the unbearable banishment: no friend to the handicapped

I have never—and would never—park in a handicapped spot. I thank jeebus I don’t need one and curse anyone who would do something like that.

But while at A Company Called Malice, Inc., I always use the handicapped stall in the men‘s room. It’s more spacious and usually cleaner.

While in disposed yesterday, I tapped out a few text messages. I like to multi-task. Took my time doing it, too.

I finished up, opened the door and the new compliance officer—the one in the wheel chair—was giving me the evil fish eye. I didn’t hear him wheel in and have no idea how long he’d been waiting. I heard other people walk in and out so he had to sit through that.

* * *

Poor Ed McMahon. Even in death, he’s a second banana.

post for A Free Man / yankee blues

This post is for A Free Man who is in Australia. It’ll probably only be of interest to him, those who cannot stand the New York Yankees and those readers who never tire of my biting sarcasm.

I don’t know if the news made it down under, but I wanted to make sure you knew that Tommy Hanson, rookie pitcher for your Braves, pitched a shutout against the Yankees the other night. The mighty Yankees, with a payroll bigger than the GDP of some small nations, tucked their tails between their vaginas and lost to a young kid from Atlanta.

Alex Rodriguez ($275 million) is hitting an anemic .143 in June. He usually waits until October to put up numbers like that. Pitcher C.C. Sabathia ($161 million) only threw 35 pitches in he last outing because his bicep was sore. I thought he might have hurt it trying to fasten his seat belt around his ever-expanding gut, but my friend thinks he might have twisted it while trying to lift his wallet. Pitching ace phenom Chien-Ming Wang (one year @ $5 million) is 0-6. The list is endless. Isn’t that just too funny?!

My Indians are horrific this year but if the Yankees maintain this blistering pace, the season won’t be complete wipeout.

more cell phone jammer mischief

The guy sitting behind me on my train called his bookie and was placing bets on tonight’s baseball games. Loud and clear for all to hear! I’m not making this up! $200 on the Red Sox. $150 on the White Sox.

And that’s as far as he got. I gave him the juice.

I’ve seen people get angry over the inability to make a call but this guy exhibited a deep, primal rage you don’t see in public very often. He was desperate to get these bets in—it was 6:55 and the games start at 7:05—but try as he might he couldn’t get through to his bookie. I pictured one of Tony Soprano’s Jersey goombahs on the other end.

He was furious. It was the first time I worried about retribution. Guys with that kind of deep commitment to gambling seem to have a very low threshold for anger. Have you noticed?

* * *

I have become a Zen master gunslinger with my cell phone jammer. I was toying with my prey du jour—yet another yappy sorority chippy—and I needed to send a quick text message. I held my jammer in my left hand underneath a paperback of Truman Capote short stories. My index finger rested gently on the power switch. Economy of movement is key. In my right hand, I tapped out a text message. Then, with one fluid motion, I clicked off the jammer with my left hand and opened a brief window in the cell phone frequencies, hit the send button on the phone in my right hand and quickly activated my jammer again after my message went through. The entire sequence took a matter of seconds.

It’s a shame it’s not an Olympic event.

* * *

Are you watching True Blood? It’s fantastic! It’s got everything! Graphic sex, well-crafted scripts and story lines, hot sex, superb acting (with some fine American accents being faked), lust! lust! lust!, vampires and gore galore and some pretty raw sex scenes. Plus, best of all, the villains are a bunch of right wing religious nuts. They’re the REAL blood suckers!

a bold and daring brag

I was in downtown Brooklyn recently and came across this daring claim that was posted on some scaffolding:

sneaker1

Yo, Brooklyn. Downtown Brooklyn—Fulton Street, to be exact—is the epicenter for sneaker culture, so if you’re going to hang a sign that says you’re the best sneaker store in Brooklyn (which is to say, the best in the world), you’d better have the juice to back it up.

I, of course, would look ridiculous in a pair of big red hightops. I think David Beckham named one of his kids Brooklyn. Is that correct?

That’s New York. A brag around every corner. Don’t even ASK where to get the best slice of pizza in town. You’ll start a pile up.

don’t ever let ’em see you weep

I was reading an abridged version of The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett to 7-Year Old Daughter the other night and at the end of the story I started to cry. It hit me like a freight train out of a dark night. It’s a beautiful story with a beautiful ending and for some reason the whole rejected/accepted theme got under my skin. I was embarrassed.

I wasn’t exactly blubbering, but tears were streaming down my face and I had to stop several times to compose myself before moving on to the next paragraph. 7-Year Old Daughter had never seen me cry before and I don’t think it freaked her out, but she did have an odd look on her face.

When I finished reading, I kissed her forehead and turned out her nightstand light. She wouldn’t let me put the book back on her bookshelf. She insisted on holding it. She was hugging it close to her body. Mrs. Wife kissed her good night and she still wouldn’t let go of the book.

Now that I think about it, maybe it DID freak her out a bit. From now on, I’m only going to read stories about combat and carnage. After all, I have a reputation to protect.

* * *

We had a brief repose from the unrelenting rain we’ve been getting over the past few weeks so we drove to Asbury Park to walk on the beach for a bit. I watched from a distance as 7-Year Old Daughter danced along the shoreline. She was all by herself, singing out loud and kicking the water. She such a joyful kid. Despite what I wrote above, the truth is that I’m just a cranky old fuck. I hope I don’t do anything to screw her up.

sam+beach