IPW

Insomnia

I don't know when it's officially called insomnia, when you can't sleep for an hour? Two hours? Three days? Well, it's been about an hour so far for me and I'm about to star in a psychological thriller playing myself. People in thrillers always have insomnia or amnesia, or both. It's a good thing that amnesia isn't as common as insomnia or we'd all forget why we we were up so late at night. In the meantime I'll review the activities of the weekend, and perhaps digress into a riff about pants or mice.

On Friday after yet another orgiastic Indian food lunch buffet, I stared at the computer monitor at work, uncomprehending. That lasted until about 6 when D. (one of the four readers of this blog)and A. and I went to meet up with some coworkers for some after work fraternization. This was organized not by us, but we were the first and only group to get there. I had other engagements so I left after about 45 minutes of talking to the guys, much like we do during the day anyway, but without beers in hand. The bar is called "Dusk" and apart from three redeeming features is not my favorite. One, it is close to work and cheap. That's one feature, not two, as there are few bars near work that are a value. I am morally opposed to paying the same amount for one bottle of beer that a six-pack of the same said beer would be. That and I'm cheap. Another redeeming feature, on old-looking round purplish light fixture hangs above the front door with the name printed on it, "Dusk", and I find that to be cool in a low-profile way. From the size of awnings and signs here I suspect there may be some sort of tax dependent on the size of your self promotion. Sometimes places don't have any name outside at all, or its written in chalk so that they might quickly smudge it out if the tax man wandered too near. I like these places because you have to have heard about it or been there before to know where it is. Sometimes, like has happened with a place called Chumley's in the West Village, I've been to a place, loved it and wandered back another time, drunkenly weaving around the streets in search for a non-existant sign of its existence. These are the ghost taverns of yore, and serve a phantom ale that chills yer bones. The final redeeming feature is that there is a two way mirror above the men's room urinals so that you may survey the crowd out by the bar whilst answering nature's call. This is an invigorating and somewhat unnerving sensation as you might guess and can lead to stage fright for the uninitiated.

After Dusk, the bar and the time, I headed to meet Magda and the rest of the Magnum crew down at the Whiskey Ward, a bar within stumbling distance from our old apartment on the Lower East Side. We used to point fun at all the sorry saps that had to haul kiester back to Brooklyn after tanking up on their generous happy hour. Now, we cry softly while we too who have been cast out, drag our sorry selves to the JMZ train, leaving the drunkard's eden of Manhattan behind. The reason for the season, was that our buddy R. (starts with an R, ends with an 'ick') was celebrating both his birthday and his return from African exile. His is such a good story that I will appropriate it here: He works for the UN as a photographer and was part of the delegation sent to negotiate peace between Eritrea and Ethiopia. At some point early in the stay, all the UN delegates were kicked out of the disputed territories and sent to cool their heels is Addis Ababa while things settled down. As with all bureaucracies, things take a long time getting settled, so in the meantime, R. rents a house in town and continues doing what he can to stay busy. Basically, walking around the capital of Ethiopia and trying to stay out of trouble. This sounds like my idea of a good time. I peppered him with questions once he finally showed up for his own party (he flew in that very day, having planned the party two days earlier from an internet cafe in Addis Ababa). First of all, I wanted to know, how did he rent the house? The answer: a broker. Just like in NYC. Later a mutual friend launched into a story he'd heard about some kids in Africa so poor they couldn't afford more than a nut, and they couldn't even get that open because they didn't have a nutcracker. R. told him he was an idiot and I pointed out that if they had real estate brokers they probably could open a nut. Then again, I have dealt with real estate brokers and tried opening nuts and they are just as difficult. The funny thing about R's situation is that he has to go back in two weeks. He is essentially home on a vacation away from his rented house which doesn't have number and is on a street with no name. He doesn't even know where he lives.

