I was waiting for the crosstown bus on 23rd Street at Lexington Avenue. A young man, about 18, baggy pants, ballcap askew, comes out of Beach Bum Tanning on the opposite side of the street, crosses 23rd Street against the light, gets mad and curses a car that almost hit him, walks into a pizza parlor, buys a slice, crosses the street against the light again, and before going back into Beach Bum Tanning, dumps a huge handful of napkins onto the sidewalk. A gust of wind blows them all over 23rd Street. I wanted to walk into Beach Bum Tanning and mash him in his stupid face in.

In Congressional testimony this week, Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase said that a financial crisis is something that “happens every five to seven years. We shouldn’t be surprised.” In other words, he had nothing to do with it. Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs said the financial crisis is like a hurricane that nobody could have predicted. See? It’s an act of nature and has nothing whatsoever to do with how these stupid greedy fucks conduct their business. Earlier, Blankfein said that at Goldman Sachs was doing “God’s work.” I wanted to reach into my monitor and bang their two heads together.

My phone had a glitch and the Verizon customer service techs over the phone couldn’t figure out how to fix it so I had to make a special trip into the store to get it fixed. It was such an obscure problem that it took three techs two hours to solve it.

Someone cut me off. He was driving a Toyota Sequoia; a massive, unnecessary pig of a car.

If you’ve ever done any heavy lifting in therapy, you learn that the things making you angry aren’t really the things you’re mad at. It’s not litter or investment bankers or bad drivers or phone glitches. It’s always something else. I wonder what’s eating at me?

Although, I have pretty good idea.

Saturday night. Mrs. Wife is out with the girls. Kids are in bed. Let’s see. On Ovation TV I’ve got:

Byron: British poet Lord Byron spends the last 13 years of his life longing for the affections of his half-sister and searching for a meaningful existence.

or

The Indianapolis Colts vs. the Baltimore Ravens.

Sorry, your Lordship. Let me know how that half-sister thing works out.

According to a Reuters report this morning, the CEOs of the major U.S. investment firms will testify in Washington today about the global financial crisis. The story states that the CEOs and their companies are “swimming in bonuses but sinking fast in public esteem…” and that “…public fury is growing over the crisis.”

I’ve worked for these guys and their ilk for the better part of my career—not as an “earner” but as someone who works in the trenches—and I can assure you that they couldn’t care less what public sentiment is. New York City is awash with people like this. They only speak one language and that’s the language of currency. They have what’s referred to in the industry as “F.U.” money. That means they have amassed such a copious amount of cash that they can’t be touched by the law or anyone else. It’s what they aspire to. Public fury? It’s irrelevant.

Sobering, but true.

Money, it’s a gas
Grab that cash with both hands
And make a stash

Money, it’s a crime
Share it fairly
But don’t take a slice of my pie

Pink Floyd

Money don’t get everything it’s true.
What it don’t get I can’t use.
Now gimme money (that’s what I want)

Berry Gordy and Janie Bradford

But remember one thing don’t lose your head
To a woman that’ll spend your bread

Rod Stewart

Mrs. Wife has many admirable traits but one of my favorites is her ability to make a dollar scream. Many a man has been put under the bridge trying to placate the insatiable material appetites of his wife. That will never happen to me.

Mrs. Wife’s Sensei is her mother. That woman can sense a bargain at a garage sale from two blocks away. And when there’s a good sale at the market, she’ll pounce, even if it requires buying in bulk.

Mother-in-Law and Father-in-Law live alone. Just them. Two people. Two retirees who live comfortably, don’t need much and certainly don’t eat much. But if she can get a good price on 18 cans of tuna…

…or eight bricks of sharp cheddar cheese…

…or five boxes of Special K…

…or, most inexplicably of all, 12 cans of tomato puree

…she’ll strike and worry later about how two elderly people can possibly eat all that.

