That sounds like an ugly thing to say doesn’t it? Yeah, I think so too but it was said yesterday. Let me explain.

I stopped off at Dick’s Sporting Good to pick up a few things I needed for my gym. Specifically, a new jump rope and a cushioned pad so that the hard cement doesn’t continue to wreck my knees and ankles. If you want to stay conditioned enough to move around the ring, jump roping is a must. But I’ve digressed.

I walk into the place and immediately hear yelling from a man with a gruff voice using every profanity he could recall; and made up other ones to use in place when his recollection failed. This isn’t something you see every day. Unfortunately — or fortunately, I haven’t decided yet, I had to swing a right at the door in order to get back to the area I needed to shop. This man was going on and on about a damaged sleeping bag and how “they” sold him a “shitty product” and plenty more of those kind of things. He dropped f-bombs at least a dozen times that I heard, and I had not been in there longer than just 30 seconds.

As I get to the front of the counters, I notice that he is saying all of this to a woman. This lady’s voice was cracking whenever he gave her a moment for a response, her chin was quivering, and she was visibly nervous. Well, that set me off some kind of good. If I can speak plainly, it pissed me off. So I slowed my pace just in case. She told the bum that she had to go speak with her manager. As she was walking off he continued his rant and even called her a f—— b—-.

He pissed me off. The way he looked pissed me off. The way he dressed pissed me off. The way his gruff, throaty, ruined voice sounded pissed me off. The way he was standing there pissed me off. He saw me watching, and propped his elbow on the counter and took to staring at me with a pair of walleyes.

I asked if I could help him. He said, “I don’t know, can you?”

I told him that depends, I reckon. He said, “on what?”

“If  you want a real fixing or not.” I told him I thought he had a loud obnoxious mouth and I thought he was a coward for talking to a woman like that.

He responded that he didn’t give a f—- and would cuss whoever he f—— wanted.

I told him he wouldn’t cuss me like that. And he didn’t. He just continued to stare at me with those large marbles of his.

I told him when he got his sleeping bag back to do everyone a favor and crawl back under the bridge he came from. That’s when the manager came and he asked us to stop. So I did.

But it got me to thinking. Let’s say he would have cussed me or gotten aggressive with me. There is little doubt in my mind that I would have whipped circles around his tubby butt. I mean I could have wrecked him inside of two seconds. I would have enjoyed it too. But I probably would have been arrested along with him, booked along with him, and fined along with him. Would all of that had been worth it? Probably not.

Sometimes I wish I still lived back in that country town where I would have been given a medal and day off from work for whipping such a man as that.

These two things are a lot like each other

Some time ago, I decided to quit spending so much time on Facebook. I uninstalled the FB app from my smartphone and I took a break from the daily checking of statuses, which was eating up anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours of my waking time each day. It was costing me sleep, which I could not afford to lose, and it was getting me riled, which I can also not afford.

Seriously, it was getting me riled.

And tired.

And I wasn’t getting much else out of it. I felt “connected” in a certain way – but connected to what? All the resentments and frustrations and biases and prejudices and outrage… it’s like everyone I knew with an ax to grind invited me to their personal bitch-fest, apparently assuming that I shared their outrage and disbelief, and I’d happily chime in to add my two cents (which is about as much as those kinds of opinions are worth).

Truly, it seems to me that Facebook is a haven for people with a chip on their shoulder, who would rather complain about things than actually get up and do something about it all. Now, there are those who use it to connect in order to organize activities, and in the case where people need to coordinate their efforts with one another, it is proving helpful. I’m thinking about the Arab Spring and other popular movements where people are standing up for their rights.

But how many of the people I was interacting with on Facebook actually wanted to do something about the state of things? Not many. I mean, there were those who were doing interesting things with their lives and sharing pictures. But not much of it had anything to do with me, and in the end, it just left me feeling cold. Because it wasn’t actually real. I wasn’t actually there. And whatever I imagined about how it was and what it was like, that was still all inside my head… not real at all.

And you know what? When I wasn’t on Facebook, I didn’t actually feel less connected than I was, when I was on it, each and every day. If anything, I felt more calm, more relaxed, more focused on what was going on in my life, that I could actually do something about, versus sitting on the sidelines of life, commenting as a spectator.

I wasn’t in that brawl anymore — at least, I wasn’t an active spectator in all the brawls.