We were pretty tipsy at that point but still had another call to make (the Whiskey Ward was serving pint glasses full of White Russian, called, "Fun Size"). We had to meet up with R.'s ex, Z. in Williamsburg, at a party in an apartment very close to ours. Another contingent of Magnumers were there in the sub-ground floor apartment of a Billyburg Brownstone. It was undecorated, large and sort of un-lived in looking. Strange, because three people lived there. This was a college days type party, plenty of cheap beer and weed and Thai whiskey. You know the sort of thing. The main room included many Europeans, partly because it was a going away party for one of the Magnum interns from Denmark. There were a couple Danes there, and a Swede whose main complaint with Americans was the Swedish Chef impersonations that had obviously often been performed vigorously for his benefit. Not knowing many people, I ended up in a wrestling match with the Thai whiskey bottle and won. Meaning, I lost. It was surprisingly good. Smooth and sweet and went down a little too easy. At some point, the crowd was motivated to move a few blocks down through the bitter cold to our neighborhood bar, Bembe, also of small signage. Bembe is an amazing bar with a good natured crowd of all backgrounds. Whenever you see a movie of a place where people of all races and backgrounds are hanging out together and you say, that place doesn't exist, it does, it's at Bembe. Great music, beautiful bartenders, bongo-drums (strangely, not very annoying) and a European style dance-floor downstairs that reminds me of the vaulted cellar bars in Prague and some glorious late nights there. The best thing about Bembe is that like the Whisky Ward way back when, it was easy to drag our worn out drunken selves around the corner and down the block, home.

Well, that's it for the weekend even though that was only Friday. Saturday was a national hang-over holiday, to commemorate the mixing of Pennsylvanian lager, Fun Sized White Russians and Thai Whiskey, one of the great unions of all time. Sunday saw a brunch happen, with good company, but that was followed by more home-work. Which leaves us here, clicking away in the dark, feeling the first effects of non-somnia, the opposite of insomnia and also its cure. I leave you with the image of a newly baited mouse-trap. Gone is the Nutella™, replaced by a gloriously iconic wedge of cheese precariously balanced on the snapping mechanism. I can't imagine the mouse actually falling for it since it's seen that exact image so many times in the cartoons, but oh well, worth a try. It has also been moved to under my desk where I am positive I will catch myself one sleepy morning, breaking my toe and leaving a coffee stain splashed on the ceiling.

Gadgets

Men, the little cell phones you have clipped to your ears are stupid looking. We men like to jump wholeheartedly on electronic fads and their accessories but really, those things make you look like refugees from a trekkie convention or the loser in the Swat team movies who is too busy fussing with your earpiece to notice the time-bomb count down to zero. You will be beamed up really soon. And by being 'beamed up' I mean punched in the teeth. I suspect that many of our macho friends out there hailed the cell phone as the first desirable wearable accessory since the six-gun. At once symbolizing your wealth and virility, these gadgets are now on public display and are foolish looking on all levels. Clipped to your belts like holsters? Fastest call answerer in the West? Sad! That said, there is probably much money to be made in stylish leather holsters that can facilitate the lightning fast cell phone draw. With some of these stupid ring-tones I say the faster the better. Although one time I did see a group of little g's on the subway gathered around a new cell phone trying out the ring tones. They were quickly scrolling through each cloying digitized melody, clipping them short after a few notes until they came across a pleasant, if metallic, version of "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik" by Mozart. They were all quiet and listened to the ring tone in whole. When it finished they continued searching the new features.
I am not innocent when it comes to jumping on these stupid fads. For instance, ours is a 2.5 iPod family. Not being very coordinated, you will find me standing pidgeon-toed on Bedford Avenue, tongue at the corner of my mouth, trying to stuff the ear buds in my ears (why won't they stay put? Are my ears so freakishly huge?), unwrapping and organizing the unruly cord like a string of Christmas lights and squirreling the minute device away in an inner jacket pocket where it won't be easily stolen off my person. Meanwhile I'm blocking the path of other, cleverer iPod wearers: The Dominican man listening to rockin salsa, the Orthodox lady kickin Talmud on Tape, the ratty hipster with oversized aviator glasses listening to a Ramones tape on her walkman cause iPods are so 2005.
What is on my iPod? Something you can picture me dancing in silhouette to in front of a primary colored background? Nothing so interesting. I read an article in which the author asked random people on the subway what they were listening to on their iPods, his theory being that you couldn't tell just by looking at someone what they might be listening to. Strangely enough, all the examples he noted supported his hypothesis! Amazing. The punk kid was listening to "Old Man and the Sea". The suit was listening to Biggie Smalls. The intellectual black woman was listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd (Freebird!). These aren't the actual examples, the actual ones were much more interesting than what I can think up. Which means the reporter was much more creative than me because I think it was all totally invented when his hypothesis crapped out. Either he made it up or he asked three hundred people and reported the four most interesting results. Do I sound bitter? A little! Probably because if you asked the boring white guy in the brown jacket what I was listening to I'd say, Oh! I'm listening to "(insert boring white guy in brown jacket music)". "It's real neat!" I'd say, just before getting my iPod stolen from me by a mean looking guy with more interesting taste in music than me.
I saw this guy Karl (he will be known as Karl) at work wearing his white iPod declaring earphones an interesting way the other day. They were upside down, the thin white cords wrapped suavely behind his ears. I asked him what the deal was and he told me that they sound better that way. Karl being cooler than me, I decided to copy him. I flipped my earphones upside down and walked several blocks to meet Magda after work, the music sounding no different to me at all (maybe sounded a bit upside down?). Magda wasted no time telling me that I looked like a fool and that was the end of that.
So you see, I might try on these little accessory fads, but at least when someone tells me I look like a jerk I cut it out. That being said, Karl is a pretty big guy, so I doubt anyone will ever tell him the truth.

