Collective Gelt

Here is a concept that has altered very little over the years. The basic premise is that within societies, there is this thing called gelt, gold coins, and everyone bears a shared responsibility for collecting, shining, and earning them.

The issue is how do you spread around something that isn’t digital? Do you mail it? And if so, how much? Does it make sense to pay for insurance? What about people able to make it, ya know, counterfeiters? 

What are we supposed to do with that fact? Don’t spend it all in one place. How there are people who don’t want someone else’s gelt, preferring to procure their own. 

Do we all invest together, sitting down with a financial planner on a society-wide basis? It sounds complicated, but if that’s what needs to happen, then fine, sure, let's do it. We could get a safety deposit box and exchange passwords to ensure everyone goes along with the plan. There’s not much you can do if someone refuses to participate though. You can’t just give someone gelt, leaving it on their doorstep. They might hand it to the mailman or a neighborhood voyeur. 

Some people think that gelt should only be personal, hidden in a stash or piggy bank. This individual basis makes it so some hoard gelt, believing the stuff possesses some sort of special quality.

The main problem I see with collective gelt is that far too often it’s covered in tin foil and made entirely of chocolate. Not bad, but what happens when it’s left in the sun? Honestly, how far would edible currency get you at Davos before the economists laughed you off the slopes? 

Happy Hannukah. 

Nom Nom Nom

 

For those seeking a cross between anonymity and immortality, noms provide a warm security blanket of notoriety. Notice how I didn’t say, “names.” This is, like a baguette or some au jus, something the French have accepted as their nominal, national legacy. 

Aside from the famous noms of du plume and de guerre – there happen to be others, for which, only the most confused and confusing individual could wish to adopt on a semi-daily basis. 

Nom du jour is a lot like soup du jour, except one does not assess a name solely on drinkability. People wishing to shed a name and try on a new one with each passing sun, a nom du jour is what they’re looking for. They don’t need a reason to pick a new identity, aside from boredom, something which creeps into their psyche around 3 or 4 pm every day. It can be a lot of pressure to come up with a new name, but the good news is that when selecting a below average moniker, one only has to maintain it for 24 hours (less when you factor in sleep).   

Nom de la mer is an idea I stumbled on body surfing at Rockaway Beach, not wanting to reveal my true name to alleged authority figures. When asked by a nosy park ranger for some identification, I said it was Don Sepio. Luckily, neither Greek mythology or deciphering anagrams are part of standard curriculum at park ranger school. 

Nom de la classe gives students the power to change into someone else for a chance. You might still fail the course, but by becoming a new person, it helps separate your own sense of self with the poor grades marking up your transcript.

 

Some people like to become different people in the bedroom (nom de la chambre) or the bar (nom de taverne) or on a transatlantic flight (nom de voler). While others prefer adopting their pet’s name (nom de chien) or see a clear dividing line between themselves with stimulants and without (nom avant la café). There are those who believe they are different on stage (nom en dansant) than when they are eating (nom au dîner). 

Still, most of the aforementioned noms are general, not specific. The purpose of most is to achieve a sort of common universality. Take the mangnificnet nom en mangeant une déliceuse prune. This is not about someone who adopts a different name while eating just any old stone fruit, but only a delicious plum. Many a rascal has opted for the nom en étant un idiot. There are many, many more. For the blizzard lovers among our ranks, a nom de la neige de plus six pouces wouldn’t bat an eye lash at any accumulation under half a foot. Religious minded folks with a devious sensibility are often found to have a pew preferred nom pour Dieu, in case their birth name has too many sins on the ledger. 

But that’s just to nom a few.

It Could Be Better

There’s a tendency by perpetual optimists to couch everything in terms of hope and positivity. Good things and happy thoughts. The sweet stuff. This gives most events a nice veneer of respectability and acceptance, making it seem unseemly to complain about anything in polite company. I consider this method dishonest since it uses trickery to repress a natural human emotion. We have entire industries based around complaints, dubbing them departments, yet after a couple glasses of wine people shouldn’t whine. How is that fair? 

Complaining is what most people do best, especially around the holidays. To some, the holidays are about togetherness and thankfulness, but I don’t see that possible when so many could have so much more. The way it’s often positioned is that if you look at the whole of human history and pluck out our pleasant temporal nugget, this is inarguably the best time to be alive. You don’t have to worry about being eaten by roaming beasts or beaten by Roman legions. You have a decent Internet connection, a microwave, and a fridge full of solid food (alongside a couple liquids too). Your closet isn’t empty and neither is your bank account. But you can’t help but think things could be just a little bit better.

You’re not a billionaire. You’re not a young, capricious king, looking to expand territory. You haven’t paraglided today. And your newest child’s stroller doesn’t hover a few millimeters off the ground. 

Therein lies the first of many reasons to complain about your situation. You want to be thankful for what you have, or, as the song goes, what you got, but how can you be?  

