Clublife

Monday

2009-05-18T09:09:00.000-04:00

I'm back. Last week wasn't an "I'm done" week. It was just one of those periods where I had very little free time, and what little time I did have was not spent sitting in front of a computer.

Some very good things happened this past week. Also, some bad things happened.

I am status quo.

Quick Getaway

2009-05-08T04:00:00.000-04:00

More professional athletes are currently using illegal Performance Enhancing Drugs than you could ever imagine.

If you don't think this is the case, then you're naive.

Genetics only take you so far.

People who use steroids and growth look a certain way. People who don't use them don't look that way. Those of us who've been around it can discern this look from a mile away.

I know what I'm talking about.

Alex Rodriguez is full of shit.

This reminds me of the 70's and 80's, when people weren't sure whether professional wrestling was fake or not.

Wake up and take off the pink socks. All sports are dirty. Saying your prayers and taking your vitamins won't get you $252 million.

I still love sports.

I am no longer feeling pathetic.

Thank you.

More Running

2009-05-07T12:11:00.001-04:00

I did 45 minutes of Long Slow Distance (LSD) today. I have no idea how far I went, but it was probably somewhere in the vicinity of 4.5 miles. I took it slow, recovering from the past two training days.

Here’s what I thought about while I was running:

I thought about acceptance. I thought about accepting that something is wrong, accepting the consequences that come with something being wrong, and accepting the fact that trying to “quick fix” the various consequences won’t solve the main problem.

Think of me as a guy with the flu.

When you have the flu, you have a sore throat, a fever, a cough, the chills, a runny nose, and pains all over your body. What do most people do when this happens? Well, if you have medical insurance – and some sense – you go to a doctor, get a prescription for some antibiotics, then go home, go to bed, and sweat it out. This, however, is not what I do when I get the metaphorical “flu.”

Here’s what I’ve done for many, many years:

I caught myself a nice little flu bug a few years back, but couldn’t see the forest for the trees, if you will. I only saw a collection of symptoms (consequences), and I tried to attack them one by one instead of putting everything together and going to the source.

I said, “Man, if I could only get rid of this runny nose, I’ll be fine.” So, I went to the pharmacy, bought some nasal spray and made my nose stop running. Meanwhile, I was still coughing and feverish, and I had the chills like a motherfucker. And my throat was killing me.

So, I took some cough syrup and put a few extra blankets over me, but I forgot to keep using the nasal spray, so my nose started running again, and I still had a fever and my throat felt like it was on fire.

I gargled with some salt water and took a painkiller, but I’d kicked off the blankets, lost the nasal spray and forgotten to take another spoonful of cough syrup.

I could go on, but I think you get the point here.

When you don’t treat the flu, when you pretend you don’t have it and go about your business, out in the cold, like it’s not happening, it turns into pneumonia. Ignore the pneumonia and you’re fucked.

That’s my metaphor for stopping a backslide and protecting what you’ve got left. My flu was about to turn into pneumonia. Maybe it already did, but a conversation with a guy I’ll call The Pro made me change the way I look at things.

“Look at the people you’ve surrounded yourself with,” he said to me.

Continuing this flu charade, those people are my arms, legs, mind, heart and talent. I still have those things. The flu can’t kill them off. It tried, but it hasn’t. You treat the flu at the source, the symptoms go away. And, in time, you’re as good as new.

That’s what’s happening right now.

Saturday Final

2009-05-07T04:00:00.001-04:00

“You wanna go?”

“Yeah.” It was getting late. Half past midnight, which for me is late on a Saturday night these days. I’d had enough of the bars, enough of the beer, enough of the locals and enough trying to get around things.

“She’s coming back to the house.”

“Yeah, I know,” I said.

“I’m just letting you know.”

“It’s your house, man. When do I ever give a shit about that?”

“Well, you know...” he started.

I held up a hand and stopped him cold. “Dude, I don’t give a fuck. All night I’m telling you I don’t give a fuck. I told you fifteen times already, I’m just happy bein’ out of the house.”

See, when you’re divorced with a couple of kids, you gravitate toward other people who are divorced with a couple of kids. And when you’re a guy and she’s a girl, you find a night when you both don’t have your kids, and, well, you take care of your needs. This was one of those nights, and our girl friend, Divorced Girl, was one of those girls.

My guy friend, Divorced Guy, has been divorced for a year and a half. This is what he does. This is what they do. It’s a repeating loop. Sometimes I’m the third wheel.

We’re older now, and we’re starting to take some hits.

We walked home. All three of us. Together. I walked in the house, poured myself a glass of wine – it was all Divorced Guy had on hand – sat on the couch and turned on the TV.

“Are you okay?” asked Divorced Girl.

“Yeah,” I replied. “I’m fine.”

“Really? Listen, if you want to talk or anything...”

“Look, I really appreciate it, but I’m all talked out. I’m fine. Honest. You guys do whatever you want. I’m just gonna sit here on the couch, drink wine, watch Star Trek and spin my phone around on the coffee table.”

“Oh, you poor thing,” she said. “If you need anything...”

“Stop with the ‘poor thing’ shit already,” I interrupted. “Have I been a fucking sad sack all night? Have I been a drain on anyone’s evening?”

“Of course not.”

“I was good tonight, wasn’t I?” I asked. “I didn’t do anything stupid.”

“Yeah, you were great. You’ve never not been great.”

“That was all I needed for tonight. I’m done. Go have fun. I’m fine right here.”

I poured more wine into a glass with a stem and brought it back into the TV room. I set it on the coffee table, on a coaster. I don’t know why I need to put glasses with stems on coasters, but it seems like the right thing to do, like even though the wine is at room temperature, it’s suddenly going to cool down, form condensation on the stem and leave a ring mark on the veneer. I’ve never seen a wine glass do this, but I always use a coaster.

Maybe it seems to ease the landing a bit.

I put a throw pillow on the coffee table’s glass top and set my feet on it as gently as I could. I tucked my phone under my crotch so I could feel it if it vibrated. I heard laughter coming from the basement.

Then I fell asleep. I don’t remember my dream, but I woke up knowing around wasn't good enough anymore. The only way out is through.

Why Bouncers Are Dumb And Stupid

2009-05-06T04:00:00.004-04:00

In the bouncing community in New York – at least within the one I belong to – I’m a nodal point. Malcolm Gladwell would call me a “connector.” I’m the bridge between disparate cliques, sets and solos.

In other words, I’m one of the guys you call when you need a phone number, or when you need to get in touch with a guy because you need him to work.

That’s how it works with bouncing. The head bouncer at a club usually doesn’t have a master sheet with everyone’s number on it. Head bouncers aren’t that organized. Instead, on a staff of, say, thirty guys, he’ll have five or six guys like me who know everyone. And he’ll call those five or six guys and tell them to spread whatever word he’s looking to spread.