I Can't Come Out

I'm leaning against the doorjamb with my hands shoved deep in my pockets. I can't meet your eye. You have an expectant look on you face and you're holding a red inflatable ball, the kind that makes that peculiar metallic echo sound when it bounces or is kicked really hard. And kicking that ball really hard is what I'd like to be doing right now, but I have homework. I'm trying to figure out how long it will take if a train leaves Baltimore at 720 kajillion miles per hours, and another train leaves bangkok traveling thirty bajillion miles an hour and they are headed right towards each other and where will they collide? Maui? Spokane? I don't know, I simply don't know, has it something to do with the circumference of the earth? Pie? Cookie?. X - Z, Carry the Asterisk, Minus T? I can't come outside until I answer that question. I noiselessly slip back into the darkened house and softly close the door in your face. It clicks shut.

A Scientific Curiousity

A peculiar event occured last weekend. As depicted in this blog, New York City was inundated by a cold dry white powder that fell from the sky. It is unknown at this time what this substance was or whether it will adversely effect the health of the people of the city. The media dubbed the powder "snow" and seemed to identify its effects as such; When traveled upon it became extremely slippery, leading to car crashes and falling pedestrians. It fell at such a rate and such a manner that it quickly added up upon itself, layer upon layer, until anything it was able to rest upon was soon deeply buried. In some respects it was similar to the substance known as "sand' but not as gritty nor was it restricted to areas near the beach. Another feature that distinguished the stuff from "sand" was that it was pure white, not tan, and contained no particles of shell-fish. Also it seems that "sand" does not fall from the sky though how it does get there is an unanswered scientific mystery.

Curiously, despite the streets being buried quite deeply, the city government was able to implement vehicles which had flat pieces of metal attached to the fronts of them to push the stuff to one side in order for traffic to commence shortly after it began to fall. As noted, this material fell from the sky, which has been know in the past to shed other materials on the ground below it, like water, icy round stones, gusts of air, frogs, bolts of electricity and now this fine white powder. Why the sky sheds these items remains a mystery to this author, and perhaps to many scientists as well.

Strangely enough, as quickly as the substance came it is now beginning to disappear. It is not, as you might expect, flying back up into the sky but is simply vanishing into thin air. There are puddles of water on the ground in its place, which I can only assume were there before the stuff began to fall, being trapped beneath it as were the cars and the items of flotsam it covered. There is some speculation that the material is actually somehow transforming itself into the water but this to me seems like superstitious alchemy. One might also put forth that the substance is transmorphing into cars, since they too are revealed as it disappears. Though a nice way to get a new car, I clearly remember many of them being there when the powder began to fall in the first place and it will not do to simply take them as manna from heaven.

At the rate the "snow" is disappearing it seems it will be too late to further investigate its nature, leaving only a memory of the mystery behind and revealing the other unsolved peculiarities of the earth in its place, such as the green pointy needles that are in great abundance in the parks, and must be cut regularly if they are to be stopped from taking over completely.

Onto other matters. Today is the 32nd anniversary of my birth. Though I don't remember the moment clearly, it was on this day 32 years ago that I first drew breath on my own and walked down to the coffee shop on the corner. I am, as mothers will be quick to calculate, 384 months. At this stage in my growth I am able to dress myself, feed myself (with the help of my lovely wife and my debit card) and reach the top shelf to grab sugary treats. I can talk and walk simultaneously. I feel lucky to have made it this far. The farther I progress though, certain career opportunities are put out of reach. I will never be a pro-athlete. I will probably never be President. I won't become a dentist. Or at least, a licensed dentist. In short, the paths open to me, which at the moment of my birth were plentiful, are mostly no longer open. Some options still are available, including: Alchoholic, unemploed gigolo, ditch-digger, Egotist, Prison Inmate and psychic crime solver. With these options open, I feel much less claustrophobic then I did a moment ago.

