Let Them Eat Cake

The problem with time is that I can't seem to capture enough of it on my phone to keep up with a continually slipping present. By the time I've downloaded the moment, it's gone. Be present they tell you, so seemingly wisely. How? How?!?

Keeping abreast of the Ever Changing in our post Star Trekkian "warp speed" world is like trying to capture the nano second luminescence of a firefly in June,  or maybe recalling all your passwords simultaneously, which also brings me to the subject of travel; endless words and codes by which to pass through time zones,  the particular joy of airports and their fluorescent-y beaming lights at all hours.  It's astounding that people do this not because they have to, but for fun.

So there I was, traveling 'cause I had to, and desperately trying to get my bearings. If it weren't for the coincidence of the Brat Kavanaugh debacle splashing across the media the day of my arrival and filling the giant hotel screen 24/7 from there on, I'd have been sitting in the room each morning staring blankly out the window, wondering where in the myriad compartments and ziplocs of an over packed roll-ee my stuff was hiding; anticipating another bout of weak shower pressure, crazy, hard water hair, and planning a hectic and jet lagged day.

But thanks to the ineffable Brat K, I was able to take my mind off all that. His dark story of Animal House romps, relentless, unwarranted persecution, tearful, angry denials, a sworn history of intense moments of deep prayer, unbelievably honest hard work, obsessive calendar notating and a moral compass so accurate it practically made me ashamed to be alive on the same planet with the guy provided constant distractions to busy the mind. This spectacle seemed designed to hypnotize  my American, bible thumping, TV watching, provincial, travel loathing soul, and so it did. Just about every network blared the "job interview" for the Court of Supremity, non stop.

Yet  the Brat refused to confess, and hell and damnation were palpable in the pixels. The extravaganza alternately was portrayed as either akin to the Salem witch trials or a cautionary tale of extreme ferocious-frat boy-fumbling-fishiness and then some.  Any way you cut it, Justice Boy Wonder was looking like an unrepentant sinner who just might not be believed, much less saved. . . .

 All in all it was a particularly resonant moment with the Thanksgiving holiday right around the corner and pictures of sugar plums and puritans bouncing dreamily at the edge of the crisp, autumn air soon to be blowing through our streets; sex, beer and rock & roll. . . . All that was missing were the orange and reddish leaves, cut outs of folks dressed like Miles Standish, images of reprobates in stocks, and decorative, farm stand corn husks, mainly because it was still a bit early in the season.

If only I liked beer, I thought. Apparently some really important people liked beer, not just ordinary slobs. If I liked beer I could imbibe one and be convivial! Take my mind off the red eye that loomed quietly but menacingly at the end of the week. Get high in an acceptable, collegial manner. Feel really down home. And all in innocent, collegial fun. Whatever happened, happened. I'd be in a good company. Is it not obvious by now that a lot of educationally privileged ivy league-ers may spend a good portion of their halcyon years in the halls of learning passed out, blacked out, and stone cold, knackered, drunk?  

But unfortunately I don't care for that particular brew, never have, mainly because I am probably allergic to it-  it always makes me a little sick. I think it's the hops or something, or maybe the grain, of truth.

I eat cake instead.

 I like cake.

Oops, time to go.

Engineered Onions, Tires That Go Pop! Part One

“It smells good here, but it’s a little bit weird.”

The odor was vaguely pine, or at least something pleasantly evocative of the great outdoors-  a hint of Pure Nature to mitigate the extreme grunge of the parking lot in which we were sitting. It was a place where every few minutes a panel truck would pull up scratchily with an intensity that made the gravel pop really, really loudly. A workman would jump out of the driver's seat, head purposefully inside the store, dash back out minutes later and be gone. A piss stop no doubt.

After a long and much too eventful road trip, we were sampling the offerings of a supposed Dunkin’ Donuts, chilling at a ravaged picnic table in a small parking lot on an empty road in the middle of Massachusetts. It's the part of the state where no sandy beaches lie nor visible mountains tower, but there are trees, and lots of ‘em.

