ikea by southwest

We spent most of yesterday enduring an Ikea odyssey, made all the more brutal by the corresponding rental of a Uhaul to schlep everything back. While waiting an hour and a half for a truck, I tried to think of other companies who have policies as insane as Uhaul’s “we don’t guarantee that the equipment you reserve will be there” policy. The best I could come up with was Southwest Airlines and their “on your marks, get set, grab a seat!” policy.

Then I decided what a great hidden camera show (tentative title: Uhaul by Southwest) it would make, alternately applying these two policies to assorted businesses and capturing people’s reactions. Imagine watching brides-to-be showing up to pick up their wedding gowns, only to find out that the bridal boutique doesn’t guarantee that the dresses will be there. Or people arriving for an NFL game and being told that their tickets only qualified them for whatever seat they could find. The assorted possibilities for riots and mayhem are endless.

Anyways, I could guide a walking tour through the Long Island Ikea, highlighting fights and meltdowns we’ve had in specific sections throughout the years. I think Ikea strategically plants hysterical infants in their stores just to hurry up their shoppers and increase the odds of irrational “let’s just buy this and get the hell out of here” purchases.

There would be no hurrying on this trip, though. This was the huge pre-baby shop, which included the purchase of a bureau to compensate for the impending hostile takeover of my closet by my unborn son. In my rough estimation, we were there for seventeen hours and bought one third of their stock. At one point, Julia, in her best soon-to-be-a-mommy voice scolded me from about twenty feet away, barking, “Stop playing your cell phone video game and come over here and help me!” to the horror of everyone within earshot.

In her defense, I become a different person the second I set foot in Ikea. It’s the only place that routinely inspires thoughts of violence in me. I’m guessing I’m not alone in these sentiments, though, judging from the aggressive cart maneuvering and personal-space violations of my fellow shoppers. This was also a trip that simply could not be put off any longer. We have two of those tall white cloth-like Ikea lamps that have spaghetti sauce stains on them from two apartments ago. And earlier this week I overheard Julia on the phone with my mom, telling her that I still had the dresser I had stolen from my landlord’s storage space in the basement of an apartment building I lived in ten years ago. Hey, I didn’t jimmy the lock – my upstairs neighbor did.

Avoiding the looks of hate from everyone behind us in line, we completed a transaction roughly equal in complexity and length to the purchase of a house and headed out to the truck. Of course it had started snowing while were inside, confirming my theory that Ikea is actually a time warp. Around this point it dawned on me what an obscene amount of lifting/carrying I would be doing over the next couple of hours. Lifting every enormous box into the truck was a sneak preview of the pain to come. We hit the McDonalds drive-thru around the corner (which, like going to Ikea, sounds like a great idea until you actually do it) and headed home.

I suppose I should mention now that the truck we rented was in rough shape. If it was a horse, it would be put down. The interior looked and smelled like it had housed a chain-smoking homeless family, the passenger-side mirror (a fairly important component of an automobile with no rear-view mirror) was about to fall off, and the shocks must have been made out of cardboard. On the drive home, one of the windshield wipers loudly broke and wedged itself into a triangle formation on the windshield with the other one. Having no choice but to keep driving and needing to see, I tuned the wipers back on and peered through the small triangle of vision I had been allotted.

When we finally pulled up at the apartment, I realized that I had fifteen minutes to get the truck back to avoid the penalty for returning it late (the whole process actually took eight hours). I then performed what could have been a World’s Strongest Man Competition event by sprinting and carrying everything from the truck to the lobby of our building in the heavy snow. The whole thing must have looked incredibly shady to anyone who glanced out the window – had I been watching, I might have called the cops.

Miraculously, I got the truck back with three minutes to spare. Noting that they had slightly underestimated the initial amount of gas in the truck, I lied and said I refilled it up to where it was to avoid an additional fee. I also opted not to mention the windshield-wiper and merely wedged it back into place. I have absolutely no qualms about screwing over Uhaul, and if they try to pull any additional charges, I’ve already written the letter of complaint in my head about the “dangerous” truck we were given.

