Old Grammy Offspring

Lots of celebrity offspring featured on the Grammys tonight. I was surprised that Stephen Colbert had an adult daughter, but she did act like an embarrassed teenager when he went on about how cool it was for her to have a father appear on the Grammys. It was oddly cool and embarrassing and something I think I myself am capable of inflicting on my daughters. When I begin to boogie to their music, they ask me not to do that.

Then there were the Michael Jackson kids. Again I was surprised to see how old they were. Just a few months ago when Jackson died and they appeared at the Staples Center memorial program I thought they were about 8-10 years old, but tonight they looked and spoke more like 18. It’s as if they were TV actors hired to play Michael Jackson’s kids – much like the kids hired to portray Lucy and Desi’s very fast growing Little Ricky. Of course, I found myself staring at their coloring.  These kids reminded me of the Laurel and Hardy film “Bohemian Girl,” where Hardy’s Gypsy wife convinces him that the little golden hair girl she had kidnapped and put in their bedroom was his daughter. Chinese opera and Shakespearian plays often demand that you suspend your belief, and this part of the Grammys made me feel like I was at Stratford on the Yangtze.

Finally there was the kid that appeared with Beyonce and Jay-Z, Julesie. A really cute kid, I guess 6 years old, who spoke like a genuine 6 year old – relaxed and not self-conscious at all. However, he, too, like the Colbert and Jackson children, looked older, mainly because he resembled Alfred E. Newman. Cute, but still that Mad Magazine cover portrait appearance.

Caulking a Turkey, Carving a Bathtub

I find that carving a turkey and caulking my bathroom tub trigger the same satisfaction neurons in my brain. I should be able to do both of these, I start out fine, quickly deteriorate into Amelia Bedelia incompetence, and end up with a turkey platter and a bathtub ledge that look pretty much the same.

On my way to work

I commute everyday from Chappaqua to 11th Avenue and 57th Street in New York City. I like my commute, but last Monday was special. When I got off the Shuttle at Times Square I saw and heard the black bluegrass band performing one of those quadruple time reels in perfect sync with the frenetic commuters. Then when I came out of the subway at Columbus Circle, I got the first view of the trees in front of the Time Warner building all lit up for the holiday season. These were not ordinary lights, but ice cool blue diamond strands finely decorating every branch. It was pure magic. Then, as I walked down 58th street between 10th and 11th Avenues, I heard, saw and felt a posse of mounted police at full gallop run past. I love New York.

Dowd, Goldman Sachs, & SNL

My favorite opinion comment this week from Maureen Dowd’s piece in the NY Times November 11, 2009:

“Saturday Night Live” was tougher on Goldman Sachs than the government, giving the firm flak about commandeering 200 doses of the swine flu vaccine — the same amount as Lenox Hill Hospital got — while so many at-risk Americans wait.

“Can you not read how mad people are at you?” demanded Amy Poehler. “When most people saw the headline ‘Goldman Sachs Gets Swine Flu Vaccine’ they were superhappy until they saw the word ‘vaccine.’ ”

Facebook, Babyboomers, and Blow Dried Hair

I am a new Facebooker. I purposely did not friend my college-aged kids, because I know that they would not allow me to friend them. When I started my account, they were revulsed and amused that a Dad would invade their turf, would engage inappropriately in youth culture. “My Dad has friends?” they sneered and went “Eww!!” running from the room. I think I had the same reaction when I came home after 3 years in the Peace Corps (1971) and saw my dad at the airport with blow-dried hair, white flared pants, white shoes, and a disco shirt.

New Jersey Makes Me Yodel

My 92-year old Mom lives with us in Chappaqua, but twice a year she goes down to Maryland to stay with my brother Stu for a month or so. Stu and I have established a pattern of meeting half way at the Embassy Suites near the Philadelphia International Airport and refer to the exchange as “dropping off a package” – in case the Feds are tapping our cell phones.