Thank you for your wishes, and your condolences.

Snowstorm Pictures

Some pictures from the Biggest Snowstorm in History, Ever:

This is the scene just outside our apartment. Note the barbed wire. The buried car in this picture is only just now starting to emerge.

A desk at Snowman School.

How we got to Snowman School.

The wind was sculpting amazing shapes on all the cars, making it look like they are moving really fast.

An interesting texture on the roots of this tree in Prospect Park.

Some old houses seen in Clinton Hill during the Cold Foot Expedition of 2006.

Sharpened spines of the snowdrifts.

Trespassing Snowlady.

Night falls in Park Slope.

Actual footage from the Cold Foot Expedition, depicting primarily M walking through the storm, a place one might find shelter in the storm and M crossing a drift:
http://vanbanyan.com/~ian/Blizzard/MVI_4051.AVI

Mini Ice Age Baffles New Yorkers

The blizzard is over. It was a really good one. Probably the best I've experienced outside the Cascade Mountains. Last year we had decent blizzard preceded by a decent freak-out, but this year's freak-out and subsequent blizzard RULES. Yesterday the snow was just grabbing a foothold when I finished updating the blog. It got a firm grasp shortly after and really started to pile it on. The media is saying it is the second biggest storm in the history of the city which is amazing because the city's history goes back to the Ice Age when there was 700 feet of snow covering Manhattan Island. Well, I guess it wasn't really a city then, just some rocks and a log lying across the East River, the world's longest suspension log at the time. Either way, we did not get 700 feet, but we did get about two which sounds a bit low now.

I love snow. The problem is, and I know this, I love it too much. I love the way it alters the landscape so that nothing is familiar. I love that it cleans almost every sense by just being in the air and on the ground. The air smells sharp and clean even if you are standing near garbage (in this city, you ARE standing near garbage) Last night there was just the faintest wisp of wood-burning fire in the air and nothing else. Sounds are deadened, you can hear only the wind and the tiny pops of snowflakes bouncing and melting on the shell of you ear. A sidewalk that might of hours earlier been strewn with newspapers and broken shopping carts turn into a study in shades of white, rolling drifts with wind sharpened spines... Okay, that is what I mean by loving too much. But what I say is true. Snow reduces a hectic environment into extremely simple levels of subtlety that you might finally be able to respond to with all your senses focused. That is until the bastards from upstairs run outside at 2 am and rip into the unblemished surface of the new-fallen snow, deconstruct the gentle white mounds that have replaced the cars, and shout drunkenly at each other while pummeling themselves with snowballs. You see I am a jealous lover of snow. The inevitable desecration tears at me, even as I watch the flakes build layer upon layer of fragile perfect skin. I know it is inevitable so I try to walk as long as I can in it, while it can fall in behind me and cover my tracks, and be alone in the silence and still.

*musical interlude*

Like most snow days, we are awakened by the Polish workmen shoveling the sidewalk, shovel-fulls of my beloved perfection heaved into the street. But today was different, after three jarring scrapes, the sounds stopped. There had to have been 15 inches on the ground, and more falling steadily. The shovel-men knew they were beat, and retreated indoors to deal with the drifts of snow on the staircase leading to the roof. Some idiot, like the 2 o'clock revelers, had left the roof door open welcoming feet of snow indoors to cover the top flights of the stairs. The snow had invaded the building! Good for it. We went for a walk, further demolishing the yet unspoiled surface (better us than Them) and marveled at the amount of snow that had disappeared the smaller cars on the street. Well, the snow and the snow-plows that occasionally came by. It was really beautiful, but the best thing was that there was really no signs of it letting up. The Weather had NYC against the ropes and it was going to keep hammering down blows until we gave up and drank lattes indoors. This city isn't the most industrious in the world for nothing though, and likes a good challenge. After our lattes, we got on the bus (The buses were running! Or, I should say A bus was running) and headed down to Prospect Park where we intended to snowshoe. I thought there might finally be enough snow to make it easier to snowshoe through the park than walk and we were prepared with the equipment (thanks to my step-brother Phil who mailed them out to us last November.) Unfortunately, the first bus we took was also our last. When we tried to transfer to the B69 it never showed, and neither did any other bus for the hour we waited. Finally we were forced to walk through Ft. Green where there was a minor insurrection amongst my crew. First Lieutenant Magda got cold feet and wanted to turn back. She literally had cold feet. Faced with possible desertion, we found the G train and went underground for the rest of the way. Luckily, because of the snow storm, it took us all the way to the park which it doesn't normally do. We were in. We suited up and activated our gear. Snow-shoes on, we headed off the well beaten trail, traversed by hundreds of under-equipped civilians, into the brush. We made it about twenty feet before my crew rebelled yet again. She claimed the snow-shoes were flipping snow down her pants (somehow) and we seemed to be sinking in quite far despite the shoes. Finally I caved. Deep in the woods and surrounded by curious pedestrians, we took the snow-shoes off and walked through the park like normal people.