After a calm fifteen-block walk home in the snow, I now had the joy of carrying everything from the lobby up two flights of stairs to our apartment. By the time I finished, I was drenched in sweat and doubled over. “I can’t ever do this again,” I told Julia, “it’s too much.” She replied, “Don’t worry – if our son ever says that you don’t love him enough, I’ll tell him how hard you worked today.” Thanks.

fruit: a risk vs. reward analysis

(design courtesy of Matt Bites)

fruit: banana
risk: low
reward: moderate
analysis: Never a bad choice, the banana is the .290 hitter of fruit. When was the last time you had a surprisingly bad banana? Never, that’s when. More importantly, the banana offers the most easily interpreted warning signs in the fruit family: if it’s slightly green or covered in brown spots, you know you’re rolling the dice. You will most likely never eat a memorable banana, but for a low-risk fruit that pays out solid dividends, you can’t do better. If you don’t like surprises, the banana might be the fruit for you.

fruit: apple
risk: high
reward: moderate
analysis: There are several schools of thought on the apple, so let’s just examine the facts. For a good month-long stretch in the Fall, you can do no wrong with an apple. If it has no bumps or bruises and feels solid, you’re good to go. But what happens after that? Suddenly the traditional warning signs break down and what was once a promising piece of fruit is a mushy disaster. There are few fruit experiences worse than the first bite of a bad apple – it makes you question everything you thought you knew about fruit. Granted that a good apple is a solid fruit experience, is it really worth the risk? No, it’s not.

fruit: orange
risk: moderately low
reward: high
analysis: A good orange is the holy grail of fruit. Long praised for its sweetness, the orange really brings a complete game to the table. Its rind is one of the most durable in the fruit family, capable of sustaining the kind of turbulence that would simply destroy an apple or pear. While not quite banana-like in its warning signs, the worst (dry) oranges will reveal themselves before that all-important first bite. It is a true testament to the character of this fruit that many people are willing to ignore this warning sign in the hopes of a decent wedge or sweet spot. You will find no better risk/reward payout in the fruit family than the orange.

fruit: pear
risk: high
reward: high
analysis: The often ignored pear presents an interesting dilemma. On one hand, a good pear is rivaled only by the orange. On the other, a bad pear is only eclipsed by a bad apple. While a bad pear may show more easily than an apple, don’t be fooled: a pear can be bad in more ways. There is nothing wrong with taking a gamble with the occasional pear, but as a daily fruit it will eventually let you down.

fruit: the berry family (blue, black, straw, etc.)
risk: high
reward: moderately high
analysis: While some might scoff at the notion of lumping these together, they share a variety of characteristics that cannot be disputed. Bad berries are disgusting – they make you wince. It's time to face the facts: berries are overrated. People eat strawberries with cream and add a variety of berries to cereal. A real fruit can stand on its own. While the berry family exhibits fairly easily interpreted warning signs (mushiness, spots), it will still throw you the occasional curveball. If you’re thinking about buying berries, stop and ask yourself if it’s really worth the risk. It’s probably not.

fruit: grapes
risk: moderate
reward: high
analysis: Grapes succeed where berries fail. They are comparable in size and texture, but more durable and predictable. Even the occasional sour grape is a taste that is quickly erased by the next sweet one. A fruit with options in color and seed, the grape is a solid fruit choice. Second only to the banana in warning signals (softness), it is easy to pick good grapes. You’d think the fruit that produces wine would garner more respect, but the grape continues to be an overlooked, solid performer well worth adding to your portfolio.

fruit: plum
risk: moderate
reward: moderately high
analysis: While no one in recorded history has ever uttered the phrase “wow, that was a fantastic plum,” this is a fruit that delivers. Firmness and mushiness are warning signs, although a not-quite ripe plum is still edible, which is more than you can say for a lot of fruit. With a satisfyingly smooth texture and solid moistness density, the plum is a good, low-risk fruit. It scores like a less stable banana with higher dividends.

fruit: peach
risk: high
reward: high
analysis: The peach performs similarly to the pear: great when it’s good, terrible when it’s bad. While a good summer peach is one of the pinnacles of fruit experience, the first bite of bad peach is eclipsed only by that of the apple. If you can afford the possible negative fallout and diversify your fruit choices, by all means, grab a peach. But if you’re on a tight budget and need a more predictable piece of fruit, go orange.