Some guys stay with one little clique and they never move out of it. When we sit around waiting to start a shift, they're always with the same three guys, every night, and they never talk to anyone else. I've done cliques. You get sick of guys. I need variety. Other guys are lone wolves. They sit by themselves and never talk to anyone. Lone wolves don’t last long.

I talked to everyone when I worked in the city. I made friends with everyone. On a staff of thirty guys, I’d have twenty-eight phone numbers by the time I was done. I was Paul Revere. When I put the word out, the militia locked and loaded.

Even in my semi-retirement, I’m still part of the crew. Still a connector. Witness tonight’s timeline of stupidity:

8:30 AM: Head Bouncer calls Bouncer A, asking him to call Bouncer B to tell him to be at work at 7 since it was Cinco de Mayo and they were expecting a crowd.

8:35 AM: Bouncer A doesn’t have Bouncer B’s phone number, so he calls me – even though I no longer work at this club – asking me to call Bouncer B and tell him to be at work at 7.

8:40 AM: After exchanging small talk with Bouncer A, I call Bouncer B, only to find out he’s changed his number.

8:42 AM: I text Bouncer C the following: “Call Bouncer B and tell him to be at work at 7.”

8:45 AM: Bouncer C texts me back with Bouncer B’s phone number. This wasn’t what I asked for, but okay. Bouncer C is a bit of an imbecile, so I shrugged my shoulders and forged ahead with this charade.

8:46 AM: I call Bouncer B and leave him a message telling him to report to work at 7.

Now, note the time stamp here:

6:15 PM: My phone rings, and it’s Bouncer B.

“Am I working at Club Slapdick tonight?”

“Uh, yeah? Did you not get my message this morning?”

“No,” he says. “I didn’t get any message.”

“Why are you calling me, then?”

“Because Bouncer C called me and said I should ask you if I’m working tonight.”

“When was this?” I ask.

“Just a minute ago.”

“Don’t you think it’s a little odd that Bouncer C, who has your phone number and talks to you five days a week, would ask me, who hasn’t spoken to you in six months, to tell you when to go to work?”

“Yes.”

Fast forward again:

10:45 PM: My phone rings with a number I don’t recognize. I pick up, and it’s Bouncer C’s nominal girlfriend. She found my number in his phone one day, and now she calls me whenever he's engaging in shenanigans, which is often.

“Where the fuck is this motherfucker?”

“Huh?”

“This motherfucker,” she says, “told me he was working, and I called there and they said he wasn’t there.”

These scenes happen regularly, even though I haven’t worked at any of these clubs in over two years now. They still call me. They still pull me in. It’s wacky.

Running Man

2009-05-05T11:56:00.002-04:00

I did a post on running last week, but I want to go over it again because it’s something I’m starting to enjoy.

For large chunks of my life, my 5:30 AM runs were a staple. Running early was something I did like breathing throughout high school and through long periods of my adulthood. I’d wake up around 5:15, take a hot shower – my warm-up – and get on the road. I’ve never needed to stretch much or do any kind of extended warm-up as an athlete, so I’d just get going. I know this about myself because, knock wood, I’ve never once, in all my years of running, lifting and playing competitive sports, pulled a hamstring. I had one nasty adductor pull a couple of years ago that was caused by stupidity, but that’s been it.

I get outside and I go.

I started doing these AM runs again last week. Last Tuesday and Thursday, and today – my third run of the week happens on Saturday afternoon – I was up well before the sun came up, showered, and in motion.

Things work themselves out when I run. Dramas play out in my head, and they’re resolved by the time I hit certain objective points on my route. Then something else pops into my head to whirl and churn until I hit the next mile marker, where it fades into the next thought. And the next. And the next. And so on.

And then I have days like today, where I’m rested and ready after taking two days off, and I can push things a little without payback, and I roll through the finish line of my 3+ mile course two minutes faster than I did on Saturday. And when that happens, I start liking myself a little better, which is something I haven’t been able to do in quite a while.

I’m not planning on going crazy with this, because I still love lifting heavy weights in the gym, but I’m sure as hell intrigued by how it’s making me look and feel. When I run at 5:30 in the morning, I’m a 16-year-old kid again with a football season in front of me and a job to get done, and it finally feels good to be me again -- and that's been a long time in coming, believe me.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled cynicism, negativity and antagonism...

Tat

2009-05-05T04:00:00.000-04:00

“You wanna go across the street?”

I wedged the heels of my hands into my eye sockets and rubbed, hard, spreading a half dozen strains of Swine Flu across both my corneas. “Yeah,” I said. “What the hell.”

“It might be a little more crowded over there,” said my guy friend. “Do you mind?”

“I don’t give a fuck,” I replied, pulling a ten off the stack of bills I’d left on the bar. “I like going out the back over there when I need a break. It’s quieter.”

“You’ll need a break from these people.”

“Ah, whatever man. I don’t give a fuck about anything tonight. I’ll just sit and listen.”

I let him lead the way across the street. We slid between two parked cars, me following him, and stopped on the opposite sidewalk. The grocery store where I’d worked the deli counter as a kid had installed new front doors. I wondered what the fuck was wrong with the old ones. I resisted the urge to spit on the sidewalk because I wasn’t sure why I wanted to do that. I liked working the deli counter. When people fucked with me, I’d thicken up their slices. Be a rude shit to your deli guy and you’ll end up with ham steaks in wax paper, or worse. I never took the “or worse” road, but I know guys who did.

Inside, he introduced me to about a half dozen people. Three of them had cigarettes behind one ear. Two of the three shook hands and excused themselves to go out back. That left one guy with a cigarette behind his ear. I knew him once, years ago, but I’d never seen him with a cigarette behind his ear. I figured there’d been a downturn. You don’t wear a cigarette behind your ear if you’re still in the game.

“Hey Tim,” I said. “How you been?”

“Not bad,” he replied, fishing for his lighter. “How you been, man? I’m gonna go out back for a cigarette.”

“Good seein’ you.”

I turned to my guy friend and tapped him on the elbow with the back of my hand. Four times. “Get me a fuckin’ Sam Adams, man. Please.”

“Okay.”

“You need money?”

“No,” he replied. “I got it.”

I shadowed him to the bar, not wanting any engagement with the rest of the crowd he’d come there to meet. I stared at myself in the mirror behind the bar. Talk about a rotten fucking time. I took my first sip of Sam before the head went anywhere. There’s a kind of sucking action there. Then I took another. Quickly. Half the pint was gone before my guy friend pocketed his change.