This last trip was brutal traffic-wise with a 9 mile back up north of the Molly Pitcher rest stop where the car and truck lanes merge. I used my new GPS for a detour, but it kept bringing me back to the Turnpike – what a waste of time. Getting off at a rest stop was another mistake. I have never seen cars backed up out of the parking lot and merging with the cars waiting for gas. It was a 30 minute gridlock mistake just to park the car, but I did have to use the rest stop. I think that my bladder is the oldest part of my body.

All my detours mistakes added a good 45 minutes to my overall 90 minute delay in meeting Stu. Ordinarily, these bad choices would make everyone in the car tense and on edge, but my Mom is a very go-with-the-flow person and she’s reached a timeless period of her life where she has no deadlines and sleeps half the time. Me, I decided to join her and practice my yodeling. I’m learning to yodel thanks to YouTube and a desire to gain another unexpected skill.

Déjà vu

My daughter and I were at the local Blockbuster in searching the new release shelves where we found a store clerk providing suggestions, advice, and opinions to store customers, apparently wanted or not: “How about Diary of a Geisha? I think you might like that.” “Harry Potter movies are really disappointing if you’ve read the books.” “Little Miss Sunshine is a great offbeat film.” It sounded like he was working his dream job of movie critic, and I was getting the feeling he had personally watched every film in the store until a customer asked him what he thought of Denzel Washington in Déjà Vu, to which he replied without missing a beat,“Déjà Vu? Haven’t seen it yet.”

Using My Head

While my wife and her mother were shopping for dresses at A.&S. in Brooklyn, I wandered off and found myself browsing through bathmats in the Bath Shop. Suddenly, I heard a woman’s voice say, “Oh young man, can you help me?” I turned around and saw a rotund silver-haired woman standing on a bathroom scale.
“I can’t make out what the scale says,” she said. “Can you tell me my weight?” Feeling somewhat hesitant about telling the woman what she weighed, I said that perhaps she should consider buying a scale with a dial that was easier to read.
“I don’t want to buy a scale,” she said. “I just want to find out my weight. Can you come over and tell me what it is?”
I peered down and told her that the dial pointed to 190. “Oh, are you sure?” she moaned. “Only this morning I weighed 185.”
“Well, the dial is awfully hard to read,” I said. “Maybe I was looking at it from an angle. Let me take a closer look.”
I bent down to get a better, straight-on view. But this made her lean back and her attempts to maintain balance only caused the dial to seesaw back and forth.
“You’ll have to stand still so that I can read the dial, ma’am,” I said. With that she steadied herself by resting her stomach against the top of my head. The dial still read 190.
“You weigh 185,” I announced. She sighed with relief and thanked me profusely. I stood up, said “You’re welcome” and hurried off to see if my wife and mother-in-law had had any luck.

Sound of one handed clap – solved!

When I boarded the southbound Number 1 train at Columbus Circle I stood in front of two seated Buddhist monks. One was older than the other and was reading some type of spiral bound manual. The young one looked on but was basically being ignored. Suddenly, the older one pointed at a passage, which the young one read; they smiled and spontaneously high fived each other.

I began to wonder if monks are allowed to high five. How could they, as non-materialistic, meditative monks commit such a self-satisfied competitive gesture? I was still pondering this as I left the train at Times Square, and as I wove through the crowds toward the Shuttle, it hit me. I had just heard the sound of a one handed clap.

Jumping Off

Mcmoychuk is Ray Moy’s hockey name. I’ve been using it for sometime now and definitely when using any sports site. I’m actually a non-sports person who follows the Yankees, the NFL Giants, and amazing American winners like Tiger Woods, Lance Armstrong, Michael Phelps and the 1980 USA Olympic Ice Hockey team. See what I mean by a non-sports person? Personally, I’m a runner and will play tennis. Bridge, is that a sport? I listen to WFAN to yell at the radio, especially when Craig Carton makes his opinionated in extremis comments. I love it. Just like Romans in the Coliseum. That feeling must be the schadenfreud gene – useless and yet so self-satisfying.