And it occurs to me, after last weekend’s NFL playoff game, when Stevan Ridley got hammered by Bernard Pollard and ended up not only knocked out, but demonstrating the classic “fencing response” (which is a clear indicator of a traumatic brain injury – follow this link to learn more about it) … and everyone has been putting in their two cents about how “that’s football at its finest” …. “Ridley brought it on himself by A) playing football, and B) lowering his head as he ran” …. “Harbaugh is a jerk for celebrating that injury” … “Pollard is a jerk for carrying on like that after the hit” … and so on… that so many of these folks are sitting on the sidelines, commenting away, without having any sort of skin in the game, without having any sort of knowledge of what’s really going on out there… all safe and sound and protected on their side of the television or computer screen. Precious few of the people talking are actually football players — pro or otherwise — they just watch and cheer and boo and comment. They’re onlookers who feel emboldened by the exploits of “their” teams and somehow feel that entitles them to make comments on the health and well-being and cognitive destiny of the ones who are actually on the field.

It’s all a bunch of posturing, brawling, sniping, snarking… people getting riled for the sake of getting riled, getting all worked up, perhaps because that makes them feel more alive and it gives them something to focus their energy on.

But it’s not real. It’s not really part of their lives. It has nothing to do with their day-to-day, the quality of which very possibly pales in comparison to the feelings they get when they watch football or get on Facebook.  It’s not real life for them in any way — it’s a feeling. It’s not genuine. It’s something that’s invented to entertain and distract people from what’s really happening in life. And the net result, unfortunately, is not something constructive, like added rest and relaxation. If anything, it is the exact opposite — more pain and suffering, masquerading as entertainment and distraction. And then the feeling fades… till everyone gets their next fix.

And that’s exactly the kind of stuff I want to get away from in my life — everyone else can have it. I’m more interested in doing something real with my time and energy. I’d rather be working on my skills and planning my life and be taking constructive steps to making things better for myself and my family and the people I care about, than sitting around sniping at others online, feeling gratified that all my “friends” agree with me.

Anybody can post a comment in a forum. Anybody can share something on Facebook. And it might be entertaining for people. It might be distracting from the pains and confusions of the day-to-day. But it’s not real. And in my experience, it does more to upset and disrupt and annoy and add to the overall discomfort of life, than to relieve any of that. Heck, even the “good” stuff is fluff that flies away on the next strong breeze.

Do I remember the details of any of the stuff I’ve read on Facebook over the past years? Not a heck of a lot. Very, very little, in fact.

But do I remember the feeling I usually get when I go on FB and find people just running their mouths about the crap of the day? Oh, yeah – you betcha. And it’s usually not good.

Life is about choices. And I choose not to bother with Facebook anymore. I also choose to not watch a lot of football, because when TBI actually happens to you — for real — and screws up your life, the sight of people launching themselves at each others’ heads with the intent to do harm, just isn’t much fun.

Well, enough talk. Time to get on with my (real) life. Onward.

The pint-sized MTV star is embroiled in a feud over a nasty Tweet and the fight has escalated so much that she is apparently trying to get the author fired from his radio hosting gig!

PHOTOS: Pregnant Snooki & JWoww Film Their New Show

Adam Schein, the co-host of Sirius radio‘s Loud Mouths and NFL Monday QB on CBS Sports Network, slammed Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi Monday morning, writing: “Just walked by Snooki at SiriusXM. I feel like I need a shower.”

The outspoken self proclaimed Guidette, never one to let an insult go, immediately shot back: “Why can’t you say that to my face though? #toughguy. “

PHOTOS: Snooki Shows Off Her New Tattoo

Meanwhile, as a Twitter war instantly erupted between the reality star’s faithful followers, slamming Schein, and her haters applauding his snark, Snooki allegedly decided to take her beef to a higher power – Schein’s bosses!

“UPDATED RADIO NEWS**Source: @snooki  just went to #XM management trying to get @Adamschein fired for his comments.. she’s having a tantrum,”  @Incarceratedbob tweeted Monday afternoon.

PHOTOS: Snooki Flashes Her Engagement Ring And Her Baby Bump

Do you think the Jersey Shore star should get the Sirius host fired, or just let it go? Tell us in comments.

RELATED STORIES:

Ciao Jersey Shore! Teary Goodbyes, Outrageous Pranks & One Last Fist Pump

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Snooki Vows She Is Done With Clubbing, More Fun Staying Home With Baby!

Snooki’s Baby Delivery Will Air On Her Reality Show!

