More Human Than Human

In his waning years as a sturdy oak of junior high largesse, my eighth grade science teacher leaned a bit psychotic. It’s not that this sudden brain tic made him less amenable to students or faculty – both of whom respected the man in the way you might honor a former NFL legend-cum-broadcaster at the close of a storied career – but when certain cards in everyone’s deck of 52 get lost, an odd fungus tends to erode the mind. Simply put, if you heave an overhead projector from its stoic desk perch into the hallway, mid-lesson, while attempting to verbally discipline twenty-five or so uninterested snots, you command attention. Naturally, once said projector slams against the far wall, ricocheting like a bad car crash or serious industrial accident, you’ve earned certifiable bragging rights in the dangerous yet coveted “totally fucking insane” realm of educational lore. And congratulations, because that tightrope on which you’re now balancing is one for which an entire district’s worth of teachers would carve out their kidneys. While the meek and compliant enforced rules via rationality, eighth grade science was now policed with the suggestive power of imminent physical harm, random or otherwise, and forever coupled with a dollop of eye twitching insanity. Suddenly, trivial infractions like forgetting one’s homework or passing notes could have resulted in being made to eat chalk, having our hands submerged in jars of hydrofluoric acid, or, shudder to think, our brains eaten by the newly minted mad professor after a lovingly slow roast on the Bunsen burner.

Whatever the curriculum lords may have intended, this class was never a traditional foray into textbooks and mundane lectures. Prior to the bizarre “feats of strength” display, our master of ceremonies sawed batteries apart, ignited and exploded them, lit gaseous substances ablaze on his ceiling, and simulated the creation of a fireball. Package these curious ventures into a fan-friendly Mr. Wizard’s World on crack cocaine, toss a few pieces of machinery to ensure that the master/servant relationship is understood by all, implicitly convince the true believers of your looming psychosis, and bingo: You have the makings of a funhouse doubling as a science class masquerading as an even bigger funhouse where no one really learns anything. Except under this circus tent, the knife thrower flings real weaponry. And you don’t need to volunteer to be targeted. And sometimes he misses. Because he’s a goddamn old man, older than dirt.

Yes, Dr. Frankenstein’s venerable ubiquity was taken for granted. He seemed like he’d always been around; just as apt to have been present at the dedication of the school cornerstone, in a “Science Faculty 1947” yearbook photo, on the Zapruder film, or even etched into cave drawings extolling the merits of the wheel. And while his tales of greatness spanned an amazing spectrum of bygone days, with events unthinkable in politically correct times (i.e. tackle football games of teachers vs. students and pig roasts in the courtyard, to name a few), the year his mental faculties derailed was to be his last. He knew this. Yanking a large metal device out of its outlet, and tossing it against an outside wall with Tarzan-like precision and Godzilla-fueled strength wasn’t exactly placing the twilight of a career in jeopardy, nor was it risking a hefty pension. In other words, when you’re old and fully cooked, you’re entitled. And when you’re overly entitled, and deemed to be halfway between solitaire and senility, you can scare the bejesus out of the most hardened future drop-outs with a few metered bouts of unpredictability.

And that’s not science, it’s art.

Deviant Office Perverts, The Apple of My Eye

During my early years of office purgatory – when mastering the formula for our auto-drip coffee maker was considered an admirable job function, and the Brother P-Touch labeler was one wrist-strap away from being soldered to my forearm – evenings were spent rehashing the merits of a trounced college degree. That said, my pissant status still ranked higher than that of the chest thumping pimps doubling as mail sorters on the building’s eighth floor. In fact, this comparison kept the alarm clock ringing each morning and the belt nooses (which hung from my clothes rod as a hedge against mental meltdown) off my neck. Although the moustached drunks in management were far from a ringing endorsement of integrity, the atmosphere was kept therapeutic by equally incredulous colleagues. An eclectic troop of cube dwellers, we were simply thankful to stand on the receiving side of the cafeteria grill counter. In other words, if the bathrooms of this painfully outmoded building were infested with roaches, at least we weren’t made to strap on an insecticide pack.

The revolving door of temp workers kept the mood light, even in our darkest hours when the final toner cartridge ran dry. Spanning the gamut from punks, artists, whores (not in the official sense), junkies, perverts, and cocktail waitresses (with the inability to operate a fax machine, much less speak English), this collage of misfits flashed a bag of tricks more suited to a circus sideshow than a buttoned-up private bank led by sherry sipping Protestants. And while I shared a few laughs with the overweight dapper dan – dressed nattily in the same black blazer and t-shirt as if wardrobe variety were a death knell – and exchanged pleasantries with the unkempt skateboarder at the elevator banks, none of these characters made quite the impression as did the balding pervert and his alcoholic sidekick.