fruit: kiwi
risk: moderate
reward: moderate
analysis: Somewhat of an enigma, the jury is still out on the kiwi. A solid performer in fruit salads, the kiwi is still seen as too exotic by many in the fruit world. In fact, many a fruit expert has confessed an inability to differentiate between a good and bad kiwi. It also presents a confusing set of eating/peeling methods. You might want to hold out on the kiwi for a bit, but be sure to track its progress in the coming months.

fruit: mango
risk: moderately high
reward: high
analysis: A good mango rounds out the consensus top four positive fruit experiences, along with the orange, pear and peach, but is considerably more high-maintenance than the others. There is no conclusive proof as to the correct way to eat or serve a mango, and the absurdly large pit/thing presents an enormous set of problems. The potential for some sort of knife accident cannot be ignored, nor can the messiness factor. While fairly easy to predict in terms of quality, the purchase of a mango involves a higher commitment than any other fruit. Purchase pre-sliced when possible.

fruit: the melon family (water, honeydew, cantaloupe)
risk: moderate
reward: high
analysis: The SUVs of the fruit family, melons truly play by their own set of rules. While they do present portability issues and require solid knife-technique, melons are important in that they are the only members of the fruit family that demand multiple eaters. This social component makes the melon somewhat of a polarizing fruit: they are great for families, but depressing for singles. There is no consensus melon-predicting technique, although shaking and smelling are widely used to mixed results. Regardless, they are excellent performers in fruit salads and score high on the summer sentimentality factor. We probably all could use a little more melon in our lives.

fruit: grapefruit
risk: moderately low
reward: high
analysis: Do not let the grapefruit’s similarity to the orange fool you – you cannot simply peel and eat this fruit. That said, the grapefruit-half turned bowl is an innovation on par with the steam engine and iPhone. A good grapefruit balances the sweet and sour, making for a highly rewarding fruit experience. Even the worst (too sour) grapefruit is nowhere near as painful as your standard bad apple or peach. In fact, the only valid grapefruit complaint is that it has brought down many a fruit salad with sourness. If you have the time to slice and scoop, the grapefruit will consistently pay out well.

fruit: pineapple
risk: high
reward: moderately high
analysis: The most dangerous member of the fruit family, you could actually kill someone with a pineapple. Although its fantastic packaging presents a myriad of options for presentation if you’re entertaining, the pineapple is a very high-maintenance fruit. Its name is also confusing – the pineapple looks to ride the coattails of the apple (a questionable choice), but bears no resemblance whatsoever. Nevertheless, its consistent performance (never great but never terrible) should not be overlooked. Much like the mango, unless you’re ready for a major time commitment, buy it sliced.

fruit: the orange imposters (tangerine, tangelo, clementine, etc.)
risk: see orange
reward: see orange
analysis: The orange imposters perform identically to the orange because, well, they are shameless knockoffs. Fortunately the orange has taken the highroad (imitation as flattery), because there is some serious copyright infringement/intellectual property abuse here. Kudos to whatever clever marketer thought that making smaller oranges, putting them in a box and giving them a cute name like Clementine would pull the wool over peoples’ eyes. But why buy an imitation when you can still find the original?

vegas, baby. vegas.

Last weekend my brother (Aaron) and I went to Atlantic City for a combination late celebration of my birthday/”last chance to act like a drunken, gambling idiot before I have a kid” evening. Even though I am not the gambling type, I somehow figured this would be a good idea. Aaron had never been to a Casino before and anxiously counted down the weeks leading up to the trip. He kept referring to Atlantic City as Vegas, which became the running joke of the weekend. Vegas, baby. Vegas.

Somehow I have developed a bizarre sense of self-empowerment over the last year or so. Maybe it’s a response to having been an underachiever for so many years (and then going to grad school, getting a good job, etc.) or possibly the lingering result of my jiu-jitsu exploits. Regardless, it’s usually a good thing, with last weekend as one of the exceptions. Allow me to explain…

About five years ago Julia was out of town for the weekend and I came down with the flu. At the time our television had no reception, but through some sort of divine intervention, the TV managed to pickup a few channels for the weekend. One of the shows I watched while lying on the couch in a daze was a Discovery Channel special on gambling, during which all the various percentages of winning at casinos were broken down. I specifically remembered that video poker machines were said to have some of the best odds. For some reason I have always carried this bit of knowledge with me, figuring it would come in handy at some point.