“What’s this mean?” asked my guy friend, running a finger over a tattoo of Japanese characters on the arm of one of the girls who’d had a cigarette behind her ear.

“This one means beautiful,” she said, her finger on one, “and the other one means girl. Beautiful girl.”

“You sure about that?” I asked, looking at the tattoo, then looking at her. Nicotine was in the air.

“Yeah,” she replied. “I looked it up in a book and brought it in with me.”

“Oh.” I took another long sip of Sam Adams. I was down to about a quarter of a glass left. “I thought it said, ‘I like moose cock.’”

“No, my tattoo artist is a girl.”

I Humped a Pillow My First Time

2009-05-04T04:00:00.001-04:00

“You know,” said my friend, a guy, “I’ve been jerking off to your sister for twenty years now. Maybe more.”

I picked up my glass, took a sip of Yuengling, then put it back on the coaster. “What the fuck is with the Yuengling? Can’t we do a little better than this?”

“What’s wrong with Yuengling?”

“What’s wrong with it,” I replied, “is that it’s all they got on tap in this fuckin’ shithole, and I don’t wanna spend six bucks on a fuckin’ bottle.”

“Did you even hear what he said before that?” asked my other friend, a girl. “Why would you say that?”

“I’m just being honest. She’s hotter now than she was in college.”

“Are you listening to this?” asked the girl, turning to watch me take another sip of warm fucking Yuengling. I need drinks cold. Ice cold. Especially beer. I’m Irish, and I’ve spent a good bit of time getting my testicles kicked in Galway and Limerick – especially Galway for the testicle thing – but the rivers of my aversion to warm, or even slightly chilled, beer run wide and deep.

I also tend to avoid the issue of having an allegedly “hot” sister to whom my friends have pleasured themselves since puberty.

“Yeah, I heard him,” I said. “Nothing I haven’t heard before.”

“From him?”

“No, not from him, necessarily, which is why this is a little awkward and why I started bitching about the Yuengling, which is still warm and still tastes like cat piss.”

I always say drinks taste like cat piss because there was a guy at my old gym who smelled like cat piss. It bothered the members so much that management eventually sent him a letter telling him not to come in smelling like cat piss. That was the right thing to do.

He used to follow me around the gym, did Cat Piss Guy. I swear he did, even though people said I had some kind of persecution complex, or maybe paranoia. I don’t know about all that, but I always had the feeling Cat Piss Guy was some gay old chicken hawk type who followed guys around the gym, and when I was there, I was a target.

I also have a friend who used to look like Jesus. We went to The Vault in Manhattan one night because we wanted to see what the fuck it was, and when I went into the bathroom to take a leak, a guy laid down on the floor and asked me to piss on him. Cat Piss Guy reminds me of the guy on the floor at The Vault. Also, I sat next to the Jesus Looking Guy at a funeral mass once, and when the priest read the lines “now we turn to Jesus” from a passage, I turned and stared at him.

“Did you have a picture of her or something?” my girl friend asked my guy friend. “How does that work?”

“You don’t need a picture,” he replied. “It’s better without a picture, because you can close your eyes.”

“Yeah,” I added, “I was never big on getting images out of magazines and shit as a kid. When I actually figured out how to do it, I used to walk around school going up to girls and thanking them.”

“No you didn’t.”

“Yeah, I did. I was fucked up. I used to walk up to girls and say, ‘Listen, I just wanna thank you for being so good to me last night.’”

“You’re full of shit,” she said. “You never did that.”

I pursed my lips, sucked in the dregs from my glass, put it down on the bar and slid it forward, adding a little pull-back spin with my fingertips. You spin the glass and you play around with money, and the next thing you know, the bartender’s in front of you. Funny how that works.

Watch your bartender next time he gives you some money back. See if he puts it in a puddle. Bartenders do that for tips because they know people don’t want to put wet bills back in their pockets. Overfill the drink, put it down on the bar, wait for the mark to pick it up, then slap the bills down in the puddle. That’s how they get extra.

“He did do that,” said my guy friend. “I remember.”

“What if he walked up and said that to your sister?” asked my girl friend.

“He knows better,” I said. I was tired.

Books

2009-05-01T04:00:00.000-04:00

Let’s be perfectly frank here. I think everyone who’s been reading this blog for a few weeks is aware that I’m stuck in the middle of a situation (of my own making) that I really, really don’t want to be in, and there’s not a hell of a lot I can do about it at the moment, so I’m stuck.

So I’m pretty much just burying myself in work, training and reading. I promised you some book reviews a couple of weeks ago, so I’ll start that today because I don’t want to write another cryptic post about “making changes,” or “acceptance,” or “moving forward” or anything else like that – although I’ve pretty much already done that in these first two paragraphs.

Anyway, I’ve read three books recently. My reviews here will be very straightforward. I’m not planning on doing anything other than telling you to either read the book or not. If you see me “analyzing” anything, it probably means I didn’t like it. Here they are:

High Exposure, by David Brashears: I went through the whole Into Thin Air inspired Everest books phase back in the late 90’s, but the Divorced Guy’s father gave me this one so I read it. It’s definitely more technical, from a climbing standpoint, than any of the others, but it fits into the typical Everest book theme of “I’m right and everyone else is wrong,” and that grated on me a bit – although, yes, I’m aware that when a guy writes a book, it’s necessarily going to be his opinion. It’s just that in all the accounts I’ve read of the Everest disaster, everyone has a different version, and everyone else was at fault.

So, I don’t really know what to make of this one. If you’re into rock or mountain climbing, you’ll like it. It’s not exactly a narrative geared for the general public the way Into Thin Air was, which I think was the problem for me, since I don’t know enough about climbing, or about who David Brashears is, to have enjoyed this book the way I should have.

Ask The Dust, by John Fante: This is one of the better books I’ve read in my lifetime. I don’t know if it’s considered a classic, since I’d never heard of John Fante until a few months ago, but it definitely should be. As the person who recommended this to me said, John Fante writes like Charles Bukowski wishes he could have.

Motherless Brooklyn, by Jonathan Lethem: This is another good choice. Read this, especially if you grew up anywhere within the five boroughs of New York City. Absolutely fucking outstanding. This is going to sound cheesy, hackneyed, clichéd and entirely “unprofessional,” but I couldn’t put this book down.

Ironic how I dedicated 176 words to the book I had to force myself to finish, and a paragraph each to what are probably the two best books I’ve read this year. I suppose that’s just the kind of week I’m having – opposite, backward, and spitting in the face of logic.

As for how I feel about this, I refer you to “Danphe and the Brain,” from Mogwai’s The Hawk is Howling album. That about sums it up.