This peeping tom was a cross between James Lipton of 'Inside The Actor’s Studio' fame, and Andy Samberg’s 'Dick In A Box' caricature of early ‘90’s new jack swing. More specifically, his style was one part uncombed halo of thatched hair, two parts ever-evolving variety of frumpy suits, purchased from a nameless friend known only as “the haberdasher.” Should I have been in the market for a pre-owned Hyundai Excel, or effected an in-person audit of a Van Nuys porn distributor, this gentleman’s hand – bedecked in faux gold bullion – would no doubt have extended itself in unctuous amity. However, in the caverns of Wall Street, with storied tales of greed, guts, and glory framed by power outfits and $200 haircuts, the presence of an ornamented carnival barker with an eye for ass was more comic relief than hard-nosed deal making. If this man had candy and you had a child, hopefully you also had a shotgun, or the phone number of your local crime stoppers tip line, or at very least one of a decent barber.

Instead of feigning horror, I happily embraced our cast of fools. And while it sometimes takes one to know one, I wasn’t the guy printing out young female profiles from the company picture directory in order to deface their idealism in some grody apartment, nor was I buying polyester neckties on the street corner, wrapped in cheap plastic. And I most certainly wasn’t lunching with a red-faced drunk who preferred virtual reality sunglasses on most afternoons, presumably to hide the pinched capillaries in his cheeks after a solid six of Killian’s (see “The Elephant Cometh” for even more office oddities).

Take me by the hand, o wise sage of haberdashery, o mightiest of Chess Kings, to the place where crazed bums wearing sandwich boards advertise discount strip club admittance and two-for-one suit sales. Show me the wonders of backside pinching and the talent for quick tongue flicks as mating calls. You rule the flea markets of Nassau Street with the heft of a thousand swinging phalluses, sucking the oxygen out of each room you inhabit with a ball sac of potato-sized immensity. In your presence, my testes are mere peas, my persona a regrettable shell of reservation, brains, and common sense. I am but a meek student of the overused pick-up line; unable to smoke enough unfiltered cigarettes to yellow my teeth, ingest adequate spinach to sprout fur on my chest, or haggle with enough gusto for discounted prices on cubic zirconia. Show me the places were beards grow wild and men roam wilder. I want to feel what you feel when you sexually harass an entire secretarial staff, taste what you taste when you hunker down for a broiled steak dinner at the cafeteria-quality Tad’s. More than a budding hero, you are a masculine colossus of 1950’s over-cologned supremacy, a time traveler from bygone eras of subservient women and workplace spankings. Lead me to the well, bald man, and compromise my financial career and economic stability for a quick drink of unbridled randiness. After all, this is our Eden, and no one lasts long in the garden of forbidden fruit (even if that fruit happens to be the cherry of a bubbly yet naïve ditz tasked with faxing trade confirmations).

Awakening in reality, I suppose the switch to business casual came as a blessing in disguise. Most likely, I wouldn't have commanded much respect with a Borat suit and Flowbee haircut. And as a white guy, well, let’s just say when the axe falls, you don’t have that extra card to play. Even so, I'll bet the first bite of that apple was delicious.

Double, Double, Oil and Trouble

Imagine you’ve murdered an entire Saturday afternoon engaged in the mind-numbing task of washing your windows; body contorted into a multitude of obtuse angles, forced to emulate horrible, palsied motions just to squeeze a holster of Windex and an oversized roll of paper towels into new reaches of awkwardness. And while you plugged away with the ineptitude of a one-legged Mr. Clean – engaging in clownish acrobatics to the bemusement (or alarm) of the neighborhood – your friends wasted the hours by mixing bottomless margaritas or participating in swingers orgies, or both, in that order.

Moreover, let’s assume that after slamming the final window against its frame, yourself a sweaty mix of anger and confusion, some kid slaps his mouth against the glass, blowing air forward to comically flair his cheeks. And let’s say this kid is a snot-nosed brat and continues to smear his fluids on your windows as a daily ritual, steaming up the view, perhaps because he thinks you’re amused or perhaps because he aims to disrespect you in some weird game of animalistic dominance. In fact, your threats of consigning him indefinitely to a wheelchair only provoke disappointment within the community, although everyone knows that you possess neither the agility nor the cojones to crack the kid’s spinal column, much less his pinky. Sadly, for as long as this halfwit governs the block with mischievous idiocy, your windows will assume all the charm of a derelict-ridden bus depot. And you will like it. Or you will move.

Steve Jobs of Apple Inc. is the mischievous idiot on my street and, dear reader, on yours. Not quite physically imposing (especially since his illness), Jobs is credited with salvaging the once-marginalized company he co-founded in 1976, and steering it toward renewed greatness with a combination of technological prowess and aesthetic innovation. iMacs, iPods, the Apple retail store, and the coveted iPhone all exemplify the CEO’s second tenure in Cupertino, one flanked by an impressive recapture of market share. Unfortunately, this stint has been tarnished by the growing acceptance of touch screen technology, likening users of the reliable QWERTY keyboard to prehistoric fossils favoring washboards and 78rpm phonographs. Although the iPhone offers hundreds of “apps” which run the gamut from making dinner reservations, analyzing plant life, shaking babies(!), and simulating the snorting of cocaine in true 1980’s power lunch style, none offer the luxury of reverting to a traditional keypad and freeing the display screen from objectionable smudges.