The park was amazing, full of cheering families of all makes and models, a winter-wonderland. The one small rise that passes for hill around here was covered with hundreds of sledders, the snow beaten to a flat icy sheet. Because of its slickness, sledders upended many a fleeing onlooker too slow to get out of the way. It was good fun, like a Victorian Christmas carol, but without the creepy guy in chains nagging at you about your past, present and future.

Finally we ended up at our friends Tom and Jen's in near-by Park Slope where we were plied with spicy hot cocoa and ak-maks. At some point in the evening we all smelled the makings of an electrical fire, so we bid adieu before I would be forced to write something unpleasant in this blog like, "Were burned to death". Actually, we ascertained that the fire was under control before we left, and, leaving the buses to be abandoned by the side of the road, we took the subway home without incident. I will be providing pictures as soon as I figure out how...it isn't working.

Everyone FREAK OUT!!

Blizzard comin'. Nor'Easter. I like to imagine old men in New England squinting at the sky at drawlin': "Looks lahk a Nor'Easter Tom." "Yea Ed, looks lahk."

I don't know if that's accurate, but here in NYC people are freaking out. I remember when snow was forecast for Seattle, despite a miserable record of accuracy on the part of the weathermen, people would get really excited and run around like crazy. Here people seem to get really worried, like Armageddon is coming in the form of a soft white powder from the sky. We just left the "Super C" Supermarket on havermeyer street near us where the worried citizenry was stocking up for the coming storm. Tons of orange juice and frozen pierogis. When snow is forecast, or any storm above a certain size, the forecasters declare it a Nor'Easter. I think they just like saying that, also imagining the same New England drawl. The Definition of a Nor-Easter seems to be whenever something interesting happens weatherwise in the North East. So interesting we can't take the time to annunciate the 'th' in North. Nor'Easter! Sorry! No time to annunciate!

Indeed the snow has started falling so what better time to catch up on the blog?

So first of all the most important thing, and perhaps the biggest challenge to this blog so far: TV. We've spent the last six months without it since our landlords are in some sort of a staring contest with Time-Warner over their installation policy. It was actually sort of funny trying to sort it out for about three minutes, then it got dull. Ms. Lefkowitz, management's flunky, told me that they had contacted TW and they had refused to install (Huge corporations always refuse money after all). I called TimeWarner myself and they told me that they had sent a package to the landlords that they needed to fill out and return before they could do anything. From the point that the paperwork was returned to them it would be up to three months before anyone in the building could get cable. After learning this I informed Ms. Lefkowitz that she was in possession of papers that should be filled out and returned. She had no idea what I was talking about. I had this exact same series of conversations with both parties two times before I got bored. Not to be racist, though that's hard when making sweeping generalizations about one group of people, but I suspect the confusion stems from our landlord's (who are Hassidic) complete inability to communicate outside of their community. This and the fact that there are a bunch of surly New Yorkers on the other end of the line with their "Not my problem" attitudes. The guy I talked to could not have cared less cared if we ever watched another minute of TV or not. This is contrary to the stated policy of Time-Warner though. Somewhere it is written in the Time Warner manifesto that every American should use every minute of their free time watching television. Finally, frustrated by the stalemate, we called Dish Network and within a week had joined the other fifty satellite dishes lining the roof like round, flat-faced birds. Unfortunately the result of having a TV signal is that we now must watch it.