I’m sitting at my little breakfast bar mentally exhausted.  Yesterday I had a mental evaluation.  It’s part of the process of getting my butt in gear.  It’s a good idea for ssi people like me to get the mental stuff looked at before we go back to dealing with people in the real world.  I have a real anxiety problem.  Most brain tumor patients need quiet.  We have pieces of our brains missing for  Christs sake! We also have real issues with depression. Who can blame us? It’s par for the course.
Now I don’t drive, except for going to the corner store. There are are buses but I always get lost and end up in 7 miles east of nowhere. So, I asked my boyfriends German mother to drive me. She’s 87. She drives like an 87 year old, and her car smells like foot. But she is sweet and kind and has a snarky sense of humor. Which I adore, so Ok so lets go to the doctor.
9:00 is time for lift off I come out to see my bfs mom AND 2 more people. Odd I think, actually I thought wth! The 2 ladies in the back are my bfs mothers (from now on she is mutti because that’s her name) older sister, Irmshen, and her daughter in law, we’ll call her Annoy the piss out of you. No, we’ll call her Mary. Mary is 65. Irmshen is 90.I get in and all the windows are up and the foot smell was overpowered by the smell of another old lady with depends on. I thought we were going only to the doctor, then home. The place we have to go is to is 15 miles away. It’s a mental evaluation. Let me repeat that. It’s a MENTAL EVALUATION. You know, the kind of place where they have crazy people? And I kinda don’t want anybody to know, especially Mary, who will tell everyone. The other reason is that this place is state run so here in Florida that means they treat crazy people who are also homeless meth addicts, and usually very stinky. Sorry, but it’s true. It’s run down and dirty. Not any place I want people to know I go to.
The 2 ladies in the back heard mutti was taking me to the doctor and just decided to come along to do some shopping. Shopping? Really? Irmshen wants pheffernuse. Irmshen is 98% deaf. Mary yells her every word that is being said. OOOH boy, it’s gonna be a long day.
and we get going, I pull out my phone to get directions and Mary starts talking non stop about how SHE never uses ANYTHING but a map and I shouldn’t drive without a fold up map in my glove box.. All the way to the mental health center.. by now I am seriously considering jumping out of the car because remember Mary yells everything so the 90 yr old can hear? Mutti’s head barely is over the dash, despite the piles of crap she sits on to raise herself up to see. She drives by slamming on the brakes every ten cars…and she’s confused, not a good combo. Mary is literally moving into the front of the car yelling at mutti where she should drive..
OK we get there. I go in to check in and find the wait will be about 3 hours and the clerk thank fully pushed my appointment to 12:30.
Now I head back to the car. It’s parked conveniently in the middle of the road, AT AN ANGLE SO NO ONE CAN PASS.The car is off and all the windows are up and it’s 75 degrees. Really? And so I tell them we can go shopping and then come back. These ladies were so upset at this change of plans you would have thought I told them that Medicare was being cancelled!!
I’m a quiet, quiet person, I hate bickering, and here I am trying to convince these ladies it was OK to change the schedule a little. No good. I can’t handle this anymore. So I speak up and say I didn’t know we were going shopping, I thought I was going to go to a FOUR HOUR appointment and then going home! I’m not dressed for shopping. I’m dressed for a nasty mental health facility run by the state. I wasn’t prepared to do errands,because the night before I was in the E.R. with seizures. You would think they would’ve had enough sense to just not come, and give me a chance at dignity.
Mary now states she has an appointment and calls her friend to come get her and Irmshen. Well at least they’re leaving..
I now hate Mary for making me feel bad for wanting my privacy, and really not liking Irmshen because she kept complaining about how her poor sister has no money for gas, and she hopes she has enough money for the toll…
ALL THIS TO GO TO A MENTAL HEALTH EVALUATION. I NOW KNOW I REALLY DO NEED MENTAL HELP.
After 2 hours of this grating, mind numbing bickering the 2 ladies are gone and I finally get to the actual appointment.WHEW!! I have never been so happy to see crazy homeless men and battered women who haven’t showered and reeking of cigarettes in all my life. (How do smoke 2 packs a day and not have money for soap?!?) I wait happily in this nasty ass place for an hour before the financial people to get to me, then another hour to get my vitals and another 45 minutes to see the doctor. The doctor took 15 minutes with me and booted me out. That was my appointment. 6 hours for 15 minutes.
Mutti sat in her car for three hours alone with the windows up. How she stayed alive is beyond me. Poor thing. I actually like her. She’s a good person and means well. We drive home and finally get back to my house at 4:00 p.m. I put my dog out, ate for the first time for the day, got the dog back in and then passed out.
For now on I’m walking.