A couple of years later we visited friends in Vegas and did a tiny bit of gambling. At the time we were brutally low on money, but I did get to play a some video poker. Once I had (quickly) lost the small amount of money I had rationed myself, I realized that had I been playing with maximum bets (I’ll explain this in a bit), the odds would have greatly increased in my favor. Here was another bit of knowledge to be stored away for some future date.

This brings us to last week. Leading up to a trip to a casino, a normal person might decide how much they were willing to lose in advance, then play a variety of games, have some fun and hope for the best. Well, a normal person I am not. A few days before the trip, I embarked on an exhaustive video poker research project and subsequent training session. The Discovery Channel documentary, the brief flirtation with video poker in Vegas – it was all meant to lead up to this. It was my destiny. I would come home with my unborn son’s college fund.

My online research lead me to this site, which is a fantastic resource. There I learned (or confirmed) the following:

1. Always play at maximum bets, which offers a bonus for winning big. In other words, if you are playing on a $1 machine, bet five coins ($5) per play.
2. Pick a game and learn and apply a specific strategy.
3. Play fast to increase your odds of getting the big one: a royal straight flush (which pays out at $4,000 on a $1 machine with maximum bets).
4. Only play on Full Play machines (otherwise known as 9/6 machines). These pay out at 9 to 1 for a full house and 6 to 1 for a flush.
5. Research to find out which casinos have the best machines.
6. Practice ahead of time.

Basically, playing video poker on the right machine with a solid strategy allows you to tread water (with a few ups and downs) for a shot at a big payout. You have to have enough money to cushion a dip, too. Most serious video pokers play with $1,000 and play 500-600 hands an hour.

So, I settled on Jacks or Better and used a basic strategy. From Friday night through Saturday morning I probably played over 1,000 practice hands using Bodog’s excellent simulator. This sent me into a trance-like hallucinogenic state, compounded by the fact that we were having painting done in our apartment, so I had the windows wide open and was shivering while inhaling fumes.

On the drive down to Atlantic City, I explained the game and corresponding strategy to my brother, who was instantly hooked. Like a cult leader who buys into his own insanity, I was probably pretty convincing. The plan was that we would each play with $300 as a cushion. We promised each other that if either one of us won big, we’d pay for the other’s losses. I laid out my plan: I’d start out on a $1 machine and go up to a $5 machine if I went up $300 (which seemed like a given).

After checking into the shady Comfort Inn (which featured a cooler of nothing but alcohol behind the front desk), Aaron took me out for a fantastic steak dinner and we headed over to Caesar’s. It took a while to find the right machines, but when we did, a grizzled, slightly drunken video poker player was collecting his $4,000 jackpot. He could tell I knew what I was doing and we exchanged the small-talk of those in the know. “They hide these machines way in the back, you know,” he said, “I’m proof that you really can win.” Again, it all felt like destiny.

Aaron started playing first while I coached him a little. After he got the hang of it, I sat down and started playing. Instantly I was up $100, while Aaron started sinking. I played so fast that several people stopped to watch. As Aaron kept dropping, I kept going up. A few four-of-a-kinds did me nicely and I always seemed to pick up a three-of-a-kind off a low pair. Not only was I winning, but I was winning because of my research and training. I had beaten the odds. Something came over me - I felt invincible. A couple of times Aaron tried to talk to me or give me high-fives and I scowled at him for daring to break my zone. I was one with the machine.

While Aaron wandered around behind me calling all his friends to tell them loudly that he was drunk in Vegas and had just lost $300, I kept going up. When I hit $300, I stopped, adhering to the plan. The previously mentioned normal person might have stopped here - winning $300 is pretty cool - but I barely cracked a smile. As far as I was concerned, my success was a direct result of practice, planning and strategy. Luck? What’s that?

We went looking for a $5 machine, which took a while. Walking past the roulette tables and slot machines, it was all I could do not to laugh at all the fools just wasting their money. If only they knew what I did. Vegas, baby. Vegas.

Finally we found the machine and I settled in. Instantly I went up another $100 (again, probably a good place to stop) but then started dropping. Once I went down $200 (still up $200 overall), I stopped and went back to the old machine with a scowl and a swagger.

