New Jersey Funny Papers

Posted on October 28, 2013 by Exile on Pain Street

7-Year Old Comics

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I might as well go full-on daddy blog with this post. Stop your bitchin’. It doesn’t happen that often. I’ve got an art installation post all queued up.

Here are the girlies in their Halloween get-ups. On your left, Athena, Goddess of war (hence, the plastic sword) and wisdom. She’s going through a Greek mythology phase. On the right, Cleopatra, Queen of the Nile (sans Richard Burton).

Do you know what I love? I love that they both chose costumes that represent strong, powerful women instead of just some idiot Disney doormat princess or, even worse, a tween pop idol. You go, girls.

Bonus pic. 11-year old made these spook-tacular Halloween cupcakes. She saw a bag of zombie finger puppets in the grocery store toy section and it sparked an idea.

Hey you kids! Get offa my lawn or I’ll call the polis.

Posted on October 24, 2013 by Exile on Pain Street

I haven’t checked this space in weeks. I was unaware that comments were left regarding my absence. My Bride brought them to my attention. All apologies for my negligence. I’ve also done very little reading and commenting on other blogs. The thing that drove me to contribute and participate in this community these past 5+ years has dried up and blown away. *PFFT* Just like that. The tank is empty. The bus is not in service. The bakery ran out of yeast. Pick a metaphor or make up your own.

In September I went away with My Bride to Napa Valley for a well-deserved, badly-needed holiday. Shortly thereafter I wrote a post about it. I read it. Then I read it again. I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was so bad, so mind-numbingly dull, that it knocked the wind out of me. I didn’t realize I was capable of such banalities. It was no better than a poorly-written Facebook post. When Betty White hosted Saturday Night Live, her opening monologue included a dig at Facebook; that when she was young, being forced to look at people’s vacation pictures was considered a form of punishment. And that’s what reading this post was. Punishment. Then I scrolled back, back, way back and they ALL seemed wholly inadequate to me. I couldn’t bear to look at them anymore so I didn’t. I had an epiphany. The bad kind. A few weeks later I tried writing another post but when my fingers touched the keyboard they turned to stone. If I want to write bad Facebook posts, I’ll open a bad Facebook page. lol. OMG.

In the interim, I filled my new-found free time with reading and I was able to cut through three extraordinary books in a row, which did my ego no good whatsoever. Have you ever read a book that was so well-written that when you turned a page, you wanted to tear it out and eat it? I read THREE of those, one after another.

I know my colleague Graham was unimpressed, but I think Hilary Mantel’s writing is plump and juicy. It took me forever to finish Bring Up the Bodies because some of her paragraphs were so perfectly constructed that I had to back-track and reread them over and over. I’ll never be able to write like that and if I can’t write like that, I don’t want to write anything at all.

Then I read Lionel Asbo by Martin Amis. So funny. I’ll never be that funny on paper. Neither will you. (Unless, of course, you happen to be Martin Amis and you’re reading this post.) I attended his reading in Brooklyn when the book was released and it was his voice that I heard reciting that sharp dialogue and those twisty sentences.

Then a real surprise. I read The Richard Burton Diaries. Yeah…the actor Richard Burton. It was an impulse purchase. I remember it getting a good review last year. Burton was an astonishing writer. Who knew! What an interesting life that guy lead. Gallivanting around Europe. Making films, some award-winning, some terrible. Hobnobbing with interesting people. Bored by the politicians, fans, journalists and glitterati he was forced to meet. I devoured it (a 600+ page brick!) while in my commute, office, commute, office, commute, office, commute, office rat trap. Obviously, we can’t all be married to Elizabeth Taylor (twice!) but is this really all I’m cut out for?

I lost my mojo, brothers and sisters. I thought I had a nice little groove going here but my groove ain’t a groove at all. It’s a rut. And, please, I’m not fishing for compliments or begging for approval, despite all appearances to the contrary. I’m too old and numb for that. But I was moved by the comments left and I felt I owed an explanation. Did anyone Google that Bukowski poem that Christy quoted? “…pulled down into the gluey dark.” C’mon, man. That’s pretty good. I got choked-up when I read it. It was brought to my attention at vulnerable moment. I’ll try to not let that happen again.

Saturday, September 14th, 8:15 a.m., The Leonardini Vineyards, Napa Valley. Breakfast, coffee and the newspaper. NOT a rut.

The lunatic is in my head. Yours too? Here’s a neat trick.

Posted on September 23, 2013 by Exile on Pain Street

Mental health is mostly a matter of personal choice. That’s the theory put forth by psychiatrist and ex-Clevelander, Dr. William Glasser, who just passed away at age 88. Dr. Glasser wrote a series of successful books about how mental health problems can be resolved by accepting personal responsibility for our own actions. He believed that people are more in control than they realize, which is a scary proposition for many. It’s a heavy responsibility.

“We choose everything we do, including the misery we feel. Other people can neither make us miserable nor make us happy,” he wrote. This will sound familiar to anyone who has dabbled in Buddhism or meditation.

These theories were rejected by psychotherapists who were proponents of prolong, deep-dredging psychoanalysis. Dr. Glasser shifted the power to heal from the doctor to the patient. You can see why this didn’t sit well with many. It’s hard to buy a sailboat when your clients are leaving in droves to cure themselves. Dr. Glasser was adamantly opposed to drug therapy, which upset the pharmaceutical industry. He also believed that efforts to change other people in our lives are doomed and could actually be the cause of further emotional duress.