Cardio

2009-04-30T15:28:00.001-04:00

One thing I’ve been doing for a while now is steady-state cardiovascular exercise, or “cardiac work.” I started really hitting this hard last fall, when I realized that although I’d lost a lot of weight – and a lot of body fat – the changes I was trying to make pertained, almost exclusively, to my strength levels and how I looked. I was doing next to nothing to improve my biological power.

So, on the advice of some world class people, I started really blasting away on cardio in the gym. I’ve always been a strong runner, relatively speaking – at least for a guy my size with a background in interval-based sports – but I didn’t want to go out and start running right away with all the excess weight I was carrying.

I started out with this formula:

220 – age = max heart rate

This is very simple, doesn’t require you to go to an exercise lab to find your anaerobic threshold, and is easily applicable to any piece of cardio equipment in the gym. Once I had this number, I used a variety of cardio machines to keep my heart rate within 60-70% of this number. For most of these workouts, I was simply walking uphill on a treadmill and grabbing the electrodes with my hands every few minutes or so to test my heart rate.

I would do this 4-5 times a week, and I eventually threw in some High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) sessions to compliment this work. These HIIT workouts consist of 10-15 minutes of all-out sprint intervals, either on a machine, or running (sprints), or through the use of barbell circuits.

I was still eating like shit and lifting heavy, so these workouts didn’t start manifesting themselves in aesthetic results right away. What they did do, however, was make me feel a hell of a lot better. After a few weeks, I was sprinting up sets of subway steps – and doing other things of this nature that used to make me breathe a little heavy at the top – and not feeling a thing.

Two months ago, a guy I train – I have a handful of clients I train on the side – gave me a $300 Polar heart rate monitor. You strap an electrode around your chest and wear a watch on your wrist, and it tells you your heart rate at any given moment. This was great, because it enabled me to both take my resting heart rate in the morning and know what my heart rate was when doing something other than tediously walking on a treadmill for 45 minutes in an irritating gym.

Long story short, I’ve started running. “Distance” running. I strapped on my heart rate monitor last week, determined to keep the number at a certain range, and ready to simply start walking if it exceeded that range. The idea was to just go for a set period of time, then stop, then see how far I went.

This morning I ran 3.5 miles at about an eight minute per mile pace. My heart rate never exceeded 155. I weigh 240 pounds right now.

Now, I know these numbers aren’t exactly Olympian, but for a guy who’s been doing nothing but lifting and sprinting for several years – I can still bench press over 400 pounds, etc, etc – I don’t think this is too fucking shabby, especially when you consider the fact that I haven’t been killing myself, effort-wise, in any way, shape or form. I’ve just been monitoring my heart rate religiously and keeping a steady pace with whatever I’ve been doing. I wasn’t breathing heavily at all when I crossed the line this morning, and I probably could have done another couple of miles with ease.

The entire goal of the operation here is to cut down to about 215 by the middle or end of summer, with around 8% body fat.

The windup here? If you’re looking to do something like this, get yourself a heart rate monitor and use it. It’ll cut your get-in-shape time in half, if not by more.

Thurs

2009-04-30T04:00:00.000-04:00

I have nothing I need to say at the moment, but I wanted to keep my streak alive and post something. Yesterday was a very transitional day for me -- a Tony Robbins-esque passing from one state to another -- and I'm still trying to process a lot of the information I've been given.

Don't worry, though. It's all good shit. Captain Morbidity has fled the scene. Now it's time to get to work and build this shit back up again.

Summary

2009-04-29T04:00:00.000-04:00

I’ve been making lots of proclamations lately. For the past three weeks, virtually every sentence I’ve said, written or thought has begun with the words, “From now on...”

“From now on,” I’ll say, “I’m going to do this, this and this, and that’s how it’s going to be.” Then, two days later, I’m doing the exact opposite.

I’ve also prematurely declared my head to have been extracted from my ass on several occasions now. For me to have thought my head was out of my ass at the time – and even now – proves how far it really was jammed up my rectal cavity. This is what’s known as being delusional.

Not every story has a happy ending. Now it’s time to sort some things out and fix them and shut the fuck up about it.

So, in a last, sweeping proclamation, I declare that there will be no more proclamations coming from me, no more bemoaning of my head’s anal-bound state, and no more “whining like a bitch.” If you want to know how I feel, I’m referring you to music. Listen to Mogwai’s Mr. Beast album, especially the song “Emergency Trap,” and that’ll about sum it up.

I’ll leave this chapter of shitty blogging with something a friend of mine sent in an email today:

Keep your chin up.

Actually, don't. I don't know why people fucking say that. Keeping your chin up is a fucking great way to get knocked the fuck out. Keep your chin down and your fucking hands up.

Tuesday

2009-04-28T04:00:00.001-04:00

Initial Disclaimer: I made a decision about something today that could potentially make me look and feel really, really stupid for a variety of reasons. Given my current situation, this is also probably a very stereotypical and predictable decision – a fact of which I’m well aware. In the interest of doing something, however, I’m doing something.

So, yeah. There’s that. I’m nervous but hopeful, but I’m also cognizant of the risks involved and the volume of work I need to do to extract myself from this mess I’ve created. I don’t like looking and feeling like an asshole, but I probably should have thought about that before I adopted it as my permanent persona. That’s all I have to say about that.

I did some bouncing this past weekend, as you can see from yesterday’s post, but I haven’t really been able to conjure up anything good out of it because my sense of humor switch has been duct taped in the off position for a few weeks now. Ordinarily, I could probably come up with something pretty good about a skinny fat guy screaming in the middle of a bar, but...well...you know how it is.

What’s good and bad about this is that I wasn’t paying attention to a lot of the stupid shit that went on. The habit’s become so ingrained that I always stand around looking for – and mentally filing away – material when I bounce. This weekend? Didn’t happen. I just bounced, without giving a flying fuck what I was looking at.

When I was involved in a fight, I didn’t give a shit about the guy’s clothes, or about what he was saying, or about what he’d done to the other guy. He was leaving, I was ready, and my mind was just blank. I suppose that’s how it feels to do this job without having a blog in mind every time something happens. It actually felt pretty good.

This isn’t some kind of cockeyed goodbye to job-blogging, mind you. I’ll probably always do that in some way, shape or form. Things happened the way they did this weekend because I was in a bad mood, preoccupied with something, and wanted to “lose myself” in my job for a few hours. That’s all it was. I paid attention to what I was doing, did a good job, got paid and went home.

Of course, that didn’t bode well for Sunday, when I went back to being preoccupied, but at least I know why I’m having a hard time writing about bouncing in any way other than matter-of-factly.

Two guys squared off. I ran over, yoked one up, dragged him out the back door, yelled at him a little, didn’t listen to a word he said, then stood there until he walked off. The end.