Right away I went all the way back up (and, again, should really have stopped there), but then things started to go sour. My vision got blurry from staring at the screen for so long (I’m guessing we had been there for four hours at this point) and I started making the wrong decisions, but realizing too late. Where I had previously enjoyed the attention of someone watching over my shoulder in awe at my flurry of a right hand, I now shot evil looks at people and worried that they were jinxing me. I was only up $100. Then I was back at zero.

The thought briefly (finally) occurred to me that I should stop right there, but it felt weird, having nothing to show for four hours other than a headache and a sore arm. My old wrestling coach used to say a tie is worse than a loss, which is probably somewhere along the lines of what I was thinking. Besides, I had trained for this – I couldn’t quit now.

I went down $200, hovered there for a while, then, finally, inevitably, it was all gone. I was crushed. Ashamed. Failing to factor luck into the equation, I blamed myself. It couldn’t have possibly been the fact that people who gamble tend to lose. I just should have stopped when my game started to slip.

We had a couple of drinks in a depressing casino bar/lounge and tried to laugh it off. Aaron had lost just as much as I had, but since he is so much more carefree (and less narcissistic), he tried desperately to cheer up his moping older brother.

Finally we staggered out into the brutal Atlantic City cold to catch a cab. After we rode for a few blocks I turned to Aaron and said, “Well, at least we’re staying at a nice hotel.” Even the cab driver burst into laugher. Then, without missing a beat, Aaron leaned forward and said, “Actually, can you drive us to a cliff?” Vegas, baby. Vegas.

proud to be an emericun

Complements of Mark, this is hilarious:

happy birthday, jeff

I turned 32 yesterday. It was one of the best birthdays I’ve ever had. I worked an honest ten-hour day at a job that challenges me and caters to my strengths for the first time in my life. I was too busy to answer the surprisingly high number of calls I received. As cheesy as all that sounds, it made it a uniquely great birthday.

Julia met me when I got off work, and after picking up a new humidifier we aborted plans to use a gift-certificate to a nice restaurant in Brooklyn Heights and instead ducked out of the brutal cold and into a horrifically tacky tourist-trap Mexican restaurant near my sister’s apartment. There was a doorman, a hostess, several waitresses, a bartender, a DJ and about nine patrons (including the three of us).

When the waitress brought out my birthday desert (a traditional Mexican dish called “chocolate explosion”), the DJ stopped the record, got on the mic and asked everybody to sing along. Written on the plate in chocolate sauce was the phrase “Happy Birthday Jeff.”

Misinterpreting our genuine amusement, several apologies by assorted members of the staff followed, highlighted by the DJ leaving the booth, coming over and saying, “I’m sorry, Jeff, I thought your name was Justin.” At one point the waitress accused my sister of telling her my name was Jeff, to which my sister responded, “I’m his sister, I know what his name is.” I would pay a lot of money for a video of the entire experience – high comedy indeed.

Growing up, early January is a pretty crappy time to have a birthday – everyone is mid holiday-fatigue and no one that bought you a present for Hannukah or Christmas wants to spring for anything again so soon. Of course the older you get, the less of a deal you want to make out of your birthday, so I’m fine with January now.

For a long time I’ve been much more into assessing the current state of my life than what I actually do for my birthday. For this reason, many of my birthdays have really sucked.

When I turned 25, I had just scored the best gig of my life and was performing four nights a week. I was in my last semester of music school and felt like I was well on my way to a career as a professional musician. I don’t remember what I did for that birthday, but I know I felt good about turning 25.

When I turned 26 I was in Iowa, working as a secretary in a small office with three women, one of whom was harassing me. Not a good birthday.

I was happy to turn 30 as a graduate student and feeling like I had redirected my life, but by 31 that feeling had subsided.

Approaching parenthood you start to view holidays and events as a series of “lasts” – your last Christmas without a kid, your last New Years, last Arbor Day. But knowing that I will turn 33 as a father is pretty incredible. Amongst many other things, it is a guarantee that future birthdays will never suck again. At least not as much as they once did.

getting ready

Being an expectant parent places you awkwardly in the middle of one of the most polarizing subjects of knowledge of which I am aware. Pretty much everyone we know either has no clue about the topic or seems to know everything. It’s an odd sort of reorganization. For instance, we both have younger brothers – mine just couldn’t seem to understand why he had to wait so long to find out if he was going to have a nephew or a niece, whereas Julia’s brother is suddenly our closest source of parental advice. It’s really bizarre.