]]> http://hiddenbeloved.wordpress.com/2012/11/19/day-eighteen-home/ Mon, 19 Nov 2012 03:18:56 +0000 hiddenbeloved http://hiddenbeloved.wordpress.com/2012/11/19/day-eighteen-home/ Home.

When you read this word, what does it mean for you?

For me it is a red, three bedroom house in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. It is yelling up (or down) a laundry chute that served more as a means of communication than as a passage for dirty socks.

Home is a dining room with an heirloom buffet covered with my favorite cookies every Christmas and baskets full of jelly beans on Easter Sunday.

It is a sunroom full of Avon cologne cars, an old beer brand bar light, a glass bowl full of marbles and more plants than anyone really needs.

Home is my grandfather tossing change on the Superman blue carpet for us grandchildren to fight over. It is a red-headed grandmother always in the kitchen making something good.

Home is an aunt and uncle teasing and nagging more like a sister and brother.

Home is a dog named Bootsie and a dishwasher that never washed a dish but always had Nutty Buddys.  Breakfasts of pancakes or Fruit & Fiber, lunches of gooseliver sandwiches and dinners of potato soup. In the evenings, it was bowls of Butter Pecan or Rocky Road in front of a television showing Jeopardy, Murder She Wrote and the Waltons.

Home is Christmas Eves sent to bed at eight only to be awakened around midnight for presents and pinched cheeks with precious family and friends. Great aunts and cousins and Roger Martin.

Home is loud music and loud mouths talking, kissing, laughing. It is backsides slapped and bedtimes too early for one very nosy child.

These are my memories of home. I hold every one of them very dear to my heart. I am now over six hundred miles away from where these memories were made and it saddens me to know I will never be able to experience these things again but I take comfort in the fact that I was able to enjoy them when I did.

And while my daughters have not had the opportunity to spend the majority of their youth in the same house thus creating attachments to one “home”, I pray that in whatever dwelling we reside there will be enough love and laughter that when they look back on their childhood they will say “Wherever we were, we were home.”

]]> http://themadjewess.com/2012/11/06/new-black-panthers-the-american-pussy-riot-are-in-philly-again/ Tue, 06 Nov 2012 14:19:49 +0000 The MAD Jewess http://themadjewess.com/2012/11/06/new-black-panthers-the-american-pussy-riot-are-in-philly-again/ New Black Panthers are standing guard at Pennsylvania polling

  ….to intimidate evil whitey..!!   Who fought for their ungrateful asses to be free…  So that they could show up 140 years later to ‘kill all crackas and they babies..’  Pathetic.

Wise Blood – Loud Mouths (Official Video) from Dovecote Records on Vimeo.

For a pointless list read below.

Welcome to the first annual “Dres’ Favorite Tracks of ____” list. First things first. This is not a “Best of 2011” list. Rather, it’s a “Favorite of 2011,” list. Chances are if you’re reading this blog and article you have come to trust the contributors opinion in some way, shape or form. So hopefully by now we’ve instilled enough confidence in you to continue reading and maybe find a song that makes your heart flutter. Of course there’s the other reason you may choose to read this blog- to mock our tastes and opinions. If this is the case then know that our self-effacing selves have already done that for you. Sorry hipster, you weren’t first in making fun of us. Plus everyone’s doing it these days and you should probably shirk away from something that is so passé.

I thought this list would be much easier to build. You see, I keep a Grooveshark and Spotify playlist simply called “2011.” This is where I drag any and all tracks that I find through the year and like. Nice and simple. I have a preemptive strike on the age of Aquarius and have an empty 2012 playlist ready to go. Feel free to subscribe to either if you like.(2012 here 2011 here & The Swill Merchants Site List Here.) But this list was hard. Some songs aren’t on either music-streaming sources, and some shouldn’t have been dragged over to begin with. Then there are certain factors one must take into consideration when making a thoughtful year-end list. Is the song I’m currently digging really one of my year long favorites? Is it simply a fad? Does a song benefit from its later in the year release for it’s fresher in my mind? Does a song released back in January suffer from its long wait? How do you even this playing field? It’s enough to drive a blogger into many, many, coffee shops. (Bang on the jump below to witness the list.)

