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17 MORE UNNATURAL SHOCKS THAT FLESH IS HEIR TO: (Only 907 to go!)
-Head-on collisions between text messaging pedestrians. (Thanks, Abner).
-LEGO-shaped fun snacks--to confuse kids everywhere about what to put in their mouths and what not to!
-The permanent campaign model of the Presidency.
-The walking cane as ironic hipster accoutrement.
-Jeans with holes in them costing more than jeans without holes in them.
-The use of Glade as a drug.
-The fact that amputated legs of albino human beings are now considered a good luck charm in Indonesia.
-McCain's applause line "smile" aka rictus aka facial misfire.
-Impeachment for lying about a blowjob but not for lying about a war.
-Paying $11 for the right to watch a half hour of promos and ads in the movie theater.
-A man auctioning off his life on Ebay.
-A very conventional production of Hamlet with an entirely unscripted ending.
- That some black people are evidently considering voting for John McCain.
-The Chrysler Building and the Flatiron Building being foreign-owned.
-A Pregnant Man.
-Ron Paul ending his presidential campaign.
-Doc Rivers outcoaching Phil Jackson.
-Athletes using Viagra as a performance enhancer.
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/yankees/2008/06/09/2008-06-09_source_roger_clemens_host_of_athletes_po.html
(And I thought that whole "I take it so I can score whenever the manager puts me in the game" business was metaphorical!)
LFAQs:
Hmm. How do you run with an anvil in your pants?
Weird thing. I see on intrade that Hillary being the Dem. Nominee is still trading at 5% likely. Is there any way to read that other than translating into a 5% likelihood of Obama being assassinated?
Is it racist to suggest that any black person in America who votes for McCain should cease to be considered a black person?
Has a decision ever had less suspense surrounding it than Al Gore's decision to endorse Obama? (I mean who else was there to endorse???)
Is there any correlation between joining the walking lane instead of the standing lane on the escalator and success in the work place? Or compulsive punctuality? Or meanness of boss?
If as McCain claims, Obama has a September 10 mindset, does that mean that McCain has a 911 mindset? And if so, are we talking 911 A.D. or B.C.?
----
HOOPS, SUDDEN DEATH, TIM RUSSERT AND MY FATHER
ALARMING DISCOVERIES OF THE DAY:
a)
Looking in the mirror the other day, I discovered that after a lifetime of unthinking thinness and effortless ectomorphism, I have suddenly developed a curious and troubling resemblance to the pregnant man. This discovery triggered a hard core run through Central Park (ok, a mile and half of gasping and wheezing) --during which (I later learned from our great an glorious leader Google) I burned off about 2 of the 300 or so beers I've consumed since my last bout of exercise. This broken thumb better heal soon so I can get my bloating carcass onto a basketball court or else I'm gonna be flirting with a second trimester sized abdomen.
b)
While I'm basically the most hapless bargain hunter and failed frugalist I know (well, at least of my tribe), I bought Duane Reade three-ply quilted paper towels on the assumption that they were about the same thing as Bounty and that when I buy Bounty I am essentially merely paying for its enormous advertising budget. Shocking discovery: There actually is a huge difference between the products and my basic cynicism about the relationship between marketing and truth will have to be ever so slightly modified.
GLIB OBSERVATION OF THE DAY:
The most shocking thing about Tim Russert's sudden death is the revelation that George W. Bush knew who he was.
IRONY OF THE DAY:
Mike Tyson is being investigated for putting up money for a hit on the guy who killed his friend. His murdered friend's nickname? "Homicide."
OBSERVATION OF THE DAY:
Adoption. The joys of parenthood freed of the perils of genetic narcissism.
THEME OF THE DAY:
The inadvertent cruelty of Father's Day spam.
Father's Day has become for me, like Valentine's Day is for many people. A commercially sponsored stab through the heart. Indeed, while Father's Day, Mother's Day and Valentine's Day might be fake and contrived as holidays, they all have the power to cause very real pain.