That’s some exciting shit, right? You see how I can make a narrative sing when I’m in the mood? I did tell another bouncer who was bemoaning the fact that he was turning 28 to “Fuck off,” which elicited laughs from the other guys, but there weren’t many highlights this weekend. Just a lot of dead space, dead air, and a great big dead zone that I created with my own shit shovel.

Loud

2009-04-27T04:00:00.006-04:00

Saturday night was a long one. Bouncing again. I need the money. Sue me.

I’m standing in a spot just inside the front door, being what you might call the secondary ID guy. I’m there because they like having me inside to keep an eye on things and direct the guys in my section during situations – as opposed to standing outside and spending all my time checking licenses. That’s what you get when you’re “senior man.” You take the lead. I hate that shit.

So I’m there, and a guy about five feet from me keeps screaming. He’s screaming all kind of shit.

“DID YOU GRAB MY ASS?”

He would scream this every time a group of girls walked past.

“FUCKIN’ YANKEES!!! FUCK BOSTON, MAN!!! FUCKIN’ YANKEES!!!”

He kept yelling this at a TV for no apparent reason. There was no game playing.

This went on for at least fifteen minutes before I finally told him to shut the fuck up. I didn’t ask him to move, and I didn’t ask him to tone it down. I told him, in no uncertain terms, to “shut the fuck up.”

He was a skinny fat guy with thin forearms who smoked a cigarette every ten minutes. He was wearing an Affliction shirt. When people like this irritate me at work, it’s easy to tell them to “shut the fuck up” because they’re not doing anything back to me unless they have a gun, which they don’t because we check.

What I need to know, though, is why. Why do they do this? Why do people insist upon screaming like that? Why are there loud-laughers in the world? Why does everything even remotely funny in a bar, lounge or club require some guy who’s borderline emphysemic to guffaw at just the right pitch to elicit a palpable aura of irritation from everyone within a twenty foot radius?

This is what I have for you today. I have this because I thought about it for a while at work. That wasn’t the only time I said “fuck” to someone, either.

A fat guy in a black polo shirt two sizes too small came to the door with four other people. When I asked them for ID, he said, “Oh, dere wit’ me.”

I said, “I need their ID.”

He said, “I said dere wit’ me.”

I said, “And who the fuck are you?”

Then Ray – yes, Ray from the book – told the guy to “get the fuck outta here.”

Since I only just started paying attention to this shit again this weekend – and by “this shit,” I’m referring to bouncing – I’ll tell you this much: patience and tolerance levels are at an all-time low. I could see it up front – you had one chance to be nice to the door guys, otherwise they (we) treated you the way Ray treated the fat guy in the shirt that made him look like a sausage. It happened all night, and I don’t blame the guys for losing it on some people.

Everyone I know has shit going on. Serious shit. So, bar/club problems? No fucking way. Not about to put up with it.

Tomorrow I’ll tell you about the fight, and the debate over whether Affliction and Ed Hardy shirts are a "weakness" or a "sickness."

Shining the Flashlight of Hypocrisy

2009-04-24T14:29:00.001-04:00

So I’m driving about two hours ago, and I get a call from a number I don’t recognize. It’s a local one, though, so I pick up.

“Hello?”

“Hi Rob, it’s (Mutant’s Girlfriend). The Mutant’s girlfriend?”

“Oh, hey. How are you?”

“I’m good,” she says. “Listen, are you gonna be in (town in Suffolk County) today?”

“Actually, yeah. I’m on my way there right now.”

“Do you mind helping me pick up a piece of furniture today? The Mutant is a lazy piece of shit, and I need to get this for my mother today, otherwise we’ll lose it.”

“Yeah, sure.”

She gave me directions to the place, I loaded the piece into her SUV, and that was the end of it. I didn’t want to feel like a hypocrite (inside joke/reference), so we agreed to tell him she found someone across the street who came over and helped.

Now, ordinarily, I’d be, like, “Fuck, man. Are you serious right now?” But today? No dice on the laziness today. I’m just thankful for human contact. You need your fucking oil changed today, just give me a call and I’ll be right over.

Beats sitting here, that’s for damned sure.

Anyway, I’m on my way home and my phone rings again. It’s The Mutant:

“Hey, did my girlfriend ask you to move a piece of furniture for her?

“Yeah,” I replied. “We just got done.” I couldn’t bring myself to lie to the guy.

“You’re fucking kidding me.”

“Dude, don’t blame her. Seriously. Ordinarily, I’d have given her a hard time about this, and I’d have given you a hard time about it, but you know my situation right now. She did me a favor getting me out of the fucking house.”

“It’s cool,” he said. “I just didn’t want you to feel uncomfortable saying no.”

“Listen, I don’t give a fuck right now. I don’t want to get in the middle of a fight with you guys, and I don’t care. I really don’t.”

“Okay.”

“To be honest with you right now? If she called and told me you were hanging off a cliff by one finger, and I was the only one who could save you, I’d say, ‘That’s great, but gimme a second while I tell you about my problem.’”

So, yeah. Pretty fucking ironic. Not too sure about my relationship with God right now, but he’s got some sense of humor.

Mail

2009-04-24T10:20:00.001-04:00

I received this email this morning from a guy I’ve been corresponding with regularly for a few years now:

“You are being unnecessarily rough on yourself. I suggest that people read blogs BECAUSE the blogs offer an individual viewpoint. No one person can ever have an omniscient completely neutral overview of anything. Any human observation is by necessity one-sided. Blogs share sides other than our own.

Some observations may have a higher bullshit factors than others if they come from individuals who choose to limit how well they function as a thinking being. Others, including yours even at your most cranky, can offer an interesting alternative world view. Your attitude may not be mine. I may or may not agree with your opinions about what you observe. But the one-sided view through your windows is certainly different from what I see out of mine, and might be just as rich in detail.”

I agree with much of this, but it really doesn’t apply here. The point I was trying to make is that I don’t want to be the one who’s trying to make the world see through the lens of a bullshitter. I’m not just talking about the written word here, either. What I’m saying is that even though there are aspects of my current situation with which I disagree in principle, the big picture puts the blame squarely on me.

As for the aspects “with which I disagree,” even these are kind of my doing because I’m the one who brought things to a point where anything turned into an actual “issue.” If I had behaved differently under the same circumstances, said aspects wouldn’t be issues at all. Trouble is, I differ with people in my life with regard to why this (the whole situation, from start to finish) has happened the way it has, and that’s what frustrates me.

The result, however, remains the same. Whether you got to Point Z by plane, train or automobile, you’re still at Point Z and your ride back just left town.