Jobs must have the cleanest fingers in the universe, and obviously never picks his nose nor allows his underlings to blight his precious arsenal of all things touch. Perhaps it’s my OCD talking, but just as fingerprinted jewel cases incited cardiac arrest in the heady ‘90’s, the disrespect of plexiglass screens with unseemly recipes of grease and oil sends me wincing. Suddenly, years of advancement regress in one fell swoop, as the lords of connectivity place new generations of portable devices into the hands of chronic masturbators, ass scratchers, and mechanics; doomed to coat their expensive gadgetry with juices sundry and unpleasant. Anyone who’s ever held a phone to their ear for longer than 15 seconds knows that the resulting film on the display window is forever smeared. Likewise, in speaking for my Mediterranean brethren – never to recognize a day of dry skin, save the occasional chapped lip – touch screen technology is a death sentence, with the only solution being a raid on your local proctologist’s office for a pallet’s worth of latex gloves.

More importantly, will society, in good conscience, ignore the cultural insensitivity levied toward the burgeoning Indian market? After all, it remains customary to wipe one’s ass with one’s left hand in some areas of the curry capital, or so stated my (Indian) marketing professor in 1996. If you thought oily fingerprints were a problem, try cleaning a virtual keyboard after it’s passed through a communal rectum and used inadvertently as fly paper. Then again, said professor was addicted to Virginia Slims cigarettes and harbored an unnatural craving for McDonald’s breakfast burritos, thus lessening the credibility of his declarations.

Most likely, I could purchase heavy drapes for my windows and avoid the blotches of Mr. Jobs and his hooligan fanboy contingent. But most of those flowery curtains are geared for the AARP crowd, and besides, I actually enjoy the wooded view and small brook outside of my home. Clearly, no amount of Windex is going to halt this progression toward scum buildup. Just as mp3 players taught us to shun audio quality in favor of gigabyte size, touch screen displays are pushing convenience over cleanliness. The least I can do is step off my soapbox, join the neighbors at their margarita party, and attempt to excise any lingering demons. As Bill Gates once argued, “The people who resist change will be confronted by the growing number of people who see that better ways are available thanks to technology.”

Or, as they say in certain circles: “Bend over, here it comes again.”

Seven Years

The subway prophets spew knowledge and nonsense, unsolicited in the tunnels underground. At times absurdly humorous, but more often militant or scripted, their paeans to God, instructions toward repentance, and reminders of homelessness are ever-present in the sidewalk cellar, competing for attention alongside vermin and peddlers. Last week, the token Caucasian caught my ear with his religious fearmongering, warning of damnation in a city proud to be damned. Plastered across the chest of his navy sweatshirt were the words “Risk All,” while “Fear God” adorned the back in chunky block letters. And like most of the mentally unstable brethren who pay their $2 to entertain and educate, our friend warned of final judgment, his speech authenticated with fire-and-brimstone scripture. Seven years was all he offered. Not a long timetable nor a generous gift, but a manageable frame in which to alter perspective.

Both an eternity and an eyeblink, seven years can encourage remarkable variance – shifting the patchwork of family, career, and personal growth – where the obvious becomes opaque and the expected turns inside-out. Yet as easily as it races, time can mark a flatline where weeks compound to months which drag to years; a glut of opportunities trashed, where the same cup of coffee and the same crossword clues rotate insipidly. In seven years, will you accept your given hand due to economics or exhaustion? Join a cause knowingly or fight a war mindlessly? Retreat greedily or sacrifice needily? Love dearly or hate severely? Discover wealth and lie for it? Take a stance and die for it? Would you change only because you were scared? Or enrich your morals just to be spared?

When the rent is due but jobs are scarce, our subterranean louse withdraws from the labyrinths beneath Seventh Avenue and retreats to an idyllic Main Street; flag lined, sepia drenched, and worlds removed from the urban rot of the rat traps. This cowardly homecoming is pardoned by the same parents whose bank account he raped with impunity. Prophets in their own right, mom and dad have left his bedroom untouched, foreseeing the return of their son, the failed apostle. Aborted by urbanity, excommunicated by progress. Still fearing God but risking nothing. A charlatan. A sham. A waste of seven years.

Hotter Than Hell

Between 2001 and 2006, I’d secretly hoped that my friend would drop dead. Well, perhaps “hoped” is a strong word, but my reflexes would have slackened considerably had his frame, say, wandered under a falling piano or against an electrified fence. Although the man claimed relatively sound health, even the heartiest of souls forget to look both ways when crossing the street, especially when nudged nonchalantly into traffic. Normally I’m not an evil man, but these and other scenarios of demise remained wildly vivid like an endless ‘Faces of Death’ montage. Ultimately, should the Reaper have dragged his sickle to Connecticut during that five year window, the chest bumps would have begun seconds after the Cloak of Doom’s Amtrak ticket was punched for his return trip from New Haven to Hell.

You see, my friend was planning to be buried in a Kiss Kasket, or so the rumor mill assumed. Yes, a Kiss Kasket, for the man aiming to piss off generations of his family, living and unborn, by subordinating himself to “putting the X in sex,” female objectification, and chest hair grown amok. After interring four grandparents and a few stray aunts in unadorned steel and fiberglass, the prospect of placing rose sprays over a fully laminated coffin with KISS FOREVER emblazoned across the front and an image of the face-painted band on the lid, seemed an intriguing thumb in the eye to conformity. More importantly, receiving the eucharist to “Beth” during the ensuing mass presented a once in a millennium opportunity.

Within my own rehearsed choreography, I anticipated throwing devil horns – that ubiquitous headbanger hand sign – after concluding the eulogy (and basically everywhere else that day); prosthetic tongue dangling halfway to my nipples while crushing blood capsules in my teeth like I’d just gnashed through a dead horse in the rectory. For those unfamiliar with Christian funerals, the aforesaid events would be construed as “disrespectful” to the sanctity of the church, family, faith, God, and basically anyone in a nursing home on Planet Earth preparing to keel sideways. But at a Kiss-themed funeral, the disrespect would occur from not doing them.

For enthusiasts of Goyim-fronted kitsch and/or male make-up, $4,500 ($5,000 autographed) would have scored a rectangular box proclaiming one’s devotion to “rock and roll all nite,” presumably deep into the inner rings of Hades. In his penchant for shameless promotion, Gene Simmons – demon and marketing genius alike – also presented the container as a dual-use cooler or small refrigerator. In others words, if one were to best the odds of pancreatic cancer or the flesh-eating Ebola virus, the casket could begin a successful barbecue tour, contributing to alcoholism while keeping hamburger meat on ice. And if your ailing grandfather wasn’t a fan of arena rock, himself holding out for the Perry Como estate to introduce their own laminated model, you’d leave your family one less issue with which to concern themselves on your fateful day of reckoning. As for your ball busting friends, well, better Kiss than Winger, I suppose.

The funeral business has made strident inroads since an impoverished Tom Hulce (as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart) was unceremoniously dumped into a gaping hole, a perverted and disgraced pauper. In Florida, where humans move to die, warehouse clubs proudly hawk caskets of all styles, alongside their expansive selection of tires, electronics, and mustard six-packs. And creativity abounds freely, as specialty manufacturers have designed coffins to resemble gym bags, guitar cases, cigar humidors, and even yellow dumpster bins(!); assuring your surviving family that if they didn’t consider you an asshole during waking years, this representation would destroy any lingering fondness after your ditch was dug.

On a pleasing note to close an otherwise uncomfortable topic, I no longer wish death upon my friend, not if he’s relegated to the same hexagonal container as everyone else. Where’s the originality in a few refrains of “Amazing Grace” and a procession of black Town Cars? The Kiss Kasket may have been a cheap shot at tasteless publicity, but in this age of inelegant egotism, at least it served a purpose. For all the criticism mounted against him, Mr. Simmons remains a bassist second, but a brilliant salesman first and foremost. His exploits may be derided, but his tagline was marketing gold: “I love livin’, but this makes the alternative seem pretty damn good.” Spoken like a man with a few extra bullets in his love gun.

Come Mister Tally Man, Tally Me Banana

Our freshman dorm room reeked like a cross between overripe bananas and carpet mold. Following a semester at war with hygiene, my body had finally accepted the mold before the bananas so rudely infringed. They didn’t even knock; just settled amongst the festering piles of laundry, potential bed lice, and lingering funk of stale booze.

Oddly enough, my tolerance warmed to the leaky air conditioner doubling as an incubator for mushrooms. And just as I’d relished in the scent of my mother’s lentil soup during saner times, I eventually grew comfortable with the repellently damp stench of that A/C atrocity. In other words, this unventilated shoebox would forever stink like the ass-end of the rainforest, and we could either live in denial or embrace cruel reality. That said, when compared to my buddy’s aspiring Superfund site down the hall – always smelling of warm eggplant and flatulence – our polluted refuge came across like the Four Seasons. Between my fungus and his vegetables, we could have managed quite a trattoria in those days, assuming patrons would overlook the mold (and sudden ambush of eau de banana). When combined, these ingredients spawned a death cocktail of malodorous horseshit.