NOTES FROM THE JOURNAL OF MOURNING: FATHER'S DAY REFLECTIONS
Yesterday was one of the hardest days of my life. I spent Father's Day at the unveiling ceremony (headstone dedication) for my father. In many ways, it was an even harder rite than his funeral. It is a strange and terrible thing to see a beloved person replaced by a stone.
The ceremony was short and simple and attended only by a handful of loved ones. We placed smooth stones and flowers on the gravestone. I think it was the way my father would have wanted it.
Afterwards, we went back to his house. I hadn't been there since I'd gone up to clean out his closets last August. It was so strange to be in Westport for Father's Day without him there. The house was filled with ghosts. Vivid memories of my last visit there on that ordinary Saturday in June last year, when he fell asleep for a nap. It was a beautful late spring day. Who would have ever guessed that it'd be the last time I'd ever see him?
I joined his wife and my half sister and her husband for the traditional Father's Day bagels and lox. My father's seat at the end of the table was--of course-- empty. A few photos of him were propped up as his material proxy. We drank Dr. Brown's Black Cherry soda and Dr. Brown's Cream Soda--his favorite drinks. My half sister and her husband showed a slide show of their recent trip to Asia on their laptop at the table. It looked like a beautiful trip. And it was nice to see the young couple so happy together and thriving in their lives. Still, it was very odd.
Afterwards, we watched the Tim Russert tribute on Meet the Press that my father's wife had Tivo-ed. I'd been thinking a lot about my father ever since Russert's sudden death on Friday-- partly because both the season and suddenness of his death acutely echoed my father's, partly because of Russert's much publicized book about fathers and sons and partly because I knew that my father would have been deeply saddened by news of the tele-journalist's passing, as Meet The Press was his favorite show and a religiously observed Sunday ritual.
We all sat down in the living room to watch; Russert's host's seat symbolically empty as my father's seat at the table had been just moments before--and his viewing chair in the living room was now. I reflected a bit on how news of Russert's death had gone from a total shock to a familiar narrative in about 2.2 media-mediated seconds for me...and I suspect the speed at which I assimilated the news and my relative numbness to it was due to the fact that it paled in comparison to the similarly sudden death that had shocked me almost exactly a year ago. I am not trying to suggest that my heart has grown numb to the suffering of others. Surely, I felt terrible empathy for his family and his loved ones. But in my cosmos, Tim Russert's death simply didn't mean all that much compared to the death that it brought acutely to mind. And, ok, I guess I have to confess that I never really bought into the myth of Tim Russert.
And so I struggled a bit as I watched. On the one hand, here was a man my father admired and respected. A man who spoke simply and powerfully of the unparalleled importance of father-son bonds. A plain speaking, likeable, honorable no-nonsense guy whose premature death my father would have surely lamented and whose thoughts about family my father certainly shared. Watching his memorial tribute was in so many ways an approprate way of honoring my father on Father's Day.
And yet... there was a little nagging critical voice in my mind saying "Tim Russert may have been a great guy. But he was not the great, relentless truth-seeker he was being made out to be. In fact, I remember countless times when I felt that his blunt and direct inquiries had entirely missed the point--or when I felt that he had let someone off the hook far too easily without the appropriate follow-up line of questioning. I do not think that this was because Russert was a bad guy or a vichy collaborationist. But I just don't think he had the intellectual chops or the critical tools to conduct more meaningfully revealing interrogations of powerful people and the media-political matrix in which they operated. Russert's inimitable incisiveness (or fair and balanced relentlessness) was the necessary myth of the the status quo . It allowed politicians (and other guests) to flatter themselves into thinking they'd passed some grueling ordeal. And it allowed the mainstream media to flatter itself into thinking there was an icon of true intellectual integrity among them. He was, in essence, a cherished good-housekeeping seal of approval for an essentially unself-critical culture. But enough.
Out of respect for my father, I made sure that basic human compassion prevailed. And while it was a bit hard to stomach the hagiographic tributes to this journalistic giant, this cardinal of compassionate confrontation, this pope of both politics and life--I focused on the obvious tragedy of his passing and allowed myself a basically generous assessment of his contributions to the nation, the species and the world.
And then--stripped of my critical defenses-- I went back to feeling really sad.
When I returned to NYC, the brutal finality of my father's absence his me anew like a sack of bricks. Something about seeing him, for the first time, represented by a headstone--and seeing it on the day (Father's Day) I most powerfully associated with him. I thought about this strange and mysterious translation of a life into an inscription. I thought about how, according to the Jewish faith, this unveiling (headstone dedication) was supposed to officially mark the end of the period of mourning. I thought about how that seemed a bit too tidy for my tastes and how little that idea resonated with my experience. And then I got into a fetal position and turned my attention towards the blessed opiate of NBA hoops.
APPOSITE ARTICLE OF THE DAY:
Obama finds refuge, identity in basketball
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080616/ap_on_el_pr/obama_hoop_dreams
So does Teddy.
QUOTES OF THE DAY:
a)
"I think he realizes what happened," Luke Russert said (Speaking of his grandfather, Big Russ.) "He's extremely sad. He said to me, 'He was the pitcher, you were the catcher and I was the umpire. We lost our pitcher.'"
Really moving.
b)
"As long as the rape is inevitable, you might as well lie back and enjoy it. "
http://www.jedreport.com/2008/06/mccain-answers.html
Isn't that what Bush-Cheney said to the country?
TRIBUTE OF THE DAY:
June 16. Bloomsday. The day on which Joyce's Ulysees takes place. Didn't want to fail to give it props.
MORTAL REFLECTION OF THE DAY:
June 15, his unveiling. June 23, his death. June 26, his funeral. March 8, his birthday. Thinking of how, over time, more and more of the little squares that comprise the calendar become indelibly associated with relationships and people who are gone. The anniversaries of old lovers. The birthdays and death dates of loved ones who've passed on. These little squares on the calendar become little markers of absence. Paper headstones.
P.S. OF THE DAY:
Saw that there was another sudden death today--albeit of a far less tragic sort. Freaking Tiger Woods beating Rocco Mediate. I was, of course, rooting hard core for the underdog Mediate who put up a heck of a battle. How could I not root for a guy looking to win his first major at the age of 45? More importantly, how could I not root for a guy named Mediate? (Media/Mediated/Mediation...I mean, cmon!) I couldn't help but think (in an attempt to leaven my spirits): Freaking Tiger. Another sudden death that breaks my heart.
RANDOM SINGLE SENTENCE PORTRAIT OF THE DAY:
The couch looks empty without him.
----
ENTIRE LIFE NARRATIVE ELOQUENTLY DISTILLED INTO A SINGLE CONSUMER PURCHASE OF THE DAY:
A man on line at Duane Reade on Friday night with two cans of Red Bull and two boxes of Huggies.
QUOTE OF THE DAY:
"I stand by what I said about testosterone. it is sluts. And it also has ideas."
-Lauren Hutton
For evidence of the above quote, please see our...
RIVETING PERFORMANCE OF THE DAY:
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/people/news/article_1409574.php/Lauren_Huttons_sleepy_Bravo_award_speech_-_VIDEO
LFAQ:
Is the above referenced quote a) Delightful gibberish? b) Strangely profound? c) Both?
With gym memberships as expensive as they are, the economy apparently in recession and the benefits of personal fitness widely known and embraced, why don't more people do chin-ups on those ubiquitous NYC construction bars? (I'd probably get a lot fewer stares if they joined me!).
Given the fact that the wheel was invented some time at the dawn of man and luggage has been around for ages--why did it take until the mid 1980s or so for luggage on wheels to become a common thing?
How many people read the story of a man accused of following a woman into the ladies room and trying to block her exit and think to themselves “Damn. Why didn't I think of that?!?!?” (I know, a really creepy one, but you've really gotta wonder.)