I think it’s only fair to reveal my process to you. I first made a list of all the songs that generally seemed they belonged. Then, dear readers, a table was made (for this is serious business). Next I highlighted all the “yeah, duh, of course this is one of my top 20 favorites of the year.” When that was comfortably, and unintentionally over my arbitrary limit of twenty I set to listen to them all over again. Sometimes I was greeted with a “No, way can this not be on the list.” Sometimes it was a “yeah, in comparison to these others maybe not so much.” Once I settled on the twenty I gave an effort to rank them 20-1. This again proved to be hard, and maybe if I had one more cup of tea, wore a different pair of socks, or brushed my teeth for 15 seconds longer the list would have been different. But that’s the way the cookie crumbles. Lastly the most scientific method available for music was used to make all final cuts… Going for a long drive at night with all finalists in a giant playlist. Windows down. Heat blasting. Cruising around Lake Michigan in my mom’s Kia. Yep, all final decisions were made in my mother’s Kia. All final decisions ever should be made in my mother’s Kia.

Again, this is just my personal taste this year and only for single tracks. None of these choices were based off of the strength of entire albums. Also, I didn’t count reissues. Apologies to Charles Bradley. So please with no further adieu scroll down, give a listen, give a read, and think to yourself or aloud to others “How could this nonsensical, idiotic, taste-less, ugly, entirely too tall, philistine leave off ______.”

Well I did. And it’s my list and I’ll do what I want with it. *Sticks tongue out.*

# 20

Shabazz Palaces

“Swerve… the reeping of all that is worthwhile. (Noir not withstanding)”

“Swerve” stares you down for the first 36 seconds utterly confident in what it’s about to do. The beat and the music are about to drop out completely as Ishmael Butler hops on the mic for a bar. When you figure out that effect isn’t a gimmick but the pattern of the song itself– it changes. A seductive R&B verse hypnotizes you only to then to give way to another excellent verse, but if you think the song is done there then you really need to listen above.

#19

TV On The Radio

“Will Do”

“Will Do” was the first song off the excellent Nine Types of Light that made me stop the normal progression of the album and listen to it again. “Will Do” is just so damn well constructed. It’s like the perfect ride at a theme park. “Will Do” a good example of how TV On The Radio has grown over the years and definitely one of my go to tracks of 2011 that I would use to show a strickly hip-hop or jazz friend the world of indie-rock. Or what I would have my parents listen to when I make my annual effort of  “try my music.”

#18

Kendrick Lamar 

“Hol’ Up”

It’s the best hip-hop happening in LA right now. You read that right. In my opinion Kendrick Lamar’s Section. 80 is the best rap within the city of Los Angeles and perhaps he’s the best young gun around. Apologies to those in OFWGKTA, A$AP, and so many more. “Hol’ Up” was a hard choice on an album that has many strong tracks. A.D.H.D., HiiiPower, and Ronald Reagan Era could have all been in this spot. There’s a reason some are calling him the new Tupac.

#17

#16

#15

#14

#13

#12

#11

#10

#9

#8

#7

#6

#5

#4

#3

#2

• Technically it’s a suite.
• It’s a completely smooth transition from one track to the next. Part 2 picks up exactly where part 1 ends.
• I was able to see James Blake perform twice this year and he played them both back to back with no pause in-between. Just like on the album.
• The music video is both part 1 and part 2 and entitled simply “Lindisfarne.”

There. If you disagree with me then so be it but I adore this song. Everything about it. How if you listen carefully, at the end of part 2 you can hear equipment rattling around. The minimalism that starts 1:40 into part 2 and lasts 25 seconds. How for some reason that minimalism is extended by three seconds in video. And the transition. That great transition from part 1 to part 2. Just look at the Soundcloud wave above. You can tell exactly the moment I’m talking about, but don’t cheat yourself and jump ahead it’s the build that does it. I actually recommend simply closing your eyes while it plays. I adore how Blake teases the transition– then drops it only to bring it back for keeps moments later when you’re not expecting it. It’s a perfect balance of him experimenting with space, staying true to his dub-step roots, going back to his soul infused childhood, and all the while staying accessible. It’s excellent and it’s all just so James Blake.

#1

 Bon Iver

“Holocene”

Just. So. Good.

——————–

The other 3 Vs dropped me at office on a Saturday because our team was working on a release.. Vyas has already seen our new office premises and likes my floor than the dad’s:) It was the first time for Varun.. Now, i must mention that the interiors are one of the best with different themes for each floor.. And our company occupying the top 4 floors makes it even more.. ummm.. classy… The moment we entered my floor from the lift lobby, Varun went ‘waaaaaaaooooowww.. sooooopeer’, and then exclaimed, “amma, *yaerkutttingaaa”.. walked a little further crossing 2 more bays and went, ” haiii.. innoru yaerkuttting…*eullo pericha”!