If you’ve perused this blog before you also probably know about my newfound romance with Dunkin’ Donuts. So I imply sort of regarding  the authenticity of this self styled member of the famed coffee concession because if it weren’t for the familiar orange logo we could have sworn it was just a crappy convenience store in the middle of nowhere with a tiny counter at the back. The decaf we sipped was tepid, watery and tasteless, the beloved Old Fashioneds rock hard, but we were glad to be alive. More about that in a moment.

The store’s bathroom- a major reason for stopping- was decidedly low tech, with no sensor on the hand drying contraption but just another “old fashioned” kind of setup- a pull down, brown paper towel dispenser. Inexplicably I found these brittle little pieces of paper comforting. Right outside on the wall beside the bathroom door a bulletin board with the catchy title “Contractor’s Corner” displayed a mulch of business cards pinned up at every crazy angle. This too calmed me- it seemed so “solid.”

Yes, it all could have ended very differently we reminded ourselves, as the barely eaten chunks of donuts slipped off the napkins onto the table, had we not just randomly happened upon the tire place about an hour’s ride back.

Prior to finding ourselves in the small graveled parking lot of this semi-rural convenience store, we had started out that bright August morning, weary but not yet totally defeated, on an escape from the vampirish horrors of real estate- an enterprise that had been crushing our souls for most of July.

Wading into the morass of selling was the ultimate fair seeming evil, and right in character it appeared to become tantalizingly fruitful quite early in the game; but there was a catch. The buyer who pounced as soon as the listing went online wanted us out in more or less a minute or so. I can’t get out of bed that fast, much less pack up a house on fast forward and we still had no place to go. Three weeks into the process of trying to continue to negotiate and keep showing we were pretty much disgusted with the whole thing; it was taxing our attention spans and making us exceptionally testy. So we folded up shop and left town.

In our growing desire to cleanse the minds of the silly putty called real estate, we had sprung for four new tires to help speed us along the interstate. The prospect of a small, recuperative vacation to meet up with family lay serenely before us. The new tires gave a false sense of security, the rubber-hits-the-road smugness that comes with rubbery smelling, spanking newness under your chassis.  The eternal possibility of inedible, faux donuts and thin, make belief decaf lying in wait somewhere up the road notwithstanding, it still seemed like the perfect time to head for the hills.

That is, until we found out about the unbelievably screwed up tire situation and the near, total, road disaster. . . .

(Part Two Next Week)

Blog Alert!

Hi Everyone!

I've been writing this goddamn blog regularly every week or two for over half a decade, soaring on flights of fancy from the ridiculous to the sublime, or the reverse, a concept supposedly coined by Tom Paine in "The Age of Reason" in the year 1794. 

They didn't have computers back then in the eighteenth century, and I read this "fact"- the Tom Paine attribution- on the internet of course, which means I have no idea if it is indeed accurate, like so many other factoids, beliefs, events, thoughts, dreams, ads, lies, manipulations, errors and other unsubstantiated, flatly stated stuff with which we are bombarded now daily.

But I digress.

Actually, I don't digress.

The purpose of the blog has been to state momentary truths, whether opinion or fiction, and to do it in a thoughtful, entertaining, unique, compelling manner that would make my readers laugh, tear up, grunt, snicker, chuckle, cringe, agree, recognize, think, get their hackles up, be soothed, possibly identify and enjoy.

And I've been enjoying doing that just about every minute!

Even if everyone of you but a precious few does not write back me to with your own thoughts to let me know you are out there, I persevere.

It's okay. Really. I love what I'm doing.

The problem is that I am exceedingly busy this summer and thus am taking a brief hiatus. No doubt I will be back in the fall with all sorts of wry ruminations on present and past adventures.

In the meanwhile, feel free to scroll back a few years and reread some of the stories, poems, essays and posts. 

For now though stay cool and check me out again in September. . . .

