Faux Pas on the Road

I was on my way to pick up Rich, The Actual Tom and H Bomb for a joyride at dusk along the West Side Highway and FDR Drive, excited to take in a cool spring night and the beautiful riverfront views.

On my way there, I had the sunroof down and windows lowered, and was blasting Lady GaGa. Singing along, "P-p-p-p-p-p-oker face!" I was lost in my own little karaoke room. But every so often I would see someone on the sidewalk screaming at me. First it was an old man- "Turn on..." I heard. Was I turning this man on, I wondered, or was he trying to tell me to do something? But then "Just Dance" came on and I was back in karaoke mode. Then, passing by a hotel, the doorman pointed to the front of my car and screamed "Your lights, buddy!" It occurred to me that he and the old man were telling me I hadn't turned on my car lights as you're supposed to when it is nighttime. But between me not really being sure which lever turned the lights on, my current focus on singing dance-friendly pop music, and it not even being THAT dark out, I just ignored him. Then, when approaching Rich's apartment, a HOMELESS MAN outside the Salvation Army building on 14th Stret jumped next to my car as I was stopped in traffic and frantically pointed to my front lights. At that point, I gave in and turned my lights on.

I never realized what a serious violation of society's rules it was to drive even at the beginning of the night with no lights on. The way these people reacted you would think I had secured an infant to my windshield using Scotch tape. Lesson learned, you pussies.

Though I must note that:
1. Everyone else has their lights on anyway, so I'm sure they can all see my car
2. I have been told that my blue eyes are so radiant you can see them for miles, so it's not clear whether this "car lights" rule applies to me.

Overheard among the Gruff Crew Guys

(Gruff Crew Guy #1 is slicing a bagel in half)

Gruff Crew Guy #2 (gruff, Italian accent): Ya know, them bagels are fattening, Jimmy! It's like eatin' five loaves of bread, one of those things. Better off wit a donut!


-->Wow, this anti-bagel meme has spread pretty far if even tough Teamster guys are concerned about it. I was going to share with them that I learned from Ashley Olsen on Oprah that scooping the insides of the bagels slashes the amount of carbs and calories, but I didn't think it was my place.

Overheard at a Brooks Brothers photo shoot

Photographer (intermittently snapping photos): Marcel, baby, of course we're gonna show your face in this shot. Do the pose, do the one we worked on. Yes!

Marcel (smiling): I think I really nailed it on that one.

(Marcel walks off to change into street clothes)

Female Assistant: Oh so you're going for a full-body shot this time - I'll shoot an email over to the catalog layout guys and let them know.

Photographer (grabbing assistant's hand before she can type): Were you born yesterday, honey? We're selling madras shorts here! There is a formula, it's pretty simple, it's worked for decades, we're not about to change it now: Shorts, toned calfs, driving shoes. Now get me those calf-shots for the prospective seersucker shorts models!

p.s. seriously fuck Michaelangelo's David - if that picture is not man at his most perfect I don't know what is

Just Discovered Google Reader Comment View

Wow I just realized you can choose to only look at Google Reader shares that have been commented on! So I made a video to show how I felt when I made this discovery:

New Twitter Profile Picture

A lot of you who follow my Twitter feed were complaining about how I didn't have a profile picture on Twitter. I didn't really understand what you were talking about, but to appease the complainers, I decided to use a medium shot of me rather than the close-up I had before (why do you guys care about this stuff?). Here it is:

My Work with The Community

Back in the 80's, the big problem in the Village was heroin. Addicts were literally shooting up on the streets. Dirty needles everywhere. Well now, the addiction is Diet Coke. Cans litter the streets. The worst of them take "DC" (its street name) first thing in the morning even before breakfast. Horrifying, I know.

Well instead of sitting back and letting this menace tear the community apart I decided to do something about it. First of all, I established a DC bottle exchange program. Now, instead of DC addicts refilling old backwash-ridden 2 liter bottles that they'd shared with others with new product, these poor souls can have fresh bottles to fill up. I am in no way endorsing their horrible addiction, I am just accepting that this is a huge problem and until we find a broad solution we should at least mitigate the dangers to users.










And for addicts who think they might be able to take those first steps to recovery, I've set up a Sparkling Water Clinic. The sparkling water has a similar effect to DC, providing the user with satisfying carbonation, but it does not include the toxic chemicals and sweeteners prevalent in even the purest batches of DC. In many patients, it is a gateway to recovery.















This struggle is far from over, but I hope that my work will make a difference in The Community and help some neighborhood residents escape a dark, dark place.

Berger Family Childhood Photos Annotated #1

Snippets from an Interview with Waluigi

Waluigi, undated photo


"Am I mad that Wario gets all the fame and glory, not to mention the groupies? Look, Wario may or may not be my brother, so I love him to pieces, but of course it gets on my nerves. I mean I'm skinnier than he is, I'm more handsome than he is, and let's be honest I'm way better at tennis than that fatso. He really drags down our doubles team...

... I think partly it has to do with his name being easier to say, and the Mario connection. Have you seen The Wire? You haven't? Oh my god you seriously must see that show it is the best ever- it's so textured and layered, it really gets at the hard truths behind the chimera that is the American Dream. Anyway, the drug dealers in the show -who are really not bad guys they're just like the cops that's one of the big points of the show- they use this phrase "off-brand" to describe anything that's second-rate or not top quality. And Luigi is sort of an "off-brand" Mario- he's sort of the same but he just doesn't have the same charisma, that je ne sais quoi that makes Mario a star. So of course that in turn reflects poorly on me...

...Yes, these are driving shoes. I got them in Argentina, they're very popular there..."

Where's Waldo?

Ode to the Comment-o-sphere from a Grizzled Blog Pioneer

Time was, a man staked out a plot of web-land, set down all his wordly possessions, and started writin' a blog. And well, sooner 'r later he'd write a post that some gal 'r fella really took a shine to. And that gal, she'd be so excited she'd write a comment right on that there blog's little corner of web-land. And some other fella'd read that comment and he'd be darn near tears he'd be so eager to contribute somethin' about the post, 'r maybe even about the other comment, that he'd comment 's well. And sooner 'r later you had a little ecosystem, bubblin' right there in that comment section. Sometimes things'd get real heated between commenters, and we used to call it a Flame War.

'Course now the comment section of the blogs is a ghost town. Boarded up server space, empty comment boxes. Tumbleweed could float along fir miles without hittin' a comment. Times've changed, I 'spose. Commentin's done on that there Google Reader these days. I think it's hard to keep track of, it's no fun, and most important it lacks that personal touch we had in the blog comments. How'd we let this Great Migration happen? I guess it just started slow and then one day we just noticed all the comments were gone. That's what them city slickers call "progress," I reckon. Don't seem any better to me.

I guess I'm just a washed up old-timer, but every day I wake up, take in the Lord's glorious sunshine, and check them there comments, hopin' against hope that a little miracle has been dropped into the comments section of my little slice of web heaven. I'm still waitin'...