We had 6 months of commercial free bliss. After three days of catch-up television (Who's 'Lost'? Why are the Housewives Desperate? What terrible tragedy befell the writers of Will and Grace?) we are bleary eyed and paralyzed by indecision. Which of these thirty-three thrilling deodorants should we use? Which fat-cell blocker should we run, not walk, to purchase and ingest in great handfulls? Why are we paying good money for MegaCorps™ to grind our noses in their products? We still have no answers. Thanks to the magic of satellite TV we have access to seventeen thousand channels with all manner of garbage to assault our senses with. The problem is, how to find anything interesting? When we do, how to find it again? We are overwhelmed. But enthralled. This magic box is talking to us! It loves us! It wants to be our friend! Horray! Everyone needs friends.

Meanwhile, my computer is sneering at us from across the room. Electronic jealousy is thick in the air. WE had an interaction. I don't batter you about the head and shoulders with ads for hemorrhoid creams. Through ME you can talk to the world and bore others with your thoughts instead of them boring you. You are right Computer, you're right, but, it's so colorful, hehe look! A puppy selling meat! O! How far have I fallen?

Far. But I'm back at the keyboard, the snow is still falling outside making up for weeks of balmy, spring-like weather that has made NY seem downright enjoyable in winter. But snow is fun too. Hopefully it will shut the city down like it did last year. Unfortunately it is on Saturday night, also like last year, some kind of a plot by the Republican Bloomberg administration to avoid business interruption in the city.

Our other pre-city-crippling-storm excursion was to the Williamsburg Public Library. It's a Carnegie. The Robber Baron/Philanthropist built a slew of public libraries across the country in his day, the only thing he asked, a small thing, was to have handsome plaques bearing his likeness placed high on the walls so he could over-see and be over-seen by library-goers forever more. I know it isn't fashionable to not be cynical but let me sing a little praise for this little house of books, then I will get back to being a jerk. First, there were people there. They were reading. There was a child checking out a book about Nelson Mandela. The people at the counters were friendly and helpful. Folks, people were learning! They probably have Hassidic landlords who wouldn't let them have cable.

Two nights ago we went to see the Aimee Mann concert at Town Hall, a fine music venue up near Times Square. The concert was great, we are big fans of her stuff ever since PT Anderson created the excellently weird "Magnolia" around the songs he asked her to write for him. On the way home we saw something in the subways that was thrilling. Long ago, just before our move to NY, my Mom asked me to keep an eye out for "The Money Train" a mythical subway train that rolls around the transit system collecting proceeds late at night. Like Santa. But a train. That collects money instead of giving toys, so, not like Santa at all. This train actually exists, but like the Z train, no one I know has actually seen it. That night, we didn't see it either. We saw something better: The Trash Train. It blew through the Bryant Park station like the wind. The stinky wind. It was made up of an armored engine car, and it pulled behind it two box-cars full of the day's underground garbage. Then, with two blows of it's horn, it was gone, following the tracks of legend back into the black tunnel of myth where it will no doubt go pick up Zeus' cigarette butts.

I'm going to go stare out the window at the storm and see if I can watch anyone actually freaking out. It occurs to me that I might be the only one.

Your Seattle Seahawks and Extreme Asterisk Usage

I've had a testy response to my late-breaking news story from the last entry. One of my four readers (who will not be named to protect him from reader backlash) took offense at my use of the word YOUR when referring to the Seattle Seahawks and half-suggested I should go root for the Yankees like the other NY Wannabees. I say let's try to calm the rhetoric a bit. Everyone has had a hard week dealing with the blow of the Seahawks having their hats flicked off their heads, picked up, dusted off and handed back to them. Now I consider the Seahawks to be my team, just as are the Mariners, the Sounders, the Sonics, The Storm, The Huskies, The Garfield Bulldogs, The Cornish Game Hens (Pronounced "Gay Mens) etc. I will always root for them and I will always be crushed inside when they fall just short of their National Title aspirations. I've always been crushed on these occasions and there have been many. It is a Seattle tradition of which I am proud to reach for heights long sought, miss them and then break teeth on the curb in the fall. It is only through this repeated misery that we are able to laugh off 27 straight days of rain*, scoff at the abrupt loss of our beloved monorail plan and react with feigned indifference when home-grown Boeing HQ ships out to Chicago. Seattle embodies the self-determined West. It isn't sport that has made this city famous, it's been the ingenuity of Microsoft, the tenacity of Starbucks, and the monstrosity of Costco that has brought more millionaires per capita than anywhere else** to this northwestern-most city! So those of you Seattleites who haven't inexplicably moved to the East Village and even if you have: Chins Up! Chests Out! Your lattes are extra steamy and frothy today because...THE REFS ROBBED YOU OF SUPER-BOWL GLORY!!!

