Monday, August 10, 2009
Cooking dinner tonight...I imagine the kitchen will feel similar to the hot tempered streets I'm walking dog through tonight...boiling voices, the drip and hum from exhausted air conditioners...life starting to return to normal, albeit sweaty.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Choice Cafe in Brooklyn...can't believe it took us a year to find this place. Sitting outside with my dog and an iced coffee.
Monday, July 13, 2009
I need a drink
What a freaking week last week was. The curve balls life can throw you are truly the most humbling experiences, in a flash you realize your life, and dreams, and plans are as fragile as a fly clinging to the windshield of a car driving down the freeway, just waiting to be flicked aside and smashed into a thousand pieces at any moment.
With my show airing last week, the past two weeks were stress time for me professionally. Putting an hour on national television always seems to come down to the final two weeks, no matter how many months you've been writing and filming and planning. The panic of what you missed, what will and won't work, and what never came through all hit about the Wednesday before the final week. I thrive on the pressure, but I'm also a walking stress bomb trying to pull together the many thoughts and ideas high stepping through my brain like crazed circus performers.
Last week started with a stupid decision, my girlfriend and I took our five month old puppy to be neutered on Monday, a decision that has sank in my heart for weeks as I thought about taking that away from him, his natural instincts, his bravado, his balls. I know it is, in the long term the right thing to do but dam it, who am I to take away a man's ability to make babies? To piss everywhere in an act of territorial machismo? To have the urge to dominate and stake a claim in weaker dogs?
Because of these conflicting feelings I made sure my girlfriend actually delivered him to the vet, so she would always be associated with the trauma and I would remain as fun, nut friendly dad. The surgery went well, and when I got home Monday night my poor, drugged up pooch was sitting in the corner, cone of shame sadly hanging around his furry head as he tossed me a look that simply said, "what happened?" I nearly broke down right there.
As the drugs wore off that night we quickly realized what a problem this was going to be, Conan was unable to walk, and was totally obsessed with trying to bite and lick the stitches, turning the cone of shame into a weapon with which he could drag the edges across his missing gonads and stitches.
If we had waited until this week I could have spent most days home with him, recuperating from my show and the past few months and depending how the show was received mending each of our wounded pride. Because we did it last week my girlfriend was forced to spend Tuesday at home with him, and when he still wasn't better she took off Wednesday as well. This is where the curve ball comes.
Wednesday morning, I can only think about work and how important that was at the time to me. A stupid hour of national television that people will never remember caused me to ignore my injured pup and the sacrifice my girlfriend was making for me to take care of him for us. So without uttering a thank you that morning I stormed off in a huff, buried in my blackberry trying to tie together the final parts of the show as my girlfriend complained of feeling tired.
It was a little after 1 p.m., I was hunched at my desk, leg shaking, obsessing over some video choices for part of the show when my cell phone started ringing. My girlfriend's mother, an odd call that caused me to pause before answering. About an hour before I called my girlfriend to see how it was going, and I thought it was strange that she was taking a nap when she answered the phone. A feeling of dread settled over me as I picked up the cell and answered, her mother's voice a calm panic.
"She was at the grocery store, and suddenly she passed out, had a seizure on line and she's in an ambulance on her way to the Brooklyn Hospital."
At that moment my world feel to pieces. The dog, my job, bills, stress...gone, unimportant, meaningless. I Stood up and sprinted out of our office, fighting back fear and tears as I pictured my girl alone, afraid, suddenly in the back of an ambulance with no idea of what happened. She is so healthy and has never had any issues, I'm the fat slob who occasionally smokes and doesn't eat healthy making this call so much worse because it was so out of the blue. As I fought with cabbies to take me to Brooklyn she called me, from the ambulance, groggy and scared but just wanting to tell me she was ok.
I finally found a hack willing to take me all the way to Brooklyn, and I proceeded to have the longest, most horrible cab ride ever through midday traffic. Sitting amidst a sea of cars, heat vines snaking around you as a chorus of horns and mouths and machines hammer at you and an uninterested cabbie yammers away at his cell phone while your world and life seems to be slipping away with each red light, i realized what real stress was. Stress isn't putting on a television show, stress is having the most important person in the world suffer a medical emergency out of nowhere, and being unable to help her, or be with her, or tell her what happened. Stress is not being able to reach her again on her cell phone and have every terrible thought go through your head for why.
Relief is when you get to the hospital and see her, scared and sad sitting alone in a hospital bed, pushing aside the security guard trying to tell you to sign a form and hugging her with all you have left because you know she's your world and you're so sorry she was alone.