So this Thanksgiving, don’t be thankful, be determined to get more out of life. This new direction starts with your dinner plate. If you dominate the side dishes and win the Risk like struggle for dining supremacy, 2022 might just be a great one. Right now you ought to be strategizing how to best secure the most helpings. This isn’t dinner at a Chinese restaurant where sharing is the norm. The point is to pile each dish high and by the time your relatives approach the buffet, the pickings are slim and cold. You’ll have them thinking how to optimize their food selections during future holidays. 

Happy heaping. 

No Principals

I don’t have any principals and it’s really starting to show. My whole life is governed by nothing and no one remotely resembling a high school principal. An individual redolent of an educational epoch when double-breasted blazers were all the rage and one’s pocket square was the sole place for genuine self-expression. With shoulder patches, the options were far more limited. Tartan plaid was about it, the repurposed kilt from a Scotsman sick of feeling sudden drafts.

But not having any principals is simply the beginning of my bizarre journey down the unsupervised corridors of civilization. Not only do I not have principals, but I don’t have vice principals either. Nor do I have people in my life called “deans.” What if you’re a dean who’s also named Dean? Double Dean? What then? 

Nevertheless, allow me to digress. So, as you can see, I have no principals, no headmaster, no teachers and surely no hall monitors in my relative peer group wearing a reflective sash and carrying a clipboard cataloging the movement of every student in the proverbial locker lounge. 

It’s not only the people who are different in my world without principals. There are other things that have changed, too. This means I have no homework, no detentions, no suspensions and definitely no expulsions. There aren’t grades, classes or extracurricular activities to speak of. There’s no band practice with a failed tubadour living out his Sousian dreams of gridiron glory through halftime heroics – melodies at midfield. There are no books with a thick spine and fine print taxing my vertebra. There aren’t janitors sweeping up after me either. No nurse whose solution to every ailment is a sugary cough drop and to “walk it off.”

There’s no school spirit, no pompoms or locker combination to remember. I have no need for buses, lunch trays or school plays. That’s the thing about not having principals. It never stops there.   

Types of People

There are only two types of people in the world. People who believe there are two types of people in the world and people who don’t. But what about Mars, or is that now considered part of the world in the same way East Rutherford, New Jersey gets lumped in with the long, greedy arm of the Empire State? Are there two people up there, red-blooded renegades revved up for reality on the Red Planet? I guess there are two more types of people in the world. Those who want to go to Mars and those who want an almondless Mars bar, not realizing that it’s just the Euro-version of a regular ol’ Milky Way.

Like everything from telegraphs to fax machines, this is a rather recent development. There used to be three types of people in the world. People who believed in God, people who didn’t believe in God and people who believed they were God. Sadly, the prophet-sharing model has made its way only partially to the solar-paneled landscapes of Silicon Valley. You might say that certain famous billionaires believe themselves to be Gods. But I doubt it. If these gents really thought that were the case, they wouldn’t be wearing helmets or perfecting safety devices on their vehicles. Deities don’t require spacesuits – space is their home. It’s like asking someone to wear a helmet around the house. What’s heaven if not the Heavens? The self-proclaimed Gods I notice are those sleeping in trash-filled vestibules on public transportation. To be a true believer, you need to be a little crazy. 

Before that, there were four types of people in the world. Those who thought the world was flat, those who thought the world was round, those who didn’t think much about it and then those who didn’t really understand geometry. 

But I guess before there were two types of people in the world there were simply two people in the world. I wonder what they did to pass the time. It usually starts by sharing a Twix.

Health Code Violations

Over the last several months, several anonymous people have complained to me about the direction this delicatessen is headed. So before getting started, Dave and Steve, thank you for your courage. You’re going to need it now that everything is out in the open. I wouldn’t be up here lecturing my employees if it wasn’t for your efforts. I have noticed some disturbing trends that are affecting this business. And it has little to do with the rodent family in the cupboard or the soapless bathroom going on 7 months now. It's about how we speak to each other.

There was a time when we all spouted off willy-nilly about silly things. Not anymore. I realized how giving customers familiar labels creates certain issues that leaves other customers feeling left out. No one at this establishment is hungry but rather, they are people experiencing hunger. No one is starving, but rather they are people experiencing starvation. No customer of ours should ever be responded to with the casual, “thanks, boss, how ya doin’ boss” as it implies the very social hierarchy we’re trying to dismantle. “Thanks, equal,” works much better. 

When I told Steve, “you have a genius level IQ” he called me out for improper pronoun use. “We have a genius level IQ,” he said, having recently uncovered my long-lost Stanford-Binet under the wheel of cheddar in the broom closet. He was right, naturally, and I was left to apologize and hope for his hasty forgiveness. Our pork products are differently cured, speaking to the equanimity I’m attempting to engender. Before you’d have pancetta partisans arguing with the bacon brigade as the ham heroes sat and watched. Remember, there are many types of tomatoes, not just beefsteak Jersey juicers. Avoid the use of adjectives like “delicious” or “spicy,” as it can be dehumanizing to those with blander palates. Avoid terms like “slice,” “cut,” “chop,” or other terms with violent imagery. A phrase like “thinly-sliced prosciutto” might have the opposite effect and force our thicker customers into a sudden onslaught of tears. Avoid exclamatory statements of joy like “Oh baby” as not everyone in the store maybe be able to procreate. 

