This publicity still from the new Micky Rourke film The Wrestler has made the rounds since winning the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.

What you can kind of see in this pic (depending on your monitor resolution), but is as clear as day in this morning’s print version of the New York Times, is a sign held by someone in the audience. In the print version, on the front page of the Arts section, they forgot to darken that sign in Photoshop. It reads:

I’m picturing all those staid old crows on the Upper East Side doing a spit-take with their morning French press. It’s a cheap laugh but since we’re in for another financial bloodbath today, I’ll take it.

Actual front page headline from this morning’s New York Times:

In ‘Sweetie’ and ‘Dear,’ a Hurt Beyond Insult for the Elderly

Yet another piece of piercing investigative journalism from The Grey Lady.

Last week I sent a text message to R, esq., asking him if the horrendous market gyrations have had any effect on his accounts. He texted back:

Here’s what I get for trying to invest: Fucked. Rubes and the market don’t mix.

The irony is that we were led into this meltdown by a group of people who were supposed to be the finest minds in the business. You could paper Madison Square Garden with all the advanced degrees from Wharton, Duke, Yale, etc. It turns out those guys didn’t know SHIT about investing. Or they knew but ignored what they were taught at those august institutions. I can’t decide which is worse.

I was blasting the radio while driving The Daughters around this past weekend and they started a chant from the back seat. It began quietly and then it rose to a shriek. “No jazz! No jazz! NO JAZZ!”

They’re just a couple of punks who don’t know anything about music. Yet.

I finally saw Knocked Up over the weekend. I liked it. The best line:

Life doesn’t care about your vision.

Boy howdy! Judd Apatow got that right, didn’t he?

I have a theory that everyone has something on their iPod that they are secretly and deeply ashamed of. Something that they PRAY doesn’t come up in a shuffle in mixed company. Well, I’m willing to show you mine if you show me yours. I am putting my reputation as a cutting edge sophisticate on the line, but I’m willing to do it for the sake of a decent post.

On my iPod, you’ll find the theme to almost every James Bond film. I suppose I could have wiggled out of this by claiming a 60s hipster panache for Nancy Sinatra’s You Only Live Twice or Tom Jones’ Thunderball, but how can I possibly defend Matt Monro’s From Russia With Love or Gladys Knight’s License to Kill? I can’t! It’s terrible! Please don’t judge me. It’s bigger than I am and I can’t seem to help myself.

Here are a few things I’ve learned while staying home to take care of The Daughters so Mrs. Wife could go away for a long weekend with The Mommy Mafia:

● My house gets an astonishing amount of midday light.

● At home, you are never more than an arm’s length away from food. If I weren’t in the city all week, I’d weigh 300 pounds.

● The music in High School Musical 2 is simply awful. But I’m not their target audience, so perhaps that’s unfair.

● 6-Year Old Daughter is in school until 3:00 o’clock, so when 2-Year Old is napping, that’s a block of free time. It could lead to all sorts of internet shenanigans. (I’m not saying it did; I’m just saying it could.) Also, I’ve discovered that I am a much shittier guitar player than I remember being. My fingers felt like stone, although I could still rattle off a passable version of Bob Marley’s Redemption Song.

● I thought I was too urban and sophisticated to be moved by something as bucolic as walking my daughter to school in the morning. Wrong again. Apparently, there’s something beating inside that block of concrete in my chest.

● A lot of suburban moms have let themselves go to seed.

● Dazed and Confused is a much better movie than I remember it being.

Mrs. Wife is leaving tomorrow morning for a 3-day weekend. The Mommy Mafia are taking over a beach house on the Jersey shore. They’re having a bachelorette party. I asked her who was getting married and she said, “No one.” I’m taking a vacation day so I can watch The Daughters. Yup. For three solid days it’s just me, 6-Year Old Daughter and 2-Year Old Daughter. It should be interesting. It’ll be like calling a plumber to fix your toothache. Is it wrong to medicate a 2-Year Old for 72 hours? If you have any survival tips, please post.

* * *

I had another one of *those* moments again. This morning, I exited Penn Station on the 34th Street side. I looked down the street and the sun was just about to break over the horizon. The sky spanned from bright orange up to deep cobalt. On the right, against this backdrop, was the unmistakable dark silhouette of the Empire State Building. On the left, the light was just starting to spill onto the façade of Macy’s. My iPod shuffle had selected Time by Pink Floyd and just as my foot came off the curb and touched 7th Avenue, David Gilmour sang: