as the world turns

here's saying farewell to a rather unproductive 2012 (blogwise, anyway) and welcoming in a more fruitful 2013 (blog- and otherwise). let your light shine forth!

birds 1, humans 0

it turns out that it's much easier to tweet (or skreet) 140 characters as a bird than blog 160 characters as a human person. Hitchcock was right: the birds win.

skreets, not tweets

in case any of you is wondering, my time lately has been taken up by managing a Twitter account for a Bronx–boy–cum–Scrub-Jay. you can find that birdbrain here.

from a letter to Jann S. Wenner

what happens to anybody who gets into any kind of forced/regular writing is that he is bound to make a useless fool of himself now and then.
—Hunter S. Thompson.

the Mayor of West Farms redux

memories of Papi in June 2001's wedding weekend:

•making friends during Gay Pride

•leaning against a car to chat, as done in NYC

•making do with an ill-fitting tux

a friendmate, indeed

a roommate shares a room, a teammate a team, and a friendmate a friend—as in:
friendmate /frĕnd māt/ n. a person who is a friend by association; a mutual friend.

in the hole redux

I'm resigned to the idea that I'll never win Michael Roney's 13-run pool. besides, even if I were to win, the return at this point wouldn't cover my investment.

brothers in arms

there must be a rule about bonding immediately with someone who starts the same day as you—whether you're cherries in a far-off warzone or business consultants.

alonenessment

we're a generation of together-alones, each of us sitting with his head buried in the e-device of his choice while surrounded by the rest of us who do likewise.

I forgot what I was gonna post about.

if you have an idea for a blog post, make a note of it. maybe you'll post it, maybe you won't; but at least you won't forget it—which is worse than a poor post.

as good as it gets

what's the baseball-in-person trifecta? I've already caught a foul ball and seen a perfect game (August 15, 2012). does it get better? is there even a trifecta?

hear ye, hear ye:

thanks to their overuse, the following words have lost their original meanings and never again should be spoken: "amazing," "awesome," "great," and "literally."

non-haiku, from Facebook thread

how do you solve a problem like Maria?

how do you catch a cloud & pin it down?

St. Natalie of Demonseed.

my knee is often scraped.

thanks, friends of Natalie Lucio!

if only Burn Notice were...

...the name of both the show and the character, I could say things such as, "get 'em, Burn Notice!" "he's got a knife, Burn Notice!" "it's a trap, Burn Notice!"

our town

yesterday, I saw a real-live bona fide brick-and-mortar travel agency in Chinatown and an honest-to-goodness old-time watch-repair stand at the downtown Macy's.

you've got something... right there.

what's the longest you've let a friend's glob of spit sit on your cheek during a face-to-face chat before you decided to wipe it off? and did the friend notice?

people are people (unfortunately).

people are funny sometimes—ain't they? sure, they can be mean, even cruel; but often they can be downright funny—by which I meaning unconscientious or clueless.

"put on a goddamn' shoe!"

if I were a restaurateur, I'd ban flip-flops from my joint. "no shoes/no shirt/no service"? wife-beaters aren't shirts; flip-flops are the wife-beaters of feet.

heeere's irony!

watching TV with closed captioning on, I notice that the ads from the sponsors of a show's closed captioning are themselves not close-captioned. that is ironic.

new shoes redux

today is the 11th anniversary of the death of my biological father. on that day in 2001, after hearing the news, I went out and bought the nicest pair of shoes.

wasteland

April is the cruelest month—in 2012, at least, and as far as this blog was concerned; I posted just 3 times. only December of 2011 came close to being as cruel.

"you better, you better, you bet"

which do you prefer? 

best before (Crunch Berries).

best if used by (Shredded Wheat).

best when used by (Grape-Nuts).

better if used by (Raisin Bran). 

I dig the latter; its grammar is "better."

the fly's the limit?

those who walk can go for a walk; who drive can go for a drive; who run can go for a run; who swim can go for a swim. but, those who fly: can they go for a fly?

aboozive behavior

the overuse of drink makes you commit interesting acts. under the influence, but never otherwise, I've been both the deliverer and the recipient of a face slap.

not literally

I've just heard an expression in Spanish—más sabe el Diablo por viejo que por diablo—that has no literal equivalent en inglés better than wisdom comes with age.

be the ball.

in The Art of War, Sun Tzu wrote, "be where your enemy is not." in beer-league softball, this quote is akin to "Wee" Willie Keeler's "hit 'em where they ain't."