So last night I put together a comprehensive handbook of these sorts of things, with an index, glossary, photos, and a lengthy acknowledgement section. However, just as I was preparing each crease for this meeting, a member of my staff informed me that "handbook" is problematic. There are people without hands out there, who dream of shakes and fist pumps, never to feel like the firm grip of a colleague's palm after a job well done. 

At first, I thought, you really have to hand it to these people, they sure think of everything. But then I realized, even that I couldn’t do. A footbook has same drawbacks, with the footless ruing the footloose for constantly putting their best foot forward. I opted for a compromise that didn’t reference either, calling it a plain old book. Then someone told me that it might make the illiterate in the group feel singled-out. I wondered how they would even know, not being able to read and all. I shrugged and said, if not a book, what then? A boo perhaps? No, that involves paranormal problems, making ghosts feel even more unseen than normal. A bo? Those lacking a basic pituitary function might feel anxious, though they would have an odd way of showing it, not being able to sweat and all. A b? What would the other 25 letters think watching as the second letter of the alphabet is placed into a position of arbitrary importance? I scratched my chin for a few good minutes before saying, maybe it could be called nothing. Not the word nothing, but nothing nothing. Like Oxygen. I really thought that could work. Since these rules for communicating are as essential as the very air we breathe. I impressed myself at such an unexpected epiphany. How naïve I must have been to think such a thing. What about Carbon Monoxide? It’s as colorless and odorless as I'm thoughtless. Just because something is categorized as a silent killer doesn’t mean it doesn't have feelings, too. 

That’s when I gave up.

Lines in the Sand

 

I’m one of those people who visits the beach out of season, when the surfers, swimmers, and drone-operators are gone. But to me, it's as ripe as a mirabelle plum during high season. On days when the weather is subpar to some, but superb all the same.

Writing, though a compulsion of mine, has grown exhausting given the narrowing of available platforms. I can only write by hand or on a word processor. I’ve never been a graffiti guy (perhaps it was the fumes that got to me). Our canvases are quite limited, despite what online prognosticators claim. Sidewalks are only suitable when wet. Windows and mirrors only viable when fogged up. Snow only comprehensible, well, let’s just say when particularly colorful. 

As a writer in need of a medium, I avoided making an appointment with a psychic (foretelling myself ignoring their predictions, thus skipping the process altogether) and headed to the beach. 

The beach is a great place to write. Drawing lines in the sand gets a bad wrap, but if you ask anyone who has a handle on cuneiform, they will surely sing its praises. Then again, talking to ancient sarcophaguys, doubly mummified under the weight of museum-grade plexiglass, gets old after a while – as do you. But they know a thing or two about sand and making the most of it. 

Lines in the sand aren’t ultimatums. How could they be? It’s not like they last, given the tide. It’s an empty gesture, a way to blow off a little ocean steam. The beach is beyond censorship, unless you consider Poseidon’s twice daily tidal onslaught something akin to a marine ministry of truth. Is it possible that right after writing something wildly offensive a rip current arrives, sweeping you out to sea for a date with Davy Jones? Of course. I wouldn’t call that censorship though. It’s more like accountability. We need people who take a look at our writing and provide feedback. People who, while they can't necessarily write themselves, have an eye for what words sound best and in what order. Folks who understand that writing needs rhythm, timing and a sense of both song and dance. Writers can't be their own masters, unless you believe blogging should inherit the earth. We all need people who have a keen sense of verbiage. We all need editors. Right?

Cymbals Matter

It can start off innocently enough. As you skip down the sidewalk headphoneless, a melody enters your unobstructed listening field. You stop, giving the sound a chance to expand. The door where the sounds originate is blocked by a wide man in a tight shirt who generously lets you pass, putting his index finger to his lips, making the universal sign for “be quiet.”

You enter, staying quiet, slinking into a chair towards the back. It’s there that you imagine the clear room when it was a smoky room, before smoking bans preserved lungs and destroyed vibes. During prohibition, crashing cymbals were a sign that a band of like-minded confederates approved of the dancing, dress, and drink going on at the performing establishment paying their salary.

The music reminds you of the time you stole a slinky from a convenience store and the sound it made as it swooshed and swayed from side-to-side in your cargo pants, alerting the shop owner to your uninspired kleptomania. Here you’re fully aware there are no slinkies, only cymbals. 

Drumming without cymbals might as well be a criminal act, with the banging and the stick twirling. A drum kit without a set of cymbals is nothing more than a false idol to real noise complaints. 

Cymbals allow for musicians to express themselves in ways otherwise closed to them. They are not guitarists, capable of subtlety or nuance, given the opportunity to express themselves using less aggressive forms of musicianship. Cymbals are more than cymbals. They’re symbols. Symbols of the whole spectrum of sound, showing us that Tommy Lee in inside a rotating 360-degree drum kit like a hamster on his wheel, may in fact be the humanity's high-water mark. Can we even imagine such a display without cymbals? 

You can’t just get rid of cymbals by using a technologically superior drum machine. While it prevents severe hearing loss and minor wrist injuries in human beings, do we really want robots taking on the drum solo? Let them adopt the French horn or the oboe, instruments most humans have given up on. But cymbals, percussive jewels made of all types of alloy, still matter. They can be approximated by a lone ox prancing across the prairie with a bell around his neck. With oxen, you have a living, breathing thing, attempting to find meaning in the world through making noise. Drum machines have no such desire. 

Everything's About Races

 

 

The only people who claim, rather unconvincingly mind you, that life isn’t always a competition, are, studies show, losers. These bona fide dunderheads don’t seem to comprehend that what gives existence stakes and weight is knowing that somehow, somewhere is a cash prize and shiny medal waiting for the first to cross the finish line. It is why, even in 2021, all conversations lead to races. Though not always directly, depending on the road course in question.

Races tend to come up in casual conversation. You could be talking about anything. Shopping, education, the criminal justice system – and it usually comes down to who came in first. Some defunct governments with different alphabets were based on the principle of everyone coming in last. A slight twist on things, but not to be scoffed at so quickly either. 

People who wish to stroll though life at their own leisurely pace, moving from tapas to siesta, and never reaching for a tiny dixie cup of water held by a bundled up stranger, are missing out on an essential part of being human. The species, many historians have noted, didn’t really get going until the advent of bottled water. Before it was jugs and cups and lots of spilling. 

If, at the end of a working day, you don’t require a fire blanket, intravenous hydration and a hospital-grade respirator, there’s a good chance you’re holding something back. Perhaps you’re afraid that if you go all out, you might still lose. That’s possible. What’s more likely is that you’ll catch a glimpse of yourself wearing a sweatband in the mirror, sending you into a dreamlike state, imagining how much better off the world would be where all people dressed like amateur runners.

I already get teary-eyed thinking of someone’s number flapping in the breeze, since those, like so much else, will soon be replaced by an electronic bar code, scannable at every national chain, stamped right on your chest. 

Whatever subject is currently dominating the airwaves ultimately comes down to individual races. Political races, space races, the critical races, as it were. But races are like duels without broad swords and medieval facial hair. Since there can only be one winner at a time. 

Collapsed Stars

When a child actor under 10 years and 4 feet, ages and grows into moneyed adulthood, there begins a long crisis of purpose. If you’re not starring in zany comedies and big budget dramas, it can, for some, be a real chore to gather up an authentic sense of self. 

What was cute one day, is acne-riddled, drug-addled the next. What’s precocious at 6 is painfully obvious at 26. Without a line reading, some people don’t know what to say. Therein lies the predicaments these avatars of adolescence face when the curtain close and the stage lights go out one last time. 

Being a child actor teaches a person a great deal of practical things. Like where to stand still on little pieces of tape before a man in a chair yells at you to move already. How your dominant hand will thank you after signing your initials during an unexpected autograph barrage. No one needs your full signature – not even the IRS. Learning how to spell words like “junket” and “accolade” before any of your peers is a privilege. 

So when these tikes of theatrical tribulations enter the real world, they possess an inordinate amount of solid experiences stay grounded. Even if they’ve never gone to school, they surely starred in a movie on the subject. Being a kid is one thing, but playing a kid in a movie is quite another. In real life you might repeat yourself a couple times on a rough day. For child actors, all you do is repeat yourself, rehearsing your lines again and again to get into character. They understand the motivations of all those around them. 

This gives them the authority to tell the well-adjusted masses exactly how to live, especially once their career has sputtered from the silver screen into social media obscurity. 

Like many a maniacal messiah before them, they sacrificed for the good of the whole. Think of what they wouldn’t have given for a normal childhood? Instead, they were learning what percentage a manager takes home after a box office bomb. Based on their current need for clicks, it was an awful lot. 

Burying The Leeds Devil

The Jersey Devil had a good run, terrorizing the good citizens of the Garden State for three centuries, devouring wandering livestock, penned livestock, caged livestock, and finishing up each meal by meticulously flossing using the copious pine found all across his massive, rural home. 

Sadly, the educational system being what it is in this country, more American schoolchildren can identify the Loch Ness monster than our very own, openly demonic, unquestionably native son. But for hundreds of years, the new paranormalcy in New Jersey meant countless sightings of the creature, rampaging through the state’s farmlands, swamplands, and other...lands. The only Jersey Devil they know is the hockey team, a toothless, faceless, and offensive caricature that lives on to this day. It’ll never change. A constituency of one can’t muster up enough outrage for a cause. Say your time is Jim and the newly founded Providence baseball club decides to name their team after you and use, as their mascot, a freakish doodle of you on your worst looking day? That’s how JD has felt for years. Can you really blame him for spending so much time ravaging the chicken coop? 