What I was getting at with that post was that it’s entirely self-serving – gratuitous, even – for someone to come out, after the fact, and offer some wacked-out version of events in order to either elicit sympathy or make themselves look better. I was going down that road in order to make myself feel better, was called on it – in the “real world” – and now it’s time to just back off and live my life.

Honestly? I wish somebody had wronged me, because then I’d have someone other than myself to focus this shit on.

I’ll be fine.

Friday

2009-04-24T04:00:00.001-04:00

Had a bit of a rough night, to say the least. I’ll post that book review – or something, at least – later on today.

I’ve been writing a blog for a long time, and I’ve read lots of blogs for a long time, and if there’s one thing I hate about them, it’s that they offer a completely one-sided version of whatever events are being described.

In fact, when I became “famous,” or at least blog-famous, a few years back, I can rattle off a few incidents where I had adverse dealings with some of the other flaming blogger-nutbags who’d become “famous” around the same time. If you’ve been reading this site long enough, you’ll know what I’m referring to.

And when you have a blog like this one, that (still) has a fairly sizable audience, you have a platform. And when people have platforms, they do something I can’t stand: they pontificate from the depths of their ignorance.

In other words, they give you one version of the story. Theirs. And if they have a bone to pick – or, as in most cases, they’re mentally unstable – that version is going to be a crock of shit and massively unfair to the person being skewered.

I’m not going to do that. I turned on some loud-ass music and wrote a little “grandstand” post yesterday about how great I was doing and how I was progressing from one step to another, and although that part’s sort of true, I want to make sure I point out that there are two sides to this story – as I was painfully reminded last night.

Don’t send me sympathetic emails. I don’t deserve them. I’m in a shit situation of my own making – a situation that never had to happen, and a situation out of which I’m honestly seeing no way out right now.

Things have changed for me. What effect this will have in the long run, I have no idea. But I surely don’t deserve for anyone to take my side, because I don’t have one.

I can slather catsup and mustard all over it, but it’s still a shit sandwich, it’s the only thing I have to eat, and I’m the one who made it.

Oh yeah...today's Day One again.

Youse

2009-04-23T12:02:00.001-04:00

I don’t like people with thick New York accents anymore. My aversion to this is the definition of irony, since I have one myself. I’m self-loathing.

It makes me uncomfortable to hear it. I’m embarrassed for the person. When I hear my own voice on tape, I cringe, because I’ve actually done some work to get rid of the damned thing. It’s not nearly as bad as it once was, but it’s a hell of a lot more noticeable than I think it is while I’m speaking. I’ve learned it’s one of those things you have to exaggerate. If I want my speech to be Queens-free, I essentially have to fake a British accent. It’s that ingrained.

I’m not ashamed, mind you. It’s a matter of personal preference. I’d just rather not sound like I sound. I’d rather not have “youse” and “alls” and “he ain’t doin’ nothin’” sneak into my everyday speech. Get me a little excited, however – or pissed off – and you’ll get shit straight out of Goodfellas. It’s fucking painful sometimes.

I was in the gym last night walking on the treadmill. I always walk on the treadmill for a while after I lift, because my heart rate is already elevated and because it’s good for recovery. I set the speed and the incline so my heart rate stays between 130 and 140 beats per minute (220 – age x 60-70% is the theoretical “fat burning zone,” and I’ve found this works for me). By the time I’ve lifted heavy weights for 45 minutes or so, it doesn’t take much to maintain this, and my joints feel a hell of a lot better afterward. I’m also burning fat like crazy.

Anyway, I was on the treadmill last night watching a tool with an accent hit on a girl. He wasn’t a club Guido type, per se, but this was still uncomfortable to watch. He was wearing jeans and work boots, and he had bolts tattooed on his neck. Typical New York 10 PM gym look.

“Hey, uh...howsabout you gimme yuh numbuh...and...uh...mebbe me an’ you could, ya know, go out or somethin’.”

This isn’t too bad, and I give the guy credit for trying, but then he ruined it:

“Uh...you got a boyfriend? You seein’ somebody?”

Now, I know this girl. She’s cute, and since I’ve been going to the same gym for a while now, we always say hello. I think you get to that point with pretty girls in gyms when they realize you’re not one of the pricks who’ll be in there hitting on them every five minutes. It’s safe to say hello.

The guy had his back to me, and the girl was sitting on a machine, facing me. I could hear everything they were saying. Every time she looked over, I gave her the thumbs-up and mouthed, “Awesome” at her.

Eventually, she lost it and started cracking up, right in the guy’s face. He wheeled around and looked at me, and he knew. “Okay, well,” he said to her. “You lemme know.” And then he walked away.

I feel like I violated the code. This really bothers me.

Steps

2009-04-23T04:00:00.000-04:00

This is going to sound completely obnoxious, but since it’s another self-help week around here, I’m going to come out and write this anyway. Just bear with me. I know people have “real” problems. I’ve had real problems. I have perspective, don’t worry. Just humor me for another day or two.

There’s a progression that always happens the same way whenever I run into a problem. Sometimes this takes weeks. Other times, it happens in a single day. There’s no set time period for this thing, but I always know exactly what level I’m on because it’s blatantly obvious when I’ve gone from one to the next. The steps look something like this:

Denial: At first, I don’t really understand the problem, and I’m often the last one to notice that anything’s amiss. The window of opportunity for solving the problem typically closes while I’m skating along, oblivious to what’s actually going on, and I’m not paying enough attention to see it.

Panic: Oh shit, there’s a problem! What the fuck do I do?!? This has to stop right now! By this time, everything’s snowballed, and I’m way too late. I throw everything but the fucking sink at the problem, but it’s over with, and there’s nothing I can do but regroup and wait it out.

Resignation/Depression: Woe is me. This sucks. Why did this happen to me? Why am I such a slapdick? This is probably the worst one, because I relive the whole damned thing all day long, and it keeps getting worse and worse. At this point, I’ll come as close as I’m likely to come to compromising my principles in order to make the situation go away.

Anger: Fuck these motherfuckers for backing me into a corner like this. Motherfuckers. I’m out for blood here, looking for someone to blame. This is particularly unpleasant when it’s my own fault, because I’ll beat the piss out of myself more than I’ll ever fuck with anyone else. That’s kind of my thing.

Perspective/Relief/Laughter: What the fuck was that all about? This one is pretty self-explanatory. This is a good day. I’m still sort of in and out of being pissed off and upset, but the surges of “good” feel like hits off a crack pipe.

Scar Tissue/Renewed Confidence: Damn, it’s fucking great to be me. This is where you want to be, because you’re better than you were before. You’ve learned something. You’ve taken something back that you’d lost for a while. You’re ready to get moving again.