John Lennon—or George Harrison?

if you will, imagine John Lennon, Jim Noir, Paul Simon, and Cat Stevens are at an orgy and somehow make a baby. Eric Hutchinson would be that baby—a good thing.

how's this for exactly 160 characters?

I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round; I really love to watch them roll. no longer riding on the merry-go-round. I just had to let it go.

pity the fool.

only someone who coaches, captains, manages, or technically—or otherwise—directs an amateur softball team will appreciate the vicissitudes in a softball season.

you've got mail—from William Kennedy!

I like it when a writer replies to a gushy letter you've written him—even if it is 384 days later. (next time, write him at home—instead of at his publisher's.)

baby, it's you.

overheard chez moi:

Suzy D: guess which member of the softball family is expecting!?
I: Erin?
SD: no.
I: Ami?
SD: no.
I: Courtney?
SD: no.
I: then I don't care.

a wise man, General Washington

bear in mind: as the sword is the last resort for preservation of our liberties, so it should be the first thing laid aside when said liberties are established.

the 2012 Fightin' Scrub-Jays softball team

I've more than high hopes for my team this year, more than just confidence—something else—and I've yet to discover it—but it will happen slowly over the season.

¡slam, ring, slap, chirp!

the best part of closed-captioned TV in Spanish is the sound effects—prum (door slam), tululululu (phone ring), tash (face slap), and fiufiufiufiu (bird chirp).

do the hard thing.

the right thing is often the hard thing. on Tuesday, Coach has to do the hard thing & cut one of his teammates. the courtesy of notification is the right thing.

ecce homines

"may God have mercy on your soul" must be the modern-justice version of Pontius Pilate washing his hands. "may He have mercy on you, 'cause we fuck-sure won't."

maybe it's 'cause I can't stand Marv Albert, but...

NEW RULES: if you've never written, produced, or directed movies, you shouldn't critique 'em; if you've never played or coached the game, you shouldn't call it.

likes long walks

have you learned anything about me over these 250+ posts? I have; although I'd venture a guess that what you might have learned differs vastly from what I have.

post #250; or, another recommendation

two months ago, I recommended a "quiet film" called The Station Agent. did you watch it? if not, maybe it can wait; there might be a quieter one, in Local Hero.

The Wall, in center field

on May 6, 2000, I took my nephew to his first ballgame at old Yankee Stadium; on July 6, 2012, my nephew is taking me to my first concert at new Yankee Stadium.

go, you Jints!

I choose to root for my team in secret, because I remember how it's "better to keep silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt."

a DPD sufferer's nightmare

in a rerun of 'Til Death, Mayim Bialik said that our biggest fear is that this is all a dream; so, we should live life to the fullest—before the dreamer awakes.

done to death

OK, you know which cliché bands can stop employing? performing live sets on "late-nite" TV with a well-dressed 5- or 6-piece string section playing behind them.

when the inverse is true

if you're pregnant, you can't go a day without seeing tons (no pun intended!) of other pregnant women; but if you're trying to quit smoking, everyone's smoking!

from Invisible Man (1952) redux

play the game, but don't believe in it; that much you owe yourself. even if it lands you in a strait jacket or a padded cell. play the game, but raise the ante.

from Invisible Man (1952)

but he wanted mainly his friend of midnight consultations, his comrade of many battles, who over the weary years had remained steadfast in defeat as in victory.

resolved:

although I made no resolutions this year, I feel as if I've broken 3 of them already. maybe I needed a month to figure it out, because I'm starting anew mañana.

they sell postcards in the gift shop.

maybe I'm old-fashioned or out of it, but when I see you hold up a camera at an event, I wonder: are you even experiencing the event you're supposedly watching?

if you can't say anything nice...

I wouldn't say that Lana Del Rey is a subpar (that would be putting it kindly) or untalented singer, because I honestly believe that my TV might be out of tune.

smokester

I've cut my smoking in half (literally!) in three steps: 1. roll a cig. 2. use the scissors in a Swiss army knife to cut the cig in half. 3. enjoy the half-cig.

a Herculean task

I had that dream again—the one in which the play is afoot & I haven't learned my lines for the part of some ancient Roman/Greek hero. Brad Pitt was in this one.

snow wonder

why is a snowfall so magical? is it the seeming whimsy of each flake? the way it seems to dampen all sound? its potential for making weathermen call a snow day?

not a resolution

so, I'm trying to kick the habit. it's that thing of when you don't smoke with your morning coffee, have a cig on your way to work, or light up on the way home.

today, last year

this is the anniversary of a post (one of many) on found pennies. last week, in NYC, I think I found more nickels & dimes than pennies, for whatever it's worth.