As the story goes, early in the 18^th century, a woman named Leeds, the proud mother of twelve children, learned she was again, with child. This is when things took a turn. You might think that the thirteenth child is some sort of prized child. For some, it is. The whole concept of the baker’s dozen was started by the original bakers – pregnant women. “12 for me, one for free.” 

For Leeds though, it wasn’t that at all. Some say she cursed herself, others say she had a d’alliance with Beezlebub himself, it being New Jersey in a much slower time. Long before Bruce, The Sopranos, and Snooki. There wasn’t much to do besides make nice with hellish figures passing through town on their way to New York City. Over the years, descriptions have varied. Some say he looks like a dragon, others a lizard, and still others claim he looks just like Tom Skerritt, fresh off his Alien notoriety.  

Many people can’t understand how a mother could cast out a child into the wilderness. But a demon baby is different. There wasn’t enough room for JD to spread his wings in their crowded hovel. Plus, hooves are loud and his appetite was prodigious. Given the fact he’s survived for about 300 years, can we all agree that Mother Leeds made the right decision? She set him free. What was the alternative exactly? JD wasn’t a suit and tie guy, who’d run a general store or an inn for wayward travelers. He was a beast, the son of Satan, who preferred the company of sizable deer ticks to people.

Eventually, the crime families of New Jersey and Philadelphia were fed up with the midnight marauding of JD. He affected their bottom line. Together, they owned a few dairy farms and JD would arrive looking for burgers, not milk. 

Initially, they planned on paying him off, sending him out west to Arizona like Joe Bananas, out of their hair and into the hot desert sun. But some people never leave New Jersey. An altercation broke out between the devil and two made guys. They knocked him out and since they were already in the Pine Barrens, given that his ramshackle home was in one of the most remote sections of the area, they decided to bury him right there. The two thugs rolled him up in a rug and carried him a few hundred yards from his estate.

The thing is, when they unfurled the rug, inside was nothing but a bunch of old bones from every critter in the area. The two mobsters spent a few hours looking for him, confused but not surprised. This was a supernatural event, after all. Eventually, they gave up and went home, first stopping at a Roy Rogers, assuming, or hoping that JD was rotting a ditch somewhere. 

He wasn't. They never did figure out the mystery of the disappearing demon. Maybe one day. 

The Jersey Devil lives on, in myth, memory and not too far from the Mullica River. You can write to him if you get an address. Some say he moved out of the Pine Barrens and resides in a Philly townhouse. Others think he’s just another commuter, making his way to the big city to fulfill his dreams, or, being the Devil's spawn, nightmares.  

Nothing Ment By It

These days the terms mansplaining and manspreading have given way to new labels of derision and moral superiority. Menterruptions are new, but not all. There are more. Many more. This is just how language works.

In big, world class orchestras many of the paying public are subjected to the whims of menscians fiddling with their menstruments menprovising old-fashioned menodies.

At book parties among the city’s mentelligensia, mentellectuals menterested menly in menformation menvoke mentolerant mennovations with mentrinsic mencrudulity. 

Menasmuch as mensistance is meningless, menveterate mendependent mendividuals menvite menselves to mendulge in mentangible mendictments with menquisitive menplomb, mensinuating meny mendeas, either menvalid or mengenious, menpending on your menspective. 

Mendeed, there are menborn menspirations from mentution, mentact since menfancy. 

Mensouciant gestures menjure even when mententions are pure. 

Menpaid menternships have no place. Everyone needs a steady mencome, provided their menvoice isn’t menaccurate.

Mensomniacs mentermix mennuendo, mentifada, and mensanity, menfringing mendirectly on mentimates with menfinite menvasions of menferiority. 

Menscribing certain menfluences with menfractions like menexplicable paragraph mendentations, while mentriguing, menvolve menherent menvective. 

Mentegrity doesn’t men everyone’s mennocent or a menmate, mensuring menterprations from Menternet forums rarely menstruct, especially to a mendifferent menterconnected group mentoxicated by their own menstransigence.  

Although, this could be a mencorrect way to menterface with the world, mendicating mendocrination and menflexible mensights. 

 

Mental, isn’t it?

There's One Side to Every Story

 

The way I think about it is a lot like the way I think about God. You want to believe in God? Fine. But the moment you let another young, strapping God into the mix, you might as well let the whole damn pantheon inside. You can’t allow in one extra deity, a divine Tom Hagen, to sitteth righteth nexteth toeth theth Big Guy, thinking that will be the end of it.

It won't be. 