Of course there are about 5,721,469 books on the subject to thoroughly overwhelm and confuse you. Different and conflicting schools of thought on everything from how long to breast feed to what age you should let your child start crying itself too sleep. In typical fashion, Julia dove headfirst into this vast sea of knowledge, and has been consuming these books at an alarming rate. If a book arrived from Amazon tomorrow titled “Chaos Theory as Applied to Teething”, I wouldn’t even bat an eyelid.

I am terribly far behind in my own reading, a fact which Julia feels the need to remind me of on a daily basis, thus adding to my mounting anxiety. It’s like that feeling in college when you start to fall behind in a class, but it’s already past the add/drop deadline and you start trying to figure out if it’s worth playing the “emotional problems” card to try and get out of the class. Looks like I’ll be doing a lot of skimming and just winging it on the final.

There is also the matter of prepping the apartment, which has slowly evolved into a “This Old House” level restoration. There is a fine line between a charming old brownstone apartment and a paint-chip and mold infested baby dungeon. Over the next few months there will be much caulking, painting, purchasing of new and used furniture and swearing while staring at Ikea directions written in code.

The baby isn’t due until mid-May, but Julia has suddenly decided that we are way behind in preparation. In her deepest fears, we return home from the hospital to a half-painted, toxic fume infested apartment. Later that day, she awakens from a nap to see her slacker husband sitting on the couch, holding an empty bottle of wine and staring at a naked baby who is relieving himself while lying on a pile of unread baby books. That’s when she calls her younger brother for advice.

it's a boy!!!

blue or pink

Later today we will find out the gender of the small human growing inside Julia that makes her puke all the time. Everyone keeps asking me what I “think” it is, which makes no sense to me. I know what I want (a boy), but if I could predict the future I’d be at the World Series of Poker right now.

Apparently Julia’s mom thinks it’s a boy, but her dad thinks it’s a girl. He grew up in a remote Italian village in the hills outside of Salerno (SE of Naples), and his mother was said to have the power to correctly predict the gender of every pregnant woman. Julia seems to believe her father, the firstborn male, has inherited this ability, which she refers to as, “that Italian voodoo shit.”

We refer to the unborn, genderless child as Giacomo (jock-uh-moe). This was a potential male baby name that Julia suggested a while ago, which I immediately embraced. This in turn caused her to both renounce the name and pretend she never suggested it. But I continued to refer to the future offspring as Giacomo, and eventually she gave in. And so the psychological warfare continues.

This afternoon all the speculation about the baby (What will it look like? Will it sleep well? Should we focus on the jump shot or dribbling first?) will take a dramatic turn. The gender-appropriate baby gifts (little pink outfits, starter power tools) will start rolling in, decisions will be made about what color to paint the baby room, and the name debate will shift into fifth gear. Of course there is always the possibility that the gender diagnosis will prove false (it happened to friends of ours), derailing everything.

All kidding aside, we just want a healthy baby like any other expecting couple. Just a healthy, photogenic baby with perfect pitch and a junior Mensa card that can drain the three-pointer under pressure. Giacamo or Giacama.

a list of good things

Given the year-end tradition of lists (in case you couldn’t tell by yesterday’s James Brown eulogy, I am now officially operating on a one-week delay), I thought I’d offer this mismatched collection of recent discoveries, farewells and rediscoveries:

Deep Blue

I don’t know if it’s part of being pregnant or just a side effect from being too nauseous and exhausted to do anything else but watch TV and slowing running out of viewing options, but Julia has developed a sudden interest in nature documentaries. I was previously neutral on the subject (I’ll gladly watch a good wolf or tiger attack if I happen to stumble across it, yet it’s never something I go looking for), but that all changed after I watched Deep Blue. The documentary features a variety of marine life (everything from penguins to flora) via some of the most breathtaking footage I have ever seen. It’s absolutely mesmerizing – way better than the pro-shark propaganda 3D IMAX we saw at the Natural History Museum in D.C. over Thanksgiving, which featured exactly zero shark attacks. I bought Deep Blue on DVD for Julia for Christmas, but it’s available on Netflix and well worth the rental.