If the interior designer had been around, he would have cringed and would probably give up designing:)

The swivel chairs, glass panels, plenty of bright colors and natural light, led to the little man thinking that it was a saloon- Unisex of course, because maa works there!!!
———————————
*chinna thambi, periya thambi – big brother, small brother
*yaerkuttting – hair-cut(ting)
*eullo pericha – this big?!

Life life well, But please stop blabbing.

For Halloween I will be going as slutty Teddy Roosevelt. Half the glasses twice the fun.

Monday is upon us once more and that means only one thing. Today is the furthest you can get from the weekend. It’s a long road we all have ahead of us but we can get through it together. One song or so a day. Then, before we know it, it’s time for Halloween parties and who knows maybe this will be the year of the conservatively dressed cat costume for women. Or the real life nurse costume where the woman is exhausted and covered in blood. I for one will be going as a slutty rhinoceros.

—————————————————————————

They’ve just released this Wu Lyf-esque number, Loud Mouths

Following the earlier release of ‘+’ (I wish musicians could come up with decent album names I really do – Ed Sheeran…), an EP available for free streaming on Bandcamp as is customary in this new fangled modern age we live in.

There’s something of TV On The Radio about them, but I’m not entirely convinced that they can deliver to the same level. Even so they’re interesting to listen to, it’s a happy little mess really.

One more thing, remix available for free download if you like the facebook page

When I was a lad, young people weren’t allowed to speak. We needed prior written approval just to nod our heads.  We communicated by cringing, flinching or – if we were on fire – waving our arms about modestly. In my day children were seen and not heard…and the seen part was a luxury you didn’t want to abuse.

My parents didn’t know my brother Elgin was a deaf-mute until he was 18 and enlisted in the armed forces. Up until that point everyone just assumed he was slow but well-intentioned. I didn’t speak to my parents until my 9th birthday party and that was just to let them know that I was actually turning fourteen. I caught a beating for it – and rightly so.

But these young people today? They never shut the hell up. It’s not that they have anything to say, they just abhor a vacuum and need to fill any moment of silence with asinine jibber jabber and prepubescent bluster. It’s a wall of god damned noise. They’re a generation of self-important lap dogs yapping at anything and anyone that crosses their path.

Whatever happened to moody teens being morose and sulking quietly in their rooms? It may have been annoying but at least you could do the crossword puzzle in peace. Nowadays I can’t ride the bus without being subjected to gaggles of young people waxing idiotic on the use of archetypes in the latest vampire movie or blithering moronically into their god damned cell phones about the relative skinniness of Justin Bieber’s trousers.  It’s incessant, inane and it chaps my ass.

Who the hell ever told these fubsy half-wits they had something worth communicating? In my day young people used their mouths for eating, kissing elderly relatives and – if gas was scarce – mowing the lawn. If I had ever flapped my yap like some teenaged Foghorn Leghorn my old mom would have yanked my tongue out with a pair of kitchen tongs and beaten me senseless with the stump. And I’d have thanked her for it – albeit in written form.

What the hell ever happened to quiet reflection? To contemplation? To shutting the hell up once in a while? If these young people ever expect to amount to anything they’d be wise to take a page from the god damned monks, adopt a vow of silence, stop talking and start listening for a change. They may just learn something. And even if they don’t, I think we’d all appreciate the peace and quiet.

They talk too much. That’s the problem with young people today.

Here are a few highlights from the trip:

1. I was seated between two *writers* (one is a long time friend, so she’s old news), but to my right was Upcoming Writer Boy. Try as I might to engage him in all sorts of chitchat, even hinting that I dabble in a bit of writing myself, he never once took interest in me or anything I said, and hence, never did learn that I scored 22 out of 20 for a story I wrote in high school. His loss.

2. Despite our budget constraints, The Yang and I dared to order an in-house beer, even though we were in a fancy restaurant and not at an RSL club, which would usually mean that we don’t eat and drink. We ordered a bottom shelf beer for the bargain price of $6.50 (which turned out to be smaller than a schooner) and while we were scanning all the way to the bottom of the list, Friend Of A Friend gave a cursory glance before ordering a beer that cost $14.50. That would be one beer. For 14.50.  Just to make that clear for any normal people that might be reading, its not a typo.