I’m transitioning between the penultimate and ultimate steps in this progression right now, so you can take solace in the notion that these wack job posts won’t go on for much longer. The best part of the final step is finally getting a handle on the situation. Getting control back. For most of this deal, it’s been out of my control, which has obviously sucked, but that part’s coming to an end.

Now comes the reckoning: the part where I realistically, rationally, and reasonably – armed with control and perspective – figure out what actually happened and take the appropriate action or set of actions.

In other words, the fun part.

Taxpayer Field Review

2009-04-22T12:08:00.001-04:00

I made my first trip to Citi Field – otherwise known as “The New Shea Stadium,” or, better yet, TARP Field – last week. On my way home, I thought about all the things I’d write about in my review of the place, but since I’ve had my head up my ass for two weeks, I never wrote it. Now that my head is out of my ass, here are my impressions of the place.

First, the positives:

Accessibility to public transportation: This is the highlight of Citi Field for me, because I like taking the train – either the Long Island Railroad or the 7 train – to games. I know this is simply a function of having the stadium in the only spot and in the only orientation where it possibly could have been built, but I like how the rotunda – the main entrance, which brings you into the stadium behind home plate – is right there when you get off the platform. At Shea, getting off the subway or the LIRR dropped you directly in middle of a massive clusterfuck, and unless you knew your way around, it was tough to get your bearings. Citi Field, if nothing else, is orderly.

It looks better, at least when you first arrive: Citi Field is attractive. It’s clean, organized and looks exactly like what the architects were going for – Ebbets Field on the outside, and a Polo Grounds interior. It looks stunning on the walk-up.

Bathrooms: This stadium has the best sports arena/stadium urinal configuration I’ve ever seen. There are more bathrooms-per-capita then there were at Shea – or anywhere else I’ve ever been, for that matter – and urinals are spaced nearly three feet apart. Since I often suffer from stage fright – and a major aversion to “pecker checkers,” – this is crucial. I love when architects and engineers draft plans with me in mind.

Walkways: They’re nice and wide, and the main concourse – we sat field level – runs all the way around the stadium, allowing you to see the game, for the most part, from wherever you are. If you have to get up to take a leak in the middle of an inning – this is just a hypothetical, since I don’t advocate this – you’ll be able to get back to your seat within a batter or two, and since they’re piping the broadcast into the bathrooms, you won’t miss any game action.

Food choices: I’m not planning on taking advantage of everything in this regard, but the variety here is pretty f-ing amazing, and the prices aren’t that bad. When games are sold out, however, getting around the outfield food court is going to be a bitch because all the novelty concessions – Shake Shack, et al – are clustered in one place. This was a particular pain in the ass in the half hour before the game started.

Bullpens: The bullpens at Shea run parallel to each other, with nothing in between but a chain link fence – and they’re both wide open for people to look in from an area that’s open to the public. Right now, this is simply a curiosity, but when things get hostile – games against the Yankees or Phillies, for example, or in the playoffs – I can see opposing teams complaining about this configuration. You go down a flight of stairs, turn left, and you’re twenty feet away from the opposing pitchers as they warm up. When New York fans get over the initial novelty of this arrangement, it’s going to be a problem.

The negatives:

Who’s the home team?: The entire place is green and black. If I blindfolded you, brought you to Citi Field, and dropped you in the concourse, I’d defy you to tell me who plays there. Nothing about the place tells you it’s the Mets’ home field. Say what you will about Shea, but there was no mistaking who played there. It’s like Citi Field is embarrassed to be the home of the Mets, which, while understandable, isn’t exactly the way to rebuild pride in the organization – pride we haven’t felt since the late 80’s.

Too many seats in a row: At least in the outfield field level seats, there are 20-30 seats in a row, which means if you’re sitting in the middle, and you have to take a leak or want to get something to eat, you’re kind of fucked. At Shea, you didn’t have to walk over everyone when you needed to go somewhere.

Poor sight lines: They weren’t kidding about this. Virtually every seat in the outfield is obstructed view. We sat in the 8th row, on the field, in left, and you couldn’t see the leftfielder catch balls on the warning track. Additionally, because they tried to be so cutesy with the contour of the outfield wall, you can’t see major chunks of the outfield and fly balls get lost. If they’re caught, it’s only a rumor from this vantage point. You also can’t see the main scoreboard out there because of the overhang. You know you have too many contrived quirks when it detracts from fans’ enjoyment of the game. Predictably, they’ve outsmarted themselves here.

Strange attire: This is kind of a random one, but why are the ushers and ticket takers at Citi Field wearing jackets in the Philadelphia Phillies’ colors? This is a rather curious touch, especially when the Mets are currently engaged in a hostile rivalry with the Phillies. I hope they rethink this.

The verdict: All things considered, I don’t really like it. It’s here, and it’s a done deal, so I’m going to have to live with it, but they could have done a lot better. The shitty sight lines are the dealbreaker for me. Since I actually follow the team, and follow the game when I’m in the stadium, it’s a royal pain in the ass to not be able to see 100% of the action. That never happened at Shea, because the place was virtually symmetrical and everything was wide open.

I’m looking forward to my first fight in the stands, though. Have to christen the place somehow.

Bingo

2009-04-22T04:00:00.003-04:00

It's a nice feeling when you officially pull your head out of your ass. I experienced this last night around 11:00. It made kind of a popping sound because it was wedged up there pretty far, but it's out now.

There will be some changes made to the landscape. Significant ones.

Zero, Redux

2009-04-21T04:00:00.000-04:00

Overheard at the wake:

Son of The Deceased: “Thanks so much for coming.”

Me: “Thanks for having me.”

What, exactly, was I trying to accomplish here? I’d like a do-over on that one – a mulligan, if you will – just like I’d really love to do yesterday over, as well. I made an ass of myself yesterday. We won’t get into that right now, though. Just suffice it to say I needed a holding call, or maybe a false start, and I needed for the defense to accept the penalty so I could play the damned down over. I have no problem with first-and-fifteen. It’s still a fresh set of downs.

In fact, I am doing yesterday over. It’s called today. I know I said yesterday was Day One of this little program of mine, but I kind of lied. Or maybe I didn’t. I don’t know. What I do know is that I ran into that little snag again yesterday, and it distracted me enough to not want to call yesterday Day One.

So today is Day One.

This will get better, I promise. I’ll have my head out of my ass by the end of the week.

Zero

2009-04-20T04:00:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the false start. I ran into something of a snag the week before last that kept me from putting my money where my mouth was with all that “I’ll post here every day” bullshit I was spouting off.

I’m sorry to be cryptic, but I’ve been preoccupied with something for the past two weeks that’s kept me from getting anything substantial done. The (also) cryptic post under this one should offer a few clues as to what this something was that had me so preoccupied.