But then again, what did you care? All things considered, you didn’t have to sleep in that pungent sweatbox, nor allow for disgustingly rank banana peels to slime your radiator grates as they dried; offering the impression that (a) I was banging a Greenpeace activist with a jones for compost, or (b) my suitemates were apes, literally. Nonetheless, when patience became a tedious factor in waiting for the peels to dehydrate, my hair dryer was recruited as an emergency weapon of war. If Steven Tyler could smoke tea leaves to keep in touch with Mama Kin, then a group of moronic eighteen year olds could certainly blow their minds by exploiting the hallucinatory properties of everyone’s favorite phallic crop.

Bananadine, the fictional substance with the asinine name, was the ingredient from which to launch one’s wits into hyperspace. When synchronizing Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark Side of The Moon’ to the ‘Wizard of Oz’ grew tiresome, retrofitting Coke cans into smoke inhalation devices lacked challenge, and erecting beer can pyramids became predictable, an unorthodox produce recipe from a well-burnt baby boomer seized our intrigue. According to Vietnam agitator and ‘Anarchist Cookbook’ author William Powell, banana euphoria could be experienced by scraping the inside of the fruit’s skin, boiling the contents, and smoking the resultant dried powder. Far from ignoring these instructions in lieu of chomping the Chiquita like an obscenely large cigar – one end dipped in lighter fluid and blazing like the Great Chicago Fire – the amenities of a five star kitchen were disappointingly absent from the dorms. A pair of Sub-Zeroes and a Viking range, while nice, would have required creative tiering to the already astronomical tuition costs. As such, abbreviated measures were taken in the quest to purée our brains. Meaning, of course, abbreviated effects were felt. Read: none.

Mr. Powell may have been tooling around his commune with a seven foot gravity bong, clad in an “I ♥ Smoking Bananas” t-shirt, but it didn’t take long for our confederacy of dunces to dismiss him as a crisply toasted lunatic. Said differently, anyone touting the effects of a bogus psychoactive chemical within a how-to guide for explosives manufacturing is a fucking maniac, plain and simple. To add insult to injury, I don’t even like bananas. Not at all, mind you. Not in my cereal. Not in my ice cream. And sure as hell not rolled in E-Z Wider paper. Yet I was now doomed to marinate in the backwash of aromatic dung; staring at glow-stars while quietly awaiting death and praying that my stomach didn’t flip inside-out. To think, I could’ve been catching up on back issues of Shaved Beaver. Or adding extension wings to that beer can pyramid.

If you’re really that intent on frying your head, kid, go sniff some glue.

Be Funny, Be Wry, Bea Arthur

Poor Bea Arthur, ravaged by a cancer unbeknownst to her quietly rabid fan base, and eventually lowered six feet under a career marked by stupendous comic timing and brilliant dry wit. Perhaps it was the manner in which she cut through absurdity with a flippant wave of the hand and cleverly pointed quip – shrewdly gaming the less sophisticated ruffian with a sarcasm-soaked dismissal – or that gravely voice more suited for a geriatric sex operator; but whatever the attraction (from those, which logic dictated, should not be attracted), Ms. Arthur had rightly steered a talent for droll retorts into a financially rewarding canon of work. Armed with a resumé of near legendary hyperbole, her towering frame projected the authority to uproot mighty sequoias from their base, to batter airplanes like King Kong with a single swat of her enormous hands, to trample the intellectually doltish with a Sasquatch-like stomp and husky laugh. New York born, she was virtually immortal and self-assuredly invincible; a Broadway diva, a sitcom star, an Amazonian gigantess, all without compromise.

This writer’s first exposure to Ms. Arthur was via ‘Golden Girls,’ the sitcom for incontinent octogenarians and young viewers alike. Every Saturday, the prehistoric and the adolescent could equally bond over well-crafted humor showcasing four mature women of varying temperaments and intelligence sharing a Miami home. As divorcée Dorothy Zbornak, Arthur was the perfect straight foil to Betty White’s dunderheaded Rose of St. Olaf, Rue McClanahan’s sassy tart Blanche Devereaux, and Estelle Getty’s brazenly unfiltered Sophia Petrillo. Although McClanahan’s unbridled sexuality – as spun through the lens of a post-prime southern belle cougar – was tempting for those trolling the upper end of the MILF spectrum, I’d have been much more comfortable (if, say, a shotgun were held to my temple), unclasping Arthur’s tightly hooked collars, thus resigning my life to buttoned-up blouses and matronly scowls. After all, beauty fades and dumb is dumb, but funny lasts forever.

Breaking from the usual dollop of self-serving egotism, The Bastard assumes a back seat when saluting Man of The Century (20th, that is) Bea Arthur. Comedy need not descend into the curse-laden or unrefined to extract hilarity. Sometimes the biggest laughs can be found in the most unassuming of androgynous beanstalks. Bea, may the light of heaven reflect eternally from your geode brooch.

