Archive Page 12

16
Mar
10

Sam Clam and Larry Lobster

By Eric 1 Comment
Categories: Funny, Jokes and Other People's Stories
Tags: , ,
lobster

There’s this joke I love that I heard recently on a public radio podcast, and I love to tell it, but no one ever thinks it’s nearly as funny as I do.

I’m not a great teller of jokes. I tend to improvise too much, I take too long, I mess up the punchline. OK, not funny. But is my new favorite joke itself a stinker, or is it just my lousy telling that clears the room? You decide.

Larry Lobster and Sam Clam are best friends. They do everything together. And they love to dance. So one day they decide to go into business together. They are going to open an underwater disco.

They find the perfect location in a coral reef. They secure their funding, gather their supplies, hire a staff. They begin to advertise. All the fish and mollusks and crustaceans are thrilled that they’ll finally have a place to dance. And Sam Clam and Larry Lobster begin to sense that they’re going to make a killing.

Everything is going perfectly the day of their grand opening. And then Larry Lobster gets caught in a trap and killed.

So Larry Lobster goes to heaven. Saint Peter meets him at the gate.

Continue reading ‘Sam Clam and Larry Lobster’

10
Feb
10

Philly’s Snow Panic Brings out the Best and Worst

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: Dumb, Philadelphia and Weather
Tags: , ,

Over the recent weekend, Philadelphia got its second-worst snowfall ever (since they started keeping such records in the early 19th century). If forecasts are correct and we get another foot or more today, we’ll be on track to break a record for annual snowfall.

So, we pull on our boots and dig ourselves out.

With only 14 feet of sidewalk in front of our house, it’s no big deal to shovel and salt our walk and the neighbors’ on either side. On Sunday, half a dozen people on the block took up their shovels and started hacking at our tiny, narrow street. There’s no chance of getting a plow around the corner, so it’s down to us.

There was some real community spirit out there for a few minutes. I didn’t know anyone’s name, and we didn’t even all speak the same language, but we all had a common purpose. Kids were bouncing around like puppies. Neighbors were talking.

There are not many places you can shift two and a half feet of snow. There’s only so much room between the snowed-in cars parked along one side. We were forced to dump a lot of it on the curbs, knowing we’d have to tidy up the sidewalks again.

And then the daisy chain was broken.

Continue reading ‘Philly’s Snow Panic Brings out the Best and Worst’

11
Sep
09

Fish and Slips

By Eric 2 Comments
Categories: Art and New York
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NYC subway fish artHere is a piece of subway art that’s had me distracted and bothered for some time now.

As you can see, it depicts a subway car as a zeppelin-cum-flying fish.

The fish, transporting all kinds of bizarre characters, floats gracefully above some version of New York City. There’s a knight, a couple of aliens, a guy playing the saxophone, a woman in a red dress with a giant lizard on a leash, a boy and a girl making out, a painter, a couple of punk rockers, a ballet dancer, a guy reading the newspaper, and a business man falling out an open door.

I’ve seen every one of those characters on the subway before. Almost. OK, so substitute a soldier for the knight, and a couple of clowns in full make-up instead of aliens. Plus, anything goes on Halloween. And it wasn’t a woman with a lizard, but I did once see a man pull a lizard out from his pant leg and try to get some teenage girls to play with it, eventually by tossing it at one of them. (That’s not a euphemism. I am talking about a reptile. It bounced off the girl and landed on its back on the floor.)

I know this is supposed to be a representation of the width and breadth of humanity that depends on New York City public transportation. (Oh, look at those characters. Isn’t New York a wacky place? Aren’t we crazy? We love us! And there’s an echo of Atomic Age futurism and industrial hope. But there’s something about that businessman that bothers me.

Forget about what it might mean, e.g., the recent failures of American finance, artistic hostility toward briefcases. I’m talking about the execution of the cartoon itself. It’s very stylistic. The artist was clearly careful in his or her choices, holding to certain ideas of perspective and geometry: the mechanical shine to the fish, the shapes of the buildings and bridges, the boats on the river.

NYC subway fish picture close-upBut look at the businessman’s arm.

Continue reading ‘Fish and Slips’

06
Sep
09

Keep the Change

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: Food and New York
Tags: ,

In New York, one is blessed with good bagels. The best I have found are Kossar’s Bialys on the Lower East Side and Times Square Bagel. There must be dozens of others in the five boroughs, but these are the ones I have made a part of my life.