There is another way- Dunkin' Donuts!

The Dunkin’ Donuts across the street from the Starbucks- not facing it head on but a little over to the right- seems without a doubt the Everyman’s Cup. Situated a bit unobtrusively, not proudly or haughtily on a corner like its larger, more prominent competitor, it sits quietly in its modest locale a few stores in. Plunked on the wrong side of the street as well, it's sandwiched between the optometrist and vegetable place, the entire location bent on proclaiming itself proudly ordinary!

You have to scuttle past crates of cantaloupes and peaches in good weather and mounds of grayish yellow snow in winter to get to the heavy orange handled door; once inside you immediately scan the few skimpy tables and window stools for a possible seat not too near the garbage or condiments. The place is smaller than its rival and the soundtrack pure Seventies- think Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition” and Elton John’s “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart”- a confluence of happy, uplifting beats that makes you glad you came. 

Likewise the clientele is more down to earth and at least slightly if not more bedraggled than the spirited bunch at Starbucks, or perhaps just seems that way because of the setting. There are the usual toddlers, moms, retirees and busy folks on their breaks, a few sleek looking residents from some of the newer, more expensive condos, and now and again the itinerant overweight NYC cop huddled in a corner scarfing down some quick form of  sustenance. But whether rich or poor, young or aged, infant or teen, fat or thin, shlumpy or well dressed, the space induces a kind of strange transformation where everyone suddenly seems old and distinctly working class. It just has that kind of effect on people, like a sort of social time machine that propels you to a simpler, stupider time, which is all part of the ineffable charm. 

The coffee at Dunkin’ is much better than that of its competitor, and their brewed decaf- always on hand- infinitely drinkable, if not exactly designer quality like the brew served at the very spiffy and brand newest café around the corner, the one with the high prices and low seating capacity. This latter place whose trendy Italian sounding name eludes me and has a sound track of soft jazz- and is now the third caffeine dispensing pusher in the neighborhood- declares itself socially sustainable, or something vaguely moral like that. And in truth the java is tolerably good and the smallish space impeccably pristine; but there’s a coolness about the venue that makes you not wish to settle in for too long, which is probably the whole idea behind the shiny, metallic feng shui. In and out fast, as the computer chings up as many quick sales as possible! Whereas at Dunkin’ you can hang out for as long as you wish, even if you don’t necessarily crave to sit under those unforgiving, cheap, flickering lights for too long on rickety stools.

Another distinctly human feature of our very own neighborhood Dunkin’ Donuts is that they accommodate requested do-overs, and without a gripe,  if it turns out the brew served was tepid, having sat near the bottom of the urn for far too long with no takers. They just put on another pot and tell you it will be ready in a few minutes without fear of corporate reprisal. The counter people seem part of a small family owned enterprise- Indian or Pakistani perhaps, not super caffeinated, cheery or sullen wannabe hipsters moving fast and dancing madly behind the Starbucks counter after (or maybe instead of) school. The teens in fact who man Dunkin’s percolators- no matter the ethnicity- clearly seem much more like cousins or nieces or nephews though they may not even be related. The disparity in ambience no doubt has to do with the idea of a chain like Starbucks versus a franchise operation like Dunkin' Donuts.

Both places are dirty naturally, but the dark color of the tables and strategic lighting tend to camouflage this sorry state at Starbucks, while at Dunkin’ there is no denial possible- it’s just all too real. This may be a small price to pay though, the lack of any semblance whatsoever of an esthetic factor, given some of the other alluring qualities, the fact that it's cheaper not being the least of these. 

I am willing to acknowledge that I just may wind up disillusioned about my new coffee spot one of these days, and I have been known to frequent the newer hip place too because I love the tasty brew; I also freely admit that Dunkin' coffee is not exactly gourmet level and that you have to go there at certain times and avoid the after school crowd. But probably my dislike will never grow to the level of contempt I now feel for Starbucks and their unconscionable, discriminatory practices toward among other things decaf drinkers.