And with this eulogy, dear reader, be sad. Be disheartened. Be dismayed over the loss. But be not dispirited, as memories be forever salvaged on celluloid. And for that, be thankful. Yes, be delighted. In fact, be singing. Do-be-do-be-do. Bea Arthur.

My Mortgage Can Beat Up Your Mortgage

There are those who live in bizarre squalor, and those who bid for the privilege of settling in festering hovels for a king’s ransom and the delight of a non-conforming 30-year mortgage. It is, as realtors will remind the disconsolate first-time homebuyer of the greater New York City suburbs, a game of visualization. Do you have the foresight to envision this bedroom without the corroded toilet bolted illegally against the far wall? Do you have the ability to ignore the smell of animal urine (not to mention the cacophony of a kid practicing piano in an adjacent unit) pervading the bedrooms of this otherwise spacious townhouse with garishly mirrored walls? Do you posses the mental calm to pretend that you did not walk into the third bedroom of a labyrinthine former doctor’s office and observe a moustached imbecile (whether the owner’s socially inept thirty-something son or a dangerous vagrant) masturbating in his closet, before cautioning you, your fiancée, and your female realtor that he “needs a few minutes” to presumably locate pants or deflate his apparatus?

Unless one claims independent wealth from grandpa’s lockbox, young buyers in these bustling outskirts of Metropolis must eschew the “ideal” and focus on “potential.” In other words, the faster one realizes that “walk to commuter rail” is a fair swap for “1960’s-era kitchen slapped together by part-time handyman to minimize functionality,” the quicker all involved parties can assume seats at the bargaining table. Boasts implying that a marvelous time was spent trolling the overpriced tumble-downs festooned in crackhouse chic should always be met with suspicion, and generally dismissed as senseless drivel from the insane, or from those medicated to the point of waking coma. As you might guess, shoppers with greater imagination tend to delude themselves into making wiser choices. Because ultimately, wiser choices spawn wiser investments when eventually cutting loose of that former crackden-cum-colonial. After endless weekends spent eradicating the geriatric vibes (which taunt openly, mind you, lingering in floral wallpaper, shag carpeting, and abandoned Lawrence Welk VHS collections), one has finally earned the privilege of stratospherically boosting the asking price and trouncing a new generation of idealistic, soon to be dejected, newlyweds. And yes, it does feel good, in the same way that hazing your frat brothers by dropping them off in the center of town, pants-less without wallets, might have stroked the ego ten years prior.

A brazenly self-confident bunch, New Yorkers are not idiots. We realize we could sell our modestly-sized (but much better constructed) tax-saddled homes and trade-up handsomely for the fifteen garage, faux-sided, character-devoid, McMansion monolith with a space shuttle launching pad in the backyard, located in some bumfuck flyover zone near a culturally bankrupt city, to live comfortably amongst affluent rednecks and the town doctor. But unless we’re playing beer pong, most of us prefer our brew from the bottle; not to mention our teeth firmly in our gums, roadkill estranged from the skillet, the Yankees, unrivaled pizza, and the ability to ride elevators without some damn fool asking us about our day. We also believe in evolution, which prohibits our settling in certain states.

Imagine knowing that the condominium on which you are prepared to make an (astronomically high) offer – while part of a beautifully manicured Tudor-style complex in a quaint village with excellent schools – was actually a steaming hellhole masquerading as … a steaming hellhole. My wife and I could momentarily condone the stained carpet, Nixon-era appliances, and smoke-dulled walls by maintaining the foresight of “potential”; that survival mechanism tucked away in the mind’s recesses for instances demanding reinterpretive reality. Not only was the prior owner a crazy old crow who refused to descend ten stairs to her mailbox (although her gait was unencumbered) – opting for tête-à-têtes with the postman after said box had sufficiently exploded with catalogs – but she’d smashed to shit all four burners of the electric stove, for reasons known only to almighty God and possibly her ex-husband. On the flip side, she was kind enough to bestow two gifts upon a weary couple firmly in the throes of disillusionment and surrender: a wrapped box, with instructions to open on December 23rd, and a carton of eggs squirreled away in the oven; unexpired, for those taking notes. Beseeching my wife to keep the present untouched for nine months, I was hoping that our friend was loony enough to have bequeathed a surprise of gold bullion, or at very least some safe deposit box key holding a Caribbean timeshare. Of course, I was equally preparing to extract the head of Jimmy Hoffa, complete with “Merry Christmas New Owners!” stapled to the ear. Unfortunately, a set of “Twelve Glorious Angels” tree ornaments, while thoughtful, was not going to alleviate our debt service. At least we weren’t Jewish.

