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Showing posts from 2005

The Mousehole Cat

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That darn cat! I gave myself a Christmas present this year in the form of a video (no DVD, apparently) of a children's story called The Mousehole Cat . The film is based on a book by Antonia Barber and it features fabulous animation and lovely narration by the talented British actress Sian Phillips. I've seen it about four times now and I cry my eyes out every time. It's amazing how such a short simple story can have such a powerful impact on me, but maybe that's the answer: it's short, it's simple, and it's honest. Hell, I cry at a lot of movies. That's not news. There are still few scenes from It's A Wonderful Life that still get me and there's The Big Parade , a silent war epic that has some very touching scenes, and then City Lights , my God, City Lights , with its final image, I can flood a whole theater with my tears. But this particular film has got its claws into me and it won't let go. And I don't want to be released from its ma

So This Is Christmas...

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I think my sister said it best as she was going out the door tonight: "We did it." She was referring to the Christmas dinner she and I hosted earlier in the evening for about a dozen friends and relatives. This holiday had a very special meeting to us since it was the first time we held a Christmas dinner at our home in four or five years. My mother died in July 2002, and she had been in a nursing home for a long time prior to that, so we didn't do anything at home. No tree, no decorations, and certainly no guests. After she died we held family get-togethers on Christmas, but always at a restaurants because, as I've mentioned previously, my sister and I dreaded the thought of looking at our mother's empty chair while we tried to conduct a celebration. But this year our father is a bit frail and I think we're a little stronger. So we catered the whole thing, roped in the usual suspects, as my mother used to call our relatives, and had an old fashioned Christmas

All Aboard!

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All right, the transit strike is officially over. Now what? It looks like the folks that have to get here on Christmas Day can use the trains, as opposed to roller blades and hang gliders. And I can enjoy the sites in New York during the holidays without having to walk through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel to see them. I know this strike crippled the city and I honestly think this was not the best path for the union to take, but by the same token they were fighting for some important issues and the MTA, as I've mentioned before, needs a complete overhaul. I heard some reporters from the Village Voice on the radio today and they pretty much said this privately run government agency (huh?) is the crony capital of New York, the place where the well-connected install their slow-witted cousins and then run like hell. We've got Mike "The Working Class Billionaire" Bloomberg and George "Thinks He's Presidential" Pataki talking tough. And that right wing rag of ne

Train Wreck

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I can't believe this is happening. For the first time in 25 years, New York City has been hit with a transit strike--with just five days till Christmas. It's freezing cold and I am hearing reports of people walking over the Brooklyn Bridge. I can only thank God that my company is allowing me to work from home, though I'd feel a little better if I heard from someone at the office. I just called now and the phone rang 20 times before I hung up. From what I hear on the news reports, people seem to be coping, at least for the moment. As this strike wears on, though, our nerves will be tested. I hate this nonsense. I can't believe the idiots on both sides of the table are leaving 7 million people on the hook like this. I have always supported labor unions and I always will, but this is not the way to win popular support. I save my true contempt, though, for the MTA, an organization that nearly rivals the mafia in its secret deals and illegal operations. It is a blend of a pr

Rail World

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And so now we face another deadline. A threat of a transit has been hovering over New York for the last few days like a huge storm system. There were rumblings earlier in the month, but the harsh winds of rhetoric intensified on both sides of the bargaining table as the deadline drew nearer. Friday was supposed to be the official deadline for a system-wide strike and I was bidding farewell to my co-workers and gym buddies on Thursday as if I were moving to New Zealand. See you tomorrow, unless there's a strike, and then, well...who knows? But the union held back, pushing the deadline for the whole transit system until Tuesday, or as I like to call it, the day after tomorrow. If nothing happens tonight, the union will shut down private bus lines in Queens, thus sending a shot over the bow of management while keeping on the right side of the anti-strike laws for municipal workers. I think I speak for the entire commuting population when I say this sucks. Christmas is one week away, t

Elfin Liars

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And now the news from the front. No, I'm not talking about the war in Iraq. Who cares about all those American soldiers and Iraqi civilians who died for George Bush's lies and who will have a lot of company before this mess is sorted out? I'm talking about the war on Christmas. Each year right wing blowhards trot out this tiresome mythology about how Christmas is being push into the shadows by the godless liberals, political correctoids, secular humanists, and, of course, the gays. I made up that last one, but I'm sure they'll want to blame the queers for this, too. It's become a yearly event, this holiday charade, and it as welcome as a cheap fruitcake. Look, they shriek, look how store employees are being told to say "happy holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas." Look at how Christmas trees are being called "holiday trees," how religious ceremonies and decorations are being banned from public buildings. It's the end of all tha