When someone says, “I’m a polytheist” they don’t quantify the poly, do they? Once you’re dealing with two Gods, you might as well welcome in another two hundred. You’re already getting dinged by the monotheists for going off the reservation, it's only appropriate to at least get your money’s worth. The process quickly devolves into a notoriously bureaucratic process. Personally speaking, I can see the appeal. In monotheism, for every problem you are essentially asked to contact the CEO and founder. In the realm of customer service, that’s not a viable system. But if in early April, you tell me to contact the God of Tax write-offs right after praying to the God of Tax Extensions, I might be cautiously optimistic. You’re not asking a lot of each God in this paradigm. The God of Corn doesn’t have to worry about having anything other than a cursory understanding of corn whiskey. There are plenty of other deities concentrated on distilled spirits, devoted to spending eternity making moonshine. Gods of small things tend to be more down to earth than a singular force living literally on a cloud. But that’s just me. In monotheism every complaint is already elevated to the point where there's nowhere further to ascend to.

Similarly, when it comes to facts, a second story leads quite conveniently into a third and fourth, in no time making you doubt your initial grasp of events. Debate is the worst thing that ever happened to human beings. We were given the ability to nod in agreement early on, before even language. Let's use it.

The only side to any story is the one you’re seeing at that moment. Like a good actor who protects the pock-marked side of their face when couch surfing between low rated late night programs, you ought to do the same. It’s much easier to get on someone’s good side when that’s all you see. Don’t let anyone view your blemishes. Poor lighting and facial cream are your friends. Remember that.

On those rare occasions where I go out in public to make a mandatory court appearance, I tend to do the same, fidgeting to pivot in profile inside the witness box. There’s a reason this is how our greatest citizens posed for coin based immortality. Full frontal faces leave in too many creases and craters. George Washington’s side view is what we see on the quarter and the Purple Heart. And that ought to be it. In a cashless society, it will be. 

The Scarlet Bettor

 

Years ago, when social media still meant the staticky television set jury-rigged to the molding of a neighborhood social club, gambling was viewed as an illicit activity. Something dangerous and to be handled by professionals or at least ex-cons. On this TV, members in good standing would sit and bet on the ponies at Aqueduct or Belmont. They’d explain the point of harness racing or what the rabbit in a dog track was made of. They’d wager on anything and everything. But they weren’t regular guys who had nine-to-fives, accurately and honestly filling out their W-2s. They revolutionized working remotely long before it was mainstream. They put a little sambuca in their coffee and smoked cigarillos by the carton. 

Others would peer into the club to get a glimpse at the cash changing hands after every race. Online gambling simply meant the prodigious line snaking around the club’s backdoor, full of anxious people scrambling to pay their weekly vig. At the end of the day, everybody wants to keep their thumbs. It’s why certain segments of the animal kingdom ignore their debts. Like cats. Why is that again? No opposable thumbs, leaving very little anatomically for an industrious young thug to threaten with sudden and forceful removal.

People, on the other hand, care deeply about the well-being of their thumbs. We depend on gestures to communicate non-verbally. When the thumbs up disappears from your digital arsenal, it’s a sad moment where smiling becomes the only way one can convey sincere approval.

When gambling was situated firmly underground, identifying gamblers was incredibly easy. You’d look for the person red with fear and drink The scarlet bettor, as it were. Today, with the Internet diving into wagering with both hands wide open, it’s not always so obvious how to spot someone with a weakness for point spreads. The stigma isn’t what it used to be.

Will gambling recede from the public? I wouldn’t bet on it. 

Revel Without a Cause

 

When puzzled by inexplicable, seemingly sudden shifts in modern mores, I think of a witty, oft-repeated line retold by a schoolteacher from my exceedingly distant past.

“People didn’t wake up one day and suddenly realize it was the Renaissance. It was much more gradual that.”  

There wasn’t a massive, sudden, and collective sensation akin to a zombie plague, where court painters immediately understand how to use perspective and parish priests were overcome with unimaginable doubt regarding their own place in the universe. While this may have been true for Europeans living during this period, for New Yorkers witnessing the onslaught of annoying little scooters, it sure seemed to happen overnight. One day, there were bicycles and cars, pedestrians and food trucks pulled uphill by out-of-shape hot dog vendors, and the next day, the entire city was overrun with carefree tourists in flip flops weaving in and out of traffic on bright blue scooters. 

Who was ready for that? The Atomic Age had its perks and a few rather notable drawbacks. What then has the scooter brought us? It is a vehicle without a country, stuck in the middle, appealing to no one. It has neither the power of a car, nor the the moral superiority of the bicycles. 

It’s like being a pescatarian. You don’t want to kill animals, fine. But fish remain glaringly on your nightly hit light because they lack fur and you can’t hug a sturgeon. You want to save the world but you’re still riding around on a scooter. Pony up for a hummer while the getting is good. 

And this is New York City. There are buses and subways for the publicly minded resident. Do we really need ziplines bisecting Midtown? No. That’s what a scooter is, a pointless addition to a crowded place. At least food trucks serve another function – they serve food. Unless scooters want to have an industrial smoker installed where the second seat currently occupies, I say it’s time to get these vehicles off the road. 