3. A late arriving guest burst onto the scene, lets call him Loud Mouth, for his propensity to be, well, loud, and declared, loudly,  “this restaurant is FULL of white people” then plonked himself down at the table while all the white people in the restaurant turned around to look. Mission accomplished. He is very interesting though, because he is not white, which means what he said was humorous.

4. We were spared the ordeal of ordering food that we might actually want to eat, because The Birthday Girl ordered food for the whole table, meaning that entrées that were more expensive than what I would usually pay for a main meal were ordered willy nilly, by the time they got to us there was a bit of bread, and a half a piece of cheese. I’m not even exaggerating.

5. Just like scenes from a sitcom about dinner dining friends, some guests laughed raucously and flippantly flicked fingers at waiters saying, “another bottle of white, another bottle of white”.

This was an oft-repeated phrase throughout the evening, but not from The Yang and I, as we were too busy slowing sipping our beers so they would last longer.

6. There was an earnest discussion of an emerging young writer and when I piped up to say I had no idea who they were even talking about, they briefly flicked their my eyes in my direction and said “Nam Lee”, before turning back amongst each other to talk about Nam Lee’s “marketability” and how people are ready for his fresh new voice, telling his “authentic, ethnic story”.

During a pause in this lively discussion, one of them noticed me watching on wordlessly and attempted to include me by saying, “So <RubyTwoShoes> why don’t you tell us a motherhood story…”

7. During a seat shuffle I found myself next to Beautiful Lawyer Girl who told me she loved the attention to detail, and the rational, logical application of her mind to the rule of law. I made some half formed remark about I never did have an aptitude for the more rational mode of thinking, which she of course took to mean that I had a complete lack of faith in myself, and that I thought of myself as a little bit, well, stupid.

“Oh, no!” she said. “I used to think that too, that I couldn’t do it, that I wasn’t smart enough, and then I breezed through my first year, and then my second…”

“Uh, I just meant that I never really suited, um, I wasn’t saying, that, well, I’m just not that good at applying…” I bumbled before she rallied once again behind me and said,

“I was the same, you know, from the Western suburbs, and, I couldn’t concentrate well either, but, you know, I did it…”

And on she went to list her achievements and espouse her virtues, but I can’t really remember any of that as a result of my poor concentration.

8. The bill arrived. It was placed unceremoniously in front of me so I had a peek before drawing back in horror and whispering and joking like a school girl with The Yang, saying ‘guess how much it is, you’ll never guess how much it is’, which, looking back on it, was a kind of nervous and hysterical reaction to the shock of that looming figure.

Friend Of A Friend took it upon himself to deal with the bill.

I was foolishly expecting a bit of too and fro’ing about who drank what etc, but that only serves to reveal that I spend the rest of my time in the unsophisticated chaos of the pedestrian underclass where we do battle over bread scraps and rumble for our wine, because Friend Of A Friend just glanced over the bill then loudly declared “fifty, its fifty each” before slapping his big bill in the centre and sending the plate down the table.

If I was in shock before, I was well and truly asphyxiating by now. Fifty bucks each! I dint even have that on me, and neither did The Yang. Earlier in the night, when the fanciness of the place became apparent we had reassured each other that we both had “money on us”. In the end it came down to pooling all our gold coins.

And that, is how we came to the end of our journey in a strange and foreign land, and how it came to pass that we spent fifty bucks each, that’s 100 between us, on three slices of pizza each (one of which consisted of tomato, basil and bocconcini, which you will no doubt note, as I did in the car on the way home, has 2 out of 3 ingredients that come FROM THE FUCKING GROUND) and three bottom shelf beers between us.

Worth every cent I’d say, because now I can say things like “I blew all my cash at a fancy restaurant hanging out with a bunch of wankers and all I got was this lousy material for my blog”.

or just read it old school style!

Now where was I? Ah yes, Manhattan, early summer ’94 or thereabouts, upper east side at Chez Cohen. So, after my initial sweaty and poetic meeting with The Enigmatic Ira Cohen things got interesting. That evening, after the fishy recital it was decided that we would all go for something to eat, possibly Indian, down Bleeker st. I have vague recollections of the crew that were less than helpful in assisting me that evening with all my baggage as we traipsed around the night streets of the Big Apple but I do remember one person in particular. Her name escapes me but her constant whingeing and saturnine features are forever acid etched into my mind.