He encouraged teachers to abstain from class rankings and grading, seeing them as corrosive. “Once children start failing, they begin to believe that they can’t do anything. They give up.” That was me. I was an academic failure. I didn’t do well early on and it fed on itself, like a cancer. If there had been standardized, mandatory testing in order to graduate, as is the case today, I wouldn’t have been awarded a high school diploma.

There are, in my view, valid criticisms. Children shouldn’t be burdened with that much responsibility. Also, there are serious mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia, and cases of ongoing physical and psychological abuse that require outside intervention. But in many instances (certainly, mine), satisfaction can be achieved and sustained by avoiding the urge to blame others and relive past hurts. It’s hard work, but it can be done.

I’m not exactly a bastion of psychological strength, but I shudder to think of the mess I’d be if it weren’t for my continued efforts to stay grounded. To that end, I have a little trick I’ve been employing for years. Whenever I start to spiral into my dark, terrible thoughts, be it on my long commute or staring at the ceiling at 3:15 a.m. or even walking up Madison Avenue, I’ll stop myself and my inner voice will say, “Or, I can choose not to,” and I tend to snap out of it. Not every time, but often enough. It‘s beautiful.

I just reread that last paragraph and it sounds silly, but it’s a powerful tool. And the more you use it, the more effective it becomes. I’m terrible at meditation, but at least I took that much from it.

“People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be.”

Abraham Lincoln

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Here are a few selections from this weekend’s trip to the local botanical garden. I can’t name any of these flowers. Not a one. It’s not my thing. But I can tell a first edition of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter at five paces. That’s got to count for something.

I think these next ones are daisies. Right?

Your friends in the investment banking community

Posted on September 17, 2013 by Exile on Pain Street

It’s the five-year anniversary of the financial crisis. My comfortable, dull, ordinary life was upended to a point whereby I still haven’t fully recovered. While gainfully employed these past five years (thank god), I’ve only managed to find consulting work. A staff hire with full benefits remains elusive.

In an interview reflecting on the TARP program that bailed-out failing financial institutions, then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson commented:

“There was a total lack of awareness from the firms that paid big bonuses during this extraordinary time. To say I was disappointed is an understatement. There was a colossal lack of self-awareness as to how they were viewed by the American public.”

Allow me to enlighten Secretary Paulson. I’ve spent my entire career working in asset management (except for one whorey detour in advertising). I know what lurks in the hearts and minds of investment bankers and, believe me, it’s nothing good. There was no “colossal lack of self-awareness.” They knew exactly what they were doing. Those guys couldn’t give a flying fuck what the American public thinks of them. They possess a single-minded obsession with money. Wives, children, reputations, everything, takes a back seat to their manic pursuit of wealth. They’d sell their own mother’s burial plot (with her in it) to a strip mall developer if they could get a good price on the land.

The asset manager I currently work for allows company officers to choose original artwork to decorate their office walls. There’s a sizable budget for it. The Head of Fixed Income chose to decorate his office with beautifully framed currency from around the world. HE FRAMED MONEY. Money is their art. Their art is money. From what I’ve observed over the years, it seems that people who are drawn into this line of work are afflicted with a dreary psychosis. Happiness can only be achieved through wealth accumulation. Money is love. I’m actually kind of stunned that my career inadvertently became intertwined with these vampires. Henry Paulson is an idiot.

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Speaking of art. (You knew I’d get around to it sooner or later.) There was an exhibit at the Whitney that, by description, didn’t sound very interesting to me. I had no enthusiasm for seeing it but I was in the neighborhood so I popped in.

Robert Irwin’s Scrim Veil—Black Rectangle—Natural Light was a reinstallation from 1977. It’s a simple idea. In an empty gallery (the one on the fourth floor with the odd-shaped window), they hang a translucent scrim along the length of the room. Doesn’t sound like much, does it?

I’m not sure the photos do justice, but it was actually pretty great.

The only light in the room pours in from the window and plays off the scrim.

The scrim is mounted on the ceiling and stretches the length of the gallery and falls halfway down. There’s an aluminum beam across the bottom holding it taunt that you can easily bang your head on if you’re not careful. I almost did.

There’s a black line painted around the perimeter of the gallery that’s the exact same hight and width of the aluminum beam. In this photo, the border extends from the camera, down the wall and then turns a corner. From this viewpoint, your eye is tricked into thinking it’s a giant triangle.

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Professor Xavier and Magneto (or, if you prefer, Captan Picard and Gandalf) stroll Times Square hawking tickets to their upcoming Broadway production of Waiting for Godot.

My 9/11

Posted on September 11, 2013 by Exile on Pain Street

Not all anniversaries today are the weepy kind. “I do” happened for us 14 years ago. Not such a bad ride, right baby? You make me a better man. Okay. As Bukowski advised, scramble two.

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Adieu, summer, adieu. I started the season off with a short video clip of my daughter expertly wrangling a fistful of fireflies. I’ll use the same motif and bookend the season with her on a New Jersey beach.

7-year old daughter: “Dad, do you have a blog?” !?!?! And, a bit later: “Dad, why don’t you go to church?” Jesus! She’s only seven! How the hell does she know about blogs?! What’s she going to ask when she’s 14?!

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