Finally, Dunkin Apostrophe Donuts has me totally convinced it or "they" truly and genuinely are down home, simple, hardworking, good-hearted, typical American folk because they drop the final “g” in the name and in this way manage to sound so very familiar and real and comforting and downright regional; ironically however, as far as the actual, specific region, I’m not  exactly sure whence. . . .

Outer (and every) Borough Starbucks Reconsidered

This is part reprint of an earlier piece, re-thought, rewritten, re-edited and reconsidered, 'cause basically I'm through with Starbucks, now and forever.

The Bronx Starbucks I talked about in a previous post is still a neighborhood joint, no other way to describe it. 

There still are walk-able shops in the vicinity, a supermarket, shoe repair, hardware store, tax preparer, optometrists, pharmacists, lawyers, dentists and other real services. If need be, you could survive without a car by just doing everything on foot here. But it might also mean using iceberg lettuce in your salad on occasion as there are not a plethora of gourmet markets and nary a Whole Foods in sight- that also being the nice part at times.

Cooking at home however still is not the only option. The neighborhood continues to have a slew of restaurants, none of them great, but several tolerable and one or two good. There are at least four varieties of Asian in addition to Mexican, Spanish, Greek, Italian, Irish, kosher, real pizza a la the Bronx, a couple of  diners, two soft serve yogurts, and a Jewish delicatessen- one of the last in the city.

Since I wrote the original piece, a new, more upscale coffee cafe has opened as well, and the brew, I have to admit, is superior; however the space is small and a bit weird with a staircase to another smallish area, so you can't really hang out though you can enjoy a quick cup, and maybe a little pastry to go with. Best of all- barring the coffee places of course- the restaurants all deliver and you can order Chinese food at nine o'clock at night if the yen so grabs you, in contrast to what often goes or does not go on elsewhere in the country. Speaking of which, to date the neighborhood is still extremely diverse, racially, ethnically, spiritually and cosmically, so the kind of incident that has been in the news of late regarding a possible racist incident at a Starbucks somewhere elsewhere more likely than not just would not happen here.

Minutes from the glamour and lure of “downtown”, which is how we usually refer to the borough of Manhattan from the Bronx, this outer borough Starbucks still seems to be having none of that. To begin, although it sits on a sunny corner, the windows as always remain noticeably dirty, which doesn’t make the afternoon pick-me-up of a double shot of whipped grande mocha shmoka seem so very romantic. It is not trendy. 

Once inside however, you still smell the signature, acrid brew of the famous brand and for some strange reason feel comforted. Mercifully this is not nor ever will be the Upper West Side. The demographic is more relaxed, no Manhattan Masters & Mistresses of the Universe, at least not as yet although lately "they" from those other boroughs have been making inroads; it's all about the rent these days. For now though, you don't feel like you're interviewing for a job when you order your "tall" small. Exceptionally weird as in scary characters hanging about are at a minimum too. There usually is a line depending on the hour, and a bunch of students, retirees, baby strollers and one or two roaming toddlers doing their cute toddling thing and telling their mommies what they wish to order, but clearly this location is neighborhood all the way. After three the teachers come in from all around, exhausted, and few eighth graders from the Catholic school across the street.

Not a destination Starbucks, many of the customers are noticeably scruffy, shlumping around in sneakers and old sweat pants. The barristas are still kids working after school. There is not a whole lot of cache or élan. And as it happens it is not always so sunny these days. 
   
Outside facing the store a couple of benches might be taken up at a certain time of day by health aides and their charges, these helpers screaming into their phones as seen through the large windows like watching a silent movie. Occasionally, like very rarely and usually in the summer, a couple of tourists will have made their way uptown to this most northern reach and are huddling close together at the window, intently poking at their GPS and wondering how they got here.

This still is sounding dangerously like a somewhat suspect riff on “Our Town,” Bronx style, but please rest assured the neighborhood is more urban than ever, real and gritty, yet like Grovers Corners, people are friendly for the most part. There are smart phones and laptops everywhere, not enough free time, no one marries the boy next door, and subways, buses, highways and uncommonly large public schools all loom within earshot. 

When I first penned the piece, I concluded it on a light note, which verbatim went as follows: So please keep this information to yourself- the place does not wish to be discovered. Then again, would anyone really want to venture up to this northern tip of the city to chance a lukewarm, thin cappuccino foam? So go tell whomever you want. No problem. It’s the Bronx. 

Now however I feel quite differently about the whole thing and in truth am  really pissed, not just with this place, but with all Starbucks, in every hamlet and metropolis, everywhere in the entire world. For in addition to their overpriced cups of burnt Joe- the uneven quality of which we tend to ignore because of the "scene" and plethora of outlets by which to plug in- and now of course the appearance of a kind of insidious corporate racism regarding what constitutes perceived paying customers at one of their locations somewhere, they've actually crossed another very big line as well. It's a line that pushes this chain a little too far over to Big Coffee Fascism for my taste, and clearly discriminates against non-addicts, or those simple souls who crave decaf (think the company's bottom line- addicts tend to come back more often and buy more coffee).

You see, they- i.e. the many and all Starbucks, yes all of them-  no longer serve brewed decaf, ever, period. This is what they told me. Company directive. If you're going that route you have to settle for something resembling tepid brown water. First they limited the caffeine free brewed elixir to "before 1:00" then slowly moved it back to "before 11:00" before eliminating it altogether.

The dismal result is that now if you don't wish to speed along with dilated pupils and trembling hands on the brand's unique shots of bitter, highly caffinated and addictive brown effusion, you have to settle for something sans caffeine called "a pour over" (a watery swill that also takes forever to prepare as it painstakingly, slowly drips into the cup- thus a double whammy) or a joke called "decaf Americano" (an even more bitter, contemporary version of instant coffee a la the 1950's that is equally and possibly even more horrible, given the lack of flavor combined with price).

And so recently I have acquainted myself with a new, admittedly less glamorous though much more predictible and reliable pick-me-up "go to" that has a lot of potential, yes, the very one and the same Dunkin' Donuts.  It's the newer, re-branded version of the original from times of yore, the resuscitated ol' purveyor of mainly sugary confections for kids' parties and chintzy work conferences whose signs now annoyingly dot almost all of the landscape everywhere because they have upped their game, spiffed up the logo, smoothed out their beans and want your business.


I will expound in much greater detail on the many, many charms (and pitfalls)  of this more down to earth, coffee bean valhalla next week, so stay tuned!

Four Phones

Something to Ponder

We have four phones including two ancient flip, one land, one prepaid smartie- pants, three computers (all quite elderly, two of which are almost expired), one ipad mini slow as molasses and basically nothing really works.

In addition, we do not feel especially tech saavy and frequently are frustrated beyond belief. Example: an hour spent talking to a local rep about why you cannot sign in to your “my verizon” aint’t nuthin’ next to two hours or more with a disembodied voice on the other side of the planet who does not speak your lingo very articulately as you try to figure out how evil, monstrous little things and other electronic devils latched onto your desktop. . . . And these are but a few silly instances of stuff that can happen, a lot of which can be worse, much worse.

The information super highway in effect has all but wrecked our lives, mainly because there simply is no way to beat the system unless perhaps you are a strange but brilliant tech geek though often not even that; and forget streamlining, or even considering for one mad moment, putting it all on one device because that is the very scariest of all. Think friends, family, doctors, bank accounts, credit cards, business contacts, self help lines because all this is driving you completely nuts, to say nothing of virtually everything that comprises your identity, body and soul, mind and spirit, the virtual footprint that has replaced the YOU; the “I”that is not in essence or in any way whatsoever the ME.