Jealous Guy

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How could it be that 25 years have passed since John Lennon was killed? It's hard to believe such much time has slipped away, and even harder to believe this terrible thing happened in the first place. The newspapers, TV shows and God knows how many web sites are filled with Lennon memorials and I've decided I'm going to join the chorus. John Lennon's Imagine was the first album I ever bought in my life. I was at a record store in the King's Plaza shopping center and the album was playing over the sound system. I pretended to look for records (remember those?) while listening to track after track. When I finally decided that this album was worth the investment, I dug into my pocket, paid something like five bucks and walked out with my very own record. The album came with a poster of John Lennon playing a piano outdoors--was it the Central Park bandshell? Honestly, I don't remember and I have no idea what happened to that poster. I do remember my freshman high

The Auntie Vanishes

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My aunt pulled a disappearing act last week that would have made Houdini jealous. I call my aunt every morning from work to see how she's doing. She's my mom's sister and a few years ago she lost both my mom and her husband in less than a year. She lives in Manhattan and several days a week she'd go downtown, take the ferry out to Staten Island and visit my mom in the nursing home. Then she'd go home and take care of her husband, who was dying from cancer. I don't know how she did it. When these two people she loved so dearly died within such a short period of time, my aunt had a terrible gap in her life. I started calling her daily to see how she was doing and I think I wanted to stay "in touch" with my mom in a way. Obviously they're two different people, with two distinct personalities, but she's still my mom's sister. And, in better times, she and my mom used to speak to each other on the phone every day. So I feel like I'm keeping

Dirty Looks

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David Letterman likes to do this mock-nasty face he calls the skunk eye. He twists his mug up to one side until he's glaring at you with one squinting eyeball. It's a classic dirty look and I think it's funnier than hell. But in real life, dirty looks aren't so funny. This week an amatuer boxer was shot to death in Brooklyn after he and his killers exchanged dirty looks. That's all they needed to start shooting: a hostile variation on the skunk eye. The victim's nickname was "Squint" because of his poor vision and there is a theory that this habit led to his death. The shooters interpreted his squinting as a challenge and naturally the only rational response was to gun him down. A dirty look is the flashpoint for violence. For years I've heard people say if you look at people the wrong way in this city and you'll get shot. And they're right. So many fights start with the loaded question, what are you looking at? I was in a martial arts clas

The Port Authority Shogun

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Had he lived Bruce Lee would have been 65 years old today. It's hard to imagine the star of "Enter the Dragon" dealing with the all-too-mortal issues of aging. If you've ever seen any of his movies, you'd swear this incredible being, this force, could never grow old. And, of course, he didn't. I remember seeing "Enter the Dragon" in high school and, yes, plot wise, it's an abomination, but you knew that going in. It's all about the fighting, Bruce Lee taking on whole divisions of thugs, doing sommersaults into his enemy's face and harpooning that homicidal old geezer in the hall of mirrors. He was all the rage back in the Seventies. Back then when people said "Bruce" they weren't talking about Springsteen. And then one day he was dead. I remember going back to school after summer vacation and spotting a Chinese kid in my class. He was a martial arts student and a huge Bruce Lee fan. When he saw me on the first day of school,

Pilgrim's Pride

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And so another Thanksgiving goes into the record books. I'm sitting in front of my computer, stuffed to the gills and listening to "Porgy and Bess" (?) on NPR. All the guests have gone and my Aunt Margaret just called to thank me and my sister for a wonderful time. Most of the cleaning is done, I put out the trash, left some food for Flash, my alley cat amigo, and, praise the Lord, I don't have to work tomorrow. Can't remember the last time I had the Friday after Thanksgiving off and I am truly thankful for this, I can tell you. This is the first holiday celebration we've had at home since my mother died three years ago. Prior to tonight we always went to restaurants for the holiday meals because my sister and I couldn't bear the thought of sitting at the dinner table and looking at my mother's empty chair. But some time has passed, and to be honest, my father really isn't in good shape to go out. He's looking frail lately and with the problem

Losing the Light

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I hate covering trials. I've been a reporter for, ye gods, something close to 20 years and I've only covered a handful of trials and preliminary hearings. And I've pretty much hated them all. Time loses all meaning in court. Things that in the real world would be done in no time grind down to extreme slow motion as soon as you add a judge and some lawyers. You sit there and wonder when the hell you're going to get out of there. You watch the sun go down, the shadows grow long and the stars come out and you're still in this goddamn courthouse. And then you start taking it personally, as in, could you bastards just reach a verdict of some kind, just or unjust, logical or insane, and let me go the hell home? You swear you're going to quit this nonsense, going to find another job, break down and become a PR man like some many other ex-reporters and start pulling down some real money for a change. It's like being punch drunk without climbing into the ring. Fasten

The Bird is the Word

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And now, live from Planet Freak Show, we bring you the Case of the Purloined Parrot. I usually hate to preface a story with the words "this is true" but a recent case out of Florida makes this little disclaimer mandatory. It seems this woman down there was so enamored with a classic car that she swiped an exotic parrot from her employer, stuffed the bird down her bra (!?) and tried to swap the little bugger for the vintage vehicle. The deal went south, however, when the car's owner turned out to be a good friend of the parrot-napper's boss. It really is a small world after all. "The circumstances of the case are the most bizarre I've ever encountered," said veteran wildlife investigator Lenny Barshinger. Where's Long John Silver when you need him? I recall an old Monty Python bit about a bogus news program that focused only on the news for parrots. So there would be stories like "No parrots were involved in a 5-car pile-up on the M-5 today."

The Cat's Pajamas

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Oh, the irony... For years I have tortured my sister with my degrading, hateful comments about cats. Rancid fleabags was my expression of choice, but I made full use of the language in describing my loathing for felines. Now, I was just kidding, of course. I was trying to torment my sister by ragging on her cats. I don't have anything against them--nor anything for them, come to think of it. I was just playing around. She always threatened to get me a cat as a punishment and I always swore I'd donate it to the nearest Chinese restaurant. So it went on over the years. She'd put her cats on the phone so I could hear them purr(?!?) and describe what they were doing while she was talking to me. Hey, who cares about them stupid cats? I got better things to do then waste time on those obnoxious, lazy, overfed trouble makers. Or then again, maybe I don't. It seems now I am in need of cats, or at least one, to scare away the mice (or worse) that have gotten into this house. I p

Thank you, Judy

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You never know where you'll meet a decent human being. Most days they can be awful hard to find and if I went searching for one, a huge corporation would be the last place I'd look. But that's what happened last week when I called my father's insurance carrier to find out what I could about his IRA. My father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and he's never been one for keeping records, a trait that I unfortunately inherited. My mother was always the one that did the finacial paperwork for them, although my father always maintained he was the brains of the outfit, despite the acute lack of evidence. Since my mom's death three years ago, his financial records have pretty much gone to hell. I've done my best to keep up, but my hatred off all things financial and my stunning lack of apptitude in these matters has resulted in some rather sizeable gaps in my dad's portfolio. I had to call the insurance company to see what was going on wi

White Boy Slugfest

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It was a hell of a way to start a weekend. I got out of work one Friday night a few weeks ago and walked down to Battery Park City. Was I heading for happy hour at some uber-chic saloon? Hell, no. A romantic rendez-vous with a lucious Eastern European supermodel? Jesus, it hurts to even dream about that. No, I was on my to the New York Sports Club to take a boxing class. Now why the hell I do this, I don't know. Of course there are the surface reasons: it's great exercise, you get to work out in a group, it saves me from the murderous monotony of the treadmill and the barbells, and it lets me get out my aggressions. The gym wasn't crowded that night, a sign possibly that people were out having a life rather in here wheezing and perspiring. I found out that boxing class was even more mob-free--I was the only person there. Sal, a young African-American boxer and martial artist was teaching the class and when others failed to show up, my first thought was, oh, no, he's go

Dad's Accident

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I had to give my father a shower the other day. It was Sunday morning and he and my sister had just come home after having breakfast at a local diner. She and I were talking in the kitchen when my father walked in between us and went into the bathroom. A few seconds later the smell reached us and we knew what happened. My father had "an accident", as my mother would have said. In other words, he shit in his pants. Poor bastard. He's 84 years old, suffering from Alzheimer's and he's got to deal with this. We got his shoes off and I threw his underwear into the wash. My sister left and I went out to do some shopping, but when I got back the smell was still coming off him. I told him to get undressed and saw the stains on the back of his legs. I got him into the shower and turned on the water; he was like an old circus elephant, once so powerful and terrifying, now docile and quiet as I hosed him down. His doctor warned us that, as the disease progresses, my father w

Faces in the Crowd

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You can see a lot by just looking. ~Yogi Berra Two men left the same building at the same time and they could not have been more different. I was taking the elevator going last night when a man in a wheelchair got on board at the 12th floor. His body was shrunken, misshapen, and from what I could see, he only had the use of one arm. I had my usual feelings of sympathy and guilt--whining about my health issues seemed pretty pathetic in light of this man's terrible condition. His whole life is a health issue. When we got out into the lobby, I watched him roll toward the door, ready to be the good citizen and help him out. As he rolled toward the door, a man who was pretty much his polar opposite stepped out from another bank of elevators. This man was tall, with broad, weightlifter shoulders. He wore an immaculate, expensive suit and, of course, he had a cell phone plastered to his head. In my instant analysis, I decided this guy had it all. Great job, beautiful woman, maybe a few o