We had settled on some cheap, very cheap, Indian eatery and were seated at a medium sized table hidden away in the corner. I’m not sure of the numbers but there could have been a half dozen or so of us. This person, lets just call her middle aged women with food issues or mawfi for short moaned at every possible juncture; the water wasn’t warm enough for her delicate tongue and insides, they didn’t do vegan non-gluten neurotic women’s food and she objected to people smoking anywhere in the building. She was on a special diet don’t you know and was gonna let the whole world know. She looked far from healthy and if I were to have met her anywhere else I would have called for an undertaker just to liven up the occasion. I have never had dinner with such an adjectival old crone since and have been weary of such types for ever more.

After a decidedly cheap and starchy dinner myself and Ira made haste to get back to his pad for a drink and a chat. I feel duty bound to inform the reader that one does not have a ‘chat’ with Ira. One is generally talked to ad nauseam in a loud Brooklyn accent with only the odd pause for verbal agreement and air allowed before the talking-to starts up all over again. You might think that I am being cruel but I have a real issue with people who talk AT YOU and are really having a conversation with themselves rather than conversing and taking in what the other party to the pow wow has to say. You might think that this a condition exclusive to the alcohol, drug and mentally affected but no, allegedly normal people all over this watery world of ours are allowed to get away with this heinous social crime. I urge victims to pipe up and gaffer tape the offending mouth in your vicinity immediately as a matter of public health. These people belong on talk radio where you as the listener have the option of turning off or going to bed.

Ira meets Hans Belmer!

If you clicked on any of the Ira links in my last blog you would have been amazed at the amount of stuff he has done in his life and the proof of it was strewn all over his apartment. I could barely see the couch that was to be my home for the next seven days and I was truly afraid of misplacing my baggage amongst the detritus and literary garbage coating the floor.

The whole gaff was like a museum to counter-beat-hippie culture. A paean to all that was essentially the 60′s and 70′s. I half expected to stumble upon William S. Burroughs on the way to the bathroom sleeping off his latest opium dream or else looking for his next one.

For the next week or so Ira toured me around town and showed me his world of photography shops, society do’s and don’ts and old people with interesting pasts. On one such memorable occasion Ira brought me to the famed and infamous Chelsea Hotel. I had heard of this joint and knew that it had many connotations with oral pleasures,unmade beds and famous artists; some dead, some alive, some incarcerated and some still tripped off their brains.

The lobby was an art gallery of sorts,deserted at that, and the external facade somewhat forgettable as there is no image burned in my mind and I’m too lazy to google it. Our motive for wandering the foyer was to attend a party on the top floor(penthouse) being thrown by some old dear of presumed german heritage and modest inherited wealth. I shall split up the party in to three segments for you; the band, the guests and the roof.

After buzzing a very normal looking bell beside a very normal looking door I couldn’t believe my eyes when after climbing the narrow staircase to the lounge area I spotted a ten piece Oompa band in the far corner attired in full ethnic lederhosen and corpulent ruddy visages. At this moment they were not playing circus music but having a beer break, as I believe is there legal right under the Oompagebote of 1456(that being the legendary royal charter that ensures strict adherence to traditional Oompaband values).

The assembled guests were a veritable pot-pourri of wrinkly and smooth, bohemian and corporate, grooving and schmoozing, dealing and stealing New York types. I found myself nestled in a wee cosy corner underneath some sort of mezzanine level making eyes at a flaxen haired beauty(oh the still unrequited love!) whilst waiting for Ira to score some green. I can’t remember too much more of the guests as the oompa band then struck up a tune and drove me up onto the roof. And what a roof it was!

It is truly a shame that some of the drabbest buildings in cities all around the world hide their charms above the prying eyes of commoners and the din of day to day life. The Chelsea Hotel is kinda nondescript until one explores the exclusive level that overlooks Manhattan. After climbing a narrow and straight wooden staircase out of the kitchen I was greeted with beautiful lawns of verdant grass, wooden walkways and strangely fitting turrets which totally blew me away. More often than not rooftops are drab functional places with pools of drying water and skeletal antennas pointing to their own form of Mecca. In recent years I’ve found myself working on many a roof and still hold the Chelsea Hotel as my standard. I might be painting a far more glorious picture of it than is true, but that’s just the way the cookie crumbles and my memory is a bit shabby at times.

Made out to be a lady (4)

This one is pretty easy, it’s a straight forward anagram.

Lady is the clue

Made is the anagram

Dame is the answer