When a subway car reeks of urine and you're holding your breath until the next stop where you can sprint out and change cars, but you notice that most of the people in the reeking car with you seem completely unfazed, does this mean: a) That you happen to be in the car for the olfactory-challenged? ? b) The other people in your car actually like the smell of urine? c) The other people in your car have just given up?
OBSERVATION OF THE DAY:
If it smells like urine everywhere you go, you may want to check to make sure you didn't pee yourself.
RANDOM SINGLE SENTENCE PORTRAIT OF THE DAY:
He was perfectly suspended between sincerity and irony.
NEW CONDITIONS OF THE DAY:
a)
Acid Reflex Disorder: To describe people whose natural instinct is to respond to any stimulus in a nasty and bitter fashion.
b)
Attention Surplus Disorder. People who are able to focus on a task or problem for so long that it actually proves to be maladaptive.
c)
Irritable Vowel Syndrome. Describes people often express disgust and disatisfaction by saying "Aaaah." or "Eeeeeh" or "Ayyyyy" or "Oooo!" or "Uhhhh!" (Needless to say, Irritable Dowel Syndrome is another matter entirely--and one far too indecorous for these pristine electronic pages.)
POLITICAL OBSERVATION OF THE DAY:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e78ZGBLmvuU
McCain's promise to America: I will veto every single beer. You don't need to be Homer Simpson to be concerned about this part of his platform. I mean really: Can you think of a more terrifying bit of news for the average American? This is certain to strike more fear into the heart of the electorate than any mention of terrorism possibly could.
MOVIE REVIEW OF THE DAY:
Finally saw Juno. It was sweet and pretty good. And I always love Michael Sera. But I couldn't shake the feeling that her character had been focused grouped for maximal idealized nostalgia among 30-something former punks.
RANDOM SINGLE SENTENCE PORTRAIT OF THE DAY:
He always sounded as if he were politely thanking someone for being no help at all--which, one suspected, also accurately characterized his personal relationship to God.
CURIOUS MESSAGING SEQUENCE OF THE DAY:
Outside 777 Third Avenue, a sign reads: “Beware! As you enter this building you may be recorded by up to 37 surveillance cameras.” Then the first thing you see upon entering the building is a wall mirror with a sign on it that asks “Do you look your best today?” It might as well read "Primp for the spies!"
ASYMMETRICAL WARFARE OF THE DAY:
I am singing Mr. Tambourine Man sotto voce in a melancholic iPod-less state on the subway platform this morning when some girl listening to rap really loud on her iPod sits next to me and starts singing. Assaulted by her aggressively undulcet vocal stylings , I raise my Mr. Tambourine Man rendition to a slightly mood inappropriate volume only to realize that even this attempt to preserve the integrity of my experience is in vain as, sheltered by her ear buds, she can't hear a thing. A third woman-caught in the sonic cross fire-smiles awkwardly and steps away.
P.S. OF THE DAY:
Wouldn't it have been funny if we'd (the loud, socially insensitive inner city youth and the Dylan singing upper west side Jew) each turned to each other at the same moment and said “ Stop being such a stereotype!”
DISSENTING OPINION OF THE DAY:
Just read that June 20 is officially considered the Happiest Day of the Year. Happiest Day of the Year? All my stocks are plummeting. A 3-month long pitch (business courtship ex-nihilo) filled with brilliant campaign ideas ends with a dingleberry of an assignment. My thumb -after 4 months on the DL-has not healed properly and will probably need surgery. Happiest Day of the Year My Ass.
OBSERVATION OF THE DAY:
Sometimes it seems that if it weren't for birthdays, weddings and funerals, people would never see each other.
DESCRIPTION OF THE DAY:
Mourning the lost world when we were safe and small together. Now blown apart. Long frozen time breaking up into tears and the overwhelming fluidity of experience. Walking down the street to get a drink.
RANDOM SINGLE SENTENCE PORTRAIT OF THE DAY:
If he seemed perpetually, even at times desperately, elliptical, it was, he would have us believe, for reasons of essential ineffability rather than those of pretentiousness, inarticulacy or garden variety cognitive dysfunction.