Five years were enjoyed in that condominium, transforming it into a charming, and in turn very marketable, home. Hardwood floors, stainless steel appliances, crown molding, fresh coats of paint, and smaller detailed renovations fully erased the spectre of decrepitude. So when the time arrived to draw market bids, I could only righteously smirk. After all, this was a perfect “walk to commuter train” gem; and if I was getting properly spanked by the eighty year old former owner of our current house, then my biggest paddle was making an appearance during condo negotiations, forearms tightened in anticipation of levying ‘Animal House’-type swings at lawyers, buyers, and notaries alike. If it goes around, it sure as hell comes around, stronger and longer, like an awful case of bird flu.

In this neck of the woods, when someone leaves you a dozen eggs, whether inside the oven, under the bedsheets, or cracked within the fuse box, you make omelets and smile.

From Pussyfooter To Pussy Lover (In Six Short Years)

After declaring my intention to uphold the bond of marriage, for richer (then) or poorer (now), I implicitly pledged to accept the pair of cats that cohabitated with my fiancée. For better or for worse, I was now the stepfather to Bailey, an obese yet cautious tabby with an imposing fear of vacuum cleaners and a gluttonous coveting of Iams pellets, and Geppetto, a mild mannered ragdoll, content to let his tubby friend box him out of enjoyable meals at the communal kibble bowl.

Hailing from an aerodynamic family, genetics would practically forbid my offspring from sprouting inordinate amounts of chest or back hair; the kind coveted in the cocaine-fueled frenzy of the erroneous disco era, though despised in modern times. Yet, in a bruising twist of irony, the adoption of two bushy felines with a penchant toward gifting their fur on every pillow, cushion, and untended piece of clothing, quashed any aspirations for nearly hairless heirs. Thrust prematurely into fatherhood, albeit an experience devoid of Little League games or ballet classes, I was tasked with keeping my hirsute adoptees well fed, somewhat exercised, and reasonably contented with the cleanliness of their litter box. Whether any of this was, or is, appreciated will never be known to the humans in this cape-style abode. Although often cute or cuddly, cats can also be spiteful ingrates, regardless of the hours logged clumsily shoveling their feces into a bag, before having said bag tear apart horrifically.

Admittedly, however, I’m a cat person at heart, forced to paraphrase Robert DeNiro’s laudatory acclaim of the feline species (from ‘Meet The Parents’) whenever challenged by dog lovers. My ego and self-confidence, while not stratospheric, require neither the constant reassurance nor blind acceptance offered by canines. If anything, the prospect of having some jovial lummox lick my face subsequent to a detailed cleansing of its own anus (or the similar anatomy of a neighborhood stray) is nauseatingly repellent, and certainly not a way to impress one’s best friend. Perhaps it’s my own independent streak which relates to the fickle, almost shifty nature of the cat; that mutual understanding amongst capable and thinking animals whereby attention can be granted in doses, or by a few tosses of the catnip stuffed mouse, before each party happily reverts to its prior activity. Or perhaps it’s because I feel no obligation to reinforce my masculinity through ownership of a large dog. Some men buy Hummers to compensate for their lacking attributes, some collect muscular canines to display like trophies. But whatever your bias, one should never underestimate the abilities of a feline with regards to defecation. And it always boils down to defecation. Namely, the thing can shit by itself. It doesn’t whine for your help. Man’s best acquaintance.

As married life progressed, so did the relationship with my two frisky buddies. Bailey, as the alpha male, was prone to terrorize his friend with headlocks and other amusing wrestling pins, ripping out chunks of Geppetto’s fur while dodging rapid-fire defensive kicks to the head. This amusing game of dominance, akin to the same hilarity one might enjoy from a two-midget tussle, extended no further than harmless badgering. In fact, Bailey was a shivering coward when dealing with humans, making those blustery actions all the more laughable. Both furtive and stubborn, it was impossible to keep that cat under the sheets at bedtime – try as I might each evening – without the fear of God flattening his ears in alarm. It was equally hopeless to remove his 18 pound frame from atop my head every morning. His bed, his terms, his dander on my pillow. But forever the cute ball of fuzz with the lawnmower-like purr, he could be affectionate and trusting, curious yet adorably nervous; inclined to bang his head into furniture, leap rabbit-like down stairs, avoid his chin-strapped fez at all costs, and cuddle for hours, paws stretched softly across your lap.

Shockingly, Bailey was diagnosed with lung cancer last summer after a sudden onset of breathing difficulties. Although his lungs were promptly drained, so was our optimism quickly bled, as this procedure would not offer the hope of recovery. It only served to postpone the inevitable. Prone to further respiratory attacks of greater magnitude and frequency, there existed concern that these would occur while my wife and I were at work, leaving him alone, frightened, and at serious risk.