The Wire

Chances are that if you know me, I’ve already pushed this show on you, so I’ll keep this brief and leave the hyperbole (with which I fully agree with, by the way) to The Slate. If that’s not enough, the show is also thoroughly endorsed by Bill Simmons and my brother. Just watch the first three episodes, and if you’re not hooked, that’s fine. Just don’t ever talk to me again.

Lucali’s

What do you do when a restaurant serving the best pizza you’ve ever had suddenly opens a couple of blocks away on a quiet residential street? You eat there at least once a week, start buying looser clothes and thank the food gods. Lucali’s is an enjoyably minimalist, cash only, BYOB establishment with no menu. They serve pizza and calzones, and they’re usually out of calzones. Hopefully this will keep the place from getting too popular, but there’s already an hour wait on weekend nights and they don’t even have a sign out front (and haven’t had a grand opening yet). It doesn’t matter, though – I’d wait two hours if I had to. It’s that good.

the lunch places I will miss from midtown east (an otherwise brutal neighborhood to find a good bite to eat)

Oms/b: Aside from the bizarre name, there is absolutely nothing not to like about this place. A nice variety of beautiful and delicious (not to mention healthy) Japanese rice balls at a decent price made it my mainstay for the last few months on the job. They would probably double their business by moving thirty blocks south, though. Maybe the location scout is also responsible for the name.

Sophie's: I eventually burnt out on Sophie’s, but I have nothing but my gluttony to blame. Pernil, yellow rice and red beans. Mmmm… After this place opened I was noticeably more upbeat for weeks. Whoever opened this chain is making an absolute killing.

Carl’s: Every month or so I would crave a cheesesteak, and with Carl’s a couple of blocks away, I was in good hands. Granted the majority of the staff looks like they’d rather fight you than make your sandwich (get it to go), but the cheesesteaks are solid. They can’t touch Philly Slim’s, but at least you don’t have to breathe the city’s dirtiest air (thanks, Port Authority) to get your food.

Baby Bo’s: By far the best burrito anywhere remotely near the neighborhood. They deliver, but the decor (Dia de los Muertos figurines, strings of lights, refreshingly low lighting) make it well worth the trip. Great lunch specials.

The Chelsea Market

While I didn’t fully appreciate how surreal it would be to work in the same building I had four years ago (the previously mentioned catering company), I had also forgotten how great the place is. I can walk down four flights of stairs (or take the elevator) and get Thai food, sushi, soup, panini, baked goods, bagels, espresso, produce, etc. And most of the stuff is high quality. If you’re ever in the neighborhood (9th between 15th & 16th), it’s well worth a visit – I’m always surprised by the number of New Yorkers that have never heard of the place.

so long, JB

I will always remember Gerald Ford as the man who stole James Brown’s thunder. I know, I know – he was a president and all, but I really could have used a few more days of JB concert footage and anecdotes. Regardless, one thing that was somewhat glossed over in the coverage he did receive, and which I feel compelled to expand upon here, was his profound influence on musicians.

If you want to learn how to play funk, how to really feel a groove, playing along with old James Brown records is how you do it. Simple as that. A hundred years from now, those old tracks will still hit just as hard. Many times over the years, while discussing with a fellow musician a bass player or drummer that “just doesn’t get it”, the agreed upon solution is that they lock themselves in a room with some old James Brown records and a bunch of [insert substance here].

Brown didn’t play an instrument (he played organ on a few songs, but could only play in a couple of keys and didn’t exactly blow anyone away) and often received credit for what was largely the work of his phenomenal bands, but they were bands he put together and lead, which is an undervalued art. So when I talk about old James Brown records, I’m also talking about Maceo Parker, Fred Wesley, Bootsy Collins, Catfish Collins, Jabo Starks, Clyde Stubblefield and countless others. There’s a reason many of his former sidemen went on to have successful solo careers, as was the case with Miles Davis.

In the early years, James Brown was more of an R&B balladeer, and a good one at that, but for me, when he started grunting (and the band started grooving) is where I get interested. His funk bands of the late sixties and seventies were unstoppable groove machines, churning out impeccably arranged masterpieces where the whole was always greater than the sum of the parts, most of which were only two or three repeated notes. You could transcribe the parts and they’d look simple, but it wasn’t the notes that mattered – it was the feel.