UNNATURAL SHOCK OF THE DAY:
That I have been too consumed by natural shocks to really add to the list of unnatural shocks over the last few days. But I'm committed to my goal of 1000. There's no quit in me.
QUOTE OF THE DAY:
“Laughter is the closest distance between two people.” -Victor Borge.
STIPULATION OF THE DAY:
“Unless one person is laughting AT the other person, in which case laughter is arguably the farthest distance between two people.”
-Theodore Vegas
BRIEF MOVIE COMMENT OF THE DAY:
Edward Norton in Hulk. Yes, he's a terrific actor, but haven't we had our fill of him flexing his schizoid, extreme bi-polar performance muscle in Primal Fear and Fight Club?
NOTE TO READERS OF THE DAY:
I'm trying to keep it brief and light today blog-wise as today is the 1 year anniversary of my father's death and, frankly, I'm just trying to get on through. That said, I may have some thoughts and reflections more commensurate with the occasion in the next few days.
LFAQs:
If all the prominent cars in your life were parked on the street you were walking down would you even notice it?
Can you sneeze while vomiting?
I see that Obama is asking his supporters to pay off $10 Million of Hillary Clinton's debt. Wouldn't it be a smart campaign move to ask those supporters to pay off the debt of 10 million undecided voters?
LIST OF THE DAY:
The days on my calendar that are markers of absence; private memorials, paper headstones.
Jan 19, 20
Feb 14, 21
Mar 3, 8, 19
Apr 17
May 6
June 2, 9, 15, 16, 23, 26
July 4, 7, 11, 13
Sept, 27
Oct 5
Nov 10
Has any man included his own birthday on such a list?
STORY/EXISTENTIAL REFLECTION OF THE DAY:
I'm thinking about the story of this death row inmate who claimed to no longer be the person who committed the crime for which he's been convicted, so that if they were to execute him, they'd be executing the wrong man.
RANDOM SINGLE SENTENCE PORTRAIT OF THE DAY:
The couch looks empty without him.
NOTES FROM THE JOURNAL OF MOURNING: THE ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY
6/22: Listening to my father's favorite radio show--the Jonathan Schwartz show-on the day before the anniversary of his passing. It turns out to be an unexpectedly apt memorial tribute. Carly Simon and Jonathan Schwartz. One of the voices of my era discussing her new album of standards from my father's era. They, lifelong friends, reminiscing about their fathers and their childhoods and taking us on a meandering journey of songs and stories that intersect--via long forgotten elements of my early emotional soundscape like Simon's "You're So Vain" and the Rolling Stone's "Angie"--with many memories of my own childhood and my own father.
For example, I am reminded that "Angie" was my favorite, obsessively listened to song when I was 13 and when, on our weekend visits, my father would take me stereo shopping (I honestly can't remember if we were shopping for him or for me as a bar mitzvah present, although I suspect it was the latter.) that "Angie" was the song I'd always ask the audio guy to play so I could judge how much I liked the speakers. And once I remember the guy giving me a hard time for picking such a blandly acoustic song since it didn't allow him to demonstrate the speakers' kickass sonic mid-range or whatever and I defended my depressive early adolescent choice by saying that that was the kind of music I liked so I really didn't care that much about what else the speakers could do. I remember the guy giving my father an "Am I right or what?" look and my father giving him a "Hey, that's what my son likes, what am I gonna do?" shrug. This, in turn, triggered memories of my father spending countless weekend hours taping music on his big reel-to-reel Teac tape recorder and, in his slightly slanted all cap handwriting, lovingly transcribing the contents of each recording onto both the interior and exterior of the large tape boxes--many of which now sit, along with the gloriously antiquated tape deck, in a small cell at Manhattan Mini-Storage that I simply don't have the courage to visit.