She's doing ok now, confidence shaken and we're both still not sure what happened. The hospital and her doctor chalked it up to low blood pressure and a fainting spell, followed by a bad bump on the head. People at the grocery store claim it looked like she had a seizure and the neurologist can't see her until the 27th. So until the 27th we wait, and pray, and hope it was just a fluke no matter what. If I needed a humility check, or an appreciation of what is really important check I got it in a big way. The fragility, how instantly it can be taken from you while you're too busy with work to even see the right hook coming is terrifying.
Life is not only short, but it hangs by a string and I'm going to spend a lot of time hugging my girl, petting my pooch, and finding the work I really want.
With my show airing last week, the past two weeks were stress time for me professionally. Putting an hour on national television always seems to come down to the final two weeks, no matter how many months you've been writing and filming and planning. The panic of what you missed, what will and won't work, and what never came through all hit about the Wednesday before the final week. I thrive on the pressure, but I'm also a walking stress bomb trying to pull together the many thoughts and ideas high stepping through my brain like crazed circus performers.
Last week started with a stupid decision, my girlfriend and I took our five month old puppy to be neutered on Monday, a decision that has sank in my heart for weeks as I thought about taking that away from him, his natural instincts, his bravado, his balls. I know it is, in the long term the right thing to do but dam it, who am I to take away a man's ability to make babies? To piss everywhere in an act of territorial machismo? To have the urge to dominate and stake a claim in weaker dogs?
Because of these conflicting feelings I made sure my girlfriend actually delivered him to the vet, so she would always be associated with the trauma and I would remain as fun, nut friendly dad. The surgery went well, and when I got home Monday night my poor, drugged up pooch was sitting in the corner, cone of shame sadly hanging around his furry head as he tossed me a look that simply said, "what happened?" I nearly broke down right there.
As the drugs wore off that night we quickly realized what a problem this was going to be, Conan was unable to walk, and was totally obsessed with trying to bite and lick the stitches, turning the cone of shame into a weapon with which he could drag the edges across his missing gonads and stitches.
If we had waited until this week I could have spent most days home with him, recuperating from my show and the past few months and depending how the show was received mending each of our wounded pride. Because we did it last week my girlfriend was forced to spend Tuesday at home with him, and when he still wasn't better she took off Wednesday as well. This is where the curve ball comes.
Wednesday morning, I can only think about work and how important that was at the time to me. A stupid hour of national television that people will never remember caused me to ignore my injured pup and the sacrifice my girlfriend was making for me to take care of him for us. So without uttering a thank you that morning I stormed off in a huff, buried in my blackberry trying to tie together the final parts of the show as my girlfriend complained of feeling tired.
It was a little after 1 p.m., I was hunched at my desk, leg shaking, obsessing over some video choices for part of the show when my cell phone started ringing. My girlfriend's mother, an odd call that caused me to pause before answering. About an hour before I called my girlfriend to see how it was going, and I thought it was strange that she was taking a nap when she answered the phone. A feeling of dread settled over me as I picked up the cell and answered, her mother's voice a calm panic.
"She was at the grocery store, and suddenly she passed out, had a seizure on line and she's in an ambulance on her way to the Brooklyn Hospital."
At that moment my world feel to pieces. The dog, my job, bills, stress...gone, unimportant, meaningless. I Stood up and sprinted out of our office, fighting back fear and tears as I pictured my girl alone, afraid, suddenly in the back of an ambulance with no idea of what happened. She is so healthy and has never had any issues, I'm the fat slob who occasionally smokes and doesn't eat healthy making this call so much worse because it was so out of the blue. As I fought with cabbies to take me to Brooklyn she called me, from the ambulance, groggy and scared but just wanting to tell me she was ok.
I finally found a hack willing to take me all the way to Brooklyn, and I proceeded to have the longest, most horrible cab ride ever through midday traffic. Sitting amidst a sea of cars, heat vines snaking around you as a chorus of horns and mouths and machines hammer at you and an uninterested cabbie yammers away at his cell phone while your world and life seems to be slipping away with each red light, i realized what real stress was. Stress isn't putting on a television show, stress is having the most important person in the world suffer a medical emergency out of nowhere, and being unable to help her, or be with her, or tell her what happened. Stress is not being able to reach her again on her cell phone and have every terrible thought go through your head for why.
Relief is when you get to the hospital and see her, scared and sad sitting alone in a hospital bed, pushing aside the security guard trying to tell you to sign a form and hugging her with all you have left because you know she's your world and you're so sorry she was alone.