I found them on accident, between the subway and the office. But you can easily tell which ones are the good ones. The interiors are not clean. Poppy seeds and sesame seeds are scattered across the floor, as if to draw an army of birds. Large salt crystals and flour and flakes of dried garlic and onion. There are no fancy light fixtures or display cases. These places concentrate on the baked goods,not the presentation.

On the way in to work, I stopped at a cafe across the street from my building for a bagel and a banana.

One bland bagel with entirely the wrong texture, plus one banana, which took more energy and expense to transport to New York from the tropics than I can possibly justify with any nutritional benefit, came to a total of $2.50.

He readied his two quarters as I handed over three dollar bills

He dropped the coins into my hand, and before I could walk away, he slipped a bill out of the three I had given him.

He had slightly raised his chin and looked at me down the length of his nose. It was regal or perhaps arrogant. It could even be taken for suspiciousness. Maybe I had given him too much and it was gentle mocking to be more careful with my money.

I reached out and cautiously took it.

Maybe he was mistaken and only thought I had handed him $4 or that the total was really $1.50.

Yes, maybe I was going to end up on top here. Get more than I deserved. Take advantage of someone else’s mistake. I always feel tested in these moments. It was only a dollar. No great loss to him. But what did I think I was getting away with? How petty.

I lingered a bit in this moment, and I decided to say something.

“I gave you three dollars,” I said.

“Yes,” he said.

I raised an eyebrow and cocked my head slightly.

In that moment I realized what that curious look on his face had meant. He was not making an error, nor had I given him too much. His grand expression was one of serene endowment. I am giving this to you, he seemed to say.

“Buy Lotto,” he said. “350 million.”

I’m accustomed to bartenders buying me the odd drink. But I’m not a regular at this cafe. Why would he give me a buck?

Maybe he knows how crappy his bagels are.

Why would he give me a buck? Why not?

01
Sep
09

Madonna’s ‘Celebration’ (of abs)

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: Gay and Music
Tags: ,

Madonna released her newest video, for the title single from her forthcoming retrospective album Celebration, today for free on iTunes.

The song itself is kind of a yawn, even in this remixed form, but the video features several shirtless dancers whose perky nipples and ripped abs make it all so very worthwhile.

Par exemple:

Madonna - Celebration - 1

Madonna - Celebration - 2

Madonna - Celebration - 3

They must be so cold in the winter!

29
Aug
09

In Memoriam: Joey Ruggiero

By Eric 2 Comments
Categories: Friends, People We Like, Philadelphia and Sad
Tags: ,

It’s one of life’s great cliches that everyone comes into your life for a reason. It does not always follow, however, that they go out of your life for a reason, too. Sometimes they just go, and it’s cruel, and it’s brutal.

I did not know Joey well. We met in January, and he was gone by mid-April. Every time I saw him in those brief months, he brought some new delight into my life &#8212 a fun, clever friend of his; a fabulous place for brunch; a ceramic two-tiered deviled egg serving tray.

Since his death, I have been remembering all of the “lasts.” You always remember those: the last tweet, the last Facebook update, the last photo I took of him, the last time he was at my house, the last time I was in his disastrously messy car.

Everything around me is a reminder, as if a trace of life is left behind everywhere he went, like a scent. Whenever I’m on South Street, I remember the last time he got new plugs for his ear lobes. RuPaul reminds me of him. Britney Spears reminds me of him. Blood oranges, enchiladas, Hello Kitty.

Our lasts were, in most cases, also firsts. The last meal we shared was at our annual Easter party, which we thought would be the first of many he would attend. It was at that party, he told us, that he had his first-ever green bean casserole. Also his last.

The lasts hurt so much because they’re a reminder of the obliterated potential. You decide to let someone into your life as a friend, and you can imagine how things will be years on: the holidays and birthdays, the summers and winters, the drunken nights out, the drunken nights in.

We have the lasts to be grateful for, but we can’t help but feel robbed of an undiscovered future and memories we never had a chance to make. And then we remember that the future that’s gone is his. We still have ours, and that’s more to be grateful for.

Sometimes I think we don’t really lose anybody. We just find them somewhere else. I find Joey continuously in the friends we inherited from him.