I am also remembering a few years earlier, when my parents were still together but there was some kind of sad pall over our home--playing "You're so Vain" on our little stereo turntable and hearing about someone taking his something "to Nova Scotia to see a total eclipse of the sun" and feeling all these tragically romantic things that I had to be too young to feel. And now as I think about it, I remember how listening to "Angie" on the car radio during visits with my father in the year or two after the divorce made me feel indescribably sad for him. And I remember feeling that same deep sadness whenever songs about break-ups would come on Casey Kasen's Top 40 or whatever we were listening to (first in the white VW Karmen Ghia with the black convertible roll-up top, then in the white and orange Ford Mustang and then in the used light blue Porsche 911 T with the beige corduroy seats and the fatal post-ignition knock.)--as if they spoke a pain he could never share.
I am listening to these songs and feeling just the remotest minor of what I'd once felt upon hearing them and reflecting on life and time and loss and on the part of me that is gone and the part of me that still lives on. I am listening to Jonathan Schwartz's stumblingly reverential assertions with a new, indulgent affection and I am loving the warmth of Carly Simon's laughter and I am surprisingly sad to discover that our three hours together are almost up and that I will soon be losing their company. And then this long meandering walk down melody lane ends improbably and almost eerily (via a Carly Simon anecdote about her relationship with the man who would be Yusef Islam), with their playing Cat Stevens' "Father and Son" and my crying as it reaches the lyric "Take your time, think a lot, think of everything you've got/For you will still be here tomorrow though your dreams may not."
6/23 In the background of my harried workaday consciousness, I am thinking about my father all day. I receive messages from friends and loved ones telling me that I am in their thoughts and I am, of course, deeply grateful. In the evening, at 7:30- the time I received the terrible call exactly one year ago-- I stumble--as if in a dream-- upon a solitary man playing mournful bagpipe music on a rock in Central Park. I stop and listen in silent observance until the loss feels brand new again. And then I go and see Hamlet.
P.S. OF THE DAY:
There were lots of powerful and uncanny things about seeing Hamlet on this solemn occasion, but I will say only this: That when Hamlet (played by Michael Stuhlbarg in this Shakespeare in the Park production) got to the line "and by a sleep to say we end/The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks/That flesh is heir to," I, feeling that heartache and those natural shocks a bit too acutely, inserted a barely audible and defiantly life-affirming "Un" before the words "natural shocks."
No, there's no quit in Theodore Vegas.
(OK. Sometimes, there's a little.)
DANGLING DESCRIPTOR OF THE DAY:
As uncomfortable as a Republican being dragged onto a dance floor.
OBJECT OF FASCINATION OF THE DAY:
That CIA walk-in informant who was responsible for the capture of Khalid Sheik Mohanmmed. He then received some or all of the promised $25 Million reward and was relocated somewhere in the United States under a new identity. What's his story? What's he up to now? Mystery Informant, if you are reading this blog right now (as I suspect you are), while lounging in your mansion after attending a McCain fundraiser or on the public library computer after catching up on the latest clebrity gossip or on your poolside laptop after a mid afternoon lapdance or in your pajamas in a break from your full schedule of internet dating or online canasta, just know that in addition to being a true hero in the war against Terror you also have the perhaps even more rarefied distinction of being The Teddy Vegas first Ever Object of Fascination of the Day.
ODD AND MOVING AUDIO-VISUAL DIPTYCH OF THE DAY:
Waching Cat Stevens/Yusef Islam singing Father and Son first as a son (and a godless pop star) and then as a father (and a devout muslim.).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jek6iP6AuAQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cpX1ZjuaiA&feature=related
WISH I HAD A CAMERA MOMENT OF THE DAY.
A white women pushing black baby in a stroller in a neighborhood where one is accustomed to seeing just the opposite.
RANDOM SINGLE SENTENCE PORTRAIT OF THE DAY: (With thanks to creative collaborator T.K.)
He didn't just seize the day: He arrested it, booked it, indicted it, convicted it and made it his prison bitch.
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Posted on 7/4/2008
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