I’m necessarily no longer preoccupied with this something. This is because one must, after all, live one’s life to the best of one’s ability without being preoccupied with things that aren’t constructive. Mind you, the thing with which I’m preoccupied is, in fact, constructive. It’s simply not constructive to be as preoccupied as I’ve been of late with things that are, at least for now, out of my control.

That said, I’m embarking on a self-imposed 60-day “boot camp” intended to free myself of the bullshit that’s been preoccupying me for the better part of, oh, we’ll call it eight years now.

I’ll be keeping you updated on this as I go along.

This “boot camp” applies to everything. I’m going to square away my financial situation – or at least firm it up a bit. I’ve been dieting and training hard, still, but I’m going to get myself in ridiculous shape for the summer. I’m going to read 20 books and review them here. This, obviously, is one book every three days. Over a period of 8.5 weeks, I will review two books per week. Maybe I’ll do this on Fridays. Maybe I won’t. We’ll see how it goes. Right now, I’m reading High Exposure, by David Brashears. I’m reading this because the Divorced Guy’s father gave it to me as a reward for moving furniture out of their house.

I was moving furniture out of their house because it’s a summer house at Breezy Point – the Irish Riviera – that they don’t want to pay for anymore because nobody’s used it since the Divorced Guy’s ex-wife went batshit crazy and strange numbers started showing up on phone bills.

That, however, is a story for a different post. I’d rather not think about that sort of thing at the moment.

So, that’s where we’re at right now – floundering and foundering, but with a plan. I’ll keep you posted, no pun intended.

No Mas

2009-04-10T04:00:00.000-04:00

You never find out how far it really is from the driver’s side to the passenger’s side until you switch seats. This is something I’ve learned over the past week or two – the very, very hard way.

The lesson here is to tread lightly before giving people advice.

I have three friends in various stages of the divorce process. One is already done, one is in mediation, and the other one’s wife just recently filed. All three guys came to me for advice. I don’t know why they did this, considering I’ve never been married, but they did anyway. For some people, I’m a rational voice. This strikes me as odd, but, as they say, it is what it is.

I was very generous with my advice for these people. As always, I had a lot to say. I would go on and on, loving the sound of my own voice, until I was sure I had them on the road to 1) Forgetting their ex-wives, 2) Getting laid a half dozen times daily with six different women, and 3) “Working on themselves” and finding their fortune.

I had it all figured out. If these guys went ahead and took my advice, they’d be fine. They’d rule the world and get their poles polished and their wicks dipped more than they ever did when they were married.

Of course, I had nothing to lose, and that’s the magic of giving advice to people on subjects you know jack shit about, because when you’re in the same situation – with a lot less to lose, in my case – you’re completely lost. When you’re not the one with the problem, it’s the easiest thing in the world to call the shots for someone else and call them a slapdick when they’re not abiding by your rules.

Then you get kicked in the face and you realize the position they were in. It’s not as easy, nor as cut and dried, as you thought it was.

That’s kind of where I’m at right now. I’ll be less morbid next week, I promise.

Hot Dog

2009-04-08T04:00:00.001-04:00

Nick Markakis of the Baltimore Orioles is my favorite baseball player.

Three years ago, I went to see the Mets play the Orioles at Shea Stadium with Fat Ed, his girlfriend and the girl I was dating at the time. I went to Shea a lot that year. This was a monumental waste of money. I didn’t think so at the time, but now I think all sports are a monumental waste of money.

Spending money on sports is like fighting over sports. This, too, is a monumental waste of time. I said something bad about Derek Jeter once at a Yankee game, and a guy wearing a Derek Jeter jersey wanted to fight me. I asked him if he expected Derek Jeter to run into the stands and defend him if I started winning the fight. He told me I wouldn’t win the fight. I told him I would. And so on.

Anyway, I was really drunk that night – the Markakis one. We’d been drinking in the parking lot, and back then, when I had money to burn (through), I didn’t mind buying 12-15 aluminum Bud bottles at a baseball game. I used to need a barback at baseball games. That’s how bad it was.

This was Greek-American night at Shea. I remember back in the 80’s when Mayor Koch used to go to ethnic celebrations in New York and proclaim, “I’m Italian!” or “I’m Puerto Rican!” or “I’m Haitian!” and the crowd would go nuts even though New York stunk of urine everywhere you went and girls from Kansas couldn’t ride the subway at three in the morning like they do now. Mayor Koch went on the radio for a while and called himself “The Voice of Reason.” This is what you call irony.

At the St. Patrick’s Day parade one year when I was a kid, he was wearing an Aran sweater and Scally cap, and he was carrying a shillelagh. He grabbed a microphone and yelled, “I’m Irish!” This was strange to me because I thought he was Jewish. I knew he was Jewish for a fact because my family wouldn’t let us forget it.

I took the train that night because I knew I’d be drinking. The entrance to the Long Island Railroad platform was across Roosevelt Avenue from the old Shea. This was very much a ghetto operation. You’d dodge cars to get across Roosevelt, then cut through – it only seemed like this, but if you’ve been there, you’ll know what I mean – a hole in a chain link fence to get to the bottom of the steps. There was usually a giant hot dog truck on your right. We’ll get to that momentarily.

That night, I was halfway up the stairs to the LIRR gangplank when I dropped my phone. It clankity-clanked all the way to the bottom, opened up, and launched the battery somewhere into the dark. I staggered around collecting parts, and then decided I needed a hot dog.

“Where do I know you from?” asked the hot dog guy. “You look really familiar.”

“I don’t know,” I slurred. “Do you go to (club I used to work at)?”

“Yeah! Fuck! You’re the guy at the door!”

“Yeah.”

“You want a beer?” he asked.

“Nah, man. I’m good. I don’t wanna spend any more money tonight.”

“No, I got a cooler back here. These are mine. Take one.”

“Okay,” I said.

So, I’m standing there talking to this guy about God-knows-what when three guys walk up to the hot dog truck. Two of them were wearing Orioles jerseys. There was an elderly guy, a middle aged guy and a young guy wearing a dress shirt and slacks. The two older guys’ jerseys said Markakis on the back.

I knew Nick Markakis existed for two reasons. First, it was Greek-American night, so the whole Astoria contingent had given him a big hand every time he came to the plate. He’d also made a really nice diving catch late in the game.

“Hey,” I said, “lemme ask you guys a question.” I’m a talkative drunk. “Why are you wearing Markakis jerseys?”

“Because,” replied the middle aged guy, “I’m his father, and this is his grandfather, and this is Nick.”

Markakis was a nice guy. I talked to him for a while. I told him he’d made a nice catch. He told me he was from Long Island and that most of his family still lived there. That much, I remember.

Who knows what the fuck else I said?

I root for the guy now.