It could be argued that JB had the greatest ears of any (non-instrumentalist) bandleader in history. If he heard someone in the band play a wrong note or come in a split-second late (and he always caught these things), he would let them know by singing/saying “I got you now” (or something of the sort), which to the audience just sounded like part of the song, but to the offending musician meant that his pay was being docked $5 (which was a lot back then). He brought several drummers on the road with him (which was even more ridiculous then than it sounds now) so he could always have the best drummer for a specific song.

JB was widely recognized for treating his musicians horribly, which lead his entire band to quit on at least one occasion. Aside from the above-mentioned fines, he traveled in his own bus while forcing the rest of the (often huge) band to cram into another, and always made them stay at the cheapest hotel in town while he enjoyed far greater accommodations.

He was also fiercely competitive. When The Average White Band came on the scene, he took personal offense to their name, misinterpreting the self-deprecation as statement that any white band could play funk. He released his next album under the name Above Average Black Band.

Despite all of this, he is still revered amongst musicians – even his stories of cruelty are good for a laugh. During my second year at music school, my roommate Jeff, a phenomenal musician in his own right, began performing on a regular basis with a group of funk musicians, many of whom, are touring and recording all over the world today (Adam Deitch and Eric Krasno come to mind). Not only could they all play the hell out of those old James Brown grooves, they would trade instruments and sound just as good. In short, they had all done their homework.

I’m sad I never got the chance to see James Brown perform, but now I will cherish his old records all the more. The teacher might have passed, but he left all his lessons.

Recommended listening:

1. Funky Good Time: The Anthology
2. Love Power Peace [LIVE]
3. Sex Machine [LIVE]

pfinally

Friday was my last day at work, which was a surprisingly emotional experience, due in part to the accumulative effect of a week of goodbyes as people took off on vacation. I suppose it’s difficult to do anything around a group of people for a few years and not feel some level of sentimentality when it comes to a close, no matter how much you disliked what you did and (most of) the people you did it with.

I spent almost four years at the company, which I had somehow not realized until this week – it didn’t seem possible that it had really been that long. Four years ago, my old friend, Ari, responded to my mass “I just got laid off by my insane boss and if I don’t get a job immediately, we might have to move in with my parents” email and hooked me up with a cushy tech gig at the company.

I’ll never forget how initially comforting Corporate America was, especially coming from a small organic catering company ran by a micro-managing, unstable lunatic. Everything was so calm, so clean, so predictable – it was almost like being institutionalized, reinforced by the fact that everyone dressed the same and the walls were adorned with posters for anti-depressants.

When that gig ran out, I briefly enjoyed the most fantastic temp assignment in history: I worked at the Associated Press for one month, during which I wrote some of the articles that I still use in my portfolio today, assisted with the news coverage of the Blackout of 2003, and helped comb through the 9/11 transcripts on the day they were released to the press. The whole experience is on the short list of “memoir/essays I need to write”.

But then it was back to the company, where I temped for a year as an “onboarder”, assuring that all the people the company hired (they were in the midst of a huge hiring spree) got “onboard” as quickly and seamlessly as possible. It was mindless, but harmless.

After a year of that, I took a full-time job as an administrative assistant, which offered fantastic benefits (including, um, that free Masters) but occasionally degrading work. And that’s where I’ve been for the last two and a half years. Four years, three jobs in five different buildings in Midtown East (ugh), all for the company

It has often occurred to me that the work (and the people) was not really all that bad – that I just associated it with a period of my life in which I felt stuck and unchallenged (and turned 30 as a secretary). Regardless, I will happily leave the sterile conference rooms, the endless acronyms for pharmaceutical terms I never bothered to learn and the glaring lack of culture and diversity.

Friday was a day I had dreamed about for the last few years – finally leaving. But it was not the triumphant “fuck this place” defiant departure I had fantasized about, but rather a whirlwind of tying up loose ends and cleaning out my cubicle (which was really depressing). By the time I finally left, the place was completely empty, the numbing hum of the fluorescent lights and ventilation system the only sounds. Somehow that was fitting.