Playing Dumb

“Cut, cut, cut. What the hell was that?,” the Director, or Captain as he preferred to be called, asked the entire set. It was a semi-rhetorical statement, to which, he only wanted an answer from one person – his lead actor, Marco Bontemps. 

“I was riffing a little. I thought this was a safe set.”

“You’re playing dumb in this part. What about that don’t you understand?”

“I thought I could add some depth to the character.”

“This character has no depth. You said ‘evince’ in the last take. Don’t say that again unless you’re talking about an e-version of our key grip named Vince.” 

Vince looked up from the rafters, holding a piece of cable in his teeth.

“You good Captain?,” yelled Vince, swaying from a wobbly scaffold. 

The Captain delivered a big thumbs up to his favorite crew member. 

“Right. You’re the boss.”

“I’m the Captain. Stick to what’s on the page. And if you must improvise, monosyllables only. Think you can handle that?”

“Did it ever bother you that the word monosyllabic isn’t monosyllabic?” 

The Captain rolled his eyes and headed back to the director’s chair. It wasn’t a normal director’s chair, but a vintage Eames chair that he expensed for about ten grand. No wonder most of his films went way over budget. This wasn’t the highlight of his career and he knew it. That would’ve been the independent movie, a real passion project, he wrote and directed, Pebble in a Pond. A three-hour film with no dialogue, just a lot of Wagner and some well-timed German subtitles. The story followed a pebble as it plunged from the surface, thrown by a six-year-old boy on shore, and made its way, quite slowly given the running time, to the bottom. Even though we never see the boy’s face, it was written in trade publications that the Captain auditioned hundreds of arms before finally going with some kid who just happened to be there that day. Critics didn’t know what to make of the film, but many put it on their top ten lists out of fear of being considered low brow. It’s like when someone says a joke you don’t understand – you laugh harder to throw them off the scent.

But this project wasn’t his low point either. That would’ve been a mini-series he produced in the late 80s entitled, Our Son, about a teenage arsonist/valedictorian. The project was a disaster and went  over budget because the Captain insisted on actually burning down buildings. “No special effects” was his mantra on set. The documentary about the making of it, Fired!, portrayed the Captain as a tyrannical, pyromaniacal, middling artist obsessed with free food and endless takes.  

After lunch is always the roughest time on a film set. There are pieces of shredded lettuce everywhere, sticking to work boots like torn toilet paper in a bus station bathroom. And everyone’s completely full. People want to nap, they want to veg out. Working is the last thing on someone’s mind whose belly is full.

“Quiet on set. And…rolling,” said the Captain.

Marco stepped to his mark, a piece of tape, covered with shredded lettuce. He held a tray of paint chips.

“They give these free at hardware stores. Suckers. Each color is a different flavor.” 

Marco brought one to his lips, then sighed and waved cut.

“What now?”

“Last scene I was making memes, in another I was leaving mini-lectures on message boards, and now I’m eating paint chips. What’s my motivation, Cap?”

“You’re a moron.”

“Are we talking about my character?”

Swimming in Structures

I’ve been told by a good many unsolicited lecturers that we’re all swimming in structures. It is, whether we know it or not, a part of existence. This is regardless of personal buoyancy and paddling expertise as determined by the YMCA. They rarely elaborate further, assuming the people huddling around their upturned milk crate know just what they mean. Perhaps in lots of cases, the recipients of this sacred knowledge are left confused and distraught. 

Not I.

I know precisely what they mean by structures and have ever since I had the privilege of taking a family vacation to the crystal blue Caribbean. It was a resort like any other, with its white sandy beaches and incessant steel drumming. I took to snorkeling as a way to see the sea from the surface. As a student of the Brooklyn Bridge’s fraught construction, scuba diving was not my idea of relaxation. Unless you consider nitrogen in the bloodstream as the first step towards pure rest. 

When I would snorkel, I would see things. Bricks, cans of Coors light, and realize, that there was more than algae, coral and schools of fish down there. Water is an amazing thing. The idea that all the water on the planet just gets recycled over and over, arriving back to us in different forms is a wondrous concept. Recycling as an act of curbside devotion was rather inscrutable, but I could taste the humidity on a hot summer day. This I could actually grasp. And despite what my Australian friends say about the merits of a pointless game like boomerang, maybe they have a point when it comes to water.

Whether you’re drinking a glass of H2O, stepping into a street puddle, or bathing at the perfect temperature, you might as well be in Atlantis meeting Plato for a cocktail and more. Because we’re all swimming in structures. They could be wide, sweeping steps, or columns of a variety of competing architectural styles, or arches used to carry humans or human waste. This is why having a spotter is prudent. Otherwise you might run into a sudden pillar and have no way of reaching the surface conscious. Whatever it is, we’re carefully performing the elementary backstroke by it, so as not to disrupt any nearby marine life. 

Unless you believe it's only a race to the bottom.  

Breaking The Mold

“They sure broke the mold with him.”

