and made a string of rookie interview mistakes that looked like a career suicide note. This wasn’t a full-blown nightmare where I wake up trembling and thanking God none of the horrifying events actually happened. No, this w...
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Numbers Game

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They never saw it coming. That was the tagline from a movie called Derailed, but it pretty much describes my feeling about aging. By the grace of God, I turned 69 today, and I was reviewing my birthday blog post from 2006, which I described as “a quiet affair—just me, my dad, and my sister.” I titled the post What Hath God Wrought? , which was the first official message transmitted over a commercial telegraph line in the U.S. on May 24, 1844. Patti LaBelle, Bob Dylan, the Brooklyn Bridge, and my grandmother also celebrate their birthdays today. “Mary, my dad's aide, made a delicious pasta dinner, my sister got the cake and sang ‘Happy Birthday’—my dad didn't seem able to join in—and then we watched Derailed on DVD,” I wrote on that day. Back then I was shocked that I would be turning 50 the next year. Now, I’m just kind of numb to the numbers. “I couldn't help but think of my mom when I looked at the cake's candles flickering in front of me, I could almost...
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Holding the Line

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A year ago today, the phone stopped ringing. This is the one year anniversary of my brother Peter’s death, and like so many other events in my life, I can’t believe how fast the time has flown by. It seems like it was just last week that I was sitting on my couch when I got a phone call from my niece that began with the words, “I have terrible news.” I couldn’t begin to imagine what the problem was, and then she said, “My father passed.” “Peter?” I shouted, jumping off the couch, as if I were hoping it would be somebody else. But it wasn’t. My brother was gone. My God, what a terrible day that was. I started making phone calls, and then my sister and I went to Manhattan to tell our aunt what had happened, because there was no way we were going to tell her that terrible news over the phone. I still miss his daily calls. I keep hoping I’ll see his name flash across my iPhone, even though I know that’s never going to happen. I later learned that Peter had b...
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Speak On It

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Okay, I’m going to watch this video just one more time — I promise. Last month, Saturday Night Live ran a sketch called “ Fashion District Robbery ,” and I can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard at an SNL bit. I’ve been watching the late night comedy show since those early days in 1975 with the likes of John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Jane Curtin, Gilda Radner, and Chevy Chase — although I never thought that guy was funny. There were great sketches like the Killer Bees, the Coneheads, and the Jaws parody about the landshark. There have been ten presidential administrations since SNL debuted on Oct. 11, 1975, and that first episode is now the subject of a Netflix film I’m planning to watch. The show has also spawned a British adaptation, SNL UK, which premiered on March 21. Interestingly enough, Curtin said in a 2023 interview with People that she had watched an early show and “not one thing was funny.” “I think it was just one of those, you had to be there ...
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Exit, Stage Crazy

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At some point this morning, I decided to give myself a break. “You know,” I told myself, “it doesn’t have to be so awful.” Yes, how about that? I really could stop tearing into myself. After all those hours of abuse, it would be so nice to ease up on the misery, wouldn’t it? Now all I had to do was believe it. The cause behind this latest emotional assault began Saturday night when I attended BKOne’s production of John Patrick Shanley’s 1984 play Savage in Limbo at Industry City, a massive warehousing and manufacturing complex in Sunset Park that dates back to 1918. The property was pretty much deserted for the longest time, but now it’s home to restaurants, bars, and all kinds of businesses — including the theater. The play focuses on a group of former parochial-school classmates who get together at a rundown neighborhood bar in the Bronx. They’re all 32 years old, they have empty lives, they rip into themselves and each other, and they talk about changing fo...
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