I long for the days of heavy, fraying, torn and frequently outdated telephone books, dirty phone booths that eat your quarters with relish, hand written receipts from merchants of every stripe, endless wait times on the phone with bureaucratic functionaries in bad moods who hate their jobs, cashing checks at the grocery store, waiting in line for long spells at the bank, books that only can be read with covers and crisp pages, your personal health info crammed into burgeoning file cabinets at the back of your doctor’s office, exhausting trips to department stores that often yield nothing, no robocalls in the middle of the night and more face to face contact all over the place, whether you like it or not.

And slowness, slowness, slowness. . . .

So now you can sit at your screen all weekend long and particularly during a rain storm, perusing hundreds, nay, thousands of items perennially “on sale;” big deal! Big flippin’ deal! Chances are you can’t find anything, will no doubt have to return it all anyway, and really want to touch the material and still pay homage to caveat emptor.

Oh Star Trek with your obsessive concerns about time travel, unknown tech dangers and the threat of losing our humanity. . . those episodes indeed were the prophets of doom!

Happy Memorial Day (and ditch those damn devices will you, if you dare. . .).

New York Pooch

You know it’s spring when New York dogs start tiptoeing through the tulips; decorously sniffing at the resplendent profusion of yellow and red Dutch-inspired blooms cozily planted here and there along the sidewalk, the iconic petals often protected by the confines of low, black, iron fences to keep out said dogs.

The particular flowers of which I speak were sitting happily on a pretty little traffic island. The pooches in question were residents of the neighborhood out on a stroll with their dog walker and fellow coffee klatch doggy buddies. In truth, though just mere, domesticated canines, they believe themselves to be rightful heirs to the hustle and bustle of the streets, the nods of doormen, the fragrance of the blossoms, the whiz of passing cars and runners, and of course the wonderment of curious, stopping toddlers so much closer to their own modest, nearer-to-the-sidewalk height.

As we passed like two ships in the night, except that it was noon and the sun was shining, and I was traveling solo while they were in a little band, I could not help but notice how very  individually and gotham-like each pooch presented itself; each one quite different from the others, and yet all with that same cosmopolitan whiff (or should I say whoof?).

The black brooder with pointy ears, part wolf, part poor sap, ever vigilant. The shaggy busybody, coolly attired in one of those fashionable doggy sweaters, continually looking around, checking things out. The white haired little devil, impertinent and small and so cute; The corpulent, serene scratcher, plopped down on the pavement all fluffy and puffy, bountifully maned in a champagne hue. You could just hug them all, almost.

Because of allergies and upbringing I’ve never actually had my very own pootch with whom to cavort and chat, walk and confide in. At this point I also probably would not want the responsibility. Nor for same reasons do I skip up to random mutts for a good nuzzle. But in the deepest recesses of my dyed-in-the-wool, small apartment dweller’s urban heart, I’ve always retained a soft spot for the idea, along with a healthy dollop of chronic pooch longing. I even fantasized on occasion about a scotch terrier named ‘Duff after Macbeth’s nemesis and all the fun things we would do together.

And so I retained a long lasting if quiet interest in poodles, spaniels, mutts of all sorts. Excluded from this panoply were only chihuahuas for reasons of temperament, as well as dogs the size of ponies and giraffes.

If dogs assume human qualities, then stereotypically NYC dogs can be seen as neurotic, pretentious, scruffy but occasionally well dressed, stuck up, intellectual snobs who like to go for walks in the city, as well as picky foodies who quite often are spoiled. Perhaps they come off as a little brash and hard edged at times, but always willing to help a stranger with directions. They wouldn’t touch a bagel anywhere else in the country and truly believe the place where they live is the center of the universe. . . .

Lucky for them they don’t have to pay the rent. In essence they’ve got it made, and they know it. Who needs the wild prairie when you can stroll, chat, socialize, window shop and never have to worry about grocery shopping, laundry, cleaning the house, meters or alternate side parking? Like I said, they’ve got it made, bless their scrappy little New York hearts. . . .