Joey collected people, and he carried a whole world with him. His was an exuberant life that spilled over into everyone around him. Like all is other possessions, we are left behind to be redistributed or to be gathered closer. We have chosen the latter.

Last week would have been his birthday. We had cake and champagne in his honor. And I saw once again how lucky we were to know him, and how grateful we should be for the people he brought to our lives.

We are all so different, and we all knew him for different reasons, but we all fit together. And wherever we go, he goes.

Rest in peace, friend.

06
Jul
09

Bare Bottoms or Bear Bottoms?

By Eric 1 Comment
Categories: Toilet Humor
Tags: ,

Why does so much toilet paper packaging feature pictures of babies? Clouds, yes. Fuzzy, anthropomorphized forest creatures, sure. They conjure images of softness, lightness, cleanliness. And they are a momentary distraction from the essential business of toilet paper.

I suppose babies are soft. They’re clean, if you make them clean. But anyone who has stood in line at the post office with a kid on the hip knows they are not light. I don’t associate infants with toilet paper. They can’t even use the stuff. If we could get babies to use toilet paper, parenthood would be a far less messy enterprise.

11
Jun
09

Eat Your Heart Out, Trekkies!

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: Found, Fun and My Favorite Things
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10
Jun
09

Vox Popular

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: New York and Technology
Tags: ,

Improvement of public transit is always exciting for me, especially when it happens in Queens as well as the other boroughs. It’s not just having shiny new stuff. It’s the evidence that we’re making progress, growing up, that thrills.

So the semi-electric buses run more green. The subway cars have clean blue seats and windows free of etched tags and doodles. Some subway stops have new tilework on the floors and walls.

But by far the best improvement is the voice I hear on the new E trains running express in and out of Queens. She tells us each stop we’ve arrived at and what to do next. And she is kinda hot.

“This is … Queens Plaza. Transfer is available to the R … and … V train.”

It’s the way she says “transfer is available” that catches my attention. It rolls off her tongue like candle wax gaining momentum as it runs down the length of a taber. It’s a little richer, more throaty, more lusty, than the station announcement. It all runs together in one suggestive vocal gesture.

“Transfer-is-available…”

It’s like she’s waiting for you after work after a few cigarettes. The ice tinkles in her second, slightly stronger, gin and tonic. She’s given up the pretense of waiting for you before she starts her evening. She hitches one leg up across the other knee and leans back. Her lacquered fingertips dangle. She tempts you to switch trains. Go on.

“TRANSferizavailable…”

You know you want to do it. Get off the express. Take your time through the city. Do it … slow…

But those R trains are still using an intercom. The seats are an ugly orange. And it just wouldn’t be the same.

21
May
09

Das Reboot

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: Movies
Tags: ,

Who cares if the new Star Trek doesn’t make sense? I still love it. This is not academic science fiction. The less sensical, the better.

OK, love Zachary Quinto and John Cho. My crushes on those two boys has gone into warp drive. The guy who played McCoy was brilliant. And Uhura gets some strong screen presence. We have Leonard Nimoy to titillate all the old-school fans. Chris Pine as Kirk, however, was probably the weakest part of the film.

What troubles me more, though, is this whole time travel thing.

By Nero accidentally going into the past and killing Kirk’s father, and Spock haplessly following him in, haven’t they changed the conditions that would have led to Romulus exploding, thereby eliminating the circumstances that led Nero to seek revenge and Spock to seek redemption in the first place? Maybe, maybe not. Clearly the future that Spock is from will no longer happen. So every interaction he has in the past might actually negate his existence in any point in history.

Back to the Future handled this in a handily visual, albeit simplific, way by disappearing people from a photograph from the future after the conditions leading to their birth in the past were eliminated.

But these temporal paradoxes are not to be contemplated.

The important thing is that we now have an alternate reality. The writers have free reign to deviate from the know story line, to boldly go where no Star Trek writer has gone before. They’re already on their way toward a sexier, more dangerous iteration of the beloved franchise. Spock is in love with Uhura. Vulcan is obliterated, and its people are now an endangered species. There are two Spocks — for now. (Bad news for George Takei.) And the elder of the two can still make references to the orginal film series to thrill the old folks.

One thing is for sure, though. These actors have landed themselves a money-making franchise.

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the untallied hours