Indeed. He’s a one-of-a-kind, wildly unique individual’s individual. Just look at him. Out there on the sidewalk, struggling to breathe and having the type of coughing fit usually reserved for the restrained patients of echoey psyche wards. What did you think was going to happen? The mold had been there for a while, not bothering anyone or anything. It was up in the corner of the bathroom ceiling, mostly keeping to itself, avoiding contact of any kind. 

Then you had to go and break it. Why did you do such a thing? Would you walk into a French chalet, in earshot of barons of counts, and do that to a slab of especially pungent cheese? I'd like to see you try. 

It was part of the cleaning process. That’s what they always say. I went hiking last week – don’t laugh – and in the forest there were plenty of mushroom covered tree stumps and big boulders blanketed by thick green moss. Moss that looks delicious enough to eat, but not filling enough to serve as an entire meal. It’s a garnish then, which is fine. Not every actor has to be the star and not every edible thing must be on centerplate. Some courses aren’t meant to be main ones.

This is all to say that I didn’t scrape away any moss as a living souvenir of my midday amble. I left it right where I found it. It's in the air now and there's noting we can do about it. 

 

But you couldn’t resist the urge to break the mold. And to do it while he was showering? What did you think was going to happen? He’d not breathe it in deeply, sucking wind, water and of course, those pesky little spores.  

Now that you have a cleaner, pristiner bathroom, what’s next? Surely the critters living in your subterranean dwelling want are in need of some tough love. 

Breaking the mold has its consequences. But it wasn’t broken until you broke it. 

 

Canned Acknowledgement

Prior to kicking off tonight’s meeting of local seltzer enthusiasts billed henceforth as Concerned Citizens for Crisper Carbonation, I think we ought to acknowledge where we are. Wait, where are we? As you can tell by the lustrous carpeting, we’re standing in the rather spacious annex of a Holiday Inn Express. But before it was a Holiday Inn Express it was a Marriot. I think. Or maybe it was a Hilton. But before even that it was a local bed and breakfast run by a gentleman by the name of Ralph. Ralph’s Relaxation Station, I believe. However, that was the name he changed it to because numerous guests complained that The Resting Peace Inn was vaguely morbid. It was that or the massive cemetery that could be seen from the rectory. Earlier though, when Ralph and his brother Rupert were still getting along it was known as the Two Brothers Motel. Then Ralph formally separated from his penny pinching sibling. Their father, Roderick, owned the building originally, though in those days it wasn’t a hotel or anything like that. You could sleep there if you had to. Not that I’d recommend it. 

No, back then it was a place you got your tires rotated and brakes checked. They had a large couch in the waiting room with a lot of ripped cushions. His father, Reginald, made a killing on horse repair. It was a place you got your horseshoes polished and manes combed. That was an open air establishment, which was a good thing, considering the overwhelming stench of manure permeating the grounds at all times. Much worse in the summer months, according to the records I obtained from the library. 

In the years before that, I think it was mostly a patch of ground. Dirt, rocks, leaves, and whatever else you find outside. The British had it before the Americans. The Dutch had it before the British. The Lenape before them. The squirrels before them. The birds before them. The dinosaurs, which I know some in the audience would argue are in fact birds, nonetheless, had it before them. Not that much was done to cultivate the land you see here today. I guess before the planet came to be it was a mess of aspirational atoms floating around deep space hoping for some cosmic batter. The point is that this wasn’t always carpeted, despite the strong odor and enticing pattern. 

All right, with that out of the way, who wants to talk carbonation? Because if there’s one thing that deserves to go to your head it’s sparkling water. What's that? We're almost out of time. Darn. I really need to work on shortening up my preambles. What was Madison's trick?

Sweat Shops

Plenty of companies are accused by disgruntled employees of being sweat shops. That’s it, though. Few tend to elaborate on the accusation, leaving it to us, the regular people, to speculate on what they mean. 

To me, a sweat shop has always conjured up the image of a local market, not unlike common stores selling in useful and pointless wares. By that logic, sweat shops would sell actual sweat. And why not? Since inspirational quoters and diligent workers are always pushing the importance of perspiration, they never thought to specify whose perspiration exactly. Exactly. It can come from anywhere. If you’ll take someone’s unsolicited advice, why not their bottled sweat? Those who leave something to be desired in the ambition department are often hoping and praying a little genius rubs off on them. Here you have it, a real way for something to rub off on it. 

 

The thing is, how can a place be a sweat shop as well as focusing on some other industry, creative or otherwise? Seems like a lot. There are methods to create more sweat, in lieu of pituitary control. For instance, a faulty boiler, in capable of regulating a hospitable environment sure makes for a sweaty workplace. It’s the selling in the shop that sends many to the lavatory to expel any outdated notions of propriety and good sense.

 

But this could be the result of an imagination left to run wild and free, through wooded areas and protected nature preserves. Still, sweating it out is the reason the Finns swear by saunas and Texans swear at barbecues.

 

That said, you’re much better off working somewhere that gives you chills.