She's doing ok now, confidence shaken and we're both still not sure what happened. The hospital and her doctor chalked it up to low blood pressure and a fainting spell, followed by a bad bump on the head. People at the grocery store claim it looked like she had a seizure and the neurologist can't see her until the 27th. So until the 27th we wait, and pray, and hope it was just a fluke no matter what. If I needed a humility check, or an appreciation of what is really important check I got it in a big way. The fragility, how instantly it can be taken from you while you're too busy with work to even see the right hook coming is terrifying.
Life is not only short, but it hangs by a string and I'm going to spend a lot of time hugging my girl, petting my pooch, and finding the work I really want.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Scary
Well I'm home again, as always it feels great to drop my bags on our glossy wood floors, plop on the couch like I haven't sat in days and get some much needed love from my girlfriend and puppy. Ohio was a somber reminder of how much people are hurting right now, and how dark it seems for many. Was next in Newport, Rhode Island which was a somber reminder of how rich and carefree some people are. I think I'm settled somewhere in between...
A frightening thing happened the day I returned home, a building down the block from me collapsed on itself. Several people were injured as the decayed brick and cement skeleton pancaked on top of itself. I ran down just as the emergency crews were getting a hold of the situation and the local news crews were screeching up like glamorized, self important super heros whose duty is to actually do nothing but stoke a little fear about rogue collapsing buildings (trust me, I know). I caught a woman, ashen face, sobbing into her wrinkled hands about losing everything, and you could see the faintest remains of a little girl's pink walls inside the rubble.
Thankfully nobody was killed, I hear a few bricks started to fall, people ran out and suddenly the roof caved in followed by the top two floors. I cannot imagine losing everything I own like that...I know they're only possessions but after I shook my head for a moment about actually getting out in time, it would be absolutely devastating to realize every single thing I own, clothing to medicine to electronics, pictures and computers are buried beneath a ton of cement, brick and sheet rock. I don't know what I'd do, I'm not poor but I only have a few bucks to spare and it would take me months to buy enough clothing for work, new shoes, refill my prescriptions. It's amazing how quickly life can just go to shit, I just hope those people are strong enough to make it through this.
Another victim of the collapse is the neighborhood itself. It's like the block that building was on, Myrtle Avenue, was just getting on its feet and away from the Murder Avenue nickname. There were great stores and bars and people all along the strip...now that building is gone and they have to tear down two others badly damaged by the collapse, which will in turn create an ugly eye sore and absolutely shutdown commerce. It's the kind of event that can ripple into something far bigger than a four story building, during a time in our economy when each and every store owner and employee are holding onto the desperate thought that that next person shuffling by will be a customer.
On a personal note, the first story of the building was a pretty decent bar called Vesper. It was the closest sports bar to me at only two blocks away, had a good selection of beer, darts, a nice back deck and two flat screen televisions. Seems pretty normal, I know, but in this artsy neighborhood you'll find a lot of "conversation" bars with nothing but a few stools and a couple of beers on tap. Fine by me, but I'm the kind of guy that will go into a bar alone if I can nurse a few pints while zoning out to whatever game is on, without television I'm always scared someone will start talking to me and I manically zip around on my Blackberry to look busy.
The other day I was in Vesper, and the crowd was a little bit too snobby hipster...the kind of people who glare when a guy like me, in a polo shirt just off work walks in. It's funny how the "cool" people who aren't supposed to care about anything really care the most. Anyways, I shrugged it off and sat on a stool. It was 7 and the Yankees were playing the Mets, I couldn't really imagine a New York bar NOT playing that game however both televisions where set to the Stanley Cup game.
I like hockey, and I'd like to flip back to that game at certain points but this is New York, the Yankees are playing the Mets and the hockey match was still just on warm ups and announcer face time. I politely asked the bartender if he could put the baseball game on and he tossed a finger in the direction of a couple of gender ambiguous people at the Foosball table in skinny jeans and said, "sorry they were in here first and asked for the hockey game." I politely replied that the hockey game wasn't starting for another 20 minutes, and the baseball game had already started, could we just watch a little bit? He asked me what team I liked, with a certain glint in his eye and I knew what that meant. I took a pull, swallowed and proclaimed the Yankees without blinking because as a hated Yankee fan you run into this from time to time, and I'm no man to hide my affiliation.
On cue the balding, height challenged barkeep shook his head and walked away. A typical Red Sox d-bag hiding out in New York. At that point I chugged my beer, declared a principal boycott on the establishment and uttered a silent curse about the situation. One week later the whole roof caves in on the building.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
There's a sad bitterness hanging over Moraine, Ohio...the gray, decaying, weed choked GM plant says it all...what once was the ticket to a middle class dream is reminder of hard days past and harder days to come. I hope they can pull through...back to brooklyn.
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