Emily Blunt was recently out promoting her new film The Young Victoria and she went on one of those “I am a most serious ac-tor” rambles that you occasionally hear from entertainers for whom success came way too early and way too easy.

It’s just never been important to me to make a big splash and I don’t care for it.

You studied acting but the size of your audience is irrelevant? Okay, whatever. You’re an idiot. I can’t stand it when entertainers turn their success into a burden.

Singer Nora Jones (All of her songs sound exactly alike. Boring.) said of the meteoric success of her first album:

On the first record I was everywhere, and it was, like, the worst time in my life.

Nora is also an idiot. Then that little punk Michale Cera (Plays the same character in every film. Boring.) said:

I don’t really want to be famous, and I’m kind of scared that might be happening.

Then why did you get into acting?! Another idiot. I think Emily and Michael and Nora should all be loaded aboard a rocket ship pointed towards obscurity and failure. I volunteer to press the ignition button.

Last month I posted this quote from Brad Pitt:

It’s so tough being an actor. Sometimes they bring you coffee and sometimes it’s cold. And sometimes you don’t have a chair to sit on.

See the difference?

My most recent fortune from a fortune cookie:

That’s what I’m afraid of.

Sunday is the 20th anniversary and 450th episode of The Simpsons. I have never watched an episode of The Simpsons. It’s not something I avoided and I’m not trying to sound like I’m above that sort program. I just never got around to watching it.

I have also never seen Gone With the Wind, The Sound of Music or an episode of The Wire. But I did see Laurence of Arabia at the Zigfield in Manhattan, which has a monster screen. That was pretty cool.

I accidentally alighted onto the Lite Rock radio station here in New Jersey and was serenaded with this horrendous melody by ’70’s cowboy dullard Mac Davis:

Girl, you’re a hot-blooded woman-child
And it’s warm where you’re touchin’ me
But I can tell by your tremblin’ smile
You’re seein’ way too much in me
Girl, don’t let your life get tangled up with mine
’cause I’ll just leave you, I can’t take no clingin’ vine

Baby, baby, don’t get hooked on me
’cause I’ll just use you then I’ll set you free
Baby, baby, don’t get hooked on me

Baby Don’t Get Hooked On Me
Mac Davis

That, my friends, was a #1 hit. Davis also starred with Ted Nugent in the film Beer for my Horses.

Sickened by that, I punched the button for the Classic Rock station and got an ear full of this shit:

If I leave here tomorrow
Would you still remember me?
For I must be travelling on, now,
‘Cause there’s too many places I’ve got to see

‘Cause I’m as free as a bird now,
And this bird you can not change.

Freebird
Lynyrd Skynyrd

That was also a huge hit and became an anthem.

How can you women stand being in the same room with men? In a not-so-subtle way, these songs, and hundreds of other hits just like them, are saying, “Hey, baby, first I’m gonna fuck ya and then I’m gonna dust ya off my shoulder like a speck of dandruff. So geeet ready!”

Men don’t understand that, for the most part, if you sleep with a girl, she’ll assume that you have some feelings for her and that you’re open to the idea of being with her for a long, long time.

Women don’t understand that men can sleep with someone and afterwards feel absolutely nothing more than the need for a nice, long nap.

This is the Great Misunderstanding between the sexes.

I’ve mentioned this before but I’ll repeat it for the benefit of those who haven’t heard it. I am trying to steer The Daughters into a gay lifestyle. Men are pigs and I want to spare them this anguish. I don’t want some punk greasehead pulling into my driveway in a beat-up Trans Am that leaks oil, laying on the horn because he doesn’t want to come in and meet me and expect Daughter to run out to him.

I am sorry to report that even though one daughter is only 8 and the other 3.5, I am failing miserably, as they both already have boyfriends (Ian and Luke, respectively).

On the other hand, in Saul Bellow’s novel Herzog, the protagonist, Moses Herzog, says he “…will never understand what women want. What do they want? They eat green salad and drink human blood.”

And I think there might be some truth there. So there’s that to consider.