We didn't use Bailey's carrier on the final veterinary visit. It was a Monday night. Fearful during passage across the street, he clung hard to my shoulder as the rush of traffic meshed with the laughter at a nearby café. Once inside, his nerves calmed, and familiar strokes to chin and head offered a hollow semblance of normalcy. Nonetheless, it was incredibly distressing to consider the innocence of a pet, especially one wholly unaware that these are his last moments, that he is very sick, and that there is no alternative. Perhaps if he'd exhibited more signs of suffering, more pain, more shortness of breath or even introversion, the decision would have been made easier. But then again, it is never easy. He was very calm when he went to sleep, held by those whom he trusted and adored.

Geppetto, as the surviving king of the roost, has since become an invariable chatterbox of meows. Sometimes gratingly bothersome in the vein of an unconducted alleycat symphony, sometimes adorably cute as only the shrewdest of kitties can muster, I’ve grown to realize that his needs extend well beyond a full bowl of food and a tidy litter box. Our relationship has thus matured from one of mutual tolerance with a dollop of suspicion, to one of companionship. He just wants to be loved, and not forgotten.

And to rip the hell out of my dining room carpet.

The Ambiguously Gay Barber

When the mystery was solved my ego rocketed skyward, a steroidal geyser exploding with arrogance and cocksure bravado. Never had a question embedded itself in my skull for such a lengthy period, wherein its answer changed monthly. There was no algorithmic solution. No pattern in the randomness. No troop of idiot savants to rent for a calculated explanation. Only with the passing of time would the yoke of sleepless nights and unfocussed mornings lift forever.

In those cloudier days, the enigma cloaking my barber’s sexual preference spawned endless debate; dissected asininely as if the balance of the free world lay in its resolution. This was also a topic in which my wife had zero interest discussing, despite my placing it on par with the banking collapse, evolution, or the annoying ubiquity of Ryan Seacrest.

For every shearing administered in pink plaid, the next was performed in handsome khaki. During certain appointments, I mulled sadly amongst septuagenarians, believing that a once sociable barber shop had degenerated into a convalescent beauty parlor, shrinking my testicles with each visit. Other days, I listened to exhaustive analysis of Giants games peppered with masculine bluster. In other words, the man who shaved my sides and thinned out the top, no gel, easily flirted with re-coifed helmet heads and busted balls with sports enthusiasts in alternating breaths. The son of a bitch was purposely keeping me off-kilter. Until I figured him out.

He was gay. Gay as the happiest man to have ever fluttered into Manhattan’s Continental Baths to catch a Bette Midler concert and, on exceptional evenings, a venereal disease. For $15 plus tip, he was (and is) one of the most important gentlemen callers in my life. And despite the uncertain waffling between fabulous geriatric bouffants and utilitarian cut-and-shaves, I was thrilled to have solved the gender preference puzzle. No amount of gridiron banter would ever mask the Saturday morning where my hirsute hero donned, quite bizarrely, a full length silk robe; content to prance about his salon like some oily lounge lizard engaged in bad dinner theater. Yes, the mystery was solved with one egregious wardrobe malfunction. Without coffee, I might have assumed I’d mistakenly wandered into the Playboy Mansion to convene with Hef, receiving a smart trim by the randy mogul while enjoying the pleasures of silicone. Except, of course, this tiny shoebox next to an A&P supermarket is far from a tropical paradise, and the blue haired darlings who comprise over ¾ of the customer base are not the types I enjoy seeing stripped of their house coats.

Things weren’t always like this. The trappings of my first barber shop – an Italian safe house of ersatz wood paneling, splashed with fading posters of outmoded hair styles and Roman panoramas – attracted slovenly Mafioso aspirants who thumbed through The Oggi newspaper and spoke, argumentatively, in loud staccato bursts. If you could tolerate the interspersion of opera and easy listening dreck, took pleasure in receiving subpar haircuts which hearkened back to Wally and Beaver, and enjoyed a few cranial daubs of Clubman tonic, you were welcome to loiter in the cheap plastic seats from breakfast through dinner (or until you keeled over, or got shot, or just plain died of boredom). And if you grew tired of that, the crumbling racetrack – a once thriving establishment of vice and back room arm breaking – was located within walking distance. Of course, if you were wearing a silk robe in that neighborhood, you’d better have been carrying a concealed tire iron.

* * * * *

Addendum: As I learned in subsequent years, my barber was gay, but strictly in the original parlance of that term: merry, alive, exuberant. No ankles had ever been grabbed, no pillows bitten, occasional chickens choked, but certainly not in the shadows of a drag cabaret. In fact, he boasted a wife and kids, one of whom had recently married. The clues were there, and yet they weren’t. Assumptions will often backfire. Stereotypes will disappoint. If I gained anything from my rash misjudgment, it was the knowledge that one can confidently stroll a large town dressed as a pornographic tycoon, yet live a life as mundane as my own, behind closed doors. A little finesse keeps things interesting, at least in the ambiguous sense.

Either that, or his wife fell behind on the laundry.