And it is in this manner that I used the royal "You" when referring to Your Seattle Seahawks.*** Meaning: Our Seattle Seahawks.

Now for the record, Seattle may have trouble meeting arbitrary goals set up by other cities, but it excels in setting the pace for the country. If we can't be on top in one category, we happily invent another. The following is a link to a list of Seattle firsts, I'm particularly proud of the parts about inventing hydroplanes and the dog toothbrush: http://www.see-seattle.com/seattlefirsts.htm

*27 straight days of rain in Seattle was not a record, it fell just short of the record reinforcing every Seattleites hope that one day we might break the record for falling just short of breaking the record.

**http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2000/mar/000327.cfoa.html

*** There isn't actually such thing as "The Royal You" but there should be.

**** Asterisks are fun and never overused.

***** The Nutella trap is still empty

Gay Movie Day

I just returned from the mail bag where I found a suggestion that perhaps I am gay. This based on my fascination with the YMCA on 14th street. Let me tell you, gay or not, that place is like a car wreck that you can't tear your eyes away from. Does it make me want to break out in the Gay Anthem of the same name? Perhaps. Does the singing of the Gay Anthem at every baseball game in every baseball park across this homophobic country of ours cheer my very soul? Indeed. The idea that "YMCA" has subversively become a standard played by all the organ grinders of this most American pastime makes me extremely happy. Especially watching plaid shirtted rednecks and their brood dancing in very gay unison to the words: "They have everything for you men to enjoy, You can hang out with all the boys ..." Extending school-yard logic to these unsuspecting folks, if you've ever sung this song, you are gay. The same logic applies to me and Magda. Last night we went to see two movies with gay themes, Brokeback Mountain and Imagine Me & You. So we are gay.

Now that I'm out of the closet I want to compare these movies because they have some similarities and differences that tell much about our culture today. First a synopsis of both:

Brokeback Mountain is the story of two bull grizzlies who in spite of there supposed nature are drawn to each other physically and emotionally with urgency they usually reserve for devouring prey. But in the animal world, procreation is survival and nature abhors an anomaly like animals who act counter to creation's will. The two bulls who have found an eden on Brokeback Mountain are cast out by their foreman who has witnessed (via an act of troubling voyeurism) their counter-natural wrestling matches. Returned to the real world they try to lead the lives that cowboys led in the 1960's which might include some heavy drinking, spousal abuse and lurid bleary eyed glances at other cowboys. It turns out that the personae they adopt is just as counter-natural as their lives on Brokeback and both are ill-suited to deny their true nature. I haven't given away much, and may have slightly misled, but that was a slightly impressionistic review.

The other film we checked, which we might have snuck into, was the extended sit-com episode "Imagine Me and You". It opens with two beautiful people getting married, even though just before the nuptuals the bride spots her actual life partner creeping down an aisle, the Thunderbolt!. Their eyes meet and it's basically downhill from there for her poor husband. Following with our gay theme, the thunderbolt flashes between the bride and the woman hired to do the flowers. Does the blushing bride leave her husband and best friend for the hot and wacky flower pusher? Does she gleefully embrace a life of lesbianism, abandoning her life up to that point as a happy hetro? Does the wacky supporting cast rally around the troubled threesome to help them decide that life is not worth living if true love isn't pursued? Was this movie filmed at the exact time as the angst ridden and emotionally punishing Brokeback Mountain? Yes Yes Yes and Yes.

Brokeback Mountain is about the beginning of homosexual awakenings in modern Western culture (Both Western and Wild Western), Imagine Me & You might be looking towards a time when we are completely awake. When people can lust after comely same-sex persons with the only moral issue being left to decide is whether they should wreck the relationship of the newly married couple. So why then can two movies be made simultaneously, one being hailed as groundbreaking and one not being hailed at all? A non-event. I have theories but no answer yet. So after some pondering I will return to this subject.

Meanwhile, Your Seattle Seahawks just had their pants handed to them following a long tradition of Seattle teams imploding on themselves just before the finish line. It's good that all is still right in the world.